Part I


the plateau. the truest of them all. coast line. night spells and even controlled by the dream of meeting again. the ribbon of darker than light in your crown. No region overlooked. Third picnic table to the drive at Half Moon Bay, meet me there, decant my speech there. the table by the restroom block. While the tide is in show me your oyster garden, 3:00p.m. at half-light here in the evilest torments that have been shed.---------------door locked.  The moors. Cow herds and lymph nodes, rancorous afternoon West light and bending roads, the cliffs, a sister, the need to jump. There is nothing as serious as this. There is nothing nor no one that could ever, or would ever on this side come between. Who needs sleep or jokes or snow or rivers or bombs or to turn or be a rat or a fly or ceiling fan or a gurney or a cadaver or piece of cloth or a bed spread or a couch or a game or the flint of a lighter or the bell of a dress; the bell of your dress, yes, perhaps. Having been crushed like orange cigarette light in a pool of Spanish tongues. I feel the heave, the pull; not a yawn but a wired, thread-like twist about my core. Up around the neck it makes the first cut, through the eyes out and into the nostrils down over the left arm, on the inside of the bicep, contorting my length, feigning sleep, and then cutting over my stomach, around and around multiples of times- pulled at the hips and under the groin, across each leg and in-between each nerve, capillary, artery, hair, dot, dimple, muscle, to the toes and in-between them. Wiry dream-like and nervous nightmarish, hellacious plateaus of leapers. Penguin heads and more penguin heads. Startling torment. The evilest of the vile mind. The dance of despair: if feet contorted and bound could move. The beach off Belmont. The hills and the reasons I stared. Caveat after caveat at the heads of letters, on the heads of crowns, and the wrists, and on the palms. Being pulled and signed, and moved away so greatly and so heavily at once in a moment, that even if it were a year or a set of many months it would always be a moment too taking away to be considered an expanse, and it would be too hellacious to be presumptuous. It could only be a shadow over my right shoulder as I write the letters over and again. One after another. Internally I ask if I would even grant a convo with Keats or Yeats or Plath or Hughes? Does mine come close? Does it matter the bellies reddish and cerise giving of pain? Does it have to have many names?


"This is the only Earth," I would say with the bouquet of lilies spread out on the table. Are lilies only for funerals, I would never make or risk or wish this metaphor, even play it like the drawn out notes of a melody unwritten and un-played: my black box and latched, corner of the room saxophone. Top-floor, end of the hall two-room never-ending story, I'm the left side of the bed Chicago and I see pink walls, bathrooms, the two masonite paintings, the Chanel books, the bookshelves, the white desk, the white dresser, you on the left side of the bed in such sentimental woe, **** carpet and tilted blinds, and still the moors and the whispering in the driver's seat in afternoon pasture. Sunset, sunrise, nighttime and bike room writing in other places, apartments, rooms where I inked out fingertips, blights, and moods; nothing ever being so bleak, so eerily woe-like or stoic. Nothing has ever made me so serious.

Put it on the rib, in a t-shirt. Make it a hand and guide it up a set of two skinny legs under a short-sheeted bed in small room and literary Belmont, address included. Trash cans set out morning and night, deck-readied cigarette smoking. Sliding glass door and kitchen fright. Low-lit living room white couch, kaleidoscope, and zoetrope. Spin me right round baby right round. I am my own revenge of toxic night. Attack the skin, the soul, the eyes, the mind, and the lids. The finger lids and their tips. Rot it out. Blearing wild and deafening blow after blow: left side of the bed the both of us, whilst stirs the intrepid hate and ousts each ******* tongue I can bellow and blow.

Last resort lake note in snow bank and my river speak and forest walk. Wrapped in blocks and boxes, Christmas packaging and giant over-sized red ribbons and bows. Shall I mention the bassinet, the stroller, the yard, several rings of gold and silver, several necklaces of black and thread? I draw dagger from box, jagged ended and paper-wrapped in white and amber: lit in candle light and black room shadow-kept and sleeping partisan unforgettable forever. Do I mention Hawaii, my mother dying, invisible ligatures and the unveiling of the sweat and horror? Villainous and frightening, the breath as a bleat or heart-beat and matchstick stirring slightly every friends' woe and tantrum of their spirit.

Lobster-legged, waiting, sifting through the sea shore at the sea line, the bright tyrannosaurs in mahogany, in maple, and in twine over throw rose meadow over-looks, honey-brimming and warehouse built terrariums in the underbelly of the ravine, twist and turn: road bending, hollowing, in and out and in and out, forever, the everlasting and too fastidious driving towards; and it's but what .2 miles? I sign my name but I'll never get out. I am mocked and musing at tortoise speed. Headless while improvising. Purring at any example of continue or extremity or coolness of mind, meddling, or temptation. I rock, bellowing. Talk, sending shivers up my spine. I'm cramped, and one thousand fore-words and after words that split like a million large chunks of spit, grime, and *****; **** and more ****. I might even be standing now. I could be a candle, in England, a kingdom, in Palo Alto, a rook in St. Petersburg. Mottled by giants or sleepless nights, I could be the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty, a heated marble flower or the figure dying to be carved out. I'm veering off highways, I'm belittling myself: this heathen of the unforgettable, the bog man and bow-tied vagrant of dross falsification and dross despair. I am at the sea shore, tide-righted and tongue-tide, bilingual, and multi-inhibited by sweat, spit, quaffs of sea salt, lake water, and the like. Rotten wergild ridden- stitched of a poor man's ringworm and his tattered top hat and knee-holed trousers. I'm at the sea shore, with the cucumbers dying, the rain coming in sideways, the drifts and the sandbars twisting and turning. I'm at the sea shore with the light house bruise-bending the sweet ships of victory out backwards into the backwaters of a mislead moonlight; guitars playing, beeps disappearing, pianos swept like black coffees on green walled night clubs, arenose and eroding, grainy and distraught, bleeding and well, just bleeding.






I'm at the sea shore, the coastline calling. I've got rocks in my pockets, ******* and two lines left in the letter. I’m at the sea shore, my mouth is a ghost. I've seen nothing but darkness. I'm at the seashore, second picnic table, bench facing the squat and gobble, the tin roof and riled weir near the roadside. .2 and I'm still here with my bouquet wading and waiting. I'm at the sea shore and there's nobody here. My inches are growing shorter by the second, cold, whet by the sunset, its moon men, their heavy claws and bi-laws overthrowing and throwing me out. The thorns stick. The tyrannosaurs scream. I'm at the sea shore, plateau, left bedside to write three more letters. Sign my name and there's nobody here.

I'm at the sea shore: here are my lips, my palms (both of them facing up), here are my legs (twine and all), my torso, and my head shooting sideways. I'm at the seashore and this is my grave, this is my purposeful calotype, my hide and go seek, my show and tell, my forever. .2 and forever and never ending. I was just one dream away come and keep me. I'm at the sea shore come and see me and seam me. I'm without nothing, the sky has drifted, the sea is leaving, my seat is a matchbox and I'm all wound up. The snow settling, the ice box and its glory taken for granted. I'm at the sea shore and there's nobody here. The room with its white sets of furniture, the lilies, the Chanel, the masonite paintings, the bed, your ribbon of darker on light, the throw rug **** carpet, pink walled sister's room, and the couch at the top of the stairs. I'm at the sea shore, my windows opened wide, my skin thrown with threat, rhinoceri, reddish bruises bent of cerise staled sunsets. I'm at the sea shore and there's nobody here. I'm at the plateau and there isn't a single ship. There are the rocks below and I'm counting. My caveats all implored and my goodbyes written. I'm in my bed and the sleep never set in. I'm name dropping God and there's nobody there. I'm in a chair with my hands on a keyboard, listening to Danish throb-rock, horse-riding into candle light on a wicked wedding of wild words and teary-eyed gazes and gazers. Bent by the rocking and the torment, the wild and the weird, the horror and everything horrifying. There is this shadow looking over my shoulder. I'm all alone but I feel like you're here.



Part II




I wake up in Panama. The axe there. Sleeping on the floors in the guest bedroom, the floor of the garden shed, the choir closet, the rut of dirt at the end of the flower bed; just a towel, grayish-blue, alone, lawnmower at my side, and sky blue setting all around. I was a family man. No I just taste bits of dirt watching a quiet and contrary feeling of cool limestone wrap over and about my arms and my legs. Lungs battered by snapping tongues, and ancient conversations; I think it was the Malaysian Express. Mom quieted. Sister quieted. Father wept. And is still weeping. Never have I heard such horrifying and un-kindly words.-----------------------It's going to take giant steel cavernous explorations of the nose, brain cell after brain cell quartered, giant ******* quaffs of alcohol, harboring false lanterns and even worse chemicals. Inhalations and more inhalations. I'm going to need to leap, flight, drop into bodies of waters from air planes and swallow capsules of psychotropics, sedatives beyond recalcitrance. I'm requiring shock treatments and shock values. Periodic elements and galvanized steel drums. Malevolence and more malevolence. Forest walks, and why am I still in Panama. I don't want to talk, to sleep, to dream, to play stale-mating games of chess, checkers, Monopoly, or anything Risk involving. I can't sleep, eat, treaty or retreat. I'm wickeded by temptations of grandeur and threats of anomaly, widening only in proverb and swept only by opposing endeavors. Horrified, enveloped, pictured and persuaded by the evilest of haunts, spirits, and match head weeping women. I can't even open my mouth without hearing voices anymore. The colors are beginning to be enormous and I still can't swim. I couldn't drown with my ears open if I kept my nose dry and my mouth full of a plane ticket and first class beanstalk to elysian fields. It's pervasive and I'm purveyed. It's unquantifiable. It's the epitomizing and the epitome. I have my epaulets set for turbulent battles though I still can't fend off night. Speak and I might remember. Hear and it's second rite. Sea attacks, oceans roaring, lakes swallowing me whole. Grand bodies of waters and faces and arms appendages, crowns and more crowns and more crowns and more crowns and more crowns and I'm still shaking, and I'm still just a button. And I still can't sleep. And I'm still waiting.

It is night. The moon ripening, peeling back his face. Writhing. Seamed by the beauty of the nocturne, his ways made by sun, sky, and stars. Rolled and rampant. Moved across the plateau of the air, and its even and coolly majestic wanton shades of twilight. It heads off mountains, is swept as the plains of beauty, their faces in wild and feral growths. Bent and bolded, indelible and facing off Roman Empires too gladly well in inked and whet tips of bolder hands to soothe them forth.-----------Here in their grand and grandiose furnaces of the heart, whipped tails and tall fables fettered and tarnished in gold’s and lime. Here with their mothers' doting. Here with their Jimi Hendrix and poor poetry and stand-up downtrodden wergild and retardation. I don't give a ****. I could weep for the ***** if they even had hair half as fine as my own. I am real now. Limited by nothing. Served by no worship or warship. My flotilla serves tostadas at full-price. So now we have a game going.-----------------------------------------------------------­------------------------  My cowlick is not Sinatra's and it certainly doesn't beat women. As a matter of factotum and of writ and bylaw. I'm running down words more quickly than the stanza's of Longfellow. I'm moving subtexts like Eliot. I'm rampant and gaining speed. Methamphetamine and five star meats. Alfalfa and pea tendrils. Loves and the lovers I fall over and apart on. Heroes and my fortune over told and ever telling. Moving in arc light and keeping a warm glow.

the fish line caves. the shimmy and the shake. Bluegrass music and big wafting bell tones. snakes and the river, hands on the heads, through the hair; I look straight at the Pacific. I hate plastic flowers, those inanimate stems and machine-processed flesh tones. Waltzing the state divide. I am hooked on the intrepid doom of startling ego. I let it rake into my spine. It's hooves are heavy and singe and bind like manacles all over me. My first, my last, my favorite lover. I'm stalemating in the bathtub. Harnessing Crystal Lite and making rose gardens out of CD inserts and leaf covers. I'm fascinated by magic and gods. Guns and hunters. Thieving and mold, and laundry, and stereotypes, and great stereos, and boom-boxes, and the hi-fi nightlife of Chicago, roasting on a pith and meaty flame, built like a horror story five feet tall and laced with ruggedness and small needles. My skin is a chromium orchid and the grizzly subtext of a Nick Cave tune. I've allowed myself to be over-amplified, to mistake in falsetto and vice versa. To writhe on the heavy metallic reverberations of an altercated palpitation. The heart is the lonely hunted. First the waterproof matchsticks, then the water, the bowie knife, crass grasses and hard-necked pitch-hitters and phony friends; for doing lunch in the park on a frozen pond, I play like I invented blonde and really none of my **** even smells like gold.--------------------- There are the tales of false worship. I heard a street vendor sell a story about Ovid that was worse than local politics. As far as intermittent and esoteric histories go I'm the king of the present, second stage act in the shadow of the sideshow. Tonight I'm greeting the characters with Vaseline. For their love of music and their love of philosophy. For their twilight choirs and their skinny women who wear black antler masks and PVC and polyurethane body suits standing in inner-city gardens chanting. For their chanting. The pacific. For the fish line caves. For the buzzing and the kazoos. For the alfalfa and the three fathers of blue, red, and yellow. For the state of the nation. But still mostly working for the state of equality, more than a room for one’s own.-------------------------------------------------------------­------"Rice milk for all of you." " Kensington and whittled spirits."
(Doppelganger enters stage left)MAN: Prism state, flash of the golden arc. Beastly flowers and teeming woodlands. Heir to the throes and heir to the throng.----------------------------------------------------------­--------------- The sheep meadow press in the house of affection. The terns on my hem or the hide in my beak; all across the steel girder and whipping ******* the windows facing out. The mystery gaze that seers the diplopic eye. Still its opening shunned. I put a cage over it and carry it like a child through Haight-Ashbury. At times I hint that I'm bored, but there is no letting of blood or rattle of hope. When you live with a risk you begin at times to identify with the routes. Above the regional converse, the two on two or the two on four. At times for reasons of sadness but usually its just exhaustion. At times before the come and go gets to you, but usually that is wrong and they get to you first. Lathering up in a small cerulean piece of sky at the end turnabout of a dirt road

With white frost gone
And all green dreams not worth much,
After a lean day's work
Time comes round for that foul ****:
Mere bruit of her takes our street
Until every man,
Red, pale or dark,
Veers to her slouch.

Mark, I cry, that mouth
Made to do violence on,
That seamed face
Askew with blotch, dint, scar
Struck by each dour year.
Walks there not some such one man
As can spare breath
To patch with brand of love this rank grimace
Which out from black tarn, ditch and cup
Into my most chaste own eyes
Looks up.

The Triumph of Wit Over Suffering

Head alone shows you in the prodigious act
Of digesting what centuries alone digest:
The mammoth, lumbering statuary of sorrow,
Indissoluble enough to riddle the guts
Of a whale with holes and holes, and bleed him white
Into salt seas.  Hercules had a simple time,
Rinsing those stables:  a baby's tears would do it.
But who'd volunteer to gulp the Laocoon,
The Dying Gaul and those innumerable pietas
Festering on the dim walls of Europe's chapels,
Museums and sepulchers?  You.
                               You
Who borrowed feathers for your feet, not lead,
Not nails, and a mirror to keep the snaky head
In safe perspective, could outface the gorgon-grimace
Of human agony:  a look to numb
Limbs:  not a basilisk-blink, nor a double whammy,
But all the accumulated last grunts, groans,
Cries and heroic couplets concluding the million
Enacted tragedies on these blood-soaked boards,
And every private twinge a hissing asp
To petrify your eyes, and every village
Catastrophe a writhing length of cobra,
And the decline of empires the thick coil of a vast
Anacnoda.
          Imagine:  the world
****** to a foetus head, ravined, seamed
With suffering from conception upwards, and there
You have it in hand.  Grit in the eye or a sore
Thumb can make anyone wince, but the whole globe
Expressive of grief turns gods, like kings, to rocks.
Those rocks, cleft and worn, themselves then grow
Ponderous and extend despair on earth's
Dark face.
           So might rigor mortis come to stiffen
All creation, were it not for a bigger belly
Still than swallows joy.
                         You enter now,
Armed with feathers to tickle as well as fly,
And a fun-house mirror that turns the tragic muse
To the beheaded head of a sullen doll, one braid,
A bedraggled snake, hanging limp as the absurd mouth
Hangs in its lugubious pout.  Where are
The classic limbs of stubborn Antigone?
The red, royal robes of Phedre?  The tear-dazzled
Sorrows of Malfi's gentle duchess?
                                   Gone
In the deep convulsion gripping your face, muscles
And sinews bunched, victorious, as the cosmic
Laugh does away with the unstitching, plaguey wounds
Of an eternal sufferer.
                         To you
Perseus, the palm, and may you poise
And repoise until time stop, the celestial balance
Which weighs our madness with our sanity.

Braided brushed *******
the princess and her jewels
hair fair platted with history
servants standing by swords ready
gold hats seamed silver pulled tight
with silk ribbons and scarfs full beaded
this is a Viking girl astride her war horse

Near, near are my lucid dreams.
Sultry sleep, augmenting realty
Today, nothing will be as it seems.

Flashes of translucent, magnified beams,
Lighting lingers in treacherous tonality
Near, near are my lucid dreams.

The water flows in upside-down streams,
Rivers rage in confused commonalities
Today, nothing will be as it seems.

The mechanic roar of howling screams,
Shrapnel shrieking in utter infinities.
Near, near are my lucid dreams.

Pulleys construct convoluted schemes
While pollution parades in notorious normality
Today, nothing will be as it seems.

Awake. I go forth, my mind again seamed.
Awake. I go back, into a world of formality.
Near, near are my lucid dreams
Today, nothing will be as it seems.

Crystal White Pearl paint,
red racing stripes,
MX-5 traced
on the side

Lightweight aluminum
alloy, seventeen inch
wheels wrapped in
205/45 summer
performance tires,

Limited-
Slip Differential,
rear wheel drive,

Six-speed manual
transmission, weighted
shift ****, perfectly
palm-sized

Black sport clutch
bucket seats, seamed
racing red stitching, a clutch
worked with a snap
of the heel, a flick
of the wrist.

Crystal White dash panel,
red racing stripe
MX-5 traced lines
match the stripes outside.

Piano Black
mirrors match
bucket seats
and the cloth
soft top

unfolds on summer days,
spring nights, fall
mornings.

Heaven/
Nirvana/
Happiness

found
now
with a snap of the heel
& flick of the wrist.

Hey king
Just wanna ask you a few things
Because I noticed lately that vibe between us has been changing.
My first question is,  To you does my love still mean anything?
Like , I use to be able to feel you in my being....
And you were the man that my subconscious created in my dreams brought to reality
But that feeling has faded  and I feel quite jaded.
I mean I been patient with you I have waited
Does our human hearts no longer connect one to  another feeling related?
Are you not pleased with my soul being naked?
Things haven't been as good as it once seamed
I mean, Have you lost interest?
Does the soothing sound of my voice no longer put the stress of your mind at rest?
Are you not impressed by the offerings of my very Best?
Cause I'm in a place of loneliness.
And You were once My sunshine but now that you are gone I'm the forced to shine my moonlight on Painted sky of my own  darkness.
I'm sitting here with only memories of you and I as I reminisce
While missing our hour long conversations filled with  love and tenderness that ignited a fire burning with bliss.
And with your deep, smooth, and sensual voice you caressed my heart until my mind relentlessly undressed.
And at the thought of you my love ticker rapidly beats outside the ***** of chest.
Just to know A man like you I was sincerely blessed.
but now I must Confess that Me being without you I have turned into a mess.
What happened?
I thought what we felt was beyond the physical attraction.
Because of the way you had my all of me reactin
as if I were the ship amongst the sea And you were my captain.
Maybe I'm just overeactin
Or maybe I just Didn't met the standards of your satisfaction.

So can you please tell me did our seed of affection not sprout?
Have we reached a love drought?
Can you sense my fears and doubts?
What is this silent treatment about?
Like can you help a sista out?

“Speak! speak! thou fearful guest!
Who, with thy hollow breast
Still in rude armor drest,
    Comest to daunt me!
Wrapt not in Eastern balms,
But with thy fleshless palms
Stretched, as if asking alms,
    Why dost thou haunt me?”

Then, from those cavernous eyes
Pale flashes seemed to rise,
As when the Northern skies
    Gleam in December;
And, like the water’s flow
Under December’s snow,
Came a dull voice of woe
    From the heart’s chamber.

“I was a Viking old!
My deeds, though manifold,
No Skald in song has told,
    No Saga taught thee!
Take heed, that in thy verse
Thou dost the tale rehearse,
Else dread a dead man’s curse;
    For this I sought thee.

“Far in the Northern Land,
By the wild Baltic’s strand,
I, with my childish hand,
    Tamed the gerfalcon;
And, with my skates fast-bound,
Skimmed the half-frozen Sound,
That the poor whimpering hound
    Trembled to walk on.

“Oft to his frozen lair
Tracked I the grisly bear,
While from my path the hare
    Fled like a shadow;
Oft through the forest dark
Followed the were-wolf’s bark,
Until the soaring lark
    Sang from the meadow.

“But when I older grew,
Joining a corsair’s crew,
O’er the dark sea I flew
    With the marauders.
Wild was the life we led;
Many the souls that sped,
Many the hearts that bled,
    By our stern orders.

“Many a wassail-bout
Wore the long Winter out;
Often our midnight shout
    Set the ***** crowing,
As we the Berserk’s tale
Measured in cups of ale,
Draining the oaken pail,
    Filled to o’erflowing.

“Once as I told in glee
Tales of the stormy sea,
Soft eyes did gaze on me,
    Burning yet tender;
And as the white stars shine
On the dark Norway pine,
On that dark heart of mine
    Fell their soft splendor.

“I wooed the blue-eyed maid,
Yielding, yet half afraid,
And in the forest’s shade
    Our vows were plighted.
Under its loosened vest
Fluttered her little breast,
Like birds within their nest
    By the hawk frighted.

“Bright in her father’s hall
Shields gleamed upon the wall,
Loud sang the minstrels all,
    Chanting his glory;
When of old Hildebrand
I asked his daughter’s hand,
Mute did the minstrels stand
    To hear my story.

“While the brown ale he quaffed,
Loud then the champion laughed,
And as the wind-gusts waft
    The sea-foam brightly,
So the loud laugh of scorn,
Out of those lips unshorn,
From the deep drinking-horn
    Blew the foam lightly.

“She was a Prince’s child,
I but a Viking wild,
And though she blushed and smiled,
    I was discarded!
Should not the dove so white
Follow the sea-mew’s flight,
Why did they leave that night
    Her nest unguarded?

“Scarce had I put to sea,
Bearing the maid with me,
Fairest of all was she
    Among the Norsemen!
When on the white sea-strand,
Waving his armed hand,
Saw we old Hildebrand,
    With twenty horsemen.

“Then launched they to the blast,
Bent like a reed each mast,
Yet we were gaining fast,
    When the wind failed us;
And with a sudden flaw
Came round the gusty Skaw,
So that our foe we saw
    Laugh as he hailed us.

“And as to catch the gale
Round veered the flapping sail,
‘Death!’ was the helmsman’s hail,
    ‘Death without quarter!’
Mid-ships with iron keel
Struck we her ribs of steel;
Down her black hulk did reel
    Through the black water!

“As with his wings aslant,
Sails the fierce cormorant,
Seeking some rocky haunt,
    With his prey laden,—
So toward the open main,
Beating to sea again,
Through the wild hurricane,
    Bore I the maiden.

“Three weeks we westward bore,
And when the storm was o’er,
Cloud-like we saw the shore
    Stretching to leeward;
There for my lady’s bower
Built I the lofty tower,
Which, to this very hour,
  Stands looking seaward.

“There lived we many years;
Time dried the maiden’s tears;
She had forgot her fears,
    She was a mother;
Death closed her mild blue eyes,
Under that tower she lies;
Ne’er shall the sun arise
    On such another!

“Still grew my ***** then,
Still as a stagnant fen!
Hateful to me were men,
    The sunlight hateful!
In the vast forest here,
Clad in my warlike gear,
Fell I upon my spear,
    Oh, death was grateful!

“Thus, seamed with many scars,
Bursting these prison bars,
Up to its native stars
    My soul ascended!
There from the flowing bowl
Deep drinks the warrior’s soul,
Skoal! to the Northland! skoal!”
    Thus the tale ended.

The girl’s corneas expand over the small black abyss of pupil
Tides of blue and hazel rising over onyx isles
An unhinged eyelash balances precariously on its neighbor
It evaporates with her quick blink

Directly beneath her right eye
Below the mottled eggplant shadows
The corpse of a capillary drains among the freckles
Subterranean rivers of vein
Pulse under thin skin

Her nose is spherical
Etched by soft papery scars
Pores round and gazing
Culminating in a uniform valley

Lips are soft and pink and unkissed
A source for a  small steady trickle of pride
Her mother’s lips
But behind the outer façade
The seamed surface is rough with nervous nibbles
Ribboned with scars of worries and troubles

She lacks fourteen teeth
Absent since the womb
Those she has are either sickly infants or filled with grainy mystery metallics
Some entirely fabricated with spatulas of amalgam
Yellowed and cracking
Rough and worn
Spongy inner marrow screaming with pain
She hides the stony incisors from view

The hair
Curling and waving
Kissing with reptilian tongues at her cheeks
Neck
Forehead
Framing her face in brambles and cowlicks
Indecisive of its true form
Fuzzy with moisture
Unwilling to obey
The strands of a gorgon
A monstrous tangle of personality
Instantly recognizable
Her hands attempt to soothe the undulating tendrils
But they anger
As stubborn as her
Refuse treatment
She gives up
Rinses her hands
And turns away from the mirror
Sighing

It is the spot I came to seek,--
  My fathers' ancient burial-place
Ere from these vales, ashamed and weak,
  Withdrew our wasted race.
It is the spot--I know it well--
Of which our old traditions tell.

For here the upland bank sends out
  A ridge toward the river-side;
I know the shaggy hills about,
  The meadows smooth and wide,--
The plains, that, toward the southern sky,
Fenced east and west by mountains lie.

A white man, gazing on the scene,
  Would say a lovely spot was here,
And praise the lawns, so fresh and green,
  Between the hills so sheer.
I like it not--I would the plain
Lay in its tall old groves again.

The sheep are on the slopes around,
  The cattle in the meadows feed,
And labourers turn the crumbling ground,
  Or drop the yellow seed,
And prancing steeds, in trappings gay,
Whirl the bright chariot o'er the way.

Methinks it were a nobler sight
  To see these vales in woods arrayed,
Their summits in the golden light,
  Their trunks in grateful shade,
And herds of deer, that bounding go
O'er hills and prostrate trees below.

And then to mark the lord of all,
  The forest hero, trained to wars,
Quivered and plumed, and lithe and tall,
  And seamed with glorious scars,
Walk forth, amid his reign, to dare
The wolf, and grapple with the bear.

This bank, in which the dead were laid,
  Was sacred when its soil was ours;
Hither the artless Indian maid
  Brought wreaths of beads and flowers,
And the gray chief and gifted seer
Worshipped the god of thunders here.

But now the wheat is green and high
  On clods that hid the warrior's breast,
And scattered in the furrows lie
  The weapons of his rest;
And there, in the loose sand, is thrown
Of his large arm the mouldering bone.

Ah, little thought the strong and brave
  Who bore their lifeless chieftain forth--
Or the young wife, that weeping gave
  Her first-born to the earth,
That the pale race, who waste us now,
Among their bones should guide the plough.

They waste us--ay--like April snow
  In the warm noon, we shrink away;
And fast they follow, as we go
  Towards the setting day,--
Till they shall fill the land, and we
Are driven into the western sea.

But I behold a fearful sign,
  To which the white men's eyes are blind;
Their race may vanish hence, like mine,
  And leave no trace behind,
Save ruins o'er the region spread,
And the white stones above the dead.

Before these fields were shorn and tilled,
  Full to the brim our rivers flowed;
The melody of waters filled
  The fresh and boundless wood;
And torrents dashed and rivulets played,
And fountains spouted in the shade.

Those grateful sounds are heard no more,
  The springs are silent in the sun;
The rivers, by the blackened shore,
  With lessening current run;
The realm our tribes are crushed to get
May be a barren desert yet.

Someone's knocking at my door
In the middle of the night
From a warm be into the cold
I think I got my first frostbite

As I opened up my door
I saw a ghostly figure on my porch
A lady all dressed in white
With an unlit torch as her light

Her jet black hair was flying wide
She looked so feeble, oh so mild
Her dress was dancing everywhere
And on her face showed fright

She had such a perfect face
And she came from a mixed race
She said,"Please help me,
I'm being followed by a plight."

I led her into my home
She ran away from my statue gnomes
And when I held her hand
It was so cold and tight

Her lips were bleeding, so was her head
On her dress was drops of red
I let her sleep on my bed
And slept on the couch that night

We danced and we pranced
In my dreams
I was awoken
By the sunbeams

I ran to her
For I heard screams
And at her foot
I saw blood and shaving cream

She said that is wasn't what it seamed
It's cherry syrup and whip cream
I thought that she cut herself while taking a shave
I felt so ashamed and naive

Once there was a little bird
With nothing left at all
All alone stuck on the ground
The bird just felt...so small

So the bird began to walk
Till the old nest was out of sight
It didn't have the strength anymore
To stand up for itself and fight

After walking for forever
It found another nest
But decided to keep walking
It didn't want to be a pest

But there was someone in the nest
That kindly invited the bird to stay
And though the bird was cynical
It thought "well maybe just today"

The day turned into a week
That week turned into two
And before the bird realized it
All its problems slowly withdrew

Its feathers gradually grew back
And its wing slowly began to heal
The more time it spent in this new nest
The more living here seamed ideal.

The bird got its confidence back
And once again it could soar
It flew around with its new friends
And sang louder than before

Once there was a little bird
As happy as could be
It soared up in the sky all day
Home at last...and free

If I had a time machine, there is only one place I would go. To the meadow, where we would launch dirt clods, back at the boys. Then climb and hide in our woodland suite, where no boys could annoy us. I would like to see our fortress again, and pretend, that we were still friends.

If I had a time machine, I would try to go back to when you cried. Because your bearer was more of a bear than a mother. She didn't understand, but I took up the stance, and we marched our way through the madness. I would like to smoke a cigarette on the rooftop again, and pretend, that we are still close friends.

Goodbye my sister, my childhood friend. We have ended the games we pretended. We both have homes now, lovers now, bills now. Our barbie village blown up into living breathing reality.

And we,
        Incapable of seeing each other old, In the new mold. Everything that I'm told makes me so proud of you.

And I'll wait, while we migrate, through different schedules and rituals. I'll be at the front gate. Once I have my Tony we dreamed of and you have your fashion line we seamed up, in every major cotour city.

It will be then, that we'll emerge back together again. Helping each other through hospital corridors in replace of wadding through muddy shores.

There will be two glasses of wine, one with your name, one with mine, where we can rewind, and reminice about time.

If I had a time machine, I would quickly jump to the future and sneak a peak at us. Just as we imagined it long ago. Both sitting in our rocking chairs, just above the front stairs. As the porch wraps around both us and the house. A glass of whisky in one hand and a shot gun in the other, prosting to the old ways and the new days

I remember when I was a young thing, barely even a couple million years old. You were so young too. It seemed that just yesterday you had crawled out of the muck stinking of sulfur and brimstone. My father used to laugh at you and call you “his little funny ooze.” This day, for no reason at all, my father gave me a gift. It was such a tiny thing, barely a flickering light. Up to now there was almost no light. Oh, but what a beautiful thing it was. Had I known how much I would enjoy this I would have asked for it sooner.

He handed me this glimmering sparkle that was barely a speck of dust in my hand. What power the speck had, it struggled and raged against the darkness and began to grow, so much so that I had to turn my head for a moment. My body started to tremble. I think I was afraid, even though fear had not been created yet.

Until now darkness had enveloped all of existence. There was only an occasional flare of cosmic energy. Sometimes this red orange and white light would appear, engulf us in its fury and majesty. Then it would fade away, but that usually only lasted a year or so. The warmth would stay with us a little longer. Many times it was such a relief to feel anything at all, except for the cold numbness of darkness and uncertainty. I never knew where father was going with this experiment, but he took such joy in it so I followed along curiously.

My body trembled in fear anxiety, joy, pain, agony, and passion. There where so many new thoughts and feelings. I could not contain them. The little light had grown incredibly. At first it had been circling me slowly but now its speed had increased exponentially. Faster and faster it rounded my body, humming quietly at first but increasing in volume as well as its’ velocity. I could feel all of these new emotions jerking and tugging, pushing and pulling to get out and the more powerful my emotions became the stronger and faster the light pulsed and hummed.

Suddenly, I recalled when my brother had moved on. We were outside of time watching as specks of cosmic dust began to explode from the center. At that point it was just the center there was no name or description that I could give that would accurately describe something so new and different. My father whispered to my brother, so quietly that I could barely even hear it myself. Had it not been for the stillness and silence of the void I would not have heard him at all.

“ Chronos it is time.”

“Time for what” my brother replied.

And in the softest and sweetest voice I have ever heard my father said “ it is time for you to join your sister Rhea.”

        Then with no warning or explanation he tossed my brother in to the void. By now your small blue orb was just blackened bits of liquid fire and cosmic dust. Yet it seamed my brother knew what he was supposed to do. As he entered the void his body expanded until he was nothing but a gaseous vapor. Subsequently he settled in and hugged your sphere. Which until now I had not noticed, but suddenly I realized that it was my older sister Rhea. He wept in joy as he engulfed her in his vaporous form, she who had until now been raging with cosmic fire spewing and ******* in various forms of cosmic mass, calmly embraced him.  There was such peace and joy that I was almost jealous.

            The light was on the verge of exploding within me and outside of me. Then my father pulled me aside and took me back a billion years. He embraced me softly and whispered that it was my turn. Helios you will burn the brightest out of all of your siblings. You will shine in the past the present and the future. Then with a force I had not known since the beginning of creation he shoved me into the void with his gift. I surveyed the darkness and could not see my siblings. Where were they.

        Finally my insides erupted. I exploded and from my body fire rained in to the void. The darkness was illuminated, shapes took form. Space had meaning. A million years or so later my sister came crashing down. So I shined my light as brightly as I could so she would know that she was not alone. To my surprise she was naked and embarrassed so she gathered bits and shapes from the now lighted space around her and covered herself with fire. Angrily she lashed out at anything that passed ******* it in or spewing it out with great fury. Another million or so years later my brother Chronos appeared and calmed her.
We never spoke we simply existed.

If you knew I love you, would your heart change its beat?
If you knew how many nights I have stayed awake thinking of you, would you think of me too?
If you knew how many times I reread the words "I will always hold you close to my heart, no matter what.", would you reread mine too?
If you knew I cry over the fact that you're gone, would you come back?
If you knew that I put you up on one of my highest pedestals, would you rethink yours?
If you knew I hear those five words in my head constantly, would you hear them too?
If you knew how many times I have longed for your embrace, would you say you long for mine too?

Our last days with each other were magical and filled with love for me, were they for you too?
       That move star hug, oh you know which one. The one where you were strutting down the senior walk out line filled with people and you just stopped about 6 yards away from me. Looked me straight in the eyes and opened your loving arms, not caring about your long time buddies on the side screaming your name. I booked it down that line of loud, sweaty, standing in shock teenagers and collapsed in your arms. You picked me up, spun me around, and with tears in your eyes you whispered those five words that changed my life forever... "I will always love you.". Do you remember now?
       At your graduation party I was a goner. My mother came and talked to yours while I went down and said my final goodbyes. "It's never goodbye Big Sean." You whispered in my ear as I gave you a final hug. My mother was behind me when you said that. And when we got back in the car the first thing she said was "That boy loves you, I can see it in his eyes." finally it seamed like I wasn't dreaming and someone else noticed it too. They way you look at me rather than everyone else, even your girlfriend.

So do you see why my heart aches for you to come back, to love me?
If you knew I love you, would your heart change its beat?
If you knew how many nights I have stayed awake thinking of you, would you think of me too?
If you knew how many times I reread the words "I will always hold you close to my heart, no matter what.", would you reread mine too?
If you knew I cry over the fact that you're gone, would you come back?
If you knew that I put you up on one of my highest pedestals, would you rethink yours?
If you knew I hear those five words in my head constantly, would you hear them too?
If you knew how many times I have longed for your embrace, would you say you long for mine too?
                                                            ­       Please say you'll do...

The night smells of popcorn, spilled wine and beach *****
Plastic sugar sweet.
As Baby and Johnny start to dance,
So do a few thousand beauties
In cut off shorts, white pumps and ******* tops
Or flouncy dresses, and seamed stockings
Dancing, dancing, with abandon and wistful delight,
Remembering the first time they ever saw this film
And had their hearts broken by the now dead actor
And his shy (but sassy) girl.
As the credits roll ***** bounce across the fields
And we all keep dancing
Desperate to remain
In the moment
Dreaming 'til dawn.

Gripping dripping smearing love.
Over your eyes!!!
Over your ovaries, where babies, your clutch.

There's no time to nest,
Resist!
Resist
,
be the diode, resistor to heart plunge.
Plug up the sewer.
(more like a catacomb)
My heart's in the ****** cake.
The smell, Cytotoxic invades chemical response conformation.

We; bitten, by fangs of silicon,
the world takes us away from ivy
grown homes,
torn then seamed up jack o' lanterns always smiling orange.

Have you ever grown up from being 11?
It's the saddest thing you've seen.
You see a fledgling,
altricial,
awkward,
gawk/****,
turn from a boy
to a lady.

Plump. Or . Musculate.

Slowly they regenerate their lady parts.
Regardless of gender.

Have you seen them bleed?
Some bleed white tears that burn the urethra.
Some, never grow up.
Transmogrified they call it.
Never to be beautiful again.
Angst entangles, ensues, makes doubt
pubescence is for flowers and hairs.
Namesake.
5th Grade.

Curious formation, curious nature
It's as if we are stalagmites of the future,
We decorate walls or cave ceilings to perform our correct action.
Too bad our self image is always garbled, confused by our refraction.

NEVER GRADUATE COLLEGE.

Séraphine, Vignette nº 7, Le Cercueil

I was on the phone talking to the museum. Ground-penetrating radar had found what looked like a coffin at the Lutetian layer, and they were in the process of digging down to it. I was telling Sylvain to use the new 4K video cameras to record every detail when the doorbell rang. I’d left the door ajar, knowing Madame Pinard, the concierge was bringing by an adjuster to inspect and cut a check for the repair of the leak in the ceiling that had washed away chunks of plaster, now laying on the hardwood floor in the bedroom, exposing the wooden rafters of the attic.

“May we come in Monsieur,” she shouted from down the hall in the foyer. “Yes, Madame, please come in,” I shouted back, with more exasperation in my voice than I wanted to express. “I am on the phone with the musee Madame, please show him to the bedroom.”

I saw Madame and the adjuster come in out of the corner of my eye and turned my head to see them as they walked the stairs to the bedrooms. The adjuster was not a man, but a woman, which was surprising in France. The first thing I noticed about her, was her wide round birthing hips, what the kids, called thick. She wore a long-sleeve white silk blouse, black pencil skirt, and the traditional, obligatory Parisian back seamed stockings. I didn’t make out her face but caught sight of her red hair tied in a tight bun on the back of her head, and the milky white skin of her neck.

“Damien, are you listening,” said Sylvain, the dig manager on the other end of the line. “Yes, I replied, “l was distracted by my landlady bringing an adjuster into the apartment. Yes, I’ll come down as soon as they leave.”

After a few minutes, Madame and the adjuster came back down. The adjuster walked into the foyer to wait. Madame came into the living room and said she’d have a crew out tomorrow to start repairs. As madame turned and walked down the hall, I got a better look at the adjuster. She was pure Celt, with red hair, white skin, dark brown doe eyes that looked black, high cheekbones, and the sharp straight nose of a Greek statute.

Besides her stunning beauty, I noticed her necklace, a traditional golden Celtic torc, which signified the wearer as a person of high rank. I’d never seen a person wearing one. I’d only seen one on a statue, The Dying Gaul in Le Louvres. How so very interesting I thought to myself.  

As she was talking to Madame and turning to leave, she made eye contact. She tilted in acknowledgment and goodbye. I nodded back and she was gone. I wished I could have gotten a chance to talk to her, maybe even ask her for an aperitif at the corner bistro. Oh well, c’est la vie.

-------

I went to the dig at the La Crypt at 12:30-ish talked to Sylvain for a bit and went down to the lower levels to see it for myself. The area was gridded out and several cameras on tripods were recording. The team was within centimeters front the top, and so put down their trowels and used a high-pressure water and suction hoses to remove the rest of the topsoil. The top came into view, the excess water was ****** away. Sponges were used to clear and clean away the mud.

The stone was obviously Lutetian limestone, finely sanded and polished. The lid was craved, which first glance, looked like Norse runes and one Celtic knot. “Take pics and send them to religious studies,” I said half to myself, half to Sylvain. How strange to have Norse and Celt iconography together I thought to myself.

It was late when I exited the metro station. The air was bitterly cold, my breath appearing and disappearing around me like a mystic cloud.

I was tired, exhausted from digging, and was seeing things in the corner of my eye that I chalked up to aberrations of a fatigued mind. That is until I walked past the Boise de Boulogne. In a dark recess, along the tree line, I saw what looked like a faintly glowing woman in a white dress. My first reaction was horror, remembering all the monster movies I’d seen as a child. Then quickly, my adult mind kicked in and rationalized it away as an artsy late night photography session, which is common around Paris. The sting of the cold refocused my attention and I hurriedly resumed my walk home.

I was tired, muddy, and had to take a shower before throwing myself into bed. I showered, dried off, and pulled back the new, thick duvet I’d bought for winter. The moon was full, beaming softly, barely illuminating the dark bedroom, as I cracked opened a window to let a small amount of fresh cold air into the humid stale room.

I slid under the duvet. I liked the cold, it reminded me of camping in the mountains with my old man and being snug in our down sleeping bags as we talked half the night away. I quickly fell asleep.

I half awoke, sensing a presence. I opened my eyes and saw a woman, ****, standing at the end of my bed, enveloped in a faint blue luminescence. She looked at me with big doe eyes. I watched her watching me, trying to figure out if I was dreaming or not.

She crawled on to the bed. I couldn’t feel her as she made her up the bed. She straddled me. I saw glint around her neck and saw she was wearing a torc, and realized who she was.

Her face was centimeters from mine. Her eyes burned with ferocity, intensity, and anger. I looked back up at her, fear welling up inside of me. She looked down at me. Her penetrating eyes, looking into my soul. I could feel her in my head, my mind.

She felt my fear, and without a word, just the look in her eyes, reassured me, calmed me, and my body and mind relaxed as if a nurse had given me a shot of morphine.

She touched her lips to mine, and felt the heat of her beath, smelled her dewy scent. I didn’t move. I knew I was prey. I knew what she wanted, and let her take it.

She slid her tongue into my mouth, and I gently ****** on it. She ****** up my lower lip, biting it playfully. She tasted sweet, fresh, like spring water. I couldn’t get enough of her. I wanted more. I kissed her harder, deeper, and felt myself slide to the edge of sleep, no longer sure what was a dream, or what was real.

She pulled back the duvet, grabbed my ****, and stroked it till it was painfully hard. She kissed it, put it in her mouth, and ****** it. Her head bobbing up and down. She’d stop, bite the head, and use her teeth to scrape up and down the shaft till I winched and yelled out in pain.

I started to moan, my body tightening, and arched, thrusting deeper into her mouth, coming as she raked her nails hard down the side of my chest. To my surprise, she didn’t spit out but swallowed my ***, licking excess from around her lips.

--------

I opened my eyes and was blinded by sunlight streaming in through the open windows and curtains. What the ****, I thought to myself, I never sleep this late. It was always dark when I wake. And the birds, chirping in the trees outside my window, were loud, and grating on my nerves.  

I slowly got out of bed. My body ached, my lower lip hurt, and my **** was sore. I grabbed my **** and immediately released it in pain. It was raw as if I’d had ***. I was definitely confused. My eyes darted from side to side as I tried to make sense and remember last night. I left the dig, came home, showered, and went to bed.

I trudged to the kitchen and made coffee, all the while, racking my brain for some clue as to why I felt like ****. I poured a cup, leaned back on the counter, and sip the coffee. I shook my head, placing my hand on my hip, and felt a sharp burning. I looked down and saw blood on my hand and side. I went to the bathroom mirror and saw fingernail marks down both sides of my chest. I just stared.

I had no idea, no clues as to how these happened. I jumped into the shower and washed off, bandaged up the bleeding scratches with paper towels and tape, dressed, and went to the cafe at the corner.

Despite the cold, I sat on the terrace, ordered coffee, bread, butter, and jam. I looked at my phone. It was 8:08. I looked at my text messages and emails for some clue as to what happened last night.

Breakfast came, and I sipped the coffee, staring out into the street. The waiter walked past me. “Oui madame, what would you like this morning,” he said. “Cafe et croissant,” she said. The waiter turned and walked back inside. I turned my head to the side for a quick look and blinked twice. It was the redheaded adjuster from yesterday.

“Bonjour M. Delacroix,” she said. “Bonjour Madame,” I instinctively replied. There was an awkward pause.  “I am Brigitte, Brigitte Dieudonné,” she said softly.

We small talked over breakfast and when I tab came, paid, and said, “I headed to the office.” “It is the weekend monsieur. “Yes,” I replied, “I work at an archeological dig on Ile de la Cite. The crypte.” “I am headed that way myself, do you mind if I walk with you,” she asked.

We walked to the metro station, down the stairs, through the turnstile, and onto the quay. The train came, the doors hissed open, and we strode in. The train was full of Chinese tourists and it was standing room only. I grab a pole and Brigitte did the same as she squeezed up beside me.

The train jolted forward and Brigitte bumped into me. As the train smoothed out, she kept leaning into me. Her derriere in my crouch. I could feel her body through her coat. I was getting turned on. As the trained curved around a curve, it rocked back and forth. Her *** bumping and grinding against my now hard ****. Could she feel my hard-on through the coats? She half-turned her head a gave me a coquettish smile. She knew I thought to myself.

We exited La Cité metro station, on to Place Louis Lépine. Before I could say anything, she said she’d like to see the dig. “Sure,” I said, and we walked to the La Crypt. We walked down the stairs to glass doors and pass the touristy exhibits and displays, to the back, behind the green painted plywood wall. Sylvain and several grad students were standing over and around the coffin. Two of them were in the pit setting up a portable x-ray machine, one with a still camera, another with a video camcorder, and the rest looking down at their tablets.

Brigitte and I walked to the edge. The coffin’s lid had been clean. The runes and Celtic knot were clearly visible. “Danger, death, mother,” Brigitte said. Sylvain turned his head, and said, “she is right, danger, death, mother according to the religious studies guys.” “How do you know that,” I asked. “It’s in all the teenage vampire movies,” she replied grinning.

“The top one is an inverse Thurisaz, which is means danger. The second one is an inverse Algiz, which means death. The knot is Celtic for mother, and the dot in the heart means she had one daughter,” Brigitte said trailing off.

“It looks you’ve got it under control Sylvain. I have an appointment. Brigitte can I walk you back to la place,” I said.

We walked to la place and stopped at the metro entrance. “Can I have your number,” I asked? “Yes, you may, if you promise to call monsieur Delacroix,” she said smiling girlishly. She took my phone from my hand and typed in her number and dialed. Her phone rang. “I have your monsieur, Delacroix. A bientot,” she said. We did la bise and she was off.

The pond of blooming lotus was waiting for someone to cherish there beauty.  There we were as the shinning city we cherish beneight the credent  moon. Such perfect moment seamed as if a message was being delivered to us as we walked. We drifted away in beautiful wavy lights. We were in a moment where nothing existed except you and I.

And when I saw the light, shining so bright…
More and more of it each day and at night,
I watched as it grew, and I knew only
Growth could go on forever and always…
Never looking back at the daunting mist,
At eye-level with stench, my nose could not
Smell like my eyes could see; I knew what
I needed to be, but what wonders could
Push and scream, when things are not what they seem,
To bring a reality from our dreams…

You gave me the child
that seamed my belly
& stitched up my life.

You gave me: one book of love poems,
five years of peace
& two of pain.

You gave me darkness, light, laughter
& the certain knowledge
that we someday die.

You gave me seven years
during which the cells of my body
died & were reborn.

Now we have died
into the limbo of lost loves,
that wreckage of memories
tarnishing with time,
that litany of losses
which grows longer with the years,
as more of our friends
descend underground
& the list of our loved dead
outstrips the list of the living.

Knowing as we do
our certain doom,
knowing as we do
the rarity of the gifts we gave
& received,
can we redeem
our love from the limbo,
dust it off like a fine sea trunk
found in an attic
& now more valuable
for its age & rarity
than a shining new one?

Probably not.
This page is spattered
with tears that streak the words
lose, losses, limbo.

I stand on a ledge in hell
still howling for our love

Alone in the darkness, I carefully tread
Gazing at the leafy roof blossoming
Pearly flickering snowdrops overhead
A lone orchestra that she is forming
Hushed. I stand motionless, tranquil, silent
Glittering petals floating all around
Hear the eloquent song; dusky, violent
Twirling whilst dances to the velvet sound
In the midst of our homely wilderness
Reaching out to this enchanting spirit
I watch her, Illuminating blackness
My tortured soul I again revisit

Chasing is useless. I don't have her heart
We are seamed together and ripped apart.

She kept staring at the full moon
Her friend, confidant, fixation
Regretfully, I learn later, her escape
I kept talking in eerie silence
And keeping company to no effect
She like a bird tethered in a cage
I remember that night
Solemn the scar
Fourteen years hence
We were parked along a beach in Hawaii
Paradise one would think
Man and wife
Gazing in the opposite direction
I learn later our lasting vacation
Somewhere in the distance
Happy palm trees dance to the music of the waves
Whitecaps accentuate the moonshine of the night sea
Statues of tall mountains stand sentry
Separated by a treeline
Rolling hills, bare picket fences
And a defining moment
In the darkness and contrast
In·con·gru·ous
I see a few horses approaching our view, us
No doubt curious
My wife jests, as her eyes, depart the moon
Her reverie, her prayer pause
As the inside of the car shrivels
My heart braces
Her words, one by one
Denouncement at its finest
As she looks back at the horses, then me
"Even the poppies are in love
They're so stable"
She says this over and over
For my effect
Her eyes glassy
Her voice but a whisper
Steel, still
Drawing the horses nearer
Where soon their eyes
And noses peek through the fences of gloom
Big and brown,
Neighing
She begins to tear
Again
Sad and red
Real childlike
Her past begins to flash
Where she says something to the effect
That she once worked the corner of 42nd steet
In San Francisco
A bombshell went off
The horses sank in their seats
Lava spewed from my head
Mount Robertson in ashes
No votive candles could save her
Or us
Her angels on her shoulder
Lost to her rescue
Only albatrosses
Sinking
Sinking, us
Again in reverie
"Even the poppies are in love
They're so stable"
On and on
"I once worked the corner of 42nd Street
In San Francisco"
Her words, again, like ice
Melting
Reverberating in my mind
Where did I go wrong, I thought
Melancholy on the rocks
That night a man
And a moon cried
The sublimity of her message
The pantomime
The mock of steel
The planted seeds
The turning point
I can only gaze at the rolling hills
Now with two horses hoofing it back to safety
The darkness
The lost rebuttal and love
Her full moon
So prophetic
My teary eyes and mind could only wander
Past the happy palm trees
To the pieces of the puzzle
"You don't love me any more"
Deeply, I dug, wanting to find the answers
As her eyes and fingers quickly curled my lips
My insides a mess
She blows out my candle
Takes away the shovel
I knew
She knew
No words needed to be expressed
Only these
"Even the poppies are in love
They're so stable"
Soon it seamed,
Seemed
Stitches of our love ripped apart
That car that was once parked along the beach
Paradise searching
Now more suited for a funeral procession
As we  bereave the aloha attire, hotel, vacation and then the airport
As two ships departed in bereavement
Rudderless, without sails
Our port becoming a pretense
The living room couch soon my refuge
Saturated with my tears
Faithfulness and honor
Her bi-polarity worsening
Sadly
Truly
I didn't know at the time
If only I had known
Had some understanding
The winds at war
Of what was in her harbor
More of the anchors of doom
Holding her down
The barnacles, erosions of her mind
I could have helped
I will always remember that night
Fourteen years hence
Two horses short of being stable
And the battles in my mind
The tears
The waning days and months
Where the seasons and time felt lost
A year later,
A morning dawn
Mourned
I looked into her vacant eyes
The stillness
She was finally at peace
No longer tethered or caged
There was a full moon the night before

Logan Robertson

3/04/2019

Fire burning, logs marching
A path daunting, ranting taunts
Chanting seamed Arabic hymns
Chargrilled silky toned offerings
The exquisite yurt tent warm
Enclosed in ethnic kaleidoscope
Bedouin tribal pneuma radiates
Tensed and cordially punted
Feral wild ones sociably awake
Reticent,drained in frail noises
Fainting in lapses, trailed to fail
Tidal noises permeates above all
Waved and enveloped in beats
A drummed goblet, strummed oud
Announcement of the lived life force
The tidal rhythmic music timed
All clapping and mesmerised
Drawn in dangerous curves
A continuum of introversion sorted
The ever censored extroversion summed

Ben sat,
beside himself.

With all those worries,
you have at his age.

Not really knowing,
if his parents were really his own.

He looked around the old house,
which seamed to give him some comfort.

But then he started to remember,
that terrible day, when brother Tom came home form war.

Tom appeared at the door,
like a ghostly shadow.

Ben knew Tom was not the same,
as Tom stagger in, and slurred at him...

You have grown... and had to help him in to the kitchen.
As they got there...Tom almost shouted I am going to be sick.

And threw up in the kitchen sink, then fell to the flour, mumbling water Ben.
Ben took what seamed like the limp tap, in his hands, pour water into a glass.

Kneeling next to Tom, to give him the water, he remembered what Tom was.
It is not what I am seeing.

Thank you Ben.
You are welcome Tom.

No Ben!
Call me Tommy Gun.

I was once a faceless doll,
clean and concealed.
I remained that way for a time
'til curiosity caused my new form to be revealed.

At first my face was plain.
I was content and free,
but curiosity was not the only artist,
you see.

They seamed in their stitches
and drew upon my face.
I was new yet again,
changing with an unbelievable pace.

They said I was no longer just a copy
but unique and enviable.
But was I not formed from their desires,
an image which their liking could resemble?

Were these thoughts even mine to own?
I wish I could be that faceless doll once more,
but I am ragged and marked now,
though their drawings have not soiled my core.

Pain , sorrow , flame , and passion said her rainbow in my ears ; like an echo from the past with no love for living here ; so I tried to light a candle for her golden woman's tears . But like the cool of a blown out candle for the thunder in my mind I watched a young girl try forever just to burn a million times , and we were leaving in the summer with no sympathy for wines ; it was violence , stones ,and hatred , love for pain was left behind .
              She never stopped to think for her patterns seamed complete as her golden sun came rising and her colors met with mine , and from a simple warriors passion what shall we leave behind in a world where color is not but need , and death the woman's wine .
             He couldn't stop to play or light the shadows of her mind , and like the golden light of misery she spiraled through his time , and who is to say there is more to her as she burned slowly in her dying , and fell into the gravity of her northern lights so blind , and listened to the howling wolves as she weaved for better times .
             Thoughtless killing , thoughtful tool , I love you said her tune ; and yet as summer turned to fall the leaves upon her loom sang of spring's new hope again in a land of westering sun , "For in dying I will rise again to greet tomorrow's rain with no thought of bringing back your killing , no screaming from your pain ."
             The ice it slowly covered me as I sank into her womb , and the myriad stars of children's dreams echoed softly from her rock ; like the endless ripples of her final chords and the broken glass of dreams , and said to me a man is never truly what he seems , but only just his moment , and how I build tomorrow's dreams .
               I stood upon tomorrow's shores a witness to her schemes , and watched my mother burning , saw my father's broken dreams ; to chew upon coca leaves and watch as mother weaned .  I must learn to grow old again for she died from all our pains , and yet continued weaving as her winter brought the rains ; for children must learn to live in the golden honey of her pain , with time her only company , and her rhythm father's game .
              Like a child on the edge of night I stopped to sing my song of a thousand lonely burials and I must carry on , and yet I too must learn to live on the fragments of wind's sails , or try to build a better ship as her dawn comes on so pale , and the cold light of our father's eyes an icy wind in hell .

is the tendency of the  reddish sunshine
to become drenched some more

let us hear
what the milky-way seamed by pins
says

and it’s you
how much can you be able to read
the venation of the Barringtonia acutangula

can you touch the season of making apples
in the aquarium

the empty bottles without any co-ordinate
that shoulder with endless grief
the hands of the wall-clocks

in a sudden depression
they’re also making crowd
at the beauty parlour

you have promised someday
to present a flower-vase to display some drops of blood
in the circled face

do you remember it

you haven’t floated that turnip
till now

here the month of trumpet-flower
covers everything
with reedy grass

with the festival of colours of the white horses
the new leaves of bananas become associated

the total dipavali rows
along the evening-balcony

taking it as daylight
will any bird fly towards it

then send a walkman
for the bamboo plants

you must go today
in search of the source
of the hand-woven lamp-post

from the pitcher-worship to the kantha-stitch
it is a  very large
twelve-horned deer

the mango-marrow
demands more land
demands more kingfisher

the breath of the Ravenala
touches the chicks of the black-pepper

in every evening
the flood that tears the button
touches the bowstring

that passes through the centre of  magnolia

Seamed hands unwoven,
Small footsteps lowered away,
  .  .  .  Hearts torn asunder.

Two strangers walking in the knight.
One glance that seamed to last a life time.
Her smile as bright as the sun.
Her cheeks as red as blood.
The wind seemed to wait for that  moment in time to blow
as her long dark Red hair dances with the wind in the night sky.
His eyes so full of life as they hypnotize you.
With a smile that makes you smile and tingle inside.
The seconds past,  they wondering if they would ever see each other again.
Running from the rain. The same two strangers find shelter under a cherry blossom tree.
As they look up at each other there hearts skip at the same time.
So cold from the rain he can see her breath as it gets faster and faster.
As he takes a step towards her the rain stops.
The moon seemed to smile for them and lights up the night sky so they can see each other.
The moon light rays touch on her face.
His breathing is getting faster.
They move in closer so close they can feel the heat from there body's.
She feels as tho she will melt.
Her body shaking as he moves his hand to her face.
They stand there just staring into each others eyes.
As he moves closer to her his tall broad body blocks out the light from the moon.
She moves to him.  She pulls her hands up as she puts one arm around his neck and the other on his side.
She realizes just how Safe and strong he feels.
He pulls her closer with one hand that wraps all the way around her.
His other hand slides from her face through her hair around to the back of her neck.
So big and strong so many feelings she begins to cry
Her legs give way as he pulls her into him so much that her feet don't touch the ground anymore.
Finally there lips meet so soft his tong so gentle and passionately
dancing with hers.
Her body trammeling feeling as if there were thousands of butterfly's fluttering inside her body.
He pulls back a little this sensation runs through his body.
His heart skips then he jerks her back into him.
There lips never come apart as he picks her up into his arms and takes her into the house.
As they fall onto the bed cherry blossom petals glide over them.
Kissing as he lays her back softly on the bed
He starts to kiss down the side of her neck,
moving across to the front.
He raises up and unbuttons her shirt half way.
He sees how fast and deep her breathing has become,
as he kisses her now naked chest.
She stopped breathing for a seasoned with a gasp
He looks at her with those deep hypnotizing eyes and said
cloudy with rain showers all day.
As she jumps up in bed her alarm is going off with the news man talking about the weather.      6-20-13