1
I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul? And if the body
were not the soul, what is the soul?

2
The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself
     balks account,
That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.

The expression of the face balks account,
But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,
It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of
     his hips and wrists,
It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist
     and knees, dress does not hide him,
The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,
To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,
You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.

The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women, the
     folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street, the
     contour of their shape downwards,
The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through
     the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up and rolls
     silently to and from the heave of the water,
The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats, the
     horse-man in his saddle,
Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances,
The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open
     dinner-kettles, and their wives waiting,
The female soothing a child, the farmer’s daughter in the garden or
     cow-yard,
The young fellow hosing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his six
     horses through the crowd,
The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, *****,
     good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sundown
     after work,
The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance,
The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;
The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine
     muscle through clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps,
The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes
     suddenly again, and the listening on the alert,
The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the bent head, the curv’d
     neck and the counting;
Such-like I love—I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother’s
     breast with the little child,
Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with
     the firemen, and pause, listen, count.

3
I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons,
And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.

This man was a wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person,
The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and
     beard, the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes, the richness
     and breadth of his manners,
These I used to go and visit him to see, he was wise also,
He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were
     massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome,
They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved him,
They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal
     love,
He drank water only, the blood show’d like scarlet through the
     clear-brown skin of his face,
He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he sail’d his boat himself, he
     had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner, he had
     fowling-pieces presented to him by men that loved him,
When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish,
     you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of
     the gang,
You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit
     by him in the boat that you and he might touch each other.

4
I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round
     his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
I do not ask any more delight, I
     swim in it as in a sea.
There is something in staying close to men and women and looking on them,
     and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well,
All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.

5
This is the female form,
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor,
     all falls aside but myself and it,
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what
     was expected of heaven or fear’d of hell, are now consumed,
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response
     likewise ungovernable,
Hair, *****, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all
     diffused, mine too diffused,
Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling
     and deliciously aching,
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of
     love, white-blow and delirious nice,
Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the
     prostrate dawn,
Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh’d day.

This the nucleus—after the child is born of woman, man is born
     of woman,
This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the
     outlet again.

Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest, and is the
     exit of the rest,
You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.

The female contains all qualities and tempers them,
She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,
She is all things duly veil’d, she is both passive and active,
She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as
     daughters.

As I see my soul reflected in Nature,
As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness,
     sanity, beauty,
See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see.

6
The male is not less the soul nor more, he too is in his place,
He too is all qualities, he is action and power,
The flush of the known universe is in him,
Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well,
The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is
     utmost become him well, pride is for him,
The full-spread pride of man is calming and excellent to the soul,
Knowledge becomes him, he likes it always, he brings every thing to
     the test of himself,
Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail he strikes
     soundings at last only here,
(Where else does he strike soundings except here?)

The man’s body is sacred and the woman’s body is sacred,
No matter who it is, it is sacred—is it the meanest one in the
     laborers’ gang?
Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?
Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as
     much as you,
Each has his or her place in the procession.

(All is a procession,
The universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion.)

Do you know so much yourself that you call the meanest ignorant?
Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or she has
     no right to a sight?
Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float, and
     the soil is on the surface, and water runs and vegetation sprouts,
For you only, and not for him and her?

7
A man’s body at auction,
(For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,)
I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business.

Gentlemen look on this wonder,
Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it,
For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant,
For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll’d.

In this head the all-baffling brain,
In it and below it the makings of heroes.

Examine these limbs, red, black, or white, they are cunning in tendon and nerve,
They shall be stript that you may see them.
Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,
Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby, good-sized
     arms and legs,
And wonders within there yet.

Within there runs blood,
The same old blood! the same red-running blood!
There swells and jets a heart, there all passions, desires, reachings,
     aspirations,
(Do you think they are not there because they are not express’d in
     parlors and lecture-rooms?)

This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be fathers
     in their turns,
In him the start of populous states and rich republics,
Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments.

How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring
     through the centuries?
(Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace
     back through the centuries?)

8
A woman’s body at auction,
She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers,
She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers.

Have you ever loved the body of a woman?
Have you ever loved the body of a man?
Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations and
     times all over the earth?

If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred,
And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted,
And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more beautiful
     than the most beautiful face.
Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool
     that corrupted her own live body?
For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.

9
O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women,
     nor the likes of the parts of you,
I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the
     soul, (and that they are the soul,)
I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and
     that they are my poems,
Man’s, woman’s, child, youth’s, wife’s, husband’s, mother’s,
     father’s, young man’s, young woman’s poems,
Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,
Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or
     sleeping of the lids,
Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the
     jaw-hinges,
Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,
Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue,
Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the
    ample side-round of the chest,
Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,
Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger,
     finger-joints, finger-nails,
Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,
Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone,
Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round, man-*****, man-root,
Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,
Leg-fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,
Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;
All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body
     or of any one’s body, male or female,
The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,
The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,
Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,
Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman,
The womb, the teats, *******, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping,
     love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,
The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,
Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,
Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and
     tightening,
The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,
The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,
The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked
     meat of the body,
The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,
The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward
     toward the knees,
The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the
     marrow in the bones,
The exquisite realization of health;
O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of
     the soul,
O I say now these are the soul!

I made you of breath
of shadows and sunbeams
of boundlessness
of folding out and in like wings
of fallings and risings
from the gravity of things
I am your leaves without
limbs or leaving
I am the circles and spirals
your body carves from air
your leaps toward heaven
when you most love the earth
I was before you and will be
after you, I am the center
and the circumference
I am within and without you
And I am your comforter
when the cold winds come in
I am the point on the line
I am brief and desirable
I eat oranges and watch
the Northward flight of geese
my being roars like oceans
I rock myself in the cradle
of self doubt and other emotions
I sometimes let take control
I rock the world like a baby
I kiss the air like my lover
here and here and there
I embrace you, World
I am your second Moon
that rose from the South
I am your eyes, your mouth
your star, your tree
and something else
I am sand, river, feather,
grass, moth, l am forever
yet lost and not found
and I am something else
and I always will be
something to someone else.

as the clouds roll over
in their sleep, upside down
counting sheep
sinking selflessly
the sun peaks through
as clouds cry away the rest of what they worked for, ebbed into the world
shining a light on dew drops left on our skin
our walls, tangled in nature, gracing
the grass beneath our feet
etched into rivers an impressionable flow
sweet risings coming home
to say hello
to thank the downpour
to know what we know

Harshness vanished. A sudden softness
has replaced the meadows' wintry grey.
Little rivulets of water changed
their singing accents. Tendernesses,

hesitantly, reach toward the earth
from space, and country lanes are showing
these unexpected subtle risings
that find expression in the empty trees

1

Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
Over the sterile sands, and the fields beyond, where the child, leaving his bed, wander’d alone, bare-headed, barefoot,
Down from the shower’d halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows, twining and twisting as if they were alive,
Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,
From the memories of the bird that chanted to me,
From your memories, sad brother—from the fitful risings and fallings I heard,
From under that yellow half-moon, late-risen, and swollen as if with tears,
From those beginning notes of sickness and love, there in the transparent mist,
From the thousand responses of my heart, never to cease,
From the myriad thence-arous’d words,
From the word stronger and more delicious than any,
From such, as now they start, the scene revisiting,
As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,
Borne hither—ere all eludes me, hurriedly,
A man—yet by these tears a little boy again,
Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,
I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,
Taking all hints to use them—but swiftly leaping beyond them,
A reminiscence sing.

2

Once, Paumanok,
When the snows had melted—when the lilac-scent was in the air, and the Fifth-month grass was growing,
Up this sea-shore, in some briers,
Two guests from Alabama—two together,
And their nest, and four light-green eggs, spotted with brown,
And every day the he-bird, to and fro, near at hand,
And every day the she-bird, crouch’d on her nest, silent, with bright eyes,
And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing them,
Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating.

3

Shine! shine! shine!
Pour down your warmth, great Sun!
While we bask—we two together.

Two together!
Winds blow South, or winds blow North,
Day come white, or night come black,
Home, or rivers and mountains from home,
Singing all time, minding no time,
While we two keep together.

4

Till of a sudden,
May-be ****’d, unknown to her mate,
One forenoon the she-bird crouch’d not on the nest,
Nor return’d that afternoon, nor the next,
Nor ever appear’d again.

And thenceforward, all summer, in the sound of the sea,
And at night, under the full of the moon, in calmer weather,
Over the hoarse surging of the sea,
Or flitting from brier to brier by day,
I saw, I heard at intervals, the remaining one, the he-bird,
The solitary guest from Alabama.

5

Blow! blow! blow!
Blow up, sea-winds, along Paumanok’s shore!
I wait and I wait, till you blow my mate to me.

6

Yes, when the stars glisten’d,
All night long, on the prong of a moss-scallop’d stake,
Down, almost amid the slapping waves,
Sat the lone singer, wonderful, causing tears.

He call’d on his mate;
He pour’d forth the meanings which I, of all men, know.

Yes, my brother, I know;
The rest might not—but I have treasur’d every note;
For once, and more than once, dimly, down to the beach gliding,
Silent, avoiding the moonbeams, blending myself with the shadows,
Recalling now the obscure shapes, the echoes, the sounds and sights after their sorts,
The white arms out in the breakers tirelessly tossing,
I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair,
Listen’d long and long.

Listen’d, to keep, to sing—now translating the notes,
Following you, my brother.

7

Soothe! soothe! soothe!
Close on its wave soothes the wave behind,
And again another behind, embracing and lapping, every one close,
But my love soothes not me, not me.

Low hangs the moon—it rose late;
O it is lagging—O I think it is heavy with love, with love.

O madly the sea pushes, pushes upon the land,
With love—with love.

O night! do I not see my love fluttering out there among the breakers?
What is that little black thing I see there in the white?

Loud! loud! loud!
Loud I call to you, my love!

High and clear I shoot my voice over the waves;
Surely you must know who is here, is here;
You must know who I am, my love.

Low-hanging moon!
What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow?
O it is the shape, the shape of my mate!
O moon, do not keep her from me any longer.

Land! land! O land!
Whichever way I turn, O I think you could give me my mate back again, if you only would;
For I am almost sure I see her dimly whichever way I look.

O rising stars!
Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with some of you.

O throat! O trembling throat!
Sound clearer through the atmosphere!
Pierce the woods, the earth;
Somewhere listening to catch you, must be the one I want.

Shake out, carols!
Solitary here—the night’s carols!
Carols of lonesome love! Death’s carols!
Carols under that lagging, yellow, waning moon!
O, under that moon, where she droops almost down into the sea!
O reckless, despairing carols.

But soft! sink low;
Soft! let me just murmur;
And do you wait a moment, you husky-noised sea;
For somewhere I believe I heard my mate responding to me,
So faint—I must be still, be still to listen;
But not altogether still, for then she might not come immediately to me.

Hither, my love!
Here I am! Here!
With this just-sustain’d note I announce myself to you;
This gentle call is for you, my love, for you.

Do not be decoy’d elsewhere!
That is the whistle of the wind—it is not my voice;
That is the fluttering, the fluttering of the spray;
Those are the shadows of leaves.

O darkness! O in vain!
O I am very sick and sorrowful.

O brown halo in the sky, near the moon, drooping upon the sea!
O troubled reflection in the sea!
O throat! O throbbing heart!
O all—and I singing uselessly, uselessly all the night.

Yet I murmur, murmur on!
O murmurs—you yourselves make me continue to sing, I know not why.

O past! O life! O songs of joy!
In the air—in the woods—over fields;
Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved!
But my love no more, no more with me!
We two together no more.

8

The aria sinking;
All else continuing—the stars shining,
The winds blowing—the notes of the bird continuous echoing,
With angry moans the fierce old mother incessantly moaning,
On the sands of Paumanok’s shore, gray and rustling;
The yellow half-moon enlarged, sagging down, drooping, the face of the sea almost touching;
The boy extatic—with his bare feet the waves, with his hair the atmosphere dallying,
The love in the heart long pent, now loose, now at last tumultuously bursting,
The aria’s meaning, the ears, the Soul, swiftly depositing,
The strange tears down the cheeks coursing,
The colloquy there—the trio—each uttering,
The undertone—the savage old mother, incessantly crying,
To the boy’s Soul’s questions sullenly timing—some drown’d secret hissing,
To the outsetting bard of love.

9

Demon or bird! (said the boy’s soul,)
Is it indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it mostly to me?
For I, that was a child, my tongue’s use sleeping,
Now I have heard you,
Now in a moment I know what I am for—I awake,
And already a thousand singers—a thousand songs, clearer, louder and more sorrowful than yours,
A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me,
Never to die.

O you singer, solitary, singing by yourself—projecting me;
O solitary me, listening—nevermore shall I cease perpetuating you;
Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations,
Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me,
Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before what there, in the night,
By the sea, under the yellow and sagging moon,
The messenger there arous’d—the fire, the sweet hell within,
The unknown want, the destiny of me.

O give me the clew! (it lurks in the night here somewhere;)
O if I am to have so much, let me have more!
O a word! O what is my destination? (I fear it is henceforth chaos;)
O how joys, dreads, convolutions, human shapes, and all shapes, spring as from graves around me!
O phantoms! you cover all the land and all the sea!
O I cannot see in the dimness whether you smile or frown upon me;
O vapor, a look, a word! O well-beloved!
O you dear women’s and men’s phantoms!

A word then, (for I will conquer it,)
The word final, superior to all,
Subtle, sent up—what is it?—I listen;
Are you whispering it, and have been all the time, you sea-waves?
Is that it from your liquid rims and wet sands?

10

Whereto answering, the sea,
Delaying not, hurrying not,
Whisper’d me through the night, and very plainly before day-break,
Lisp’d to me the low and delicious word DEATH;
And again Death—ever Death, Death, Death,
Hissing melodious, neither like the bird, nor like my arous’d child’s heart,
But edging near, as privately for me, rustling at my feet,
Creeping thence steadily up to my ears, and laving me softly all over,
Death, Death, Death, Death, Death.

Which I do not forget,
But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother,
That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok’s gray beach,
With the thousand responsive songs, at random,
My own songs, awaked from that hour;
And with them the key, the word up from the waves,
The word of the sweetest song, and all songs,
That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet,
The sea whisper’d me.

Christian0 and Juanita

A Single Act: Three scene script by Chris Chance- April/May 2010

Prologue:

There love took place over a decades  time on the island east of Manhattan and in the valleys between the northern tip of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Tuscarora Ridge of the Southern Pennsylvania Appalachians.

He- no saint at all, felt in his heart a hero but ultimately hid behind svelte armor that protected him from a fickle and judgmental world.

She- a creature worthy of the lead lady in a classy novel- pure and once so very innocent. Statuesque and of absolute sense- commanding her world but building high walls around her red heart as she went.

The fields spoken of in this tale were accurately planted and lovingly nourished long ago and they still grow, multiplying their essence year to year. What great hope the author holds in his blue heart for their harvest. What great hopes he has for us all.

It is understood that the sins of the original garden have heft upon us, as a civilization a life of confusion, doubt and pain. It is with faith that one carries on believing in the goodness of a divine creator and master of all that you know.

Said in this story, it’s believed that he or she, the divine that is lives in two places simultaneously.

First; among the stars painted in the style of Rembrandt meeting Picasso, laughing the way Chaplin must daily at the absurd nonsesilogicalness of it all, crying like the poor ******* who’s let his whole future slip through his foolish little fingers.

And the Divine, the great source of energy in the universe also lives in a certain part- or nook - or cranny- of all things that breathe and/or return with the spring.

It is the voice you hear right now in your boney skull. It's the feeling you get when you forgive. It is the obligation you have to reach up and hold steady your fellow man.

As the author of this tale drops to his knees seeking guidance from that hidden, divine and breathy spiritualness he silently cries out in his pain.

A pain he never knew existed. He’ll silently ask to be prayed for now
and at the hour of his death.


Act I Scene I:

She could snare me in a trap by my ***** and hang me to the cherry tree. Yet my love for her wild flower remains – growing stronger- gathering and harboring the strength of welded tycoon steel.

This love you see- is no ordinary love.

It’s a love of passion and flame but one that culminates with no possible conclusion.

This love does not merely flow - but in actuality rages deep and wide- flowing so deep and so wide that the queen herself could traverse it in comfort.

And now alas, her love.

The love of ours- alone, no longer vast enough in its capacity: to carry on.

And it shall be furthermore, that I now- and I alone: will carry the weight of our time spent as one.

Our time spent as one such as the sand and the sea- Spent as one just as the mountain and valley.

Spent as one the way the very soul itself: on its own palate- feels and tastes true, sweet-sweet love.

This love I feel built around me like a velvet dream, a love now burning footsteps in my ears and setting fire to the nether regions of my soul has been banished and broken. But against better judgment still beats in my senseless and tortured eyes.

And in my anguish, I berate myself with guilt and deeply scour avenues of the past- for better directions we might have chosen.

Alas and in the end- amidst tears of fallen dreams: all roads lead to you and where your heart began and where- your heart ended.

So I ask you, all of you that bear witness before me. Whose heart is it- that still beats true and free? And whose heart is it that beats dark as the stormy cloud.

Whose heart I ask?

Or better yet- a different conundrum of a similar variety.

Can any heart be free?

Free to consume its desire- whether the sun shines or not? Free to love and never to be forgotten. Free to breathe without the threat of mortality?

I challenge you my friends to define this- and to thoroughly answer my questions.

To see into my future: regardless of what must be seen and help me- please make me believe again. Make me in all my shattered and tired bones and aging skin truly, truly believe again.

To teach my sons that it is safe to love in this hard and ruthless world.
To see my love as better,  more pure- unscathed by the devilish nature of the standard human ego.  

To once and for all see love and all life- as hopeful and not bereft of commonality and truth. To see her again- my fair love.  Smiling the notion of a better tomorrow.

Act I: Scene II

Our sins derail us its true. Over time and a plethora of vanishing precepts we wash along the rocks liked laundry.

Shall we neatly and quietly burro underground in the neighbor’s green space, with fleeting air- void of light and color?

Should we swing by our necks from the orange groves it would be in vain as life is so precious and out there lays undeniable hope that there is more of life’s holiness to drink in with each passing storm?

Impossible. That is not who I am. This is not who I was. That is not who I will be.

So vanquished cries muffle in the night against vicious and angry winds and the low weeping moan is constant as I look ahead while looking backwards.

Wondering how from my grasp it ever slipped so far?

It all, each and every golden ounce slipped from my tongue in sorrow in truth I must say.  Unfiltered neurosis and faltering fear are guides that  will fail to bring you home safely.

Nefarious tides of anxiety and reflection blinded me- blinded me from the sun.

But yet still she knows or understands that the bird song of redemption is an actual place where hearts once emptied , now gather to refill that same heart with love again and again.

It is the wound of her life open, crying out and bleeding through her lonely eyes and ears. It is with shame that I admit my long standing ignorance and tardiness to the cause of her heart.

Now with the backing of angels I see the landscape and all its divine nature but yet I am unable to enter. Unable to rejoin the garden and fight a snake who speaks my unholy name off split tongue and evil notions.

Where, where my love is it that I should go from here after having come from there? Where shall I drink my clean water, where shall I rest my weary head?

And oh, the head of a sleepless and love sick man. Heavy with burden brought on by his own lack of mastery regarding the most important issue and god given task of them all, but as once ailed Mercutio in his quest for and of allegiance to Romeo. Time is of the essence.

When I lay my head it is in sorrow and the pain of real passion. Passion for remaining one as a quarter  that makes up a whole- such as the corners of the cross and the earth, air, water and fire itself in a single beating heart.

For  one hundred and eighty ****** and arrogant days and their resident risings of the sun I've been reborn- sworn to never let evil destroy good in my heart.

As you must do- you will do.  

But the tides that flow in my veins do not flow from you they flow from the divine, a divine that will protect me and forgive my trespasses as he’s surely forgiven me of mine on others.

It’s only the growing fields of our past love that concern me now. How will we harvest the wheat which together we’ve sewn? How will we slaughter and eat the meat of the heard. When will any of us drink the wine from the grapes we have grown?

The entities I’ve stated are my future and will remain  my future until arc angels guide me from this earthly tomb. The blood of our fields will reign supreme.

The harvest of our youth will produce.  Standing together or behind our backs- as we run from it. The bloom of our responsibilities as care taker of these lands will be upon us in time.

So as your heart sails to foreign shores I awake from my rage and see the sun, feel the air, breathe and seek guidance for my purpose. To continue to plow the field and fish the harbor while I settle for meager tastes.

May the work I’ve done. May the work we’ve done be a strong enough foundation for both fields to nurture, endure and produce.

And as you for my fleeting love: may the beans of your coffee be rich and plentiful, may your heart find its way back to where it once was- where ever that may be.

Between here and now, let the days shine upon you like spring light. Bathing you until your soul feels safe and fresh. Keeping you where you need to be to feel free.

But alas leave knowing that the flame I still hold- as I have from day one. For the mystic and mysterious love brought upon us by the three so many, many years ago.

How long that can burn, I know not: but as the skies bolster the heaven- my heart once black, has returned to life. To love you is all that there is. I will share my heart and tormented soul and every last breath I breathe until graying and dying days. For you and only you exist.

Act I Scene III:

The sun came out after a snowy and emotional winter but the air never seemed to warm through the long days of April.

And so in the absence of all that is left , we set off.  You, in the direction that I lived in for years and me in the direction that you lived for years.

Two lovers, one point, two stories. Proverbial ships in the night is what we are- and the passing simply destiny.

Oh but for how I will remember thee. The raven hair and olive skin, deep eyes batting only in such a way as to swell my heart, that equisite eyebrow raised in point, the witty acronyms of our secret family language.

The warmth of your parent’s hearth and the surrounding family. A safe and wonderful place to even a man such as I, who took it sorely for granted along with the other neighboring fields planted and stamped with our communication, our love, our example.

Time is a tempting and vicious confidant, one that will surely lead you astray and bring mischief and havoc to your very door step.

Tread lightly if you dare to tread at all in love. Hear the heart you rest against, listen to the subtle tick tock of its rhythm. Hold a stone as it were a diamond, train the mutt as a pure bred champion, shape your mud as if it were the finest of all clays from the earth.

The whistling train only passes through the station once. Get on get off, make up your mind – change your mind – ignore your mind. Look into your heart and soul then move forth.

To where it is you should be.

Where it is you’ll be forgiven and nurtured even more revered than ever before. A place so familiar you might even call it home.  A bed so all knowing that it could only be ours. A life so new it could never be as it was.

Know this before you part my love, know that I am true: as I say- is as I pray. But your choice is your choice and yours alone: to rise or recede.

My heart pines like the losing persona in an old film. For I see the sun rising. Shining and setting in your eyes.

I see the fields as they grow under watchful eyes, I hear the wind begging us to move but I stand grounded upon all that is pure and sanctimoniously holy. Definitively tattered- but braced firmly at the center of the storm.

Waiting for the love we loved, Once. The love that we may squander if we have yet to do so already.  A love that can be repaired and grow larger and more consuming then ever imagined.

A love never to slip from my grasp again.

Narrative Ending:

So the fella in this case is condemned to be a shepherd without his flock. Sending signals by smoke along the telephone wire to complete the rendering of the fields. With mercy on his side- may he succeed in the light of the world relentlessly embittered in the dark?

Or will all in life just as after a close death, quietly move on?

Completing revolutions of the sun: that fiery ball of light, wider than the distance from here to Mars and back, with us random like ebbing and flowing on the tides lengthy pull of the moon?

Or is the strength to muster what one wants, really possible?

Can he climb the highest mountain? Could his faith be tested in lava like pits of hell? Can his heart be branded clean after so much life?

And what of her beating heart?

What of her search to dissolve the fears of her own making? How has her beauty helped or failed her. How will she look herself in the eye?
How long must I day dream of meandering through a sweet and enjoyable song with her one last time.

Unknown answers-

More unknown then I, as the player in this drama, would care or dare to admit, but hopeful ever more like the humming bird buzzing summer honeysuckle in rainy times- I shall remain.

I shall see the sparkle of her soul rent the eyes- if only for a time.
Taking both yonder to another space and time, where she’d admit she lied in vain fear and exasperation when she said:  surely she could find no love true and could simply offer no more.

When my flesh gives way to bone cover me in roses. Walk me out in the morning of your mind as a man who loved without knowing how to love.

A male clearly guilty to the highest degree, in any court, of any land: of being careless with a precious gift.

And sadly for the ones who have loved and lost- in the end  life offers only so many windows into the soul of a lover.

Infinite amounts of definitions could not depict
The extent to which a structured norm
Is measured
Blindness adjoins clarity, while sight provokes vanity
It is an aspect unhindered, lacking certainty
A single word yet so many portraits
Drawn on the canvas of our linked pathways

If you ask me about beauty, don’t
For my lips would quiver nonsense to you, to me
The mass of the universe that surrounds our whole being
The endless rows of glimmering stars that speak to our vulnerable eyes
Or perhaps, the raging force of life that springs from within us

If you ask me about beauty, don’t
Because you would have to look at yourselves to see
The beaming smiles corresponding with velvet risings of cheeks
The abundance of glistening tears that have embodied those very same
And even, the flashing spark of joy which invites a feeling of utter content

If you ask me about beauty, don’t
Otherwise there would be an influx of sentiments towards
The prettiness of colored nature, steadiness of height-breaking hills
The calmness of the bare sound of waves crashing into an advocacy for peace
The building blocks of surroundings that determine you and me

So if you ever want to ask me about beauty,
Bare the consequences in mind
Just the elaborate thought of such a question
Could raise a plethora of reasonings

At times I’ve believed it

And at other times, scoffed,

One of the oldest of pivotal fears,

Mentioned in scripture and stories and hymns,

The execration is stinging my ears.

And throbbing, echoing, clashing rhythms,

With no beat ...such tension… Distortion’s risings,


A march over mazurka decelerating,

Curious uses for curious things,

Intestinal-pullings, intestinal strings,


Every warping conceived by my kind,

Like tearing of flesh and torture of mind,

Nothing that’s wholesome, nothing that’s good,

The truth bent, the opening crude,

The too-thin passageway out, understood

And my own rotting flesh is my food.

Great robes of red oak,
Cast away each Fall season,
Snows bring silent vows.

Imagine we are home
and not lonely, imagine
our love which once cut
through strange waters
like longboats through hearts
not slow and heavy
from the moss of fear
we are here and not here
nights in our land are sad
the risings of the moon
are like sores we have given
our women, and we cannot sleep
for what we dream
the enemy will do, like filling
our children's throats with rocks
and place them in shallow swamps
where they will rise up
to tell us of fish with odd shapes
and men with torches
coming in from the sea
up to the beach on a black night
throwing open the gates
to our dying city.

O, these fine, fashionable, fondlers
Of pondering wisdom’s,

In the idioms of earthen
Consents,

Gray case encrusted,
Attitudinal cements.

Parapet and barrier,
Laments of rancid carrion.

Self bestowed upon slinking shoulders.

Into the Frey of Man speak,
Into the realm of blood and bone,

Ejected into the otherings
That man alone bestows.

Upon his brothers ****** brow,
Upon his trodden heart,

They seek definition
In epitome

In enfilades of bias and violence.

They languish under opinionated stars,
Under sun’s of blood red risings.

O that the voice of this could only die a death
Befitting some horrid criminal,
And peace come in its stead.

A vision of a dreamer
A poet writing wishes
Clichés of lost hopes
In search of soulful riches.

I come home smelling of someone elses sweat
Crawl into bed next to wife
Knives of guilt
Bleeding the bed.

Maybe I have done heroic things in past lives,
Defended outer galaxies from daemonic risings,
Villages under my protection,
Medicines made and distributed.

But for now I am forty
And I smell of someone else’s sweat
And I am next to my wife
In my bed
In my house

And it doesn’t feel all that heroic.

O, great deity of the heavens
ruler of the eternal seas
bounder of day and night to threads on the threshold of time,
won't you let me rest me in peace at last?
It's been 900 years,
years of wandering and bleak emptiness,
where each day has gone by with mortals' risings and deaths,
where each second has gone by that I have not forgotten,
all who have passed away.
O Goblin, now is a time to rejoice in sadness and pain
for I have found the Goblin's Bride,
whose laughs echo through her lost soul
whose being shines bright to me everyday,
whose purpose of creation in every second,
serves to be my death.
But I the Goblin,
who has dreamed of the end for 900 years
suddenly repent in remorse at leaving
my shining Goblin Bride behind,
who suddenly seems to me
not here upon serving for my death,
but here to serve as the purpose of my existence,
of my life,
of my reason to keep living.
O, my Goblin's Bride,
I love you.

I’m determined to find joy
in the most unexpected places.

I hope to inspire more with my joy
than I have, so often, with my pain.

I’m not perpetually depressed
and bound to a broken spirit.

I'm just, quite often,
an expression of the emoting
of the broken who feel muted.

I do have consecutive days
of the light of grace shining
on me and on you in ways
that I can see clearly.

I do have months of risings and settings
with smiles if for no other reason
than because blindness enhances my being
so that I may become all sensing.

Yet, when blindness brings the days
of my binding to the lovers of my painful cries
and I'm too blind to even sense enhancement,
I remain determined.

There is joy all around us in places
that we never think to look until blindness
forces us to sense on all levels
the beauty that love placed around us
to diminish the sting of pain.

Eos woke an Argus-eyed iris
to start this day in birdsong
that pierced a sleeping silence
then sang all risings long

Square window panes did brighten
with light's momentum strong
a symphony, wind heightened
in poltergeist chimes which hung

As cool breeze entered gently
to kiss on petal's lip
while wings buzzed intently
took drink of morning's dip

In jumbled greens and pigments
this garden's watercolors glow
in natural dance of prisms
sharp thorns yield up to rose

-cec

Upon Waking,

Death with beating heart

denoting end of days

in which we’ve had not one-

but two risings

of the same sun.

When the magistry has ended, /
The echoes of repose begin to resound; /
Although there is, there has been a great wanderer in me, /
The beckoning has not ceased, /
Nor has my heart been claimed in abeyance. /

A story, one with risings & fallings, /
One with an unfalteringly great divide, /
Has bestowed a parcel from on high; /
The Winds, The Earth, The Ocean, The Sun, The Moon, /
They are the pulse of this Grand Tapestry. /

When we are enraptured, /
By ensorcelled irides /
We become; /
Sometimes being enamored /
Means our journey is re-willed; /
Moreover, we see the world with Brand New Eyes. /

Allowing every experience, to re-modulate my thoughts & feelings /
I realized uncertainty was not a barrier, /
Rather, it was my nexus to transcendence. /
Having a time & space in which to reflect, retrospect, & introspect was an aegis, /
Now real & authentic happiness is no longer distant /
And faith is near. /

The world was our leisure
and somehow we escaped
the starvation of
losing ourselves
in boxes.
  Riding through the risings
and fallings of hills.
Blue Skies where we floated
with our heads held up
by strings.
Your eyes stealing glances
at my eyes as you lit your pipe
and drove with your feet,
and thin white clouds
streamed across your ears.
Myriads
of deep colors
and multi-talented
maneuvers.

You were an Angel.
Earth toned,
through the sun roof
and the blue grass
that your eyes danced over.
It was brilliance--
and it burnt my mind
and spilt my soul,
as you churned it
through these
lifeless windows.
I wanted to stay here,
out in these rolling hills
forever, where we rolled
with dispersing waves
of radiance, and
cadences  of new moons.
Sometimes,
I'd walk along the dirt
flowing streets into town
stopping to tell all the farmers
how you were out there
making time stop.

She'd walked to work at sundown  
When the blue dissolved to evening              
Past the roadside vendors cooking fires,
Not yet bright enough for deepening                
The outline of the factory-house
Where night-time shifts were gathering          
'Round the early evening cooking scents,
Boiled rice, and bread and lentils
Carried on the twilight breezes with  
A light refrain that mentioned
The hunger in her mid-riff
And the mild persistent headache
At the urgent anxious anger that
Her fears and hopes resembled.
And the nagging hopeless worry
That the money wouldn't stretch.

Treading lightly, sandals slapping
In a rhythm never blindly
To be misconstrued as anything
But a walk to work, and quietly.
One hand clutching at her sari,
Coughing mutely through her head-shawl
Barely breathing through the mocking
Of the jeering tuk-tuk drivers
Past the dust cloud covered concrete
With the reek of sun-soaked diesel
And the mouthing finger-thrusting
And humiliating cat-calls
That permeate her modesty
And her sense of self-retrieval
With a fierce determination
That the future must be faced

She'd felt the first forced tremble
In the walls and floors beneath her
And the slowly sliding shifting
Of her sewing, soiled machine
As it cannoned past the T-shirts
Through the carefully folded blouses
And toppled from the table top
To smash against the floorboards
When the building crumpled inwards
And the chaos and the screaming
Chased the panic to the exits
Down the staircase to the ground.
Then the ceiling at the center of the
Wide, high whitened work room
Caved in with crash and cursing
As the lighting dimmed and died

Now, far above she hears the cadence                    
Through the gauze of dimming clarity              
Fire truck sirens moan hysteria
Within the tinnitus of silence                
Tumbled past the dust caked boulders
Of the colorless construction                            
Prostrated down below
In the humid darkened stillness.
Trapped and jammed into the spaces
Where the falling floors had forced her.          
Where the grinding groaning echoes
Of the debris and the torture                        
Close her throat to swells of  panic
For her mother and her daughter              
In the two-roomed cardboard shanty
Miles above and hours away

Barely conscious, breathing lightly
Through the dust and reek of faeces
Thinking of her crowded back-room
Where she'd bathed her infant daughter
In the tin-roofed cardboard shanty
By the stinking standing water
And where her husband’s insobriety
Nightly terminates in snoring
After shouting and the swearing
And occasional forbearance
When her mother’s stifled terror
Terminates in tempers risings
And the all pervading violence
That resolves in resignation
And completes the shaming sequence
By the act of copulation

In the wreckage work continues
Where the rescue teams are scrabbling
In the arms of their dilemma
To keep searching or accepting
That the paradox of seeing and then again
Believing in the hopeless expectations
That some persons can be found
Far below and hours away
The burning thirst has found her
Past the pain of her right shoulder
And the numbness in her legs.
The acrid smoke that holds her  
Transfixed in shallow coughing
While the sari starts to smolder
To the agony of breathing
As she hoarsely tries to scream

In a conference room in London
In the tautly tensioned Aerons
Women smooth their sculpted short skirts
As the slicked-down young supplier
Holds a T-shirt for inspection
To the murmured confirmation
Of the busy buoyant buyers
That the pricing must be right.
Miles above and hours away
Six degree's of separation
Form a loosely joined connection
Out of mind and out of sight.
One by one the vendor cooking fires
Turn to embers and to ashes
While miles below and far away
Comes the dying of the light.

As I developed, they shaped me,
as if I had been a block of clay
sitting there on the jagged concrete of
unpaved streets and endless roads.

My future form dependent on
the timing of passing strangers'
beginnings and endings,
their risings in the mornings
like the blue and orange horizon
spreading in preparation for the sun's presence,

And their settling back in the evenings,
like cool salty clouds of white sea foam
collapsing back into the ocean's
gray waves.

In each moment passing by
like a kid riding a bicycle, speeding down
the cracked pavement and
turning the corner out of site,

I was shaped by
the flurry of life that surrounded
every person's presence.

Picked up, tossed into the air,
and kicked by small children with bright eyes
and tongues that stuck out when
adults were unfair,

Colored, spray painted and scribbled on
by teenagers with messy dark curls,
wild laughing eyes,
and rapidly budding senses,

Observed, analyzed, discussed, and compared
by businessmen in jet black suits
and smooth red ties,
who pondered cutting me evenly
into perfect pieces for sale on the market,

Rolled, polished, scrubbed clean,
and spiced by rapid tongued mothers
wearing aprons and holding long
wooden cooking spoons,

Eroded, left to absorb a vast amount of salt
from teary eyes and bleeding wounds,

Caught on blazing, fiery fumes
of a man's raging anger,

Soaring high in the sky, resting on clouds
of someone's love and faith,

Trapped low in the ground,
sleeping in a bed of dried dirt filled with
people's sorrows and dreariness,

Drowning in purple satin
of one's longing
and unsatiated desires,

Chained to a planet
spiraling out of control in a universe
that couldn't bear to let go.

"See, I've found that not a lot rattles you"*
I can't let it in my surrounding world
From populist risings gaining their roots
To drugs in the school (such as the bus girl)
I've seen school street plays, and blood on hall floors
And news that doesn't care about the truth
I've heard your fights with mom, in and out doors
I've seen infection spread amongst the youth
So call me jaded or darkly funny
But the way I am, you just have to be

Verdant comforts,
cleomes and dalhias,
walks by  cobbled paths
Artists and their pedestals
incapsulating these vistas,
therein lays the beauty
we all knew inherent
in each and every of our  dawn risings

The hearth of the fire reflects
the heat of the passion night
This is more than just ***
It is how things are done right
Our breath stands still in the room of lust
Come closer, let’s be at peace
As the feelings of drive grow, and we must
exercise this primal release

Rhythmic risings of your breast
indicate excitement of the soul
Darling, you know you’ll pass the test
Let’s make our sentiments whole

Like hot candle wax, I’ll slide down your body
Submission is a turn-on, so the pleasure grows
No one could replicate this into something gaudy
Let this be our personal night to shed our daily clothes
Nakedness is joy, and pure locations connect
into something that is universally and surely correct
The soft moaning poured inside my ears
Boil myself into flaming sears

There is no written script in all of this
It just comes naturally
For the ultimate feeling of bliss
Is the true meaning of ecstasy

Don’t be conflicted, it’s only me
I want you to lie back and relax
For we explode each other’s loving glee
Into a simultaneous ******

You and I are together here
And I want to flip all your switches
Let polygamous feelings disappear
Trust that I’d never do this with the other *******

So we end off together, and the deed is done
Surely now we are in our prime
And I hope that you had a lot of fun
Because this act was not the final time

before the shutter of sentience
and we fall at the foot of the sun,
there are many risings.

let us not, then, shirk
our confession or our convalescence
in hoods of harrowing;

in consignments of death.

for crossèd ashes will surely
give rise the phoenix again
and most high flight.

I feel this is going nowhere

And I’m just here for your ego

To know I’m still a fish on the hook

For when you’re ready to eat

You make no efforts of security

Or curiosity, and preached about depth when

You’re standing in the shallow end

I should know your plagiarized speeches

And your fake woke phrases

The grand risings happening are the realizations in my head

That you use your mouth for talking but not giving head

The energy faded as soon as you had your cake

That post-sugar high come down

Spoiling your appetite for something sustainable, savory, and fresh

The only thing you’re craving

Is the sweet taste of flesh

This retrograde is always
sentimental radio silence.
Risings of the cresent moon,
shining off the suns old memory.
We have been reflections
of fires consequently burnt out,
long before we could grasp -
Orbs of celestial comprehension,
just falling short of brilliance.

Where is my muse
lost in pixies dreaming over Hollywood hills
parties over gleaming cities,
hidden houses,
quiet roofs
Gilded eyes suggesting otherwise
tugging on grey peacoats
fragile Virgo risings
Beings of the sea
of scorpionic lust
drowned in ***** with lemons from the tree.
Beatnik drunk,
Bukowski wannabe
Missing keys
misplaced by a Neptunian tragedy.

You painted yourself a martyr with
your blood upon my blade
And now my Damascus is tainted with
your tears and rusted pain

I was forged and beaten in quiet flames
for the risings and singings of slain
And my steel would ring crystal upon their thrones
as we show what’s womanly fame

But centuries later from charred fists
I’m set into glass and displayed
Where clasped hands and smug eyes declare my dream
and exampled as womanly fate

Yet remember
Remember
It’s in your bones and blood
Smell the ash on your face
Taste the rain and the race

We were made for walking
And stomping feet
To seek their eyes and maim

For the wanderer listens for the voice in the dust
And the lost will gain what was tamed

Sisters and brothers,
Prayers and shame
We’re warriors of water and way
We had turned to a nation of gold and rubble
We’ll turn to our stones and blade

Dig dig dig
There’s dirt in our nails
and the memories in our name
Where the weeds blossom in yellow fire
We’ll drag them into our nameless graves

I was tempered and torn in the waters of faith
Where I birthed and I sang and I laboured away
Where I’ll raise an army in the songs that I wrote
And the stars that I named in my chains

Today I will shatter each shard as an edge
and I’ll cut you as you swallow my hate
And my blood will cover as testament and crown
as you prepare for my womanly reign