fuel desperation,
and so are valuable
assets in the game
of spinning chambers.

one ***** is all it takes.

you might not believe
a person still wading
through adolescence
could harbor such
malevolent intent.

one slight is all it takes.

age is barely even
a consideration when
haunted by the desire
for revenge or need
of self-preservation.

one fragile moment is all it takes.

fewer years simply
equate to shallower
perspective, exacerbating
youthful impulsivity.

one bullet is all it takes.

i never wanted to kiss her lips,
just hold her hand
maybe kiss her cheeks because she suited a gentler kind of treatment
something softer and more delicate, quiet;
quieter than the constant raging storms inside my stomach,
inside my mind
(never my heart)

those plump lips
she bit them raw when nervous, and they swelled
blossomed ruby as she looked at me
like she knew this wouldn't last
her eyes remained doughy and mellow
when i met her gaze.

my smile stung as it stretched the lines left by winter's bite
and split them open once more.
she brushed the blood beads away with her fingertips
with a touch so reverent that, for a moment, i thought
maybe she felt as though she were touching rosary beads instead,
and i held my breath to stop myself from chasing her
touch, and pressing her down into the mattress

unholy, chasing pleasure.
both agnostic, but she was much more pure than i;
chivalries always in mind, i wanted to preserve that.
there's always been something inside me
that presses down the animalistic urges with
a conscience caught on consideration and something akin to courtly love-
i wanted to woo her before i pursued her

but i never got further than pressing my lips to her forehead,
wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
i laced my fingers with hers but avoided tying any knots.
i am not a man to be bound,
too free-spirit, too restless, too claustrophobic;
a few months in and i was choking on the ghost of a future;
she kissed me first and i suffocated on the phantom of her hopes for us:
a future that didn't yet exist,
and i didn't want it to.
i never kissed her; i never let her kiss me again.

we tangled fingers over the duvet
the television a background noise to our unsteady breaths,
shallower
than my love for her
i enjoyed her quiet affection like one might enjoy curling into a blanket when cold and ill.
i wanted her smiles, i wanted to fill her memories with goodness
so that she never need feel hopeless, like all men are the same
so that she had something to smile about when she looked back on us;
once the bitterness of our breakup had left her mouth-
whenever that eventual end would be-
she could savour the taste of our sweet, slow-burn, love affair
and be reminded that not all love is true love, but nor is all love heart breaking

i broke her heart anyway.

nobody ever taught me how cruel kindness could be.

Locksley Hall

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 't is early morn:
Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle-horn.

'T is the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call,
Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall;

Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts,
And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.

Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest,
Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.

Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade,
Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.

Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime
With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time;

When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed;
When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed:

When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see;
Saw the Vision of the world and all the wonder that would be.--

In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast;
In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;

In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;
In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young,
And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung.

And I said, "My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me,
Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee."

On her pallid cheek and forehead came a colour and a light,
As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night.

And she turn'd--her ***** shaken with a sudden storm of sighs--
All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes--

Saying, "I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong";
Saying, "Dost thou love me, cousin?" weeping, "I have loved thee long."

Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands;
Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might;
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight.

Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring,
And her whisper throng'd my pulses with the fulness of the Spring.

Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships,
And our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips.

O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, mine no more!
O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren shore!

Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung,
Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue!

Is it well to wish thee happy?--having known me--to decline
On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine!

Yet it shall be; thou shalt lower to his level day by day,
What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathize with clay.

As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown,
And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down.

He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force,
Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.

What is this? his eyes are heavy; think not they are glazed with wine.
Go to him, it is thy duty, kiss him, take his hand in thine.

It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought:
Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy lighter thought.

He will answer to the purpose, easy things to understand--
Better thou wert dead before me, tho' I slew thee with my hand!

Better thou and I were lying, hidden from the heart's disgrace,
Roll'd in one another's arms, and silent in a last embrace.

Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth!
Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth!

Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature's rule!
Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd forehead of the fool!

Well--'t is well that I should bluster!--Hadst thou less unworthy proved--
Would to God--for I had loved thee more than ever wife was loved.

Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears but bitter fruit?
I will pluck it from my *****, tho' my heart be at the root.

Never, tho' my mortal summers to such length of years should come
As the many-winter'd crow that leads the clanging rookery home.

Where is comfort? in division of the records of the mind?
Can I part her from herself, and love her, as I knew her, kind?

I remember one that perish'd; sweetly did she speak and move;
Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was to love.

Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore?
No--she never loved me truly; love is love for evermore.

Comfort? comfort scorn'd of devils! this is truth the poet sings,
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.

Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to proof,
In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof.

Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall,
Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall.

Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken sleep,
To thy widow'd marriage-pillows, to the tears that thou wilt weep.

Thou shalt hear the "Never, never," whisper'd by the phantom years,
And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine ears;

And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain.
Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow; get thee to thy rest again.

Nay, but Nature brings thee solace; for a tender voice will cry.
'T is a purer life than thine, a lip to drain thy trouble dry.

Baby lips will laugh me down; my latest rival brings thee rest.
Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother's breast.

O, the child too clothes the father with a dearness not his due.
Half is thine and half is his: it will be worthy of the two.

O, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part,
With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart.

"They were dangerous guides the feelings--she herself was not exempt--
Truly, she herself had suffer'd"--Perish in thy self-contempt!

Overlive it--lower yet--be happy! wherefore should I care?
I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair.

What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these?
Every door is barr'd with gold, and opens but to golden keys.

Every gate is throng'd with suitors, all the markets overflow.
I have but an angry fancy; what is that which I should do?

I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's ground,
When the ranks are roll'd in vapour, and the winds are laid with sound.

But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honour feels,
And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's heels.

Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that earlier page.
Hide me from my deep emotion, O thou wondrous Mother-Age!

Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife,
When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my life;

Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield,
Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field,

And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn,
Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn;

And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then,
Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men:

Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new:
That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do:

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight dropping down with costly bales;

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue;

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm;

Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.

So I triumph'd ere my passion sweeping thro' me left me dry,
Left me with the palsied heart, and left me with the jaundiced eye;

Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint:
Science moves, but slowly, slowly, creeping on from point to point:

Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping nigher,
Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly-dying fire.

Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns.

What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys,
Tho' the deep heart of existence beat for ever like a boy's?

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore,
And the individual withers, and the world is more and more.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast,
Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest.

Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle-horn,
They to whom my foolish passion were a target for their scorn:

Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder'd string?
I am shamed thro' all my nature to have loved so slight a thing.

Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman's pleasure, woman's pain--
Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain:

Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match'd with mine,
Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine--

Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for some retreat
Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life began to beat;

Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starr'd,--
I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle's ward.

Or to burst all links of habit--there to wander far away,
On from island unto island at the gateways of the day.

Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies,
Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise.

Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag,
Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer from the crag;

Droops the heavy-blossom'd bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree--
Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea.

There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind,
In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind.

There the passions cramp'd no longer shall have scope and breathing space;
I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race.

Iron-jointed, supple-sinew'd, they shall dive, and they shall run,
Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun;

Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks,
Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books--

Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I know my words are wild,
But I count the gray barbarian lower than the Christian child.

I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains,
Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with lower pains!

Mated with a squalid savage--what to me were sun or clime?
I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time--

I that rather held it better men should perish one by one,
Than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua's moon in Ajalon!

Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range,
Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.

Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day;
Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.

Mother-Age (for mine I knew not) help me as when life begun:
Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the Sun.

O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set.
Ancient founts of inspiration well thro' all my fancy yet.

Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall!
Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall.

Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and holt,
Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt.

Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow;
For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go.

I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn't fight.
He hadn't fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely.  Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled with barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green **** hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
--the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly--
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
--It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
--if you could call it a lip
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels--until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.

Beauty like hers is genius. Not the call
Of Homer’s or of Dante’s heart sublime,—
Not Michael’s hand furrowing the zones of time,—
Is more with compassed mysteries musical;
Nay, not in Spring’s or Summer’s sweet footfall
More gathered gifts exuberant Life bequeathes
Than doth this sovereign face, whose love-spell breathes
Even from its shadowed contour on the wall.

As many men are poets in their youth,
But for one sweet-strung soul the wires prolong
Even through all change the indomitable song;
So in likewise the envenomed years, whose tooth
Rends shallower grace with ruin void of ruth,
Upon this beauty’s power shall wreak no wrong.

I wish I could go back in time
   and save myself from you
Fix all the mistakes I made
   change all the words I said
Reform the way I held your hand
   relive the night you kissed me in the rain

Over and over
Feeling your breath on my skin
Absorbing your warmth around me
Forgetting the empty feeling I live with
Loosing my memories of rejection

   And I'm back
The loneliness
   The separation
The depression
   You left me again
Just like before
   The same kind of pain...
but worse
   a deeper wound
a shallower soul.

All this time I thought I had become shallow
That I lacked substance
Worth
A life worth living
But now I realize how shallow you are
Shallower than the pool of tears
I cry for you
Get out of your ******* bubble
Put down your phone
And start talking to me
I'm going through depression and all you can do is demean it
Why don't you just look up
And catch my tears
And show you understand
We are an amazing couple but I can't fight the screen for your eyes
Or be stuck inside your room
Any longer
I've lost myself trying to fit your routine
When you can't show a little compassion or eye contact
You are my world now
I'd love it if I could get to know it better
And that maybe you'd show an interest in what you don't know
About me
Shallow lover
Look beyond my smile and my quiet voice
There's a lot lurking deep below
It's an everlasting well
I have the richest waters
If only you would close Facebook
And dive in

They say there's an ocean;
They say its vast and deep:

Profoundly deep.
They say that you fall into it,
A simple slip, maybe even a dive
But once it surrounds you,
You dive deeper, and deeper
So deep that the world fades away.

You forget the surface,
Get lost in the depths,
Wrapped in it, you find warmth
You linger in its caress and you find
Your lust for fresh air.. fades away.

They say its vast, some say infinite.
It stretches to a wondrous eternity
You explore it and explore it
Looking not for something specific
Just to find all it holds
You search for years and lifetimes
But you find it has no end.

They say there's an ocean;
I think there's an ocean,
But I fear few are finding it

The explorers are distracted
They set out on their search
And find a river, a lake
A trickle, a puddle.

New explorers seek it,
Driven by the tales they've heard
But some veterans are less sure
"Swim in shallower waters" they say
"You can do it now and at least get wet"

But the dampness is superficial
It leaves you seeking your next dip
Maybe a deeper one, but often not.

Some stop seeking, some just give up
Some believe that it simply never was.

I still believe what they say:
They say there's an ocean.

~D.B. Guy (November 16, 2008)

Can I ask you?

With vice and disguise,
Are you happy with what you are?
Inflated with pride,
Knotted with jealousy
The unknown balloon burst
With a just ***** of words.


Camouflaged beauty as you were,
Coated and polished to be the society,
Mastered were the words,
With strokes of affection,
Appreciated as I  felt.
I swam in the pits N holes
While thinking of the oceans

The deeper I tried to discover,
Shallower did you get.
Layers and layers of faces,
None uncovered to the core,
What you are still a mystery

I breathe in the pain of phrases,
Toxicity of incoherent love,
I feel the wrenching smirk,
Once which was a curved smile.

I hear the Echoes of my wails,
Strumming in the veins,
Tears were never there
But unseen scars dug deep.

In brighter days,
Darker shadow growing,
In hours,
A nightmare breeding.
You were what dismayed me,
Much more than breaking,  
Maybe a peaceful shattering .

Shorter skirts and lower tops,
They're doing anything to get noticed.
Smoking and drinking to fit in
To a world that has changed forever.

Increasing teen pregnancy
And teen dads that walk away.
Fifteen has become the new twenty
And kids aren't kids anymore.

What was once cool became lame
And girls became more and more shallow.
Caking make up on their faces,
Pulling duck faces at the camera.

As we are more connected
We interact less.
Technology ensures seeing people less.
Getting to know someone face to face
Will soon become non existent.

We live in a world that's evolving backwards,
By caring less about others and who they are.
Popularity has become a bloodbath
And people are shallower then the sink.

It would be nice to live in a world
That was evolving forwards.

You are not condemned
To the confines of life
Nor the sounds of being locked in
And hit by dirt
You do not belong
To the flowers they send
The wishes they write
Or the tree they plant in your name
You are not prisoner
To a shallow grave
And a shallower gravestone
Not even to the duties you left behind
You have not been claimed
By the years you will not see
The tears you cannot dry
Or the hugs you cannot return
You are not captive
To the sounds and words
That defined you
Or the way people shaped you
Because you are free from condemnation
From the clutch of sickness
Free to leave and wipe the tears
And hug the ones that hesitate
To throw the dirt over the years
You are free from prison,
From proclamation,
From captivity and condemnation
To help and to inspire
And to free others from a prison
Of grief.

Janice
sans red beret
walked with you
to Bedlam Park

where you swam
in the open air
swimming pool
(she swam

you tried
but failed)
there in her
green swimsuit

her arms pulling her
through water
her hands
pushing away

the water’s skin
while you stood
waist deep
gazing at her skills

her wet hair
her bright eyes
you gingerly standing
feet on the bottom

feeling the water’s
pull and push
come on
she said

try to swim
be brave
and you dived forward
into the water

and splashed
and sunk
like some broken boat
water in your eyes

and ears
you rose
helped by Janice
to the surface

choking
and spluttering
wiping water
from your stinging eyes

she had her hand
in yours
holding you steady
keeping you balanced

she apologised
for not helping
should have helped
she said

not just stood
and stared
and you gazed at her
through wet eyes

forming an image
making sense
of the shape of her
her eyes on you

her damp hair limp
against her skin
o mermaid of the deep
you said

where is your tail?  
and she laughed
and took you
by the hand

into the shallower water
her warm hand
in yours
her thin fingers

clutching
her damp swimsuit
dripping
try here

in less deeper water
she said
and let go
of your hand

and she lowered herself
into the water
and showed you how
to put your body so

and hands and arms
to move and legs
to kick and push
but all you could hold

in mind
could bring to bear
was her beauty
swimming there.

He looked into my eyes, deeply, and seldomly blinking. His body was trembling, as if the very earth herself quaked within his veins. He was breathing heavily; the intake shallow, the output, shallower still. His skin was damp from the nerves, of course, not the heat. For it had barely begun. He reached for my hand and held it tightly and a part of me, for but a moment, enjoyed the fact that he needed me. He clung to me with his face pressed against my chest occasionally emitting a quiet moan. Eventually, I felt his wet warmth soak into my shirt. It hurt me, but I didn't make him move. I stayed still and held him until the panic attack was over, until the wet tears dried. This is how I defined my love; how I make love. Acceptance, compassion, guidance, and a friend.

No one notices the sky's perpetual gray, until you are
          covered in ash and gunpowder.

Light is not welcome here, and yet the flames of
          burning cities blaze a welcoming path.

Shallow graves and even
          shallower hearts. . . .

You were only seventeen
          when your role in this battle began.

We allowed the lies of our lives to expire, when we used to dance around fires, while the heat of our bodies perspired to the gods without names that we lived to be desired by, that we saw from the rocks and the trees to the birds in the sky, and even though this once bitter soul might try, to figure out the deepest questions, the ultimate, 'why?' He's left to walk alone, in a world that's let its heart die, because we gave into the greed, and negated a need, from every drop of blood that we bleed, to the words of our fathers we didn't heed, so we can beg while we plead, in the dirt, on our knees, breaking pottery, and scraping bone, the only grievance we've ever known, the gnashing of teeth, from the torture we've shown, to those less than worthy for the fortune we've claimed as our own, this destruction we left on the shoulders of our descendants, their discomfort prevalent from the weight of our pendants, that we parade around as we hear a cascade in sound, that cries from the heavens, 'We're broken, please mend us!'. But we neglected the ones who defend us, the ones who turn every trend against us, because our hearts are shallower, and we give in to the devourer, when we should have found a love, and with selflessness empower her, with our mouths, and hearts shower her,  with all the grace and emotion, that could prevent a commotion, if only we could for the sake of our devotion, give up the notion that we are owed something, because we crowned ourselves queen and king, though to the table we've nothing to bring, instead with jubilation our hearts should sing, until the bells in every temple, church, and house of our gods ring.

Thee Artiste Carvó's "Fumility"*

I am a tróubled Tróll, yes I be
draped in bonds of turgid fumility
endowed with a mind's inanity!
Indeed, I fantasize the glóry of Thee
floating like a cork in lunacy
at the edges of the dredges of futility!
But then, as I hallucinate visions of greatness in I and me,
the Vóices come, singing fóllies of my destiny
buzzing in my head like a bumblebee!
The mystic maggóts envelop the I, the fartistic see
birdies tweet to coo coos in the jujube tree  
while the lónely Lóg swims in I and Thee,
counting buttons, deviant in insanity!


Some souls are just simply shallower than others. There is no shame in recognizing I's ówn drabness, and appreciating the bóredóm Thee'self has unleashed upon the world. When Thee writes crap about the greatness of I, Thee is displaying I's disappointment for I's lack of gifts...
Would you yourself not feel pity for the finest fartist alive?


Original ('Humility') by:      Thee Artiste aka Logbrain Crappó
Reworked by:    CrE aka Trollminator

Blackbrush -- Coleogyne ramosissima
the dominant understory shrub
in the pinyon-juniper canyons.

Mountain-mahogany -- Cercocarpus montanus and ledifolia.
Single-leaf ash -- Fraxinus anomalus
and possibly a western hophornbeam

by the small birch-like leaves
and the shredding bark
in a moist stretch of joint trail.

The joint-fir, green ephedra
looks like an ocean plant.
Could the wind or white water rivers alone

have shaped these sandstone, red rock forms?
Network of canyons, inverse of mountains.
It had to be ocean

ebbing and flowing, emotionally, like wind,
moving atmosphere, thicker
shaving, scraping, polishing, gouging, digging

fish canyons
then, shallower, dinosaur swamps
now, dry, rock gardens.

Explain the human history with water:
did the Anasazi visit neighbors
along the canyon rims and deep within,

combination caves and red-rock houses
small windows, doorways, just crawlways,
with corn gifts on summer evenings

when the canyon bottoms held permanent, not intermittent,
streams? After them
came the Ute and Navajo, Spanish and English.

Ravens dine on road ****.
A few long red roads connect some canyons.
The unprotected flats are overgrazed, rabbitbrush.

It is interesting
that as I learn the woody and herbaceous plants,
walk the desert foothills, I too could stay.

Walking in the forest an ocean of green,
Sunlight slips down through shallower depths.
Currents made of wind move this sea.
Winged schools  swim and hide from those bigger.
Such noisy fish nest here.
Death returns creatures and plants to the floor.
Crude compost becomes the energy of nature's milk,
in both ocean's blue and green.  

by Daniel Bottoms

the mortgage is late
the electric bill’s due
all i can do is keep breathing

she didn’t take her pill
the waiting is gonna **** me
all i can do is keep breathing

with or without her
weighing pros and cons
all i can do is keep breathing

but the breathing gets harder
it gets shallower, less satisfying

the cigarettes are catching up
and the air won’t taste the same

all i can do is keep breathing

until you can’t

I sit at the table too high for me,
Slipping the poison down my throat,
Sewn shut my mind through mouth,
As I feel the darkness bloat.

Yet I know it’s due to me alone,
My hand the wretched doer of the stab
Which rends my heart at my bequeath,
Yet how can I help who I am?

The invisible flame all too bright,
Casts my shadow invoking fear,
I willingly forget not to shun
The things I held most dear.

My mind falls deeper into the mire,
Shallower with each sinking death,
I tell them to ignore the silent screams
Though I cry for help under my breath.

And though these echoes are not heard,
They crash and boom and threaten to break
Innocence is swallowed whole again,
As I stand chained at the hand of fate.

A different man I stand today
Than the one who failed once before,
Yet I fail again, this time completely,
It is being me I must endure.

For leaping only leads to falling,
First time jumping interceded by floor,
Sitting in shame that isn’t mine
How can I hope to jump ever more?

I ask with a resounding
Question “Who am I?”
Praise from the edges of my view,
But never from the distant sky

Yet somehow the light appears ahead,
The rescuers lifting me from the shadows within
How could I have sought this ugly fate,
When there were others bright that could’ve been?

I’ve wasted time on distant stars
So shining, beckoning in my mind.
Why should I wait longer to start the rest of my life?
It’s time I left that path behind.

I've found myself again in this place,
Alone with you.
Just the rocking bodies of sweat stained Lucifer beating against our chests,
And there you are,
Right next to me,
But I don't find you in my grasp nor in my thoughts.
Only can I live, as I have before, so I try to think
But I can’t help wanting to escape.

And so there we are,
Just me and you.
And the gyrating bodies of adolescent lust lashing out with open fists and closed lips,
But I can't hold you in my arms
Or place your teeth to mine
Because your mouth interlocks so nicely with the world.
Can't I be the world?
Can’t I be the dream or the dream of dreams that never escapes your mind?
I thought I could, but you didn't know.

Here we are,
Just you and me.
And the turbulent manifestation of youth and ignorance on a dance floor,
Clasped by the ever weakening fingers.
It starts to slip into something else,
Something more
And I can't help but try to dive in after it.
But it's so much shallower then when I left my perch.
When I left in search of the one,
Or two,
I was left with zero

We are,
You and me,
The blessed babies of a tormenting world
And all I ever wanted to do was hold you in my arms just a little bit longer.
But the fire was to bright, and your eyes became a window.
The latch was shut, the cloud shone through
And I let myself fall to the glass,
Not knowing whether it could hold me or not.
My life was in its hands.
And it couldn't.

Puffing on my third menthol of the night, he looks at me and says "you know, these apparently crystallize your lungs." He's got one between his lips too. But they'll only crystallize my lungs. So I look over to the nearly finished bottle of wine to my left, proud of my handiwork. But as I slip into drunkenness, I know I haven't taken my last puff of the night, so I try to keep my breathing a little shallower, but I end up inhaling even deeper, trying to feel those tiny organs harden.

I talked about myself all night.
Tuned out everyone else's worlds. I've stopped being able to listen. I've become self absorbed, in my cigarettes, in my drinking, in being nineteen and stupid. But the night was warm and heavy, even when the breeze whipped around my dark hair, momentarily obstructing my vision. I was surrounded by people who I perceived to love me. As for me, virtually all love I receive is unrequited.  So every work borne from me is about me, is part of me, is all me, because how could I possibly broaden my mental scope when I spend so much of my time alone falling in love with my own decaying reflection.
She really is beautiful though. Those huge, deep hazel eyes. The dark, dark hair juxtaposed to that pale skin. And the accenting dark circles under her eyes from running on four hours of sleep a night for thirty plus days. Self indulgence.

Self hatred.

Inhale deeper and feel my lungs dying.
Giggling at how I still talk like a thirteen year old child.
Laughing at my philosophy that if this teen angst continues into your twenties and beyond, you  just become Hemingway.
It's all very funny, really. I truly am a caricature of a real person. I am completely devoid of all authenticity and every ounce of me is contrived.

But this too shall pass.

Waist deep.
The thick black syrup meets skin
A sharp black/white line
Across the pores
Like a moving limb of day/night
Across the distant craters of the moon.
To tread deeper and pulls the surface down
The mirror-black surface bending, pulling.
A meniscus
A relativistic bending
Of space and time around a star.

Deep below the surface
Wiggling toes are sluggish
Movement of legs are impeded
A tug at each hair on legs and toes.
And the hydraulic squirt of the liquid
Below the soles as your weight shifts.

Ah, but sometimes shallower now,
Withdrawing belly skin pulls with it
The deep brown-black rubbery surface
That will not be left behind.
It will not relinquish this new intimacy.

What horror comes with the rising depths?
Liquid darkness comes over shoulders, chin and cheeks.
A sweet salty taste now upon the lower lip.
A tug, a pull at the chin with every breath
Every attempt to lift it above the surface.

Fear. Darkness. Unknown.

Over mouth and nose.
Sticking to eyelids.
Thick and warm into ears.
A bubble of air tries to escape from under your chin
And tickles as it pulls up on the hairs it passes.

The cool open air irises-off above your head
Only a momentary depression in the top surface.
Until there is no record, of your having passed here.

Silence.

A sweet and sticky seal, impermeable between this world and the void.

Silence.

Push up now with strength in frightened legs.
The suction is immense, the pull strong.
It does not wish to let you withdraw.
But you push and breaking the tension of the surface
You emerge.

Great thick layers of darkness remain.
Hands claw great gobs of blackness from nose and mouth.
A gasping, stuttered pull brings icy, bitter air.
Standing now, a black shadow-ghost emerging from tarry blackness.

Velvety and warm was the invitation,
Soothing and intimate was the gentle touch,
Silent and heavy was embrace,
A smothering, airless dark at the end
And silence.

But sweet, oh how sweet and warm.

Lying alone in the darkened room she could almost feel him there next to her. Closing her eyes she allowed both body and mind to be whisked away by her imagination. His steady heart beat and full breaths had always been a contrast to her somewhat faster heart and shallower breathing. She could feel the heat that always started in her chest begin to smolder to the surface. Never able to pinpoint the exact origin of this fire she liked to imagine it began in her heart and eventually burned its way out to become a visible tribute to the love she felt. Normally her body only flushed like this when they were actually lying together, usually tangled up and as close to each other as humanly possible. This passion was nothing more and nothing short of the true love few are allowed to experience in their life times and while *** would always be a factor in a relationship this heavy their feelings ran so much deeper for each other. She thought to herself how funny life could be, a man she once considered childish unorganized and dense had proved himself to be more than what he appeared. What she had taken as a childlike attitude was really his drive to achieve his dreams despite many setbacks, his disorganization was a quirk that had imbedded itself in his family for generations and it was this very fault that allowed him to live his life fully, while she could never imagine not planning her life out day by day, he preferred to take his days as they came, this had come as a shock to her at first but soon became a wonderful source of amusement. Plans she had set for a day were often stomped upon by his lack of thought and by many this would deem unacceptable but while her plans may not have worked he always found a way to make that day Amazing. His density really was what it appeared to be and yet it also held its place in his and her lives. With out his unbending will he would not have become the hockey player she had fallen madly in love with, they would also not be together for it was against her parents wishes they had been seeing each other for two years. Two years of having each other to hold, two years of becoming each others best friends. She knew more about him then he sometimes could remember about himself! He also had a way of astounding her with knowledge he had retained about her likes ,dislikes and about her life over all. One memory stood clearly out from the rest, they had gone to his mothers house for dinner, she had been asked what she would like to drink and seeing as how everyone else had asked for milk she joined in not wanting to be a bother. The part about this memory she loved was the look he gave her, it was quizzical and upon prompting he said "but you don't like milk, you never drink it!" she was quite taken aback because of course he was right, she never drank milk if she could help it, it left a sour taste in her mouth, but what had really astounded her was the simple fact that she had never told him this it was merely something he had noticed on his own. She could feel her love surging for him in that moment and now in this room. She breathed a sigh of contentment knowing that while hundreds of miles away there was still one boy in this world she could call hers. The heavy weight of strange linens no longer bothered her she knew that with each breath and thought she moved closer to sweet sleep. He always did seem to be the last thought to pass through her mind, the last image to flash before her eyes, and on most nights the last voice she heard before she drifted off. After glancing at the red glowing of her clock she closed her eyes and the very last whisper to float through her mind was "I love you".

Shadows croak to be released from the shallow corners of the wooden chest.

A crate crafted to store the bearings of my toys, now tis the home, the safe haven of my only companions.

Cursed and abandoned, left damp and withered.
Whispering
              screams
                        and
                              echoing secrets of despairing joy.

Humid affection and calloused fog the shadowy shallower corners.
Anxiously awaiting, simply waiting.

Perhaps for the shadows to rid the porous wisteria
                                        
                                         decaying
      
                                                           where my soul should have been placed.

Up and down your chest went,
It hasn't been the same since.
They're shallower now,
There's nothing we can do now.
You breathe as deep as you can while in your sleep,
I always wondered about your dreams.
The beeps of the monitor played a steady tune,
How annoying and so soon.
I crawled closer to you,
Age wasn't very nice to you.
I had met you long ago when you were but a young one,
And I was just a no one.
You saw me for what I was,
You, the young child from the bus.
You smiled and talked to me,
You spoke of faraway lands and dreams.
You won my heart then,
Warmed it up from it's cold prison.
We grew old together,
You always spoke of forever.
Now here you are in this wretched hospital bed,
This hospital, a prison full of happiness and dread.
Inhale.....
Exhale.....
Slower rhythm,
No more ****** spasms.
So still and stiff,
I placed upon your forehead a kiss.
Suddenly everything was quiet,
Except for the sound of your heart monitor causing a riot.
You're gone now, my sweet,
Never to laugh, never to cry, never to breathe.

I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn’t fight.
He hadn’t fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely. Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled with barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green **** hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
—the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly—
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
—It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
—if you could call it a lip—
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels—until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.