Willets cull the seawall
snapper on the grill
rock ***** swoon
in shallow lagoons
long boats pass
under quiet
palm shade

Plovers dance and flutter
handrails frayed and torn
graffiti spots
at lovers rock
frigate-birds fall
from a high
noon sun

Thatched roof on a mud wall
fish flags settle score
anchors arch
in front line march
pillar cracks form
under rust brown scars

Elegant tern and grebe
watchmen fall in cue
children play
on crested waves
whimbrels and notchers
perch above Tentaciones

Striped pelícanos
the bandits of the sea!
merchants grow
in steady flow
siblings jostle
in a tide cooled sand

Heerman gull and boobie
durango smoke in yurt
boiler shrimp
and puffer blimp
castle buckets and scrapers
under a dusk light cheroot

Six pulls on a lead line
painted toes in sand
shearwater run
in a rainbow sun
the portly mexicano
flaunts his tacos
and wares

Rooster house for swordfish
bamboo shoots and sails
broken shells
and ocean swells
rise
on the
perfect
La Ropa bay

I am hopeful now
Walking the seawall straightens me out
The clouds and the waters
One foot in front of the other

Walking the seawall
To my day to day
The choices I've made

One foot in front of the other
Dogs on leashes
Babies in strollers
Or on daddies in front

The seawall
Windy and peaceful
One foot in front of the other

Birds eat
Fresh crab meat
The circle of life
Tug of war
One foot in front of the other

Runners run.
Cyclists, bike
Childs play

The walk to work
One foot in front of the other

“Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.”- Alice in Wonderland

“Everyone knows it’s a race, but no one’s sure of the finish line.”
        -Dean Young, “Whale Watch”

1a
Children rarely listen to any armchair advice from their immediate family, relatives they commonly have contact with or anyone they haven’t known for more than a couple years because in kindergarten or day care they often got gold stars just for showing up… Little glittering prizes plastered on poster boards in elementary school classrooms regardless of grades or mistakes…


1b
On the windy day when you lower the green jet-ski instead of the good one, race it to the north end, out of the safety of the bay, into the choppy waters, you’ll get bullied by the wave’s splash like the cattails of a whip. The lake will overwhelm you; you’ll inhale some of the water,  a sharp pain will course through your body as you try to breathe those short shallow breaths, which you will force yourself to do as seldom as possible. You will cough and keel over on the craft; It’s not uncommon to spit up blood; you will have to return to the dock and raise the jet-ski back onto the boatlift.  You will stub your toe on the cracks in the planking, stumble and get a splinter in the ball of your foot heading towards the deck but won’t notice. All feeling numbs against water trapped inside your lungs.


1c
Jackie Paper’s mother made him a hotdog with potato chips and served it to him on a plastic plate outside so he could enjoy it on the newly refinished deck while he watched the schooners and speedboats, stingray’s and ski-nautique’s jet in and out of the bay. He didn’t wait five minutes after he finished to fly from the deck onto the dock into the water where he free styled too far and got a cramp. His mother almost lost a son that day.



2a
If wet some recommend running around the shore of the lake until the air has thoroughly dried you off. Listening to the gulls dive and racing through the varying levels of grass on the neighbors’ unkempt lawns, in between the oaks and elms, keeping ever mindful the sticks and stones and acorns that litter the ground in lieu of stubbed toes or splinters. You will most likely fail, but you will get dry.


2b
When you **** your big toe on the zebra mussels while wading in the shallows, near the seawall beside the dock, trying to catch crayfish and minnows darting between the stones underneath the water, and the blood doesn’t stop flowing for 10 minutes and the H2O2 bubbles burgundy on the decks maple woodwork, instead of that off white color it usually bubbles, and stings something awful, don’t be a little ***** about it.  It’s your own fault for leaving your aqua-socks on the green marbled tiles in the foyer closet next to the bathroom; where you changed into your bathing suit and got the bottle of peroxide.


2c
Last winter Christopher Robbins drove his red pickup on the ice (near the island, towards the North end, where even when it’s been freezing for weeks the frozen water seldom exceeds six inches in thickness) at night and fell through.  He felt the cold water enter his lungs.  Although it was snowing and no one had noticed he survived; it took him the whole of an hour to reach the nearest house and call home; he lost his truck and suffered from severe hypothermia and acute pneumonia. At the hospital it was determined that while there was ample evidence of the early onset of frostbite in his extremities, amputation would not be necessary.


3a
While sitting Indian style on the dock next to your friends, settled on the plastic furniture, sipping whiskey and beer, comparing scars assume, no matter whose company you’re in, that yours are the smallest. Those cigarette burns running down the length of your right forearm are self-inflicted and old- reminders that you haven’t had to force yourself to breathe in quite some time.

3b
When you jump off the end of the dock you’ll forget to keep your knees loose because you were running on the wooden planks trying to avoid the white weather worn and dirtied dock chairs and worrying about getting a splinter. The water is inviting but during the summer the depth is only three feet four inches. You will roll your ankle at the very least and probably sprain it because, Like an *******, you locked your knees and jumped without looking.


3c
Two summers ago Alice was tubing behind a blue Crown Royal when she hit the wake at an awkward angle and flew head first into the water in the bay a few hundred feet off the dock at dusk. The spotter and driver simply weren’t watching and the wave-runner didn’t see her due to the advancing darkness.  She cracked her head open on the bottom of its hull; swallowed water.  She needed 70 stitches and several staples but Alice made a full recovery.


4
Mothers often tell their children to should chew their food 40 times before swallowing to aid digestion and to wait a full half hour after eating before engaging in physical activity. Especially swimming.


5
When you’re at the lake house this summer skipping stones swimming and running on the dock remember not to listen to any advice.  

If this were a race to get dry you’d be much closer to first than last.

The internal bleeding eventually stops.  The splinters all get pulled out, staples and stitches are removed, lacerations heal and the feeling returns to the fingers and toes.

The water eventually drains from the lungs and only the scars remain:

Gold stars on poster boards;

because everybody has won, and all must have prizes.

The bright sun’s rays
Are dappled as they strike
The manicured greensward.
He, tall, lithe, teeth all aglow
In cream slacks and pastel blouson,
She, fair and fairylike in acres of shimmering gauze,
Alight from the auto
At the site of their ‘manger al fresco’
Let us call them Justin and Jocelyn.
The basket is heavy
No matter.
He lifts it clear to carry
She gasps, he grins.
In minutes the scene is set
The rug, the plates, the glasses
The pate, the cold chicken,
The fruit….the wine.
He deflowers a bottle of Moselle,
Wishing it were her.
Guessing as much she blushes.
Ants retreat to nests
Wasps attack alternate targets
Flies zoom elsewhere to feed.
And all the while the sun
The golden sun continues to dapple.


The rain is not quite horizontal
As Joe and Judy
Run from the bus stop
To the stony beach.
Not quite horizontal
But driven off the sea it tastes salty.
He, ordinary, average, in a dampening grey mackintosh.
She, hair bleached in a sister’s frock and jacket
Holding hands,
And hold each a sandwich
Cellophane wrapped.
Squatting against the seawall
They eat.
Wet eyes flash bright signals.
Joe has a small thermos
Its vegetable soup,
And somehow a hardboiled egg appears,
To share.
The rain continues its attack.

Nobody got anywhere in this life
throttling bums,
and robbing hotdog vendors,
but a Saquatch eating a knish on top of a flipped bus
is a sight that sticks to the roof of your minds eye.
Let's eat caramel apples down by the seawall,
trade tall tales, and lizard scales,
run for the hills, but settle down in the shadow of the valley.
Prickly pear and agave nectar, nopal cactus fruit,
blended together, you can hardly taste the tequila.
I'll boost you onto the roof, and hand up my guitar,
and you'll help me climb up,
singing and chanting till the sun knocks us off the room,
we'll go pool hopping, with ski masks on,
and steal lawn ornaments,
and eat churros, and drink egg cream.
and kiss under the Brooklyn bridge.
I just gotta go throttle this ***
and rob this hotdog vendor.
If there isn't a sasquatch
I'll be home by the apocalypse.
Then we can get naked,
and set off the sprinkler system,
and dance in the halls.
Until the sun explodes,
and 2+2= 37.

I want to be perpetually drunk and/or preoccupied so that I wouldn't have to think about missing someone, or finding out that I have no-one to miss, at all, so that I don't have to be conscious of people and their reactions towards my everything  (because actually, I am rather afraid to lose them). I can feel every one drifting away to a place where I have no slight intention to go onshore.  I wished I had no memory of memory at all. It's rather tiring.



I have so much anger in me that cannot be washed away by late-night whiskey, that I whip myself senseless even when no offence was taken by anyone, that a constant anxiety of my mediocrity which floods over this miniature seawall of mine, inundating my mind. I am a body of sadness that no-one bothers to comprehend, anymore. Everything is already reflected in my uncertain calligraphy, those lines of varying thickness, a corporate perfection.


Sometimes we don't really have to burn bridges.

Neither do we know how to mend them.

"It's too hard", they said.
"Why bother?", he said."
"Don't care", concluded she.

I lie here on this beach
     starring up at the clouds above me
while an infinite volume of sound
surrounds me.
I cannot help but think
    that my life should’ve ended more peacefully
but we can’t always receive every wish
we plea for.
Yet,
    2 years ago
       I wouldn’t have thought this
is where I’d be:
     dying slowly
        on the forsaken beaches of Normandy.

The ramp drops
    splashing the sea water high above us,
and already
       four lives are lost.
Captain Morrell moves to the front of the landing craft
    and yells:
HIT THE BEACH!
        only moments before he is incinerated
by an artillery shell.
    that lovin’ 88!

I close my eyes and rush forward,
    screaming as I do,
praying the bullets won’t become lodged
       in my skull
as they **** by we few from 3rd platoon
who survived the landing.

Congregating behind these steel tank traps
         almost a dozen men seek the shelter
from cover that is almost non-existent.
But the German mortar rounds neglect our cover
     and begin showering our position with
                     molten, lead shrapnel
and **** both men and boys.
    so many boys.

The deutsch machine guns spray our position
        with their hypothermic needles
and as more men are landing on this deadly shoreline
     the water turns red from the blood
     of the youthful dead.

Another explosion
    sends the sand showering on top of us again
and my only response
       is to fire my drenched rifle
carelessly at the large, fortified seawall
    that stands between
us and victory.

Sergeant Feretti runs to our position
    and screams at us,
telling us to advance;
ordering us to leave these skinny steel bars of safety
      and the overwhelming comfort they provide us
and take the fight to the ***,
whom so ardently oppose us this day.

I’m frozen from the fear
      surging through my veins
as I stare at all the dead boys from New York,
Wisconsin,
                Michigan,
Florida,
        and Texas,
lying face first
    in the French sand.
I’m convinced that I crouch here alone
    on a beach in France;
God left this place long before the first ramp dropped.

Finally, after what felt like hours,
I muster the strength
    to begin sprinting towards
the German line,
    and it seems as if every **** gun is now focused on me;
setting their sight picture on my center mass.

With only twenty five meters between myself and the first seawall,
        I have hope that I’ll survive this cruel crusade,
but all that hope dissipates
      as four bullets pass through my right lung;
             stopping me in my tracks
like the cold channel water behind me
     as it is repelled by the European land mass
that will consume my body soon.
I slowly fall forward
    landing on my left shoulder,
my hands clutching my wounds.

It’s fascinating in a sense;
      this slow collapse of my lungs,
and how I can feel every single second that my soul has left on this Earth.
Suddenly,
    death becomes more real
than the gunpowder and smoke that is still stinging my nostrils.

I lie here on this beach
     starring up at the clouds above me
while an infinite volume of sound
surrounds me.
I cannot help but think
    that my life should’ve ended more peacefully
but we can’t always receive every wish
we plea for.

Musty, salt smell, of a deserted home,
sitting by the seawall, viewing sand and foam,
assails the nostrils when you open the door.
See dust motes fly, spiders scurry on the floor.
Curtains hang as tattered rags and swaying,
in the breeze, through the cracks, like old flags waving.
As if wearily, signaling for a truce,
between the sea and the decay induced.
Sand comes down from ceiling beams as proof,
as to the storm worn holes, in the roof.
Of shingles blown off, during cold winter blasts,
sand trickles down, as if from an hour glass.
Time and the elements have dulled the shine,
of the woodwork and trim of knotty pine.
Cast iron water pipes, rusted out in places.
The claw foot tub, rest on it's Eagle braces.
Porcelain surface, chipped and cracked,
lath and plaster of the walls needing patched.

The little house sitting by the seawall,
that leans to the left and ready to fall.
Bulldozer sits ready, engine at idle,
to be let loose, push it into a pile.
Along with others like it in a row,
that once held town folks and saw children grow.
A new hotel made of metal and glass,
sterile exterior, no style nor class.
Will take their place, sitting by the sea wall.
Years ago, an oil spill caused the fall,
of this sleepy tourist town full of charm.
No one realized, the long arm of the harm.
They filtered the sand, skimmed off the water,
it was to late, the economy faltered.
Waiting out there, like vultures that scavenge,
was the Corporations, watching it happen.
When the town gasped, gave it's last dying breath,
in they did swoop, living off a towns death.

People wish to be settled. Only as long as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.
-- Thoreau

My life has been
the instrument
for a mouth
I have never seen,
breathing wind
which comes
from I know not
where,
arranging and changing
my moods,
so as to make
an opening
for his voice.

Or hers.
Muse, White Goddess
mother with invisible
milk,
androgynous god
in whose grip
I struggle,
turning this way and that,
believing that I chart
my life,
my loves,
when in fact
it is she, he,
who charts them--
all for the sake
of some
as yet unwritten poem.

Twisting in the wind,
twisting like a pirate
dangling in a cage
from a high seawall,
the wind whips
through my bones
making an instrument,
my back a xylophone,
my *** a triangle
chiming,
my lips stretched tight
as drumskins,

I no longer care
who is playing me,
but fear
makes the hairs
stand up
on the backs
of my hands
when I think
that she may stop.

And yet I long
for peace
as fervently as you do--
the sweet connubial bliss
that admits no
turbulence,
the settled life
that defeats poetry,
the hearth before which
children play--
not poets' children,
ragtag, neurotic, demon-ridden,
but the apple-cheeked children
of the bourgeoisie.

My daughter dreams
of peace
as I do:
marriage, proper house,
proper husband,
nourishing dreamless
***,
love like a hot toddy,
or an apple pie.

But the muse
has other plans
for me
and you.

Puppet mistress,
dangling us
on this dark proscenium,
pulling our strings,
blowing us
toward Cornwall,
toward Venice, toward Delphi,
toward some lurching
counterpane,
a tent upheld
by one throbbing
blood-drenched pole--
her pen, her pencil,
the monolith
we worship,
underneath
the gleaming moon.

Somewhere seabirds pipe and bleat,
gathered on a dark low tide.
Shapes and shadows line the fleet,
cold and calling.

In the shore hide facing north
I'm focussing black ten-by-forties,
hunched against the wall for warmth;
the tide still falling.

Looking out, I'm looking back,
thirty years have ebbed away;
the boy, his joy, his haversac,
his notebook scrawling;

I see him, tremulous, wild-eyed,
among the plovers, curlew, knot,
a loosed dog shakes them and he flies,
the seawall salt sting cuts and dries;
there's no recalling.

Footprints
Long ago -
     can't hold

Warm water
Yesterday-
       now cold

Clear sky
In the past-
      it's gone

Dreams made
Not alone-
     undone

Seawall
Once that strong-
      Broken

Seabirds
Together-
      unseen

Two hearts
Believing-
        asking

One love
Forever-
         hoping

Appears a ghostly vision, fog in from the sea.
As if sentient in movement,  shrouds all in it's mystique.
With a cyclop eye, lighthouse lends a mournful wail.
While specters breath dampens all, your marrow the chill impales.
Out of sight, crashing waves, sound loud as if they crawl,
following the living mist as it breaches the seawall.
Seeping round panes and doors, into every crevice.
The very air liquefied, a grey oppressive presence.
Wood smoke blends it's flavor to the tang of the air.
In hopes the flames beat it back, keep tendrils from drawing near.
Slowly it tastes it's fill of wooden planks and blood.
It leaves a sodden salt strewn smell seeming to just dissolve.
Folding back on itself, returning to the brine.
Fog waits yet another morn to return to shore and dine.

Tremors and aftermath
Resonate through the soul
Toppling confidence
And shaking foundations
Hectic mayhem
Everyday

Deadlines to meet
Marching ever closer
Preparations to be done
Finishing? Well, almost
Never

Efforts paid
Going up in flames
The smoke covering
The living daylight
And also suffocates

Raiders and robbers
Stealing what's dear
Taking everything away
Killing hopes and dreams
I am starting to fear

Seven days
Seven twins
Maybe fourteen
Or more
They come and go
On and off
Much as I wouldn't want anyone
To know

The seawall held together
By a single thread
Of sheer willpower
Waves slosh
And threaten to spill
And the thread strains
To hold

Define me..........

a pebble? a shell, out of many?
the ocean, that never runs out of water?
a bud of pale pink rose? slowly opening its petals?
a tree, whose network of roots
spread wider...deeper, neath the ground?
am i the pristine water cascading down a waterfall?
a boulder in an isle? a seawall braving the stormy winds?
could i be a beacon, a lighthouse? high above the raging waters?
guiding those weary travelers, towards placid waters?
am i one of the various faces inside a quaint coffee shop?
like one i see right now, with unfocused eyes?
having a cup of fresh brew...waiting for someone...old? or new?


And you....who might you be?

a jazzy sway, a dip? a painting?  an instrumental tune?
are you the high and low of tide in june?
a story of lovers and sand dunes, that has no ending?
a haven for the homeless? a wall for the weak, those needing?
a kitten? a puppy? a bird, on a twig perching?
are you a voice in the night...calling me?
whispering my name to the wind?
is it you i hear singing, "The Long Run?"
did you come from Krypton? a falling star? a shooting star?
could you be one of the many faces inside a quaint coffee shop?
are you the one...with untainted smile headed towards me?
ahh, you're looking at my brew...you must be meeting someone too!
could we be, the you and me...the me and you?
who at this moment, are meant to have tea...for two?


Sally

Copyright September 1, 2015
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan

We watched the sunset
An everlasting flare sinking into the sea
we had just met
But it felt like an eternity
Since you stepped off that train
We spent the day walking the beach
Picking each others brains
Developing a flow of speech
We bought chocolate chip ice cream
watching the sun disapear into the rising tide
I saw your eyes gleam
Something clicked inside
On the seawall we sat only eight inches apart
But to me it felt like miles
Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to start
When faced with life's trials
But you made your move first
You sat right next to me and looked me in the eyes
Your eyes so green I thought they might burst
You kissed me then, under the burning skies

I dreamed that the heart of the ocean shot up into Heaven
******* breath and sleep and sense into the savage void
Tsunami swells of pain and grief pounded ship and shore and sailor
I felt the earth heave, heard the roar, reached out and touched the water
It felt like home
Like a brother, or a son

Then man built a seawall to protect the people
Poured in rubble to dissipate the ocean's rage
Built barricades to hide the sorrow waves and churning waters
Do not swim
          Do not touch
                    Do not grieve
or speak
or be

I wake from the dream with grains of sand beneath my nails
Water streaming from my eyes
Like channels of salt across the pavement
My heart pounds--was that a roar?
I stumble forward, but cannot find the ocean
I reach out, but cannot touch the water
Where is the brother, or son?
I can not swim
          I can not touch
                    But I can grieve
and speak
and be

And this will not last forever

Last sunday, we go videoke.
Kaming unom, grabe'g panganta.
Naay nice ug tingog, naay okay ra,
naay wala gyud sa tono, naay nag sabay-sabay ra,
ug naay feeler gyud kaayo nga singer siya.

Niabot ang time, naka feel na mig uhaw.
Ni offer ang isa, isa ka bucket ambot ug unsa.
TOK TOK TOK ayay naa na ang gihulat,
tambal sa uhaw gipatong sa lamesa.
PAK! SMIRNOFF ANG GIDALA!

Kami nagpadayon ug kanta,
kachada sa pamati, sa ilimnong ma'lami.
Niabot ang last nga kanta,
Obladi, Oblada, tala na mamauli na ta.
Nihapit's balutan, mao na po'y gitirada.

Nanglingkod kadjot sa seawall,
nagpahangin gamay usa musakay.
Nipara mig cab kay hapit na alas dose,
sa rural basin mabiyaan mi.
Wa na gibyaan gyud, maygani naay super 5, pero tag 50 gyud.

Kami naabot sa tagsa-tagsang panimalay,
wow kalami sa akuang katulog bai.
Pagmata nako, nganong init kaayo ko?
Wa ko kasabot sa akuang gibati, gitugnaw ko pag ayo.
Yati, ngano man ni? Nag inom man unta kog vitamin C.

Pagka uran2 naa koy gi share sa fb,
nag react akuang miga kay sgalain pud daw iya ginhawa.
Taod-taod nag my day ang isa, gi dextrose kay gihilantan sab siya.
Nag text kos isa pa, kung ga daot pud siya.
"OO" mao na iyang reply,
***! why kami gyud upat dai?

Ang isa silingan ra namo, wala may gibati.
So, isa nalang kulang, akua gitawagan.
Wala mitubag, akuang manghod iyang gi chatan.
"Yes dai gihilantan pud siya", mao nay reply.
Wala nay lain, ang SMIRNOFF mao jud akuang pasanginlan!

Kaming lima baling yarok, sa smirnoff nga mabugnaw.
Ang isa wala nag mind kay nagsaad di gyud siya mo inom.
Mao toy amuang gidangatan, gipang ubo, sip'on ug gihilantan.
Grabe, unsay naa adtong smirnoff nila?
Ngano kaming lima ang naapektohan?

I watched her dance across the empty floor for no reason just her own simple pleasures  and to simply show she was alive .
The music loomed heavy and she flowed with it a lover lost in its power.
Often we find solace in moments others dare not to intrude .

I said nothing just stood a viewer to this scene .
A fly to the wall with a ever fading drink.
She made me forget as she seemed to forget all as well.

I thought of the ocean and my times long since past .
The nights I sat by the seawall and viewed the ships like ghosts silent anchored off shore..

Friends whom no longer breathed life and painted my thoughts with stories .
She made me recall how being alone truly felt .

The music faded she was no longer there.

It was the close of a Saturday night  my dreams had long since died .

Maybe we are all fools for trying when the deck is stacked against us.
Letting the time pass and are bodies go.

But then sometimes when in the moment with that music
you just have to allow yourself to flow.

I never could recall her name the dream never allows you the grace of
understanding.
For once I slept well through the night .
A vision of my desires kept me warm.

As the sunrise and reality soon brought me back.
One day I did hope it would  
just allow me to go.

before the day the night retires
black tucked in by dawn's pale fingers
lifting a cover of sun
across damp sands
evaporating patterns withdraw to shore.
needle arms salute the clouds
trails of lycra ants
empty heads
from reds and whites
the week's download & lick of salt
night blanket gone
new slate to paint
scene of beacons & vessels floating
seawall haven
man on a board paddles the current
drifting a distance
in reach of shore

Steinbeck’s restless ghost whispers to me
as I tiptoe along a stone seawall.
He steers me away from the bay
back to the old sandstone churches
built by native hands,

back to music festivals and artisan fairs
full of mild, white cheeses
and would-be novelists arguing
about Henry Miller’s tropics.

But I’ve grown tired of his whispering
and no longer wish to dream of these things.
I would rather descend into a watery haven.
I will wave goodbye to John
and I will run down sandy paths
that lead to the sea.

I wade into the depths and sink
into a canyon where kelp shivers
in underwater breezes,
and the only stars I see will be
suction-cupped to the rocks below.

All it takes
Is a random conversation
To make me feel like
Anyone cares

All it takes
Is "hey";
To make me know
You still care

All it took
Was a single happening
That made me feel
Broken

All it took
Was someone so close
Doing something so bad
Making me so wasted

All it took
Were deafening fights
And whispering threats
To make me silent

All it took
Was a single "are you okay"
To make me budge
About the way you saw me

All it takes
Is a single conversation

All it takes
Is for you to see how deformed I am
For me to push you away
I'm sorry

All it takes
Is for me to cry help
For you to finally know
But never come

All it takes
Is sharing the truth
Then just leaving me
To make me feel forgotten

All it takes
Is a random happening
To make me want
Something I cannot control

All it takes
Is a few pills
To make you dizzy
Into the sleep you've waited for

All it takes
Is a few slits;
Pain to make you feel
Alive and dead at the same time

All it takes
Is a jump on the seawall
Or a glug of bleach
To end your suffering

All it takes
Is fear to know
And fear to live
To die.

My pose is gathered this Saturday morning because I made a pancake and bacon breakfast. We're listening to a Britney Spears song, off one of Leong’s playlists. “I remember when I was about 8,” I say, “I was drawing and singing a Brittney song and I got to the line - “I make no apologies, I’m into phonography,”” and my mom sharply says, “Don’t say that!” And I’m left trying to figure out what I said.”

“People are harsh with her, but Britney is timeless,” Leong says.

“Everyone at Yale fancies themselves a music critic,” Lisa says. There are numerous vocal agreements. “I’m like, “Ok, Pop-off then queen, go complicated,” but in my opinion, you need to have fun with music - that’s the main purpose - just to have fun.”

“That’s like the difference between Cardi B and Niki (Minaj). You can just stroll a Cardi B song, you don’t have to interpret,” Anna adds, “but with Nicki I feel I have to listen to see the point.”

Lisa, surfing on her iPad asks, “Did you guys see that Jojo Seawall wasn’t invited to the kid’s choice awards - because she came out as lesbian?”

Sophy says, “Nickelodeon’s been trying to seem MORE accepting, working in more black artists.”

“Yeah, but they’re fake.” Anna pronounces. Everyone nods agreement.

“He hasn’t called all WEEK,” Sophy moans, holding her iPhone up to her ear like she expected to hear ticking, “I made a ghost of him,” she says, flopping the phone on the couch.

“Should I call the Po-po?” Anna asks, distracted as she searches the kitchen cupboard to be sure the pancakes were gluten free.

“I had a dream,” Lisa begins, “I was a child in a family I don’t know. We were criminals. We stole a car and robbed a store. My dream mom ran the operation. And wouldn’t let me watch TV until I emptied the loot out of the car. Then the police arrived, we saw the flashing red and blue lights through closed venetian blinds, then there was a banging on the door, in the dream, that woke me up.”

“That’s way off track but It’s fine, so fine, I see how it is.” Sophy said, “I’m bleak and no one CARES.”

“Is love something you find, or something you believe?” I ask no one in particular.

“That’s a coffee-cup inscription.” Anna pronounces.

“Aaggh,” Leong says, “An email from my professor - it’s TLTR.” We think it's a policy that professors at Yale have to send incredibly long emails - almost too long to read (TLTR).

There’re only three weeks left of our freshman year, so emails are flying and everyone’s trying to nail things down for a smooth ending.

Nameless was my friend from old times
His girlfriend young and lovely
She fell in love with my guy
And my guy killed Nameless

I was lost, realisation, trauma
So bad
My friend of old took me to the coast
It was her birthday and I fell asleep on the train

Half sleeping I, murdered Nameless came
He showed me white stones, big pebbles
Told me to build them by the sea
So that he could be free

We wandered by the sea
I think I spoiled her birthday
I could see no white stones
She went into a shop with the children
I sat on a bench in an old harbour wall

Then, a man with a child came walking by
He pushed the pram, child walked in front
Child was carrying a huge white pebble
Walked to me and threw it on the ground
At my feet

They passed by
I picked up the heavy pebble and looked around
Friend and children said where was it from
I said I don't know they came this way
We backtracked to where the heavy tides wash against the seawall

Carried them in our arms to the point where sea darkens sand
Built a hollow tower
A child wrote goodbye in the sand

Sitting until the sea came and washed it away
No-one touched it
Not even dogs
Not the seagulls who circled it
When it had gone I knew I had freed him

I checked into the lobby of her one room apartment,
darkened corridor filled with paintings of Jesus.
The fountain throbbed in the hall of this hotel,
shuttered windows,
subtle innuendos,
three knocks.

The night was hot and black,
clothes stuck to our shirts.
The story is about summer and you,
and her dark little island of a room,
and all of her crooked roads,
that had their footprints in my odes.

She was born under the star of Venus, three stars above me.
Her light blue eyes, filled with humbleness, softly saddened.
Her painter's eyes, mercury mouth at the biblical times.
Hair that was colored like wine dark sea fell down on her breast,
on lips that looked like bare roses,
blushing with blood, eating themselves with desire.

I was a wounded soldier, long afloat on a ship less sea.
Deserted and displaced from the war.
A war between the black and white,
A war between the man and the woman.
Utopian infant, Eutopian mother.
Born into this life, thrown into this world.

We entered the darkened room, and purposely didn’t turn on the lights.
She through her house keys and bag on her bed, lit a cigarette.
Offered me one, however he took some of my own.
Looking into her eyes through the smoke, where the moonlight floats.
Lit lamp that was hanging from a distant boat.
Now I saw, there was a painting by Arnold Bocklin hanging on the wall.

spoken word:
A small rowing boat is just arriving at a water gate and seawall on shore.
An oarsman maneuvers the boat from the stern. In the boat, facing the gate, is a standing figure clad entirely in white, a lone loon dives upon the water. Just behind him, there is a festooned object commonly interpreted as a coffin. The tiny islet is dominated by a dense grove of tall, dark cypress and willow trees. The Mephistopheles is just beneath him. As siren grabs him from the of the edge of the boat, underwater.

And she wraps up my tired face in her hair
And she hands me the apple core,
Two birds in a cage, drinking lovers wine and eating bread.

I'll stop in the middle and skip things between me and her. (It comes to us all, soft as a pillow)

The oarsmen has gone
And the loons have flown for cover.
And me I am on trail, in the funeral of my lover.

There are some who consider suicide,
You can see it in their eyes,
They forget the hurt of their loved ones
When they fail to say goodbyes,
They see no point in the gift of life,
Say it doesn’t work for them,
But we walk on by, and we let them die
By some careless theorem.

I noticed the girl in the local church
She was down upon her knees,
Her shoulders shaking with silent sobs
As she stared at the altarpiece,
Her eyes were glazed as she walked on by
It was then that I knew, for sure,
She’d be walking off to an awful fate
If she walked alone through the door.

I caught her up and I walked with her
And I said, ‘I know what you think,
But this will pass, it’s a half full glass,
What you have to do is drink.’
She turned a tear-stained eye to me
And she said, ‘But what would you know?
Your life is a bed of roses now,
But mine is a horror show!’

I tried to draw her out from herself
And she seemed to want to talk,
We wandered down to the Esplanade
And went for a long, slow walk,
Her parents, they were divorced, she said,
Her father had disappeared,
Her mother was mired in drugs and drink,
It was DNA she feared.

‘I don’t want to end like her,’ she said,
‘I don’t want to go like him,
My older brother just hanged himself,
I don’t want to go like Tim.
There’s pain and heartache each way I turn,
I shouldn’t be here at all,’
I put my arm round her shoulders then,
And leant on the old seawall.

‘The life you have is a gift from God,
You can’t just throw it away,
We all have the choice to soldier on
To a brighter, better day.’
I thought that my words had helped her then
When I left her, shaking her head,
That was at three in the afternoon,
By six o’clock, she was dead!

David Lewis Paget

Beyond the seawall
Angry waves unfurl

Like sweeping away the leaves
She gives me the silent words

Before the dust quite settles
A thought forms in my fist:
Destroy part of something to keep it

A sensation of time cracking open
The sudden purge of light

Peer up at the blackness thickening
In a series of darkened rooms

But herein lurks another
The one who steals the show
His shadow half a pace ahead

Floating high up in the air,
Racing towards the rocks below