My soul saunters in a separate way,
yet and gone,
Way into the wilderness,
where my heart always hunts;
Seeking for a Footstool,
for my maimed feet of my childhood,
Upon falling into the cold fire of wrath;
I misconstrued.

My soul saunters in a separate way,
yet and gone,
Distance may alter me,
but of becoming empty and alone;
Be home after that Spirit of Forgiveness
will be regained,
The war has left my mind,
but I could not still find the ending.

My soul saunters in a separate way,
yet and gone,
I pray. I call for Jesus for saving me
from this poignant Poison;
His amazing grace will evermore
stand against all the waves,
My soul saunters in a separate way,
upon leaving my destined grave.

Blanket city run along soaked in rain. Idiot Boy wastes his time visiting a passing crush at the other end of town. Slips between two houses and a metal sheet, communal refrigerator in the middle of the road filed with half-empty soy bottles.

Dead bell stop, mocking red blink of the operator. Father arrives, a mess of wiry muscles and hair.

“Hey. Is Coffin Cat here?”

“Who?” Father squints at Idiot Boy’s cap. Idiot Boy avoids eye contact.

“Um.”

Recessed in the blackness behind Father, a Figure says, “You looking for Coffin Cat?”

Idiot Boy nods.

The Recessed Figure turns. “I’ll go get her.”

Father returns to his parched body on the couch, content.

Indistinguishable forms move back and forth in the kitchen to the right. They stop their pacing and glance at Idiot Boy as he passes. Idiot Boy avoids eye contact and slips into the left-bound arterial vessel.

“So this is the heart chamber I’ve been living in,” Coffin Cat says as Idiot Boy enters her room. There is music gear. “It’s pretty comfy.”

“Oh, sick mic,” Idiot Boy says, pointing at the mic behind Coffin Cat’s head.

“I feel like a ghost,” Coffin Cat replies, falling on her bed.

Idiot Boy settles next to her. Animal distance. Intensely aware of his rain-soaked right shoe. “Same.”

Nothing comes out right, intersubjectivity a false God to mediate the impossible kernel of being, nobody can find nor express. Idiot Boy searches for connection. He glances around the heart chamber, at the music gear, but nothing grips. Four pears sit on a table by the window, their skins garish green in the harsh grey light.

Coffin Cat moves from the bed to the floor. She opens a virtual aquarium on her computer; fish eat pellets dropped from the sky to **** out coins to buy more fish to **** out coins to buy more fish. Capitalist investment and accumulation. Every few minutes a rocket-spewing robot teleports into the aquarium to attack the fish. Ruthless competition in the global marketplace.

“No! Why would you swim there, you ******* fish?” Coffin Cat yells as one if her fish is eaten by the nomadic war machine. “So dumb. ****. Why did it eat my fish?”

A knock at the door. The Recessed Figure from earlier enters the room. “Hey, mind if I join?” Their arms dangle like fine threads of hair.

“I like your music gear,” Idiot Boy says, pointing at nothing in particular.

“Idiot Boy also makes music,” Coffin Cat adds from the floor.

The Recessed Figure does not respond. They are enthralled by their phone, streak of dead pixels along a digital chessboard, minute reflection of their own gaunt face in the glass. After an extended period, they decide to move none of their pieces. A gaping coffee grinder rises out of the rubble at their feet. They begin filling it with tobacco from broken cigarettes.

“I’m surprised you’re still playing this,” Idiot Boy says to Coffin Cat. “I swear this is one of those games designed to ruin your life. Get addicted, stop going to work, become a hikik weaboo.”

“Already there, man,” Coffin Cat laughs. “Nah, this is my new job. I’m going to be a professional gamer.”

“Stream only PopCap games.”

Another knock at the door. Tired squander in an endless pacing of flesh. Strawman enters and nods at the Recessed Figure. “Hey bro.”

“Good to see you, man.” The Recessed Figure plugs the coffee grinder into the wall. “You got any ciggys?”

Idiot Boy points under the table and says “Ahh” with his mouth.

The Recessed Figure empties it into the coffee grinder. The device whirs into motion, creating a centrifugal blur, a mechanical and headless hypnotic repeat.

Idiot Boy and Coffin Cat look for horror movies to watch. The Recessed Figure empties the contents of the coffee grinder onto a metal tray. Strawman repacks it into a ****. White smoke fills the empty column, moves in slow motion like an oceanic rip a mile off coast, surface seething with quiet, impenetrable violence.

Idiot Boy refuses the first round. It’s never done him any good. Face turned to smoke and the wretched weight of a tongue that refuses to speak. Headless carry-on as time ticks through the clock face.

The door bursts open. Everybody turns as Manic Refusal or the Loud Person saunters in.

“I can’t believe it. I can’t ******* believe it. They’re selling me off!” the Loud Person says in exasperation. “First time back in New Zealand in five years and they do this to me!”

“What? What’s happened?” Strawman asks.

“Some rich ****** in Australia has bought me as his wife. I knew it, I knew if I came back, my parents wouldn’t let me leave again. Whole ******* thing arranged!” the Loud Person laughs bitterly, before hitting the ****.

“Oomph, that’s rough,” Coffin Cat quips from the side.

“No, you don’t even understand. This is the first time back, the first time back in five years, and I’m being sold to off some rich ****** who owns all the banks in Australia.”

“But like, who is this guy?” Strawman asks, pointing.

“And he’s been reading all my profiles. He has access to all my information. I don’t even have control over my Facebook profile. Grand Larson’s logged in as me, posting for me,” the Loud Person continues. “I met him once in Australia, clubbing, and now he’s tracked and bought me.”

“That’s creepy as ****,” Idiot Boy says.

“So he’s not a complete stranger?” Strawman asks.

“I can’t believe it. I can’t ******* believe it. First time back in five years and I’m being sold off!”

Idiot Boy decides one hit from the **** wouldn’t be so bad. He packs the cone with chop, lights and inhales. Smoke rushes through the glass channel, a swirl of white ether, more than he’d expected. He quickly passes the **** to Coffin Cat, before collapsing onto the bed, eyes closed. A suffocating sensation fills his body. He sinks into the chasm of himself, further and further into an impossible, infinite depth.

“Still working at . . . ?”

“Yeah, yeah. Management. Hospital. You?”

“Like, property. Motions.”

“Subcontracting? Intonements?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Mmm.”

Idiot Boy doesn’t know what’s going on. He feels sick and tries to get Coffin Cat’s attention, but cannot move his body.

“Come on. Sell me drugs, Strawman.”

“Nah. I don’t deal drugs. I don’t deal drugs.”

A strange silence stretches like an artificial dusk, a liminal duration, the hollow click of a tape set back into place in reverse. The Recessed Figure coughs and the Loud Person whirs back into motion.

“I can’t believe it. I can’t ******* believe it. They’re selling me off! First time back in New Zealand in five years and they do this to me!”

The Recessed Figure makes a noncommittal noise.

“I knew it, I knew if I came back, my parents wouldn’t let me leave again. Whole ******* thing arranged!”

Coffin Cat laughs quietly.

“No, you don’t even understand. This is the first time back, the first time back in five years, and I’m being sold off to some rich ****** who owns all the banks in Australia.”

“How about this fella? He doing okay?” Strawman asks, pointing. Everyone turns to Idiot Boy and laughs affectionately.

“Still working at . . . ?”

“Yeah, yeah. Management. Hospital. You?”

“Like, property. Motions.”

“Subcontracting? Intonements?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Mmm.”

“Sell me drugs, Strawman.”

“Nah. I don’t deal drugs. I don’t deal drugs.”

Idiot Boy slowly opens his eyes and stares out the window. The same grey light as before. He moves his arm further towards Coffin Cat, but is still too weak to get her attention. The same strange silence stretches. The Recessed Figure coughs and the Loud Person whirs back into motion.

“I can’t believe it. I can’t ******* believe it. . . .”

As the conversation repeats over and again, Idiot Boy begins to think he has become psychotic, or perhaps entered into a psychotic space. He thinks of computer algorithms, input-output, loops without variables, endless regurgitations of the same result. Human machines trapped in their own stupid loop. Drug-****** neuronal networks incapable of making new connections, forever traversing old ones. Short-term memory loss, every repeat a new conversation of what has already been. The same grey light painted upon four pears by the window.

He’s not sure if Coffin Cat’s laugh is getting weaker with each repeat.

Signal-response. The exterior world oversaturated with variables: roadways, rivers, forests, wildlife — an ever changing scene to respond to — the illusion of depth. Automatic response mechanisms reorient to new stimuli. The soul rises like surfactant, objectified fractal diffusion. A becoming without end.

But within the border of this interior world, the light stays grey. No input, no change; the same dead repeat, over and over, until sundown triggers a hunger response. Lined all along the street, a black box ceremony of repeating machines, trapped in their idiot cults, walls of clay and blood.

Idiot Boy finally gets Coffin Cat’s attention. She helps him through the house’s arteries to reach rain and wet stone, overcast skies. As he shakes in shock, Coffin Cat mumbles, “It’s cold.”

Idiot Boy sits silent on the ride home. Travels through himself. Tunnel through the body or Mariana Trench. Loses his footing before a traumatic void. Leaves the car and pukes.

sleep
it always seems to elude you
your mind, always trying to catch it as it saunters on by
but it never can, no matter what it tries
so eventually it gives up
it sits down, and doesnt even notice when sleep mosies by
and soon enough
sleep notices
and it comes by to say hello
chat with the mind
and if it feels like it, itll stay
and your mind will fall into its arms
allowing you to finally
sleep

"So the pen is mightier? who'da'thunk'it."
He said to the bleeding man tied down
to a messed, stained, bed.

The bound man figured,
even though he just got
to an LA plagued
by criminals, killers, and copy-cats,
that he wasn't getting out of here whole,
finally.

Holding a pen knife,
red-faced and sweating,
was his captor.
It had been a struggle
to awake and realize
who stood before him:
Quill.

The exact killer he'd been looking for.
He had heard about him in the Halo Herald,
An LA pun, it's not very popular,
but he liked the funny section.

"Are you just going to stand there?"
The bound man says, eagerly,
"Hey bud, you're the hanged man,
I'll do the talking."

"It's about time!"

"huh?"

"I'd been waiting.
heard you'd be at that
open mic. Knew you liked
the mealy type."

"Shuddup or I'll write you off."

Quill runs his pen knife over the bound man's right cheek.

"Stings a little.
Usually, I start with a rufie
and emotional damage.
But it looks like you
want to cut to the chase.
I'm a man of a similar mind.
spirit.
problem."

"Nobody's like me dude."

The bound man locks eyes with Quill.

"What're your trophies? huh?
I read you like to drain your victims,
cook'em dry.
don't you use their blood and powdered remains as ink?
Short stories or something?"

"Oh, an avid reader?! it's your lucky day:
you get to be part of the collection!"

The lamp nearby tumbles
to the floor as Quill lunges,
ready to ****.

"Wait! Don't you want to know who I am!"

"Not really."

"I'm a ser-"
The sentence is finished by
nothing but the sound of blood
and air
gurgling
into places it was never meant to be
as Quill's blade passes through flesh.

"Pfft, what, you think you're special?"
Quill saunters over to the sink.
"I'd hate to waste ink.
but there'll be more.
there's always more.
isn't that right, Celine."
he says to no one
and stands there with a smirk
as if listening to her.

Smoke signals from a silent cigarette
float to the heavens and linger
in the mucky conscience of regret
resting on the temple, my forefinger

Thumb lifted to expose
a metaphorical gun
countenance in prose
staring at a midnight sun

When will that monster again ****
another that I love,
Why did I so feel
like I could best the powers from above

I created a ghastly Adam
and I dare not create an innocent Eve
my future I cannot fathom
all time left to grieve

I will chase this gruesome snake
no matter where it slithers
across Hell's frozen lake
this calamity summons me hither

My final and only ambition
is to cast a life to silence
his and my cognition
will clash and bite in violence

I created a monster
and a monster created me
Madness! How it so saunters
and wails as if a banshee

Look over on the frozen horizon
a horrid shadow stalks
I, a fire stealing Titan
will march out to solve this paradox

You can never tell when/if they’re coming
will they reach/snag your sweater
with their mossy claws
and leave your body shaking/rigid in the darkness, and you
*******/choking your own breath.

You might/never see them,
you can(t) always feel their
breath, sticky on your sweating neck/knees
as they stalk with practice/perfection,
keeping you blind/sided.

Perhaps they are circling/behind
but they still he(a)rd your dank mind and
they can taste/fear because you taste it,
acid/tar clinging to the back/tongue
clutching the roof of your mouth
s(l)eeping in(to) your lungs.

Your sense of direction(less)
lost in attempt to hang (on) tattered flesh
to remind your self of time/reality?
to wonder where/when you left you and whether
you’ll ever walk back to your body—

But this, this is yours/your mind/mindless
being surreptitiously shepherded,
invisible to your eyes/your intuition,
which seeks/bares(t) gasps of light.

Hang on to those/sustenance,
gaps in the cloth of your (de)constructed mind
that withers/shreds/hopes again
only to find claws closing closer.
Where’s your reality?

Find it/they’ll get you/they’ll have you
You’ll have you what’s the difference?
When your mind is severed from its guy wires
just as your earthquake saunters from quiver to roar
and it all (col)lapses, you swallow you
into cavernous depths where your calamities/

Two frowns wait for the other to speak:
One long and melancholy,
The other expectant, so fraught and weak.
The boy looks to his dog as though to his lover:
“I wish I could give you everything you wanted;
Life only interferes.”
His mate saunters on, lays low
So he fears, in resignation,
“What is it that keeps your devotion so clear?”
She, silent, in anticipation
“I do not know,” he responded. “But it is not here.”
So the blank canvas continued to be:
His mate continued sniffling unknowingly.

Spheres floating in the chilly dark,
white and fluffy,
vain and uncorrupted.
They act as the air
being both here and never
there;
they act as the heavens,
little shining points floating
in a sea of black.
Islands so pure
floating in a nightmare sea--
how I abhorr their isolation,
their pure and careless
floating
though I, too, am alone.
Adrift in a sea of
introspective mutterings and
the utterings of a mind entrapped,
I sail the dark and simpering seas
of the Universe.
My vessel is a snowflake,
a crystalline craft carrying me
through the synapses and
nervous connections
of the thinking brain.
How infinite is the mind,
how wondrous is the world,
an immensity unto itself and
yet so tiny and contained.
I have never seen the ruins of China,
the fallen columns of the Romans nor
the ancient halls of the Al-Hambra.
I shall never see the samurai in bloom,
arranging flowers and painting
pictures of naked women
haunting their snowflake mind.
I shall never construct the
anonymous clockwork of Archimedes
but rather be trapped in the mechanisms
of the modern machine.
Adrift,
my confusion,
my blind anger and hatred of fate and
the gravity that pulls the snowflake ever closer to the ground
is pure vanity and self illusion.
Do the archways of Troy or
the mathematics of India
make us any larger in size
when compared to the Universe?
How can a snowflake
measure infinity?
What Universes exist
within the frozen ice of a snowflake,
what wars and great romances have played out
within the crystals;
what gods have been erected,
what nations have coalesced from the ashes
within the molecules and atoms
crafted by the cold
and the senseless flow of water?
The myriad explorers,
philosophers,
inventors,
geniuses lost to the ages
have mapped out the physical
while still being blind to the
finite world around them.
They sailed the Universe's
inky oceans of unknown,
their mind's sails billowing white,
puffy and hopeful
as they drifted off the edge of the known.
How they wriggled and rolled
so miraculously through the dark,
snowflakes floating carelessly
creating the world out of necessity
and pure ingenuity.
What white specters might exist
in the libraries of old,
in the halls of Alexandria or
the melting *** of Baghdad?
Do they wish to leave me a message,
the snow that saunters down,
to build a city in my mind
and a home in my soul.
What thoughts were caught
by the ancient genius
floating carelessly
like snow falling
in the anonymous black
of night?
Like islands they stood
for the men sailing the unknown waters
to rest and read and
contemplate
for just a few moments longer.
Swallowed by the darkness,
layered on the ground,
the knowledge is lost
among the infinitely white expanse
and the all-consuming darkness
of the night.
I am lost
like a snowflake falling too fast
I am buried beneath
layers of snow.

What large, dark hands are those at the window
Lifted, grasping in the yellow light
Which makes its way through the curtain web
At my heart to-night?

Ah, only the leaves! So leave me at rest,
In the west I see a redness come
Over the evening's burning breast --
For now the pain is numb.

The woodbine creeps abroad
Calling low to her lover:
The sunlit flirt who all the day
Has poised above her lips in play
And stolen kisses, shallow and gay
Of dalliance, now has gone away
-- She woos the moth with her sweet, low word,
And when above her his broad wings hover
Then her bright breast she will uncover
And yeild her honey-drop to her lover.

Into the yellow, evening glow
Saunters a man from the farm below,
Leans, and looks in at the low-built shed
Where hangs the swallow's marriage bed.
The bird lies warm against the wall.
She glances quick her startled eyes
Towards him, then she turns away
Her small head, making warm display
Of red upon the throat. Her terrors sway
Her out of the nest's warm, busy ball,
Whose plaintive cries start up as she flies
In one blue stoop from out the sties
Into the evening's empty hall.

Oh, water-hen, beside the rushes
Hide your quaint, unfading blushes,
Still your quick tail, and lie as dead,
Till the distance covers his dangerous tread.

The rabbit presses back her ears,
Turns back her liquid, anguished eyes
And crouches low: then with wild spring
Spurts from the terror of the oncoming
To be choked back, the wire ring
Her frantic effort throttling:
Piteous brown ball of quivering fears!

Ah soon in his large, hard hands she dies,
And swings all loose to the swing of his walk.
Yet calm and kindly are his eyes
And ready to open in brown surprise
Should I not answer to his talk
Or should he my tears surmise.

I hear his hand on the latch, and rise from my chair
Watching the door open: he flashes bare
His strong teeth in a smile, and flashes his eyes
In a smile like triumph upon me; then careless-wise
He flihgs the rabbit soft on the table board
And comes towards me: ah, the uplifted sword
Of his hand against my *****, and oh, the broad
Blade of his hand that raises my face to applaud
His coming: he raises up my face to him
And caresses my mouth with his fingers, smelling grim
Of the rabbit's fur! God, I am caught in a snare!
I know not what fine wire is round my throat,
I only know I let him finger there
My pulse of life, letting him nose like a stoat
Who sniffs with joy before he drinks the blood:
And down his mouth comes to my mouth, and down
His dark bright eyes descend like a fiery hood
Upon my mind: his mouth meets mine, and a flood
Of sweet fire sweeps across me, so I drown
Within him, die, and find death good.

Beyond the farms
of my troubled fears,
a path weaves through
icy slivers of bone,
glossed by Winter’s breath,
who sits enthroned
aside her onyx pond,
reflecting.

“The challenge you face is twofold:
confront me and confront yourself.”

A black jaguar saunters from
her ivory throne, holding
my gaze in the vice
of its assured indifference.

“That which you seek may not be found,
but earned.”

My dagger shakes,
frozen tightly in
my sweating palm.
The lush snow absorbs
the crush of my knees
as the jaguar closes.

“Your unearthed answer, clean of instinct or knowledge,
bids closer reflection.”

At arm’s length,
the jaguar stops.

“Change does not ride the wind,
for the wind has direction.”

The jaguar’s breath
warms my quivering lips,
and I exhale
my unbidden thoughts.
My eyes, still fixed in place,
are not aware
of my rising hand.

“To understand is to forgive,
and to forgive is to love.”

Her words chill the blood
pooling in my outstretched palm,
quivering closer to my host.
The ferric scent tickles its whiskers,
and the jaguar laps up my gift.

“Love, and you'll belong.”

In the shadows she is poised in thought, pen resting against her lips.
She hears the faint click of the closing door and raises her eyes slightly, dark lashes sweeping upwards for a moment in acknowledgement.
The air feels faintly charged. Outside the snow, falling delicately before finally settling like a blanket on the cold winter ground....It’s smooth innocent whiteness ..it’s beauty untouched and yet beckoning alluringly to ravage its perfection with human foot.
As she calls softly now with that same innocence from the shadows. Creamy white shoulder and the merest hint of breast illuminated only by the five branch gothic style candelabra at one end of the battered writing desk.
Flickering ever so slightly in the chill winter drought . The flimsy black negligee she wears no protection on this cold February night. As the shadows dance across her she stretches lazily and her ******* are *****...straining against their thin, silky casing, inviting a hand to tease them through the fabric. Her body is partly covered by a bright Indian style throw, its rich fabric drapes casually across her flank and trails down to expose part of her thigh.
Each flicker and ebb of the candlelight highlighting for a brief moment, a single frame before again being cast into shadow. She shrugs ever so slightly. The blanket falls and she is exposed. With a flick of the fingers the negligee too falls away, in an inky puddle on the floor.
The light dances across that secret place, allowing only a glimpse of the dark triangle nestled between white thighs
She leans forward, tousled hair trailing across her face and deftly rolls a joint.
She lights it and inhales deeply, blowing a thin plume of smoke from her pursed pink lips. It drifts for a moment before being consumed by candle flames, flickering orange then yellow.. it’s core a steady unchanging blue.
There is a feeling of intensity building. The air is charged with a ****** energy.
She has a wild beauty that has been all but lost in the modern western woman.
She knows her power and allure. It has served women since the dawn of time.
She gazes slowly around the room. Her eye does not rest on any particular man for more than a moment.
She need not speak a word. Her hand drifts to that dark promise between her thighs, stroking and rubbing then sliding inside that moist pink opening.
She stands and saunters towards the writing desk. She is fully illuminated now in the candlelight.
She sits on the edge of the worn leather desktop and parts her legs, beckoning the three men to her. Under her spell they move toward and then around her.
She reaches to the first and places his mouth to her breast. The second needs no such introduction, his lips and tongue flicking and caressing the delicate areola.
She parts her thighs once more and allows the third man to enter her, moaning softly as the three explore every inch of her.
Each one in turn enters her, she writhes and moans as they spill their willing seed.
When spent they curl up in various spaces around her in blissful fatigue.
She looks beyond now... He approaches, drunk with desire, hungry to feel the slippery, salty cavern, filled by others moments before as he watched.
His ****** is powerful, met by hers in unashamed pleasure and desire.
Again, for the moment, she is his.

Lazy days and choppy waves
Upon a copper sea,
A breezy, warming westerly
Is blowing down on me.

Sunlight striking wavelets
Below clouds of cotton cool
And seagulls hang in squadron lines
Aloft from oyster pool.

Road signs judder in the breeze
Ripples weave amongst long grass,
Mangroves bend in unison
And asphalt bakes in molten glass.

A parasol of brilliant blue
A picnic basket brimming high
With lemonade and icy beer
Whilst sausages and onions fry.

Two barking dogs cavort with joy
Chasing ******* sandy beach,
Leaping high in summer air
Running, fetching, ***** to each.

The lazy summer saunters in
Engulfing us with solar heat,
The pretty girls wear tiny shorts
Which breathless boys find such a treat.

Pohutukawa’s bursting forth
In waves of rich and scarlet red
Which juxtapose dark olive greens
Of leafage midst each flower bed.

A sky of brilliant powder blue
With salt spray aura in the air
As swimmers splash in gales of fun
Hot sunlight baubles kiss their hair.


Marshalg
Port Waikato beach
15 November 2011

© 2011 Marshal Gebbie

“The Maiden”

Over her long legs,
Hips sway in a salacious manner,
As she strolls,
Past the gaggle of gentlemen,
Mustering the valor to face,
Their glances varying from curiosity,
To disgust,
Perhaps intrigue as these men,
Behold this exotic form of femininity.

An aura of mystery emanates,
From a tenderly warm demeanor,
Welcoming the viewers,
Who encounter this daughter of Aphrodite,
Capturing attention regardless of,
One’s alleged reasoning.

Intrepid knights receive the blessing,
To witness the hazel windows,
Into a maiden’s soul,
Deeply adorned with unbidden intensity,
Bestowing a small glimpse,
Into a beguiling beauty,
Mistaken as a cozening siren,
To an untrained eye.

Many chaps desire her,
Until revelations bereave these fellows,
Of security interwoven into the fabric,
Of society sewn with fine threads,
Uniting into an existence of conformity.

Some licentious men lunge,
At the maiden,
Gaping at what these fellows,
Observe as a tantalizing goddess,
Desiring to place lascivious hands,
Upon her soft skin.

Misguided stories allow life to be given,
To glaring spectators,
Spewing jeers of rancor,
Bemused as the unknown,
Deftly saunters near,
The valley of Oblivion.

Like the majestic Mona Lisa,
The maiden consists of subtle nuances,
Painting her tributes behind cryptic techniques,
Allowing one to inspect her façade,
Learning her similarities to the wind,
Feeling her spirit,
Rather than glancing upon visual proof.

The souls encountering the maiden,
Gain respite from strangling thoughts,
Placated by her light,
Revealing the contrasts,
The highlights to expose,
An extraordinary beauty,
Manifesting from genuine kindness,
Breaths of generosity,
And irrevocable love of all shades and tints,
Within a painter’s palate.

They look at each other,
blush,
look away,
It seems to be choreographed  like a dance between them

He looks at her,
She glances, giggles
He looks away
This is the infamous tango of hearts
They watch, They wait, They wonder

Until one day,
Someone makes a step that doesn't fit into the dance.

A new boy,
One who hasn't been observing their dance,
He walks up to her as she giggles
He smirks, saunters, and flirts

The dance shudders,

Stops.

Her heart has been won

He looks at her,
She glances up, meets his eyes,
Looks away.
The dance is still being performed,

This time though, it is a dance of friendship.

Of Worry
Of Desperation, both his and hers
For months he's seen her like this

The downcast look in her eye
A sudden pain when she is touched
An obvious flinch is she is so much as reached for

She comes to talk to him
They laugh
Almost like old times

Yet he can't mistake the pain in her eyes
He moves to touch her
A hand grabs her arm and jerks her away

He looks
She shakes her head
He frowns, pleads silently
She shakes her head again
He nods,

And he walks away

He looks
She is distrusting
She got out, alone,
The new boy, now old in her views comes to her

The boy is is apologetic, The boy pleads with her
She looks across the room to her boy,
Not one she's dated,
But one she shares an even more intimate relationship with
One she trusts.

This is the boy that has been with her all along,
He who danced the dance with her through it all.
The only boy that she could trust to know the steps

She needs help now, so she looks to him
He shakes his head,
Now she is the one who frowns,

He shakes his head again
And she walks away.
Away from her past
And towards her future.

When she saunters
in a two piece bikini,
without making
any  pug marks
even on soft sand,
"Which one color
adds more firepower
to her allure
enhanced figure?"
is a question
never heard aloud,
all the same,there
hovers in the thick air,
quite tangibly.
Even with all the intimate
knowledge on her at hand,
it is still too difficult
to suggest, as she moves
with the deadly confidence
of a sleek armored car,
every one that appears on
the line of fire along
the  180 degree curve
sure would go down,
that's a daily occurrence.

But if on a  bikini in white
she would be seen on the beach
absolutely mysterious she looks
the decision on this is unanimous!
how does one  know this?
     -a stunned silence every time
       happens is the clinching proof.

He looks at her lying there sleeping with a smile on his face
He shuts his eyes
Opens them and sees her beckoning to him
He goes to her
Takes her in his arms and murmurs sweet nothings till she is asleep again
He shuts his eyes
Opens them again and he's still standing there watching her sleep

He watches her as she speaks so animatedly
The light from the harsh fluorescent bulb hardly diminishes the angles, the planes, the beauty of her face
He watched the pleasure in her face turns to sorrow as she recounts her troubles
And as he wished with all his might that he could take her in his arms to comfort her

He shuts his eyes
And opens them
He goes to her
Takes her in his arms
Comforts her as she cries out her anguish
He shuts his eyes
Opens them again  
And he's still sitting in his seat
Watching her pour her soul out

He's standing by the door
As she bids him goodbye
She saunters over to him
Hugs him goodbye
As she walked away
He shuts his eyes
Opens them
And hurries over to her
With a whisper as soft as butterfly wings
He says "I'm in love with you"
He shuts his eyes
And opens them again
He's still standing by the door
As she hurried away to her ride
With the words still unspoken

He lay down in his bed
Thinking about the day
As he closes his eyes
He goes back to dreaming about her

Vast, empty, midnight hour,
hunchbacked lampposts glaring over parasitic black earth
choking its host.

A parking lot,
an ecosystem’s blemish—
hot tar seeping into the pores of the earth
like a stubborn blackhead in a lip line.

When no cars burrow into the blackened hide
like lice
the great absence of life
is an atrocity.

I imagine myself skateboarding across the tier
as the small town cops
watch languidly with vague interest—

A skateboarder’s paradise
where wheels and accomplice minds roll across celestial barriers
blasting infinite pulses
into the microcosm.

What greasy punks have their mother’s van parked here,
huddling by the heat vents
and jerking off into a Pringle’s can?

Empty parking lot
looks like a cemetery
filled to the brim
where headstones meld
over a mass grave—

delineated by white lines,
the apparitions of vehicles and their hosts
haunt the frozen space.

Another horrible excuse
to waste land,
a wasteland in and of itself
where Tom Eliot saunters aimlessly
and buries the dead.

The saddest sight to behold,
this vacuous parking lot
littered with stray shopping carts,
phantasmal plastic bags,
gum splotches,
***** stains,
candy wrappers,
cigarette butts,
used condoms,
lonely cops
and patient drug dealers,
ambulant skaters,
tired punks,
bored teenagers,
somnambulists,
stumbling drunks,
hunchbacked ***** lights
prying for life beneath its sallow gaze—

The air encapsulated within the perdition
stifling,
the pavement below stifling,
a constriction only visible
when emptied of its contents.

A cop wakes from their choking nightmare gasping
to find themselves trapped,
****** in this parking lot
where the walkie-talkie buzzes
with the weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The warehouse store
looming above the waiting room
lifeless, silent, dark countenance—
Big Brother sees all in the gaping maw.

Cascading before me,
stretching towards the highway passing by,
waiting for the panorama to finish scrolling,
the treadmill to cease its cycle—
all the while lamenting life’s absence
and reveling in the potentiality it possesses.

A spiteful taste of malice

Slithers across my tongue

Secrecy spoke in volumes

Before the words begun

This sensation it saunters

Into solar vacuity

Perpetrating sheer, faugh

Acts of congruency

In vain contempt I wallow

In the pillars of infamy

Whilst faint my ears waltz

To vindictive symphonies

Prolonged my strife be by humanity

Whilst I attempt to appease

As they flaunt their existence

To miscellaneous degrees

The English language resembles

Clouds of hyperbolic fallacies

In light of this hapless universe

They share an index of analogies

From behind cracked windowpanes

I peer at all that is inane

With repugnance I am slain

As I wince with disdain

I scarf reality in intervals

Reaping jagged grains of salt

Though helpless I am left

Pessimistic by default

© 2011 (All rights reserved)

(As Distinguished by an Italian Person of Quality)

I

Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare,
The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square;
Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there!

II

Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least!
There, the whole day long, one’s life is a perfect feast;
While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast.

III

Well now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a bull
Just on a mountain’s edge as bare as the creature’s skull,
Save a mere **** of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull!
—I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair’s turned wool.

IV

But the city, oh the city—the square with the houses! Why?
They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there’s something to take the eye!
Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry!
You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by:
Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets high;
And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly.

V

What of a villa? Though winter be over in March by rights,
’Tis May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well off the heights:
You’ve the brown ploughed land before, where the oxen steam and wheeze,
And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint grey olive trees.

VI

Is it better in May, I ask you? You’ve summer all at once;
In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns.
’Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well,
The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red bell
Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and sell.

VII

Is it ever hot in the square? There’s a fountain to spout and splash!
In the shade it sings and springs; in the shine such foam-bows flash
On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and paddle and pash
Round the lady atop in her conch—fifty gazers do not abash,
Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort of sash!

VIII

All the year long at the villa, nothing to see though you linger,
Except yon cypress that points like Death’s lean lifted forefinger.
Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix in the corn and mingle,
Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle.
Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is shrill,
And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous firs on the hill.
Enough of the seasons,—I spare you the months of the fever and chill.

IX

Ere opening your eyes in the city, the blessed church-bells begin:
No sooner the bells leave off than the diligence rattles in:
You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a pin.
By and by there’s the travelling doctor gives pills, lets blood, draws teeth;
Or the Pulcinello-trumpet breaks up the market beneath.
At the post-office such a scene-picture—the new play, piping hot!
And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves were shot.
Above it, behold the Archbishop’s most fatherly of rebukes,
And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new law of the Duke’s!
Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend Don So-and-so
Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, Saint Jerome, and Cicero,
“And moreover,” (the sonnet goes rhyming,) “the skirts of Saint Paul has reached,
Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than ever he preached.”
Noon strikes,—here sweeps the procession! our Lady borne smiling and smart
With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords stuck in her heart!
Bang, whang, whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife;
No keeping one’s haunches still: it’s the greatest pleasure in life.

X

But bless you, it’s dear—it’s dear! fowls, wine, at double the rate.
They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays passing the gate
It’s a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not the city!
Beggars can scarcely be choosers: but still—ah, the pity, the pity!
Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with cowls and sandals,
And the penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the yellow candles;
One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with handles,
And the Duke’s guard brings up the rear, for the better prevention of scandals.
Bang, whang, whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife.
Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life!

the lion tiptoes in circles around her.
her mind spins in opposite circles
while the voice in her head yells "run."
but her limbs freeze and lock into place.
she hides her breath deep in her lungs,
staring straight into the lion's eyes
hoping it won't feel the fear in the air.
each second crashes onto her shoulders,
until the lion slowly saunters away,
becoming a small shape in the distance.

NEW YORK STATE OF MIND

Walt Whitman
walks by me
somewhere in 1891

I nod to him...he nods to me
lost in himself
Clinton is being inaugurated

Brooklyn Bridge
saunters by
dressed in the summer of '67

the subway
wears its best graffiti
the music of trains and Coltrane

the Flatiron Building is jaywalking
the Empire State
chats him up

a child's hopscotch
almost washed away
a moment's masterpiece

Robert Moses
looks across Long Island
longs to build the city only he sees

he gazes into my future
I look into his past
I pass Robert Mapplethorpe

a man in a white suit
nailed to the darkness
by so many stars

an old saxophone player
busks Rogers and Hart in Central Park
"...I didn't know what time it was..."

two obese Chinese
take up most of the sidewalk
both speaking fluent - Irish

Leaves of Grass
lies scattered across the road
read now by the wind

a car caught in traffic
blares out Joel's
"New York State of Mind"

I laugh at such
a happenstance
a walk-on-part in my own movie

escaping the borders
of the body
I walk through times

I am all the times
of the world
they intersect in self

Walt and I
sitting on a park bench
waiting to go somewhere else

an 1990's rain
falls on an 1870's NY
they are beginning Brooklyn Bridge

I meet my self
coming and going
an older and a younger me

time held prisoner on the wrist
I turn and walk away
into this the newest of centuries

My time spent chasing rainbows taught me of pipe dreams,
and liars.
Dusting off the fairy dust,
I learn my limbs have life
Evolution saunters, entertaining kings
Picking fights, for the sake of the queen

Animals were made to bleed
Rainbows are made from rain.
partials of color
tend to escape

My time spent chasing rainbows, gave me bruises
cuts so deep, I never heal
there is beauty in the damaged flesh
solace in regret
Truth shines across the sky
colored in lies

I spent my time chasing rainbows, lost in the thrill
I should have spent my time admiring the still
the small feel, of standing beneath.

Maybe I've been out here
For close to half a year;
Or more
Adrift
Floating

If you lay on your back
(Like I have done)
You'd see that the waves
Have a pattern -
Not
Just up-and-down.

I haven't done it in a while but,
Sometimes I muster up the courage
To look into the water.
It's crystal clear usually
(My reflection is odd but endearing.)

Other times
The giant shadowy blackness
Saunters deep down in the clarity.

Out of the blue
Sometimes, I'll watch a tail fin
Circle my lifeboat.
Entranced by it's wake
I watch the sea-demon of the deep
Until it leaves.

I feel like I'm your shepherd
Fighting off the wolf with a staff
But you
Oh you, silly sheep
Keep following the wolf
His claw curled in summoning
His howls soft and comforting
Yet they send shivers up my spine
And my blood to boil with anger
I beat the wolf round the head
Tearing his fur
I'll make him wish he were dead
For seducing my sheep with his hungry eyes
His honey gaze
His bitter glaze
I'll rip out his fur before her gets to you, my sheep
But the sheep doesn't understand me
THE WOLF IS DANGEROUS
I scream until my throat bleeds
But still
My dearest sheep tilts her head
And saunters off into the forest
Where the wolf it waiting with wet lips
Jaw twitching in anticipation
Maybe I should let you be eaten, little sheep
I could scream all I want
Show you my dead flock
But you won't listen
Maybe I'll just let you get eaten
I'm tired of saving your life

Death....
Death walks
on two feet
Saunters up
to you and me
Death,
Death comes
In night and day
In sun and rain
In joy and pain
Death comes for us on our day
In our way

Death....
Whisks you away
Takes you away from the pain
Death....
Whisks you away
Whispers are all that remain

Death comes in every shape
Death comes in any form
Silent as a shadow
And violent as a storm

Death...
Death crawls
on all fours
Has no mercy
for kings or ******
Death,
Death comes
For rich and poor
For saintly and sinful
Despised and adored
Death comes to all things in time
Just wait in line

Death....
Whisks you away
Takes you away from the pain
Death....
Whisks you away
Whispers are all that remain

Death comes in every shape
Death comes in any form
Silent as a shadow
And violent as a storm

Death...
Slithers
Into our hearts
And through our veins
Into our art
Death lives
Inside our souls
In all of life
It waits and grows
Death comes each and every day
Hides until it's time to play
again....

THROUGH VERY SHORT TIMES OF SPACE.

The red door of No.16
North Frederick Street

slams behind him as he
enters into this newly minted

morning
sunshine so thick

one feels like a fish
swimming through it.

Sunlight spangles
a tiny puddle

turning it into a jewel
that only the eye can cherish.

Ahhhh "...the ineluctable
modality of the visible."

He turns right into Upper
Dorset Street

pulling an "Ahhh...howya!"
out of the man who makes the false

teeth!

Then turning left into
Eccles Street

giving the nod to No. 7
Bloom's house in ULYSSES.

Here in its run down state
though still shining in his fictionality.

Soon they will knock it
down and what will the tourists

do then
poor things.

Sure some bright spark
will rescue it from its rubble

and the door will live again
some streets away again.

Ahhh...." the ineluctable
modality of the visible."

I go to Quinn's gym
to get my Molly

(  Philomena her name is )

a cottage cheese with pineapple
on a Weetabix base.

It is a 16th of June
somewhere in the 80's

as I retrace my own earlier
Joycean footsteps.

Rat-a-tat-tat on Bloom's door.
"Are ya there Leopold?"

But the bold Leopold
doesn't answer.

The 16th of
forever I am

"...walking through it
howsomever."

The sun smirks
as such Joyceisms.

"I am, a stride of  a time.

A very short space of time
through very short times of space."

A horse and cart as if
from the past

saunters by
timelessly.

Ah "...the ineluctable
modality of the audible."

My Molly who is really
a Philomena

spoons the deliciousness
of the creamy dessert

into her
and yes she says

mmmm...yes....mmmm

Yes.

A cold, dark desert begins
When a faint peach light saunters over the horizon
& climbs the sky,
Leaving darkness to shadows and graves.

The chaffed branches of bushels,
Barely lingering along the threshold of life,
Find solace in crawling growth
As the glow reaches dusty twigs,
Making them as networks of smoker bronchi.

Faded green cacti hold posture sharp,
As totems of harsh-landed culture,
Serving as solemn landmarks
In a flatland of mixed dust and rock,
They stand tall
All for a breath of young desert air.

While quiet hue spreads,
Passing each towering rock & mountain,
Even quivering lizards,
Waiting to be sunbaked,
Change to pink-yellow glow
& scarcely move
As the sun soars above
sizzling rigid scales,
Until the glowing horizon becomes a burning, lit land
Under a radiating Arizona sun.

Sliding from the silky, satin sheets
Slowly she saunters to the terrace
And scans the sparkling, star-sprinkled sky
  
As slender arms loosely clasp her svelte, ******* swathed silhouette
So too her thoughts encircle her sweetheart
  
She smiles as she recalls their tryst...
  
          His strong embrace holding her safe and secure
          Lips that tease with nearness
          At last bestowing passion-soaked kisses
          Whilst hands slide up to her soft, supple breast
          And trace circles around her sensitive, cerise *******
  
She is lost now
Caught in the exquisite snare of sinfully-sweet reminiscences
Of two lovers seeking to please
And thirsting to be satisfied...
  
          Slow, tantalizing caresses gracefully ****** their souls
          Hearts, minds and bodies of two lovers now aroused
          Suspended over the precipice
          Oh, yes, such blissful anticipation
          And then … surrender
          Surrender to sweet, sweet ecstasy!
  
As she stands now on the circumference of sensual abyss
She sways slightly
A soft breeze strokes her sun-kissed skin
It whispers to her spirit and begins to sing a song
A song so enticing
So stirring
That small goosebumps rise and glisten
  
So once more she slips betwixt silky, satin sheets

It's stories above where the butterflies rustled,
Whirring between the lights in aeolian bustle.
I'm smiling spritely at a neon halo,
While my organs writhe in jacqueminot El Niño.
Wading the nightscape  with a glitched simper,
I could not change nor attempt to tinker,
Just breaching the moments passing to linger.
Fingers, then palms, then lips, then black,
Then for a few seconds the world collapsed.
A breath, a sip, some wit, I'm back.
Shed the murky vision of captive cataracts.
And now,
The sylph saunters in epitomized elegance,
And I've buckled on the inside to the resonant reverence.
I follow the fragrance in her wake as paralyzed sedatives,
And anything I might say could only lack eloquence.
Then magnanimous mantras attract exact,
It seems way down the rabbit hole I've finally met my match.
There's a mesh of flesh, a smooth caress,
Then I wake and realize these were not visions yonder death.
Particles of my brain erupt,
I can't explain away the unfading elation of touch.
Every pose palatial down to the pixels,
I'd gaze deep in the sheen of her mind gleaming as crystals.
Her eyes open like daybreak in flashes,
Sunstreaks glint over the horizon of her lashes.
There's morning songbirds behind the taste of coffee,
I think she's figured I'm just a well decorated softy.
Unveiling my most human of contentions stripped to the eclipse of logic,
My former self laughs in tones pitched sardonic.
Euphorically strumming at gossamer heartstrings,
Etched in the fabric as sakura carvings.

Alex 2 breathes, stacks and unstacks papers, distantly
Alex 1, front cubicle, coughs, clicks his mouse
Eddie pulls out his drawer, pushes it back in, clicks his mouse
Alex 2, yes two Alex's, saunters up to the coffee machine
Alex 1, head down, clacking his keyboard
Mouse clicks, keyboard clicks, electricity
Monitors glow, fluorescents never flicker
Alex 1 opens a new file, two clicks of the mouse
Eddie sips his coffee, puts it down, clicks
New folder, new file, new data
Data entry, spreadsheets
Alex 1 asks did you get the email
Alex 2 has his coffee, his white shirt, under the fluorescents
Statics noise, static, mouse clicks, keyboard
Every new click, new file, new data, new folder
Data in, data out, file, click, the static electronics
Alex 2 clicks, files, new folder, new deal, new data
Eddie clears his throat, softly, the static noise, flickers,
Every new love story is a tragedy
Alex 2 opens a new folder, inputs data, spreadsheets
Numbers in, Eddie clicks his mouse twice rapidly
Stale effluvia coffee, static noise, electric light
Alex 1 sniffles, clears his throat, the clock ticks softly
Eddie opens a new file, the electric screen reflects his fixed eyes
Alex 2 sips his coffee, opens a file, clicks, keyboard clacks
Stasis, complete stasis, electricity, nodes, linear graphs
Numbers input, data, new file, file transfer
Every old tragedy is a ghost story
Alex 2 sips his coffee, breathes, clears his throat, data
Spreadsheets, monitors, electricity, static, data input, output
Every ghost story is infinite
Alex 1 gets up for a new coffee
Eddie inputs data, spreadsheet, file, new folder
Electric lights, stasis, data, file, click, file, input exp..

It's hard to understand, unless
you've been there.
There is a pull to the streets.
I can't count how many dead
end jobs I've held—how many roach
infested rooms I've
crashed in.
The inevitable day comes when
I tell the boss, "*******, I don't need this ****! "
I walk out into the misty
afternoon—I look left, then right.
I drowned out thoughts of the future with
a cheap pint of *****.

I see one eye George on my travails,
he's half lit—living in the woods.
"Don't let the ******* get you down." He says, as he
stumbles by bent, and taking a standing eight count.
Mickey the ****** stops me a
block from my flop-house.
"Tommy boy, I'm sick…gotta couple of bucks so
an old drunk can get well? "
I slip him a five.
He says with a tear in his eye,
"God bless you Tommy—you know I
had it all, I'm afraid the
streets own me now."
"Keep your chin up" I say as
I plummet down the
street, pretending
tomorrow is a decade away.

I climb the three flights of
stairs to my room,
slip the key in the lock,
turn the ****—it opens.
"I love these little miracles" I say under
my breadth.
My three legged cat Walter saunters up to
me—he's white with marmalade splotches.
He does his best to rub up against
my leg—I pet his matted fur.

I passed out in an alley one
night, and woke up to Walter lying next to me.
I think something crawled into
my ear and made a home,
it's been there ever since.

I crash down on my chair,
and watch Walter scratch at
the door with his one front leg.
He hasn't been neutered—he gets the
pull of the streets.
I let him out and take a long swig of
the *****—the potion does its magic.
Life doesn't look so bad,
there will be other jobs, and I still have
two weeks left in this
dump of a room.
A writer needs four walls—yet there is
always

the pull of the streets.

LSD
acid rain
slowly detaching
feel no pain
lights all blur
colours smear
cold wind blowing
whispers her song in my ear
nerves tense up
panic saunters in
if I dont keep sippin' this water
the bad tippin' will win
a bubble surrounds me
but I can still see clearly through
a new found understanding
of just what is really true
you placed a cymbal on a drum
to play for us your show
sparks fly off, with every hit
and time moves endlessly slow
I smoke, but I feel no satisfaction
my fingers swell like sausage links
I wonder if it's all for real, or
if it's just what my mind thinks
this is a musical trip today
we jam, and fry, and blaze
we laugh, because we can't understand, like
no sentences are made from the words we say
soon I long for my cocoon
to swaddle my self in warm
while your laces turn to snakes
unafraid, they mean no harm
the morning eventually comes
but feels like she's been here all along
the rising sunlight hurts my eyes
as the morning birds sing their songs

Maybe I'll get breakfast....