He was the child with the magnifying glass that lingered
in the exhalation of the heavens. Always holding it on
those of weaker statue than himself. Insects were his
starting point, as they were barbecued under the influence
of what was focused between light and glass and what
lived became inanimate just a blackened smear that he
smothered words into the dirt
        
                           I'LL BURN THE WORLD,

His parents saw this and in jest laughed it off as the
Immaturity of a child's frustration. That all was but a
a boy finding his place within the many echoes of manhood.
A child was maturing, and they assumed that he was not
ready for the collision of what was in-between the moments
of childhood and adulthood.

One cold and sodden night where the only things that were dry.
Were submerged in the cover of roofs and foliage.
But even the penetrating raindrops gathered in haste to soak
the earth beneath the leaves protection. All drowned within
nights flourish of immersed air. Where it felt that breath was only
in-between the flurry of h20's deluge.

Within the house, within the rooms crept a silence.
            It wasn't alone, for it wept unseen streams between the  
crisp white borderlines,  were doused in clear liquids,
Draping the curtains in non received  heavy remorse,
the only things that were burdensome were the drapes as the weight of the liquid pulled at the seams holding them aloft.

Remorse was neither felt or given. just a feeling of accomplishment.  
Felt it in the moments that succeeded between this
gathering of dead lights as a flame was lit.
But not a whisper was echoed this flame was lifeless
in the eyes of its beneficiary.
But it lept upon the walls like a ballerina, gentle,
and dancing within the confides of its given dance.

He stood in the hallway the flashback was unexpected,
but he still stood there gazing and the beauty of something
given with such frailty that a breath could extinguish
its potential. His parents had no idea, they were slumbering
within the confines of blankets that entombed the warmth.
Clasping hand even in sleep love was a subconscious yearning.
The thing with these old houses some had decretive metal over
the wind bars in beauty crafted to keep things out.


But this was his plan, what cant get in cant get out.
He'd gone in there room and stole the key.
He took a last glance, and said,
             "I Love You
,Before sealing them within. The flames were silent like
a stalker watching waiting, till the inevitable conclusion.

As things started to burn more passionately, caressing every
thing it was touching. So the smoke started to thicken like
A heavy smog it got into places the fire had not reached.
Moans could be heard, then screams at the realisation of
what was happening. He Could hear them, he could see them.
For even though a teenager he was intuitively cunning,
tinkering with everything and anything.

And small cameras were dotted around the house,
looking listening to everything that was seen and spoken.
It had come to fruition due to one such thing he had heard
being discussed by his parents.

"I saw him in the woods,

                 "Doing what darling?

"He didn't see me but the neighbours cat,
                                  "you know soot,

"What did he do, nothing bad!

                "He tied it up,
"Then threw what I thought was water on it,
                  I thought it was nasty but then!!!  

"Then what, your scaring me,

"He lit a cigarette, I didn't even know he smoked,
  "Then he discarded the match,

       "The cat, oh my god the cat,

"But he recorded its screams, he recorded it dying,

"I couldn't move I was so angry, so humiliated,
        "I wanted to throttle him there and then,

"But ill phone the police tomorrow,
                  "He's not right, who would do that,

How dare they think that I can just be fobbed off,
         discarded.

                                             I was making music,
the screams were a delicate symphony,
            acoustics that's couldn't be reproduced.
It had to be from the source.

That laid, the plans for what now enveloped that house,
recording every noise, every scream. But what he needed
was for them to burn, to release the music he needed to
hear to complete his work. And they like parents gave it
there all, he had goose bumps as he heard there terror.
his eyes welled up, not in regret but the beauty that his
parent last words were given to him, so personal was this
moment that he'd never forget it.
                                                        
                                                                ­          "Thank Mum & Dad,

After this he released a mix tape, that could be only
conceived from an artist, in the womb of excellence.
That's the reviews he had, it brought shudders to your
heart and mind. It was if your humanity was crying out to it.

As so forth and more were sewn in the adulation of his work.

Now he needed to make more music, but he needed more
screams to make his next piece two were not enough..

So he wandered the night, dressed in unclean wear
so not to be confused with who, or what he was..
He hung around the homeless parts of town,
plastic sheeting for roofs.. and combustible bedding.
It was as if he'd planned himself. but he had to be smart.
for this was if ill planned he would have a needle in his
arm within the year. But he took his time tiny cameras
recording visually and sound.

He had gathered the combustible elements needed to
make this a orchestra of his needing, not a duet like before.
He didn't down play his past offering, but this would make
an album of despair and monument to the flame.

It had been raining, but only lightly as he needed some
dampness in the air on there sheets cardboard mattresses.
So not to raise suspicion on the dampness of there homes.

As they moved away from the embers of barrel fires,
yes he'd thought about that. Not every home was a
crematorium a cardboard and plastic coffin of there
choosing. He waited clasping his hands together breathing
on them as it was cold night. He liked to watch, a voguer
of sort, but his wasn't the fantasy of death it was to hear the
music that was about to be sung with smoke filled lungs.

He'd set up a unique but rudimentary way to light the fire,
a small gas hob with liquid within. it needed to be a certain
temperature ignite, he had tried it before in a field out west.
Deserted he'd made a mock up of this humble place.
And he wasn't mistaken it was fascinating, the flame spread
like the wind enveloping everything but, it was a dull for even
though the flames wept of everything, its tears turning all to
ash..

It was silent, deafening, he cried for a while, there should never
be censorship of the flame, for what is a log fire without the cracking of its inner self being consumed. This was just smoke
and regret. But he now looked down at the camp, his watch
counting down the precious moments.
                                                             He whispered.
                                              

                                                  "Thankyou,
­
And then like a super nova the darkness was ingulfed in
the aurora of flame, gliding over the ground as if a stream
of conscious reckoning. Those near by the civilians that were
                        across the street were transfixed.
As screams embellished the flames, this was my orchestra
of light and noise. Those across the street were either screaming
or videoing the scene.
I looked at them and wondered where there humanity
had gone to, as to film this moment rather than to rush in
and save the few that they could.

I watched as the engines came, extinguishing my masterpiece
choosing the night was always preferable to the day as flames
dance better when there is less light to contaminate there beauty.

My music, I had become quite the remixer, of vocal and rhythmic
sounds.
                               Within a week I had mad nine new songs.

I named them each as deserved, making them in memory of
those who perished that dreadful night.
            It was well received, a few thought it was a haunting
melody of humanity's struggle, while a few thought it was
over ambitious, and lacked the passion of my first piece.

All together it went down well, and the adulation of the
flame was kept, to honour that which gives as much as
takes the breath of life away.
A year had past and the door rang, it was an officer.

                 "Could you come to the station please,

Had I become the victim of my own success, had someone
broke down the acoustics of my music and realised what
they were?? So many thoughts went through the calm
exterior of my persona. But inside the flame dimmed,
had I lit the last candle. I was taken in to a room,
and questioned evasive not to the point but gathering
speed to the answer, where were you on the
                                                             ­       30th April 2019.

Alabi's were a fantastic thing to plan ahead, I had laced
my date with sleeping tablets to leave her in perpetual
slumber. And got back before she awoke, we made love
we were the flame and the wick.. and our sweat was the wax dripping from our form. The next week I dumped her.

They asked if I recognised a picture, blurry and ill framed
but I could make out the figure was me. No sir I don't why.
This person of interest is wearing your jacket, your logo!
I smiled and was truthful to a degree.
                                                             Planning is everything.

I threw maybe fifty into the crowd when I did a concert
in the city, when we drove past some homeless persons.
We donated what was left to them, do you realise how
cold these streets are, who am I to steal warmth away.
I don't wear my own merchandise what do you think I
am egotistical, no I wanted to help those who I could
have been if not for my music. I lost my parents I know
what its like to be alone.

I think the show went well, as I was released before
reporters even got a sniff. But I knew that my time
was a wick trying to keep the flame lit but dying out
anyway. I had made preparations for this time.

I had brought a club only for gigs, cheesy as hell but
had that 80's disco vibe the entire floor was light up.
But I had brought  the ingredients for thermite,
amazing what you learn in school and the internet.
But I never used mine different libraries in different
cities so not raise suspicion. I  invited the music critics
and others which I had personally disproved of.
its was going to be free drinks and themed 80's night.

Who can not want free drinks, well I wasn't going to be
disappointed 90% came, how lucky the few.
Phones were confiscated, no video, but more
importantly no phone calls to the outside world.
I told them at the end of the night that I was realising
a new song, they were like vultures to flesh.
As the night progressed some wanted to leave,
but we offered them the VIP section also lit flooring.

Now was the time, I had put heating elements under the floor
to ignite the thermite. A supernova of heat even though brief
would ignite the choir of harmony needed. I asked them,
                                                           ­ "Are you ready,

And then silence, I put on my welding glasses,
                                                        ­         I wasn't stupid.
Never look into the heart of the flame unless you want
to be blinded by its beauty.
I pressed a button and it was magnificent, it was like a tide of sunlight, they tried to scramble but all exits were locked.
It was like the wizard of Oz, and the witch I'm meltinggggg..
But this wasn't a fairy tale.. The adulation I had for these
chosen few. What excitement the others had missed.

I'd made my booth flame and smoke proof, I had my own
walkway but I knew that this was the last time I could pay
homage to the flame. As the screams died down.
The wicks smouldered and the floor looked more like a battle
field of  WWII. I began I knew I didn't have a lot of time.
But this was just a single I'd already got the backing music
ready. And as I worked away, I could hear the banging on
the reinforced doors. They gave me a breather to get my
work fulfilled.

I heard the doors start to give way but no matter
I'd only needed this time to tweak the music.
Given I'd started this over an hour ago, it was good
on my part for this not to be broadcast till I saw fit.
As the police burst through, gazing at the flaming
effigies that lied before them, some threw up, gross..

While others saw me smiling I pressed the button and
my new song was word wide.. its was called the critics
tried to burn me down. The response was gratifying.
Likes reached the hundreds of thousands in mere minutes.
Well it was only three minutes twenty five seconds long.
As they shoot at the booth I wiggled my finger at them.
I do like to plan ahead but dam was that loud against the
glass. Got to be said some had wicked aim, made me flinch
a few times.

But alas all things come to an end, I uploaded my videos
of what I had done. I was proud of my contribution to
my legacy and empowering others with my music.
As I looked down at the puddle, I tap danced in it for
a moment and then lit the lighter, I looked a them
and once again waved, I was like a funeral pyre.
A crematorium of silence and then I was gone.
                                                I didn't scream,
I was in her embrace and had done her proud.

I'm just getting in the bath,
Someone else wrote the letter,
I don't want to make a. Mess.

Draw me the water
I point at the tap
Burden no family
Hold my head under icecaps.

Merkel Cells, diluted sensation,
The end of fingertips cant feel your
Flesh.
Shriveling in the cold,
Shivering to stop freezing,
But I cant. What am I doing?
Can I want this now, errectores pilorum erected.
Have I set motion to,
Cogs in a watch I cant adjust.

my lungs mark absolute zero
this is me sitting in chemistry class
english
10th grade
asking sam to suffocate with me
every alvioli is pinned by ****** as thick as knitting needles
my chest is permafrost
my sternum, antarctica
the ribs hollow out
capillary beds lose all the haem
out of their erythrocytes

I'm losing St. Elmo's Fire.

The baths still panting out,
Water roars, gushing spout.
Proud the current sweeps me through,
The porcelain lining this white hell bathroom.
It's bone cannot hide from my blood,
As if I'm isotope 226 of Radium.
Heat seeking marrow.
My serum is Hodgkins Lymphoma,
Tearing through sheeting tile,
Like a young cancer child,
Afflicted,
Leukemia,
No chance,
No good blood left,
To let.


Soon, it will all be gone, and the rivers that
freeze in my arms, and the ribs that are icicles
form, and the atrial canal is not like Venice,
it is the Rhine in winter, the Volga during
the solstice.

Spring will never come again.
Spring slipped its head into the bath water, like my own.

Tracks of rain and light linger in
the spongy greens of a nature whose
flickering mountain—bulging nearer,
ebbing back into the sun
hollowing itself away to hold a lake,—
or brown stream rising and falling at the roadside, turning about,
churning itself white, drawing
green in over it,—plunging glassy funnels
fall—

And—the other world—
the windshield a blunt barrier:
Talk to me.  Sh! they would hear us.
—the backs of their heads facing us—
The stream continues its motion of
a hound running over rough ground.

Trees vanish—reappear—vanish:
detached dance of gnomes—as a talk
dodging remarks, glows and fades.
—The unseen power of words—
And now that a few of the moves
are clear the first desire is
to fling oneself out at the side into
the other dance, to other music.

Peer Gynt.  Rip Van Winkle.  Diana.
If I were young I would try a new alignment—
alight nimbly from the car, Good-bye!—
Childhood companions linked two and two
criss-cross:  four, three, two, one.
Back into self, tentacles withdrawn.
Feel about in warm self-flesh.
Since childhood, since childhood!
Childhood is a toad in the garden, a
happy toad.  All toads are happy
and belong in gardens.  A toad to Diana!

Lean forward.  Punch the steerman
behind the ear.  Twirl the wheel!
Over the edge!  Screams!  Crash!
The end.  I sit above my head—
a little removed—or
a thin wash of rain on the roadway
—I am never afraid when he is driving,—
interposes new direction,
rides us sidewise, unforseen
into the ditch!  All threads cut!
Death!  Black.  The end.  The very end—

I would sit separate weighing a
small red handful:  the dirt of these parts,
sliding mists sheeting the alders
against the touch of fingers creeping
to mine.  All stuff of the blind emotions.
But—stirred, the eye seizes
for the first time—The eye awake!—
anything, a dirt bank with green stars
of scrawny **** flattened upon it under
a weight of air—For the first time!—
or a yawning depth:  Big!
Swim around in it, through it—
all directions and find
vitreous seawater stuff—
God how I love you!—or, as I say,
a plunge into the ditch.  The End.  I sit
examining my red handful.  Balancing
—this—in and out—agh.

Love you?  It’s
a fire in the blood, *****-nilly!
It’s the sun coming up in the morning.
Ha, but it’s the grey moon too, already up
in the morning.  You are slow.
Men are not friends where it concerns
a woman?  Fighters.  Playfellows.
White round thighs!  Youth!  Sighs—!
It’s the fillip of novelty.  It’s—

Mountains.  Elephants ******* along
against the sky—indifferent to
light withdrawing its tattered shreds,
worn out with embraces.  It’s
the fillip of novelty.  It’s a fire in the blood.

Oh get a flannel shirt, white flannel
or pongee.  You’d look so well!
I married you because I liked your nose.
I wanted you!  I wanted you
in spite of all they’d say—

Rain and light, mountain and rain,
rain and river.  Will you love me always?
—A car overturned and two crushed bodies
under it.—Always!  Always!
And the white moon already up.
White.  Clean.  All the colors.
A good head, backed by the eye—awake!
backed by the emotions—blind—
River and mountain, light and rain—or
rain, rock, light, trees—divided:
rain-light counter rocks-trees or
trees counter rain-light-rocks or—

Myriads of counter processions
crossing and recrossing, regaining
the advantage, buying here, selling there
—You are sold cheap everywhere in town!—
lingering, touching fingers, withdrawing
gathering forces into blares, hummocks,
peaks and rivers—rivers meeting rock
—I wish that you were lying there dead
and I sitting here beside you.—
It’s the grey moon—over and over.
It’s the clay of these parts.

It had been a long day, an early start, a hundred mile drive, and he was going home, back to a quiet evening before another busy week.
 
The January afternoon was the wrong side of three o'clock, but the relentless wind and rain of the morning had subsided leaving clearer skies, thin high clouds. He had driven a few miles out of town, metaphorically shaken the dust of its Sunday streets from his shoes. Either side of the road vistas of vast fields stretched into the distance. There was an 8-sail windmill, a sign to a doll museum, the occasional church spire rising above trees. He found himself looking to turn off the main road: to wander into unknown country, to stop the car and walk a little. A few miles further on he saw a promising turning and left the main road.
 
The house stood on its own a 100 yards distant from the road. In front no garden, just an expanse of cropped grass, where one could imagine croquet being played on a summer's day. The building was probably early Victorian, a balanced structure, a porched front door separating two large rooms with French doors leading out to a gravelled drive. The masonry was painted a subtle mustard brown, the window frames and doors a brisk white. A gentleman's residence of another age; perhaps the former vicarage of the redundant church he had strolled to explore a little further up the road. There, he had peered into the locked building to see an expanse of black plastic sheeting hiding the once pews, and at the end of a side chapel an arresting stained glass window glowing in Mediterranean blue.
 
From the churchyard unfenced grazing land lay unanimaled, sheepless, and cattlefree. Large oaks held singular positions against the steep fall of the sky to the far horizon. In the nearer distance woodland stood in a general air of managed tidiness.
 
A little further down the road a fallow field beckoned his interest. Its grass winter-bleached in a ten-acre square, fenced, and before a wood. He took out his camera and composed a shot. The image held stark simplicity: the field, the fence, the wood, a touch of sky.
 
He realised these environs into which he had wandered were quite unpeopled, empty of life. Only rooks swirled around the church tower. And silence. No cars on the single-track road. No tractors in the wind-parched fields.
 
He felt himself rest in the peace of it all: the house, the church, the fields, the empty road. At his feet yellow aconites graced a shallow ditch: a  grateful sudden colour in a washed out landscape. It was all of a piece this place, nothing and everything. He had come, stayed a while, would get back in the car a little colder than when he'd left it. Was there some story here he would never know? A village-less church? Or was this a place to trigger fiction, on which to bring the imagination to bear. He thought himself into the gentleman's residence. Sitting at his worktable before the almost French windows. She would enter, only the rustle of her dark dress a welcome disturbance. She would place her hand on the back of his neck. He would close his eyes in gratitude and in love that all this should be so.

Sleeping rough
like a leaf blowing
across the pavement.
          never knowing
where I'll settle
before the breeze
of others discontent,
    brushes me from
my resting place.

I wonder like a cloud,
never stopping
                  in one place.
I'll never rain down,
all that's kept inside.
I'll never have  
           a sliver lining.
Just one with hues
of regret, of better times.


You can hear
the rustling
plastic sheeting.
The breeze is light here,
We can stay
                for a little while.


Leaves fallen
             from the tree
will never be still.
Ever moving,
               Ever restless.
When will we again
see from a higher elevation
other than below there feet
crumpled up like a fallen leaves.

O peaceful moon, shining gently o'er the fields,
In your soft light I see a tree, a hedge, a glistening pond;
And the soft night sounds of rustling reeds and swaying boughs
Intermingle with the nightly warfare of a million creatures.

But hark! From the new housing estate across the park
There comes a rather different sound.  Through an open window
Comes the healthy thwack of flesh on flesh and muffled shrieks of joy
As Isaac and Wendy Bumsenfotze indulge themselves un peu.

Isaac's got his gasmask on, and his rubber flippers too
And (speaking candidly) looks an unattractive proposition
Especially now his skinny chest towers o'er his massive *******,
All four mighty manly inches of it from tip to curlies.

Lying trussed up on their bed, atop its needed rubber sheeting,
Lies Sam, their well-trained patient pedigree crossbred donkey,
Upon whose good-natured, hirsute, unsuspecting person
Nameless atrocities have often been performed in Eros' name.

What are they going to do tonight? I bet you'll never guess.
Well, Wendy's strapped her ***** on and intends to use it first
On Ikey's waiting well-lubricated back end
And then it's Sam's turn and ***** the R.S.P.C.A.

And while Sam is getting poked by loving Wendy,
Old Ike will not be idle: camera-phone in one hand
And mail-order sjambok in the other, he'll record
Their motions and lacerate them both simultaneously.

Underneath his gasmask, Isaac gets a bit sweaty and excited,
And once their party's over all three will doze off:
A truly lovely scene.  But they will be soon by woken by
The morning sun glittering on Wendy's cast-off legirons.

The glimmer in his hair, those kaleidoscope eyes,
Isn’t he lovely?
With lustre and humid afternoons
We jumped on plastic sheeting
Till our cyclist’s thighs and drummer’s fringe
Ached for the next day’s meeting.

Yen for one such as you,
Sidled up in the overtaking lane.
A flashing red passed me by, mouthing
‘Mother and child reunion is just a song.’

And with that I wished for you,
Non-existent, imaginary you.

But for now, marmalade sticks together
A household of three companions
As we wait for our January highs
And commiserate November rains.

I’m the one of them who wishes
That she could sing Wonder’s song aloud
To you. Imaginary, non-existent you.

Hail the  hobo King sitting  on his throne of
A stripped ford, engine no longer their
Dismantled  of all that was worth a dime.

His subjects bring offerings of dinner trash
Food, fresh from the dumpster. Given to
Those of ill health and malnourished need.

He sits in clothes matted with his trails of
The moments his feet have hit the pavement.
Of life not as others had the chance to live.

He wandered the land every concrete jungle
Knew him as the hobo King, no crown gestured
His head, only the word, the word of mouth.

Settling disputes of those in homes of cardboard
Of wood and used plastic sheeting sheltering from
Those who would do harm and the relentless cold.

He wonders the streets, knows the secrets of each
City of the unseen spaces where those whom roam
Now lay. The vulnerable have a guardian a keeper.

Ignorance of those who do not see that which in
Doorways sleep, of huddled masses under bridges
Buildings to keep dry and an uneasy sleep.

He is the hobo king a crown of matted hair he
Wears, always does he have time for those
Less fortunate because he is one with the street.

I'll write and say same words I've said
     ten thousand times before
Until I don't believe
     that I believe them anymore
Because riding on this carousel
means spinning one's wheels
into moist ground
     thought I had some traction
     but it seems I thought too soon--

So I am off of the rails
Off the wagon. Off to nowhere.
'Cuz it's, "Onward, lads,
to one more night spent
covering ground's familiar footsteps
and sheeting snowy sidewalks
in the dollars we don't have."

And we'll lay 'em kinda thick
     press our prints in Presidents
pro bono comes advice
from the corners we can't heed,
but por argento comes the cure
we choose to **** our heads with

I'll pick a place, polish my boots
     get far as my front steps
where I'll sit until the summer rolls around
     and sweat rolls down in sheets

Short sheeted best hopes,
shortened thank-you notes
and lists of ****** quotes
lay around and resonate
on floors and facebooks,
tabletops
in summertime,
          when it rolls around

But, now, it's winter
and we're all 364 1/4 resolutions older
     --at 33 revolutions per minute,
     and 16 ounces at a time,
     we can almost cope.

Now, it's winter and the sheets are
          still too warm

Now, it's winter and we sheet the
          snowy sidewalks
in Presidential faces
in the dollars we don't have
and the cure we **** our heads with
keeps us safely insane
'Cuz in a world built by psychopaths,
the sane don't always last.
And, if I'm the last one out?

I'll sing a song and **** the lights before I go.

Tracks of rain and light linger in
the spongy greens of a nature whose
flickering mountain—bulging nearer,
ebbing back into the sun
hollowing itself away to hold a lake,—
or brown stream rising and falling at the roadside, turning about,
churning itself white, drawing
green in over it,—plunging glassy funnels
fall—

And—the other world—
the windshield a blunt barrier:
Talk to me.  Sh! they would hear us.
—the backs of their heads facing us—
The stream continues its motion of
a hound running over rough ground.

Trees vanish—reappear—vanish:
detached dance of gnomes—as a talk
dodging remarks, glows and fades.
—The unseen power of words—
And now that a few of the moves
are clear the first desire is
to fling oneself out at the side into
the other dance, to other music.

Peer Gynt.  Rip Van Winkle.  Diana.
If I were young I would try a new alignment—
alight nimbly from the car, Good-bye!—
Childhood companions linked two and two
criss-cross:  four, three, two, one.
Back into self, tentacles withdrawn.
Feel about in warm self-flesh.
Since childhood, since childhood!
Childhood is a toad in the garden, a
happy toad.  All toads are happy
and belong in gardens.  A toad to Diana!

Lean forward.  Punch the steerman
behind the ear.  Twirl the wheel!
Over the edge!  Screams!  Crash!
The end.  I sit above my head—
a little removed—or
a thin wash of rain on the roadway
—I am never afraid when he is driving,—
interposes new direction,
rides us sidewise, unforseen
into the ditch!  All threads cut!
Death!  Black.  The end.  The very end—

I would sit separate weighing a
small red handful:  the dirt of these parts,
sliding mists sheeting the alders
against the touch of fingers creeping
to mine.  All stuff of the blind emotions.
But—stirred, the eye seizes
for the first time—The eye awake!—
anything, a dirt bank with green stars
of scrawny **** flattened upon it under
a weight of air—For the first time!—
or a yawning depth:  Big!
Swim around in it, through it—
all directions and find
vitreous seawater stuff—
God how I love you!—or, as I say,
a plunge into the ditch.  The End.  I sit
examining my red handful.  Balancing
—this—in and out—agh.

Love you?  It’s
a fire in the blood, *****-nilly!
It’s the sun coming up in the morning.
Ha, but it’s the grey moon too, already up
in the morning.  You are slow.
Men are not friends where it concerns
a woman?  Fighters.  Playfellows.
White round thighs!  Youth!  Sighs—!
It’s the fillip of novelty.  It’s—

Mountains.  Elephants ******* along
against the sky—indifferent to
light withdrawing its tattered shreds,
worn out with embraces.  It’s
the fillip of novelty.  It’s a fire in the blood.

Oh get a flannel shirt, white flannel
or pongee.  You’d look so well!
I married you because I liked your nose.
I wanted you!  I wanted you
in spite of all they’d say—

Rain and light, mountain and rain,
rain and river.  Will you love me always?
—A car overturned and two crushed bodies
under it.—Always!  Always!
And the white moon already up.
White.  Clean.  All the colors.
A good head, backed by the eye—awake!
backed by the emotions—blind—
River and mountain, light and rain—or
rain, rock, light, trees—divided:
rain-light counter rocks-trees or
trees counter rain-light-rocks or—

Myriads of counter processions
crossing and recrossing, regaining
the advantage, buying here, selling there
—You are sold cheap everywhere in town!—
lingering, touching fingers, withdrawing
gathering forces into blares, hummocks,
peaks and rivers—rivers meeting rock
—I wish that you were lying there dead
and I sitting here beside you.—
It’s the grey moon—over and over.
It’s the clay of these parts.

Like the pages of a book
We took to read an authors mind
Our lines define us
In a way
They say what sometimes we've forgotten
Or neglected
Or reflected upon many times
Our lines tell us the story
Ourselves in all our glory
As we bolted down that hill on a skateboard
And did somersaults on the concrete
Or slid down steps on plastic sheeting
Left bleeding where the board cut into wrist
When it stopped at the bottom
And we didn't
Our childhood misadventures notwithstanding
We are still standing looking back in time
Through our lines
Our cuts and incisions
Our many decisions that left us souvenirs we can never throw away
But never would anyway
Because what else tells stories like scars do?
Of what we've been through
What we've seen to
And come out the other side
Just to hide our reminders
As if we don't find them satisfying
A blemish on our perfect skin
As if there's such a thing
As if you'd want such a thing
Like you'd bin a book of poetry because of its lines
Or throw out a painting because it was no longer a perfect white canvas
Perfection lies in the imperfection
There is beauty in the brokenness
The flaws in the flawlessness
The differences and nuance
That are lined upon our skin
Akin to lines upon the paper
Taper off towards the end
And then the storytelling starts
For what is art if not a story
And what are lines if not art?

Pit of eternal darkness,
Festering inside my soul,
Lost to a new sense of bleakness,
This warmth brought to cold.

Regret and sadness from the void,
Feelings that I never felt.
This facade once destroyed,
Feel the pain that is dealt.

Why this pain in my chest,
Stinging and sharply beating.
Is there any cloth or vest,
An armor or sheeting?

Is it possible to go,
Unimpeded by my evil,
To the place were time is slow,
And without this ache so ill.

How can I feel what was lost,
Tucked and forgotten,
Paying for that true cost,
See what my mind distraughted.

In a clearing,
amongst the scran 'n frame
of winter's naked trees
that bow this way 'n that
to the capricious wind,
sits the screen house
all closed in with its seasonal wrap,
plastic sheeting translucent like an iced lake,
but vertical and wavy
when the breeze blows through here,
but inside the sun gathers
to collect itself in its own pleasure
and asks the question,
"Why is it so cold out there?"

===
* My best friend from Maine emailed me
a photo of his screen house in winter that
he built on his fifty acre property with a view
of the coast 8 miles away.

Rain coming down sideways
sheeting on the window pane
fogged up glass humidity high
casual conversations earnestly spoken
all the while studiously ignoring
the couple in the middle of the room
Stealing kisses completely
in their own world
oblivious to children's homework and
business people's envy
steaming cups of coffee
can't compete with
heat from their coffeehouse kisses

Poem 2
Sweaty Little Fingers

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 once I caught a fish alive.

"That's not a fish! It's a tadpole!"

1,2,3,4,5 once I caught a tadpole alive
I loved the little fella and I wanted him to thrive
but he was too small for me so I made him dive
back into the water.

1 little frog hopping around. I bend and lift him from the ground. I wrap him up all safe and sound in my sweaty little fingers

2! There's another one! Better than the other one! I'm gonna catch him before he's gone so he can be a friend to number one.

3. 2's a company, 3's a crowd. But I were only five and I just didn't really get how you could make a company with only 2 people working there (true story). So I picked up another one.

For after all, I've already got 3. I've never held four frogs before! Tiny little forelegs  held gently down, just so they can't hop around.

5 little frogs staying alive.
Singing "I, I, I, I'm stayin' alive!"
...Except, they were baby frogs, so it sounded more like "peep, peep"
...And their dance moves were more like...(demonstrate movements of a frog)

Anyway...

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 little hopping fellas all alive,
I set off down t' 'ill to show mi mum,

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 little hopping fellas still alive,
Runnin' all the way and havin fun,

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 little hopping fellas just alive,
I have to lean my hands ont' gate t' oppen it

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 little hopping fellas ... alive?
I run to mi mum where she sits

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 little hopping fellas ... Not... Hopping.

"Mum?"
"Aww son..."
"What ave I done?"
"Come 'ere son"
"Awww mummy!!! I killed em! I feel like poo!!!"
"It's ok Matthew I know what t' do"

So we went outside and did the best things you can do with 5 non dancing frogs and 10 sweaty little fingers.

We wiped off t'guts ont' garden wall, rubbed em ont, grass and went to build dens out of corrugated, asbestos sheeting instead.

Ah the good old days

Slim whispers under snowfall
warblers vanish, send a postcard
bloom and batten just a memory
while wind hurls sheeting rain
against my window—
my heart melts, open to
the inner wild,
my soul sings
words through pen on paper
I come alive
in the stillness, in the
bleak months

Sun is warming skin and soil
hatchlings calling, can you hear them?
cherry blossoms pink to bursting
while springtime beckons little faces
to my window—
my heart skips, one eye
to the quiet
still my soul’s urge
to be open to the passage
ebb and ease into
the rousing, the
bright months

Rain, falling in broken-goblet shatters
That splash and ricochet on the sidewalk
Wets my unprotected shoes
And slithers through my stockings
Chilling more than just my feet.

The "Monkey's Wedding" sun peeks through
At intervals to fire up rainbows
In the drops that move too fast to study
Here again and gone again
This dark and bright will blind me.

Rain, now sheeting like a ***** shower curtain,
Cuts off the view of what's ahead
And soaks my flimsy parka.
I never knew an Autumn storm
Could smell so strong of winter.

All the leaves that clung so long
Are beaten from the branches
To land on me like snotty tissues
From a nose blown somewhere in the ether-
And I feel tainted by them.

Rain that looks like it can fall for days
In places where its rhythm is unknown
Becomes a dirge as I trudge on
With soggy clothes and cloudy temper
Contemplating years without a Spring.

How I wish my stout umbrella hadn't
Vanished at the party, but I left it
In the hallway when the dancing started up,
And when I headed out into the storm
I couldn't find it anywhere.
                           ljm

He’d lain in the septic, hospital bed,
Was terminal, slipping away,
‘He won’t last forever,’ the nurses said,
‘Will probably go today.’
So they put him on a morphine drip
To ease the man of his plight,
‘He looks so grey, and is on his way,
I think he’ll be dead tonight.’

But deep in the slumbering fellow’s head
There wasn’t a shred of gloom,
A party was raging within his bed,
And filling that hospital room,
There were friends and folk he’d always known,
A neighbour he knew as Jim,
And there in a party dress, on her own,
That wonderful girl called Kim.

Would she even give him a second glance
He’d thought, in a sort of dread,
He’d seen her first at the village dance,
And now she was deep in his head.
Her lips were full and her eyes were brown
And her teeth were even and white,
He thought that his courage might let him down
Then swore, ‘she’ll be mine tonight.’

He nodded his head to a favourite tune
As tremors invaded his pillow,
Balloons were popping all through the room,
He stood by a favourite willow,
And Kim was paddling in the brook
That bubbled and babbled, madly,
He took a breath and a long last look,
He knew that he wanted her badly.

She turned and smiled, and walked to his bed,
And gave her lips to be kissed there,
She shimmered and swayed as his vision fled
And he stood alone by her grave there,
His smile was soft as the lights went out
And a nurse looked over him gravely,
‘At last he’s gone, I knew him as John,
He went to the other side bravely.’

They stripped his bed and they laid him out,
‘I remember his wife,’ one sighed,
‘Her name was Kim, and she doted on him,
It must be a year since she died.’
‘Who knows what happens to those who pass,’
A nurse said, folding the sheeting,
‘I’d like to think they’re together at last,
If just for a moment, fleeting…’

David Lewis Paget

Flowers bloom yearly
then die. We make beds
for beauty, sheeting them
to make love.  Lovers coil
wrapping skin, sweating to
make a future enshrined with
devotions to their own.
Damp ground tread on by
feet running to demand what
they want for themselves. Running
over flowers pinking towards the sun;
wild, growing without struggle, until
they are trampled.

Jan. 26, 2009

My desires of a dream, in the sheeting of time.
I am wrapped over, by a harsh reality.
A morning sunrise, upsets dark looming eyes of fears.
Gutted by the feelings of butterflies in my stomach.
The knots of being tied to flesh.
Belittled by facts of my experience not reaching up to this word
of Love.

Seems only a word slipping out of the tongue to wet ears.
Pleasurable to be heard by our once youth.
But not of their deserving.
But what of the old, that has impressed the new, I haven’t
the slightest clue.

The drive home was a blur of tears and rolling landscape.
You called twice, and both times when your face showed up I couldn’t bear it.
I didn’t want to talk to you.
Didn’t want to hear your voice and relive how it sounded,
when you asked me if I still loved you,
and that despite how I felt
you still loved me.
How your voice broke when you choked on our parting words.
The foolish hope in your voice as you kissed me goodbye on our last day.
I wanted to call the earth to rise up over me.
and pull me under.

Despite our many words,
Our assurances,
I struggled to focus on the road through my sheeting tears,
The words dropping heavily from my lips and falling,
To the pit of my stomach.

‘We are not okay.’

And the lists started writing themselves
In a shudder of memory,
Despite my screaming at them to stop,
They settled in clouds through the air of my car,
Even as I refused them,
My lungs heaving on them,
My heart fluttering.

I pulled over.
I couldn’t see.
I wish I could tell you,
To share with you,
What it took to make me stop.
The tyres slowed to rest
As the sounds erupted from me
I was helpless in the tide.
The thudding of fists on the wheel,
the wracking heaving,
the thin rivers running together into roaring falls.
And
as the storm passed
the thin wail threading through the gathering stillness.

I drifted.

In my dreams he was waiting for me.
I ran to him,
fell into his arms and buried my face into his chest,
my hands like claws gripping him to me.
‘No no no no no no’
I couldn’t stop the words pouring from me, a last desperate refusal,
that I didn’t know the answer.

‘It’s not supposed to go like this, you were meant to stay. You were supposed to be the one! What’s wrong with me? Why doesn’t it work?’

I felt myself separating and heard the pieces of me ****** around our feet.
And you just encapsulated me, warm and golden,
you kissed my crumbling hair.
I couldn’t look at your face,
too afraid
I’d see the cracks forming in your skin.
You didn’t say anything,
just talked without words like you always do,
speaking about a sadness,
a love,
an acceptance.
Peace flowed from you and steadied the ground,
my shaking legs,
my shattering body.
I wept and tried to crack as the warmth held me together
and then,
started to dissipate.

doesn't feel like it did before
cold wind is howling round my door
not like a lover, more like something
else, another thing entire. . . .

And I don't live on a moor
O, I am no where nearby
Heathcliff, name of my stallion true
I feel unhinged, I let it fall
There were strange & ghostly
Sightings that I never should of saw

All I gave to my own Self and
Even Ghost Town trips....I let it drop
It now evades upon a chill frost
quiet down stroke

I can make it all blow down
in formation, the chessmen
placed  uselessly before me

your will is marching towards
me any way I turn, relentless, one
pinnacle of moment when

ceased to bow under you
evil eye a warning like a gale
force tornado flying monkey  

(just a rumor, in a dream, so many years ago)

headed straight  towards
very heart of me, you do no harm. . . .
yet maybe you see it differently?

keep tossing them gals
down into the depths
wearing  200 pound diving dress

continual surprise when
sheer will carries gals
aloft, back to the airy
living world

diving bell, ring it out
nothing new to see here
move along

give into our  open hands
&  waiting mouths what cannot be give
to local charities or time

or space, in place of otherness
all words were wasted
on us, once you locked onto
such tender tight coordinates

anyone would do?
would anyone do for you?
it was so real and maybe I
am wrong in thinking this of
you, but I would never mind

one true thing is that it
scares me to think I left myself
behind for no more reason and I
could live with any truth

if it were truely true
my confusion is
not half as lost

as wondering what
has really happened

and with whom?

it bothers me too. . .

I have my own room
back tomorrow now
it will be my time

I will call all my friends
just to hear their voices
hum into my ears

I never missed those guys
so much as I do now
after what is left from you

what did you do?

only what I begged of you. . .

how did I enter into such
a bargain, sell it out
at fire sale, where
did my mind fly to?

I need a lonely bus heading out
into a sheeting rain never stopping
without a reason to keep driving

need a radio without a dial
a black raincoat and three extra miles
to go

Rain sheeting
as forecaster says
"Showers over Cumbria have cleared"