on moonstone slab Manmata flames again
from out of ashes rises, gloating unfinality of Shiva's dance
reincarnate offering of endless Self
in Lakshmi's avatar
a fateful prince's heart to lance

and lanced his heart her visage did,
                                                     though with vaster pinions fully pierced was she, in depths
                                                          ­                                                                 ­                 without rivalry~

his lust was sharp to invite solitude,
but easy to conceal,
he imagined cupping her against him,
scoured memory of upward glimpse,
inch  by  inch
with added imagery, invention moulding her
beneath his grasp
from forehead curls along
glowing skin and eyes
to curving, palatially appareled ******* . . .
her open lips . . .  her hips
--but after, merely to dismiss
and even sleep a bit
and quip inside at irony
to be at mercy
of a girl in flowers
when he with arrows demons lay to rest
(though she would, within the selfsame hours lose her wits ;)

in cityscape descried the triad:
gold dome gifts for sky
in shining generosity
Mithila's people overflow with joy
exuding free abundance carelessly--
jewelry loosed on playful street
from overkeen embrace, is left to lie;
loss in ever-present wealth nigh obsolete

musth of elephant, froth of steed,
floral garlands tangle, line and mix
for clouds of honey-bees to lick their feast.
a bustling of virile acrobatic populace--
symphonic mux of chaos tressed,
metropolis of idylls coalesced;
drums, races, grinning faces flinging courtship,
smirking merchants under wigs
bathers splash exotic fish to flit and weave
while ballads sift for higher pitch of love

from elevated terrace ladies prance
and watching from an inner spire
the princess spies her prince--
emerald shoulders, lotus-petal eyes
Vaikunta hidden from their mortal sight
but straining recognition there,
a union ageless as the stars
inspired suddenly another first:
Rama's transfixed stare she feels and meets,
strangers locked entwining glances
--fated simultaneous-- electric heat   like
from a planet sparking for the taste of outer space --
the lightning burns its mark ensouled
in blooms beyond her ripe, anthophilous form,
verdant visions planted in the rays of light
between two instant loves
to slip inside the eyelid entrance
and evermore impregnate with a glory ill,
as separation wills,
to colonize throughout with other Being there
phantasmal yearnings of entrancing elegance
--from dawn of time instilled, akashic script
of binding hurt with joy in love's embrace
condemn desire to a writhing term
when not imbibing such togetherness
a worldless crypt preferred

and so as swift as gymnast flip to fall
the heart is gushing toxic lack,
epic ventricles the viscose tug
in fluid inspiration wrote of Sita's
sudden addict gnashing inner plight
while slips the sight interred within the crowd,
as if a sorcerer the cosmic sea to play her destiny:
the waves inside enraged to overwhelm
the sudden coral crust beneath the swell
an unmarked seaside's lavish drown unto the land
and reeling send this fragile ******
into wilting, her floral haze to drooping fell...
        in revelatory crash of passion's oceanic weight...
attendants pamper uselessly
--from swoon to mood irate
to wait until the next appearance of her mortal god
the only one to sate the shameless need
entwining up within a clenching wrack of milky fits
from bed to sweaty bed they take the burning maiden~
the outer sea inflow in calming dusk meant nothing to the agony of new romance
                       sequestered in hymenic fire, dawning brilliant
                                                       ­                                omni chakral pierce in rays,
                                                                ­                                                              tot­ality relentlessness
and therein descry a wholeness
  yet unregained
a hopeless birdsong careless as the wind
in caring strokes of pollen redolence
for forest ears an endless vibrate mate
of elemental ease the simmer float
upon the dukkha broil paths embroidery of karmic
cookery the godly recipe invoked,
gibed her without cease,
****** flare eternal guna coals to stoke
and spite her with their peace,
for her attainment only next to he
the moon communes the message blinding clear
amid the ghee her girls would light in care
to soften her despair -- but only aggravate her state --
and so by dim refracted moondrops set,
in only gemlight, Sita basks in pain
her gaze entrained by night obsessively
while overhead the crescent hook beams
freely in to fertilize her all-too-chastely girdle there,
petals wilting under body pressed to slab of stone
as mounting groan on groan intones her writhing questioning
of whomever he could be to cast her moaning so
a deity in maidenhead unwitting of such otherlife
left by endless, anthrocosmos' whim to ache, and alone
in wonder scream abandonment from aether poise
confusion reigning noisome nescient choice


















.

poet, or philosopher, it doesn't really matter which is which, or whether the two are indistinguishable, notable in the former scenario, when someone has an eclectic bounty of interest is simply not love-scorned or love-nostalgic, love-idealistic, does it really matter? i was once called a philosopher: a teenage girl said in third person (as if she was a puppet and some-thing was moving her tongue): 'talk to this philosopher'... not in that sarcastic way that philosopher is an misnomer or an abused term of: self-gratifying grandeour, it was quiet genuine, but: imagine my shock... i had an ambition in life, it was to perform a service to thinking: without doing as much as hammering a nail into a plank of wood, that's the ambition of any thinking man: to borderline on telekinesis or telepathy... that was Hegel's modus operandi, his categorical imperative... after all: ego is a metaphysical tool, while thought is its metaphysical canvas... the mere suggestion that a copernican inversion can happen in physics "contra" metaphysics... it's already apparent, any word can behave like a hand touching the sacred object / subject of transfiguration and become something else, even a misnomer can find itself given solace to the user... for now i've forged a belief in the ultimate: away from the absolute in relation to omni in unum - one first has to learn to think, before having to learn to feel... mind you, i don't like the current nietzschean inversion of the cartesian equation: (ego) sum ergo (ego) cogito... esp. among the youtube political commentators, too many examples to give: i'm a classical liberal, i'm a progressive, i'm a liberterian... i don't really like seeing: i am, precede i think... i don't even like the origin-argument of this inversion: i exist for the sole purpose of thinking... after all: i think prior to being, since i can also daydream and not be what my thinking suspects as a possible truth-outcome... that's the nature of the freedom of thought: i don't have to be what i think, i can find thinking to be a pleasure, when the senses do not offer me any pleasure derivative, e.g. eating can sometimes be boring, chewing, chewing, *******... i eat because i need to live: i don't live to eat... i really have under-appreciated Hegel, i should really visit my grandparents for two months and read the phenomenology of the spirit: i'm trying to replicate the saying attributed to him (verbatim), but i doubt that i will, i don't have the patience to sift through all the quotes, but it goes along the lines of: beware oh wordly man, to not be a pawn in a thinking man's game... hence my suggestion of philosophy entering into the realms of telekinesis and telepathy: you get to see things play out and people express the origin story, of your own memetic generation of the original idea... how are poets finally alligned to philosophers? good thing that i studied chemistry at edinburgh university: we return to atoms, words are no longer enough, sure, they are, contrary to the statement...  (why did i under-appreciate Hegel? ah... had my head stuck up heidegger's and kant's *****...

  integration? great!
but i'll meet you halfway...
    i'll eat your fish & chips,
your englush breakfast,
  i won't sing your anthem: god save the queen,
****** anthem, too short,
but i will whistle through:
the british grenadiers' fife & drum...
like i might through la marseillaise...
i'll meet you halfway...
i'm not a former colony member,
commonwealth,
   i'm not some ****- paying bribes
to the british powers
to join in on a world cup of cricket...
this is what happens when immigration
turns sour...
they either lesrn the host tongue,
or they don't learn it...
or they can't distinguish the two:
speak polonaise at home,
speak the hosts' sprechen outside of it...

   if the ******* aren't suspect:
by not being bilingual...
the arab beatles... jihadi john...
          ringo star h'ahmed...
  george ali...
                paul mecca rashid...
oh i'll settle for integration...
but don't you ******* think i'll give
up my mother tongue
for "c.c.t.v." close-ups back home,
home being my private lodge...
like ******* will...
  i'll speak your tongue in public...
but i'm not ******* former commonwealth
****- riddled with a need to play
cricket, "forget" my tongue in order
to compensate for olives
              and sun-burnt bananas!

a former colony ****-**** is about
to dictate the rules for fellow
europeans, on the tram-ride from
Birmingham to Nottingham?
seriously?
        but of course the englishman
will favor the former colony pet bush-monkey
from sri lanka...
since the brit can't really dictate
to a fellow european his superiority
complex... which he can...
with a petted copper skinned
toy-ting...
who brought 'im a korma curry!
nice one, ol' laddy...
        right on the plonker...
                 i'm not finished!
                        i'm just getting started!

gehirnablassen:

perfectly respected immigration,
given that so many english girls just love
the attention their **** minders,
sexually abused,
not really making it as nurses
or... ahem... karaoke superstars
worth the while of britain's got talent
or voice of britain,
or...whatever the ****** show was
that gave birth to one direction...

so a.... brain-drain? good immigration?
the best!

i can sit awhile by myself and count...
1. the sparrows,
2. the swallow,
3. the starlings,
   4. the crows,
5. the magpies,
6. the pigeons,
7. the woodland pigeons
(fatter, with dog collars),
8. kestrels
  (one is enough to begin
the count)...
9. the blackbirds....
10. seagulls... seagulls?! 25 miles from
romford to southend! seagulls?!
this far in-land?! fair enough...
11. a robin...
                   12. goldfinch...
i just sit and watch these birds
in my garden, i sometimes spot
a darting frog in the garden,
i'm more english than the english...
i actually enjoy owning a garden...
the "english" surrounding me
exemplify a bbq. as a luxury parade...
what's so luxury about marinating
some meat, and then grilling it?!
please! enlightend me!

    gehirnablassen...
                   brain-drain immigration,
the type asiatic tiger-mums brag about
at child olympics...
   for the required rubric stature...
******* mothers, basically...

1. χaron χaos - cha-cha-cha       khaos
2. theaetetus - so / ma   letters / syllables:
     graphemes: sz phi theta
      compound syllables (caron s) - Na (sodium)
3. music choice...
       brain damage perturbator ft. noir deco
    virga iesse floruit, gradual of eleanor of
britanny...
4. pride / stubborness (not equal to) honour,
tolerating islam is not the same
as respceting islam...
   german 19th century fascination
with islam...
     θought and φilosophy...
   greek in warsaw, giving him directions,
talks: sounds so much like spanish...
5. england a nation of singletons,
idiosyncracy... social pressures in poland
and even in h'america missing in england
to marry...

1.

chamaleon tongue,                    shape shifter,
bez akcentu w piśmie - więciej akcentu poza pismem
(trainspotting scottish), welsh, cockney,
east london altogether, pakistani english, etc.
e.g. rather, or raver, i.e. not rayver
(someone who parties at night on ecstasy pill)
but ra'ver, like verging on a new discovery,
it's not even the = ~v but is actually v...
english is a chamaleon tongue, you say 'nostic
when you write gnostic, i say diagnostic,
therefore say gnostic, you say 'nome, i say gnome,
as cf. with diagnostic;
then there's the case of the per se:
you say chamaleon - no kappa there apperent, eh?
but there's chappie, chap, chuckles,
no kappa in a millionth chance
to also say nough'ledge for knowledge,
a bit like that gnome of yours...
as i said before: a language without
a written insertion of stressors / distinctions
will produce a massive array of diacritical
stressors / distinctions outside the written format,
but it will also become as complex as to
allow adults with learning difficulties e.g. dyslexia,
and that horrid internet slang of shortcuts:
i ate my 8 when i was late for my disco date
with the cha cha cha melon.

p.s. if there's a hay patch at the beginning, the nasal flute
will ask larry 'the lynx' saxophone to hark it out with rasp
gritting of phlegm... but if it's somewhere else down
the piccadilly line... it will act like a nudist spy and resonate
less than expected; probably mingling with f, i think.

A woman
who loves a woman
is forever young.
The mentor
and the student
feed off each other.
Many a girl
had an old aunt
who locked her in the study
to keep the boys away.
They would play rummy
or lie on the couch
and touch and touch.
Old breast against young breast...
Let your dress fall down your shoulder,
come touch a copy of you
for I am at the mercy of rain,
for I have left the three Christs of Ypsilanti
for I have left the long naps of Ann Arbor
and the church spires have turned to stumps.
The sea bangs into my cloister
for the politicians are dying,
and dying so hold me, my young dear,
hold me...

The yellow rose will turn to cinder
and New York City will fall in
before we are done so hold me,
my young dear, hold me.
Put your pale arms around my neck.
Let me hold your heart like a flower
lest it bloom and collapse.
Give me your skin
as sheer as a cobweb,
let me open it up
and listen in and scoop out the dark.
Give me your nether lips
all puffy with their art
and I will give you angel fire in return.
We are two clouds
glistening in the bottle galss.
We are two birds
washing in the same mirror.
We were fair game
but we have kept out of the cesspool.
We are strong.
We are the good ones.
Do not discover us
for we lie together all in green
like pond weeds.
Hold me, my young dear, hold me.

They touch their delicate watches
one at a time.
They dance to the lute
two at a time.
They are as tender as bog moss.
They play mother-me-do
all day.
A woman
who loves a woman
is forever young.


Once there was a witch's garden
more beautiful than Eve's
with carrots growing like little fish,
with many tomatoes rich as frogs,
onions as ingrown as hearts,
the squash singing like a dolphin
and one patch given over wholly to magic --
rampion, a kind of salad root
a kind of harebell more potent than penicillin,
growing leaf by leaf, skin by skin.
as rapt and as fluid as Isadoran Duncan.
However the witch's garden was kept locked
and each day a woman who was with child
looked upon the rampion wildly,
fancying that she would die
if she could not have it.
Her husband feared for her welfare
and thus climbed into the garden
to fetch the life-giving tubers.

Ah ha, cried the witch,
whose proper name was Mother Gothel,
you are a thief and now you will die.
However they made a trade,
typical enough in those times.
He promised his child to Mother Gothel
so of course when it was born
she took the child away with her.
She gave the child the name Rapunzel,
another name for the life-giving rampion.
Because Rapunzel was a beautiful girl
Mother Gothel treasured her beyond all things.
As she grew older Mother Gothel thought:
None but I will ever see her or touch her.
She locked her in a tow without a door
or a staircase. It had only a high window.
When the witch wanted to enter she cried"
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.
Rapunzel's hair fell to the ground like a rainbow.
It was as strong as a dandelion
and as strong as a dog leash.
Hand over hand she shinnied up
the hair like a sailor
and there in the stone-cold room,
as cold as a museum,
Mother Gothel cried:
Hold me, my young dear, hold me,
and thus they played mother-me-do.

Years later a prince came by
and heard Rapunzel singing her loneliness.
That song pierced his heart like a valentine
but he could find no way to get to her.
Like a chameleon he hid himself among the trees
and watched the witch ascend the swinging hair.
The next day he himself called out:
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,
and thus they met and he declared his love.
What is this beast, she thought,
with muscles on his arms
like a bag of snakes?
What is this moss on his legs?
What prickly plant grows on his cheeks?
What is this voice as deep as a dog?
Yet he dazzled her with his answers.
Yet he dazzled her with his dancing stick.
They lay together upon the yellowy threads,
swimming through them
like minnows through kelp
and they sang out benedictions like the Pope.

Each day he brought her a skein of silk
to fashion a ladder so they could both escape.
But Mother Gothel discovered the plot
and cut off Rapunzel's hair to her ears
and took her into the forest to repent.
When the prince came the witch fastened
the hair to a hook and let it down.
When he saw Rapunzel had been banished
he flung himself out of the tower, a side of beef.
He was blinded by thorns that prickled him like tacks.
As blind as Oedipus he wandered for years
until he heard a song that pierced his heart
like that long-ago valentine.
As he kissed Rapunzel her tears fell on his eyes
and in the manner of such cure-alls
his sight was suddenly restored.

They lived happily as you might expect
proving that mother-me-do
can be outgrown,
just as the fish on Friday,
just as a tricycle.
The world, some say,
is made up of couples.
A rose must have a stem.

As for Mother Gothel,
her heart shrank to the size of a pin,
never again to say: Hold me, my young dear,
hold me,
and only as she dreamed of the yellow hair
did moonlight sift into her mouth.

Blowing in the wind,
Smells of salt; a hazy mist,
Sands of time run through sands so fine,
Damp with the tide that crashed like a fist,
The sun on the horizon starts to fade.

Cold and crisp, we sift through the waves,
Capped ice; a foaming delight,
They fill the air with sounds so fair,
Our toes fall through the water like an anchor,
The light falls and the night reigns.

Fingers upon fingers, playing on their own,
We fall through the air; cutting the sky,
My back to the earth, yours to the moon,
Our gaze locks like lovers leading light between us,
The sounds of the world come alive.

A gentle caress against skin so soft,
A kindled embrace, rolling against sand so coarse,
Passions flair in the darkness, the night breathes heavy,
As the ocean kisses the sands, so too our lips,
Whispers and sighs cut through the crashing flood.

All.

I, All-Creation, sing my song of praise
To God Who made me and vouchsafes my days,
And sends me forth by multitudinous ways.

  Seraph.

I, like my Brethren, burn eternally
With love of Him Who is Love, and loveth me;
The Holy, Holy, Holy Unity.

  Cherub.

I, with my Brethren, gaze eternally
On Him Who is Wisdom, and Who knoweth me;
The Holy, Holy, Holy Trinity.

  All Angels.

We rule, we serve, we work, we store His treasure,
Whose vessels are we, brimmed with strength and pleasure;
Our joys fulfil, yea, overfill our measure.

  Heavens.

We float before the Presence Infinite,
We cluster round the Throne in our delight,
Revolving and rejoicing in God's sight.

  Firmament.

I, blue and beautiful, and framed of air,
At sunrise and at sunset grow most fair;
His glory by my glories I declare.

  Powers.

We Powers are powers because He makes us strong;
Wherefore we roll all rolling orbs along,
We move all moving things, and sing our song.

  Sun.

I blaze to Him in mine engarlanding
Of rays, I flame His whole burnt-offering,
While as a bridegroom I rejoice and sing.

  Moon.

I follow, and am fair, and do His Will;
Through all my changes I am faithful still,
Full-orbed or strait, His mandate to fulfil.

  Stars.

We Star-hosts numerous, innumerous,
Throng space with energy untumultuous,
And work His Will Whose eye beholdeth us.

  Galaxies and Nebulae.

No thing is far or near; and therefore we
Float neither far nor near; but where we be
Weave dances round the Throne perpetually.

  Comets and Meteors.

Our lights dart here and there, whirl to and fro,
We flash and vanish, we die down and glow;
All doing His Will Who bids us do it so.

  Showers.

We give ourselves; and be we great or small,
Thus are we made like Him Who giveth all,
Like Him Whose gracious pleasure bids us fall.

  Dews.

We give ourselves in silent secret ways,
Spending and spent in silence full of grace;
And thus are made like God, and show His praise.

  Winds.

We sift the air and winnow all the earth;
And God Who poised our weights and weighs our worth
Accepts the worship of our solemn mirth.

  Fire.

My power and strength are His Who fashioned me,
Ordained me image of His Jealousy,
Forged me His weapon fierce exceedingly.

  Heat.

I glow unto His glory, and do good:
I glow, and bring to life both bud and brood;
I glow, and ripen harvest-crops for food.

  Winter and Summer.

Our wealth and joys and beauties celebrate
His wealth of beauty Who sustains our state,
Before Whose changelessness we alternate.

  Spring and Autumn.

I hope,--
          And I remember,--

                            We give place
Either to other with contented grace,
Acceptable and lovely all our days.

  Frost.

I make the unstable stable, binding fast
The world of waters prone to ripple past:
Thus praise I God, Whose mercies I forecast.

  Cold.

I rouse and goad the slothful, apt to nod,
I stir and urge the laggards with my rod:
My praise is not of men, yet I praise God.

  Snow.

My whiteness shadoweth Him Who is most fair,
All spotless: yea, my whiteness which I wear
Exalts His Purity beyond compare.

  Vapors.

We darken sun and moon, and blot the day,
The good Will of our Maker to obey:
Till to the glory of God we pass away.

  Night.

Moon and all stars I don for diadem
To make me fair: I cast myself and them
Before His feet, Who knows us gem from gem.

  Day.

I shout before Him in my plenitude
Of light and warmth, of hope and wealth and food;
Ascribing all good to the Only Good.

  Light and Darkness.

I am God's dwelling-place,--
                              And also I
Make His pavilion,--
                      Lo, we bide and fly
Exulting in the Will of God Most High.

  Lightning and Thunder.

We indivisible flash forth His Fame,
We thunder forth the glory of His Name,
In harmony of resonance and flame.

  Clouds.

Sweet is our store, exhaled from sea or river:
We wear a rainbow, praising God the Giver
Because His mercy is for ever and ever.

  Earth.

I rest in Him rejoicing: resting so
And so rejoicing, in that I am low;
Yet known of Him, and following on to know.

  Mountains.

Our heights which laud Him, sink abased before
Him higher than the highest evermore:
God higher than the highest we adore.

  Hills.

We green-tops praise Him, and we fruitful heads,
Whereon the sunshine and the dew He sheds:
We green-tops praise Him, rising from out beds.

  Green Things.

We all green things, we blossoms bright or dim,
Trees, bushes, brushwood, corn and grasses slim,
We lift our many-favored lauds to Him.

  Rose,--Lily,--Violet.

I praise Him on my thorn which I adorn,--
And I, amid my world of thistle and thorn,--
And I, within my veil where I am born.

  Apple,--Citron,--Pomegranate.

We, Apple-blossom, Citron, Pomegranate,
We, clothed of God without our toil and fret,
We offer fatness where His Throne is set.

  Vine,--Cedar,--Palm.

I proffer Him my sweetness, who am sweet,--
I bow my strength in fragrance at His feet,--
I wave myself before His Judgment Seat.

  Medicinal Herbs.

I bring refreshment,--
                      I bring ease and calm,--
I lavish strength and healing,--
                                I am balm,--
We work His pitiful Will and chant our psalm.

  A Spring.

Clear my pure fountain, clear and pure my rill,
My fountain and mine outflow deep and still,
I set His semblance forth and do His Will.

  Sea.

To-day I praise God with a sparkling face,
My thousand thousand waves all uttering praise:
To-morrow I commit me to His Grace.

  Floods.

We spring and swell meandering to and fro,
From height to depth, from depth to depth we flow,
We fertilize the world, and praise Him so.

  Whales and Sea Mammals.

We Whales and Monsters gambol in His sight
Rejoicing every day and every night,
Safe in the tender keeping of His Might.

  Fishes.

Our fashions and our colors and our speeds
Set forth His praise Who framed us and Who feeds,
Who knows our number and regards our needs.

  Birds.

Winged Angels of this visible world, we fly
To sing God's praises in the lofty sky;
We scale the height to praise our Lord most High.

  Eagle and Dove.

I the sun-gazing Eagle,--
                          I the Dove,
With plumes of softness and a note of love,--
We praise by divers gifts One God above.

  Beasts and Cattle.

We forest Beasts,--
                    We Beasts of hill or cave,--
We border-loving Creatures of the wave,--
We praise our King with voices deep and grave.

  Small Animals.

God forms us weak and small, but pours out all
We need, and notes us while we stand or fall:
Wherefore we praise Him, weak and safe and small.

  Lamb.

I praise my loving Lord, Who maketh me
His type by harmless sweet simplicity:
Yet He the Lamb of lambs incomparably.

  Lion.

I praise the Lion of the Royal Race,
Strongest in fight and swiftest in the chase:
With all my might I leap and lavish praise.

  All Men.

All creatures sing around us, and we sing:
We bring our own selves as our offering,
Our very selves we render to our King.

  Israel.

Flock of our Shepherd's pasture and His fold,
Purchased and well-beloved from days of old,
We tell His praise which still remains untold.

  Priests.

We free-will Shepherds tend His sheep, and feed;
We follow Him while caring for their need;
We follow praising Him, and them we lead.

  Servants of God.

We love God, for He loves us; we are free
In serving Him, who serve Him willingly:
As kings we reign, and praise His Majesty.

  Holy and Humble Persons.

All humble souls he calls and sanctifies;
All holy souls He calls to make them wise;
Accepting all, His free-will sacrifice.

  Babes.

He maketh me,--
                And me,--
                          And me,--
                                  To be
His blessed little ones around His knee,
Who praise Him by mere love confidingly.

  Women.

God makes our service love, and makes our wage
Love: so we wend on patient pilgrimage,
Extolling Him by love from age to age.

  Men.

God gives us power to rule: He gives us power
To rule ourselves, and prune the exuberant flower
Of youth, and worship Him hour after hour.

  Spirits and Souls--

Lo, in the hidden world we chant our chant
To Him Who fills us that we nothing want,
To Him Whose bounty leaves our craving scant.

  of Babes--

With milky mouths we praise God, from the breast
Called home betimes to rest the perfect rest,
By love and joy fufilling His behest.

  of Women--

We praise His Will which made us what He would,
His Will which fashioned us and called us good,
His Will our plenary beatitude.

  of Men.

We praise His Will Who bore with us so long,
Who out of weakness wrought us swift and strong,
Champions of right and putters-down of wrong.

  All.

Let everything that hath or hath not breath,
Let days and endless days, let life and death,
Praise God, praise God, praise God, His creature saith.

Amid the verbose magicians
Seeking kinships
And sailing deep into their arduous mists
Watching them peddle their afternoon
To a handful of smiling children holding their breath
Amazed in gentle body trick

The older men of age
Leaning deep into their creased chins
Stroking the grizzled fat
Blinding light of soul
Staring down the barrel of life
Striking the enemy one last time
And yet smiling
sober,
Met of match,
taking care of their kids.

Then there's the cold-clocked dudes
On the phone pushing buttons
In a button-up raglan
Lost indistinct
the promised land
The golden shores swept away by
inconvenient time
Left shopping in an auto mall
"Won't you look at the time?"
7.07 APR
Boy what a steal!
And Steve maddened and screamed
As the lines blurred instinctual between opposing teams
And the oven dinged a great alabaster slant
Leaning towards the new millenitants

Rise up!
***** the wheel
Turn the axel from pistons
To alkaline metal
And doubt with great monumental
Quality
That the machine borders all
And we cannot retreat

And while I sift bouyantly between the waves
Searching the puzzle piece within the molecules
Reconnecting with the things
And representing
dreams on a 66 hertz screen
I call rather failing
Towards a black rocked shore
Towards the sweet Dorigen
Of my dreams
Finding an integral of time
And space

And calculating the intangible *****
Of my desmise
With the imaginary constiutent
Of that lighted mind.

You do not deserve to know everything about me
I am a yellow tulip amongst red roses
Come closer, you may like what you find
Come closer, you may find that you don't

I will not make any promises that I am any good
Although unassuming externally, you may find that
when you sift through my petals,
that when all is said and done,
I am nothing more than an ugly lie
And I will not care

I do not live or die for anyone
The Earth is my Mother
The Sun, my Father
I will grow whether you water me or not
My life will be the buzzing of the bees, the rainy days, the occasional bunny nibbling on my fragile leaves
I will die when the ground is tired of my presence
I will wilt because it was meant to be
Not because I was crushed by the unforgiving sole of your shoe

Destroy me.


I will always grow back.

the niggly nasty narcissist
who keeps you off the road insists- to stay in all your thoughts he sits and strips your magical mind to bits with all his games and all his grifts a punch a preach consider the junk he's ******* sift, mist or haze
send him away
cause your wisdom yo its better than this,
so think - the ways to rip this spit
im a free man now
peel the author away from this
blow your mind !
just to see the way that i can outline this
and keep myself a verse afar from all your ****

THE SINS of Kalamazoo are neither scarlet nor crimson.
  
The sins of Kalamazoo are a convict gray, a dishwater drab.
  
And the people who sin the sins of Kalamazoo are neither scarlet nor crimson.
  
They run to drabs and grays-and some of them sing they shall be washed whiter than snow-and some: We should worry.
  
Yes, Kalamazoo is a spot on the map
And the passenger trains stop there
And the factory smokestacks smoke
And the grocery stores are open Saturday nights
And the streets are free for citizens who vote
And inhabitants counted in the census.
Saturday night is the big night.
  Listen with your ears on a Saturday night in Kalamazoo
  And say to yourself: I hear America, I hear, what do I hear?
  
Main street there runs through the middle of the twon
And there is a ***** postoffice
And a ***** city hall
And a ***** railroad station
And the United States flag cries, cries the Stars and Stripes to the four winds on Lincoln's birthday and the Fourth of July.
  
Kalamazoo kisses a hand to something far off.
  
Kalamazoo calls to a long horizon, to a shivering silver angel, to a creeping mystic what-is-it.
  
"We're here because we're here," is the song of Kalamazoo.
  
"We don't know where we're going but we're on our way," are the words.
  
There are hound dogs of bronze on the public square, hound dogs looking far beyond the public square.
  
Sweethearts there in Kalamazoo
Go to the general delivery window of the postoffice
And speak their names and ask for letters
And ask again, "Are you sure there is nothing for me?
I wish you'd look again-there must be a letter for me."
  
And sweethearts go to the city hall
And tell their names and say,"We want a license."
And they go to an installment house and buy a bed on time and a clock
And the children grow up asking each other, "What can we do to **** time?"
They grow up and go to the railroad station and buy tickets for Texas, Pennsylvania, Alaska.
"Kalamazoo is all right," they say. "But I want to see the world."
And when they have looked the world over they come back saying it is all like Kalamazoo.
  
The trains come in from the east and hoot for the crossings,
And buzz away to the peach country and Chicago to the west
Or they come from the west and shoot on to the Battle Creek breakfast bazaars
And the speedbug heavens of Detroit.
  
"I hear America, I hear, what do I hear?"
Said a loafer lagging along on the sidewalks of Kalamazoo,
Lagging along and asking questions, reading signs.
  
Oh yes, there is a town named Kalamazoo,
A spot on the map where the trains hesitate.
I saw the sign of a five and ten cent store there
And the Standard Oil Company and the International Harvester
And a graveyard and a ball grounds
And a short order counter where a man can get a stack of wheats
And a pool hall where a rounder leered confidential like and said:
"Lookin' for a quiet game?"
  
The loafer lagged along and asked,
"Do you make guitars here?
Do you make boxes the singing wood winds ask to sleep in?
Do you rig up strings the singing wood winds sift over and sing low?"
The answer: "We manufacture musical instruments here."
  
Here I saw churches with steeples like hatpins,
Undertaking rooms with sample coffins in the show window
And signs everywhere satisfaction is guaranteed,
Shooting galleries where men **** imitation pigeons,
And there were doctors for the sick,
And lawyers for people waiting in jail,
And a dog catcher and a superintendent of streets,
And telephones, water-works, trolley cars,
And newspapers with a splatter of telegrams from sister cities of Kalamazoo the round world over.
  
And the loafer lagging along said:
Kalamazoo, you ain't in a class by yourself;
I seen you before in a lot of places.
If you are nuts America is nuts.
  And lagging along he said bitterly:
  Before I came to Kalamazoo I was silent.
  Now I am gabby, God help me, I am gabby.
  
Kalamazoo, both of us will do a fadeaway.
I will be carried out feet first
And time and the rain will chew you to dust
And the winds blow you away.
And an old, old mother will lay a green moss cover on my bones
And a green moss cover on the stones of your postoffice and city hall.
  
  Best of all
I have loved your kiddies playing run-sheep-run
And cutting their initials on the ball ground fence.
They knew every time I fooled them who was fooled and how.
  
  Best of all
I have loved the red gold smoke of your sunsets;
I have loved a moon with a ring around it
Floating over your public square;
I have loved the white dawn frost of early winter silver
And purple over your railroad tracks and lumber yards.
  
  The wishing heart of you I loved, Kalamazoo.
  I sang bye-lo, bye-lo to your dreams.
I sang bye-lo to your hopes and songs.
I wished to God there were hound dogs of bronze on your public square,
Hound dogs with bronze paws looking to a long horizon with a shivering silver angel, a creeping mystic what-is-it.

I keep a jar in my corner of my head,
to the left
in which I keep all my fears
along with a couple unheard phone messages and some unused anger. Sometimes I'll go over just to look at them
sift
shuffle
turn over and over again
put them into boxes
take them back out of boxes
put them in other boxes
Most of them are silly really.
I fear either too much or too little,
But the jar completes the little room inside my head
so I keep it there.
I'll pull them out one by one.
I am afraid that when the sun comes again I will pale in comparison
I am afraid that I am not as much as you say I am
I am afraid after the winter you will no longer need me to keep you warm.

How comes it, Flora, that, whenever we
Play cards together, you invariably,
  However the pack parts,
  Still hold the Queen of Hearts?

I've scanned you with a scrutinizing gaze,
Resolved to fathom these your secret ways:
  But, sift them as I will,
  Your ways are secret still.

I cut and shuffle; shuffle, cut, again;
But all my cutting, shuffling, proves in vain:
  Vain hope, vain forethought, too;
  That Queen still falls to you.

I dropped her once, prepense; but, ere the deal
Was dealt, your instinct seemed her loss to feel:
  "There should be one card more,"
  You said, and searched the floor.

I cheated once: I made a private notch
In Heart-Queen's back, and kept a lynx-eyed watch;
  Yet such another back
  Deceived me in the pack:

The Queen of Clubs assumed by arts unknown
An imitative dint that seemed my own;
  This notch, not of my doing,
  Misled me to my ruin.

It baffles me to puzzle out the clew,
Which must be skill, or craft, or luck in you:
  Unless, indeed, it be
  Natural affinity.

At what height is appropriate
To strain, sift
I must be doing this wrong

You are beautiful
But you are
For show

I dreamt of temptation
Terrorism
A storm

You are
Cruel

I dreamt so vivid
When I woke up you weren't there
I was still

An era of feminism,
Which should never be questioned.
Empowering women
To strive, and strive again.

We speak of desexualization.
To free the ******,
Unveil carnal harassment,
And speak our minds.

But we can be sightless
Toward the sexualization of man.
The way we view testosterone
As broad shoulders and shirtlessness.

Do not sift through my words!
I believe in the power feminism.
But I am disappointed
With the sexualization of man.

We're determined to trump the blurred *****...
Yet drool over a man in Calvin Klein.
We frown upon the "Perfect Body" campaign...
But applaud a "built" man.

I wish for bodies to be just that:
Bodies.
For sexualized men and women
To be more than carved features.

heartspun yarn
arms-length
sifting lupine
for the first time

your half cast eyes
settle on mine
they speak 10,000 words

words like zen or
friend
fiend is not one of them

i sift your heart
undoing shoddy work

red lines
we've given you
uncrossed

man eater
Mooncrazed
canine runes gleam the color dread

worse:

you were cast opposite
Liam Neeson

antagonist
you had no chance
you were not complex
you were
knight-n-shining armor-less

i sift your being, dear thing
seeing your you
my needle speeds through

your sudden burst of breath
a wind of sorts
on my face
evokes the majestic
yet reminds the animal

i sift you
rise to my feet
and feel

that my i
has been licked clean

I lay spread out on 
My local shingle beach
Letting the pebbles 
Sift through my fingers
I consider the myriad
Shapes and forms they take.
The varying rust
Charcoal grey and mustard shades

I set myself a mission
In the multitudes
That the sea brings to my feet
I will find amongst the 
Copious cobbles
The ultimate pebble
Perfect and pleasingly
Quirky or smooth.

I become so absorbed by 
This sifting sorting 
Comforting process 
A simple quest
I forget myself
And my proximity to the waves 
Until i am splashed 
And soaked and 
Have to vow to take up
This valiant quest 
Another day.

Until then I have taken 
Home a few shortlisted
Candidates
And made a promise to stand up when
The winner is found
And make a little trumpet
Fanfare sound
And hold the stone aloft!

Consumed by the constant rolls that play
Developed so well, recorded so well
Chasing the aroma that gently caresses the keys of the grand olfactory organs
Sinking into the fibers that catch me when I’m melting
They remember the tight grip that I’ve imposed on them
The grip imposed on me
Yet I want to sift through
Entangled by the loose strands I can’t help but to make vulnerable
The sway in the tongue that rolls tones so heavy
Leaves me tender
Such fervor unfolding itself, irritating the chests it lays on
Ethanol giving shoves until the words rupture into your gaze
Listening for more in hopes the shower could saturate me again
Hopeful and tender, I immerse you in ego
Later washing away everything that froth before our eyes
Then repeating the same intoxicating copulation
Until the light breaks through and I’m presented an abbreviated endearment
Leaving me instilled until the next time it’s decided times can concur

I used to stand in awe and watch Grandma making biscuits.
She’d take her wooden bowl, then dip the floor and sift it.
As snowy flour would drift to form a mound of just so much;
She’d form a crater lake of buttermilk and shortening with her loving touch.

She would smile and watch our faces as she squeezed the flour to goop
And transform the mess she made into dough that she would scoop.
A pinch she’d take and make a ball to flatten in her palm.
Then with her thumb she’d press it down, so gently and so calm.

With care she next would take the dough and place it on a pan;
A thumb print etched in dough as she continued with her plan,
To place the pats side by side until the pan was filled
By perfect rows all laid out with hands so quick and skilled.

That cozy pan she placed into an oven warmed just right
And closed the door to seal them in and cook them out of sight.
In timely care she’d pull them free, delicious golden browns
Setting fresh hot biscuits on the table, to banish morning frowns.

Now I stand in awe and think of all the biscuits she has made,
Of all the time her thumb has pressed, as her heart has prayed.
Life finds us now, her children, in life’s wooden bowls
And we feel her loving touch as she leaves her thumbprint on our souls.

For Grandma Mary Grace Kindley Davis
On the occasion of her 105th birthday, February 9, 2007
Presented to her at her Birthday Party the next day.
©2007 Michael S. Davis

Don't you know
My mop and glow
Is brighter than
A star over Mazatlán?
I'd be more than spittin'
While you're just there sittin'
This ain't just a game
Though it be the same
When they say don't hate
The player when you're just at the gate,
I fill all the stadium seats
And provide all the player's cleats,
Yeah, you get my drift
Like after hockey left to sift
For teeth and glory
Only half the story,
Through blood and ice
I don't just play and act nice,
I am red riding hood's wolf
Watch out or you'll get a hoof
On your forehead wear it proud
The only crown you'll wear in the crowd...
APAD13 015 - © okpoet

This is what animates me
The force to set the motion of my soul
Gears that grind, thoughts that whir, the sustenance of something holy.
I do not think I sprang from Adam’s Rib
I think I must have been struck into the ground like a stone
A thread of lightning from the leaden sky,
And the mechanics that rose after
Demanded fuel, demanded heat
And thus was born in the cooling core of me
This mad desire, this stumbling, ceaseless search
For words to light a fire in my head
For eyes to light a fire in my bones
For some weapon of beauty
Some flaming sword
A tool- nothing more-
To sift among the dust and grit of time
To stoke the embers and evoke a spark
Prodding, prospecting
As for gold
Searching for a remnant which still burns
Softly, feeble, buried but unquenched

I chase the fire
For it must always be:
It cannot die
But cannot be held
It is escaped and never captured,
Only felt and lost, an infinite second-
A running step to overtake itself.

If that night could remember
it would call him back
to our Chinese restaurant
to fried rice and steaming tea
to our winter refuge of tile and cushions
60s retro black and white
Chrome legs of lacquered tables
with its mural of
our Great Wall

...winding, distant, wonder

If the snow hadn't muffled all
but our voices
we would not be—

so alone

Only I
felt his arm take its chance
around my shoulder
Guiding warmth
as good excuse as any
to touch

Two miles on foot
An arc in time
In lace of white
to hide— what might....

Below my window
“Good Night”
not enough
for troubadour
singing, pleading, stumbling...

(I worry about his long way home)

...and hardly notice...

How gently Time joins Snow
as if they cannot bare
instead, conspire
Decide the crystals
Send the flakes to sift over him

This loss needs snow
to blur his face
to fade from view....

This— tender let-down from the sky
As only snow can do...

Cover with beauty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o6zMPLcXZ8

After school in summer. An abandoned railway line, through a forest. A grey dress with red flowers on, the blue cardigan with sweat patches under the arms. Trying to conceal them. Not caring after a while. Walking in front, through the wild garlic. Not everything flourishing, some ******* here and there. The muddy ***** up to the track. Scrambling up trying not to get hands muddy, trying not to fall. Probably wearing impractical shoes. She was behind me, beside me. Catching her smell, trying to touch her hand, her shoulder. Talking about things that meant nothing but flowed: began and concluded satisfactorily. Only 17, so long ago. No doubt we talked of school, I don’t remember a word. It was the action, the structure of our communication, that was all I had. The unsaid was still sacred then. Reaching the end of the line. The line! It was a beautiful day, romanticized now. Warm in the sun and chill in the shade but I soon discarded temperature. The green from the trees came up from each side of the line and joined together at the top. The sun soaked through every visible article. All, except from the wall at the end that closed off the tunnel.

The space we were in did not exist to anyone else, no one was there, and no one had ever been there since we arrived. Vacuum packed world of complete perfection, apart from the mud, and the *******. But that was ok. The wall was black and heavy and cold. Near the top there was a hole. A square hole had been left or made through the ancient bricks, something forgotten maybe? Or to serve some forgotten purpose? I saw a challenger. The hole said ‘If you beat me you can have her’. It was not sinister. That did not exist.

Again I stood in front. ‘Bet I can get a stone into that hole!’ 15 feet perhaps or maybe only 8. Her eyes were on me: I desperately hoped they were. The whole of the back of my body took them in, I lit up with the warmth and the look. I would like to say it took only three attempts, that seems unlikely. What was she thinking? Was she looking on at the hole or at me? Heaven forbid she was looking at neither. I picked up stone after stone. They varied in size, feel, and dirtiness. I was an excellent thrower. I could throw a javelin, a ball, a boy; I adored my skill. My exuberance and elation guaranteed success. This was not a day for losing. Not while I could sift out the anomalies and incompatibilities without pain. There wouldn’t be a losing day until I understood that I did not yet know me.

The moment I succeeded in my challenge the celebration could begin. The rock perhaps made a sound as it tumbled down the inside of the wall but I did not hear. All my senses were now hers. Absorbed, obsessed. I was now permitted to turn around; to accept the look of admiration, or more. It was joy, certainly. Utter, complete joy. In skipping towards her she offered me her arms…… What words are given to unqualified human happiness? Getting more than you hoped for is even beyond that.

.h'america.... the last theological playground of... whatever the mind left behind in the decrepit bulwark that's europe... oh... and those mid-western died-hard hitchcock platinum-blondes in a-waiting... my typo pristine dutch-girls-go-to-church mantra... otherwise? no b'ooh'y'ah! chugger-chugger-chugger-chuck-cherry-choppy-chops-you-*******-cuc­­k-chuckie! quasi-whitman wannabe... billy was a butcher... a thematic long lost gun... billy was a butcher... and all the ripe choppers of pork... gave us a belief in snow; and what some heaved with a falling-of-a-star of dis-.belief: i too was bound to glorification of: what was expected to be known! and the subsequent: wow! i have met only the most limited of men... i have therefore met all men... the "all" men of this rubric of a year, a decade... all that's bygone of a yawn; swear it sn't so! a so! that's not be be sown! i am here too: upon the whim of expectation... merely... waiting... a man comes to be born come his 30s... his 40s? his nostalgia "moment"... former known name of: Jack Lil Lick 'Em Boots... and the crescendo of pauper's black lining of the Wall St. "better oiled"... scalp the ******! and send him unto the rabbi's true blessing... in the cusp of the scalp of the kippah!  and now... you take... your anglo-spreschen-tangle... into the salt-wounds of your h'america! first born: young... i don't like your revision... looking toward Europe with a hope for a sensibility... this pseudo deutsche: pseudo dutch, anglo-; this is no loss of the French or the Slav! this is our celebration! does one have an irish phrasing in uns to be at in it or one? beyond this grip boyo bound glue? this clerical spare of the otherwise leftover skivvy? we have made barons of these minutes.... as if we were to be kings of the coming years... and how we didn't become gods of the atoms... and the men of the suns and planets... that is our... most worthwhile conundrum in a da pacem domine bound; you're going to Beirut on me... or something?!

in my haitus away from this canvas:
naive me thought: perhaps a surge...
again proven wrong -
albeit not disappointed -
so i had to look elsewhere -

i had to look for a clarity of diction...
i had to move away from
the western lands and their:
death of god and their death by metaphysics...

even in this barren english...
i could not figure out:
why are these people,
apologetics from the central leftists...
these liberals...
ditto: i will butcher this name...
i will butcher the pronunciation
of this word...

if there are "questions" regarding
what's being phonetically encoded...
so much for me "learning to code"...
i too once wrote a html encoding...
with all the < and < and > toys...
spacing... {[( gradations... etc.,

i had to look east, after a while writing
schlechtdeutschegrammatik...
bad german grammar...
again: it's posthumous "Latin"...
it might be...
bad grammar german...
or german bad grammar...
deutscheschlechtgrammatik...

spelling is the mathematical equivalent
of... arithmetic...
but grammar? you need a ping-pong
table...
you need something cymru-esque...
a scandinavian-esque bilingual cushioning...

english alone will not solve the matter...
it's not french, it's not german,
it's certainly not spanish...
spanish and how post-colonialism was
settled with a post-racial attitudes of
Brazil...
england has taken too much time
looking up and out of the h'american
*******...
no grand satan 'ere...
no silk road bazar of fruits exotica from...
Teheran...
something more... subtle...

i had to go back to the "tsar"...
and the цэркйэв: 'cerkiew'...
and there i was amused how...
well apparently...
there are a lot of words
that do use the sz'cz...
enough... to deviate from
the Latin bollocking represented via
шч = щ....

that's perfectly logical...
i'm done with "perfectly logical"
if it exists outside of the realm of
orthography...

szczypta soli - pinch of salt...
in russian...
щ... that's a bit of a "question"...
yes, yes it is complicated...

szczery / szczera (he's honest /
she's honest)...
szczerość (honesty)...

no it's not... you german fickle-wit!
you forget the ы!

ah! well then... щыптa....
**** me... disorientating...
they could do all that with greek and glagolitic...
but they still had to keep...
latin: roman: holy roman empire: GERMAN...
lowercase lettering...
akin to a... e... c doesn't count...
since that's a greek cedilla "missing"...
ç... or... sigma... ς -
otherwise known in english as that S
after the apostrophe...
when something is called being:
the possessive article...
a (indefinite) the (definite) - some -ism to mind?!
no... but 's is... a bit like the SS...
in greek...
all in lower case: stephen's and...
στεφηνς...
σtephenς: that very much desired: ha!
ridiculous gag... the "much desired"
alternative to an apostrophe S ('s)...

it's Stephen's! it's Stephen's!
it's Sylvester's!
three articles in english:
the indefinite article (a)...
the definite article (the)...
and the possessive article ('s) - apostrophe S...
eS eS!

russian accents...
ъ, ы, ь...

but i only know of one "hard sign" example...
and that disqualifies the J ever needing a lower-case
"dot"... ȷ... namely... зъ: ż... alternatively
also: rz... and ж...
żuk! beetle! somehow the caron makes it...

szczyt! zenith!
щыт!

- and since i'm no longer writing:
i'd be writing if i were monolingual...
or... if i was animated by
the sort of Knausgardian bilingualism
of chop of swede: marker norgie...
but... i'm painting...

i forgot how to write when i could
see "synonyms" of sounds...
entombed in two different phonetic
encodings, namely elevated latin
and "pan-greek": cyrillic...

the variations between:

й and ы...
i.e. via е - "ye"
ё - "yo" (there's an umlaut in russian?!)
"у" - yew and you...
the gamma subscript...
ю - "yu"...
and... я - "ya"...

with regards to this rubric...
i am in the middle...
i can see a distinction between
a "y" (whine why and no I)...
hardly a jotted anecdote...
and yes... the closest the russians
ever come to Cracow is with ы
to a western slavic y...
ask me: toй - ask me: toȷ...
who needs a dot above the J
in the lower-case... if...
if... there's no absolute need for it to
be there: unlike some greenwich mean time
focus?
it ȷust so happens that...
the better clasp of the equator is
married to Greenwich: London...

dr. who time lords:
bellybuttons of the world: the english are...
again: i have to remind myself...
ı am not wrıtıng... ı am... paıntıng...

1(one), l(el)... I and ı(ıota)...
i guess an apostrophe would suffice...
ıf it's not an "ı"...
ı'ota... ı: oath...
sure as fıgurative "****" it's not...

ı must wrıte some more examples
in russıan...
to get me off me mark into
some "wax lyrıcal"...
ıslander mentalıty of the hen'glısch...

see how "the dot" can appear...
and disappear, as one see fıt?
and ıt makes: no little bıt of...
"dıfference"?!

i need to sleep on thıs "exercise"...
dot-pop-up...
dot-fold
dot-pop-up...
dot-fold...

w­­ıll eyes gets it?
hardly...

the rest of these cosmopolitan *******
focused on gwaffiti awt...
which is welsh for: GRA GRA...
when was the last time you heard
an englishman trill an R?
ı can't remember...
give me a night to soak up the pickling
juıces... i can't remember the last time
i heard an homest trIll eıther!
pauper me...

it's probably because of the welsh:
GWA GWA! gwadleıth cowonew...
or coroner row row row a rombat into a rue:
or a woo...
rhyme: contorts...
shapes and disappearing: oopses...
a whole multıtude of 'em...
come like the tıde...
leave... lıke a tilde... quası N:
it's a... H is a zeus...
and J is a Ha Ha Ha wrap-up rap of
laughter: in spanısh: of course...

i don't wrıte... ı paint...

impromptu interludes, quickened:
i'm a marriage of two continents...
and one island...
east of moscow...
asia... west of warsaw and...
these gloomy island pits of
idiosyncracy... never quiet the icelandic
answer to norway...
or greenland's answer to denmark...
but an island... nonetheless...

- to hell witth cascading linear cascades
of narrative: i'm blind to the optics
of "the narrative" in the paragraph
format...

i will look back east...
i will look at the russian script...
i will look at it as a time in ******
history equivalent to:
why didn't you just think of it as Greek?
but "my people" didn't...
and i'm not exactly a "why / didn't"...
i'm part of the excavation machinery...
i come with what was served...
i will leave without
leverage...

and here is the russian icon translated
from the Babel...
the following are orthodox letters
shared by one and all
to the western lands...

а б в г д e з и й
к л м н o п р c т
у ф

a b v g d e z i j
k l m n o p r s t u
f

now we leave: łen łill that be?
we should all somehow know...
to łork out a When a Where
(notably with the "h" being but a surd)...

mother how should i further this?
herbata
hasło (ha-s-woe)
hołd (**-**-w'd)

to no other: otherwise only in scotland:
the loch of tipsy work...
albeit: orthographic distinction...
хęć - a whim a desire...
a loch is no: cheat of a lake...
latching onto the otherwise boredom caron
exposed...

дух (ghost) with a душa (soul)...

else there's c dissociated from the s...
and more so with a kappa kaput...
the drumstick slick on a wet snare of: tss...
ц - almost...
then morphing into a ць -
yet in my version: no so silent...
ćma: moth...
цmokaць / cmokać: to click with the tongue...
to kiss smackingly -
to ingest food via a smoczek...
a smoчek - a smoček... the baby soother...

this is my third day having to return to
this canvas...

first thing's first:
palatization (palatißation)
is not... a name of german crusader song:
palästinalied...

this is one of the main reasons why
i can't imagine myself as being able:
to write a novel -
i can't bear this birth of words into
this pseudo-Kandinsky -
it would be much easier with painting
something for a year -
than writing for a year -
the same thing, over and over again...

if i write a "poem" or, rather, a poo'em...
i expect the concept of
ensō: a circle has to be drawn with
a single uninhibited stroke...
when the body is set free and the body
merely complies...

comparison... if one were to draw
a most pristine ensō...
one would never achieve an ouroboros
depiction... it's quiet impossible
to use one volume of ink
attached to a stroke to complete
a circle... let alone a depiction
of an ouroboros...
what starts off as concrete soon...
fades away... thins out...
until there is so little ink left
on the brush that individual hairs
of the brush start appearing...

a pristine depiction of life...
but never the hardline ouroboros
depiction: this cerberus of reincarnation:
i never would have believed in it -
given that: there would have to be
a limited number of souls...
the thought that i might be introspective
enough as to be one of these: "elites"...
and the rest... were "n.p.c." drones...
zombie-esque drifters...
that had no psychological infrastructure
to have memory and rubric of learning
bound to them to be: invested in?

i am still going to write this Kandinsky...
one way or another...
but i can say only that:
i can imagine myself returning
to a painting - and painting it for a year...
but a book?
if a poem can't be written in one sitting...
it's not a poem...
this is not a poem: this is a novel
equivalent...
the best to my ability: which is none...

all i will ever manage with this
is a pedantic scrutiny of russian orthography,
how i don't follow metaphysical arguments
of the germans, the english or the french,
because i don't dream that often,
and when i do dream?
i dream up nonsense...
last time i dreamed that a hiena was
biting at my arm like a corn-cob...
but it wasn't biting to draw blood...
it was biting and cackling in order
to tattoo me... it bit into my arm and detailed
indentations akin to braille...
a pianola roll...

and that's the only details of the dream
i can remember...
perhaps i strained memory...
perhaps people who dream...
are fond of forgetting...
perhaps i don't dream because i can
remember being 4...
a shadow (my maternal great-grandfather)...
a large piano, a small piano...
he worked a retirement as a security guard
in a kindergarten...
i once spent an afternoon with him...
i have seen pictures of him...
but i don't remember the face in the photographs...
he sat me before a bonsai piano
while he sat at the large piano...
and i guess: we were going to be the new
Chopins or something...
he's still a shadow... a grey form...
perhaps a extract of memory that reaches
back 29 years is the reason why i don't
dream... then again...

what if i were to have recurrent dreams?
i've heard people have recurrent dreams...
i just have details of dreams...
i'm not complaining but...
it has become exhausting to simply sleep sometimes...
to replay that lullaby of the void...
yes: yes... i will return to russian orthography:
give me a moment!

well, on my "haitus" i had to look beyond
"conventionality"...
there was a period where i found
the glagolitic script - i said to myself:
there must be an equivalent alphabet to match
the runes...

there must have been a way to encode
without the romans and greeks...
after all... there is the St. Cyrill alphabet
and that of Methodus...
how many ethnic groups are there
on this old, yawning continent -
minor point: old age is not plagued by
yawning - only youth yawns...
old age is cured of yawning -
hanging over them the yawning death...
when father - when father - will this old
ponce come into my *****?

glagolitic and cyrillic?
well Ⰱ Б...
Ⱂ and P... which is not exactly lent-greek...
i guess it's only "wise"
to go back into the modern scribbles...

there are so many branches
to be plucked off a pine
to reserve yourself with ending up
to owning a pike...
so what would it help me:
if i had to reverse and ezra pound
my way forward...
bubble bulging roma notations?
i see: when that chisel in marble
V is not supposed to be a U...

EVROPA... etc.

i need to bring to the fore my own
distinctions...
spread: universally within the confines
of the people that speak it:
i even had to made balkan additions...
like the caron S and caron C...
to hide the english gimmick
of SHarp and CHeat...
evidently we use the Z to replace
the H when stressing our "demands"...
Šarp and Čeat...

so back into russian?
i almost forgot that i said...
their orthography is not worth the dog's
bollocking of a lick...

i was wrong, obviously...
but even the russians are supposed
to be allowed their idiosyncracy -
their orthographic pedantry...
russian orthographic pedantry?
ah...

when е met э...
was also the time when э didn't meet з...
this is pedantic...
another russian pedantic "detail"...
how many Y's or J's do you need...
to detail: the elongated-iota?
before... "****" becomes confusing...
within the confines of gamma...

i'm pretty sure the russians have
fixated their attention on the Y/J "debate"
working from their central premise of
the english AYE... I... the pronoun bunker...
der deutsche affirmative: ja!
yah in the hebrew respective for: wisdom...

let's see... i'm pretty sure the russians
have all the vowels bow to this mecca
of Moscow, cite me: and please reiterate...
that i use J and Y interchangeably...
i don't imply: to jot - to "dz"ot...
or Joseph in Ypres...

otherwise: a yeti climbing a yew shouting: yes!
it's not exactly jargon -
but... a prefix y- in english...
is not a suffix -y in english...
which just... "out of the blue"...
demands to be associated with the iota
of: ply... and yet: it's no i.e. e'et...
it's neither ate or the fwench and (et)...
it's a yeti... but not a jetty!

never mind... back into the fussy russian...
i'm pretty sure you will find all
of the pentagram (vowels) bowing before
the altar of pseudo-gamma:

                                     ю (yu)
                                    /
(details in) й ------ я (ya) -- ы (oh look, solo!)
   the above"rant")  |
                                  у (which is a u)
                                /   \
                     e (ye)       ё (yo)

almost... but i'm far from learning russian...
i find these orthographic details...
coexisting...

зъ = ж = ż = rz = ř / ž...

eastern, mother slavic...
beginning with a western slavic translation
"innovation"...
central / western slavic...
balkan slavic...
oh we are such famous clarinet players!
because what happens
when the caron is sliced into two...
and an acute ****** pops out?!

hence the зъ beginning...
yes... it's not "silent"... it's simply not
palatalißed... the tongue doesn't tip-off
the palette... the sound escapes via
the gritting of teeth...
with it: the tongue can rattle and a trill
R is heard...

зъ (ż) contra зь (ź) -
życzenia - well wishes| źródło - source...
now to only write these words
in russia - without knowing the russian
noun-denotations...
for orthographic purposes...

жыченя... or is it... жычениa?
зьруд... problem... can't find the english
W in russian... or the ****** Ł...
there's the english V... the ****** W...
but russian doesn't translate (Вв)
so vell into wery: not so weary but
nonetheless very not so, so...

my problem is not about that though...
this poem this poo'em this:
a pigeon drops a zeppelin-****
on your top-hat implies good luck...
no 13's or black cats crossing your path either...
i could most honestly spend
100 years of each of the 100 individuals
bound to the salt mines in the vicinity
of Beijing... and i would still find myself...
without tears...
because this is the most inexhaustible
crux: it's really bugging me foundation stone...

i won't even mind the modern greeks
at this point... they do use diacritical markers
too... but over-do it... as if compensating
or trying to compete on level par
with their metaphysical dittos...

чaхa: czacha... almost slang term for:
czaszka... чaкшa...
and this is by no means "smart"...
i can't solve crosswords puzzles...
well i can: but i need to find myself
in the company of my grandmother...
in the morning...
i would have had to drooled over some novel
from 7am until she gets out of bed
come 9am... we'd drink coffee and i'd
smoke cigarettes...
and it would be a month prior to christmas
or easter, or the interlude...
and... i'd be freed from writing or
reading anything in english...
either me looking at diacritical distinctions
in the realm of orthography between:
russian, ******, balkan...
or... me never learning french,
or attempting to: ever, again!

******* suffix-eaters...
dyslexics in reverse...
say one thing: write another thing...
this is probably born from my frustration
at being unable to learn french...
perhaps after having acquired english
i was given german to learn...
but no... first hurdle... french...
flop!
now it's a diet of no crosswords...
some sudoku from time to time...
and my new hobby after having found
"too many" googlewhacks...

so there's nothing smart about this:
this is in no way useful to anyone -
being the sort of person
to "mind" whenever one's being asked
to spell their surname...
it's hardly that difficult but...

would i go for the echo sierra charlie
hotel lima echo romeo tango...
or go out full greek with it?
perhaps the greek...
since that would solve the problem
i've had for a while,
concerning the eta / epsilon "debate"...

how does a greek laugh -
what is the crux letter via which
a greek laughs?
you see a H shape on the horizon...
but you... hear the noun: eta...
you later see the name eta...
but that's eta: without an apostrophe...
the apostrophe 'eta being the "surd" H...

in greek then...
epsilon sigma... **** it... there's no "sch"
of a german worth in greek...
let's cut it out:
epsilon lambda epsilon rho tau...

otherwise in russian...
once more:

ś(lub) - wedding - сь(люб)
"soft" sign - ' - apostrophe -
or ACUTE elsewhere...
why not сьлуб?
i don't know... it's not like сь is even
minded in russian...

ah! my favorite!
goń! gonitwa: a race -
the verb impetus: race! chase after!
гoнь!

since ы is the "odd" one out between
the application of "ь" and
and "ъ"...
come to think of it...
ы gave birth to: ю (yu), я (ya),
у (u), й ("y"), и ("e")...
i... i.e. and... in ******...
akin to those languages that use e...
to also imply and...
ё (yo)... how did i miss the umlaut
infiltrating the russian 'bet...
i blame catherine the great!
and... е (ye)...
is that the pentragram?
u, a, e, i, o... yes! we have it!

i truly had better days when sudoku was
the better puzzle to fill a day with...
not this... from glagolitic, to greek,
to roman, to post-roman to russian
and back into...

if we are all "supposedly" literate...
begs the question why: why oh why the emoji...
the *******-wanking hieroglyphics...
the :) and what not...
i guess to better escape this sort of
headaches... minor chances of everyone
becoming a bilingual:
but what's there to brag about
being bilingual!
i guess the polyglots do not have such
headaches of detail...
they just... bypass these rules and regulations...

to better guide me:
if i managed to sift through james joyce's
finnegans wake... and didn't find any
diacritical markers in it?
can't i compensate?
i'm compensating right now!
if the 2010s as a decade was a decade
filled with... sisyphus titans akin
to kant, hiedegger, kierkegaard,
knausga(a)rd, joyce...
beckett - yes...
again that hollowed "y" distinction!
it's not a sisi: yes yes problem...
hardly me being ***** either...
e'ver... i'ver...
ain't that a *****...

clarity of diction... the best motto there is...
crab-bucket-intellectualism:
alternatively the focus away from
any ontological stressors of "example" -
ontological and its variant of
a priori:
perhaps, given that the ontological
is an a priori argument...
here's my crossword puzzle -
ref. thesaurus rex...

and by no means... at all...
etymology is the better variant of any known
history...
when this bundle of words:
that an ontological dialectic can be achieved:
that ontology can be given within
as much as an a priori: bigot! focus...
with as much as an a posteriori:
wizened unicorn quid pro quo tanz!

hamsterwheel loopholes or:
crab-bucket intellectualism...

now: i really could have put these words
to better use... to make them linear...
less cryptic... but how can i?
i'm solving a crossword puzzle in reverse!
i don't expect the easily scared moths
to entertain this fire...

i expect midgets to be dancing...
before my eyes...
whenever i listen to
faun's tanz mit mir
or in extremo's rotes haar...
when the bagpipes and the flutes
kick in...

- since if i were to write a coherent sentence:
succumb to a linear narrative...
i'd people reading this to be also found:
easily talking about it...
perhaps i don't enjoy freedom of speech
as much as i enjoy the freedom to think...
perhaps i haven't written anything
worth speaking about, regurgitating,
making vogue, working for some intellectual
period-piece of "vogue"...
perhaps this is a shared problem,
hidden in a cipher...
of: how i can't heave this tool...
this tapeworm of existence,
this medium of god...
to later trash it, to have nothing better
to do with it other than play-games...
worded games... crossword puzzles...
perhaps i need a crossword puzzle to imply:
neighbour's share some words...
together... but then write them differently...
perhaps i require a crossword puzzle...
to read into some russian...
on the praxis base of english...
flying past Warsaw toward the itch
of the edge of Asia...
breathe the air - the heart of the continent...

perhaps i would have never managed
to escape this world if i ingested
mind-benders of the h'american 1960s
revolutionary schematics of the:
new-humanists... crash course in literature:
only one magic mushroom trip away!

фoрк ин дэ рoaд (fork in the road)

ИN...

some shared words, of etymological
curiosity...

(fork) вилка - wilka -
polish? wilka? that which belongs to
a wolf... widelec...
видэлэц...

(knife) нож - nóż -
well... orthography comes into play...
while people can have their...
ahem... in-the-meantime metaphysical
playground...
the ground, the word,
the geology is already here...
written alternatively?
нузъ...

i take a different stance to the common day
****** back east...
when russia starts slagging you off...
you put on a Boris Yeltsin mask on
and dance the drunk panda dance...

(spoon) ложка - łyżka -
in polish? ah those russians... ло ло...
лож: lorz...
lo lo and behold the translated
quasi-russian into the borders of europe...
ł.w.(ызъка)...

black and white (черный и белый):

czarny i biały: rho-si-ye!
char-nee-ye! bel'ye)...

perhaps the timing is a bit off:
the proper wording would be:

czarno na białym -
not: in black and white...
чaрнo на биa-wh-ым...

knocked-out to be honest...
the russians use ый like that?
YJ? oh right! i use it too!
in the prompt:

tyj! tyj ty grubasie!
hmm... -asie...
it would do me a lot of good...
if that iota didn't have a decapitated
head of a halo hovering above it...
why? so i could introduce the acute
slant over the S and surd it...
i.e. -aśιe...

тый! ты груб... exactly...
grub-               -aсьие
тый! ты грубaсьие!
to grow fat: тый!
              "problem": -aśιe vs. -aсьие...
well... it's there: сь...
but it also isn't there: и...

but it isn't: but it also isn't...
i just managed to find out that...
in warsaw (if i lived in warsaw)...
we have that conjunction: -ый-
however rare it is: it is there...

any more delegations from Moscow?
tyj! tyj ty grubasie!  
and i will write these last few words
and know why i don't really feel like
solving crosswords puzzles...
or doing those i.q. schematic tests...

**** it... the welsh should know and help me
out... concerning?
how it's YN and not IN...
how it's Y and not I when referring to THE gwyll:
dusk...
y gwyll o hywels: the dusk of powells...
only the welsh would know my "pain"...
yn y gwyll o y hywels:
in the dusk of the powells...

taking a step back - a step back...
yes yes, apologies... if my punctuation...
is too much of a ******* arithmetic!
too bad!

p.s. and yes... don't leave anything lying
around in the drafts or as private...
chances are... with a 2 day delay...
this will never be fed into the LATEST feed.

and would i ever get embroil myself in a morning of: coffee,
croissant and a newspaper? i find it strange how newspapers
are printed for workers - sold in the morning,
and read in the hazy hours before the mind
catches up with the body at noon
lead to nothing but village sentimentalism -
and dupe sensationalism -
they really know when to baptise them:
a few weeks into their lives (most never
object to confirmation, i, for one, started inquiring
about the Gnostic cults, and said: nah, you'll
alright without me) -
baptism is a bit like newspapers:
i really didn't ask for it... sorry, i was in diapers,
i knew that i'd be wearing diapers
if i went to my confirmation by the Bishop
of Chelmsford - imagine what a cardinal
could do to me... but that's what newspapers
are, they are written in reasonable comfort,
i don't mean the sort of journalism
akin to all the president's men -
that's valiant... i mean the opinions sections,
i read a newspaper and think of only one thing:
****! i threw away something i actually
need in the recycling pile of garbage...
so you go back to the bag and sift through it...
which is what it's all about:
newspapers pulverise the half-awake readers
on the tube... making newspapers free is also
a tactic... i read newspapers, about this time,
nearing midnight... i've spent the entire day
occupying myself with colours, squares and clouds,
i leave my desire to see phonetic encoding a - z
till last, when i can relax, and actually recycle
all the opinions of the day...
shamefully, others pick up a newspaper,
early in the morning, and just nod, agree, nod, agree,
pigeon on parade... makes it easier to earn
a few more disciples when half of them (if not all)
are still trying to remember a dream at 7 a.m.,
all the opinions sections are fabulous!
mental health matters... like **** it does:
you're saying a box inside that storage room that's
your brain aches like broken arm...
you go to a doctor, and he replies: it's all in your head...
well, d'uh, metaphysical health was always clumsy
with what became spaghetti entanglement
for philosophers - the one never translates into
another as honing in on, and synonymous -
but that's life... but the two were never supposed to
be at odd, or, quiet simply: parallel -
after all, thinking, if a limb or an *****,
is more than what the automation of the brain is:
receptor to nervous stimuli - if there's an *****
such as a mind, and it's verb optimum is sick...
it's like seeing the desperation of someone doing
cartwheels on a tightrope, while deciding a next
chess move playing someone down below,
and smoking a pipe - thought, in the end,
is a dilemma where to many verbs are associated with it:
it's so spatial in that it tries to encompass a near
exponential number of ? / hmm hiccups -
                              as it does encompassing a near exponential
number of ! / eureka hiccups -
the German Chancellor and the fourth cottage -
and the opinion: nacktarschuzdeckenwunsch
(the desire to cover their own naked backsides) -
ah, newspapers and the morning,
whoever reads a newspaper in the morning is a sheep...
who doesn't even thinks that comics didn't slowly evolve
to be comics? they are pristine Geminis -
i wouldn't read a newspaper in the morning,
because i know most of these articles are written in
the afternoon, notably the opinion sections,
by people donning kimonos, drinking wine
and smoking Magritte's phrasing of: not a pipe.
i can't treat them as trash either... i call them
midnight literature... after i've spent the day not
looking at phonetic encoding symbols,
i finally zoom in, revise my eyes and ease into a crescendo
of appreciating newspapers, for whatever they're worth,
which, according to the Thursday's edition of the times:
£1.40 - but reading newspapers in the morning
is horrid - too much world, too much care,
too much moral acting - too much conversation...
the world is too big, and i'm too small...
so i do what the writers of these articles read:
although i have a stronger solvent to read their preaching
parody of Mt. Sinai - but what i found, apart from that,
well... couldn't poetry steal something from
the journalistic medium? in the way art is appreciated
without critics? shouldn't poetry be the only medium
of art where other art mediums are appreciated?
for example, i find that when i'm hearing the clicking
of the keyboard, and there's a record in the background
i have a full meal in front of me,
i forgot how good tubeway army's album replicas
is... as a second course meal... nothing of the top 30
canape charts of nibbles of artistic output...
poetry can congratulate over mediums of art,
it can steal from what journalism encompasses -
namely the critical pieces of the journalistic anatomy -
art, doesn't necessarily have to be a matthew arnold
moment of as soon as i returned home, i pulled off
my coat, flung myself on the sofa, and wept the
bitterest, sweetest tears: after coming back from
a Liszt concert... really?
i think that ballet is supreme sadism and Bach
had wax in his ears... fame and the adoration of women?
too lazy... like drinking too much, and listening
to what i like: without adverts selling me car insurance
and German shampoo.
yes, i am bothered, i'm seeing something in England
that's worrying, something akin to a Marx & Engels'
study of Victorian England - only this time it's
existentially tinged - not economically -
and yes, reading a newspaper at any "sensible" hour
of the day is rather pointless...
you can get very impressionable in the morning,
at around midnight, with a whiskey and a cigarette...
while everyone is already nodding off in Luna's
embrace - never understood reading newspapers
in the morning... or in the early afternoon -
it's better to digest the **** of the individual by the world
while everyone is asleep... less democratic constipation
of everyone having a go... or as Auden said:
all the ****** of the world write at night...
well, during the night: everything is apparently black
& white... the vacuum of the space, and the punctuation
of Zodiac are what this sort of writing best describes,
given that, we are the mediators of two opposing
chasms... to be honest... poets hate colour,
the whole spectrum of colour, from
red (λ nanometres 760 etc. and Herr Hertz, whatever)
to violet (λ nanometres 424 - 380) -
    so tiny, this puncture... equatable with
the size of the universe and that spec that's called earth -
to me? all of this is a massive accident -
as the gambling king said (god): oops... dunno.
but from what i can see... poets have colour -
hence the white page where all colours are entombed,
and better than scattering the white into the visible
spectrum, beginning as Newton with a needle hole
and a prism... no... we're probing it with something else,
intent on it being given to us in total,
a sum of all parts... or as they say: shying away from
the people in grey suits... virtually taking risks on meeting
the people in white coats - and how to slur and
window-lick our way into confined spaces
perfecting our skills in Paper Mâchés and Matisse-like
cut-outs.

A generation navigating illusionment:
I am one. Excavation; i sift. Shaking
a plastic basket.

Round - and channel mouths spout
a wire crosshatch. I
Tap
   Against
         My palm.

Fine flour lands on the counter and
In my head I listen to the same songs
because I already know the words.

I look for a truth outside my mind
because on weekdays I tell myself
I’m not worth knowing.

How do you stop hating yourself
When you hate yourself because
You hate yourself?

When I slide my hand across the counter,
White flour mist puffs and I listen:

Mac Miller’s alive. He said he’s
surviving on *****, almonds, and granola bars.

Grasped in some five fingers
A thin red handle.

The hands of the clock were reaching high
In an old midtown hotel;
I name no name, but its sordid fame
Is table talk in hell.
I name no name, but hell's own flame
Illumes the lobby garish,
A gilded snare just off Times Square
For the maidens of the parish.

The revolving door swept the grimy floor
Like a crinoline grotesque,
And a lowly *** from an ancient slum
Crept furtively past the desk.
His footsteps sift into the lift
As a knife in the sheath is slipped,
Stealthy and swift into the lift
As a vampire into a crypt.

Old Maxie, the elevator boy,
Was reading an ode by Shelley,
But he dropped the ode as it were a toad
When the gun jammed into his belly.
There came a whisper as soft as mud
In the bed of an old canal:
"Take me up to the suite of Pinball Pete,
The rat who betrayed my gal."

The lift doth rise with groans and sighs
Like a duchess for the waltz,
Then in middle shaft, like a duchess daft,
It changes its mind and halts.
The *** bites lip as the landlocked ship
Doth neither fall nor rise,
But Maxie the elevator boy
Regards him with burning eyes.
"First, to explore the thirteenth floor,"
Says Maxie, "would be wise."

Quoth the ***, "There is moss on your double cross,
I have been this way before,
I have cased the joint at every point,
And there is no thirteenth floor.
The architect he skipped direct
From twelve unto fourteen,
There is twelve below and fourteen above,
And nothing in between,
For the vermin who dwell in this hotel
Could never abide thirteen."

Said Max, "Thirteen, that floor obscene,
Is hidden from human sight;
But once a year it doth appear,
On this Walpurgis Night.
Ere you peril your soul in murderer's role,
Heed those who sinned of yore;
The path they trod led away from God,
And onto the thirteenth floor,
Where those they slew, a grisly crew,
Reproach them forevermore.

"We are higher than twelve and below fourteen,"
Said Maxie to the ***,
"And the sickening draft that taints the shaft
Is a whiff of kingdom come.
The sickening draft that taints the shaft
Blows through the devil's door!"
And he squashed the latch like a fungus patch,
And revealed the thirteenth floor.

It was cheap cigars like lurid scars
That glowed in the rancid gloom,
The murk was a-boil with fusel oil
And the reek of stale perfume.
And round and round there dragged and wound
A loathsome conga chain,
The square and the hep in slow lock step,
The slayer and the slain.
(For the souls of the victims ascend on high,
But their bodies below remain.)

The clean souls fly to their home in the sky,
But their bodies remain below
To pursue the Cain who each has slain
And harry him to and fro.
When life is extinct each corpse is linked
To its gibbering murderer,
As a chicken is bound with wire around
The neck of a killer cur.

Handcuffed to Hate come Doctor Waite
(He tastes the poison now),
And Ruth and Judd and a head of blood
With horns upon its brow.
Up sashays Nan with her feathery fan
From Floradora bright;
She never hung for Caesar Young
But she's dancing with him tonight.

Here's the bulging hip and the foam-flecked lip
Of the mad dog, Vincent Coll,
And over there that ill-met pair,
Becker and Rosenthal,
Here's Legs and Dutch and a dozen such
Of braggart bullies and brutes,
And each one bends 'neath the weight of friends
Who are wearing concrete suits.

Now the ****** make way for the double-******
Who emerge with shuffling pace
From the nightmare zone of persons unknown,
With neither name nor face.
And poor Dot King to one doth cling,
Joined in a ghastly jig,
While Elwell doth jape at a goblin shape
And tickle it with his wig.

See Rothstein pass like breath on a glass,
The original Black Sox kid;
He riffles the pack, riding piggyback
On the killer whose name he hid.
And smeared like brine on a slavering swine,
Starr Faithful, once so fair,
Drawn from the sea to her debauchee,
With the salt sand in her hair.

And still they come, and from the ***
The icy sweat doth spray;
His white lips scream as in a dream,
"For God's sake, let's away!
If ever I meet with Pinball Pete
I will not seek his gore,
Lest a treadmill grim I must trudge with him
On the hideous thirteenth floor."

"For you I rejoice," said Maxie's voice,
"And I bid you go in peace,
But I am late for a dancing date
That nevermore will cease.
So remember, friend, as your way you wend,
That it would have happened to you,
But I turned the heat on Pinball Pete;
You see - I had a daughter, too!"

The *** reached out and he tried to shout,
But the door in his face was slammed,
And silent as stone he rode down alone
From the floor of the double-******.

Mr. Piano Man how your
fingers rain down on the keys
dancing a somber ballet
capturing the feeling of being empty
like those bottles underneath

Here Mr. Piano Man
the next drink is on me
while we sift through debris
of our melancholy

Every note stings
every chord bleeds
woe is you
and
woe is me
play
Mr. Piano Man
a song to our ennui

Let it rain Mr. Piano Man
let the storm hammer the strings
lets swim in the puddle
of whats spilt underneath

Oh Mr. Piano Man
What is that I hear?
That note that was just hit
it sounded rather queer
there is no room for happiness
at the bottom of this beer

No! NO! Mr. Piano Man
I don't want the sun
go back to stormy waters
to where you had begun

I thought you a friend
I thought we allies
I thought we understood
the sounds of demise

Mr. Piano Man how you so betrayed
with your songs of love and spring
every note my heart aches
every chord a bee sting

Mr. Piano Man this is my goodbye
I am leaving you now
please don't cry
I am going to my new friend
Mr. Bartender
How do you do?
Give me an endless bottle
and another drunk to talk to.

Above my home where the dark clouds
curl into the sky clinging for a home to
rest their sleepy depiction, shadowed
trees hum sweet lullabies, lonely leaves
breathe in the sad song of fallen dimensions,
letting its lifeless view roll upon their frame,
the chilled breeze sailing in the skyline,
as I scramble my way out of a filthy dumpster,
a mountain of disintegrating mess covering
my broken body, hovering flies surrounding
sticky strips of spaghetti, moldy mashed potatoes,
and moldy chicken *** pies, while my mind sunk
into traveled thoughts, bruised hands pressed against
the creases in my forehead, allowing my existence
to feel the stranded scars streaming in various mazes,
dull eyes flushed with a burning disorder, aching cheeks
and chests nestled in darkening chamber corners, buried
hips and thighs uprooting in somber blades of grass,
thorned, torn, and destroyed in different worlds.  As I stood
on the slippery pavement staring at the ruffled scenery
in my sight, spinning streetlights thickening into slouched
positions, screaming sidewalks spilling sadness and madness
in the drenched air, razor-edged buildings inching into crushed
centimeters, jumbled meters, ****** yards.  I replayed the sober
images in my head, the way my young brown-skinned mom said
I would never amount to anything, how I could hear the raged
noun ****** sift into the distance, its flaming mechanics
accelerating into screeching sounds, the way she hurled
her fists at my smashed face, every vibrant language
breaking apart, slamming shut into closed infinites,
snagged contractions and gerunds diverging into
shuddering double spaced negatives, the way she threw
my lingering body inside the trash dumpster, her sharp
scarlet words, You are no son of mine, ricocheting off
savage surfaces, sparking my soul in a calamity
of choking diction.

Allow me to sift awal
And pick up tiguriwin
To give you atig
Your beauty is an irwan
From the great mother, Aphrodite.
You are tisit
That reflects the face agrram.
Your eyes are islmammayn.
Your hair is izenzaren.
Of the sun tamqrant.
Your lips are the leaves of flilo
Your teeth are taqqayin.
Your tongue iHuch
On behalf of your ul.
Your voice is tamawayt.
Your neck is turtit.
Full of tamemt.
Your chest is abrid
that leads to aghbalu
Where I would like uddum.

Bobo's kitchen

in the kitchen
icebergs rampage from the freezer
burying pizzas and waffles
in a glacier jungle
Bobo swings forks and knives
at the ice until the maintenance man
cusses in Polish
gallons of water
dripping downstairs
sizzling Bertalina's soul
the fiery bilingual single mom
living in fear
below his fear
of noise complaints
she sends tape recordings
to the landlord in her
cute red faced anger
loud people! and bongos!
guitars! stomping! laughter!
nightmares for her boys
who think they hear ghosts
her tight black spandex
drives Bobo mad when she runs
drifted scents of her food
sift in through his windows
knocking him out
in hungry frustration!
¿Como estás? he asks her
I speak ******* English! she barks back
back up the stairs Bobo goes
to his own kitchen where
the mice crawl out the stove tops
and potatoes grow tree roots
clear through the window
toward another life

Jake Mahaffey

Copyright (c) 2013 Jacob Mahaffey

The ascender
struggled to the dais
stopping to rub
his sore calves
still filled with lactic acid…

“I forsook the post
workout massage
to deliver this eulogy.

Thats how
important it is
to me…”

His voice began
to trial off but
he regained his
composure and
began to speak
with command...

“He gave his life for me.
Is there no greater love
than to offer a life
in service
to me?

My Sherpa
was moved
and motivated
by economic
compulsion.

I offered him
the only wage
paying job
he ever had.

He ran with it,
taking up my
cause as if
it belonged
to him;
performing
his job
as if engaged
in a heroic
mission.

At times it
he seemed
consumed by
the largess of
my pursuit;
and his death
will bring
economic
calamity
to his family.

This further
confirms
the nobility
of my
mission.

The price
of intrepidness
is dear and
made clear,
its value
fully fleshed
out in the
sacrifice of
my Sherpa.

You may ask,
“why do I do it?”

It is no longer
disputed, if it
can be done.

Sir Edmund
and his Sherpa
answered that
question over half
a century ago.

The only
question
remaining,
"can the mountain
be conquered by me?"

I'll risk sacred fortune,
limb, life, family and
Sherpa to discover
the answer to this...

I must guard
against the
inflation of
my desire to
summit at
any cost.

I'm aware
of the
dangers
presented
by the
expanding
circumference
of my pride,
just a
meager
centimeter or
two can spell
disaster for
me.

Yet testing
its tensility,
tempting
the tipping point
of temerity,
managing the
permeability,
of risk factors
and psychical
rewards to
sift through
the membrane
that calculates
the odds to
successfully
arbitrage the
resolution of
gaming
winners and
losers,
achieving
a perfect balance
manifested in
the mettle
of me.

My
determination
shines
in pursuit
of a
golden fleece.

In my
solitary
quest
I don a
holy halo
crowning me
and fellow
climbers
stricken
with a like
obsession,
sets us apart,
anointing us
the royalty
of high stakes
X Games,
bellying
up 70 grand
to claim our
place in an
extreme
leisure class,
gifted
with time
and treasure
to turn this
unforgiving peak
into a graveyard,
a dump heap,
an open latrine…

The glaciers bleed
my **** into the tributaries
of the Holy Ganges...

My virtues
made plain
in the indelible
mark I leave
upon the mountain...

My life dedicated
to the unselfish pursuit
of a magnanimous me
quick to forgive
and forget the
failures of the
lesser who
lack the ability
and conviction
of self
to conquer
the highest peaks
meeting challenge
and opportunity
with relish and
fortitude

I'm like a
strip miner
singlemindedly
tearing the roof
of the world open
so I can fill it
with the purpose
of me.

That is the
deeper significance
of the death of my
Sherpa.

When Edmund Hillary
and his Sherpa scaled
Everest 60 years ago,
it took decades
to remember that
Tenzing Norgay
guided the beknighted
Hillery, while schlepping
his baggage and
holding the ladder
lifting the
great man
in a great
endeavor;
whose strength
and valiance
turns history’s
creaky wheel.

Sir Hillary did it
because it was
never done before;
with stoutheartedness
and national vigor
Sir Hillary conquered
the last pinnacle
in Britannia's majestic
range of storied
achievements.

As climate change
turns glaciers
into slush,
my time
grows short
to scratch my
initials alongside
the greats who
ascended this mount
before me.

So it is
with well
considered
trepidation that
I send my Sherpa
out onto the
hanging peaks,
to set the ladders
and clear the
path for
the assent
of me.

Every morning
I look into
the mirror
glimpsing
a fleeting
notion of
greatness
that is only
affirmed by
triumph of
the will.

At such a cost
my legend is born
my burden
grows greater,
weighted by
the death of
my Sherpa.

Yet my resolve
grows, eclipsing
the size of
Warren Buffett’s
fortune.

As the world warms
urgency grows,
the alarm sounds!

Onward Sherpas!

Lay the ladder
portage my baggage
the labors of Sisyphus
will find reward
of a goodly outcome!

I press the coin
of the realm into
your hand

The prayer flags
fill with determination
that I succeed,
giving your life meaning
as divine compensation
for the cost of your life.

The prayer flag’s flap
with the mountain squalls
popping, snapping
our hosannas
of victory

Onward Sherpas!

Ever Onward
may the good
Buddha
embrace
you as you
climb toward
your next
destination...

Onward Sherpas!

Music Selection
Sherpa Dance Music

Poem dedicated to the 13 Sherpa climbers
who lost their lives this week on Mount Everest.
May they find peace in heaven
may their families find peace and
sustenance here on earth.

Oakland
4/23/14
jbm

I

Half of the fellow father as he doubles
His sea-****** Adam in the hollow hulk,
Half of the fellow mother as she dabbles
To-morrow's diver in her ***** milk,
Bisected shadows on the thunder's bone
Bolt for the salt unborn.

The fellow half was frozen as it bubbled
Corrosive spring out of the iceberg's crop,
The fellow seed and shadow as it babbled
The swing of milk was tufted in the pap,
For half of love was planted in the lost,
And the unplanted ghost.

The broken halves are fellowed in a *******,
The crutch that marrow taps upon their sleep,
Limp in the street of sea, among the rabble
Of tide-tongued heads and bladders in the deep,
And stake the sleepers in the savage grave
That the vampire laugh.

The patchwork halves were cloven as they scudded
The wild pigs' wood, and slime upon the trees,
******* the dark, kissed on the cyanide,
And loosed the braiding adders from their hairs,
Rotating halves are horning as they drill
The arterial angel.

What colour is glory? death's feather? tremble
The halves that pierce the pin's point in the air,
And ***** the thumb-stained heaven through the thimble.
The ghost is dumb that stammered in the straw,
The ghost that hatched his havoc as he flew
Blinds their cloud-tracking eye.

II

My world is pyramid. The padded mummer
Weeps on the desert ochre and the salt
Incising summer.
My Egypt's armour buckling in its sheet,
I scrape through resin to a starry bone
And a blood parhelion.

My world is cypress, and an English valley.
I piece my flesh that rattled on the yards
Red in an Austrian volley.
I hear, through dead men's drums, the riddled lads,
******* their bowels from a hill of bones,
Cry Eloi to the guns.

My grave is watered by the crossing Jordan.
The Arctic scut, and basin of the South,
Drip on my dead house garden.
Who seek me landward, marking in my mouth
The straws of Asia, lose me as I turn
Through the Atlantic corn.

The fellow halves that, cloven as they swivel
On casting tides, are tangled in the shells,
Bearding the unborn devil,
Bleed from my burning fork and smell my heels.
The tongue's of heaven gossip as I glide
Binding my angel's hood.

Who blows death's feather? What glory is colour?
I blow the stammel feather in the vein.
The **** is glory in a working pallor.
My clay unsuckled and my salt unborn,
The secret child, I sift about the sea
Dry in the half-tracked thigh.

Thanks be to God,
For every good and perfect gift
Comes down from the Father of lights
Who causes us in Christ
The world to overcome
And to joyfully sing.  

I am a man flawed,
A Christian the Devil will sift
For a season.  But the serpent bites
His own tongue, in time; and I, imparadised,
Will ask him when he's dumb,
Death, where is thy sting?

What’s the difference between hate and love
When they are two sides of the same blade.

Sharpened brandished waving wildly in ghost columns
against the disfigured, burning-white face of abrasion.
Then,
march home with square, taut shoulders – slightly bony –
Body swelled and puffed with
the blood-red energy of something desperate to naked pairs
ramming themselves against each other in an effort to
release.
These colorless concepts, abstract words
that hang in the air the same as
smoke-rings – ghost columns.

Could it give You a religion;
a belief that there is some guiding force in the universe
binding the two of you together by
touch, smell, scratching, grinding --
And he and You quelled
each other’s pleading prayers within
the folds of each muscles
the steeple of each elbow,
the hollow of each throat.

Some spiritualists call this the Kundalini – feel this world through a material base
A Love religion – fixing body and body together
because it’s the one thing that seems to make sense in this crude moment
when the ashes settled to fossilize inside
His and Yours brains.

“My God. His chest, his belly,
the riding and the falling, the moans.
How he clung to me, how he struggled --
Life and death! Life and death!”

The circle of arms is the gateway
to some emotional dry-heave:
the swelling, purging, and crashing
of grief, rage, love, and comfort
those same abstract, colorless concepts
teetering on the edge of a beaten-down slave gospel.

We can give our vegetables a gender:
Female onions. Peel only when ripe then
ferment in a closed plastic bottle.
Color sensations that can only pass between illuminated palms on an
angry evening.
Shakespeare’s Gloucester could only see this world feelingly, woman:
How will you cope after being blinded by his tears?
And when the ream is spent, write a poem on the back.

After your limbs searched for each other after years gone, searched underneath the covers for a comforting hand that could save the loneliness from shaking your souls out of your bodies?
When limbs stretched forward to hold both bodies together,
the backbones that ****** you both pressed against the skin --
The very skin that ****** you, too.
That dream baby bearing the handprint of his ghost --
his skin on your skin on baby skin
Against undifferentiated dark, it may glow beneath the cradle’s mobile.
“Another illegitimate black baby.” Let’s call it Smoke and Mirrors for maybe just a second.
Don’t pay attention to the swerve of small-town eyes.
Then, we can see the light through the parenthesis.
Call it the ghost of his Love. The ghost of meat love. Delirious brilliance.

Ghost of mouth-on-the-screen-door Love.
The same taste of nickels, of iron, of blood --
Leave the porchlight on if you want him to find his way back.
Hang the water-filled jar from the tree to ward away the evil ghosts.
Light it, love it, leave it. Light it, love it, leave it.
Who’s going to guide the insect-feelers
to the light
on the nights
When words split, scatter, and sift
into labor-streaked pyramids between these fingers?

Now do you know where you are? We see a little farther now, a little farther still.
Staked in fury, can we recognize red ants on a red ant hill, now?
Shrouded in a glory-cloud, at least you knew you fit somewhere.

As Women, We know the gospel well. A little farther now and a little farther still.
The maddening dances around *** and Song – it is possible for the rest of Us to understand
and know how You’ve been bleeding.