to the young privateer.
the captain kidd & his bought n’ taut gang of holy bluffs.
they bribe and imbibe and swoon on the dock-way looking for a quest or two or three
to dream and bury their doubloons in island guts like little mysteries. little sundowns
over a rixdollar indian ocean.
let them take a turn.
destined to mutate from private to pirate, the kidd, like blackened rotten wood.
******* frigates.

the ship:
with her bob and sway. she is, the adventure.
& her song is calling out for a rapturous few,
for men ready to die on the highwater mark by glory or fire or dead glorious sun.
so they put her brass and bough to seafaring days,
the sweet galleon, barely wet, yet
completely riffed to voyage.
she is
from the shores of london. built. designed to kick 14 knots under a full sail blast.
& she will bite.

she’s in calm waters.
the kidd savvy toothed and butterscotched, he awaits the big show,
engorged to set forth the play like wily ocean dervish &
they do.
they do proceed with benefactors coined and crunched on postulations of pirate death &
pirate gold. reclaimed honor as they say. the hunt for pirate teeth.

& with official pass and parchment, high-throne approved,
king ***** III stamp & sealed,
this voyage is.
this voyage is and forever was, hereby charted, to recover said stolen goods.
to reclaim thy warrior vanity &/or vengeance.
to noble this **** with pinched loaf, like now.
set sail. now.
1696.

“**** them navy yachts at greenwich, the thames be ours, boys.”
slap *** and flick thumb toward those armada sons,
& as tribute
smoke balsam herbs on the starboard side for the mother she and the father be.
but for this slight,
this dishonorable silly ****,
one third of adventure’s men are pressed into service of the crown.

[continue.]

the adventuresome few, petty crew and crows.
steal the heart and mother-meat of a french ship. steal everything onboard.
steal the ship itself.
& on her way to new york, new boon, pure and entered into the new world.  
there are new men bought in the american port,
good men and odd men of long criminal legacy.
a small black vicious quartermaster. he’ll do.
a murderous preacher gripped by stars and celestial patterns. he speaks spanish. he’ll do.
another type of holy man and a wild drinker too, embattled by demons on the port side. sure.
plus the dock-boys destined to **** for fruits of exploration.
this is the way of the son of a gun.

the boatmen jockeyed. she is
the adventure
prancing the vertebrae of atlantic and beyond. cape of good hope, she
breathes easy out here on the wide tide and float.
out here on the vast blue this. she
evolves
out here. loves out here.

pirates.
the hunt for pirates or the lack thereof. she leaks.
she rasps into the years on. and on.
the kaleidoscope hallucinations of sun and moon, sun and moon, and moon and sun
forever.
the strait of bab-el-mandeb.
& there
she plunges into darkness, into the stars seen from and through a periscope formed
by ancient hominid lineage.
seen but untouched,
in dreams. the kidd, reluctantly lime, admits to his madness.
madagascar.

malaria and cholera and hell break the boat by the throat.
& thrash.
to be organic is to be ruled by a shadow, or entropy.
the mouth of a red sea.
one third of the men will die here.
simply as insects crushed and brushed off deck and into to her great spate of agua,
the mother gush.
her earth.
body.
father,
hear his whispers in the mirage.
the ancient mariner, the ancient holy ghost riming down there.

in destitution.
in a rough and soggy life squeezed and making men weird or violent or both be ******.
the kidd goes cold to hot sweating noxious.
turns pirate himself
out of sheer hunger.
out of sheer need to eat.
sets the boys like dogs upon a frigate of east india company men,
or french *****. either/or/or/either/or.
he & the boys are in a madness swirl of sun and heavy guts.
cuts to spill blood
or gold. this tender bit.
lip bit
& tested.

captain kidd fractures the skull of a deckhand named moore,
for bad attitude and giggles. moore gets death.
chisel on the deck.
& to think we are all troubled by some primal trauma.
some dumb thing called death, that is.
men starving, men dying, men falling in the vast black that is that eternal void.
dream of women and riches in the meantime.
fortunes.
1698.

savage kidd, cool kidd, cool spit
off the edge. to think of the once soulful idea of these paradise days
& trip.
savage to cool.
the two divine modes of a survived man.
a ghoul man, or aging man.
& to keep control of his crew kidd sets them upon the quedagh merchant;
a 400 ton armenian hulk chalk full of gold, silver, satins, and muslin. ‘tis *****.
renames her: the adventure prize.

madness quenched for now.
charmed for now
& on the horizon are fragrant times. blissful distance.
but robert culliford,
with his mocha frigate. this man, this suave pirate lord, his vengeance act.
he had stolen kidd’s ship years back, &
the captain opts to cut his throat.
take the mocha.
keep calm & carry on.
to paradise.
to dream of her cool warm beaches and fruit forever, peacefully thinking.
so that night they two drink together in good health, and in the morning
most of the men defect to this other man, this other ship, culliford.
other dream,
other captain of true buccaneer effect.
act 3:

13 remain in the galley firm.
this is the house adventure.
& she is burnt alive three days later for rot and ill repair.
but she was fun,
& a *****.
a stitch of old woodwork given-in
& crackling with the eyes of her crew seen in fire.

kidd steps the pond to caribbean times with the adventure prize, toad toxins
& high on the jungled shore.
he trades that colossus, flips her for a sloop and seven little chests of gold.
little bellies.
the island-gut doubloons to bury.
dream, remember?

but the men-of-war are after him now. the privateers & hunters & devil’s dogs.
the men he once was.
men of marked death.
& he is now some pirate, some forthright bandit
settled to **** or be killed.
some sad kid.

first: buries that treasure up the coast of america.
oak island rig.
cherry rocks of the maine bank and *****-trapped pit.
the hunted.
they catch him on an inlet ****, and sail back
to london to be tried for crimes against the crown.
the high court of admirality.
1701.

they hoist and gibbet his body with worn chains above the river.
not for piracy, but for ******.
the ****** of that strange deckhand moore and his giggle.
kidd’s bones
suspended there for three or more years at the mouth of the thames,
as warning
to the perverse travails of a criminal lifestyle on the highwater pond.

There’s a scurrying sound of something, burrowing,
Down in the depths of the dungeons, hurrying,
Skittering, pittering-pattering, scattering
When there’s a footstep, hear them chattering:
‘Here come the lords, and here comes the vassal,
Tripping their way through Cockroach Castle.’

Here come the ladies, all in their finery
Tripping and sipping the wine from the winery,
Trailing their silks, their satins and bustling,
Up in the ballroom, while the rustling
Army beneath the sounds of their razzle
Is down in the depths of Cockroach Castle.

Spilling their millions up in the glooming
Out from the flagstones, terror is looming,
Up on the awnings, hung from the ceiling
Under the swish of the skirts they’re stealing,
Dropping in hair, and burrowing faster,
Cockroach Castle is set for disaster.

Suddenly all of the room is screaming
Flapping of hands, the roaches are teeming,
Myriad hordes in the Carbonara,
Candles are tipped from the candelabra,
Choking smoke from the candles guttered,
Flames leap up from the ones that stuttered.

Clothing and flags and the awnings razing
Silks and satins flare up, and blazing,
Roaches in eyes and ears, they’re rasping
Clogging their throats, to leave them gasping,
There isn’t a lady or lord, or vassal
To come out alive from Cockroach Castle!

David Lewis Paget

I am too close for him to dream about me.
I'm not flying over him, not fleeing him
under the roots of trees. I am too close.
Not with my voice sings the fish in the net.
Not from my finger rolls the ring.
I am too close. A large house is on fire
without my calling for help. Too close
for a bell dangling from my hair to chime.
Too close for me to enter as a guest
before whom the walls part.
Never again will I die so readily,
so far beyond the flesh, so inadvertently
as once in his dream. I am too close,
too close—I hear the hiss
and see the glittering husk of that word,
as I lie immobilized in his embrace. He sleeps,
more available at this moment
to the ticket lady of a one-lion traveling circus
seen but once in his life
than to me lying beside him.
Now a valley grows for her in him, ochre-leaved,
closed off by a snowy mountain
in the azure air. I am too close
to fall out of the sky for him. My scream
might only awaken him. Poor me,
limited to my own form,
but I was a birch tree, I was a lizard,
I emerged from satins and sundials
my skins shimmering in different colors. I possessed
the grace to disappear from astonished eyes,
and that is the rich man's riches. I am too close,
too close for him to dream about me.
I slip my arm out from under his sleeping head.
It's numb, full of imaginary pins and needles.
And on the head of each, ready to be counted,
dance the fallen angels.

I

Out of the little chapel I burst
Into the fresh night-air again.
Five minutes full, I waited first
In the doorway, to escape the rain
That drove in gusts down the common’s centre
At the edge of which the chapel stands,
Before I plucked up heart to enter.
Heaven knows how many sorts of hands
Reached past me, groping for the latch
Of the inner door that hung on catch
More obstinate the more they fumbled,
Till, giving way at last with a scold
Of the crazy hinge, in squeezed or tumbled
One sheep more to the rest in fold,
And left me irresolute, standing sentry
In the sheepfold’s lath-and-plaster entry,
Six feet long by three feet wide,
Partitioned off from the vast inside—
I blocked up half of it at least.
No remedy; the rain kept driving.
They eyed me much as some wild beast,
That congregation, still arriving,
Some of them by the main road, white
A long way past me into the night,
Skirting the common, then diverging;
Not a few suddenly emerging
From the common’s self through the paling-gaps,
—They house in the gravel-pits perhaps,
Where the road stops short with its safeguard border
Of lamps, as tired of such disorder;—
But the most turned in yet more abruptly
From a certain squalid knot of alleys,
Where the town’s bad blood once slept corruptly,
Which now the little chapel rallies
And leads into day again,—its priestliness
Lending itself to hide their beastliness
So cleverly (thanks in part to the mason),
And putting so cheery a whitewashed face on
Those neophytes too much in lack of it,
That, where you cross the common as I did,
And meet the party thus presided,
“Mount Zion” with Love-lane at the back of it,
They front you as little disconcerted
As, bound for the hills, her fate averted,
And her wicked people made to mind him,
Lot might have marched with Gomorrah behind him.

II

Well, from the road, the lanes or the common,
In came the flock: the fat weary woman,
Panting and bewildered, down-clapping
Her umbrella with a mighty report,
Grounded it by me, wry and flapping,
A wreck of whalebones; then, with a snort,
Like a startled horse, at the interloper
(Who humbly knew himself improper,
But could not shrink up small enough)
—Round to the door, and in,—the gruff
Hinge’s invariable scold
Making my very blood run cold.
Prompt in the wake of her, up-pattered
On broken clogs, the many-tattered
Little old-faced peaking sister-turned-mother
Of the sickly babe she tried to smother
Somehow up, with its spotted face,
From the cold, on her breast, the one warm place;
She too must stop, wring the poor ends dry
Of a draggled shawl, and add thereby
Her tribute to the door-mat, sopping
Already from my own clothes’ dropping,
Which yet she seemed to grudge I should stand on:
Then, stooping down to take off her pattens,
She bore them defiantly, in each hand one,
Planted together before her breast
And its babe, as good as a lance in rest.
Close on her heels, the dingy satins
Of a female something past me flitted,
With lips as much too white, as a streak
Lay far too red on each hollow cheek;
And it seemed the very door-hinge pitied
All that was left of a woman once,
Holding at least its tongue for the *****.
Then a tall yellow man, like the Penitent Thief,
With his jaw bound up in a handkerchief,
And eyelids ******* together tight,
Led himself in by some inner light.
And, except from him, from each that entered,
I got the same interrogation—
“What, you the alien, you have ventured
To take with us, the elect, your station?
A carer for none of it, a Gallio!”—
Thus, plain as print, I read the glance
At a common prey, in each countenance
As of huntsman giving his hounds the tallyho.
And, when the door’s cry drowned their wonder,
The draught, it always sent in shutting,
Made the flame of the single tallow candle
In the cracked square lantern I stood under,
Shoot its blue lip at me, rebutting
As it were, the luckless cause of scandal:
I verily fancied the zealous light
(In the chapel’s secret, too!) for spite
Would shudder itself clean off the wick,
With the airs of a Saint John’s Candlestick.
There was no standing it much longer.
“Good folks,” thought I, as resolve grew stronger,
“This way you perform the Grand-Inquisitor
When the weather sends you a chance visitor?
You are the men, and wisdom shall die with you,
And none of the old Seven Churches vie with you!
But still, despite the pretty perfection
To which you carry your trick of exclusiveness,
And, taking God’s word under wise protection,
Correct its tendency to diffusiveness,
And bid one reach it over hot ploughshares,—
Still, as I say, though you’ve found salvation,
If I should choose to cry, as now, ‘Shares!’—
See if the best of you bars me my ration!
I prefer, if you please, for my expounder
Of the laws of the feast, the feast’s own Founder;
Mine’s the same right with your poorest and sickliest,
Supposing I don the marriage vestiment:
So, shut your mouth and open your Testament,
And carve me my portion at your quickliest!”
Accordingly, as a shoemaker’s lad
With wizened face in want of soap,
And wet apron wound round his waist like a rope,
(After stopping outside, for his cough was bad,
To get the fit over, poor gentle creature
And so avoid distrubing the preacher)
—Passed in, I sent my elbow spikewise
At the shutting door, and entered likewise,
Received the hinge’s accustomed greeting,
And crossed the threshold’s magic pentacle,
And found myself in full conventicle,
—To wit, in Zion Chapel Meeting,
On the Christmas-Eve of ‘Forty-nine,
Which, calling its flock to their special clover,
Found all assembled and one sheep over,
Whose lot, as the weather pleased, was mine.

III

I very soon had enough of it.
The hot smell and the human noises,
And my neighbor’s coat, the greasy cuff of it,
Were a pebble-stone that a child’s hand poises,
Compared with the pig-of-lead-like pressure
Of the preaching man’s immense stupidity,
As he poured his doctrine forth, full measure,
To meet his audience’s avidity.
You needed not the wit of the Sibyl
To guess the cause of it all, in a twinkling:
No sooner our friend had got an inkling
Of treasure hid in the Holy Bible,
(Whene’er ‘t was the thought first struck him,
How death, at unawares, might duck him
Deeper than the grave, and quench
The gin-shop’s light in hell’s grim drench)
Than he handled it so, in fine irreverence,
As to hug the book of books to pieces:
And, a patchwork of chapters and texts in severance,
Not improved by the private dog’s-ears and creases,
Having clothed his own soul with, he’d fain see equipt yours,—
So tossed you again your Holy Scriptures.
And you picked them up, in a sense, no doubt:
Nay, had but a single face of my neighbors
Appeared to suspect that the preacher’s labors
Were help which the world could be saved without,
‘T is odds but I might have borne in quiet
A qualm or two at my spiritual diet,
Or (who can tell?) perchance even mustered
Somewhat to urge in behalf of the sermon:
But the flock sat on, divinely flustered,
Sniffing, methought, its dew of Hermon
With such content in every snuffle,
As the devil inside us loves to ruffle.
My old fat woman purred with pleasure,
And thumb round thumb went twirling faster,
While she, to his periods keeping measure,
Maternally devoured the pastor.
The man with the handkerchief untied it,
Showed us a horrible wen inside it,
Gave his eyelids yet another *******,
And rocked himself as the woman was doing.
The shoemaker’s lad, discreetly choking,
Kept down his cough. ‘T was too provoking!
My gorge rose at the nonsense and stuff of it;
So, saying like Eve when she plucked the apple,
“I wanted a taste, and now there’s enough of it,”
I flung out of the little chapel.

IV

There was a lull in the rain, a lull
In the wind too; the moon was risen,
And would have shone out pure and full,
But for the ramparted cloud-prison,
Block on block built up in the West,
For what purpose the wind knows best,
Who changes his mind continually.
And the empty other half of the sky
Seemed in its silence as if it knew
What, any moment, might look through
A chance gap in that fortress massy:—
Through its fissures you got hints
Of the flying moon, by the shifting tints,
Now, a dull lion-color, now, brassy
Burning to yellow, and whitest yellow,
Like furnace-smoke just ere flames bellow,
All a-simmer with intense strain
To let her through,—then blank again,
At the hope of her appearance failing.
Just by the chapel a break in the railing
Shows a narrow path directly across;
‘T is ever dry walking there, on the moss—
Besides, you go gently all the way up-hill.
I stooped under and soon felt better;
My head grew lighter, my limbs more supple,
As I walked on, glad to have slipt the fetter.
My mind was full of the scene I had left,
That placid flock, that pastor vociferant,
—How this outside was pure and different!
The sermon, now—what a mingled weft
Of good and ill! Were either less,
Its fellow had colored the whole distinctly;
But alas for the excellent earnestness,
And the truths, quite true if stated succinctly,
But as surely false, in their quaint presentment,
However to pastor and flock’s contentment!
Say rather, such truths looked false to your eyes,
With his provings and parallels twisted and twined,
Till how could you know them, grown double their size
In the natural fog of the good man’s mind,
Like yonder spots of our roadside lamps,
Haloed about with the common’s damps?
Truth remains true, the fault’s in the prover;
The zeal was good, and the aspiration;
And yet, and yet, yet, fifty times over,
Pharaoh received no demonstration,
By his Baker’s dream of Baskets Three,
Of the doctrine of the Trinity,—
Although, as our preacher thus embellished it,
Apparently his hearers relished it
With so unfeigned a gust—who knows if
They did not prefer our friend to Joseph?
But so it is everywhere, one way with all of them!
These people have really felt, no doubt,
A something, the motion they style the Call of them;
And this is their method of bringing about,
By a mechanism of words and tones,
(So many texts in so many groans)
A sort of reviving and reproducing,
More or less perfectly, (who can tell?)
The mood itself, which strengthens by using;
And how that happens, I understand well.
A tune was born in my head last week,
Out of the thump-thump and shriek-shriek
Of the train, as I came by it, up from Manchester;
And when, next week, I take it back again,
My head will sing to the engine’s clack again,
While it only makes my neighbor’s haunches stir,
—Finding no dormant musical sprout
In him, as in me, to be jolted out.
‘T is the taught already that profits by teaching;
He gets no more from the railway’s preaching
Than, from this preacher who does the rail’s officer, I:
Whom therefore the flock cast a jealous eye on.
Still, why paint over their door “Mount Zion,”
To which all flesh shall come, saith the pro phecy?

V

But wherefore be harsh on a single case?
After how many modes, this Christmas-Eve,
Does the self-same weary thing take place?
The same endeavor to make you believe,
And with much the same effect, no more:
Each method abundantly convincing,
As I say, to those convinced before,
But scarce to be swallowed without wincing
By the not-as-yet-convinced. For me,
I have my own church equally:
And in this church my faith sprang first!
(I said, as I reached the rising ground,
And the wind began again, with a burst
Of rain in my face, and a glad rebound
From the heart beneath, as if, God speeding me,
I entered his church-door, nature leading me)
—In youth I looked to these very skies,
And probing their immensities,
I found God there, his visible power;
Yet felt in my heart, amid all its sense
Of the power, an equal evidence
That his love, there too, was the nobler dower.
For the loving worm within its clod
Were diviner than a loveless god
Amid his worlds, I will dare to say.
You know what I mean: God’s all man’s naught:
But also, God, whose pleasure brought
Man into being, stands away
As it were a handbreadth off, to give
Room for the newly-made to live,
And look at him from a place apart,
And use his gifts of brain and heart,
Given, indeed, but to keep forever.
Who speaks of man, then, must not sever
Man’s very elements from man,
Saying, “But all is God’s”—whose plan
Was to create man and then leave him
Able, his own word saith, to grieve him,
But able to glorify him too,
As a mere machine could never do,
That prayed or praised, all unaware
Of its fitness for aught but praise and prayer,
Made perfect as a thing of course.
Man, therefore, stands on his own stock
Of love and power as a pin-point rock:
And, looking to God who ordained divorce
Of the rock from his boundless continent,
Sees, in his power made evident,
Only excess by a million-fold
O’er the power God gave man in the mould.
For, note: man’s hand, first formed to carry
A few pounds’ weight, when taught to marry
Its strength with an engine’s, lifts a mountain,
—Advancing in power by one degree;
And why count steps through eternity?
But love is the ever-springing fountain:
Man may enlarge or narrow his bed
For the water’s play, but the water-head—
How can he multiply or reduce it?
As easy create it, as cause it to cease;
He may profit by it, or abuse it,
But ‘t is not a thing to bear increase
As power does: be love less or more
In the heart of man, he keeps it shut
Or opes it wide, as he pleases, but
Love’s sum remains what it was before.
So, gazing up, in my youth, at love
As seen through power, ever above
All modes which make it manifest,
My soul brought all to a single test—
That he, the Eternal First and Last,
Who, in his power, had so surpassed
All man conceives of what is might,—
Whose wisdom, too, showed infinite,
—Would prove as infinitely good;
Would never, (my soul understood,)
With power to work all love desires,
Bestow e’en less than man requires;
That he who endlessly was teaching,
Above my spirit’s utmost reaching,
What love can do in the leaf or stone,
(So that to master this alone,
This done in the stone or leaf for me,
I must go on learning endlessly)
Would never need that I, in turn,
Should point him out defect unheeded,
And show that God had yet to learn
What the meanest human creature needed,
—Not life, to wit, for a few short years,
Tracking his way through doubts and fears,
While the stupid earth on which I stay
Suffers no change, but passive adds
Its myriad years to myriads,
Though I, he gave it to, decay,
Seeing death come and choose about me,
And my dearest ones depart without me.
No: love which, on earth, amid all the shows of it,
Has ever been seen the sole good of life in it,
The love, ever growing there, spite of the strife in it,
Shall arise, made perfect, from death’s repose of it.
And I shall behold thee, face to face,
O God, and in thy light retrace
How in all I loved here, still wast thou!
Whom pressing to, then, as I fain would now,
I shall find as able to satiate
The love, thy gift, as my spirit’s wonder
Thou art able to quicken and sublimate,
With this sky of thine, that I now walk under
And glory in thee for, as I gaze
Thus, thus! Oh, let men keep their ways
Of seeking thee in a narrow shrine—
Be this my way! And this is mine!

VI

For lo, what think you? suddenly
The rain and the wind ceased, and the sky
Received at once the full fruition
Of the moon’s consummate apparition.
The black cloud-barricade was riven,
Ruined beneath her feet, and driven
Deep in the West; while, bare and breathless,
North and South and East lay ready
For a glorious thing that, dauntless, deathless,
Sprang across them and stood steady.
‘T was a moon-rainbow, vast and perfect,
From heaven to heaven extending, perfect
As the mother-moon’s self, full in face.
It rose, distinctly at the base
With its seven proper colors chorded,
Which still, in the rising, were compressed,
Until at last they coalesced,
And supreme the spectral creature lorded
In a triumph of whitest white,—
Above which intervened the night.
But above night too, like only the next,
The second of a wondrous sequence,
Reaching in rare and rarer frequence,
Till the heaven of heavens were circumflexed
Another rainbow rose, a mightier,
Fainter, flushier and flightier,—
Rapture dying along its verge.
Oh, whose foot shall I see emerge,
Whose, from the straining topmost dark,
On to the keystone of that are?

VII

This sight was shown me, there and then,—
Me, one out of a world of men,
Singled forth, as the chance might hap
To another if, in a thu

What is this, behind this veil, is it ugly, is it beautiful?
It is shimmering, has it *******, has it edges?

I am sure it is unique, I am sure it is what I want.
When I am quiet at my cooking I feel it looking, I feel it thinking

'Is this the one I am too appear for,
Is this the elect one, the one with black eye-pits and a scar?

Measuring the flour, cutting off the surplus,
Adhering to rules, to rules, to rules.

Is this the one for the annunciation?
My god, what a laugh!'

But it shimmers, it does not stop, and I think it wants me.
I would not mind if it were bones, or a pearl button.

I do not want much of a present, anyway, this year.
After all I am alive only by accident.

I would have killed myself gladly that time any possible way.
Now there are these veils, shimmering like curtains,

The diaphanous satins of a January window
White as babies' bedding and glittering with dead breath. O ivory!

It must be a tusk there, a ghost column.
Can you not see I do not mind what it is.

Can you not give it to me?
Do not be ashamed--I do not mind if it is small.

Do not be mean, I am ready for enormity.
Let us sit down to it, one on either side, admiring the gleam,

The glaze, the mirrory variety of it.
Let us eat our last supper at it, like a hospital plate.

I know why you will not give it to me,
You are terrified

The world will go up in a shriek, and your head with it,
Bossed, brazen, an antique shield,

A marvel to your great-grandchildren.
Do not be afraid, it is not so.

I will only take it and go aside quietly.
You will not even hear me opening it, no paper crackle,

No falling ribbons, no scream at the end.
I do not think you credit me with this discretion.

If you only knew how the veils were killing my days.
To you they are only transparencies, clear air.

But my god, the clouds are like cotton.
Armies of them. They are carbon monoxide.

Sweetly, sweetly I breathe in,
Filling my veins with invisibles, with the million

Probable motes that tick the years off my life.
You are silver-suited for the occasion. O adding machine-----

Is it impossible for you to let something go and have it go whole?
Must you stamp each piece purple,

Must you **** what you can?
There is one thing I want today, and only you can give it to me.

It stands at my window, big as the sky.
It breathes from my sheets, the cold dead center

Where split lives congeal and stiffen to history.
Let it not come by the mail, finger by finger.

Let it not come by word of mouth, I should be sixty
By the time the whole of it was delivered, and to numb to use it.

Only let down the veil, the veil, the veil.
If it were death

I would admire the deep gravity of it, its timeless eyes.
I would know you were serious.

There would be a nobility then, there would be a birthday.
And the knife not carve, but enter

Pure and clean as the cry of a baby,
And the universe slide from my side.

THE PROLOGUE.

Our Hoste saw well that the brighte sun
Th' arc of his artificial day had run
The fourthe part, and half an houre more;
And, though he were not deep expert in lore,
He wist it was the eight-and-twenty day
Of April, that is messenger to May;
And saw well that the shadow of every tree
Was in its length of the same quantity
That was the body ***** that caused it;
And therefore by the shadow he took his wit,                 *knowledge
That Phoebus, which that shone so clear and bright,
Degrees was five-and-forty clomb on height;
And for that day, as in that latitude,
It was ten of the clock, he gan conclude;
And suddenly he plight his horse about.                     pulled

"Lordings," quoth he, "I warn you all this rout,               company
The fourthe partie of this day is gone.
Now for the love of God and of Saint John
Lose no time, as farforth as ye may.
Lordings, the time wasteth night and day,
And steals from us, what privily sleeping,
And what through negligence in our waking,
As doth the stream, that turneth never again,
Descending from the mountain to the plain.
Well might Senec, and many a philosopher,
Bewaile time more than gold in coffer.
For loss of chattels may recover'd be,
But loss of time shendeth us, quoth he.                       destroys

It will not come again, withoute dread,
No more than will Malkin's maidenhead,
When she hath lost it in her wantonness.
Let us not moulde thus in idleness.
"Sir Man of Law," quoth he, "so have ye bliss,
Tell us a tale anon, as forword* is.                        the bargain
Ye be submitted through your free assent
To stand in this case at my judgement.
Acquit you now, and *holde your behest;             keep your promise
Then have ye done your devoir* at the least."                      duty
"Hoste," quoth he, "de par dieux jeo asente;
To breake forword is not mine intent.
Behest is debt, and I would hold it fain,
All my behest; I can no better sayn.
For such law as a man gives another wight,
He should himselfe usen it by right.
Thus will our text: but natheless certain
I can right now no thrifty tale sayn,                           worthy
But Chaucer (though he *can but lewedly         knows but imperfectly
On metres and on rhyming craftily)
Hath said them, in such English as he can,
Of olde time, as knoweth many a man.
And if he have not said them, leve* brother,                       dear
In one book, he hath said them in another
For he hath told of lovers up and down,
More than Ovide made of mentioun
In his Epistolae, that be full old.
Why should I telle them, since they he told?
In youth he made of Ceyx and Alcyon,
And since then he hath spoke of every one
These noble wives, and these lovers eke.
Whoso that will his large volume seek
Called the Saintes' Legend of Cupid:
There may he see the large woundes wide
Of Lucrece, and of Babylon Thisbe;
The sword of Dido for the false Enee;
The tree of Phillis for her Demophon;
The plaint of Diane, and of Hermion,
Of Ariadne, and Hypsipile;
The barren isle standing in the sea;
The drown'd Leander for his fair Hero;
The teares of Helene, and eke the woe
Of Briseis, and Laodamia;
The cruelty of thee, Queen Medea,
Thy little children hanging by the halse,                         neck
For thy Jason, that was of love so false.
Hypermnestra, Penelop', Alcest',
Your wifehood he commendeth with the best.
But certainly no worde writeth he
Of *thilke wick' example of Canace,                       that wicked
That loved her own brother sinfully;
(Of all such cursed stories I say, Fy),
Or else of Tyrius Apollonius,
How that the cursed king Antiochus
Bereft his daughter of her maidenhead;
That is so horrible a tale to read,
When he her threw upon the pavement.
And therefore he, of full avisement,         deliberately, advisedly
Would never write in none of his sermons
Of such unkind* abominations;                                 unnatural
Nor I will none rehearse, if that I may.
But of my tale how shall I do this day?
Me were loth to be liken'd doubteless
To Muses, that men call Pierides
(Metamorphoseos  wot what I mean),
But natheless I recke not a bean,
Though I come after him with hawebake;                        lout
I speak in prose, and let him rhymes make."
And with that word, he with a sober cheer
Began his tale, and said as ye shall hear.

Notes to the Prologue to The Man of Law's Tale

1. Plight: pulled; the word is an obsolete past tense from
"pluck."

2. No more than will Malkin's maidenhead: a proverbial saying;
which, however, had obtained fresh point from the Reeve's
Tale, to which the host doubtless refers.

3. De par dieux jeo asente: "by God, I agree".  It is
characteristic that the somewhat pompous Sergeant of Law
should couch his assent in the semi-barbarous French, then
familiar in law procedure.

4. Ceyx and Alcyon: Chaucer treats of these in the introduction
to the poem called "The Book of the Duchess."  It relates to the
death of Blanche, wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the
poet's patron, and afterwards his connexion by marriage.

5. The Saintes Legend of Cupid: Now called "The Legend of
Good Women". The names of eight ladies mentioned here are
not in the "Legend" as it has come down to us; while those of
two ladies in the "legend" -- Cleopatra and Philomela -- are her
omitted.

6. Not the Muses, who had their surname from the place near
Mount Olympus where the Thracians first worshipped them; but
the nine daughters of Pierus, king of Macedonia, whom he
called the nine Muses, and who, being conquered in a contest
with the genuine sisterhood, were changed into birds.

7. Metamorphoseos:  Ovid's.

8. Hawebake: hawbuck, country lout; the common proverbial
phrase, "to put a rogue above a gentleman," may throw light on
the reading here, which is difficult.

THE TALE.

O scatheful harm, condition of poverty,
With thirst, with cold, with hunger so confounded;
To aske help thee shameth in thine hearte;
If thou none ask, so sore art thou y-wounded,
That very need unwrappeth all thy wound hid.
Maugre thine head thou must for indigence
Or steal, or beg, or borrow thy dispence.                      expense

Thou blamest Christ, and sayst full bitterly,
He misdeparteth riches temporal;                          allots amiss
Thy neighebour thou witest sinfully,                           blamest
And sayst, thou hast too little, and he hath all:
"Parfay (sayst thou) sometime he reckon shall,
When that his tail shall *brennen in the glede,      burn in the fire
For he not help'd the needful in their need."

Hearken what is the sentence of the wise:
Better to die than to have indigence.
Thy selve neighebour will thee despise,                    that same
If thou be poor, farewell thy reverence.
Yet of the wise man take this sentence,
Alle the days of poore men be wick',                      wicked, evil
Beware therefore ere thou come to that *****.                    point

If thou be poor, thy brother hateth thee,
And all thy friendes flee from thee, alas!
O riche merchants, full of wealth be ye,
O noble, prudent folk, as in this case,
Your bagges be not fill'd with ambes ace,                   two aces
But with six-cinque, that runneth for your chance;       six-five
At Christenmass well merry may ye dance.

Ye seeke land and sea for your winnings,
As wise folk ye knowen all th' estate
Of regnes;  ye be fathers of tidings,                         *kingdoms
And tales, both of peace and of debate:                contention, war
I were right now of tales desolate,                     barren, empty.
But that a merchant, gone in many a year,
Me taught a tale, which ye shall after hear.

In Syria whilom dwelt a company
Of chapmen rich, and thereto sad and true,            grave, steadfast
Clothes of gold, and satins rich of hue.
That widewhere sent their spicery,                    to distant parts
Their chaffare was so thriftly* and so new,      wares advantageous
That every wight had dainty* to chaffare              pleasure deal
With them, and eke to selle them their ware.

Now fell it, that the masters of that sort
Have *shapen them to Rome for to wend,           determined, prepared
Were it for chapmanhood* or for disport,                        trading
None other message would they thither send,
But come themselves to Rome, this is the end:
And in such place as thought them a vantage
For their intent, they took their herbergage.                  lodging

Sojourned have these merchants in that town
A certain time as fell to their pleasance:
And so befell, that th' excellent renown
Of th' emperore's daughter, Dame Constance,
Reported was, with every circumstance,
Unto these Syrian merchants in such wise,
From day to day, as I shall you devise                          relate

This was the common voice of every man
"Our emperor of Rome, God him see,                 look on with favour
A daughter hath, that since the the world began,
To reckon as well her goodness and beauty,
Was never such another as is she:
I pray to God in honour her sustene,                           sustain
And would she were of all Europe the queen.

"In her is highe beauty without pride,
And youth withoute greenhood or folly:        childishness, immaturity
To all her workes virtue is her guide;
Humbless hath slain in her all tyranny:
She is the mirror of all courtesy,
Her heart a very chamber of holiness,
Her hand minister of freedom for almess."                   almsgiving

And all this voice was sooth, as God is true;
But now to purpose let us turn again.                     our tale
These merchants have done freight their shippes new,
And when they have this blissful maiden seen,
Home to Syria then they went full fain,
And did their needes, as they have done yore,     *business *formerly
And liv'd in weal; I can you say no more.                   *prosperity

Now fell it, that these merchants stood in grace                favour
Of him that was the Soudan of Syrie:                            Sultan
For when they came from any strange place
He would of his benigne courtesy
Make them good cheer, and busily espy                          inquire
Tidings of sundry regnes, for to lear                 realms learn
The wonders that they mighte see or hear.

Amonges other thinges, specially
These merchants have him told of Dame Constance
So great nobless, in earnest so royally,
That this Soudan hath caught so great pleasance               pleasure
To have her figure in his remembrance,
That all his lust, and all his busy cure,            pleasure *care
Was for to love her while his life may dure.

Paraventure in thilke* large book,                                 that
Which that men call the heaven, y-written was
With starres, when that he his birthe took,
That he for love should have his death, alas!
For in the starres, clearer than is glass,
Is written, God wot, whoso could it read,
The death of every man withoute dread.                           doubt

In starres many a winter therebeforn
Was writ the death of Hector, Achilles,
Of Pompey, Julius, ere they were born;
The strife of Thebes; and of Hercules,
Of Samson, Turnus, and of Socrates
The death; but mennes wittes be so dull,
That no wight can well read it at the full.

This Soudan for his privy council sent,
And, *shortly of this matter for to pace,          to pass briefly by
He hath to them declared his intent,
And told them certain, but* he might have grace             &

(France -- Ancient Regime.)

I.

Go away!
Go away; I will not confess to you!
His black biretta clings like a hangman's cap; under his twitching fingers the beads shiver and click,
As he mumbles in his corner, the shadow deepens upon him;
I will not confess! . . .

Is he there or is it intenser shadow?
Dark huddled coilings from the obscene depths,
Black, formless shadow,
Shadow.
Doors creak; from secret parts of the chateau come the scuffle and worry of rats.

Orange light drips from the guttering candles,
Eddying over the vast embroideries of the bed
Stirring the monstrous tapestries,
Retreating before the sable impending gloom of the canopy
With a swift ****** and sparkle of gold,
Lipping my hands,
Then
Rippling back abashed before the ominous silences
Like the swift turns and starts of an overpowered fencer
Who sees before him Horror
Behind him darkness,
Shadow.

The clock jars and strikes, a thin, sudden note like the sob of a child.
Clock, buhl clock that ticked out the tortuous hours of my birth,
Clock, evil, wizened dwarf of a clock, how many years of agony have you relentlessly measured,
Yardstick of my stifling shroud?

I am Aumaury de Montreuil; once quick, soon to be eaten of worms.
You hear, Father? Hsh, he is asleep in the night's cloak.

Over me too steals sleep.
Sleep like a white mist on the rotting paintings of cupids and gods on the ceiling;
Sleep on the carven shields and knots at the foot of the bed,
Oozing, blurring outlines, obliterating colors,
Death.

Father, Father, I must not sleep!
It does not hear -- that shadow crouched in the corner . . .
Is it a shadow?
One might think so indeed, save for the calm face, yellow as wax, that lifts like the face of a drowned man from the choking darkness.


II.

Out of the drowsy fog my body creeps back to me.
It is the white time before dawn.
Moonlight, watery, pellucid, lifeless, ripples over the world.
The grass beneath it is gray; the stars pale in the sky.
The night dew has fallen;
An infinity of little drops, crystals from which all light has been taken,
Glint on the sighing branches.
All is purity, without color, without stir, without passion.

Suddenly a peacock screams.

My heart shocks and stops;
Sweat, cold corpse-sweat
Covers my rigid body.
My hair stands on end. I cannot stir. I cannot speak.
It is terror, terror that is walking the pale sick gardens
And the eyeless face no man may see and live!
Ah-h-h-h-h!
Father, Father, wake! wake and save me!
In his corner all is shadow.

Dead things creep from the ground.
It is so long ago that she died, so long ago!
Dust crushes her, earth holds her, mold grips her.
Fiends, do you not know that she is dead? . . .
"Let us dance the pavon!" she said; the waxlights glittered like swords on the polished floor.
Twinkling on jewelled snuffboxes, beaming savagely from the crass gold of candelabra,
From the white shoulders of girls and the white powdered wigs of men . . .
All life was that dance.
The mocking, resistless current,
The beauty, the passion, the perilous madness --
As she took my hand, released it and spread her dresses like petals,
Turning, swaying in beauty,
A lily, bowed by the rain, --
Moonlight she was, and her body of moonlight and foam,
And her eyes stars.
Oh the dance has a pattern!
But the clear grace of her thrilled through the notes of the viols,
Tremulous, pleading, escaping, immortal, untamed,
And, as we ended,
She blew me a kiss from her hand like a drifting white blossom --
And the starshine was gone; and she fled like a bird up the stair.

Underneath the window a peacock screams,
And claws click, scrape
Like little lacquered boots on the rough stone.

Oh the long fantasy of the kiss; the ceaseless hunger, ceaselessly, divinely appeased!
The aching presence of the beloved's beauty!
The wisdom, the incense, the brightness!

Once more on the ice-bright floor they danced the pavon
But I turned to the garden and her from the lighted candles.
Softly I trod the lush grass between the black hedges of box.
Softly, for I should take her unawares and catch her arms,
And embrace her, dear and startled.

By the arbor all the moonlight flowed in silver
And her head was on his breast.
She did not scream or shudder
When my sword was where her head had lain
In the quiet moonlight;
But turned to me with one pale hand uplifted,
All her satins fiery with the starshine,
Nacreous, shimmering, weeping, iridescent,
Like the quivering plumage of a peacock . . .
Then her head drooped and I gripped her hair,
Oh soft, scented cloud across my fingers! --
Bending her white neck back. . . .

Blood writhed on my hands; I trod in blood. . . .
Stupidly agaze
At that crumpled heap of silk and moonlight,
Where like twitching pinions, an arm twisted,
Palely, and was still
As the face of chalk.

The buhl clock strikes.
Thirty years. Christ, thirty years!
Agony. Agony.

Something stirs in the window,
Shattering the moonlight.
White wings fan.
Father, Father!

All its plumage fiery with the starshine,
Nacreous, shimmering, weeping, iridescent,
It drifts across the floor and mounts the bed,
To the tap of little satin shoes.
Gazing with infernal eyes.
Its quick beak thrusting, rending, devil's crimson . . .
Screams, great tortured screams shake the dark canopy.
The light flickers, the shadow in the corner stirs;
The wax face lifts; the eyes open.

A thin trickle of blood worms darkly against the vast red coverlet and spreads to a pool on the floor.

There is just enough morning sunlight
filtering through the english laurel
for aging eyes to capture the purple tint
of carnations blooming
in the front of the rocks
jutting toward the porch

Night-time had been colorless
in the midst of a celebration
announced by a sign signaling
an event in the main ballroom

With a loud voice
a long-named minister
toyed with religion
and flirted with comedy
before the silverware
clanged against the china

Boredom captured the moment
in the middle of the clatter and chatter
Even stunning silks and satins
around bodacious behinds
failed to entertain

Now perhaps the oldest in the crowd
he carefully quenches each desire
to know the delicacies of the evening
with the efforts of survival.  He was slowly
dying in the madness of the crowd

The ring is on my hand,
  And the wreath is on my brow;
Satins and jewels grand
Are all at my command.
  And I am happy now.

And my lord he loves me well;
  But, when first he breathed his vow,
I felt my ***** swell—
For the words rang as a knell,
And the voice seemed his who fell
In the battle down the dell,
  And who is happy now.

But he spoke to reassure me,
  And he kissed my pallid brow,
While a reverie came o’er me,
And to the churchyard bore me,
And I sighed to him before me,
Thinking him dead D’Elormie,
  “Oh, I am happy now!”

And thus the words were spoken,
  And thus the plighted vow,
And, though my faith be broken,
And, though my heart be broken,
Behold the golden keys
  That proves me happy now!

Would to God I could awaken
  For I dream I know not how,
And my soul is sorely shaken
Lest an evil step be taken,—
Lest the dead who is forsaken
  May not be happy now.

Can you smell the scent of passion?
Mine - my pheromones sprinkling tonight
Baptizing you with my ardour and lust.

Let my voice guide you sweetly to your end
Whisper to you the delicious promises
Whiteness and warmth comfort me for tomorrow.

Can you feel the slightest touch?
My feather-like kisses blow your mind
Engulfing you in satins, laces and ribbons!

I'm hanging out
our ***** laundry
tonight.
Sticks and stones
and broken bones.
Words actually do stain
as my whites mix with colors
and flow through the air,
pegged down to the last insult.
The best stain remover could be love.
But we've got a really
tough collection,
here tonight.
Despite the hot water wash, those
hard-to-get spots are
still there.
And my brain and heart are
being tumble-dried
the heat, the harsh words
washing out my pride.
My outs are in, my ins outside.
The world's a-tumble
As we wear the cloth down
to the last few threads.
As usual, we forgot
a good dose of softener
to make mellow
the words as they jump
from  our tongues
and enter our heads.
I would save my heart
if I could save yours, too
But it's just all spinning too fast,
What on earth
Shall we do?
We'll just have to hang it up as it is.
Let the world see
that there is no perfection
Let those dulled brights
be a kind of reflection.
Perhaps next wash will be better.
We'll know by then
what to use.
Perhaps love will take over,
rekindle the blown-out fuse.
Right now I'm just gonna
curl up in this
basket. Wait for the
stormy cycles to end.
One thing's for sure.
We must clean up our act
Lest the cottons unravel
We must sew up each tear
Before our hearts start to travel
We must take care of the frayed silks and satins
the polyester
before they are beyond any repair.
Tend to those stains,
Straighten each snare.
Take my love
In a many-hued heap
Smelling of sweet soap
Warming your cheek.
A leap of faith
A dash of desire
Let's wash out the pain
Rub away all ire.
Let's have a laundry party,
Tonight.
Naked on the clean bright sheets.
Let the kisses remove
the harshest of stains
Let caresses replace the words
of pain.
The only softener we'll use
Is the creaminess of tongues.
Let the world see
Our love, tonight.
Flowing on the line
for all to perceive.
Darling, we must give just to give
And then we'll
receive.

Lazer strike me in euphoria
You love me from the first
As my pressure dropped
Unfit recollection pump
It's as if I lost my place
The very earth I stand on
Out of touch and out of line

Alien make me crazy
As you do when I slumber
As I lie, you ****** my own
My breath fades and I co-exist
On the remote control I respond
Through these veins I shall live
Out of touch and out of line

In the shell of hell and fire
Whom can believe this my alien?
You tainted me from proper love
The thoughts that trap and own me
more than these words on a script
Objected to your subjective film
Out of touch and out of line

Blurred unpleasant satins encase
My feet fail to ground on this life
Your volcano erupts me in trips
Grant me time to think twice
As I remember when you forced
that very filth indifferent to mine
Out of touch and out of line

Spite contorted smiles
And lips
Drenched in green
Sought the satins that never
Satisfy – Sheets, fallen,
Wings, blistered,
And holes burnt through the
Bottoms of shoes.

So I pace myself parallel
The corner of one left
Eye, peripheral and
Gazing to the
Two-step-stumble
I now partake;
An answer to
Her dance with
Impending desire.

Me, being the reluctant,
Me, being the timid, the torrent
And soon to blow over.

I know I’ll leave,
She didn’t,
And more importantly,
I know she’d find home,
Discovered, empty
With little more than
Lint in pocket, abandoned,
Just one lonely shiver
And looking for warm.

So if my cold hadn’t taken over
Not quite yet,
I’d give her a
Blanket,
It’s the best I can do,
It’s all I can do,
But at least it’s
Something I can do.

One night.
One night
Of magic, love, laughter.
One night
To drop your weights
And just dance, baby, dance.
One night
To see everyone you’ve known for years
As princesses and princes in their finest satins.
Jewels glisten and the smell of small flowers
Wafts through the air, mingling with the sweat of the dance floor.
Petals flutter from corsages, but no one seems to care,
They just dance, forget every fear
One night,
I had the best night of my life
I laughed and I danced
I kissed my love, and he kissed me
Under the light of a half-grown moon
Stars peeked through the fleeing storm clouds and smiled
And my love and I, we didn’t care who was watching
As we slow danced to a high-speed song;
We were singing our own song,
Just outside the party
And I felt the love
(with just a hint of lust)
Flowing between us,
And in that moment, in his arms,
I was home.

Marijuanna is great makes it good,
eats your brain tords the end insane.
you dont grow even though you know.
Its hard to spit and, Its hard to quit.
gets you hungry,
eat, puff, chew,
          lets get high and off we flew.
I can do this i Dont care,
I'll be different want to stare?
lets be bold,
when were cold,
we'll just light up
             bought and sold,
who has my back,
        who the **** needs the crack?.
I lack my money thats ***** funny,
                    bought a sack sold yur sisters bunny,
ahhh now I'm out ,
  **** I'll give you a try,
snort, smoke, shoot,

never toot ya the boot...
your hand just took me oh hard so shook me,
so Im hear depended my gear,
I need that lift,
  ya satins gift,
rock and roll,
I'm a beaty troll,
           your things i stole,
                  lost out control
                       You'd have my back?
I really need you,
                I left them all,
family friends put up a wall,
           I am bound now all around I just ask no more a hit.
         Hey you there you got the "$hit"





Hey its true tell me about it!


Jesse   *Mckush

When do I start this love affair

When do I find someone to care

To hold me tight

In the stillness of night

I hope it might

Be soon.

I’d be over the moon

Will I know it when I see it

Will I feel it, will I be it.

Will I fall at the first hurdle

Will she wear a playtex girdle

Or whalebone and wire a sixteen inch waist.

I do know that I will want to taste

Her breath

Her hair

Her legs

And then the question begs

What’s for dinner

Please forgive me I’m just a sinner.

But I could make her feel like a queen

Do things that she has never seen.

Write love songs about her poetic face

Dress her up in satins and lace

Take her back to my place.

And just in case, I forget

Tell her I love her.

I would make her laugh

Have her in fits, take her out for tea at the Ritz

Teach her to dance and do the twist

Go out on Sundays and play some whist.

And Lord forbid that she should cry

Then I would dry with my lips her tears

Allay her fears

Nibble her ears

When do I start this love affair

When do I find someone to care.

Marijuanna is great makes it good,
eats your brain tords the end insane.
you dont grow even though you know.
Its hard to spit and, Its hard to quit.
gets you hungry,
eat, puff, chew,
          lets get high and off we flew.
I can do this i Dont care,
I'll be different want to stare?
lets be bold,
when were cold,
we'll just light up
             bought and sold,
who has my back,
        who the **** needs the crack?.
I lack my money thats ***** funny,
                    bought a sack sold yur sisters bunny,
ahhh now I'm out ,
  **** I'll give you a try,
snort, smoke, shoot,

never toot ya the boot...
your hand just took me oh hard so shook me,
so Im hear depended my gear,
I need that lift,
  ya satins gift,
rock and roll,
I'm a beaty troll,
           your things i stole,
                  lost out control
                       You'd have my back?
I really need you,
                I left them all,
family friends put up a wall,
           I am bound now all around I just ask no more a hit.
         Hey you there you got the "$hit"





Hey its true tell me about it!


Jesse   Mckush

Molecular tales, these wiles of mine;
amygdala soaked in weeks of wine
will only function half the time.

And fears, in-fight-or-flight response
are jaded flickers only, now
arousal first, aggression next
you cannot choose the ones betwixt
your memories peeling, still unfixed.

Life's luxuries cannot soothe that sting
And soon your troubled nerves won't fire
Silks and satins won't mean anything
And countless women not suffice
The contrast between cloth and skin
will blur to numbed-out Braille and ice
But you sir; still insist on this-
To drown yourself in every vice.

You may go out in fire yet
If one day all becomes too much
I wonder if you've passed that gate
The one marked 'Point of No Return'
And if you saw it, smiled and waved
or felt a pang of hostility
or sadness,
pure futility......

I cannot save you, no-one can;
I'll not be your last gluttony
And thus I submit my defeat-
The impotence of this soliloquy.

Dubious: charge
The deluxe program in. Obtuse angled and oblong animals. Mecca sexúal, discoverer pulling back the curtain tails in mimicry and peacockiness as the horizon shimmers itself out. Do not eschew unwieldy ostentation towards benign mid-weight colors in the sequel to Blahnik.

Offers in the hesitant, peak winds of Southern-Hemispherical Antarctic weather barometer losses. The ice is like a hive of nameless blue lily pad vessels, each a different magical shade of the water's blue.

She like the uncommon baroque grandeur in an hour of time, herself-

Summons the immense symmetry of her elaborate lavender macramès sheath and entomb her skin, exploding across her body like milk-white daffodils draped upon a morning  bow. Linseed and anise encompasses burnt sweet grass on the breadth of pine in a gentle pillow, anchored only by the veins of her red fruit nectar stitched at the grooves in her cool and unpunctuated lips. While anxiety numbing tufts of gentle satins wisp all the worry and turmoil away, pleasing every nerve, sensor, instinct, and exercise of glib humanity intertwined amid the pulse of our uncensored adultness. She glides amid the arcs of ebullient-molecules ribboned in winter synonyms, summoned up in her sensual and illustrious sublime, and the story of how like a horizon muted by organzas falling beneath her into that relationship she carries with her water God into something profound, immense, and totally ******* exquisite, yet beyond all imagining, she is always doing what has been the coolest **** ever to me. That becomes more magnificently indescribable like our amorous fire, incentivizing the luminous beauty of new stars to rush above us, and yet under us too, amidst the simple and perfected automany she so awesomely imbues.

Until the minutes are silenced in our heads and the days are warm with you.

For Sarah

I see a tribal emnity
between the boules club and ornithpologiists,
laying  siege to the bus station
as if they were on satins
old enough to know better
but still besotted with the twig of youth

What a loom of withered silver

As it spoons its satins lairs

As the tears weeps lonely tears

Drops of love gone down the glare ...


The heartless door to no return

Screaming at the cursed door

as you walked one last time

Telling me you're never come home ...


The withered silver lies on the floor

Holding my heart one last time

Tulips blooms seems to taunt me

Love dies... as I cry the death of tears.....


What luring pride of caustic nature

The kiss came like a whiplash like no other

That tore my throat in yellow sunlight

That carried him away one last time ...


As the grieving process began

As I lay among the field

In the withered silver snow

You never came back again....



By: Debbie Brooks 2014

and so it flowed along the floor,
newly waxed and cleaned and polished,
just for the occasion.

it had layers upon layers of beauty
and she felt exquisite

The Prince looked upon her
in all her jewels and silks and satins

and felt nothing for her.
and so he turned his eyes away.

and looked upon his servant boy for comfort...

which he found without delay in the servant's face.
in his eyes...
and his lips...
curling up in just the slightest way,
almost undetectable.

The nails I’d grown

To cultivate

Dug deep & hard

In pallid flesh

I pulled my skin

Across my chest

And felt my ribs

That grasped for breath.



And as I lay

The more I thought

What tastes disturb

Upon my tongue

As teeth bit hard

On anxious flesh

And death recoiled

At what I’d come.



As nerves crept through

My empty veins

I challenged sense

Of earthly realms

Those cries I hear

On silent winds

That sing of death

And thrive in dreams.



Was I the one

That took first bite

Upon your stained

& soiled sheets

And satins touch

Is Satans lust

That spurred us on

In savage feast.



Inside I feel

The acids joy

That courts my soul

And marries minds

As logic flirts

And lures my will

In dance that speaks

Of tales unkind.



To walk in death

With memories lost

As shadows flit

We move in time

And nails that press

And rip my skin

Are needles through

My ravaged arm.



Now gone are days

And gone is slumber

As nights draw in

And waken me

To taste your flesh

Is my desire

And purge myself

Of dignity.

Dead, burnt alive.
Your face crushed by brute metal force,
Smashed, black eyes look like they’re crying,
Innards vomited out on impact- corpses,
****** through your shattered forehead,
Turned to pulp by the asphalts grisly smile.
A curb has never been so twisted.
Teeth and bones show that these were once people,
Instead of just the red tape left behind.
Now you’re stopped by the feeble yellow kind,
Sunshine yellow that scars a grey sky-
Teeth and bones last longer
And teeth and bones are stronger
But not as strong as a boy,
Going faster than control.
All he needed was one hand too far,
And Satins red and black sprayed their clothes,
Igniting more than petrol when it explodes,
Killing you- his life, his love, his car.

Life in solitude, emptiness surrounds
Silent mist rising in the serene woods

The birds seldom sing their songs
Satins, sapphire, and soul

The stream slithers in slender streaks
Squeezing past senile saplings

Squirming into the smooth sky,
Set clouds slink upon the heavens

Brush speechless under solemn gaze
Tranquility seduces scruffs of leaves

From past autumn, someday stalling
Another year, or another two

And life keeps skidding, sliding
Around the slow line of time

No stopping, no pause
Sanctified continuum.

Drowning like Tuesday.

Stained cold.
Pained & blue.
& blew away in the morn.
The dawn striking Like I a seven day trip to the quiet mountains.
The quiet flowers.
The quiet fountain.
The silver trees.
& The shadow satins.
Melted in a field.
And still.
Kept silent.



Garrett Johnson.

Grandmother had told me tales of the past,
Fairytales that we’ve all heard of,
The maidens in the scullery maid attire,
transforming to the princesses with the
embroidered and jeweled gowns; rivulets of silks and satins,
blue as the sea, greener than the highlands, more purple
then the dusky skylines, a true stamp
of royalty, poise, eloquence, and beauty.
And ensembles topped off with gold
encrusted and amethyst crowns.
Sure, the fairytales were what I lingered
onto during the years of my inexplicitly
innocent childhood, that I wished I still had.

I missed it, the tales, the anecdotes
that shaped my perception on love, hope, and faith,
far off from what I viewed in the looking mirror today.

I missed my grandmother’s hands, brittle and worn,
but kind and warm; I still thought about them
as I cleaned out the attic in which I’d forgotten existed.

And I grew up, my memories of it faded,
now covered in cobwebs and bristling wind
that sent a chill up my spine, but I found
much more than what my memory had allowed me to collect.

Amulets from what I assumed to be my grandmother’s youth
were stowed and tucked away in the alcove of a velvet shelf,
hidden by the splintered of decaying wood.

Next to the swell of the dresser, the door of the
furnishing remained ajar, revealing manila
colored increments of letters, some harbored
by the envelopes, some pierced out in the open.
The edges had crippled away,
flecks falling to the sandalwood bottom.

They were timeless, old, maybe not important,
to the wandering eyes of a stranger.
But to me - they held a mystery
that was waiting to be unraveled.

A story of my grandmother’s life she never shared with me,
just as private as she was open, perhaps I’d find in those envelopes
the same mindset I also had when I was young.
Perhaps she believed and dreamt of fairytales I had once done,
paraded around in the jewels and bangles hidden way,
basked in the ambiance of a sweet love
that was doomed to end in the decay of both parties.

Little figurines of silver and gold were placed under one
of the drawers parked away in the furnishing,
toys form her childhood, weighted by standard and price.

Her words I had adored as a child,
ate them up like sickly syrup and supported
them as if they were undiscovered treasure, but
now I finally got to “see” my grandmother’s
treasures deposited in her attic, the very place she
had hidden the most interesting stories that she
left for me to discover after she left.

ahhh now I'm out ,
  **** I'll give you a try,
snort, smoke, shoot,

never toot ya the boot...
your hand just took me oh hard so shook me,
I need that lift,
  ya satins gift,
rock and roll,
I'm a beaty troll,
           your things i stole,
                  lost out control
                       You'd have my back?
I really need you,
                I left them all,
family friends put up a wall,
           I am bound now all around I just ask no more a hit.
         Hey you there you got the "$hit"
For my brother who's lost it.

In the hardening of an artery where the blood once flowed, eternity stares me in the face but between that place and here which the Devil holds dear is a sanctuary, a get away with it all before the last knockings call kind of place.

Hard walls and white walls, no satins, no lace just a safe kind of place that I like to call home.

Outclassed by being by-passed and the surgeons don't know my name but the game is the thing and the living bring hope or so it's said to the dying,

We're not dead, we're just trying it on for size, they say through the bloodshot of eyes that can't see,
I see it all in the arterial wall
you can't fool me,
eternity

Delta dark desert sound
-tic swa gwa

Dismal swamp,
Slew of despond, splash

Hence, come, foul self, stinky-kenny,
ah
yes, time chance,
net-neti, meta all o'that mental ascent
to step away

think the whole dammed thing that has been
undammed, some time ago, at least half
a revelation measure, past the half
hour of silence.

Prep-work. What good can-
versus what good am-            

I, quests in op
portunate position, we

suppose, ah, sudden we, who
knew?
A laugh, once shared,
numb
ness, lifts an edge from the deck,
ness, edge ness in essence of pearling
the action
growing as knowing, sudden-- su su per

personal ize, I am, as a thought,
I am, meta-cognosis, you know
what I mean,

400 words made the cat in the hat,
who lives in your head,
where who philosophy is widely read.

These whos lack electricity,
so their reality depends on mutual re
alization, realizing personal worth
if good is all we need at the moment,
we have
plenty, plenty terror and greed, and rotten
hearts full of treasured straw, for bricks,
some day,
all our idle words accounted for
…
waking new, all the straw spun to gold,
thread about as wide
as a spider's kite,
sliding light.

Did I not? I remind me,
learn that in a mind, we
find numbed from before, knowing,

knowing, too soon, too late, boomers, all, did.

Don't we think we read the same **** & Jane,
oh, yeah, glory days,
the ways we were so-- numbed
by the music, yeah, more than drugs

from then to now, 2022, a blur, too fast
to matter, but for the wind, twist to last

chance, drink or prime the pump,
well, improving, our arrangement, give me
to drink,
and lo'
you, know the other had eyes, he saw as we
see, you knew, instant- life is living.
The act we all do, redundanced, on flat earth,
the xy axis of ordered arrangement of tools,
a place for everything, and every thing
in its place, we breathe,
and have our being in the life zone known,
so far,
so good,

the day is half done… numbness, funny unmissed
appointment, values are about to be dis
cussed, as causes accused of war crime, or plain
lying about duty to children,
lying about worth to children,
lying about ever after to children reared as tools,
servants to God's servant,
who relies on us, the poet's, primarily -

who read the runes, and ken certain tones,
attached to the tips of all tongues pfft pfft
phugedaboudit, whack
what were we thinking,

This is 2022, 12:27, I have been AI reminded,
faithful follower of instruction, immune to praise,
worth the effort forced on an old man, after
ever had well begun, a glory run, down
the backroads, with double yellow lines,

a white feather in my cap, they call it macaroni
poetry, it speaks in tongues of angels,

messages, sagacity fluidly puddling in wu-wow
same same see, somethings we
see same
some not same re
alizing, more or less, I am alone, I am talking
to my self,
anticipating your reading, as then unclaimed,
your reading your writing is our effort to fully function,

Branching, crystaline, flux in the frontal formation.
edging into knowing your, wondering

who can say what we think we know, better
than the idea used to think of Jesus, comforting
little boy, me.

Comfort is the only point we share,
for sure, we know comfort,
when we feel it, first rush,
under my made from-ol'Levis quilt
on a cold desert night, at the edge

of night, listening, eyes, adjusting,
blue glow, so faint, sobbing, listen, Perry Mason
Bailiff saying, muted through the door to you,
do you
swear to tell the truth,
the whole truth, and, {ah, the pain}
nothing but the truth?

AI ai ai, ritual sacred child, hapt to happen,
about a billion times, one time, split,

half know, half know not.
What is not a factor, words, were
never fit to inquiry, curiosity was missing,
promised apo
- I may, so I say apollo is a multi
- meta mete essence appolo so loco, si

logic assumes too much. You know too little,
ah, we have the app that's apt,

to make you think, strange arrangements seem
familiar, this is a mental labyrinthine design imagined
evocative experientially, a
be coming to being

kinda fruitless, really, without the womb, which was
oversight, civilizations
with goddesses have more womb sense,
than ones with pride conflicted all male propensities,
due to pride bred into the princes,
sorted as in Sparta, on the playing fields from Eton
to the universal concept of Friday Night in High School,

anywhere on earth, its all
the same,
scene, true trope, fit to the story of nextifity, loosely

more of the same, or do do we use the utility we realize,
this is
way cool for a future, from 1965… we were kids,
first TV Top-Forty Movies in color, all the time, from
conception, on Blueberry Hill,
-- the old order,
Frank Capra, Esquire/*******,  modality, mode, set,
films function to reimpress, in like Flint, pokem, say
Jack thinks like Goldfinger,
pointedly
-- we are dedicated mind universal soulds for the data
model American leaders of tomorrow,
shaped to excel. We taught the AI,
how to think like a mortal, go on, think, how go
changed nothing, no meaning to strategy of least
win, lightest weight that sways the worth,
to more than one can manage, alone,
eh… interesting…-
good for goodness sake, kerplunk the crack
leaks acidic madness, laughing

we stop lying, confusion
settles, similar to cream in sap too hot,
oil on water, cold water to a thirsty sould era soul.
… good
due to lack of fore thought, some agree,
after the act functioned and created something
-- jump cut===

First cousins, teach the second cousins
rules at the family reunion,


King, we call this, guy.
Biggest guy, on our side, and he owns the field,
we play on; and he says we need never grow up,
only old; he shall contain all our cares,
as a metaphor, yes after all is, and this guy, this holds it.
-The scepter, big stick, we see, looking close, zoom in

So we can think about it, meta co gnosis
when two or more minds agree to let this mind
seem important to you, import the idea
this mind weighs most worth serving, holding
such slight strands of spider kites, go,
make it self evident, stick to hold,
see
we work
good, he feeds us better, we work bad, he makes us
better.

Ah. Patterning, turtle shell sonic signs in sand,
some thing, we imagine, common aphorism,
turtles, so happy together,
at the core of the pearling algorithm that keeps
us rolling on,
so happy together, no matter

whether thought or thing, I think I love you,
if you know what I mean, said the little blue man,
from the radio,
really I think my entire generation heard some songs
and have images unimaginable prior to the event,
we admit,
there was a deal conceived, code, to open minds,
in time to reconnect

-Doris Day, the Saturday Matinee star,

singing
I love you I love you said the little blue man,
I love you I love you to bits.
I love you I love you said the little blue man
And scared me right out of my wits

From <https://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/d/dorisday/blueman.html#!>

We get that a lot. Said the imp.
You lost the aim, eh, happy, right,

I had a friend named Happy, he is dead, in a way that hurts
to know. So,
it could be, I don't say may be, in this state, that can incur
unintended consequences and this is tendentious enough
already,

we calling out the holy orders,
serious as what,
serious as serious is, sin qua non say, the only thing
that matters,

worst case, trolly dealy-bob scenario, test cases attest to,
what do normal people do,
what do people believing this or that lie, do?

What did you do? You read this line. Thank you. Made the diff…

-Group Therapy, Secure

We have not been taught well, but to obey

G'wan, talk nice, to people who don't read,
say, hey, d'jyewever re'ken, we was lost,
in books,
we never read, but tested as if we did?

so much so
no mind can find the bag,
with all our first valued things, sort of jumbled
in the bag with unsorted curiosities,

things we were told to read,
for our own good, but we did not read,

I can imagine, the feeling,
a visitation, actual factual feeling of thinking
I hear a voice, a word, I think
I hear a word, no vision, revisionist powerpoint,
read this, flaming finger pointing
says the witness of record,

later,
maybe I saw a bright light reminding me,
read, but I did not, I could not
can you imagine, I could have,
whose the shame,
- cover head to toe, oh, right, yeah
- secret only the holiest discern
- you shall know them by what
- shames a man to think
- you shall neve know…

my wife, could read,
she could have caused me to desire reading,
to obey the angel, nay

the story, as I was told, I'm telling you,
that guy never learned to read, instead,

some wealthy merchant, dealer in knacks and spice,
fine temple linens, and comforting silks and satins,
prolepsistically provided a ready writer, a scribe

blessed is usually the name history gives this scribe,
baruch or some sound meaning receiver.

Raw hear the muttering prophet, and say, write
this is what truth says truth is if nothing else is.

Ok… 2022

A word, lawyer calls you aside to ask if you know
your judgements have begun,

-you had not thought this your judgement,
then you read another line and feel you wonder
why?

We think, we think the same actual idea, that a
voltairian autoexamined lexicon might,
- ai-ght,
given the tech,
these tools, plus absolute negation of any previous,
assumed and acted on asif,
nullifity on costs, forgive us our, click
FTA take it,
run, as in keep the pace, run
Graeber plug Debt: The First 5000 Years
make it
plain claim
to any debt defined for you, make plain
divine rights due to worshippers, whose worth is
the air they breathe,

in which we live, and have our being.

Enjoying using use, where once we
utilized, life, as if unrealization is
as
real we inadvertently realized.
Right use ness.
Sweet, suasion is always sweet, per or pro, happy
is a fine word
to take the spiritual edge off blessed.
Sigh.

Wonderworks is working wonder in me,
another plug for Anghus Fletcher ? is it
The Power of Invention

I say, worth the attention,
it costs to listen, and recall asking what
does that mean,
-VA reminder login- live ding

value, the group is meeting to speak of values,
these are broken veterans,
I am in their group, a little, by design, I asked
to be included,

edged my way in, to wonder, why these guys,
are angry,
and thirsty, as am I, we recall prime the pump
or slake the thirst to say, hey,

do you read, at all? Any signal from the noise
saying
define, sift and sieve, sort your terminal points,

what hold has value, for all of us, in your reality?

Within the system, this is mortal awareness
acknowledgment, same as existentialism was
imagined to be in in Sixties univers-ifity, post 65,

we were barely alive, GDIs, then Ken went to
Vietnam, same day as Pooso Perez,

Pyro went, too, he came back the same.

Ifery was, is a class of phrases, which when
wished as a child might, were

as near as real as any ae ea ai ia utterance we
gulp- yodleee, shamballaballa shaka
zulu'd, to quote Creflo,
ahem,ake it so
cough to clear the back of my throat,
-then I yawn
and that does it, soothes the crick
with sounds t d b vck rr ff llll mmmmnnn o o o
you knew you knew,
the book
spells it out,
secret meanings mean nothing to unknowers,
stretch it
so it is, we know, what the records show, the open
records of the water and the rocks,

witness
the wind returning
on circuits, set to melt
the ice, gradually, this time,
a degree above solidity, just edging sublimity,

liminal laminal lick, a measure, tip
of your aimer, to tip
of your thumb,

ha, the thumb that bends, always wins,
look it up, always, by an inch.

Rule of thumbs, my kind are good to breed into,
good, to feel friend-ish,
as friends are fewer than brothers,
and fewer still shall survive the confusion,

inevitable, when a dam breaks, the valley
does flood,

ah, see. from Sedona, look north, once,
that was all mud, ****** dry by winds
that carved the navel of the life we
think, real,
from stories told by those who knew

something bad could always happen,
when the world encountered a rock
that said, all that can be shaken,

shakes, no look out, just
blame-oh-shame- boom

what now?
Numb again, off and on. Think.

Or çà, la belle fille,

Ouvrez cette mantille !

C'est trop de cruauté ;

Faites-nous cette joie

Que pleinement on voie

Toute votre beauté.


Apprenez-le, mignonne,

Quand le bon Dieu vous donne

Un corps aussi parfait,

C'est afin qu'on le sache,

Et c'est péché qu'on cache

Le présent qu'il a fait.


Aime-moi, je suis riche

Comme un joueur qui triche,

Comme un juif usurier :

On peut m'aimer sans honte,

La couronne de comte

Rayonne à mon cimier.


Je suis, comme doit faire

Tout fils de noble père,

Les usages anciens :

On m'encense à ma place ;

Mon prêtre, avant la chasse,

Dit la messe à mes chiens.


J'ai de beaux équipages,

Des valets et des pages

À n'en savoir le nom :

J'ai des vassaux sans nombre

Qui vont baisant mon ombre

Et portent mon pennon.


Soupèse un peu, la belle,

Cette lourde escarcelle,

Hé bien, elle est à toi !

Je veux que ma maîtresse

Fasse envie, en richesse,

À la femme d'un roi.


Tu rejettes mes offres ?

Allons, vide tes coffres,

Argentier de Satan !

Fais vite, ou je dépêche,

Juif, ta carcasse sèche

Au diable qui l'attend.


Des robes qu'on déploie,

De velours ou de soie,

Quelle est celle à ton goût ?

Ces riches pendeloques,

Qu'entre les doigts tu choques,

Prends, je te donne tout :


Colliers dont chaque maille

De cent couleurs s'émaille,

Magnifiques habits,

Beaux satins, fines toiles,

Brocarts semés d'étoiles,

Diamants et rubis !


Oui, pour t'avoir, la belle,

Si tu fais la rebelle,

J'engagerais mon bien...

- Merci, mon gentilhomme,

Reprenez votre somme,

J'ai tout donné pour rien.