How Brave you must be~the squaw exclaimed to the Chief.   " Why, I am more than a Brave", the Chieftain quipped.!   " Just look at my feathers and the scalps hanging by my side,    do they not tell of My many Deeds ?    Her reply was a simple ,,  "YES,  I can see how you have adorned yourself ! "   He retorted ~ " And you certainly can't miss all the colors by which I have claimed  MY-STATUS ! "     The Squaw responded~ "YES,  the HUES on you,  certainly   tell me who and what you are,  now that I look closely  ! "    And he added~ "Look at the careful way in which I have displayed my Collection of  SCALPS,  Spaced ever so carefully around my waistband !    She questioned further,  "Have you  ,Oh Mighty Chief,  Properly named each of the Scalps ,  SO YOU won't forget from whence they came ? ?     "OH,  My Goodness, YES,  he answered.   "I wouldn't  ever want to forget where they came from,  SO~I admire each and Call each of them, By Name~ Everyday.   "SURELY" She continued,  "YOU are  much more than any other  Chief,  and by the way , DO you use Windex or Glass-Plus  to clean your mirrors ? ?  "    HE exclaimed,  "I, really don't know what cleaning  agent my servant uses,  to clean my many mirrors !  BUT,  they certainly do shine,  when I look into them !      The SQUAW  queried~  " BUT  what about your shoes, moccasins , if you would,  WHAT~~ is that Green-Gooey Stuff all over them ? ?   HE-Commented~ " I guess that when I  take my mighty steps, toes and feet,  IN THE WAY,   Fall under the Prances that I make ! ! ? "    Then,She asked~ "Do you do your War'Dances often, or just as you are called on, by your mighty warriors ? "   AND,,this Brave-Chieftain  PROCLAIMED~  "WHY,  I"ll have you Know,   I do all of these Prances and Dances ~BY MY OWN CHOICE,  NO-ONE  tells me when or what to do.  Except my visits with the Prince of the Air !"   The Squaw thanked him~turned~then turned back~Asking " Measured by~ Scalps~Prances and Dances ? ?

Three thousand feet up! Up the side of Mount Crumpit,

He rode to the tiptop to dump it!

"Pooh-pooh to the Whos!" he was grinch-ish-ly humming.

"They're finding out now that no Christmas is coming!

"They're just waking up! I know just what they'll do!

"Their mouths will hang open a minute or two

"All the Whos down in Who-ville will all cry BOO-HOO!"...



At the top of the mountain he untied his dog

From the sleigh. And the valley was filling with fog

As thick as the Who Hash he'd grinched just before.

He chuckled with glee at what was in store.

Now the Grinch grabbed the sacks from the top of the sleigh,

And with a mighty "HEAVE **!" he shoved them away.

The bags filled with toys well they weaved and they shook

With the weight of the things he so sneakily took.

Until finally momentum made things far less slow.

They fell 3000 feet to the jagged rocks below.

A sickening crunch and several sharp cries

At first startled the Grinch but caused him to realize

When he stole from the Whos down in Whoville his pride

Had gotten the best of him; he'd thrown some children inside.

He giggled maliciously, grabbed his dog Max

And got back in the sleigh, for he couldn't relax.

He had to go back, for his job wasn't done.

All the Whos down in Whoville, every last one

Every man, every woman, every daughter and son

Would be dead in their beds by the dawn of the sun.

The trip down Mount Crumpit was faster than up

As he growled to himself, "where's that ***** with the cup?"

He jumped off the sleigh, machete in hand

And marched straight into Whoville, whose gates could not stand

For the rage made him strong. How he hated the Whos

With their **** cheesy smiles, and their dumb pointy shoes,

Turned up noses and pigtails and hideous songs,

THE SONGS, THE SONGS, HOW HE HATED THE SONGS.

And now he'd make sure that the Whos sang no more...

At Cindy Lou Who's house he kicked down the door

And strode into the bedroom of Cindy Lou Who.

She woke with a start, murmured "Santa? That you?"

The Grinch, with a sneer, grabbed Lou Who by the hair,

****** her out of bed seven feet in the air,

And with two sharp knives pinned her arms to the wall.

Her screams roused her parents just down the hall.

They ran to their child to save her from harm.

The mistake that they made cost them each their right arm.

Writhing on the floor in their own ****** mess,

They looked at the Grinch in a state of distress.

"Why would you do this?" they managed to hurl,

"Please, you can **** us, just not our little girl!"

He listened to their pleas with a wry little smile,

He patiently heard them, then after a while,

He cut out their tongues with another sharp knife,

First of the husband, and then of the wife.

Then he turned to young Cindy with glee,

And hissed in her ear, "you'll do something for me..."

Cindy shook her head violently, but to no avail,

For the Grinch had the tongues on a rusty old nail.

He shoved them down her gullet. She started to choke,

Then she finally died, for the rusty nail broke.

He stepped over the body of mother Lou Who,

And the Grinch slithered over to house #2.

With this house he made quick work of the Whos.

He set them on fire to cure them of the "blues."

The blaze that resulted would spread down the street,

Drawing Whos from their houses like flies to dead meat.

A grenade waited for them in center of town.

A click, then a boom mowed, like, half of them down.

The other half attempted a weak attack.

With a Type-67 the Grinch kept them back.

The little Who children could do nothing but stare

In open-mouthed horror as the Grinch, without care,

Shot them down one by one till the snow was stained red,

And he would not stop firing till they were all dead.



And as the sun rose oe'r the grisly scene,

The Grinch drenched in blood of adult, child, and teen,

With a pentagram smack in the center of town,

And the tree in the middle would slowly burn down.

With the scalps of the Whos down in Whoville in hand,

The Grinch called his dog Max, who could barely stand

Because he was violently shaking in shock.

He could not even whimper, let alone walk.

Not a Who was left standing, not a song to be heard,

Save for that of a single Who bird

Which was quickly snuffed out by a single pistol round.

And after that there was not a sound.

The Grinch, his work finished, got back in the sleigh,

Cracked the whip over Max, and slithered away.

The last thing the poor town of Whoville would hear:

"If there's anyone left, well, I'll come back next year!"

In time we stand still forgetting the memories
That burden the frontier with poison and tragedy
Lest we forget that the deed had been signed
By prospectors and cowboys who’ve long since died
Aiming a loaded shell towards eradication
An idea that precedes psychopathy in terms of petition
Yet ponders so freely to children so willing to point them the barrel and fire such rounds

I urgently take the bounty for the hunting of the buffalo
Using their skulls for declination, a sturdy stronghold
Yet deep in heart I realize that it spawns back to devils
That pay only to spoil their countless fruits of survival
The cause paints our flag a brilliant blue
The blood breeds red and helps assimilate too
From their ponytails, against remorse, I could yank off their heads
And perhaps repay the herd of bison for their dead

We danced mountain songs naked under pale blue moonlight
Imitating their gestures in the style of caricature
The stars glistening, reflecting in pools of gory mucus
The rotting carcasses that attract forest vultures
Which we willingly hunt and devour without hesitance

A rack of scalps hung from the duster, cloth sodden with their fluids
Marking migration patterns on various maps to follow and stalk with
Here we sing to the villages of which we’ve burned down
Hoping that God, in His grace, could forgive such savage hounds
The calls of doves forfeit an olive branch
Which I gleefully wave just as they have
My own Trojan horse stitched together with leather
That wasn’t dried enough, and now radiates a stench that reminds us of their innards

I’ve slaughtered and mangled all over this place
Made worse by their stories of which I desecrate
Publishing such influent texts that examine the earlier beds
Of which they rose, so little prose, such daft fools with stone age tools
Crops yield only ******* food made for the feeding of the poor
Discarding the rest of them as bait or our personal ******

“I weep for the white hand that cared there for me!
To wrap me in blankets and help me to feed
The weak child in infancy cooing so sweet
Not knowing they’d have him killed in his sleep”
Annihilation fits best at the source, this genocide funded by the Master of Greater Deed and Good
The weary dead, the weary live, the weary now stay in places we couldn’t stand to be in

A gift that gives only twice, an upstart arch that cradles this land so warmly, inspiring us to embrace our homes
The promise of freedom which notions an equality we could find only in remembrance of scattered bones
The lawmen there, they never repent, they’ve lived all their lives and they never forget of their deeds, which secretly brings a perverse enjoyment none other recieve
Unless you count rapists and murderous men which tally their targets and hold out the heavy heads of victims in satchels and bags
A shame we now see them as monuments honored so swiftly, decorated with golden plaques
Please leave some flowers in the mass grave I was buried in, somewhere in Arizona, it wouldn’t hurt to sense the illusion of fresh air
A torso of tooth and rib and a dried clump of hair
Look down on your works, ye lowly, and despair!

315

He fumbles at your Soul
As Players at the Keys
Before they drop full Music on—
He stuns you by degrees—
Prepares your brittle Nature
For the Ethereal Blow
By fainter Hammers—further heard—
Then nearer—Then so slow
Your Breath has time to straighten—
Your Brain—to bubble Cool—
Deals—One—imperial—Thunderbolt—
That scalps your naked Soul—

When Winds take Forests in the Paws—
The Universe—is still—

Fair stood the wind for France
When we our sails advance,
Nor now to prove our chance
Longer will tarry;
But putting to the main,
At Caux, the mouth of Seine,
With all his martial train,
Landed King Harry.

And taking many a fort,
Furnished in warlike sort,
Marcheth towards Agincourt
In happy hour;
Skirmishing day by day
With those that stopped his way,
Where the French gen'ral lay
With all his power;

Which, in his height of pride,
King Henry to deride,
His ransom to provide
Unto him sending;
Which he neglects the while,
As from a nation vile,
Yet with an angry smile
Their fall portending.

And turning to his men,
Quoth our brave Henry then,
"Though they to one be ten,
Be not amazed.
Yet have we well begun,
Battles so bravely won
Have ever to the sun
By fame been raised.

"And for myself (quoth he),
This my full rest shall be;
England ne'er mourn for me,
Nor more esteem me.
Victor I will remain,
Or on this earth lie slain;
Never shall she sustain
Loss to redeem me.

"Poitiers and Cressy tell,
When most their pride did swell,
Under our swords they fell;
No less our skill is
Than when our grandsire great,
Claiming the regal seat,
By many a warlike feat
Lopped the French lilies."

The Duke of York so dread
The eager vaward led;
With the main Henry sped
Amongst his henchmen.
Exeter had the rear,
A braver man not there; -
O Lord, how hot they were
On the false Frenchmen!

They now to fight are gone,
Armour on armour shone,
Drum now to drum did groan,
To hear was wonder;
That with the cries they make
The very earth did shake;
Trumpet to trumpet spake,
Thunder to thunder.

Well it thine age became,
O noble Erpingham,
Which didst the signal aim
To our hid forces!
When from a meadow by,
Like a storm suddenly,
The English archery
Stuck the French horses.

With Spanish yew so strong,
Arrows a cloth-yard long,
That like to serpents stung,
Piercing the weather;
None from his fellow starts,
But, playing manly parts,
And like true English hearts,
Stuck close together.

When down their bows they threw,
And forth their bilbos drew,
And on the French they flew,
Not one was tardy;
Arms were from shoulders sent,
Scalps to the teeth were rent,
Down the French peasants went -
Our men were hardy!

This while our noble king,
His broadsword brandishing,
Down the French host did ding,
As to o'erwhelm it;
And many a deep wound lent,
His arms with blood besprent,
And many a cruel dent
Bruised his helmet.

Gloucester, that duke so good,
Next of the royal blood,
For famous England stood
With his brave brother;
Clarence, in steel so bright,
Though but a maiden knight,
Yet in that furious fight
Scarce such another.

Warwick in blood did wade,
Oxford the foe invade,
And cruel slaughter made
Still as they ran up;
Suffolk his axe did ply,
Beaumont and Willoughby
Bare them right doughtily,
Ferrers and Fanhope.

Upon Saint Crispin's Day
Fought was this noble fray,
Which fame did not delay
To England to carry.
O, when shall English men
With such acts fill a pen;
Or England breed again
Such a King Harry?

I’m a Polyglot Polymath, Microphone’s a Polygraph,
Manners of a Sociopath-Rhymin’ keeps me on the path,
Else I’d be hackin you up like a cannibal,
Pullin the Chianti out-serve you up like Hannibal,

Words heavier than Elephants invading cross the alps,
Under Armour over Body Armour-waistline fulla scalps,
From the Belt o’ the Celt o’ the Schizophrenic Sandman,
You’re triple teamed by -EC- Raps new Xmen.

I broke me chains,some say I went insane,
But it’s simple,all I went and did was grow a brain.
be the Bane of your life,while Mal plays Dark Knight,
A rhyme Super Villain with a verse of Dark Light,

The searchlights on-watch the cockroach scatter,
We speak Dark Matter while your brain gets battered,
batten down the screws-worldviews get skewed,
Mal and Sandman's Positively Mental Attitude.


It’s the original Irish OG rough rugged and ready,
Battling me is futile keep your hands steady,
I’m no pacifist,and if you take the ****,
I’ll clap you with a fist like an obelisk,

That’s a grave warning,-global warming,
The Dragon of Eire ,skies look stormy…
Since cassettes and disks I’ve been spittin ****,
That makes wannabee’s wanna slit their wrists,

The Sandman’s calling,come in and take a mauling,
Rappin since clappin one two and yes y’allin,
from New Aulins to saint Pauls my kin,
Are gathering for the quickenin,pulse races,air thickenin'
Highlander in a land cruiser,take your teeth out like a dentist
E.C’s BRUISER.
batten down the screws-worldviews get skewed,
by Mal and Sandmans Positively Mental Attitude.

The road marched on,
beside a beach it ran.
Hailing the sea and heeding its groan.
Walking along, I came into view.
Welcoming the sea with a smirk.
The rising sun gently pushed down the red's blue.
Blessing the world with a yellow tint it lit up the view.
Much closer than the sun, another glimmer grew.
Down on the beach and off the road was where my feet then flew.
Getting closer, slowly I advanced through the sand.
Still it glimmered, though its glimmer was but a con.
A bottle lay ahead of me, flirting playfully with the sea, as he caressed her gently with his waves.
She beckoned to my curious hands.
"Come forth and grab me like I was yours."
A cork and a paper were in the bottle.
You've already been used, filled and plugged; you come with a catch. I am to receive a message!
Hastily I scratched the cork off as my fingers took it out.
Now for the message, unrolling, my eyes caught sight of the first lines..

[I write to you from the shores of pessimism:
These shores are dark and dreary.
The waves here are slow and drowsy
The water is turbid and murky
Enthusiasm is a scarcity
and optimism was long ago banished from the land.
Pessimism and depression reign supreme and none can avoid their grip.
These shores have been the end of many a happy soul's journey.
This is where they all came to know the meaning of surrender.
And the satisfaction of despair.
All flames were put out and all their torches were thrown into the waters.
You won't be needing them anymore, they were told.
The reason for that is quite obvious, torches bring light and light mediates hope.
In a place where all hope must be extinguished and remain so.
No, your torches won't be needed here.
Here is where you wallow, in darkness and despair.
Where you sit is where you sink
Slowly the sands will drag you under.
After entering, the caretakers tie one's right ankle to a rock.
The pitiful lump of obsidian shall be your home. The caretakers stand you beside your rock and explain the rules to you.
"The rope is not forged of metal, thread or leather.
Its length is not fixed but it never breaks. If ever you tug on it, back on your rock is where it'll take you. Affixed to your rock it remains. On these shores only a pair of absolutes are recognized.. Darkness and negativity.
All else are subject to fate's scrutiny.
You came to us of your own will. and by coming here you shall realize your destiny.
If one exists for a soul such as yours.
If you wish not to sink in the sand, then stay on your rock or go for a swim.
Here you will remain, on these shores, this place shall be your prison and your safety net.
Departure is not an option until your destiny is realized, but we can't guarantee such an occurrence."
Having finished with the mandatory formalities, they take their leave of you and return to their posts.

On my first day, I noted that curiosity has very little power over the minds of the shore's inhabitants.
That no inhabitant may use another's rock without permission.
That the rope expands limitlessly and that moving lightly helps prevent sinking in the accursed sands.
Allowing me to roam far and wide, yet ensuring that I will always be roaming, belonging only in these shores, on my rock, amongst my shadowy brethren.
These shores have no real boundaries... An inhabitant may choose to stay and ponder or wander off and roam the land.
There are no secrets here.
All knowledge is readily provided by the caretakers, who say that very few ever choose to stay and ever fewer choose to combine the two.
Though time and time again they are dragged back to the rocks after having tugged on their ropes, they always choose to resume their roaming.
Expectations have no place here.
Ambition was long ago thrown off the pier.
Crucified and drowned in Poseidon's terrible dear.
The caretakers offered to read me tales from the shores' diary. They found my patience and lack of affect fitting.
On these shores I remained, listening to their tales for a time, sitting on my obsidian chair for a time, gliding on the sands and at times surrendering to their grip.
To all my fellow inhabitants I spoke in whispers and respect I paid in full to all the rules of the shores.
Then it was time to wander the land.
As I departed, knowing that I would return, I felt like crawling back into the pits of my soul but I also felt the shores' hold over my humanity fading, fading down to the feel of the rope's fabric around my ankle. A constant reminder that only I can see.
A constant reminder of where I belong, of the dreariness of my home and the darkness that always lies in wait for my return.

After leaving the shores, I wandered around the northern lowlands for sometime. Of course in such a state of mind time has no meaning for the wanderer. As time's passing loses its significance when all events are perceived as irrelevant and utterly meaningless. Thus I wandered the land, moving from village to town and from forest to desert. My journey was interrupted time and time again by the rope's influence, for sometimes I would grow weary of my surroundings and choose to retreat to my rock, there the darkness and despair provide safety. Observing then became the only promising investment of my attention, and throughout my roaming I would observe my surroundings, be they humans, critters, rocks or even machines. I resolved that empirical knowledge and logical analysis were the only relevant fields of reasoning.
In retrospect, I believe these were the only perspectives my dulled affect and cold impartial existence allowed at the time, but they were fields nonetheless, new areas that interested me, progress from the aimlessness. For now, I could say "I am here to observe. I do not belong, but that doesn't matter."
The times I spent back at the shores were getting progressively intense, though the emptiness soothed my longing, it seemed the more I saw, the deeper I would sink in the shores' sands before my rope would pull me back.
It seemed the more I observed and learned, the darker my rock became. It seems knowledge has its weight on these shores.
This isn't the time for simplification. The only way out of this rut is analysis, complexities and deduction. The way of the mind, for the sake of truth and meaning. If objectivity ever meant anything to you, you would not simplify, you would indulge in your eccentricities and gorge on analytical absurdity. Feed your hunger for details and complications.
Now the shores are far behind and I've gotten the hang of this accursed rope. I won't be dragged back there anytime soon. I may now keep record of whatever I wish.
This is but a mere transcript of my quest, my voyage, my journey, my pursuit of transcendence and my search for enlightenment, for enlightenment is my holy grail. My residence at the shores of pessimism mustn't last too long, for my light can lie dormant for only so long.
The stronger my thirst grows out here, the darker my lump of obsidian gets and the heavier my feet become on the shores sands. What's really curious though is how calm the sea has been since I started my journeys.

Silence now, enough has been said, recounting the details eventually becomes a bore rather than a bonus.
It is now time for the message to be sealed and sent off on its questionable journey, to a surely unexpecting reader. I wonder if it even holds any real meaning. Let this not be warning, but a minor eye opener. May it open someone's eyes to depression's grip on us.]

And it was there that the message ended. I raised my eyes from that piece of paper and looked to the sea, a storm was brewing on the horizon.

----------------

What the F. is this anyway?
Is it a test ?
a game ?
an empty picture frame ?
Curious since birth. Now drowning in knowledge of birth...
What's next ?
Why do I always have to wait and see ?
Whatever happened to flying free ?
Why can't I just flee ?
Forged of the earth and baked in the fire of God's oven.
Infused with God's divine breath.
If I've learned anything from my time on this pitiful lump of water and rock, it is that there is no plan, there is no grand scheme, there is no justice. Humanity's behavior will always be chaotic and unintelligible.
If there is a God, then that God has chosen to be a spectator. For this day and age, God has chosen to let the world sort itself out for a change. There shall be no more miracles, only human deeds and natural disasters.

Back again to where it all started.
What do I do now ? Focus!
Find myself ? Know myself ? Control myself ?
What good would that do ?
Who do you think I am ?
Do you think what I want is really relevant ?
Do you think you would like what I want ?
Born beautiful ? Good hearted ?
Not all are born beautiful and not all are good hearted.
Not everybody has an adequately functioning mind.
What's an adequately functioning mind anyway ?
If I've learned anything from medicine, it is that the study of human life holds the key to all our relevant questions. It is that details always matter. It is that in the real world, the only thing that truly matters is to be right.

We are born beautiful, untainted and simple. Though helpless and in desperate need of our supporters, it is actually these very providers who shape us. They complicate us and teach us their ways, they contaminate our minds with their view of reality, whether knowingly or ignorantly, they lead us astray from the simple truth, just like they were led astray.
And that's not to say that parents are evil or anything of that sort.
If that's what my words meant to you, then you're an idiot who shouldn't be reading this in the first place, so get the **** out!

We tend to think of being lost as a bad thing, reasons have become a necessity for our kind and rational explanations have become our psyche's sole sustenance.
We as a species have proved our relentlessness, our strong-headedness, our ignorance and our stupidity.
Humanity is *******. Collectively, we would be regarded as the galaxy's idiot child. The down's syndrome stricken kid our galaxy had after several failed attempts when she got over 45.
So what the **** is this ?
The lay of the land ?
What's the reason for this verbal bombardment ?
Are these knowledge bombs ? Are they supposed to be words of wisdom ? Can any of the above be put to any use ?
Hah! I believe not, and I apologize if that's what I've led you to believe.
I don't think I'm special, no more than you are. I don't believe I know much.
And I sure as hell am not here to tell you how to live your life or to provide you with a lot of answers that you may or may not have been seeking.

I have but one small request however. I request an apology, I want an apology from our parents. I believe we all do, they brought us into this world against our will. Then lied to us about how terrible the world and the people in it are. Named us good people and gave us hope. Then planted ambition in our scalps and fertilized it with warmth and faith in our promise, while they played the game and knew the real deal.
If there is a grand scheme, then we are not part of it. If there is a plan, then we're simply going along for the ride, our deeds only affect us and we can never change the ride's course.
We were never part of the plan.
If enlightenment is what you seek, then the only hope for the success of such a quest is for us to know and accept our weakness, our irrelevance.
I like working my noodle
My hands love to doodle
and every question I google
As much as the next poodle.

1 My white canoe, like the silvery air
2 O'er the River of Death that darkly rolls
3 When the moons of the world are round and fair,
4 I paddle back from the "Camp of Souls."
5 When the wishton-wish in the low swamp grieves
6 Come the dark plumes of red "Singing Leaves."

7 Two hundred times have the moons of spring
8 Rolled over the bright bay's azure breath
9 Since they decked me with plumes of an eagle's wing,
10 And painted my face with the "paint of death,"
11 And from their pipes o'er my corpse there broke
12 The solemn rings of the blue "last smoke."

13 Two hundred times have the wintry moons
14 Wrapped the dead earth in a blanket white;
15 Two hundred times have the wild sky loons
16 Shrieked in the flush of the golden light
17 Of the first sweet dawn, when the summer weaves
18 Her dusky wigwam of perfect leaves.

19 Two hundred moons of the falling leaf
20 Since they laid my bow in my dead right hand
21 And chanted above me the "song of grief"
22 As I took my way to the spirit land;
23 Yet when the swallow the blue air cleaves
24 Come the dark plumes of red "Singing Leaves."

25 White are the wigwams in that far camp,
26 And the star-eyed deer on the plains are found;
27 No bitter marshes or tangled swamp
28 In the Manitou's happy hunting-ground!
29 And the moon of summer forever rolls
30 Above the red men in their "Camp of Souls."

31 Blue are its lakes as the wild dove's breast,
32 And their murmurs soft as her gentle note;
33 As the calm, large stars in the deep sky rest,
34 The yellow lilies upon them float;
35 And canoes, like flakes of the silvery snow,
36 Thro' the tall, rustling rice-beds come and go.

37 Green are its forests; no warrior wind
38 Rushes on war trail the dusk grove through,
39 With leaf-scalps of tall trees mourning behind;
40 But South Wind, heart friend of Great Manitou,
41 When ferns and leaves with cool dews are wet,
42 Bows flowery breaths from his red calumet.

43 Never upon them the white frosts lie,
44 Nor glow their green boughs with the "paint of death";
45 Manitou smiles in the crystal sky,
46 Close breathing above them His life-strong breath;
47 And He speaks no more in fierce thunder sound,
48 So near is His happy hunting-ground.

49 Yet often I love, in my white canoe,
50 To come to the forests and camps of earth:
51 'Twas there death's black arrow pierced me through;
52 'Twas there my red-browed mother gave me birth;
53 There I, in the light of a young man's dawn,
54 Won the lily heart of dusk "Springing Fawn."

55 And love is a cord woven out of life,
56 And dyed in the red of the living heart;
57 And time is the hunter's rusty knife,
58 That cannot cut the red strands apart:
59 And I sail from the spirit shore to scan
60 Where the weaving of that strong cord began.

61 But I may not come with a giftless hand,
62 So richly I pile, in my white canoe,
63 Flowers that bloom in the spirit land,
64 Immortal smiles of Great Manitou.
65 When I paddle back to the shores of earth
66 I scatter them over the white man's hearth.

67 For love is the breath of the soul set free;
68 So I cross the river that darkly rolls,
69 That my spirit may whisper soft to thee
70 Of thine who wait in the "Camp of Souls."
71 When the bright day laughs, or the wan night grieves,
72 Come the dusky plumes of red "Singing Leaves."

314

Nature—sometimes sears a Sapling—
Sometimes—scalps a Tree—
Her Green People recollect it
When they do not die—

Fainter Leaves—to Further Seasons—
Dumbly testify—
We—who have the Souls—
Die oftener—Not so vitally—

All-new
****** lands
(except for the natives)
dying to be properly deflowered and nailed and ******* and erroded
to make way for gun forts and gold mines
(they can be built!)
they're called Zale's and they love money
funny, not to all but to enough
call them crazy call them savage
but maybe they just love their homes
and don't own the kinds of weapons that make the loudest noise
but that **** the slowest and with least dignity.
Color-me a Cosmo girl
fit to be cover material, just look at my hair
look at Pocahontas, you know she was bald?
Hideous, un-English in every way
probably because she wasn't
but gotta give credite where credit is rejected, overdrawn
maybe never even earned just splurged and secreted
but wanna hear a secret?
The land belongs to nobody
not a soul not a body not a mind
they knew this but knew others were destroying it
that's why they were mad,
not because they were children who had their toys stolen
but because a living lifeless matter was being assaulted
catapulted into the future of steam engines and fried chicken
feathers blowing in the winds of convertables
they took scalps to maybe open the minds to the error of ways
not that one's head should be disassembled
but one can't seem so oblivious or wide eyed when shown the  facts
of obvious emotional response
but we are young
dinosaurs were old and we have time to forget.

Their violence. Their fire. Their beauty.
Their clenching, unclenching. Their bedlam.
Their silence.
Their toes squirming in their shoes. Their sobs. Their seventy-mile-an-hour fury.
Their eyes. Their glimmer. Their construction paper dreams.
Their insecurities. Their melanin.
Their rapture. Their forgiveness. Their twisted-up mouths.
Their screaming.
Their laughter. Their spoiled innocence. Their decent.
Their wilderness of wit. Their barbed future. Their ineloquence.
Their noise. Their stretching limbs.
Their vigor. Their hair spurting out of their scalps.
Their secrets echoing and singing through low-ceilinged halls. Their desire.
Their chipped orange fingernail polish. Their belly aches.
Their misspelled crayon messages. Their ghosts. Their audacity.
Their fear. Their braids. Their arms tight around each other.
Their torn jeans. Their longing.
Their possibility.
Their harpoon words. Their blood. Their bursting hearts.
Their walls. Their art.
Their endlessness.
Their airplane arms and their shrieking and their streaming outside into the yellow ache of a sinking sun.
Their rhythm. Their nonsense.
Their hands cupped around their mouths.
Their reverberation. Their chapped lips. Their love.

Them.

rig was fair
spiked hair
big like an oil rig
six foot tall
square shoulders
coffee-stain birthmark on his cheek
the rest of him freckled
too feared to be fought
betrayed by his own intellect
pacing the lino tiles like a zoo wolf
wrapping tape around pins
to make blow darts
firing them from rolled-up worksheets
sticking in smelly teenage scalps
sticking in the hived cheeks of the quiet boys
muttering accusations
at the closeted gay english teacher
total immunity guaranteed
through hulk and bulk and brazen cruelty
and the fear and the jeer of the crowd

bevans was dark
six foot one
thick black brush hair
face like a gnarled foot
broken nose with one nostril welded shut
nasal jackal yap-yap-yaps
manic eyes with natural mascara
giving the girls piggy rides
to hold their sunned hockey thighs in his dinner plate hands
bevans of the dark monster ****
flashed around the library
the dinner hall
bevans and his boys
pulling themselves
behind the science desks
wiping their *** on the curtains
squawking, crying with laughter
while the rest of us set fire to peanuts
on tripods with bunsen burners
our pale shrivelled pride
tucked away in the underwear
our mothers bought us

for years rig went with a girl
who looked like a pretty frog
‘i’ve been with her so long
i’ve literally felt her ****
grow in my hands’
she lived in a small village known for its golf course
and when he discovered ecstasy
and diazepam dissolved in buckets of lager
and dumped her without warning
she turned to older boys and farmers for comfort
she became known at school
as the nineteenth hole

rig and bevans
were friends of mine
i kept them close
with quips and hoots and indifference
begging each day
would provide some amusement
some mouse in the grass
to draw their keen eyes
and sharp tobacco tongues
to keep their necks from
twisting back
to snap and bite down
on the weak of the pack
which happened, of course, every few days
when my mother asked why
my shirt was soaked in slashes of blue ink
my hair was burned
there were blow dart spots
of dried blood
on my neck and hands
i told her it was a game

thrice the bell is talking bronze skin over the
courtyard young cells.

                 soporific

wagging skirts, the measured abstraction of laughing
blond hair. by wet scalps busting through the air
impulsed to dry halls unloud
whispered learning. droll and fleet, a mouth boorishly
pouting a bed of weak ideal knowledge
to lay, to prone, in its verbal belly a thrashing distaste

                      they're

                 so
bored

                                   gooutside
flat feeted lady's . the golden dead trees beckon
with gaunt branches failing drips

                       why am i?in this little box

Queue for a dance with
ink upon your wrist,
paper wrapped tight and
a waiting kiss.
Princes march to their kingdom come, on
their checkerboard, light board,
dance floor hum.
Princesses in timely masks
of nightmarish dreams
hide their real selves in
plain sight, with
handlebar hair
cut into wigs,
only hiding scalps of shame.

In head, in thought, I spoke 26 words,
7 points of punctuation and 6
saintly verbs:
*You left.
a dance too short,
touch of the ***,
another ***** for the group,
feel of the ***,
smile and forget,
forget she ever asked.

I shaved my head
the dead protein I suffered small talk
to stripe and style and now it shines
just like the rest of theirs,
the scalps of would-be conquistadors,
made into saggy stocking caps.
I tattooed my neck
with a dotted line
and 'cut here' in cheerful Comic Sans.
They kept the bottom part.
I took my extra bits
and slid them across the table in case someone needed them.
They slid them back--
but my left kidney won Best in Show
And my right lung was an honorable mention.
I sewed the ribbons to my chest.

winter lips
press into her memory
bones aching with the fever of remembrance
quiet words raise half lipped appeasement
mostly scarring scars scar her mind but occasionally words stir up like rosebuds of alphabet soup
spelling out novels of repeated notes
picture picture picture
click click click
half lipped winds
greased strands flap loose flap in the loose whipped winds
white comforter white blanket white snow white southern comfort white south
corporate and government city lights counting monies
greased oil slicked back hair scalps scalped dentists appropriating native american hunting tools
scalped girl appropriating brown skin
winter lips kiss kiss kiss
from root to tip toe down the hallway to scar thighs
thigh highs soft like southern comfort white south and the blood is red
but red blood cells are combatants of white blood cells like
winter lips are combatants of
her thoughts

Meat for sale.
****** meat.
Face bled pale,
oh what a treat.

Pound of flesh.

Skin drying from a hook.
****** scalps top pretty dummies.
I am trying to read a taxidermy book.
Maybe stuffed bodies can make me some money.

Pound of flesh.

i'm reaching my own very secondary hell...
this reach into... something of a nieche,
something of an echo chamber...
something of a jettison approach with regards
to almost everything...
the voice in my throat is no longer
necessary... some variation of:
this ethics and this "philosophy" is a bypass:
it's not a bypass...
i might just as well be "saying":
i haven't read a single book in my life...
which implies: i haven't read the required reading
either...
but i have read several books and...
among the contemporaries alongside
the shared breath... i have a library that's pretty
much a graveyard...
i'm hardly mastering some: in vogue...
old ideas come crashing down while
all the others are kept intact...
perhaps as honest as one can be...
i have... read... books... by... dead... people...
will alexander... a california poet is still
alive... i seem to have...
stuck to the living in the medium of cinema...
and music...
yet i still managed to balance it out
with a nostalgia for old cinema...
and old music, german, folk...
but i'm shy when it comes to:
darwinism explains everything right, and "wrong"...
i'm just practically tired
of being the turkey being shoved
darwinistic idea-stuffing down my throat...
i'm tired of darwinism...
long ago... a "philosopher" would be someone
who... overcame past mistakes...
or whatever...
one of my prime past mistakes?
taking a ****** relationship with frivolity...
if i wasn't using a ******:
she implored: don't use it...
god knows how she missed the *******
impediment to begin with...
i'll take contraceptive pills...
impregnation... phone-call...
i'm pregnant... well... you should get an abortion...
what were the chances that she moved
from novosibirsk to st. petersburg...
to edinburgh... that she would: settled for
moving to the outskirts of London and live...
with the parents of her would be:
father of the child...
and the supposed father being "merely" a roofer...
oh i've learned my lessons since being aged: 21...
the only honest **** these days
is with prostitutes... who are oh so careful about
contraception...
we would even talk about it...
since 21 and i'm nearing 34?
how many relationships apart from...
casually picking up a thai-surprise in a park etc.
how many? to be ensnared by:
a lasp in judgement with regards:
the ****** doesn't bother me...
the ******* does... but i can't be rid of it...
how many relationships?
0... i was given the moral scare from that
one... ahem... "relaxed" relationship...
pro-life implying: there's no guarantee...
this is already: a dollop of mustard on a spoon
as dessert if you please...
since 21 though?
it was always going to be a safe bet...
prostitutes...
hardly "*** slaves" as...
the women i know would not wish upon
themselves... a lottery of impregnation...
there could have been so many ways she could
have ensnared me...
pristine John i ain't...
but this period of time... nearing 13 ******* years...
wow...
wow... it tells you something...
because this pro-life contra pro-choice "debate"...
via: so while i *******... that's perfectly alright
in terms of: imagining a genocide with you?
because it's only life...
when coupled to a woman's body...
i don't like this pro-life argument...
not when there's "sensibility" concerning:
how far along?
contraception, yes...
but there has to be some time-reference
with regards... both parties can admit "oops"...
i don't see a point of:
i ******* there's no pro-life argument...
because i should be ******* "on a whim"...
since i... oh! this is the male argument...
i ******* into you... therefore you have something
of me... therefore you must have it...
oh... i see...
because i honestly don't get it...
if we made an honest mistake...
and you want to ******* into frivolity...
by all means... i'm no chain no baron and you're
no serf... matter of fact... this same girl is on
her third marriage... if i was her first and
we were engaged and she was 19 and i was 21
and, honestly... if you lived a life back in 2007...
it was ripe with magic...

but since then... that phonecall and: i'm pregnant...
and we were already beside being engaged prior...
and i was like: what?
it's not you're going to move down to London
from Edinburgh just for my looks...
she didn't say: i'll get it aborted...
i said: you should get an abortion...
a pro-choice man... at 21 and this litany of
excuses: mind one more?
to not have had ***... i proved that...
me and about 9 prostitutes proved that...
when there's a clarity of transaction...
there's no worry about contraception...
those precuations are prime...
the heart is a feeble liar when the *** is free...
imagine...
due for ***... but there's no...
"gifts"... there's no liar of the heart to mind
when... i have no excuses?
this happened 13 years ago!
i should have hoped to be freed from this...
"conundrum"...

scatological... william f. buckley jr. interviewing
allen ginsberg... and this word crops up...
it's somehow the covert expression fundamental
marker...
scatological... there's this avant garde of
poetics and how...
when poetry ascribes less images and...
teases philosophy...
that's no fair game...
but when philosophy employs short-cuts
with metaphor or imagery...
then words are no longer skeletons
and juiceless prunes... or whatever is demanded...

but that's the problem:
i only managed to love once...
or... rather... **** to the zenith of my efforts...
and bypass the goldberger skin-leash too...
because it was never about being satisfied...
but about seeing: satifaction...
and this old chestnut will haunt me
to the point where i will no longer be a chanced
ghost solo... but a ghost in a story...
and i don't mind the future...
i already know that i'm standing
a plateau plough moment of... resurrection...

for my time is no more linear than
the experience of gravity...
but... since i'm not falling...
and i'm either standing, walking, or sitting?
then time is not so much linear...
as it is circular...
after all: i am bound to a ******* carousel, aren't i
or aren't we all?
i was expecting circular time long
before people conjured up:
a pioneering linear "ontology" of time...
time moves "forward" without
the confines of history and within
the confines of technology!

after all: who to better the spoon!
the improved staff! a crutch!
the improved horse... a talking donkey!
but again and again:
why should my life be so precious
as to stand outside the circular nature
of time... to stand, alone...
in the prized linear...
from beginning middle and end...
why so?

of course the baggage and: if anyone, notably,
myself, should engage in any further
intimacy - beside the brothels' delights...
no... the money the clarity of transaction...
there are no flowers... no anniversaries...
i can't remember the last time i bothered
to celebrate my own birthday...
i tried that once...

what's pro-choice again, in terms of man
and responsibility or simply not *******?
13 years and that same cautionary tale...
i knew i wasn't going to make the same mistake
and relax myself into love...
because i don't think a woman should
be left barren with a pro-choice conundrum...
it's as if: you have to force the choice upon her...
otherwise it's called a golden ring...
and there's this whole flamboyant procession
in a church and two otherwise estranged families
come together and there's all this and that and
the other and afterwards the *****-licking
starts and blue and pink and a baby several months
later...

oh right... the argument it's a blessing
and that irish luck of a spontaneity should you...
when all the other couples are left
limping because of one wooden leg
among the four that should stand ***** and:
oh gaw on gaw on gaw on gaw on mrs doyle -esque?

imagine telling a woman: you should get an abortion...
because those contraceptive pills didn't
exactly do the magic...
and a ******* is already a discomfort when
you decided to learn from the Donatelos of
the boogie nights movie set that
peeling it back... for the aesthetics of a circumcision...
a ****** was the last of my worries...
well that's better than allowing a woman
to make that choice herself...
honest to god and st. patrick the gnostic gnat...

obviously i'm paying the moral consequences
of these words...
was it true is it true... it was a telephone call
and i was already busy trying to...
have to bother not... a chemistry degree is
worth as much as a humanities and this
bilingual status is not really anything
if it's not arabic or... otherwise...

why wouldn't i have made precautions in those
years?
if going to a brothel is a way to escape
the impregnation conundrum?
if for the sake of recreational ***...
*** without consequences... tennis ping-pong ***...
if that's what's being sold...
and not the monogomy quack-**** with
a boquet of moral verbiage...
yes... i made that mistake...
but why would i have a moral authority
over a woman's choice... she ghost jerks-me-off...
we perform genocide of ***** into
tissue... flush down the toilet with
crocodiles and we later baptise ourselves
as dove resurrected coming from the shower
having down the no. 1 no. 2 and no. 3
on the throne of thrones?

did i ask for my phallus to make
it into the ***** shortlist?!
i wouldn't think so either...
i'm no model with either a face or a little richard
for that matter...
perhaps men call it heart-break...
while women should call it...
fried-eggs...

a poultry abortion a day...
keeps the ****-of-cuckoldry away...
at least among professionals there's
never that: oh i like like likey...
let's have ourselves impregnated and then
kumbaya ourselves with: shtrong...

'cause if you like it, then you shoulda put a ring on it...

oh... i would have...
but... how does this contraceptive contract work?
'cause if you like it, then you shoulda
sly impregnate yourself or what the hell
am i talking about?!

ce-no-bite...
go figure...
because no ******* is some day-dream victim
of the feminist movement...
the ones that are killed, probably are...
if you had enough time to talk to any of them
without priest of psychiatrist nagging you...
lying naked... talking about a 15 minute quickie...
talk, lips, kisses of the eyelids...
inversion of sculpting a crude block of clay...
god's plagiarism etc. etc.,
is this even a celebration: oh yes it's a celebration
when two parties know the perils
and have contraception as their prime
concern...
not some loved-up happenstance
teenagers...
because wisdom is what supposedly happens
when you make a mistake aged 16 and
later, live to be 69 and utter some
*******-wanking's worth of a maxim!

and by god everyone who hasn't read
a philosophy book... thinks that philosophy
happens in old age... that philosophy is not
fashionable for the young... or the middle-aged...
how, old age, philosophy...
dementia... "wisdom"... it's also called
the optical illusion... or the detriment of youth...
since? at least a portion of the lessons
of life must be learned...
beside the technical relax of technical details...
the old lessons of life persist...
and these are always archetypical...
the archetype never dies...
that's its most demanding access...
to: if i currently had a 13 year old son
named... Isidore...

what? there was a Peaches Geldoff...
Isidore is an old name...

because what's the difference between
a pro-life man and a pro-choice man?
the pro-choice man sentences himself
for sisyphus with the claim of baggage...
i did not have the required
resources to claim a moral responsibility
for what would eventually become
an onomatopoeia of me talking to it...
that would transcend a more sorry
state that a new-born lamb...
that would learn to wipe its own ***...
that would not choke on peanuts...
that would learn to not be gullible...
not entertain friendship with good faith...
that would... at best...
become this shadow of solitude of its
father's own demise...
but i rather rob a woman of this choice...
that allow her to bask in it...
as it would be her, responsibility to undertake
such a choice...
again: if this irish reasoning stands...
this ****** reasoning stands...
me, tissue, toilet, flush + ******* = genocide!
but a woman oh a woman can
stream it! video it! she's shooting blanks!
so... a lapse... not until...
not until... is a ***-shot pregnancy readied?
how much can i own beside
these stones that i stack to fathom
a shadow and not a morality,
nor an architectural feat to overshadow
mountains using pyramids?!
well... among sand dunes you, you just might
figure out this wild dream,
this wild ambition!

i will still persist in lamenting that:
i own a private library that mostly constitutes
of death-ringers...
it's slyly called a necromancy...
they arrive in my lap as former living:
now ascribed to dead on paper...
and the dead that they are...
recoil from the ashes into the skeletons
of words: and they walk among
the living inside the horde that i am...

and as they roll in their ***** graves
to a dance most stupendous...
their eyes burning and their ears pricked
to attention over a raindrop
bound to savour the disgruntled sea...
in both the magnanimous effort
that pouring a liter of water overshadows
the raindrop... or pouring hot oil
and pork scratchings with onions
into a soup...
balloons perhaps pop! but that well-known
sizzle!

a body with the demand of
two shadows' worth of remark...
whether true, or fictional...
better my choice over her "choice"...
and the consequences?
both the realisation of responsibility
as the nagging curse of shying
away from them...
focused on? the lack of material
conventionality for:
the up-coming, better life...

hmm... learning from the past generation?
they managed to work hard
and sight the Maldives...
i? if i didn't travel solo?
would i have seen Paris?
Stockholm... Moscow and St. Petersburg
are not a given...
but perhaps this one last time:
before i go... to the Faroe Islands, one
day i might... i just might...

what gambit assurance?
the moral high-ground of pro-life...
for a child... that would live...
a life worse off than his father or mother?
the life-in-itself "argument"...
as far as i am concerned...
this verbiage should come to its own
conclusion any minute now...

it's almost strange to have to recount
something that's 13 years old...
lucky me, lucky year...
i'm still not convinced as to why
darwinism can be allowed to explain almost
everything in life these days,
esp. when mingling with sociological "issues"
and how everyone should be readied
for rubric testing their bible knowledge
as their knowledge of either Orwell or Huxley...

"philosophy" once the "love" of "wisdom"...
how does trivia come into all of this?
to have to amass an encyclopedic know-of...
i am, also, a trivia focused spew-recycle-machinery...
darwinism around every corner...
there's no scientific fact the public are exposed
to that doesn't have darwinism at its center...
nothing of scientific popularisation
is ever not about darwinism...

not even Einstein... once upon a time...
it has become so overtly: universally applicable...
in psychology... in...
yawn... if it doesn't have a darwinism patent...
it's either part of the dodo project or
an existentialist cul de sac...
and my god, this momentum...
oh it's certainly not wrong...
but it's always so right: so many times...

come to think of it...
i probably haven't read any books to begin with...
i shouldn't have...
all the ones that i have read...
are never going to be in vogue...
they were in vogue... 50 years ago...
60 years ago...
they're not in vogue now...
they might as well start yelling at me:
pretentious literary ***!
should have abandoned us in high-school!

oh right... there's till the living Knausård...
come to think of it...
who the hell discovered Stendhal in high-school
if it wasn't me?
come to think of it...
i took that ****** bus no. 86 every morning...
and i can only remember seeing myself
read...
back of the bus and that Montgomery boycot?
didn't really help...
the loudest always went to the back
of the bus... took some neo-**** blonde scalps
with them for ***** and screetching licks...
and... just ahead... a silence of reading
Taoist maxims...

nice to know... that i'm still able to write
such explosive spew...
counter inhibited and "thinking"...
this like any other...
mildly exagerrated with a whiskey stew;
rummaging and rummaging
over a brain-pickling!

i began collecting my hair in April
it sits on the tops of pillows
weaves itself onto scalps of my loves
sets itself on bathroom floors and
swirls onto the walls of showers
wraps itself around your tender parts
and leaves me pounds lighter.
i find it on this very page
soft and breakable and shines in lamplight
that is harsh
like how you pulled the strands
because i asked you to.
i shed so much because i secretly wish to vanish
and my vanity  has not taken over
and my vapor sits still behind my gums
even when i am left alone
taking bristles to my head
to relax because
i have no one to play with me
and no one to look into
when the sky is a combination of both day and night.

Dressed in the night the women gather
Riding the wakes across the waves of the sea
Kiss the ghost lips of those who lie lovely
Running their hands along the scalps of their sons

They have come to break worry
Silence an orbiting fear
Seal up the sliver in the sky
Where the nights slips through

See the old men in their taverns still trying to name all the stars
After those who tread dirt in the stillness of a tombstone sea
Trading eulogies with the last ministers of light
In the funereal home of the sun we have come to call sky

And still the women whispers secrets to their sisters
Lay down lullabies on the heads of their sleeping sons
And hang hymns on the hopes that their boys might return
From their pilgrimage into the paths of bullets

Through the blooming fields of mortar shells
And down into the tunnel throat of the dead
To meet the waiting darkness, run their thumbs
Along such casket skin until they cannot tell the difference

Between hells heavy requiems and the faint symphonies
Of their wives across the sea, singing as if it could save them
Singing as if their songs could rewind the hoc spit seconds
Between the open door to heaven and the bullets kicking in back windows

Harmonizing as if it could resurrect these boys as men
And though some may be swallowed
Learned to lie lifeless in swift lessons of lead
Their brothers will one day name stars after them

They’ll sit in those taverns, learn to call creation by a better name
A bastion of light for their buried boys
A crucible into which lives are poured
That burns down to widows and heroes alike

As old men they will trade eulogies in the early hours of light
And cry when they think of their sons in the same fields
As red rose pestles bloom from bullets
As the caskets get delivered home

And the women the wives will continue wait for them
As sea foam along a shore longing for the lights of their ships
As if they shined brighter then the sun
As if they had held back the night

Counting their blessings as the children
Who cling to their skirts like a song to their lips
Too tired to stand but they are waiting, waiting still
Singing out over the water to bear their men home

She takes the heart of Men
barley brave
slightly handsome and solemnly gay
the world is bare like the shaven private parts of **** stars
of
young women
young men
I am not the average white male
Kansas
Kansas
Chanting ridiculous church hymns
pray preach till we are dull
till the snow
till the rain
till the tornado is nothing
till the insects on the bathroom floor
are neither welcomed
or shouted at
but rather
acknowledged in a monk-like-state of unforgiving in-ability to think
The insects and the dishes and the plastic wrappers and the condoms and the heart beats that climb through broken television shop windows scratching their scalps with glass and tiny tear drop like rain drops from a cloud trickle like wet make up down faces
Folklore Folklore
Heavenly father
****** Texas Heat Indian Skin Father
oh Holy Father
Teaching the hairy poet the wooden antique poet the stolen gift from an Oklahoman fuel station poet
Oh How You Taught the poet
How to steal
How to envision the future
To trust the gut
To trust women too much
To wear nice clothes
To Drink cold night beer walking down a lightless road in a strange blue memory flash of either texas or Mars
Holy Father
Teacher
Monk
Addict
You had it right
You Coulda' been a great singer
or a poet or a dancer or a play writer or a guitar player or a piano builder
You had the self destruction well completed
You have me beat
Now I sit around listening to the scratched up Vinyls warping and turning like fine black women swing dancing
their dresses in a symmetrical spin
Now I sit around
Reading Rimbaud
analyzing the snow
digging up Deer bones and skulls
Now I sit around my pores ingesting the sounds of birds pianos and fast heart beats.

"Make as many mistakes as you can as fast as possible"
-Doc

Some kids found their rooms:
Math room pizza parties for those held in place by statistics,
four mirrored walls where the strong bodied press iron into muscle,
a tiny box for the "Special" broken off, hidden from the general population.
Those who went to the art room followed the music:
Stacks of scratched mix cds labelled with magic marker,
curated directly from fresh teenage hearts
hearts learning to become sound and paint in Doc's Art II class,
They sketch, carve, snack and chat.
The only room where students are allowed
to talk all period and pencils work to produce souls
instead of information.
There, the ineffable takes shape, in papier-mache,
macaroni or glitter.

Here are the kids who know how
to make mistakes. Perched on stools,
napping on the couch in the back,
the duds, the nerds, building things, hanging out,
shaving sculptures into their scalps. Their minds escaping
in paint-smear, light and earth, generating amorphous blobs,
new species of globule bacteria squirming across a slide of canvas,
things laid under the microscope, not for interrogation,
but for companionship. Not for scrutiny,
but for curiosity.
They reach no understanding with the world through movement
or the way the colors talk
to each other, they only reanimate the confusion into something
they can be friendly with.
Visions surface from the blank stare
of a white page.
They know how to get rid of that white;
just start getting it *****.
Eventually it begins to look like something
clean.

Nate starts new genres every class
though he plays no instrument: oi-punk, ska-core, pinhead blues.
Corban and Chip engineer robots
from their dad's junked wiper blades and orphaned gadgetry.
Quiet Jennifer looks
into the peeled aperture of her camera.
Golden Nick sketches always,
scoring every conversation with his etching.
Eyes cast aloof
from what everyone else is trained to see,
they stare into the discouraged hallucinations.
Unable to convince themselves the visions aren't there,
they exorcise them through messes of paint, wavering clay,
kilns burning mud into permanent shape. Splotched
mistakes arch gracefully into unforeseen purposes, the erroneous made integral.
What is discarded or shamed in other rooms is here followed with curiosity,
rescued and incorporated into a perfectly rendered mess
of liquid. The rejected is what is, what becomes.
Here, kids let their hearts out, casually, without explanation,
like red paint from a shiny new tube.
My heart, can't everybody see it? It's up there on the wall, collaged out of glue-stick
and diced magazine scrap.
It doesn't have to be clarified in the desperate pomp
of a poem or the insipid glitz of jazz hands. Put on the run by the logical requests
of Spanish teachers, they can relax here,
and so they are real, and so they are different.

As adults, they still use what they learned there. I watch them. They are my friends;
bartenders or line cooks or nurses or clerks, their basements cluttered
with bric-a-brac, creative purchases, bought not out of necessity,
but because they explode the room into life:
A creek painting amended with a rhinestone deer cutout,
the orange booth of a defunct bowling alley,
Happy Meal mascots leftover from obsolete Saturday mornings.
Their dens are hung with 4th grade prize-winners, Governor's Show picks,
a woodcarving of an eagle so ugly only a Mom could keep it hung
on her bathroom wall for thirty years.
Exacto knives and staedtler erasers point
from Warhol coffee cups on drafting tables,
T-Squares and light boxes are dragged through a gamut of low-rent apartments.

Maybe in the cupboard, maybe out in the garage,
a box lies closed
but not empty,
filled with crinkled tubes
of hardened oil, a palette stained
with a multifarious rash of colors,
a forest of stiffened brushes growing
from a ceramic ashtray.
Every now and then they put a record on,
pull this box out, open it
and again, with a little insistence,
the colors come flowing.

“good morning” says no one as you smile your way out of sleep.
you’re the first to rise in your house.
you’ve always been the first to rise in any house.
with your routine glance outside you immediately resort to defeat.
the world has been primed in a hideous blend of grays and whites,
like the sun finally resolved to give up on revisiting new york for good.
you delicately trace the curvature of your neckline,
reminding yourself absently of ears and scalps
and how warm and strange you are to live.
you catch a glimpse of red cellophane on your floor.
but of course,
the drunken miracle purchase of the evening prior-
a cheap heart shaped box of chocolates.
it’s not february but you think you’re funny.
(somewhere in the back of your mind you relate nonchalant consumption
of russell stover chocolates to both a superiority of traditional love and
your general distaste for capitalist based holidays).
you eye all of the chocolates suspiciously as you lift the lid and pull the box onto your lap.
if only you could tell which one was caramel without having to eat all of the others.
you continually weigh your options until settling for a milk chocolatey looking one.
how much money did you spend last night?
rent’s in few days. you’re looking thin lately. you need to buy makeup remover.
what time is it?
you pull the wet half bitten chocolate from your mouth in disgust.
some strange pinkish orange cream is emerging from it,
which tastes like corn syrup and the inevitable death of our sugar freak youth.
god or the universe or some greater force suddenly tainted the grey clouds with a slight jaundiced haze.

yellow and gray.
it looked like someone rushed to finish a painting they already knew they hated.

If I can stop one heart from breaking
I shall not live in vain.
For the heart asks pleasure first
And then excuse from pain.

I like a look of agony because I know its true.
It says I am nobody, who are you?
Its says I am a poor torn heart,
A tattered heart.

Poor little heart! Did they forget thee?
Proud little heart! Did they forsake thee?
Frail little heart! I will not break thee.

Not with a club the heart is broken,
Nor with a stone-
Its love that deals one imperial thunderbolt
That scalps your naked soul

as my mother took up the inquiry into what had died, I was made god.  father pretended to be my ***** and praised me for putting him in good hands.  my sister gave birth to a very large head.  what’s the first thing a baby does with its body?

The wind doesn’t blow through their hair like it does the others.

It meanders through the curls of our melanated mothers.

It carries heavy accents infused with both love and suffering

over badly connected telephone lines

and the language barriers of anglocentric confines.

It navigates their thick 4c forests

as do the rigid combs they brandish to govern expanding crowns

that sit above scalps which resemble

the most polished oak.

Whether shaken from scalps of clouds or sewn from water and chill,
These drops of frost have allowed for thoughts frozen in me still.
Clipped in form unlike the others, these bits of ice are shaven off the sky
And fall in suit only to the current with which it flies.

Yet these spurs, however unique or golden in design
Lose their beauty in a moment’s time.
Fluttering alone, they are constructed shards of glass
But among the thousands the first is as good as the last.

Pluck one out, hold it before your face
And peer at it close to admire the shape
Watch as its sparkle sputters and fades
And melts away without a trace.
Just so, the flakes of time in a close way do fall
And I, grasping one out to admire cannot hope to see them all.

Sometimes, when love grows,
it does not run wild, like haphazard branches
of a tree you wanted to stand beside.

It does not unravel like a birthday present,
hidden deep under layers of suspense,
and adventure.

It does not swirl around the world like a rainbow,
celebrating first touches, accidental eye contacts,
and naked phone calls.

Sometimes, when love grows,
it grows like the lines of a poem which once marked
tombstones around your heart.

It sticks like a fresh bruise under your feet,
and makes you want to run,
behind butterflies and stars.

It grows like a seed in your throat,
every-time you gulp, it scalps a little skin,
and heart.

Sometimes, when love grows,
it outgrows you.

– Mayank Arora

II. Sometimes, love dies.

Sometimes, love dies like the falling autumn leaves
That swirl in a storm
And before you know it, the summer is over.

Sometimes, love dies like the ever widening spaces in midnight phone conversations,
Just like the crackle over the line swallows your soul,
Love swallows you whole.

It’s musty rankness creeps up on you in the middle of your third dance,
When your lipstick begins to fade and the cocktail has gone stale.
Love fails.

Sometimes love reeks of broken dreams
And heaving, bruised promises.
It stinks of the clamor for survival against all odds. Though it boasts of battle sores,
Sometimes, love loses the war.

Sometimes love dies,
Fading away faster than the colours of the polaroid
That made love grow in the first place.
Sometimes, love renders lovers faceless.

Sometimes, when love dies,
It ends the lies,
Just so you can live a little.

I would like to say that i am one of those girls

who drink ***** shooters because ‘enough shots feels like love’

but sadly

i am one of those girls

who like to drink

whiskey

until my own miserable

lack of self worth and resentment slithers up out of my throat

but there are men who can smell

this on my skin

like a desperate pheromone calling

to them

saying ‘lovemeusememakemefeelworththy’

but i have a problem knowing the difference between

love and worth and the desperate scrambling of hands

on scalps and legs

because i love my ******* self

and have so much worth

that when men are repelled by my goddess

strength in my shoulders

and the fire on my tongue

i sink into this pit

and wonder why

i am not wanted

and the difference between worth

and being able to look into your own eyes

without seeing a monster

for ten seconds

is terrifying

and maybe that’s why i shatter mirrors

and carve tally marks into my own

leg

because the monster in me isn’t visible

on the outside

so i let her out and let her

cough and sputter

and cling to people

and let her whisper in their ears

all the words i hate to say

and when i drink

she comes out to play

but she still winks at me when i am sober

and like the gods of old i only exist

when i am being prayed to

but the faith in me is flickering out behind the eyes of men

speak
    lie to me
the meterbox is leaking
black teeth stretch through bramble hearts
look
       draw me an ocean
  swirling
  swirling
find space in spaces
and drown in them
     there
    the doresh haTorah
     writes his code
     stamps his envelops
enveloped in folds
suffocated in empty spaces
touch
clasp for her
radiant flesh
anchored in robes of sung feathers
blood pools at consecrated feet
a slave to the idea of sin
but always withering its invite
spit on your forgiveness
taste
a plum
solid but porous centre
fermenting mud
stinking bottleneck
smog your beaded eyes
gloss over and choke
hear
the unfathomable word
polysemous and locked
in hermetic seals
speak
shout
call to them
any direction will do
you know
you know what they say?
he'd beat his kids
**** his daughters
gnaw their scalps
but he can never remember where he put them
      can never remember their faces
isn't that funny?
isn't it?

Nimble fingers break apart green stems
And I watch them as diligently as I watch him
Twirl ebony strands between his fingers
Nervously
Anxiously
Waiting.
I'm waiting for your call and he's waiting for his texts
And I'm questioning reality as my pink nicotine fingers type words
That stream from my broken mind
It hurts tonight.
Teeth tell stories and lies
And I realize I am unlovable.
Not because of you,
Or the others before
But because I am unloved by myself.

Skinny necks hold sturdy heads
Blonde hair covers red scalps
Scratched and torn apart from stress of deadlines and tests
He's not on your mind right now.

I take drags knowing they blacken my tongue
Making my words unrecognized even by myself
And I wonder where I am and when I should be home

We all want more
We need less
This world is something with answers that I feel should be left unsaid.

Stories told by tainted hearts
Questioning myself
Questioning my heart

you develop a skin
for it: porous peel
sponging up
affection until it's sopping
-slick, gushing excess, saturated
with him. then one day

he decides he doesn't like
the rind: takes his paring
knife and splits you
pink, scalps you
like an animal & thieves
the hide for himself,
leaves you

with the carcass: mangled
bones like barbed
wire cross-stitch, unraveling
& red heart slow-throbbing.
but you develop

a skin for it: scaly
& oil-slick like duck
wings: no sponge this time,
he rolls off. Epidermis
cells cluster into silver
scars, rebuild you, stamp

stitches over your heart.

blankets laid
like pastry
twirled and
crinkled
made to nestle
precious
heads
in bed of
curled and
covered comfort
buttered

​
wrapped up
little packages
alive and
breathing
​

heaving breaths
of depths
unknown to
waking worlds
through softened
lungs and throats
and mouths
and gooey
molten middles
​

with shield of
fragile sleep
held up
to barricade in
and barricade out
​

as steam floats
gentle warm
and wistful
blissful up
from tender
scalps
​

from dreams
in gold and
chocolate



© 2017 Adelaide Heathfield