Out of my flesh that hungers
and my mouth that knows
comes the shape I am seeking
for reason.
The curve of your waiting body
fits my waiting hand
your ******* warm as sunlight
your lips quick as young birds
between your thighs the sweet
sharp taste of limes.

Thus I hold you
frank in my heart's eye
in my skin's knowing
as my fingers conceive your flesh
I feel your stomach
moving against me.

Before the moon wanes again
we shall come together.


And I would be the moon
spoken over your beckoning flesh
breaking against reservations
beaching thought
my hands at your high tide
over and under inside you
and the passing of hungers
attended, forgotten.

Darkly risen
the moon speaks
my eyes
judging your roundness
delightful.

On days like this
cool, with little winds
desert birds forage for sticks
they build nests perched in cactus
some build green in palo verde trees
always I think of baby birds in spring
hatchlings, the fledglings that fly
I travel far beyond the noise of towns
watch the movement of cooling clouds
the roundness of rain upon the ground
the grey banked scurrilous skies
of hurried birds, their silhouettes before a storm
daisies that close, cold amid the stones
beneath where snakes and lizards go
slither and crawl in this landscape of saguaros
and I, ever tethered can only dream to fly.

The tenderness as they described it is circumnavigating more than the ******* and the roundness of my protruding *******
Perhaps by tenderness of the breast, what they really mean is tenderness of the soul and the emotions one hurriedly tucks under the crevices of their *****
If one imagines how ******* are anything but tender, with their ferocity of nurturing life and their wholly encompassing nature to weigh and weigh and weigh
Weight carried by a mother,
Shed off by her daughter,
Caressed by the one she lies with in the crevice of her soul and the gap between twin XL bunk beds and walls full of picture of people who no longer weigh her down
It's the feeling of nostalgia and nostalgia feeling this tenderness growing from one's *******.
Growth of the ***** of life as a life imagined is destroyed, nullified, kaput.
But most of all she feels nostalgia.
Nostalgia for the people whose tenderness she felt,
Nostalgia yes for her brother and grandmother cloaked in love around her neck like crystals from an iridescent silver clasp

can anyone tell me
why East and West are fighting?
in an indisputably Round world
going West far enough
will put you in the East
and vice versa

in a round view of things
people of the east
need the same things
as people of the west
and what about the middle people?
what do they need?
roundly the same I'd say

so roundly I also say
otherness is to be avoided
otherness to be voided
replaced by roundness
roundness is to be embraced
all around the world

so I'll start
and put my arms around you
like a circle around the sun
for I am
as round as you

there are 10 things you may need to know about me
if you'd like to get to know me better
if you care about me

1. i love thunderstorms
i love the way lightning looks against the sea at night
i enjoy the presence of crazy rain and
the arguments the clouds seem to have
i am a pluviophile

2. i hate small talk
i do not care for my feelings on this particular time of day which is why if you ask me how i am or "how i'm feeling" i will provide a bland answer
this is such a boring step for you to get to know me better
you probably don't even care how my summer went
tell me your fantasies, childhood fears,
tell me things you wouldn't tell your best friend
ask me questions about my former lover

i am curious to know

3. i am quiet a lot
i ponder about life and odd little ideas pop into my head randomly
like: i wonder if you can naturally change your eye colour or
why is it quiet only at night?
i think about people i haven't met or people in my past
those whom i care about and those whom i hate

4. people with sad eyes are attractive
i do not know why
the roundness and dull sparkle in their eyes arouse me
it creates me to gravitate around them
i do not pity them but i am somehow attracted to them

5. the internet is amazing
i have gained so many friends from here
different photos and art has inspired me
i lost fears through the internet
it's fascinating really

6. i have a fine appreciation for art
there are so many different forms of art and i love all of them
whether it's poetry or dance or drama
i have experimented and flirted with them all
they are unique and brilliant in their own way

7. i do not love myself
no matter how hard i bring myself to it
there are so many flaws and dents in my skin
that i cannot do it
i am shameful of myself
afraid of myself
and most of all
i am saddened by my own soul

8. i long for a soulmate
one to appreciate good food with
one to travel with
whether i am in love with this person or one whom i am
very fond of
i long for someone to be there for me at all times

9. i cry easily
i am sensitive and this is hard to admit
i am overemotional at times and the tears fall easily
most of the time it is because i can relate to the certain emotion
that is being depicted

10. i am filled with stories
i could go on and on about different rumors and secrets i have stored inside
i am in abundance with stories and good laughs
i have fascinating scary stories both fiction and non-fiction
many stories are mine and there are a lot that aren't
but both are entertaining and i enjoy telling stories

I remember the horrifying day,
like it was yesterday.
Being jewish,
And living in 1940 Germany, was the worst thing you could do.
My name is Lucy, and I will tell you about the day,
when my everything was taken from me
And seven years ago, my family and I had
struggled to find food,or even a warm piece of clothing.
Then my mother and father put my little sister and I into hiding.
Let me begin with this;

We haven’t heard anything from our parents in 3 1/2 years.
I honestly think that they are dead.
-Three years later-
My sister and I have little
to nothing at all,
but I go without so that she
at least,
has a chance.
I give the  warmest clothes that I have
to my little sister,
Sarah.
Sarah is my everything
I’d do anything to keep her safe,
She is so thin,
even though I give her most of my food,
she could be paper.
We were hiding when it happened, Sarah was in a little space
between a wall and a wardrobe.
I thought she would be safe there.
But I soon learned
that the decision I made, cost her,
her
Life.
BANG,BANG,BANG!!!! Is all I heard as the soldiers begin
to raid the house.

-(Our parents were down the street, hiding in a barn room,and we didn’t even know that they were still alive)-

My sister and I were hiding in “Aunt” Leslie’s and “Uncle” John’s house.
The soldiers came into the room in which I was hiding,
didn’t even consider looking under bed,
Seeming how from the outside,
It looked as if the bed rested on the floor.
but under the mattress was a hidden door,
that created a compartment two feet deep.
They left the room, leaving the door wide open.
I was able to see where my sister, Sarah, was hidden,
But that was a bad thing.
Sarah did not look like most Jewish girls her age,
who have round
almond eyes,
dark hair, and dark eyes.
with her
Long,
Wavy,
Blonde hair, and the most
Beautiful,
Sharp
Blue eyes,
She looks similar to a little german girl.
The only thing that set her apart was,
the roundness of her face,
and that she is short for her age of 14,
two years younger than me.
The soldiers were moving on to the next room,
-all except one.
Something had caught his eye,
as it had also caught mine.
My heart was thumping wildly against my chest,
I hoped that the soldier would hear it
Pounding, pounding, and pounding against my chest,
anything to keep him away from my Sarah.
The soldier had seen a
Wisp
of her
Golden locks,
from behind the wardrobe
He grabbed her and had her
down on her knees,
she was so strong, didn’t shed a single tear,
she looked straight ahead, not willing to give me away, showing no fear,
in her expression.
But I saw the fear,
in the way  her little fingers twitched, tied behind her back.
Then the soldier pulled out his gun and
SHOT
MY LITTLE
GIRL
IN
THE
HEAD!!!!!!!!
I was screaming,
screaming her name
Over,
and over,
and over,
and over,.........
And yet the soldiers,
did not hear or find me,
for I was screaming soundlessly
He shot Sarah,
My everything,
My little sister,
but most of all,
My LITTLE GIRL
Mom and Dad put us into hiding 6 and a half years ago.
They had  foreseen what would happen,
and for 6 and a half years,
Sarah was my little girl.
I would give her my food, I made sure she had enough sleep,
she was the reason I fought so hard.
And now, I
Have
Absolutely
Nothing.
I have nothing to LIVE for,
nothing to FIGHT for,
nothing to,
PROTECT.
My everything was taken away,
Sarah was taken from me.
And I can’t ever get her back
The soldiers left her there, she looked so cold,
the soldiers had been gone for hours now,
yet I was still in my hiding place,
frozen with
fear,
shock,
devastation.
I climbed out of my hiding spot,
Sarah, oh Sarah,
my little Sarah was gone,
her golden locks
stained with RED.
Her once bright, beautiful eyes,
Now only one remained.
For the soldier shot right above her eye,
so, nothing remained.
The one blue eye,
once beautiful,
Now cloudy.
I gently closed her eye.
I found a cloth,
went to wet it,
And began to cleanse the wound.
She looked better when the wound was not cleaned.
For there was a hole in her head,
I was able to see inside.
I cleaned her limp locks,
And did my best
to cover the gaping hole.
It was still not a pleasant sight to see.
But it looked better than it did before.
I start to clean the
ribbons of blood
on the walls,
And the beautiful, hard, maple floors.
I tried my best, but there
were still faint
ribbons,
staining the walls,
and streaking the floor.
I start to talk to her,
my mind
not accepting the fact that
Sarah
is
gone.
I try to keep her warm
Try, trying to keep the warmth
in her
lifeless body.
I repeat her name
“Sarah, Sarah, it’ll be OK,  y-you’ll be fine.
We’ll get through this together.
I’m sorry Sarah, I’m so, so sorry.
I should have given you my hiding spot,
And I hid in the attic,
I’m sorry.
I failed you.
I’m sorry.”
Aunt Leslie and Uncle John came in then suddenly,
took one look at me
holding Sarah’s
lifeless
body
in my arms,
and started to sob.
They had brought Mom and Dad,
to take Sarah and I
to a refugee camp.
They didn’t hear the gunshot,
that took Sarah’s life.
dad came over to me and told me to let her go,
Mother told me to be strong,
But she had tears,
streaking down her cheeks.
“Lucy,” Mom says, “we need to go,
And we need to go now.”
I look at the body,
in my arms.
Once a lovely little child,
now nothing but a cold corps.
I take Sarah’s locket that she always wore around her neck,
And slipped it into my pocket.
She always knew that I loved it,
she even told me once,”If anything ever happens to me Lucy, it’s yours.”
I had told her not to think like that,
But then again,
I thought the same things.
I apologize  to Aunt Leslie, telling her I did my best
to get the
ribbons of blood,
off the floor and walls.
She said it was OK.
I told Uncle John that when I was safe,
that I would write.
He said that he would miss me,
I did too.
After saying goodbye,
we hurried into a wagon of hay,
the driver willing to help us.
And we were fleeing once again,
for a place to be safe,
will be quite a ways away.
The nearest refugee camp was in Italy.
We will be safe there.
At least,
for a while.

I seen this ****** photograph once, taken in lovely black and white
A beautiful figure framed by shadows,
A beautiful young dark-haired girl naked
kneeling on a stairway
With one hand draped across her *******
As if protecting herself from something, maybe even shielding her heart
Her face, it is turned away to one side
And buried in her other hand
As if she's suffering some great distress or sorrow,
Far from arousing in me ****** feelings, this photograph
It spoke to me of something else
Something quite different and much more significant
More than mere words could possibly say
It spoke to me...it spoke to me of my whole life.

Her body there, so youthful, beautiful without a blemish
Her lovely contours and curves smooth like the sand dunes of a desert
Her beautiful face made sad
Her petite delicate little shoulders and arms
Her wonderful *******, her lovely tummy/belly, the roundness of her hips
The bones of her knees jutting out from where she was kneeling
Her thighs and calves resting upon one another
Her ankles and little feet tucked in behind
Here was Youth in all its glorious splendor... and innocence
With all its wonderful promise,
Strangely, it reminded me of my own Youth and my own body once
Before age and the World had done their damage
This wonderful garment thrown over our eyes and our bones
And I remembered myself as a little child, running across the beach... across the strand
And I was talking to my legs, saying, "Come on legs! Faster! Faster!"
And I was hitting my hip with my hand as if it were a whip
And as if my legs were those of a horse galloping
Just like in the old Westerns we used watch (on TV)
Yes! There was a time once when I used to talk to my body, a private little world I had,
It was my closest, my most intimate friend
You'd do it when you were alone like it was the most natural thing in the world,
You needed a friend to talk to about this strange world you were in,
And then I remembered the little girl next door
They used put us together playing, us children, us being around the same age
She was such a sweet little thing, the way she used to laugh and smile all the time
Like the cutest little kitten
The joy in her eyes and that smile of hers
Where was it coming from... somewhere inside, somewhere within
And then I remembered, I too had it once, that same joy, that same smile
It had lived in me too once... that bliss.

                              2

That photograph, it struck me as being something almost holy
It reminded me straightaway, it reminded me of the Garden of Eden story
The beautiful body had been the Garden you see
And in the Garden there was no fear and no danger
Like a little kitten lolling about, rolling on its belly and stretching itself out
Without a worry or a care
Without a cloud on its horizon
A beautiful magical kingdom before the Mind ever existed.

But now looking again at the photograph and at her face made sad buried there in her hand
Now the photograph was telling me
Suddenly, all at once, there came a day and a shadow
Something from outside, it had entered her mind, some ugliness from the world
It had disturbed her for the first time
And this was a new sensation to her
And it had frightened her
"How could such a dark ugly thing exist", she was wondering,
'And how can I live now with this in my world,
Now that I've seen it, it will always be there",
And then another memory came back to me, That of myself as a little child lying in bed
Shaking my head from side to side, even bumping my head against the wall
There was something there in my head I didn't like, something I didn't want to hear or see, something disturbing
I didn't want it there, I wanted it to go away
I wanted it to stop,
But it wouldn't stop and it wouldn't go away
And you realised it'd always be there like some shadow hovering in the background.

                                3

Now dark clouds were beginning to gather over the Garden and the beautiful Body
Now the World was coming and the Tyranny, the Tyranny of the Mind was beginning
The Gates of the Garden, they were slowly starting to close
Yea, the fields of Arcadia were fading, the exotic fruits and feelings there were being taken away
Its lovely sweet river of ambrosia would now soon cease to flow.

Like the Snow Queen and her Icy Blizzard, like a cruel invading army
The Mind had awoken now like a sleeping dragon and the World, it was coming, coming now to feed
Starting to pour in like through a breached dam
The World with all its books and its lessons, its rules and examinations
The mental world forcefully asserting itself
With its bullying cajoling teachers and its many humiliations,
The Mind weighing down hard now upon the Body, leaning on it, squeezing it and straining it
Pulling it this way and that, hither and thither
All out of shape, all over the place
Rivers of outside influences flowing in now
You were like a tiny boat tossed upon stupendous waves
Always at the mercy of other people's words
Blown all over the place
Sometimes, sometimes I just couldn't stomach it, I couldn't digest it
Sometimes I could only just throw it all up.

                                   4

The Beautiful Body... Garden no longer, now just some hollow empty shell
The Mind alone was all that mattered now
All consuming and all devouring
The Body starting to buckle and to crumble
Underneath all that weight, the stress and the strain
Not knowing how to deal with it....lost and bewildered
Among the new feelings of emptiness and of pain
Overeating and undereating, unable to eat at all
Growing fat thinking that that could protect you from all the new fears in your brain.

                                5

The Body that beautiful Garden with its golden days
Were now long gone and forgotten
Thorns and briars had grown up in their stead
Just like some long lost fairytale Sleeping Beauty.
Made poor now and impoverished
I remembered... I had been a King once long ago back in my old Garden.

(The faint joys of the Mind y'know they were nothing in comparison
To what I'd known in that sweet Garden of old, that sweet Garden of mine).

Now when I look in the mirror I can hardly see myself anymore
But when I look at this photograph
I can see myself there.

To my little one who pushes me from the inside out:
because of you
my eyes see new colors.  
Funny how
there are perhaps as many nuances of love
as there are shades of green in a summer forest
and there is only the word “love.”
Sadness too.  
Like the sadness of giving up
something you didn’t know you wanted.  
That was you.
Was you.
You occupy me.  
Within and without.  
My feet and my heart ache.
I watch how people's’ eyes are drawn to my stomach.  
Celebrating roundness
where there was once flatness
and that was once celebrated
is also a funny thing.  
I do want to laugh and it is easy to.  
Crying is also easy.  
Sometimes they are indistinguishable  
or
one becomes the other.  
Becoming.  
If that is what I am doing
how is it different
from what I have been doing my whole life?

poetry is heart speaking
her deepest wisdom
or lightest whimsy
traditional form or free verse
let souls sing
sprinkle metaphor and simile
if you are a poet, write like one
words are music
let them breeze like a melody
color with mix-matched sensory
don’t stay inside the lines
see sounds with eyes closed
hear flickering of fireflies’ light
smell beauty in distant mountains
taste majesty of flowers’ bloom
touch forgiveness
bring personification to life
“she” is much sweeter than “it”
and a seat cushion may have a roundness to her
throw in some high speech
make someone grab a lexicon
delete those extra words
‘I’s and ‘the’s especially
alliteration can create cacophonic chorus
while similar sounds of assonance
tie hoards and scores of words together
although there are no rules
try your best to use poetry’s tools
with this above all else:
let your truth ring
let your insights and revelations
be a healing to self and reader
let experiences resonate in hearts
and harmonize voices

That person who gets you, lifts you
As the stone that fits your hand does
Who loves you as the stone from your hand
Skims out across the sea, loves you so
Many times more
Than you can count
That
Person

Whose love seems older than the stone
Smoother than its perfect roundness
Whose eyes seem deeper than the sea
During the endless time your eyes
Meet. And the feeling

In your heart
Of that stone
That oldest
Perfect
Love

Skimming light, skimming fast
Skimming away
Away

As it fades
As it

Fades

Portentous enunciation, syllable
To blessed syllable affined, and sound
Bubbling felicity in cantilene,
Prolific and tormenting tenderness
Of music, as it comes to unison,
Forgather and bell boldly Crispin's last
Deduction. Thrum, with a proud douceur
His grand pronunciamento and devise.

The chits came for his jigging, bluet-eyed,
Hands without touch yet touching poignantly,
Leaving no room upon his cloudy knee,
Prophetic joint, for its diviner young.
The return to social nature, once begun,
Anabasis or slump, ascent or chute,
Involved him in midwifery so dense
His cabin counted as phylactery,
Then place of vexing palankeens, then haunt
Of children nibbling at the sugared void,
Infants yet eminently old, then dome
And halidom for the unbraided femes,
Green crammers of the green fruits of the world,
Bidders and biders for its ecstasies,
True daughters both of Crispin and his clay.
All this with many mulctings of the man,
Effective colonizer sharply stopped
In the door-yard by his own capacious bloom.
But that this bloom grown riper, showing nibs
Of its eventual roundness, puerile tints
Of spiced and weathery rouges, should complex
The stopper to indulgent fatalist
Was unforeseen. First Crispin smiled upon
His goldenest demoiselle, inhabitant,
She seemed, of a country of the capuchins,
So delicately blushed, so humbly eyed,
Attentive to a coronal of things
Secret and singular. Second, upon
A second similar counterpart, a maid
Most sisterly to the first, not yet awake
Excepting to the motherly footstep, but
Marvelling sometimes at the shaken sleep.
Then third, a thing still flaxen in the light,
A creeper under jaunty leaves. And fourth,
Mere blusteriness that gewgaws jollified,
All din and gobble, blasphemously pink.
A few years more and the vermeil capuchin
Gave to the cabin, lordlier than it was,
The dulcet omen fit for such a house.
The second sister dallying was shy
To fetch the one full-pinioned one himself
Out of her botches, hot embosomer.
The third one gaping at the orioles
Lettered herself demurely as became
A pearly poetess, peaked for rhapsody.
The fourth, pent now, a digit curious.
Four daughters in a world too intricate
In the beginning, four blithe instruments
Of differing struts, four voices several
In couch, four more personae, intimate
As buffo, yet divers, four mirrors blue
That should be silver, four accustomed seeds
Hinting incredible hues, four self-same lights
That spread chromatics in hilarious dark,
Four questioners and four sure answerers.

Crispin concocted doctrine from the rout.
The world, a turnip once so readily plucked,
Sacked up and carried overseas, daubed out
Of its ancient purple, pruned to the fertile main,
And sown again by the stiffest realist,
Came reproduced in purple, family font,
The same insoluble lump. The fatalist
Stepped in and dropped the chuckling down his craw,
Without grace or grumble. Score this anecdote
Invented for its pith, not doctrinal
In form though in design, as Crispin willed,
Disguised pronunciamento, summary,
Autumn's compendium, strident in itself
But muted, mused, and perfectly revolved
In those portentous accents, syllables,
And sounds of music coming to accord
Upon his law, like their inherent sphere,
Seraphic proclamations of the pure
Delivered with a deluging onwardness.
Or if the music sticks, if the anecdote
Is false, if Crispin is a profitless
Philosopher, beginning with green brag,
Concluding fadedly, if as a man
Prone to distemper he abates in taste,
Fickle and fumbling, variable, obscure,
Glozing his life with after-shining flicks,
Illuminating, from a fancy gorged
By apparition, plain and common things,
Sequestering the fluster from the year,
Making gulped potions from obstreperous drops,
And so distorting, proving what he proves
Is nothing, what can all this matter since
The relation comes, benignly, to its end?

So may the relation of each man be clipped.

We know as children that you shouldn’t stare directly at the sun,
“You’ll go blind!” parents say. Still, we take mischievous glances,
Scared, brave. Trying to separate the perfect, lemony roundness, from the burnished halo all around.
I remember standing on the front path of my Aunts house,
Eagerly waiting for a solar eclipse, the pebbledash grazing my back.
4 children staring boldly through a square of tinted Perspex. It was novel.
The first time I looked at you, I looked away, eyes glaring, seeing white.
It was like looking at the sun, I needed the dull, brown tint.
Eyes adjusted. “Hiya!” you yelled. Golden

In the moments after the rain,
Look at the sun, in the moist air hangs a rainbow;
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
You’ve worn them all, not a colour left alone.
Joseph looks on, jealous, in his dull, lifeless overcoat.
You’re a solid rainbow, one that you can touch, feel, put your arms around.
Laugh with, learn with, drink with, dance with, love with.
A rainbow personified.

For L.C

the corner of my fetal
mind paste
what about the skin of demons
the shadow that turns away
a slow placid individual
hollow from everywhere the caution of snow-wheels
cling to manifest
the picture burning inside an apartment for rent
outside walls carried memory of days
eyes and bones demand face
what if nobody’s here
the idea  
myself as sunshine with so much to offer easier
what is the difference
the sentence that defines
unbelief the chain
breaks I wish
dilate the never-belief
wondering effect paste my ***** on your voice
an animal feel i cannot deal with your sense
an unborn skull
the wallowing feet under cypress
skies of fleece and miniature dogmas
slices of fragments red purple green crows sound
the deep drum beat i accept
where i fall
a flashing voice collapsing towards the inside
throwing punishment the idea that i am foliage
corresponding thought process that machines never
agree
pale doledrum insomnia my hands
the lines of another car
the breath of being manipulated
killing instant
the shoehorn a new salt visiting magnolia
a knee high minute falling upside
my carpe diem **** fist theory
and all day i plead for the corrosion to move within you
the system eating itself into oblivion
i announce it when ears are in rooted to the floor  
i had a dream of a jesus picture on a fanbelt  
curved ***** **** on the outside  
apocalypse on my lips
fumes down on the floor
a few hours’ days
gone
i am stripped
speechless walking home
for me
can this be your silence pregnant with strange
looseness in its belly
stars fragile your arms
pins forced into throat calming
touch faking the ***** sounds of avocado
thursday lust
driven into soiled ground
crumbling face in another room they lay your hands on
me
a fragrance of wings missing
an unexplained
dense and unchanged
kind of melting from you
i give in
the shoulder manufactures what is real to the sound
life is liveable
nothing accepted when offered
the thought process of engines
an angry naked shout
the underbelly of hanging
to what i show you
baking soda explosives
cake walk fixations on the vaginas of modern andromeda
i hope to never be lost with your sanctuary
dog sized emotions
a world punching out its timecard from the slot
a season for betrayals
the mantra of your dreams
dead enough to explain myself
a sunken cheek caring for the sun
a sweet lullaby placing of hand
the round syndrome between the
****** thighs
the strings attached are anything but labeled
upstairs is another passenger
first name last name
instead
mute all that is here
ashes
unnecessary you
the collective harm of all those images which if excluded contain
the replacement address of my kidney being
molested
or is it the usage of hiding
anything
dove’s postage junk mail
what you’ve seen before
the cost of being asked two days late
my fluorescent teeth the talk of spit blood
and ****
magnification of insects
the body moves
fondled colors blend
a ******
the ****** the cortex of beethoven
no answer yet  
on the verge of letting
go
wall of trees
a crowd of tongues the simple denial of light
my envelope seed
in cornucopia grinding
teeth machine a pullover switchblade
wake up from me
given the distant sun wrapped in
****** on clothes my miracle
tomorrow
  your fingers in me contemplating the ounces
of an inch thick sore
calmly anything in surrounding
distortion a weight of idle hands
needles
the acid belly
fortress within
your tourniquet
the victim of my believing in you
silent dead motionless
butterflies cradle the eyes
in the slit of dawn’s early malice
complacent and mind full
the choke hold is apparent in you
i wanted it
heart and throat convulsions the situation derives in itself
the wondering thought
your sickness dives among our ***** oiled mouths
spread like a homeless saint
save your self from the outside of me
as i look up you dissolve
the undeniable number of times
i spent inside you
it beats on
one short felt breath
my time is gone
everything’s alright
on my back
seeing unreal reasons for wanting
a crawling thought a
slip off the hand
grinding small animals the
door opens still life asphyxiation
the roundness of my echo
inside this explosion I ask for
blind allegiance to your *****
the simple duration of lust and gasping
acquaintances I have had
but all in tiny dreams that
eat away at my intestines
and rows or birds wait for their turn at me
for empty boxes cold whispers
and dead words
are what is left

Wake up vibrations,
stroke us kindly,
we’ll all be one someday,
singularity is just a timepiece.
Gotta sell the diamonds
to calibrate the cogs,
we’re digits livin in
clogged colons.
We cure MONOtony,
with medicinal MONOgamy,
mourning the cut cord of civility.

Oh, how I miss the vibrations
of those tribal jam sessions.
Maybe cause I didn’t record them
with voice memo boxes.
We’re living in boxes.
Driving in boxes.
Working in boxes.
Staring at boxes.
But beauty is roundness.
So help me measure the circumference of your face,
because I can’t tell where it begins and ends.
I will knit you a beenie come winter.
And we’ll skate upon this lake,
willing the ice to break.
Cause we are done being fake.
We are done telling people
where they should skate.
We are holding her hand
and his hand
and our own hand
when we hold hands.
Black Red White Yellow
they are all hands
with the power
to give and to take,
not just orate.
So give the politicians
the *******
and then join hands
break down rectangular gates.
Then, meditate.
We will wait for utopia,
but we won’t stand for things being the same.
And come spring when we re-awake,
we'll draw up a new constitution for
a consciousness revolution.

Black is the color of my true love.
Black is his voice.
Black is his face.
Black is his hair.

Black is the fullness of his lips.
Black is the roundness of his nose.
Black is the posture of his pose.

My true love is the color of black.
His strong back and arms.
His never give up or in attitude.

To him my soul belongs.
His love is mine.
And my love is his.

My true love is the color of black.

The old man was standing,
still and quite,
his back turned to the sun
as it drowned
in stormy shades of orange and pink.

The old man was still and quite,
staring the wavy distant line
hills and mountains drew.

The warmness of the dying day
spread a scent of hay, exhaling,
a violet blue slowly cloaking
distance and nearness.

As the full moon rose
in close roundness,
brightening contours
in a charcoal outline,
the old man lowered his head
and turned away.

In the early morning,
their feet wet by the dew
glimmering the fields,
giggling children
and women with panniers
swinging in their hands
would come
and harvest
the ripening fragrancy
of strawberry fields.

The hot boiled rice
With brown gram curry
The nutty smell of sesame
Oil shrills in hurry
Deployed on a thrice
larger rounder plate
For a boy's belly deplete.
"Can't eat this much rice!"
He shouts with a surprise.

“You can do my son sure.",
Her firm voice enssures
The boys look measures.
"The remainder you keep aside"
Her remand saves  his pride.

A monthly forty rupees
Should not be pretty reason
For a lodger's liberty to please
Among two of her teen sons
Than a welling spring of kindness
A heart huge in roundness
Larger than a stainless steel plate
With a profuse heap of hot rice
The smooth boiled brown pies
Oiled with fragrance fleet.

For how he fully did feat it?
How she purely predict it?
The stomach of a young one could hold
The heap of love on a stainless steel mold.

I promise the usual things:
to love you and respect you,
to hold you and want you,
to make you smile
and laugh, and dream.

But I also promise:
to hold your hand
when you are trying
to get something done,
just because.
to kiss you
in the middle of a sentence,
and make you cry with me
when my feelings overwhelm you.

I promise to look at the sky,
and name the stars for you,
I promise to learn you,
I promise to teach you,
share a million little useless facts,
about unimportant things.
I promise to show you,
the simple things that get me going,
like the liveliness in your eyes,
and I promise to remember
your aspirations
and what side of the bed you prefer.

I promise not to get mad
when you forget my birthday,
(I know, you’re not that good at that…
it’s kind of cute),
and I promise to interrupt you
with something I just remembered
from two weeks ago.
I promise to quote random books
and random people,
and maybe they won’t be that random,
if a particular phrase reminds me of you,
of me, of us.

I promise to sing,
maybe just once, to you,
and every day to the scars of our love
(when the time comes).
I promise to give you my all,
and learn how to cook,
and I promise to take a break,
every now and then,
from everything
so we can do silly things.
I promise you the usual things,
to love you and to hold you,
to be as certain of this,
as I am of evolution,
as sure as the roundness of Earth,
as steady as the rhythm of your breath
that night I felt you sleep underneath me.
I promise you myself,
I promise I will be happy for you,
and with you,
and because of you.

And I promise I will finish this someday.

First impressions dug deep into hearts of confusion
Messages of love so warm and vibrant
Perhaps we were fertile for such seeds of emotion?
Planted so accurately in our souls, cautious and yet receptive
As time proceeded the kernels of realisation developed roots, deep and stable
Reassuring our minds and relaxing our subliminal tension
Smoothing our lives as wonderful memories are built, daily
Simple hand touching and brushing of lips, sensitive and meaningful
Walking, talking and learning
A new experience that has become ‘us’, Jan and Max
No longer just two people but a synergy in living and loving
We get to know contentment and embrace it as a tender thing
Every day a careful brick of love is put in the wall of our future
Built on foundations of beautiful harmony and understanding
A creation of happiness and determination worn with confidence
Since no such feeling has ever before been available to us
Fortune and luck is one thing but such poignancy and roundness
Is seldom delivered in such an elegant packaging as our love
Each day is a treasure whatever we do
Feeling you close, hearing your voice, seeing your face.
Why is it so wonderful, was it the wait?
The lack of a belief then destroyed by the reality in fact?
Desperation of having no future, no plans and no-one to hold?
If so all of these are yet diminished by perfection
How close we are, how much we know of each other
Not just now but of the past and of the future we will share
Such true souls never to be parted, ever
These things are not accidental but designed with cosmic influence
Darling Jan since we met our growth has been amazing
Within ourselves and for each other, personally and as a couple
Stronger and stronger from one to a million and on
In this world and all to come
My whole being is completed, enhanced and fulfilled by you
Every day wonderful and a joyful symphony of love
My soul  and yours are united forever and my heart...?
I gave you my heart so long ago.... on the day we met.

'Hopes and Dreams'...explores the limitations of perception in more than three dimensions plus time.


I

Uncoupling hopes from truth sometimes reveals reality
Which is hard to bear
According to Eliot.
The difference between hope and what is real
Is sometimes the basis for laughter
Or tears…..
In equal measure
Depending on the deficit
Between reality, and the reality of hoping.
Two sides of the same coin
The masks of theatre,
Comedy and tragedy.

Yet reality is what we face day to day
Uncoupled from hope
An atheistic vision of what is true
In which dreams expire.

Hopes, dreams and reality
Congregate in theistic minds
As a woven integrity
But is the congress true?

Atheist and theist in perpetual conflict
One offering only truth,
The other hoping that belief is true
But, to what ….?
In this world caught in three dimensions
But do not forget time that marks when
We are born and when we die
According to Ecclesiastes.

The atheism of truths of a certain kind
Confined by the question asked
And who is asking, and the way of asking,
Atheist and theist talking at each other
But not in conversation
A dialogue of deafness to other points of view
An unbridged chasm for all of human history.

The certainty of truth is one problem,
Because certainty brooks no other view
But remember the constraints of truth’s
discovery and then assertion
In three dimensions, and do not forget time.

Unwittingly Carl Sagan made the point in flatland
A place of two dimensions,
Breadth and width, but no height
Infinitesimally flat, thin
Flat and thin, so that an apple
In its plump three dimensional roundness
Made its visit, announced its presence
But left only an infinitesimally flat, thin
Impression of its visitation,
With its announcement seemingly coming from wherever,
Infinite confusion.
For flatlanders who perceived a visitation
Without explanation
A mystery within which we experience
The determinism of truth
Not qualified by the dimensions
In which it’s made
Or defined
To the confusion of those who question truth,
If truth means the assertion of certainty.

Was it for flatlanders first cause?
Just like Paley’s watchmaker of the watch
found on the heath,
Each trapped in their respective
Two dimensions and three dimensions
Limited by their dimensionality
Of what they could see or imagine.
Not yet liberated by many dimensions
That liberated Tennyson to understand
That more is achieved by dreaming without limits.

Tennyson said…
That more things are achieved by prayer
Than this world dreams of,
But what are dreams?
Visions of hope, or the darkness of damnation?
But can we imagine these visions
In many dimensions?
And find new truths which we cannot perceive
In the day to day.

II

Dreams can be suspension
Between what is real and what we hope for,
Or ……
A plunge into an abyss of horrors
The nightmare’s nightcrusher
That reflects the fears of our experience,
The fears of Fuseli’s nights
Of grotesque creatures that taunt the hopes
Of our tomorrows
By revealing the layers of yesterday’s experience,
A past that haunts the future
In the day to day.

Yet redeemed by intentions
For the good,
And honourable to the nature of humankind,
And lifekind with which we share organic ancestry.

Dreams release the mind to find another place,
Another dimension, where what happens
Can happen and more than we can suppose
According to Haldane.

Limitless possibilities that dreamtimes
Expose what we do not own
But instead we are a part of.
Land, sea and air fused with the spirit
Of peoples that inhabit distant shores
Where they are one with the place
Where they are, were and will be
For all time.
The dreamtime of Australia’s
Original peoples.

And so the plump apple
Becomes a part of the experience
Of those who live in two dimensions,
Carl’s flatlanders experience their
Dreamtime of first causes
Because the missing dimension disallows
Their understanding of what is real.

So conflate the idea to many dimensions
And you can see what I mean.
Imagine the unimaginable
That cannot be seen
Because of the constraints of three dimensions.

And do not forget time
Perhaps the portal for imagining
What cannot be experienced
In spacetime warped and curved
By the embrace of gravity.

We sail in this cosmic sea
Not seeing its possibilities
Because we are not equipped
To see through a glass darkly
Or so Corinthians says
But to half see, dimly see
Love
And the truth of black holes
Where physics is sundered
Perhaps allowing passage to other creations
To us mere visions of what we aspire to be
And understand
Just as Blake saw heaven in a wild flower.

III

To perceive the possibility of many dimensions
Is to free the mind
From superstition
From the prejudices
That blight the landscape of our thinking,
And the landscape of dreams
When we perceive self
As if disembodied
Floating on the ceiling looking down
Detachedly on what we do
And what others do in the day to day.

Doings driven by the limited framework
Of width, breadth and height.
Width and breadth and height
And do not forget the passage of time
In which our doings take place.

One is singular in mind and body
Meaning self in the day to day.
To be beside oneself is joy and anger
The Janus faced self
Somewhat like the masks of comedy and tragedy
But of emotion and not theatrical circumstance.

How many multiples of
Space and time
Are needed to be beside oneself
In a quantum universe?
Or universes where to touch would be
Annihilation of self
Tracked as energy pure, and as simple
As the dreams of our disembodied self
Looking down from the ceiling.

IV

Is hope the delusion of optimism,
Dreams its manifestation of unreality?
Who can say because analysis
Is limited within the context of our perception.
Perception influenced by prejudice and misunderstanding
Because we are limited by what
Can be understood
In three dimensions,
And do not forget time
And gravity
And the failure of its resolution with dimension
and time
Limiting understanding.



But……
If we acknowledge the limitations
Even if not understanding the quantum context
Then, given we are prepared to accept the
uncertainty
Described by Heisenberg,
Then we are mentally equipped
To understand that truth is provisional
But with verity according to experience
Accumulated through the continuity of history.

We try to resolve contradictions
Because resolution anchors us into
the certainty of
Our present experience,
And certainty is comfort, allowing us to live
Day to day.

David Applin, May 2013

Copyright David Applin 2015

I

Curled
a snake of a road
uplifted on a bank
of mud falling
to a welter of mud
glistening gleaming
in the afternoon light

Underfoot
on the rough road
a green mossy
water-**** alive
out in the air
waits to be swept
over and again
by the evening tide


II

Let me stand still
from this relentless
passaging looking
attentive always
investigating the possibilities
of all the eye can see
within a footstep’s distance
an arm’s reach
a hand’s touch

Let me stand still
on this low **** wall
between estuary water
and a channel in the marsh
One - a lively blue
waved and winded
every which way
The other - a muddy brown
rippling in one direction
in slow procession

Let me stand still
but turn slowly
to mark the edges
of the sky’s horizon
turning clockwise
from the north
and return -
a whole sky seen

Let me stand in wonder
as flock and skein
a sky-squadron of geese
high-flying over head
southward out of a pool
of midday estuary light
to disappear beyond
the mainland shore


III

The boat keels over
so the line of her
below-water body
reveals a womanly self
that roundness
that beamyness
so rightly feminine
and now holding to herself
a heeling hull
full-breasted sails
taut in wind and water

IV

A drawing makes the ordinary important
It is a text that forgetting words for once
spells out the body's role in fashioning
our creative thought

Its contours no longer
mark the edge
of what you’ve seen
but what you might become
- each mark a stepping stone
to cross a subject as if a river
and put it then - behind you

V

Soon to be sloed
but wait a while . . .
its lovely flowers
must form first
on this shrub we call
Prunus Spinosa
the Blackthorn

Flowering against
the sky’s blue morning
as if it were -
a cloud of whiteness
a masking of lacework
spread on stiff branches

Yet here
in the garden below
this towered room
in which I write
the shrub has clothed
the end of the garden’s
marsh-facing wall
above and across
and on either side
spreading to newly-cut grass
falling on the pasture beyond
holding itself
purposefully against
the prevailing wind

VI

Silvery in gun-metal greyness
this evergreen edible shrub
(the Sea Purslane)
with mealy leaves
and star-shaped flowers
form a natural border
twixt shoreline path
and salt-sea strand

A hiding place
for ***** its leaves
hold fronds that take
a reddish hue
a delicate shade
welcome-colouring
in this marshness of mud
and brown water

VII

How fitting are the words
correctly scribed on the bench
by the wall in the orchard
next the pond on this fine
sunny day Certainly
‘The time has come, ‘
the Walrus said,
‘To speak of many things:
of shoes and ships
and sealing wax - of cabbages
and kings’.

Yes - this gentle morning
blessed by softest breeze
and shadow-playing light
has formed a place of peace
to summon thoughts
that hold no sense
except to scan so rightly
for the writer’s pen
the reader’s voice

Such random objects
fuel imagination’s play
this sunny day upon
the bench beside the wall
within the orchard
next the pond

VIII

By dancing shadows on the wall
a plaque records his gift:
orchard - pond - and all within
two garden walls
a rough masonry
variously gathered
rich in colour
mark and fissure

Four Italianate hives
cylindrically domed
precariously tiled
set at ends and in between
on fifty yards of facing walls
- as cotes for doves perhaps?
to coo and coo . .
when shadows
move and flicker
on the wall
to and fro to and fro

because he loved this island
so - he wished his memories
might live here and now

IX

Together on the sea wall
she said look
an owl on that fence
over there
Short-eared she said

and so silent
(with surreptitious step)
we advanced - it stirred
and lifting its broad-winged
body flowed into flight
with slow strong strokes
beating hard towards the sea

but changing its mind
(and poising on the wind)
returned to quarter
the field below
where we stood standing
rapt by its silent purpose
as it turned and tumbled
to get a better view
of whatever poor creature
lay beneath its
telescopic sight

X

Here to seek a stillness
I don’t own but claim
I do  - so here and now
in this quiet corner
(my back to that rough-hewn wall
fluid with its dance of shadows)
I wait to hear to listen
and to know . . .

Seated on this bench inscribed
with Lewis Carol’s words
there is an invitation made
to take the time
to talk of many things
(if only to oneself)
Insignificant actions
Graceful words of love
Admiration and respect
for friends and simple pleasures -
We are so blest in all such things . . .
*believing always
a greater Providence
that (so to speak)
waits ahead of us

This cabbage,
Just an average roundness,
When turning greener then the savage forests,
Ruined my marriage at this early stage. 
And now it's in a beige paper bag.

This peach,
My lover of all trinkets,
Became a gluten-tree fork,
With its ***** like a beach ball,
Came to me in a dream-like trance. 

This onion,
The only window to my decomposing soul,
Unraveled its layers of tears to me in all
It's subtlety. It jumped on a subway train
Looking for fresher markets of prosperity. 

Desperately, still.

Dear stranger,

when I was crying on a park bench in the rain, why did you offer out an umbrella? Every other stranger had rushed away as if tears were contagious, but you welcomed mine. Why did you go a step further to ask what's wrong? When not even those I know care to ask. We sat there in the rain until my words stopped and the clouds cleared. Why did you reach for my hand when I left? Are you too in need of a listening ear? I have known you for hours yet I feel with you I am safe, you have a stability about you, like a strong shape. Yet a roundness as well, a softness. If I believed in instant love, you would be mine.

With love,
the person crying on the park bench,
Yemaya

On days like this
cool, with little winds
desert birds forage for sticks
they build nests perched in cactus
some build green in palo verde trees
always I think of baby birds in spring
hatchlings, the fledglings that fly
I travel far beyond the noise of towns
watch the movement of cooling clouds
the roundness of rain upon the ground
the grey banked scurrilous skies
of hurried birds, their silhouettes before a storm
daisies that close, cold amid the stones
beneath where snakes and lizards go
slither and crawl in this landscape of saguaros
and I, ever tethered can only dream to fly.

Salt and sand all over my hands and in the air
Lending that tossed, windy texture to your hair
Sand covered wheels roll us down the boardwalk beside
The push and pull of wanting and waiting  blue waves
My fever and thrill so desperate to hold onto you
Burning and impulsive I ask you to bring me to life.

So the sun laid its hand on my scalp, gentle and beaming
Like the perfect roundness of your eyes, gentle and beaming
I absorb the heat from you both, a seaside pocket of heaven

To be a lover when the air is hot and the vibrant colors burn
To explore the world in the ****** of summer, passionately, together
Is the best way to get to know some one, you said to me.

The water lights up so stunning and bright in the midday heat
Like blinding diamonds across miles of blue disappearing edges
So perfect it makes me forget I am not new, nor the first to find you
But it’s impossible to harbor such feelings before a perfect dreamy horizon
So I let it all go,

I’m aware of what we are
What my hair, my lips, my eyes are all symbols of
Suns, moons, and stars from a world sister to ours
A world without the structure and friction these people know

With you I’m unafraid to take this world, to claim that I belong here
To kiss your lips on the boardwalk, to wear my hair down in the wind
To show my skin under the sunlight, to lift up my arms and beam
One person can ******* alive, one summer, one bright beachy day.

Decent—
I hate that word.
My mother wants me to be decent
when all I really want to be,
what I actually am,
is loud,
color,
all mouth,
leather skirts,
and hoop earrings,
(an ode to the roundness of the sun)
nails in deep, dark red,
banging doors,
and laughing in all the wrong places.
She wants decent,
she means 'quiet'.
She means 'not anyone'.
She means 'forgettable'.
She means 'the kind you take home to momma'.
But, see—
I'm a Warhol pop art,
Kahlo brows,
that mouth in the Munch in a constant 'o',
the kind to put herself in an oven
and call it a day,
shirts cropped to their full potential,
belly button to the light,
black line drawn like a cat's,
maybe a little cherry on the lips
(the kind to kiss boys sweeter, dear).

But, okay, I love you—
and I will put on the heirloom pieces.
Just for tonight.

She is mathematics,
bare necessity in numbers

Curvature and roundness,
symmetrical circumference
lies in the rise of her hips

A tanned half moon,
a breast

A pose

The fall equinox begins
in the shadow
of the small of her back

Night looms beyond, below
connecting beauty's dots

Her body reclines,
hand resting between waist
and hip, an impasse

Head at rest
held by soft hand.

The Sage is short and compose of circles.
Flattened circles, not ovular.
A roundness that is not portly nor lean
Just round, simply circular, simply his shape.

The Sage speaks with contrasting sharpness,
A voice angular, particularly his laugh. Cacklingly
Angular. Unexpected laughs seem demonic.
But The Sage is wise and sometimes even holy.

The Sage talks about fuel to push young artists.
Graduate schools, challenges, gasoline to blaze and extinguish.
I consider the role of Serious Artist, capitalization so telling
And am curious if that is me, if it could ever be.

The Sage knows but wants me to search
He knows but isn’t telling
You’ll have to wait, the Sage says.
I’ll show you, soon, when you stop searching so hard.

sternum (n.)
a bone extending along the middle line of the ventral portion of the body consisting of a flat, narrow bone connected with the clavicles and the true ribs.
I remember taking an anatomy class in high school, we had to memorize the bones of the body - the skeletal system. Scapula, humerus, mandible all favorable to the tongue, but I never liked the word sternum, it sounds far too angry, nothing like the supple it actually is. Years later I would still find myself walking to work and naming them off. Bones on my mind. Tibia, ulna, femur, breastbone.
Breastbone rolls around my mouth, lulls my anxiety towards its twin like a boat in calm waters. I think of your breastbone as a platform to profess my fascination. I am surprisingly amazed every time I count the steady rhythm of your heart, it's sound conducted as though your breastbone is a soundboard. I feel the slight ridges of your ribs when my head lays in the valley of your chest. There's not a day that I wouldn't love to get lost in the formations of your bones, each crevice a new place to hide - lounging in the curve of your collar bone, plucking the muscles of your fingers like guitar strings, getting lost to the soft scent of skin, and memorizing the plush roundness of your *******, each sensation leaves me with a new obsession. I look for replicas in everyday life, the hunt almost as intoxicating as smoke from campfires, or plucking wishbones from hens.

On the street in Tokyo one summer
a woman seized my shoulders,
her coarse hair as coal as night and hugging her face
so that when she opened her mouth
the darkness and roundness of it all
was as if a black hole were to engulf me entirely.
Good nature and sake
dried in spittle on her lip,
she cupped my *******
and fed me the Universe
thick from her own swollen *****.