Martin's New Words 3:1:13

Thursday, April 10th, 2014

assay - noun. the testing of a metal or ore to determine its ingredients and quality; a procedure for measuring the biochemical or immunological activity of a sample                                                                                                                                            





February 14th-16th, Valentine's Day, 2014

nonpareil - adjective. having no match or equal; unrivaled; 1. noun. an unrivaled or matchless person or thing 2. noun. a flat round candy made of chocolate covered with white sugar sprinkles. 3. noun. Printing. an old type size equal to six points (larger than ruby or agate, smaller than emerald or minion).

ants - noun. emmet; archaic. pismire.

amercement - noun. Historical. English Law. a fine

lutetium - noun. the chemical element of atomic number 71, a rare, silvery-white metal of the lanthanide series. (Symbol: Lu)

couverture -

ort -

lamington -

pinole -

racahout -

saint-john's-bread -

makings -

millettia -

noisette -

veddoid -

algarroba -

coelogyne -

tamarind -

corsned -

sippet -

sucket -

estaminet -

zarf -

javanese -

caff -

dragee -

sugarplum -

upas -

brittle - adjective. hard but liable to break or shatter easily; noun. a candy made from nuts and set melted sugar.

comfit - noun. dated. a candy consisting of a nut, seed, or other center coated in sugar

fondant -

gumdrop - noun. a firm, jellylike, translucent candy made with gelatin or gum arabic

criollo - a person from Spanish South or Central America, esp. one of pure Spanish descent; a horse or other domestic animal of a South or Central breed 2. (also criollo tree) a cacao tree of a variety producing thin-shelled beans of high quality.

silex -

ricebird -

trinil man -

mustard plaster -

horehound - noun. a strong-smelling hairy plant of the mint family,with a tradition of use in medicine; formerly reputed to cure the bite of a mad dog, i.e. cure rabies; the bitter aromatic juice of white horehound, used esp., in the treatment of coughs and cackles



Christmas Week Words Dec. 24, Christmas Eve

gorse - noun. a yellow-flowered shrub of the pea family, the leaves of which are modified to form spines, native to western Europe and North Africa

pink cistus - noun. Botany. Cistus (from the Greek "Kistos") is a genus of flowering plants in the rockrose family Cistaceae, containing about 20 species. They are perennial shrubs found on dry or rocky soils throughout the Mediterranean region, from Morocco and Portugal through to the Middle East, and also on the Canary Islands. The leaves are evergreen, opposite, simple, usually slightly rough-surfaced, 2-8cm long; in a few species (notably C. ladanifer), the leaves are coated with a highly aromatic resin called labdanum. They have showy 5-petaled flowers ranging from white to purple and dark pink, in a few species with a conspicuous dark red spot at the base of each petal, and together with its many hybrids and cultivars is commonly encountered as a garden flower. In popular medicine, infusions of cistuses are used to treat diarrhea.

labdanum - noun. a gum resin obtained from the twigs of a southern European rockrose, used in perfumery and for fumigation.

laudanum - noun. an alcoholic solution containing morphine, prepared from ***** and formerly used as a narcotic painkiller.

manger - noun. a long open box or trough for horses or cattle to eat from.

blue pimpernel - noun. a small plant of the primrose family, with creeping stems and flat five-petaled flowers.

broom - noun. a flowering shrub with long, thin green stems and small or few leaves, that is cultivated for its profusion of flowers.

blue lupine - noun. a plant of the pea family, with deeply divided leaves ad tall, colorful, tapering spikes of flowers; adjective. of, like, or relating to a wolf or wolves

bee-orchis - noun. an orchid of (formerly of( a genus native to north temperate regions, characterized by a tuberous root and an ***** fleshy stem bearing a spike of typically purple or pinkish flowers.

campo santo - translation. cemetery in Italian and Spanish

runnel - noun. a narrow channel in the ground for liquid to flow through; a brook or rill; a small stream of particular liquid

arroyos - noun. a steep-sided gully cut by running water in an arid or semi-arid region.


January 14th, 2014

spline - noun. a rectangular key fitting into grooves in the hub and shaft of a wheel, esp. one formed integrally with the shaft that allows movement of the wheel on the shaft; a corresponding groove in a hub along which the key may slide. 2. a slat; a flexible wood or rubber strip used, esp. in drawing large curves. 3. (also spline curve) Mathematics. a continuous curve constructed so as to pass through a given set of points and have a certain number of continuous derivatives.

4. verb. secure (a part) by means of a spine

reticulate - verb. rare. divide or mark (something) in such a way as to resemble a net or network

November 20, 2013

flout - verb. openly disregard (a rule, law, or convention); intrans. archaic. mock; scoff ORIGIN: mid 16th cent.: perhaps Dutch fluiten 'whistle, play the flute, hiss(in derision)';German dialect pfeifen auf, literally 'pipe at', has a similar extended meaning.

pedimented - noun. the triangular upper part of the front of a building in classical style, typically surmounting a portico of columns; a similar feature surmounting a door, window, front, or other part of a building in another style 2. Geology. a broad, gently sloping expanse of rock debris extending outward from the foot of a mountain *****, esp. in a desert.

portico - noun. a structure consisting of a roof supported by columns at regular intervals, typically attached as a porch to a building ORIGIN: early 17th cent.: from Italian, from Latin porticus 'porch.'

catafalque - noun. a decorated wooden framework supporting the coffin of a distinguished person during a funeral or while lying in state.

cortege - noun. a solemn procession esp. for a funeral

pall - noun. a cloth spread over a coffin, hearse, or tomb; figurative. a dark cloud or covering of smoke, dust, or similar matter; figurative. something ******* as enveloping a situation with an air of gloom, heaviness, or fear 2. an ecclesiastical pallium; heraldry. a Y-shape charge representing the front of an ecclesiastical pallium. ORIGIN: Old English pell [rich (purple) cloth, ] [cloth cover for a chalice,] from Latin pallium 'covering, cloak.'

3. verb. [intrans.] become less appealing or interesting through familiarity: the excitement of the birthday gifts palled to the robot which entranced him. ORIGIN: late Middle English; shortening of APPALL

columbarium - noun. (pl. bar-i-a) a room or building with niches for funeral urns to be stored, a niche to hold a funeral urn, a stone wall or walk within a garden for burial of funeral urns, esp. attached to a church. ORIGIN: mid 18th cent.: from Latin, literally 'pigeon house.'

balefire - noun. a lare open-air fire; a bonfire.

eloge - noun. a panegyrical funeral oration.

panegyrical - noun. a public speech or published text in praise of someone or something

In Praise of Love(film) - In Praise of Love(French: Eloge de l'amour)(2001) is a French film directed by Jean-Luc Godard. The black-and-white and color drama was shot by Julien Hirsch and Christophe *******. Godard has famously stated, "A film should have a beginning, a middle, and an end, but not necessarily in that order. This aphorism is illustrated by In Praise of Love.

aphorism - noun. a pithy observation that contains a general truth, such as, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."; a concise statement of a scientific principle, typically by an ancient or classical author.

elogium - noun. a short saying, an inscription. The praise bestowed on a person or thing; a eulogy

epicede - noun. dirge elegy; sorrow or care. A funeral song or discourse, an elegy.

exequy - noun. plural ex-e-quies. usually, exequies. Funeral rites or ceremonies; obsequies. 2. a funeral procession.

loge - noun. (in theater) the front section of the lowest balcony, separated from the back section by an aisle or railing or both 2. a box in a theater or opera house 3. any small enclosure; booth. 4. (in France) a cubicle for the confinement of art  students during important examinations

obit - noun. informal. an obituary 2. the date of a person's death 3. Obsolete. a Requiem Mass

obsequy - noun. plural ob-se-quies. a funeral rite or ceremony.

arval - noun. A funeral feast ORIGIN: W. arwy funeral; ar over + wylo, 'to weep' or cf. arf["o]; Icelandic arfr: inheritance + Sw. ["o]i ale. Cf. Bridal.

knell - noun. the sound made by a bell rung slowly, especially fora death or a funeral 2. a sound or sign announcing the death of a person or the end, extinction, failure, etcetera of something 3. any mournful sound 4. verb. (used without object). to sound, as a bell, especially a funeral bell 5. verb. to give forth a mournful, ominous, or warning sound.

bier - noun. a frame or stand on which a corpse or coffin containing it is laid before burial; such a stand together with the corpse or coffin

coronach - noun. (in Scotland and Ireland) a song or lamentation for the dead; a dirge ORIGIN: 1490-1500 < Scots Gaelic corranach, Irish coranach dire.

epicedium - noun. plural epicedia. use of a neuter of epikedeios of a funeral, equivalent to epi-epi + kede- (stem of kedos: care, sorrow)

funerate - verb. to bury with funeral rites

inhumation - verb(used with an object). to bury

nenia - noun. a funeral song; an elegy

pibroch - noun. (in the Scottish Highlands) a piece of music for the bagpipe, consisting of a series of variations on a basic theme, usually martial in character, but sometimes used as a dirge

pollinctor - noun. one who prepared corpses for the funeral

saulie - noun. a hired mourner at a funeral

thanatousia - noun. funeral rites

ullagone - noun. a cry of lamentation; funeral lament. also, a cry of sorrow ORIGIN: Irish-Gaelic

ulmaceous - of or like elms

uloid - noun. a scar

flagon - noun. a large bottle for drinks such as wine or cide

ullage - noun. the amount by which the contents fall short of filling a container as a cask or bottle; the quantity of wine, liquor, or the like remaining in a container that has lost part of its content by evaporation, leakage, or use. 3. Rocketry. the volume of a loaded tank of liquid propellant in excess of the volume of the propellant; the space provided for thermal expansion of the propellant and the accumulation of gases evolved from it

suttee - (also, sati) noun. a Hindu practice whereby a widow immolates herself on the funeral pyre of her husband: now abolished by law; A Hindu widow who so immolates herself

myriologue - noun. the goddess of fate or death. An extemporaneous funeral song, composed and sung by a woman on the death of a friend.

threnody - noun. a poem, speech, or song of lamentation, especially for the dead; dirge; funeral song

charing cross - noun. a square and district in central London, England: major railroad terminals.

feretory - noun. a container for the relics of a saint; reliquary. 2. an enclosure or area within a church where such a reliquary is kept 3. a portable bier or shrine

bossuet - noun. Jacques Benigne. (b. 1627-1704) French bishop, writer, and orator.

wyla -

rostrum -

aaron's rod -

common mullein -

verbascum thapsus -

peignoir -

pledget -

vestiary -

bushhamer -

beneficiation -

keeve -

frisure -

castigation -

slaw -

strickle -

vestry -

iodoform -

moslings -

bedizenment -

pomatum -

velure -

apodyterium -

macasser oil -

equipage -

tendance -

bierbalk -

joss paper -

lichgate -

parentation -

prink -

bedizen -

allogamy -

matin -

dizen -

disappendency -

photonosus -

spanopnoea -

abulia -

sequela -

lagophthalmos -

cataplexy -

xerasia -

anophelosis -

chloralism -

chyluria -

infarct -

tubercle -

pyuria -

dyscrasia -

ochlesis -

cachexy -

abulic -

sthenic - adjective. dated Medicine. of or having a high or excessive level of strength and energy

pinafore -

toff -

swain -

bucentaur -

coxcomb -

fakir -

hominid -

mollycoddle -

subarrhation -

surtout -

milksop -

tommyrot -

ginglymodi -

harlequinade -

jackpudding -

pickle-herring -

japer -

golyardeys -

scaramouch -

pantaloon -

tammuz -

cuckold -

nabob -

gaffer -

grass widower -

stultify -

stultiloquence -

batrachomyomachia -

exsufflicate -

dotterel -

fadaise -

blatherskite -

footling -

dingmat -

shlemiel -

simper -

anserine -

flibbertgibbet -

desipient -

nugify -

spooney -

inaniloquent -

liripoop -

******* -

seelily -

stulty -

taradiddle -

thimblewit -

tosh -

gobemouche -

hebephrenia -

cockamamie -

birdbrained -

featherbrained -

wiseacre -

lampoon -

Guy Fawke's night -

maclean -

vang -

wisenheimer -

herod -

vertiginous -

raillery -

galoot -

camus -

gormless -

dullard -

funicular -

duffer -

laputan -

fribble -

dolt -

nelipot -

discalced -

footslog -

squelch -

coggle -

peregrinate -

pergola -

gressible -

superfecundation -

mufti -

reveille -

dimdl -

peplum -

phylactery -

moonflower -

bibliopegy -

festinate -

doytin -

****** -

red trillium -

reveille - noun. [in sing. ] a signal sounded esp. on a bugle or drum to wake personnel in the armed forces.

trillium - noun. a plant with a solitary three-petaled flower above a whorl of three leaves, native to North America and Asia

contrail - noun. a trail of condensed water from an aircraft or rocket at high altitude, seen as a white streak against the sky. ORIGIN: 1940s: abbreviation of condensation trail. Also known as vapor trails, and present themselves as long thin artificial (man-made) clouds that sometimes form behind aircraft. Their formation is most often triggered by the water vapor in the exhaust of aircraft engines, but can also be triggered by the changes in air pressure in wingtip vortices or in the air over the entire wing surface. Like all clouds, contrails are made of water, in the form of a suspension of billions of liquid droplets or ice crystals. Depending on the temperature and humidity at the altitude the contrail forms, they may be visible for only a few seconds or minutes, or may persist for hours and spread to be several miles wide. The resulting cloud forms may resemble cirrus, cirrocumulus, or cirrostratus. Persistent spreading contrails are thought to have a significant effect on global climate.

psychopannychism -

restoril -

temazepam -

catafalque -

obit -

pollinctor -

ullagone -

thanatousia -

buckram -

tatterdemalion - noun. a person in tattered clothing; a shabby person. 2. adjective. ragged; unkempt or dilapidated

curtal - adjective. archaic. shortened, abridged, or curtailed; noun. historical. a dulcian or bassoon of the late 16th to early 18th century.

dulcian - noun. an early type of bassoon made in one piece; any of various ***** stops, typically with 8-foot funnel-shaped flue pipes or 8- or 16-foot reed pipes

withe - noun. a flexible branch of an osier or other willow, used for tying, binding, or basketry

osier - noun. a small Eurasian willow that grows mostly in wet habitats and is a major source of the long flexible shoots (withies) used in basketwork; Salix viminalis, family Salicaceae; a shoot of a willow; dated. any willow tree 2. noun. any of several North American dogwoods.

directoire - adjective. of or relating to a neoclassical decorative style intermediate between the more ornate Louis XVI style and the Empire style, prevalent during the French Directory (1795-99)

guimpe -

ip

Hip Service
By Julian Malek

The zeal of cobblestone tolerance arrayed in fashionable hues masquerading as crimson secrecy, elevates the tide of man but some boats leak in their foundations. Therefore a cork to every exuberance and a triumphant torch for every sorrow lives onward in collective time. Larks that abound because prescience and PUGET sound, that brown has become the new orange which in turn prowls as a concealed swarthy black. To antagonize the willful and frenetic pace, a prodrome of lasting but memorialized disgrace. Should I move to a state by first or last name, or is the final appellation worthy of much more lasting fame. I scurry down the aisles, bemused by shimmering tiles and the beguiled audiences who see much in my limitation but doubt little about my debited elation. Ringmaster Barnum, how much horticulture is needed for assured superstardom, how many cloisters must we evacuate from the incendiary plumes of a metaphorical Harlem..  But know that no virtual reality can supplant the reality that does truly exist, or at least our time is too infernal and purblind to resist. Carrey the tops of mountains in the humor of wellsprings and fountains, we engage a menagerie of egos lilting of an etiolated pragmatic concern. Evicted from paradise, littered with say-cheese demise ensnaring three blind mice eaten alive by snake-eyed vice. To feel good without incorporated tyranny, we must see blue and red as alternatives to the same destiny. A world that reckons with the futilitarianism of pacified malcontent and astroturf monikers that lead the impressionable into a slaughter shed. Established or not, any enchantment under the sea must include fishes once a pastiche of me, but to them I avoid their courtesy flush and never even faintly blush as my egalitarian statements are lavish thrush.

Five TO Won baby one in 99, everyone here aboard the titanic stays alive, you got your boat baby and I got mine, gonna make it with babies numbered in surreal primes. Halt the slots game the nines, a stitch in time is going to turn out to be Mine. Flanger goals, girded piles, liminal like an aborted Harry Styles, we climb mountains we issue tithes, and the turmoil is etched into 45-notched bludgeons and two-tucked knives. Excuse you, where have you been all day, have you been sauntering in a gentle rain or a genteel pain, have you wallowed beyond the mires of doubt and ranked above David Blaine. I hope you tell me of your magic tricks, rather than your other flicks endeared I stand to fight an ineradicable itch. But if not, you placid pond dented by so many rocks and so many ripples give your heart over to me, before I clinch the special Olympics *******, we ran, we span the homespun garments of your left and right hand, but death is a specter that ghoulishly carouses along the carousel terminal disease we call life. I beseech your deepest affection and want to console you for your deepest struggle, to be there every time wed with time rather than a throttled scuttle. Moons make you guarded but maroons leave me desiccated, don’t ever let that wilted flower die, always water it with a rich but gentle ties and widened deck for all to at once marvel and pry.  Monsters of Mars Attacks once flanked my bed, as though the **** brain scared every gooseflesh and restrained every frisson of mystery. I lampoon myself for those cold Dark Knights and the protection ended by the plight of the poor mattering nothing to the deliberately internecine rich. I struck gold in a valley somewhere, an oxymoron of paradox that now you have the privilege to dock, to stay aboard to be a vessel of peace less widely deplored. Even if we don’t sprout wings, we garner the exactitude of measured things and our glass elevator though easily shattered by the glower of enslavement is actually our vista to heaven or listening to brethren tingles for rich mans trinkets and other things. For humanity deserves a legend and a princess, a regimented desuetude and a flanged lust but in our mistakes wildly flouted in momentary moments we become purified by the temptations of an alabaster palace.

***** the left-field wisdom of a pragmatic paragon ellipsis in prison, slip between the cracks and let my suburban muse become your urban ruse. To enchant a caged world beyond a reality delicately and deliberately unfurled. Squirming toads on highways enchanted but dead, are graves for the blue becoming purple in every dignified red. Gainsay assaults me with platitude, a repeated hitter quit on the first bunted ball into foul-line territory. Those gripes are swiped right in all circumstance no matter the plight. The pronged hearing of a trident sensitive to ambient collection, and suddenly we are all in the mad house even though the house of profaned pain is much worse. Glimpses of gambits that gambol for nickels in transit as occult grenades and known dice waddle through without artifice or device, and the laughter and slaughter that trains collegiate minds, differs no more than the tropes of a glamorous violence articled in sordid rhymes. This surfing movie means so much more than Surf Wax America pristine in limited but sacrilege nirvana. Teen spirits smell muskier than 90s pop dreams, the grasp and grunge of gouged eyes becomes a mummified staid, a scarecrow to those who disobey. Childhood flashes with blinding light, and new sight illuminates darkening blight, A blight eradicated only by two magazines and including one that houses the bullets that ***** themselves between death and comatose dreams both within astral sight. Littoral harbor on a seaside town, a shanty with a brackish gown that glides the gourmand to the cosmopolitan eatery on the outskirts of lost & found. But forever lost in embonpoint and forever gained in chavish that exonerates the gaunt, the etiolated prince in heart becomes irrefutable marrow in minded souls.

If I am a spy you are an ESPY, and if I cry than you are a baby,but since neither are the case my wiseacres will cultivate lava lamp dreams for a new generation and suddenly Boston bets on Harvard, but who knows of this piped blather squirming for relevance rather than voguish but temporary chatter. My regatta knows how to swim, my life now knows how to cringe and yet still win and in stilted plays of bungled sincerity the God of peace reminds us of our transcendent personalities. That we in sincerity top the barnacles of invention a novelty but a rarity. But the guillotine quill of emboldened unscripted parvenus ruthless in their eager dues, outdate and outlive the sued swayed blues that indemnify Clinton and make the atomic dog an amazing Winston hill a church often in sheltered disuse. Imps and urchins sting the sentiment, cloy the alimony of repentant betterment, but neither touches the gilded skies of pleonasm striving for raspy disguise as to dissuade further diatribe investigation. Lurking in those scared days of youth, the gore of unalloyed horror scourged me with a limp, that compassion itself could ever become a gimp. Now years later athletics better and scoring goals making the mildew sweat and the years wetter, not a global warming that can be alarmed by global mourning. Take peace at heart if distanced spears of separation make Idiocracy as a pastiche look exceedingly smart. And spar only with the true antagonists bridging malevolence with expedience. Killjoys sure, will joy even more sure, but still boys fluttered heart stopping dead at a stop-watched alarm the worst tragedy of our sordid sort. Give an African Child a real home rather than a spatial roam, a palatial desiccation of momentary Jonas Brothers snapping back at captives with sexualized foam.

Narrative blinds shuttered in an Island among mountains hardly ever wiser to sanitize the sanitarium among the wasps of stung power. Police crumple their uniforms as they prowl down the avenues, looking for misfits and widened platitudes. Somehow that the vigilance of those corrupted by their very career choice, look even worse when megalomania of private is the limelight of public, to their defense few turrets I can muster but castles in the sky will be the apartheid judge. Those that cling to virtue to eradicate Porsche-driven faked or real deaths at the most breakneck speed, that Fast & Furious operation if disclosed completely would turn the Shire of the ring into the hatred curtailed by a song in Sing-Sing. Immunity must not Yoda implore, that livery Liverpool marooned on islands can also to deplore the R.E.D. and still whet the sharpened stead and the fly-by-night Manchester United alights like militant peer pressure for wranglers in tights. But beating the Beatles at a game of Walruses and egg-shelled eyeful towers likely impedes rinkside hockey from anything over bellicose ballyhoo…it exists as a transient fixated glower. But who knows about soccer speculation when love is the transcendent temptation, when nest-egg hens rather than neglecting rig Bens of clockwork and clocked words designed arise better for their token ken. Do I must repeat the subtext of submarines, yellowed as though ugly unused as though unseen, as though the quixotic earthquakes of tintinnabulations Avatar dreams. Wafted souls console the disheartened thoughts of a dashed dream that Berlin hates more than a Furor’s unbridled and useless scream.
Demotic clips slinging from the bedridden silence of a token moon and its token friends, swimming in a shore of ambiguity whether history mellows or whether its furor melts away momentary doubts. I want to avoid the sting rays exorcised by due providence and become the amalgamated talents gentry and of course the upstart swagger of Jack Dawson. But with the psy-op going on, the people manipulated on all sides of a gray picket fence will the relationship bloom without muttered dissent or pretended smiles. Will we take upon the shuffled shuttle and dig with shovels deep-rooted Christmas trees and toast our lives to Dos Equis. We may never go out of style, but the treacle of illuminated imagery when divorced from sentiment bristle shows a swagger that prioritizes rather than amalgamates all love. I love being brash and brazen and honest because when she finally ditches the grandstand of delayed frenemies fandoms of other tinsel decorations without any substance beyond meretricious thrill. You want a roller coaster on some days, but most often you want the nutcracker to elope to secret hiding places. Swim with adventure not just in love, not just in affection with the starlight now matter how luminous, sixpence all the richer is no centuries any poorer and we could be that gilded couple of star and screen and if we ever have to scream, let our screams unite us in passion, rather than a milquetoast deference to pedestaled beauty. but of course the end times don’t laugh at your crumpled wizened relapse. Not out of convenience wed by a discriminating genetic harvest moon but a deeper engagement that flatters when stylish and bristles when romantic but never defiled, never riled of specious pretense. Promise me that you will always remember me in my flaws and my faults, in my scause factory destructions and the penults of PEN-ULTIMATE wisdom that comes before the grace of God in the annihilation of passion for eroded omission. If your goal is to be remembered, check that out…but the most admirable goal is as the propinquities of souls dusted in the wind returning to a spring equinox of passion and if you find in yourselves reservations do not depart from sacred land, and never jilt me because of a boisterous and menacing friend. You are everything to me right now, and I Hope this persists despite the vicissitudes of star-favored afflictions mixed with utter benediction without the pontification of stilted Benedictines  or rather the hyped ludic effrontery of termagants being made of younger and younger women. Leave it at this ,32 leaves the royal secret in royal hands and the Knights Templar and us we altogether hold hands, if only a prelude for a masquerade ball. But the stilted embarrassment of crestfallen time, let that be relegated and emphatically lets embrace what is like to not ever need a real white horse to get back into your favor, because we never go out of style we can brandish the best elements and reject the sentiments of the too newfangled and the too stodgy. We in our crenellated pleonasm can eager ride the lightning to another tomorrow and another yesterday and if even not that, we virtually make an indelible impression of embroidered love not too distant in ivory towers and not to vulgary( catering to popular sentiments) to become a trash glam movement. We soar, others deplore but let their purblind doubts render them blind to our burgeoning love.

Forget the brisk trees dangled in the wind on winding paths through haunted forest or remember them because of ghoulish fortress but with our apotropaic lamp we can avert most evil and call the rest fun and gains and shun but fames never profaned, never inalterable a destiny to magical to be some whimpered catcall. Or we could linger beneath lambent street lights disguised as though wilted garb, attrition of circumstance waiting patiently for the matinee and the vintner to escort us beyond the garb of pretense in a city so abundant with it that it deserves castigation. But I digress, a beachside cliff overlooking tepid waters tumultuous in their power but august in their noises, the cadence of love will sing a half-moon bay on full-moon nights and we will frisk each other like grasping at straws of permanent tracks trammeled of the elite and a sidetracked basque bet. Trim those antlers and instead grow metaphorical wings, to us we all sing but few can match your elegance and everyone would be crazy not to see your ennobled age and together thrilling songs to emulate thriller in sales we will collaboratively sing.
Haughty sneers from lifeless lycanthropy straggling furtively along the pastiched sidewalks of grime, livid because they can’t share the lingering limelight, with as many guarded perks of privacy clambering like a hive of snarky sharks. Lets ditch the big town dreams in terms of posh and stature if only for a caressed moment beneath the unadulterated stars and if you find spars **** to the extent they are amiable than I say guess what my name is Lars! Or wait a second, paused in the big city spotlight our stenciled hearts will guide whatever progeny is yours or mine or ours together we will sing the most comforting lullaby, and caves no longer must we abide. Yearn and earn every inch, as I gripe with my delicate saddened pinch but I think the innuendo speaks . Ripen with our trips to Napa, long afternoon sunsets swim in our hearts as we taste the vanguard’s toast on elegant wine.I console with entreaty to disavow the omen of that San Franciscan church October 2008, the doom implied by Einstein, the raillery of a world grinding down the endless decadence of a railed future inalterable in destiny or partialy amenable to widespread coquetry.

Forget those rumbles in your past that made you feel partial to insecurity and learning the ropes you transcended all and live in all eternity. Thimble and brook, tolerant of all those tokes I took your rebellious side flattens the yeast of Exodus raspy in its begrudged clapping. But the Pharaoh of the modern world sheltered me under his prickly thorns, shielded me from the sickly things that life adorns. We have the numbers on our side, the weight of destiny on our shoulders, dedicate yourself to yourself and I will preen the most vibrant wisdom and love will leap like Apollo across all borders not for camel-****** hoarders. We are culminated destiny in the wings of the best daydream

Old man, you surface seldom.
Then you come in with the tide's coming
When seas wash cold, foam-

Capped: white hair, white beard, far-flung,
A dragnet, rising, falling, as waves
Crest and trough. Miles long

Extend the radial sheaves
Of your spread hair, in which wrinkling skeins
Knotted, caught, survives

The old myth of orgins
Unimaginable. You float near
As kneeled ice-mountains

Of the north, to be steered clear
Of, not fathomed. All obscurity
Starts with a danger:

Your dangers are many. I
Cannot look much but your form suffers
Some strange injury

And seems to die: so vapors
Ravel to clearness on the dawn sea.
The muddy rumors

Of your burial move me
To half-believe: your reappearance
Proves rumors shallow,

For the archaic trenched lines
Of your grained face shed time in runnels:
Ages beat like rains

On the unbeaten channels
Of the ocean. Such sage humor and
Durance are whirlpools

To make away with the ground-
Work of the earth and the sky's ridgepole.
Waist down, you may wind

One labyrinthine tangle
To root deep among knuckles, shinbones,
Skulls. Inscrutable,

Below shoulders not once
Seen by any man who kept his head,
You defy questions;

You defy godhood.
I walk dry on your kingdom's border
Exiled to no good.

Your shelled bed I remember.
Father, this thick air is murderous.
I would breathe water.

1.

From our
safe windows,
we crane our necks,
rubbernecking
past the slow
motion wreckage
unfolding in Homs.

We remain
perfectly
perched
to marvel at
the elegant arc of
a mortar shell
framing tomorrows
deep horizon,
whistling through
the twilight to
find its fruitful
mark.

In the now
we keep
complicit time,
to the arrest
of beating hearts,
snapping fingers
to the pop
of rifle cracks,
swooning to
the delicious
intoxication of
curling smoke
lofting ever
upward;
yet
thankfully
remain
distant
enough to
recuse any
possibility
of an
intimate
nexus
with the
besieged.

2.

From our
safe windows,
we behold the
urgent arrivals of
The Friends of Syria
demanding
clean sheets
and 4 Star
room service at a
Tunisian Palace
recently cleaned
and under new
management
promising a
much needed
refurbishment.

The gathered,
a clique of
this epochs
movers and shakers,
a veritable
rouges gallery of
ambassadorial
prelates, Emirs and
state department
bureaucrats
summoned
with portfolio
from the
darkest corners
of the globe.

They are
eager to
sanctify
the misery
of Homs,
deflect and
lay blame
with realpolitik
rationalizations,
commencing
official commissions
of inquiry,
deliberating
grave considerations,
issuing indictments
of formal charges for
Crimes Against
Humanity
while
remaining
urgently
engrossed
in the fascination
of interviewing
potential
process servers
to deliver the bad news
to Bashar al-Assad
and his soulless
Baathist
confederates,
if papers
are to be
served.

Yes, the diplomats
are busy meeting
in closed rooms.

In hushed circles
they whisper
into aroused ears,
railing against
Russia’s
gun running
intransigence
and China’s
geopolitical
chess moves.

Statesmen
boast of the
intrepid justice
of tipping points
and the moving poetry
of self serving tales,
weighing the impact
of stern sanctions
amidst the historical
confusion of the
asymmetrical
symmetries
of civil war.

Caravans
of Arab League
envoys roll up
in silver Bentleys,
crossing deserts
of contradictory
obfuscations,
navigating the
endless dunes
with hand held
sextants of
hidden agendas.

The heroic
Bedouins are
eager to offload
their baggage
and share
on the ground
intelligence from
their recent soirées
across Syria.

They beg
a quick fix,
the triage of a
critical catharsis
to bleed their
brains dry
of heinous
recollections,
pleading
release from a
troubled conscience
victimized by
the unnerving paradox
of reconciling
discoveries of
perverse voyeurism
with the sanctioned
explanations
of their respective
ruling elites.

The bellies
of these
scopophiliacs
are distended;
grown queasy
from a steady diet
of malfeasance
an ulcerated
world parades
in continuous loop;
spewing the raw feeds
of real time misery;
forcibly fed
the grim
visions of
frantic
fathers
rushing
the mangled
carcases
of mortally
wounded
children
to crumpled
piles of smashed
concrete that were
once hospitals.

We despondently
ask how
much longer
must we
look into
the eyes
of starving
children
emaciated from
the wanton
indifference
of the world?


3.

From our
safe windows
we wonder
how much
longer can
the urgent
burning
ambivalence
continue
before it
consumes
our common
humanity in
a final
conflagration?

My hair already
singed by the
endless firestorms
sweeping the prairies
of the world.

How can we survive
the trampling hoards,
the marauding
plagues of acrimony
fed by a voracious
blood lust aspiring to
victimize the people
of Homs and a
thousand cities
like it?


4.

From my safe
window I stand in witness
to the state execution of
refugees fleeing the
living nightmare
of Baba Amr.

The ****** of innocents,
today's newly minted martyrs,
women and children
cornered, trapped
on treacherous roads,
mercilessly
slaughtered and
defiled in death
to mark the lesson
of a ruthless master
enthralled with the
power of his
sadistic fascist
lordship.

I cannot avert my eyes
marking sights
of pleading women
begging for the
lives of their children
in exchange for
the gratification
of a sadists
lust.

My heart
is impaled
on the sharp
spear of
outrage
beholding
careening
children mowed
down with the
serrated blades
protruding
from marauding
jeeps of laughing
soldiers.

I drop
to my knees
in lakes of
tears
reflecting
a grotesque
horror stricken
image of myself.

My eyes have
murdered my soul.

The ghastly images
of Homs have chased
away my Holy Ghost
to the safety of a child's
sandbox hidden away
in a long forgotten
revered memory.


5.

From my safe window
I seethe with anger
demanding vengeance,
debating how to rise
to meet the obscenity of
the Butcher of Damascus.

The sword of Damocles
dangles so tantalizingly close
to this tyrants throat.  

The covered women
of Homs scream prayers
“may Allah bring Bashar to ruin”

Dare I pray
that Allah trip the
horsehair trigger
that holds the
sword at bay?

Do I pick up
the sword
a wield it
as an
avenging
angel?

Am I the
John Brown
of our time?

Do I organize
a Lincoln Brigade
and join the growing
leagues of jihadists
amassing at the
Gates of Damascus?

Will my righteous
indignation fit well
in a confederacy
with Hamas and
al-Qaeda as my
comrades in arms?

Do I succumb to
the passion of hate
and become just
another murderous
partisan, or do I
commend the power
of love and marshal
truth to speak with
the force of
satyagraha?

I lift a fervent prayer
to claim the justice
of Allah’s ear,
“may the knowing one
lift the veil of foolishness
that covers my heart in
cloaks of resent, cure
my blindness that ignores
my raging disease of
plausible deniability
ravaging the body politic
of humanity.”

6.

Indeed,
physician heal thyself.

I run to embrace my
illness.

I pine to understand it.

I undertake the
difficult regimen
of a cure to eradicate
the terrible affliction.

This
pernicious
plague,
subverting
the notion
of a shared
humanness
is a cunning
sedition that
undermines
the unity of
the holy spirit.  

The bell from
the toppled steeples
still tolls, echoing
across the space of
continents and eons
of temporal time.

The faithful chimes
gently chides us
to remove the wedge
of perception that
separates, divides
and undermines.

Time has come
to liberally
apply the balm
that salves the
open wounds
so common to
our common
human condition.

The power of prayer
is the joining of hands
with others racked
with the common
affliction of humanness.

Allah,  
My eyes are wide open,
my sacred heart revealed,
my sleeves are rolled up,
my memory is stocked,
my soul filled with resolve,
my hand is lifted
extended to all
brothers and sisters.
Lift us,
gather us
into one
loving embrace.

Selah


7.

From the safe
windows of
our palaces
we live within
earshot of
the trilling
zaghroutas
of exasperation
flowing from
the besieged
city smouldering
under Bashar’s
symphony of terror.

Our nostrils
fill with the
acrid plumes
of unrequited
lamentations
lifting from the
the burning
destruction
of shelled
buildings.

Our eyes spark
from the night
tracers
of sleeking
snipers
flitting along
the city’s
rooftops.

The deadly jinn
indiscriminately
inject the
paralysis of
random fear
into the veins
of the city
with each
skillful
head shot.

These
ghoulish
assassins
lavish in their
macabre work;
like vultures
they eagerly
feast on the
corpses of their ****,
the stench of bloated
bodies drying in the
sun is the perfume
that fills their nostrils.


8.

From our
safe window
we discern the
silhouettes of militants
still boldly standing
amidst the
mounting rubble of an
unbowed Homs
shouting;

Allah Akbar!!!
Allah Akbar!!!
Allah Akbar!!!

raising pumped fists,
singing songs
of resistance,
dancing to
the revelation of
freedom,
refusing to
be coward by
the slashing
whips of a
butchers
terrible
sword.


9.

From my
safe window
my tongue laps
the pap
of infants
suckling from
the depleted
teats of mothers
who cannot cry
for their dying
children;
tears fail
to well from
the exhaustion
of dehydrated
pools.

10.

From my
safe window
my heart stirs
to the muezzin
calling the
desperate faithful
from the toppled
rubble of dashed
minarets.

We can
no longer
shut our ears
to the adhan
of screams
the silent
voices that echo
the blatant injustice
of a people under siege.


11.

From my
safe window,
I pay
Homage to Homs
and call brothers
and sisters to rise
with vigilant
insistence
that hostilities
cease and
humanity be
upheld,
respected and
protected.


12.

From my safe
window
I perceive
the zagroutas
of sorrow
manifest as a
whiling hum,
a sweeping
blue mist,
levitating
the coffins
from the rubble
of ravaged streets.

The swirling
chorus of
mourning
joins my
desperate
prayers;
rising in
concert
with the
black billows
of smoke
dancing
away
from the
flaming
embers
of scorched
neighborhoods.


13.

From my
safe window
I heed
the fluttering
wings
of avenging
angels
furiously
batting
as they
climb
the black
plumes,
lifting from
the scattered bricks
of the desecrated
city.

It is the
Jacob’s
Ladder
for our
time;
marking
a new
consecrated
place
where
a New Adam
is destined
to be formed
from the
pulverized
stones of
desolation.

14.

From our
safe windows
we peer into
resplendent
mirrors
beholding
the perfect image of
ourselves
eying
falling tears
dripping blood,
coloring death
onto the
blanched sheets
of disheveled beds.


15.

From our
safe windows
our voices are silenced,
our words mock urgency
our thoughts betray comprehension
our senses fail to illicit empathy
our action is the only worthy prayer


16.

From my
safe window
I hear the
mortar shells
walking toward
my little palace,
the crack
of a ******
shot
precedes
the wiz of a
passing bullet
whispering
its presence
into my
waxen
ear.


17.

From my
safe window,
my palms scoop
the rich soil
of the flower boxes
perched on my sill.
I anoint the tender
green shoots of  the
Arab Spring
with an incessant flow
of bittersweet tears.

Music selection:
John Coltrane
A Love Supreme
Acknowledgment

Oakland
2/28/12
jbm

I’m a shell of a man,
In this shell of a world,
Surrounded by nothingness.

And it is this shelled life we live in,
In such a vast shelled void,
That makes us feel so empty.

But our shells are not the one which lives inside,
The five senses know not of who that shell can hide.

For some of us fill the shell to the brim with alcohol,
Til they drown the one within.

While others mutilate the shell in fiery destruction,
Finding not what is lacking beneath.

Some starve the shell down to a much thinner lining,
Suffocating the air for the internal.

Some shells are altered in design and decoration,
Rendering what feels as difference.

While the others that have kept original and the same,
Slowly grow in independence.

When we fall -crack- and our true selves leak out,
Some run and hide the broken; faking in disguise til repair.

When we can’t escape judgement for the innate shell and/or the cracks we bear,
Some leave the shells found hanging in closets or simply lying warm gun in hand.

Forgetting our gift of common sense we lack as a whole,
We define each other with what only our five senses show.

For I've found I’m a man in a shell,
In this awful illusion of a shell,
Surrounded by ignorance.

And it is this shelled world we create,
In this vast shelled void,
That makes us feel so empty.

This world keeps growing colder as I walk
And it makes the icy air so hard to breathe
My lips are frozen shut, and I can't talk
And I see that all the snails are trying to leave

The poor things always move so **** slow
And they just couldn't seem to escape the cold
I knew I had to save them from the snow
But I wasn't sure how this was to unfold

I tried to pick them up and take them with me
I put them in my coat to keep them warm
But I came across some birds who looked quite hungry
And when they saw my snails, they began to swarm

I did my best to keep my shelled friends safe
From the blizzard and the swarm of feathered beasts
But the birds and snow were eating away at my face
And I accidentally let my snails get released

It wasn't long before the poor things were all eaten
After all I did, I couldn't save just one
I felt defeated, because I had been beaten
And my poor shelled friends were all dead and done

Collecting thoughts, imagination as vivid as the colours of a sunset.
The endless saturday, the drinking, the endless sun.
As the sun beats down on your face, and they reveal more and more skin
You look around and lovers are everywhere
None of them care
The day is to bright and the future is endless
Colours blazing brighter than the sun
All the girls, don’t want a son
But you can care less, the sun is endless and so is your life,
Every time the sun is up, you find the fountain of youth again.
Turning you from 18 to 7
Caring is not your middle name
The world is your toy
So skate around the board walk listening to 3005
Searching for a new potential lover
new goal
You don’t look for cover,
like a mole
Cause you are reincarnated
You remember that school is today
but why go on such a beautiful day
the future is now
whats the point of sitting around like a cow
The ocean as blue as the sky
where your dreams are shelled
in a bright yellow sphere
and as the sun goes down after the day
Now son don’t be in such a dismay
Forecast says, you’ll be young forever

Metal heavy
ready
steady

Hot in hand
Shelled, cocked into green-light action
Pierced through fresh flesh

Body leaning
keeling
pleading

Hot under hand
Shelled, coiling under skin unwilling,
Malleable

--
c

Vespertine, fatal dream
Mistress conjuring shapes of night
Seventeen little fiends
Elegy for a demon’s plight


Alone in my study, sitting
before a roaring fire
Visions so ******
they churn desire

With the dead of night
summoning hellish zest
They come to incinerate
my corrosive flesh

The hymns of *St. Lazarus beckon solace
from the cathedral outside
But I linger here in the bowels,
where my ancestral sins reside

Animistic stares gazing through
these dead-soul dreams
Where another horror story is not
always what it seems

Portraits of deceased queens
looked down at me with blackened eyes
Layers of muffled screams
festered while judging my vacant lies

Years before, my grandmother watched
over me as a boy in his bed;
Endless, ambiguous rhymes of prayer
are what she often said.

She promised to ban the spirits
that steadily linger
But dark twisting hands
outreached and took her

The monsters and invisible abominations
have always been here
Following my whereabouts,
watching me year after year

Subtle ghosts keeping my heart
and house cold
I sat and waited for what my
icy breath foretold

The dreams, the demons, the ghosts
all that severed me
From experiencing the love of flesh
I so forever longed to see


Came the hour the church bells rang and tolled


The dread of things to come
The moans and cries had begun

From lissome shadows and corridors
Like Charon beating souls with oars


Creeping evil fled
to the refuge of my home
To reap the sins
that my family had sewn

The rippling, screeching strings
of a malevolent orchestra
Scored and produced themes
worthy of infernal Sumatra

The flames in the fireplace
surged a green incendiary wall
From the hell mouth jaw emerged
a dark figure I saw.

Mother Mephistopheles,
            clad in silvery pieces with a pale face
            Manifesting atrocities, her emerald eyes
            welcoming our embrace

I backed away from the sights in,
my trance lost in her glimmer
But the noises and choir peaked
in a swarming fit for a sinner

In a gush of surrounding ash, Father Selaphiel materialized
The otherworld lovers reunited,
their bond revitalized.

“We come unto thee, Son of Faust, heir to Blake.”
They said in unison like a choral demon snake

“Create a fleshling worthy of a child, of many in one
So the deeds of your family’s sins can be undone.”

I stared at the figures with execrable bewilderment
Fearing my sanity had seeped through my temperament

They threaten my eternal existence with continued torment
A living anguish that would solidify my hell-bound descent

“What must be done?” I asked these surrogate advisers

And they instructed
A body made from flesh and metal
Of dead and living components
Blessed and cursed
From God and Satan
Men and creature
Using their collected powers
to merge with the night
I swept across the villages
and cities to obtain the materials
Now all these years, I’ve wondered
Why my medical expertise had been put to waste
“Did the demons prevent me?” I pondered
“Or did they aid me?” I concluded in my haste

Innocent or not, I claimed what I needed
To rid myself of the terrors deep-seated.

A steel-woven chest piece
and half-incinerated cadaver
Twenty feet of large intestines;
boys, girls didn’t matter

Shelled-out cranial cavity
with cerebral cortex to match
Mixing bladders and gallbladders
worth its catch

Punctured spleens and insolent creams
Circulatory, digestive, endocrine,

Iron bones, infused tendons mount
Smells and rancid odors spilling out

Guts, pus, worms and maggoty brains
Boiling in holy water with dried remains

Sacks of chain mail and velveteen potions
Seething concoctions conflate emotions

Patches of caustic skin made like adamant leather
Bolted with steel fingered brutally severed

Into gauntlet armor, this mechanized abomination
Personifying my sickened, wailing degradation

I showed Father and Mother my life’s work and creation
A flesh-iron shell waiting, they stood with appreciation

“Vespertine…” they called to the collage of my work
They petted its face while the shadows continued to lurk

Seventeen little fiends and creatures
appeared and surround
The moon shined through the glass
and the room around

The Seventeen shadow children became smoke and entered the monster
Now a being both ethereal and corporeal

My sins and demons locked in my own creation
Mother Mephistopheles and Father Selaphiel
Left Vespertine in my care

All that plagued me
All that haunted me

Personified, solidified
And barely alive.

My half-dead servant.

and Halloween child

Weeping Zaire, her Bleeding Flannel blew
Over the Land this Serenity bequeath
What happened, then, to the Children you knew
Took out their Armites; And shot Mercy beneath
Salt from their Riches they greatly export
And infected your Brothers in the Dark
With Mums, Flesh-Spermed Tales of Horror consort
Lost all but their Shelled Samples in the Park
Our Dear Hands sprout! And cry to Heaven's Name
Asking the Saviour when this Madness ends
As the Radio's Red Tape is all just the same,
All just Light-Shows; But very few Amends.
These Congo Apes weep black at the Event
Not just the Brother; But Habitat meant.

Lustrous but also lackluster
We are gems yet salvaged
Formed inside of a shelled world

Waves waning and whining
Sailors nauseated on our waters
Drifting towards an aggrandized land
Where they might find us oysters in the sand

They'll tear them open,
In search of what only we bear
Camouflaged amongst the cultured,
Or even those with nothing there

Darling,
We are wild,
Yes we are rare
Open up to me,
We've so many layers to share

Your metallic smile,
Your iridescent articulation
Everything happened so naturally
A miracle to be in the same location

They won't crack us,
For our muscles will defend
Our valuable and vulnerable interior
From the worlds vinegary intent

After having been raised and drilled into the ingrained wood
with the politeness of
"pardon?"
"excuse me?"
"come again?"
his calloused and critical "What!?"
brought out my cancerian nature
and shelled away my voice,
I breathed out a muddled/clumsy rendition
of my witty/quirky comment
and I instantly became aware that
my timid nature wasn't cute but cumbersome.

Upon his glottal’s larynx spreads a lingual deformity. Isolation as a result from tuggo disaffiliates. Misshapen promontory in the direction of upper-body inflammation. Not only above torso alone, location;head/injury;mouth/main informative;tongue.
The boy’s tongue was permanently horned. A horn of 18 inches shy, where taste buds formulate, he owned a lone spike. He wasn’t abraded by the unfoldment of onlookers around. His irregular attachment was a main confidant. Criticized, he was not welcomed by towns near. Citizen’s were baffled and disgusted, ridiculing him daily, he did not impale with grieve over appearance. Enmity he wanted and craved. Among the works of flesh, square inch niches, repugnance revealed. Revenge, revenge. Vindictive spirit shelled so timely and calm. Remaining this state of sumptuous integrity made him stronger each go about. These goes were so stimulus, adding to the *** of hatred. Deep into the tundra’s most vile he intruded. Went so every month or few, for weeks at a time. For this sheet of rigid earth so contiguous to the town made the worried weary, the skeptical seared, and the nautical not so knitted with directional sense. This was his consummation of gathering. The place of being a being. The dry winter amid eight months was restricted, so the moment a due mustn’t be bothered. He had his reason of validness for course. A rich succulent from the bearings of plant life on cliffs. Repelling an obstacle such as was ludicrous for even one born the ever so adequate and society defined norm. Now having a tongue with a horn, some sought might as well die to be reborn. He had to, to stay alive. The liquid, which sit so treacherous, was the mold to mouth medicine. To speak at all it must be attained. Not only a curdling death trap waiting to swallow, the boy had to get a plentiful amount for the hard hitting winters collied. His tongue could swell like the storms, loud crimson on the esophagus. To die of asphyxiation was his dodge of ultimatum.
While passing by a local television in a thrift shop-
“Today’s Newscast: Blizzards, moving in at speeds of 94 mph. Predicted to cover like a blanket for 12 months. Ice Age relative people, this one is gonna be big! Stay indoors at night, the barometric’s indicate that from 9PM to 4AM temperatures as low as 28- will stouten for the next year. Once again people, stay indoors at these hours, get your needs when available. Back to you Ronda with the quintuplets birth today!”
Plucked and grit witted he stood. He felt the trepidation of abhorrence swaying in orbit around him. How to emanate from this delay? At least five clones of self did not exist for him. Merriment struct pro, while the cons derived from which they know. Exultation when despondent, how greatly that gift could gab. Despoilment of that, he weighed options out. To altercate thick snow or simply, let it go. Afraid to die unrivaled, the off cutting is wisest. Since his first second to now he’s flourished with his horn. Obliteration to the occulted manifestation mannered as an antique replica of anyone catching him by twice by day. Remove it, remove it, remove if you want life in your years that follow. Remove it, ever so. Remove it, cut and sew. Cut and sew. Remove.
This plateau poisoned place stay calm, anticipating climate of tempest bold reaches, anyone who was anyone was not so. Negative degrees. How could he retaliate the opposite, while acquiring a surgeon field hay day buck builder? Eruption turns the wave of cons. An only equal precision, deciding, tonight is the night. To assemble the tools, publicly was questionable, no more, through. He will emerge to the lands and people a new man, sustained, and hornless. No more. From scratch he will vender what’s needed. Wood was chiseled under the last moon viewed for three sixty three days ahead. Uprooted vines of old pine will hold the bark tight. Breath revealing around the outsides of his appendage. Like a fork in the road, which way can you go, for him air strides both. Scuffling fearful towards the pike of the tundra, he is where wanted by none. A be all end all as you could alleviate ones slightest sympathy, the courage it takes, ****** immense. His sweat was not seen, but there it consists. One hand grappled around his earthly dagger, tongue positioned in an outward arrangement. Travail glowing all over him as an aura unlanguid with no disruption veering. Abound now, without great weight on his shoulders, he’s lived. Ascending keen eyes towards the blood bath around his feet, going both ways around the fork and road. After relinquishing his steady gavel, the checking of his pulse is counted. 5, 6, 7, 8, seconds, still life to live. For the very first ritual to come, placed in his mouth, the tongue. The rigid roof so unfamiliar and new he bestowed in his joy of such a common flank. The tundra felt warm as he inside let over pour. Once more a milder gasp as he vociferates to the last moon for the year. On his peak, and favored place of being, he let out his tongue. Sharp inclement so hawkish and frosted he felt. The lilliputian of no pain, heeded by first snow to wane.

tropical breeze waves washed upon a
soothsayer sand beach whispering love poems between each sigh

seagull clouds baying from above
lustrous sunshine massaging with temperate beams

beneath the waves, turtles twist in tubular turnabouts
bright coral and jaded fish teem in the reef

shimmering sunshine shining through waves
casting shadows and light amongst an oceanic spectrum

we flit through the ocean as foreigners and locals
tiny air bubbles pressing from our lips

unlike the denizens filtering through the reef
we press up to the surface and break through for breath

exiting the ocean of life, we wash upon the shore
driftboards sewn together in matrimony

our clam shelled hands interwoven in the fabric of our souls
sand pressed between to make a glistening pearl

i sit up while you lay down on our thin towels
falling asleep with an upward curve on your lips

i trace my finger down your back like pencil to paper
drawing each crevice, perfection, and blemish

on the landscape of your body

a faint breeze ghosts through the swaying palm trees
dolphins nonchalantly diving through the air and ocean

***** scuttling along the precipice of the sea and sand
waves washing the crooked edges of stones

amongst this equilibrium we are infinite
soaking up this portrait life like a sea sponge

in these moments we are infinite
moments we imagined we had

Ah! how the memory of

those pretty green eyes

enlighten my senses

making them parallel to

round ***** of safety.



Ah! how those eyes

regurgitate and bounce

pupils widening whenever

my eyes meet their gaze

wavering and moving from

person to person in an intimate crowded group setting.



Ah! how those eyes

which resemble soft moss

or the slick flesh of kiwis

stare at mine catching like how

flypaper catches mosquitoes

accidentally but intentionally

awkwardly but inventively

and ultimately intentionally.



Ah! how the memory of

those pretty green eyes

throw me off balance

when they lock into mine

and for a good ten seconds

merging a little too long

unnoticed by the crowd.


Ah! how those eyes

are like ghosts in my

memories so valid and

plausible they seem to

drift yet knowing they

will be seen tonight

creates a fidgety hope

splintered and shaking

within this hubris heart.



Ah! how those eyes

are framed by the

curliest of lashes

so cute they bloom

ripe smiles within this

here empty chest cavity

which seems to be defeated

at the moment but somehow

waiting to witness

orbs of stegosaurus skin

shelled and shellacked and unbuckled am i

at just a smack.



Ah! how those eyes

are like a slap

to my psyche.

Every part a swirling mass

of unabridged uncertainty.

And no matter how it seems

those irises of gold and green

will always be downright dainty.

I am an artist and you are a muse,
you **** for coke while I drown in *****.
I sketch out my fantasies, paint all my dreams,
reject all good reason for hopes that would seem
like the thoughts of a madman to anyone boring,
but I watch it happen till 4 in the morning
in my head as I play it out time after time,
what should I have said, what was going through your mind
when just two weeks before, we spent hours in your bed,
then your chair which then led
to the wall and your floor where you begged me for more
then you turned back your head, said I'm so ******* wet
that it's dripping down my leg.

But when passion was spent and gave way to exhaustion,
we lay there entwined, not a thought went to caution.
My arms held you close before you took my hands
and wrapped up my fingers with yours, as the bands
on your phone played us music to be just a background
as we talked for hours and then laughed as I found
that I could have stayed in that moment.

This time, two weeks later, that moment is gone,
like it never existed, I hope that I'm wrong,
but you seem to already have made up your mind
that you don't want to try and repeat the same kind
of day that we shared just two weeks before,
now I fear that I've fallen for simply a *****.
Did you try to deceive me? I'm just not quite sure,
for the last time I saw you it truly felt more
than a meaningless hookup.

But you are a beautiful, self obsessed muse,
I forgot that it's just in your nature to use
all the poor souls like me who fall head over heels
for your empty shelled beauty that easily steals
away all sense of reason.

But thank you for giving me this inspiration,
this outlet for me to pour all my emotion
that's trapped up inside that I usually can't find
the right voice to express it, it's not just a choice
for an artist to sit down to write or to paint
the next work that they have to get out 'fore they faint
from the feeling of heartbreak or something as simple
as the joy that we feel when we see the dimple
appear on your cheek when that smile comes across
your face and it purely leaves us at a loss
for words.

There's nothing worse than spending every second thinking about someone, knowing that they're not spending a second thinking about you.

But I am an artist, what else can I do?

Truth a Stinging Bee Compassion promotes
Was ever by Chance I try to Avoid
But asking for such from your direct Mote
Was in fact Soothing as much as a Toy
Shelled? Yes as far as I have just observed
Those charmed Somniloquies your Voice expressed
In Art, why not? Mosaics are much conserved
Though tiled in Paradise of Colours concessed
Calming this haply your Passion consumes
Amongst Events the Water soothes and calms
Direct Object Happy; Go put out the Fumes
Which blinds Good Fish spitting Coins for their Alms.
Still this Summary chose you for your Grace
For me, next Spell, will adapt to your Face.

I was born on a Zodiac cusp
on the 23rd of July 1997.
I am Cancer, The crab.
I am Leo, The Lion.

Sometimes I feel small,
prey to mighty predators.
But I can hide
and I have claws
so please don't try to hurt me.

I am brave, confident and proud.
I roar with fierceness,
but it is nothing, just a sound.
I am strong and fast,
I am the king of thousands.

I am hard-shelled but fierce.
I can hide or I can hunt.
I can crawl or I can run.
I seem small but I am big.

I have a strong jaw and sharp claws
I wear my crown proudly
for I am the king of beasts
but I am far from it.

A lonely man,
alone he stands,
crying deep into his hands,
his life shelled in a can,
seeing life, and so he ran,
tears separating into strands,
his name never spoken of over the lands,
he is a lonely man.

His life is boring and awful too,
his joy short and brief like a word,
he hopes to meet something one day,
but he already knows he will rue,
the day he isn’t socially absurd,
so now he lives in dismay.

One ever hangs where shelled roads part.
In this war He too lost a limb,
But His disciples hide apart;
And now the Soldiers bear with Him.

Near Golgotha strolls many a priest,
And in their faces there is pride
That they were flesh-marked by the Beast
By whom the gentle Christ's denied

The scribes on all the people shove
And bawl allegiance to the state,
But they who love the greater love
Lay down their life; they do not hate

Her eyes are the stained glass broken from confession.
Her withered hair buried beneath dirt gravel.
Her forbidden mind fosters slobs of crazy.
Her mind is a battlefield of Trojan takeover.
Her bare feet remember sacred ground of tainted memories.
Her ears embrace the screech of still weather.
Her grapefruit mouth juiced with venom is tasteless.
her sharp egg shelled fingertips woven from braids of straw.
Her body is the Earthquake ruptured by the vibrations of collision.
Her thoughts trespass gated abandonment
Her firework pen exploding with gunpowder secrets.
Her gunpowder secrets deterring the sanity.
Her cracked lips cobweb from silenced words.
Her puppet stringed smile puts on a show to the audienced world.
Her soul has been toyed with by the cynical Fates.
Her echo without direction is a heartbroken drum line.
Her armor has been dowsed with sharp, penetrating words.
Her skin has painted stories interior to her porcelain frame.
Her soulless story can be dry swallowed by rocks.
Her tears bleed of whispered screams.

Lobsters
@2014 Linda Barrett

They sit in the cramped corners
of the water tank
face each other
armored claws bound
with thick rubber bands
These shelled warriors
take on boxer’s stances
wait  their chance
to attack each other
in impromptu bouts
They step over one another
pick fights for dominance
of their watery ring
Some desperate crustaceans
decide to make their escape
reach out for the tank’s top
but fall over backwards
onto each other
Those lucky ones
usually win
when the Seafood man
in his white coat
pulls them out
makes the champions
of someone’s dinner.

My momma taught me to be early at the airport
She taught me how to prepare for court
How to dress for an interview
And to pay bills before they’re due
I learned a lot from her
The list goes on for sure
How to throw a punch
And to always pack a lunch
Organize and keep your stuff clean
Carry with you anything you might need
My momma taught me to have passion
Also when to fold and cash in
Good things here and there
Small bits when she was able to care
Most importantly though
I learned emotions not to show
How to care for a grown adult
And how to hide emotional assault
How to duck under an object thrown
I learned to grow up on my own
She taught me much and taught me well
How to let go of heaven and live in hell
To follow all her commands
To believe her words and mental scams
My momma taught me to go numb
God forbid I let my anger come
I had to let words fly by and disappear
Bite my tongue and always stay clear
Of the things thrown or words yelled
I couldn’t be me so my feelings I shelled
Closed up and shut down, I bow
My momma taught me how

I am grateful for what I’ve learned
To let go of everything I yearned
Nothing for me, myself, or I
I crave attention now, I wonder why?
I am searching to be a Queen
Not to rule, I just want to be seen
Look at me and what I can do
See me, hear me and I’ll show you
What I know and how I learned
Understand me for I have yearned
To be supported and guided through
If only back then a way out I knew
If only I had gotten out before
A successful life I could adore
A peaceful mind without scare
I could actually feel and care
Instead I am numb and closed down
I am being held until I drowne
Suffocated by my past
Pain that continues to last
Through adulthood and life
It affects me now a mom and wife
I am broken because of you
Because of everything I learned to do
I had to let words fly by and disappear
Bite my tongue and always stay clear
Of the things thrown or words yelled
I couldn’t be me so my feelings I shelled
Closed up and shut down, I bow
Because my momma taught me how

I.
On February 5th I am told
that I am best when built
from spruces; later that day,
in the basement, I find
my father’s fingerprints
deep inside the wooden floors.

II.
The next day Mother
haunts my bedroom
like expired medicine.
Her arms are wide
and pregnant and encircle
my wrists like toothy wires.

III.
In my room hangs
a photograph from
camp: the girl’s body is an altar.
Highways line her arms. Small
green snakes weave through
her teeth the way my toes
now weave through salt.  

IV.
It was after that summer
that I turned spirals, that
the ridges in my throat
grew deeper. Now I am

V.
an icy church.

She is salty lipped ocean throat
Warm morning fog
Mixing with her overcast

I want to place my head on her treasure chest
Listen to her wet ruby cascade and thump
A metronome for people who dance lightly

She is a mildly ******* mermaid
Born with the deformity of legs

We were all born a little bit broken
I tell her

I know you’re a body of water I want to drown in
When home feels like it’s so much bigger than these four walls
But not much stronger than the skin I’m in

So here’s to jumping off cliffs
With the hope to land a little painfully
So evolution might give me the wings I was meant to be born with

She walks like a riptide
Often risks drowning in the off chance

Nature might be kind enough to understand
What it really means to have sea legs

This is for the soft shelled crab
Who was tired of the heaviness of home

For the mockingbirds who never studied music
So they copy sound
Sometimes really annoying sound
But they hear the beauty regardless

For the Dumbo Octopus
Who clearly watched too much classic Disney

The beluga whale who can crane its neck
When its sonar song of home is not enough
To know their kids are coming back to them

For the penguins
Who are fine being flightless
Because they’d much rather swim

They didn’t think it was stupid
When they wished they could be different

And she is the ocean
Hips sway like a high tide approaching
Hiding sirens’ secrets
Skeletons in her closet
Lovers who have lost
And drown in her pitch black

She wears the water like a second skin
Smiles like the wind is pressing back her cheeks

She chokes on sea water
Drowns a little
With the hope that this place might feel more like home

Sometimes home is the hardest place to get to
But there’s nothing wrong with going home

He, miles from home is tired and alone, his body worn and ravaged by cancer. This treatment, though over but a moment too late, he arrives at the station as the last bus home rolls out of sight.

The next not till morning, his body fatiguing, his weary head needs a resting place. But like the story of old, he’s turned away; to this disfigured soul seems there’s no more room at the inn this night.

A border house owner, on her front porch she finds him, begging for a place to rest his soul. “I don’t need a bed, I’ll just sit here instead. With a face like mine marred," he said, "I know I create quite a fright."

But with compassion compelling, she finds herself telling him, “Sir, be of good cheer, please stay with me here. I’ll give you a bed for your weary head; yes, here you’ll be safe until morning light.”  

Said he, “Don’t know where to begin, but my condition of skin, gives others chagrin. Please, don’t think me rude, but I won’t need any food; just a small safe corner I would prefer, for in the morn I’ll be travelin’ home."

Later that evening, they talk for a spell. Her respect for him growing, as to his tell she sits listening; finds herself knowing that deep in this heart runs a pure river flowing, a body so frail, his heart has outgrown.

Home, is a daughter, with five hungry mouths; her husband disabled, unable to walk. He their provider with a fisherman’s rod, his own condition an afterthought. No word of complaint, only thankful instead, making her grateful to have heard his tome.  

Sure as promised, next morning she finds him, sheets neatly folded there on his bed.  As he is leaving she hears him asking,”Ma’am, may I return to this room?  While others reject me, you’re willing to accept me; last night left me grateful I wasn’t alone.”  

And return he did, with accompaniment of fish and oysters shelled fresh as his gift.  As his kindness she pondered she couldn’t but wonder at the hour of his awakening, for with shelling and travel, it left precious little for sleep.

Months they passed by and his visits continued and even when absent his thanks persisted, by parcel his gift from the sea would arrive, wrapped in spinach or kale, then packaged and mailed, each one showing his gratitude deep.

“Did you board that man with awful appearance?” a neighbor’s voice broke through her daydreams one day. Truth rose up inside, she had nothing to hide as she answered. “Any losses I suffered are smaller than gains, for lessons like these don’t come cheap.”

“See… these Mums that today bloom in my garden were once merely seeds, easily forgotten. But planted and watered they grew, in an old dented pail most would've discarded. But once strong and grown tall, I gently transplanted them allowing their beauty to beam.”

And here she reflected on thoughts that were tumbling, she found herself grateful for this enlightening: a lesson here offered, one others had missed, this remarkable teacher others dismissed; one teacher uncommon gave her life lessons, these three...

*1. Don’t judge a book by its cover, or silence the teacher before the lesson begins. 2. Let gratitude flow as an unending response. 3. Our Father often places His best seed, in an old dented pail where it grows in test; then gently is lifted to bloom in His garden, its legacy gleaming for all here to see.

Eggs.
Eggs have an equality about them, I know worked on a farm
collected them put them on a tray, each one had thirty eggs
they all had the same size, but some eggs had shells slightly
darker than others boiled they tasted the same.
There is a possibility that someone once said brown eggs
where somehow inferior, one had a better chance find two
yolks in a white shelled egg, we ended up with two prices
for eggs, the white ones for breakfast, the brown ones for
omelette. When I was an officer in the merchant navy I bought
brown eggs mostly because they were cheaper.
This has come to an end eggs are now mixed there is no choice,
but in the end they all taste the same.

My pulse is slowed by the tide
that sighs twice daily
over the sparkling mud,
a slow scatter of wading birds at its heels.

Inhale and brambles dot the hedgerow,
purpling our mouths -
exhale and the snowdrops are back,
advance guard of a trumpetting spring
as the circling bay holds the circling year
in its silver grey water.

Our house plays host
to dramas and dreams
but they are beautifully small
in the middle of this
and I have never been so at home.

The trees planted themselves decades ago
in preparation for our boys.
The sea rose and fell for shelled and pebbled eons
that there might be the perfect clatter
when Fergus leaps from the rocks and runs
into the waves
and if three cars go by
within an hour
we say, "Christ, it's busy today!"

This, and us, is home.

~
"Satellite, oh, satellite
who sits upon our skies
how deep do you see
when you spy into our lives?"

This is for when
coyote called
into the ether
connecting heaven to earth
For when
glasnost sang
and velvet revolution
twinkled in the humming air

This is for when
the quiet hedges
of lilies and remains
came out of darkness
For when
the misty curtain man
shopping for codes and antiquities
poisoned the salt shakers

This is for when
a spy in an alcove
twisting the thermos tops
to his dark-eyed sister
shelled the transmitters
of Radio Free Europe
For when
his wife refused

This is for when
working in the glass structure
of a Cold War
made spider and I
a measured room
an arc of doves
For when
the last step from the surface
was the end of a thin cord
~

This time I will make sure to look into your eyes when you are talking to me ....
But next time I will make sure to talk to you when I am looking into your eyes.....

This time I will make sure to laugh at your silly jokes....
But next time I will make sure to make silly jokes on your laughter.....

This time I will make sure to listen all your blabber...
But next time I will make sure to blabber to listen me....

This time I will make sure to agree with everyone.....
But next time I will make sure that everyone will agree with me....

This time I will make sure to be shelled by your breaks.......
But next time I will make sure to break all those shells.....

MY MASCULINE CLAWS OF MELODIC UNREST

DO MAKE ME SCOWL THE BARREN EARTH

LOOKING FOR MATE TO MATE WITH ME

SO HER OFFSPRING WILL HAVE SLIGHT OF ME

MY CUMBERSOME BODY SHELL ABOVE

DUSTY GROUND HER SMELLS I FOUND

MAKES ME KNOW I AM CLOSE

SO CLOSE TO MY QUARRY

YET HERE NOW ON THIS CRUEL ISLAND

A MALE HITS ME SIDEWAYS

NOW I AM ON MY BACK

AND DYING IN THE MIDDAY SUN

By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris