O morning sky of endless blue
Tinged with purply-pinky hue
You tell me of His mercies new
Whose heart pursues my own

O geese in wingèd winter's flight
Your honking cries arouse delight
And lift my gaze to seek thy sight
As wooing from His hand

O softest breeze which skims my face
And stirs with such mysterious grace
My soul to reach for Love’s embrace
You brush me with His kiss

O snowflakes falling to the ground
You pierce my heart without a sound
To crave a purity only found
Beneath a bloodied cross

O setting sun in half-light glowing
Waning day’s last glorious blush showing
You paint with fire my spirit’s own knowing—
This life is fading fast

O stars of midnight’s blackest sky
Paraded forth, you pull my eye
Toward One Who speaks this ceaseless cry:
“I’m coming back for you.”

O creeping fog to dawn’s light clinging
You whisper, Love’s veiled message bringing,
With haunting echoes faintly singing,
“Lose all of you in Him.”

Am I broken if I can't let people in?
The best friend of 5 years just barely skims the surface,
Of my lasting secrets and dark thoughts,
No body knows anything yet they try to believe,
That I'm normal like them but no one knows me,

There are who lord it o'er their fellow-men
With most prevailing tinsel: who unpen
Their baaing vanities, to browse away
The comfortable green and juicy hay
From human pastures; or, O torturing fact!
Who, through an idiot blink, will see unpack'd
Fire-branded foxes to sear up and singe
Our gold and ripe-ear'd hopes. With not one tinge
Of sanctuary splendour, not a sight
Able to face an owl's, they still are dight
By the blear-eyed nations in empurpled vests,
And crowns, and turbans. With unladen *******,
Save of blown self-applause, they proudly mount
To their spirit's perch, their being's high account,
Their tiptop nothings, their dull skies, their thrones--
Amid the fierce intoxicating tones
Of trumpets, shoutings, and belabour'd drums,
And sudden cannon. Ah! how all this hums,
In wakeful ears, like uproar past and gone--
Like thunder clouds that spake to Babylon,
And set those old Chaldeans to their tasks.--
Are then regalities all gilded masks?
No, there are throned seats unscalable
But by a patient wing, a constant spell,
Or by ethereal things that, unconfin'd,
Can make a ladder of the eternal wind,
And poise about in cloudy thunder-tents
To watch the abysm-birth of elements.
Aye, 'bove the withering of old-lipp'd Fate
A thousand Powers keep religious state,
In water, fiery realm, and airy bourne;
And, silent as a consecrated urn,
Hold sphery sessions for a season due.
Yet few of these far majesties, ah, few!
Have bared their operations to this globe--
Few, who with gorgeous pageantry enrobe
Our piece of heaven--whose benevolence
Shakes hand with our own Ceres; every sense
Filling with spiritual sweets to plenitude,
As bees gorge full their cells. And, by the feud
'Twixt Nothing and Creation, I here swear,
Eterne Apollo! that thy Sister fair
Is of all these the gentlier-mightiest.
When thy gold breath is misting in the west,
She unobserved steals unto her throne,
And there she sits most meek and most alone;
As if she had not pomp subservient;
As if thine eye, high Poet! was not bent
Towards her with the Muses in thine heart;
As if the ministring stars kept not apart,
Waiting for silver-footed messages.
O Moon! the oldest shades '**** oldest trees
Feel palpitations when thou lookest in:
O Moon! old boughs lisp forth a holier din
The while they feel thine airy fellowship.
Thou dost bless every where, with silver lip
Kissing dead things to life. The sleeping kine,
Couched in thy brightness, dream of fields divine:
Innumerable mountains rise, and rise,
Ambitious for the hallowing of thine eyes;
And yet thy benediction passeth not
One obscure hiding-place, one little spot
Where pleasure may be sent: the nested wren
Has thy fair face within its tranquil ken,
And from beneath a sheltering ivy leaf
Takes glimpses of thee; thou art a relief
To the poor patient oyster, where it sleeps
Within its pearly house.--The mighty deeps,
The monstrous sea is thine--the myriad sea!
O Moon! far-spooming Ocean bows to thee,
And Tellus feels his forehead's cumbrous load.

  Cynthia! where art thou now? What far abode
Of green or silvery bower doth enshrine
Such utmost beauty? Alas, thou dost pine
For one as sorrowful: thy cheek is pale
For one whose cheek is pale: thou dost bewail
His tears, who weeps for thee. Where dost thou sigh?
Ah! surely that light peeps from Vesper's eye,
Or what a thing is love! 'Tis She, but lo!
How chang'd, how full of ache, how gone in woe!
She dies at the thinnest cloud; her loveliness
Is wan on Neptune's blue: yet there's a stress
Of love-spangles, just off yon cape of trees,
Dancing upon the waves, as if to please
The curly foam with amorous influence.
O, not so idle: for down-glancing thence
She fathoms eddies, and runs wild about
O'erwhelming water-courses; scaring out
The thorny sharks from hiding-holes, and fright'ning
Their savage eyes with unaccustomed lightning.
Where will the splendor be content to reach?
O love! how potent hast thou been to teach
Strange journeyings! Wherever beauty dwells,
In gulf or aerie, mountains or deep dells,
In light, in gloom, in star or blazing sun,
Thou pointest out the way, and straight 'tis won.
Amid his toil thou gav'st Leander breath;
Thou leddest Orpheus through the gleams of death;
Thou madest Pluto bear thin element;
And now, O winged Chieftain! thou hast sent
A moon-beam to the deep, deep water-world,
To find Endymion.

                  On gold sand impearl'd
With lily shells, and pebbles milky white,
Poor Cynthia greeted him, and sooth'd her light
Against his pallid face: he felt the charm
To breathlessness, and suddenly a warm
Of his heart's blood: 'twas very sweet; he stay'd
His wandering steps, and half-entranced laid
His head upon a tuft of straggling weeds,
To taste the gentle moon, and freshening beads,
Lashed from the crystal roof by fishes' tails.
And so he kept, until the rosy veils
Mantling the east, by Aurora's peering hand
Were lifted from the water's breast, and fann'd
Into sweet air; and sober'd morning came
Meekly through billows:--when like taper-flame
Left sudden by a dallying breath of air,
He rose in silence, and once more 'gan fare
Along his fated way.

                      Far had he roam'd,
With nothing save the hollow vast, that foam'd
Above, around, and at his feet; save things
More dead than Morpheus' imaginings:
Old rusted anchors, helmets, breast-plates large
Of gone sea-warriors; brazen beaks and targe;
Rudders that for a hundred years had lost
The sway of human hand; gold vase emboss'd
With long-forgotten story, and wherein
No reveller had ever dipp'd a chin
But those of Saturn's vintage; mouldering scrolls,
Writ in the tongue of heaven, by those souls
Who first were on the earth; and sculptures rude
In ponderous stone, developing the mood
Of ancient Nox;--then skeletons of man,
Of beast, behemoth, and leviathan,
And elephant, and eagle, and huge jaw
Of nameless monster. A cold leaden awe
These secrets struck into him; and unless
Dian had chaced away that heaviness,
He might have died: but now, with cheered feel,
He onward kept; wooing these thoughts to steal
About the labyrinth in his soul of love.

  "What is there in thee, Moon! that thou shouldst move
My heart so potently? When yet a child
I oft have dried my tears when thou hast smil'd.
Thou seem'dst my sister: hand in hand we went
From eve to morn across the firmament.
No apples would I gather from the tree,
Till thou hadst cool'd their cheeks deliciously:
No tumbling water ever spake romance,
But when my eyes with thine thereon could dance:
No woods were green enough, no bower divine,
Until thou liftedst up thine eyelids fine:
In sowing time ne'er would I dibble take,
Or drop a seed, till thou wast wide awake;
And, in the summer tide of blossoming,
No one but thee hath heard me blithly sing
And mesh my dewy flowers all the night.
No melody was like a passing spright
If it went not to solemnize thy reign.
Yes, in my boyhood, every joy and pain
By thee were fashion'd to the self-same end;
And as I grew in years, still didst thou blend
With all my ardours: thou wast the deep glen;
Thou wast the mountain-top--the sage's pen--
The poet's harp--the voice of friends--the sun;
Thou wast the river--thou wast glory won;
Thou wast my clarion's blast--thou wast my steed--
My goblet full of wine--my topmost deed:--
Thou wast the charm of women, lovely Moon!
O what a wild and harmonized tune
My spirit struck from all the beautiful!
On some bright essence could I lean, and lull
Myself to immortality: I prest
Nature's soft pillow in a wakeful rest.
But, gentle Orb! there came a nearer bliss--
My strange love came--Felicity's abyss!
She came, and thou didst fade, and fade away--
Yet not entirely; no, thy starry sway
Has been an under-passion to this hour.
Now I begin to feel thine orby power
Is coming fresh upon me: O be kind,
Keep back thine influence, and do not blind
My sovereign vision.--Dearest love, forgive
That I can think away from thee and live!--
Pardon me, airy planet, that I prize
One thought beyond thine argent luxuries!
How far beyond!" At this a surpris'd start
Frosted the springing verdure of his heart;
For as he lifted up his eyes to swear
How his own goddess was past all things fair,
He saw far in the concave green of the sea
An old man sitting calm and peacefully.
Upon a weeded rock this old man sat,
And his white hair was awful, and a mat
Of weeds were cold beneath his cold thin feet;
And, ample as the largest winding-sheet,
A cloak of blue wrapp'd up his aged bones,
O'erwrought with symbols by the deepest groans
Of ambitious magic: every ocean-form
Was woven in with black distinctness; storm,
And calm, and whispering, and hideous roar
Were emblem'd in the woof; with every shape
That skims, or dives, or sleeps, 'twixt cape and cape.
The gulphing whale was like a dot in the spell,
Yet look upon it, and 'twould size and swell
To its huge self; and the minutest fish
Would pass the very hardest gazer's wish,
And show his little eye's anatomy.
Then there was pictur'd the regality
Of Neptune; and the sea nymphs round his state,
In beauteous vassalage, look up and wait.
Beside this old man lay a pearly wand,
And in his lap a book, the which he conn'd
So stedfastly, that the new denizen
Had time to keep him in amazed ken,
To mark these shadowings, and stand in awe.

  The old man rais'd his hoary head and saw
The wilder'd stranger--seeming not to see,
His features were so lifeless. Suddenly
He woke as from a trance; his snow-white brows
Went arching up, and like two magic ploughs
Furrow'd deep wrinkles in his forehead large,
Which kept as fixedly as rocky marge,
Till round his wither'd lips had gone a smile.
Then up he rose, like one whose tedious toil
Had watch'd for years in forlorn hermitage,
Who had not from mid-life to utmost age
Eas'd in one accent his o'er-burden'd soul,
Even to the trees. He rose: he grasp'd his stole,
With convuls'd clenches waving it abroad,
And in a voice of solemn joy, that aw'd
Echo into oblivion, he said:--

  "Thou art the man! Now shall I lay my head
In peace upon my watery pillow: now
Sleep will come smoothly to my weary brow.
O Jove! I shall be young again, be young!
O shell-borne Neptune, I am pierc'd and stung
With new-born life! What shall I do? Where go,
When I have cast this serpent-skin of woe?--
I'll swim to the syrens, and one moment listen
Their melodies, and see their long hair glisten;
Anon upon that giant's arm I'll be,
That writhes about the roots of Sicily:
To northern seas I'll in a twinkling sail,
And mount upon the snortings of a whale
To some black cloud; thence down I'll madly sweep
On forked lightning, to the deepest deep,
Where through some ******* pool I will be hurl'd
With rapture to the other side of the world!
O, I am full of gladness! Sisters three,
I bow full hearted to your old decree!
Yes, every god be thank'd, and power benign,
For I no more shall wither, droop, and pine.
Thou art the man!" Endymion started back
Dismay'd; and, like a wretch from whom the rack
Tortures hot breath, and speech of agony,
Mutter'd: "What lonely death am I to die
In this cold region? Will he let me freeze,
And float my brittle limbs o'er polar seas?
Or will he touch me with his searing hand,
And leave a black memorial on the sand?
Or tear me piece-meal with a bony saw,
And keep me as a chosen food to draw
His magian fish through hated fire and flame?
O misery of hell! resistless, tame,
Am I to be burnt up? No, I will shout,
Until the gods through heaven's blue look out!--
O Tartarus! but some few days agone
Her soft arms were entwining me, and on
Her voice I hung like fruit among green leaves:
Her lips were all my own, and--ah, ripe sheaves
Of happiness! ye on the stubble droop,
But never may be garner'd. I must stoop
My head, and kiss death's foot. Love! love, farewel!
Is there no hope from thee? This horrid spell
Would melt at thy sweet breath.--By Dian's hind
Feeding from her white fingers, on the wind
I see thy streaming hair! and now, by Pan,
I care not for this old mysterious man!"

  He spake, and walking to that aged form,
Look'd high defiance. Lo! his heart 'gan warm
With pity, for the grey-hair'd creature wept.
Had he then wrong'd a heart where sorrow kept?
Had he, though blindly contumelious, brought
Rheum to kind eyes, a sting to human thought,
Convulsion to a mouth of many years?
He had in truth; and he was ripe for tears.
The penitent shower fell, as down he knelt
Before that care-worn sage, who trembling felt
About his large dark locks, and faultering spake:

  "Arise, good youth, for sacred Phoebus' sake!
I know thine inmost *****, and I feel
A very brother's yearning for thee steal
Into mine own: for why? thou openest
The prison gates that have so long opprest
My weary watching. Though thou know'st it not,
Thou art commission'd to this fated spot
For great enfranchisement. O weep no more;
I am a friend to love, to loves of yore:
Aye, hadst thou never lov'd an unknown power
I had been grieving at this joyous hour
But even now most miserable old,
I saw thee, and my blood no longer cold
Gave mighty pulses: in this tottering case
Grew a new heart, which at this moment plays
As dancingly as thine. Be not afraid,
For thou shalt hear this secret all display'd,
Now as we speed towards our joyous task."

  So saying, this young soul in age's mask
Went forward with the Carian side by side:
Resuming quickly thus; while ocean's tide
Hung swollen at their backs, and jewel'd sands
Took silently their foot-prints. "My soul stands
Now past the midway from mortality,
And so I can prepare without a sigh
To tell thee briefly all my joy and pain.
I was a fisher once, upon this main,
And my boat danc'd in every creek and bay;
Rough billows were my home by night and day,--
The sea-gulls not more constant; for I had
No housing from the storm and tempests mad,
But hollow rocks,--and they were palaces
Of silent happiness, of slumberous ease:
Long years of misery have told me so.
Aye, thus it was one thousand years ago.
One thousand years!--Is it then possible
To look so plainly through them? to dispel
A thousand years with backward glance sublime?
To breathe away as 'twere all scummy slime
From off a crystal pool, to see its deep,
And one's own image from the bottom peep?
Yes: now I am no longer wretched thrall,
My long captivity and moanings all
Are but a slime, a thin-pervading ****,
The which I breathe away, and thronging come
Like things of yesterday my youthful pleasures.

  "I touch'd no lute, I sang not, trod no measures:
I was a lonely youth on desert shores.
My sports were lonely, 'mid continuous roars,
And craggy isles, and sea-mew's plaintive cry
Plaining discrepant between sea and sky.
Dolphins were still my playmates; shapes unseen
Would let me feel their scales of gold and green,
Nor be my desolation; and, full oft,
When a dread waterspout had rear'd aloft
Its hungry hugeness, seeming ready ripe
To burst with hoarsest thunderings, and wipe
My life away like a vast sponge of fate,
Some friendly monster, pitying my sad state,
Has dived to its foundations, gulph'd it down,
And left me tossing safely. But the crown
Of all my life was utmost quietude:
More did I love to lie in cavern rude,
Keeping in wait whole days for Neptune's voice,
And if it came at last, hark, and rejoice!
There blush'd no summer eve but I would steer
My skiff along green shelving coasts, to hear
The shepherd's pipe come clear from aery steep,
Mingled with ceaseless bleatings of his sheep:
And never was a day of summer shine,
But I beheld its birth upon the brine:
For I would watch all night to see unfold
Heaven's gates, and Aethon snort his morning gold
Wide o'er the swelling streams: and constantly
At brim of day-tide, on some grassy lea,
My nets would be spread out, and I at rest.
The poor folk of the sea-country I blest
With daily boon of fish most delicate:
They knew not whence this bounty, and elate
Would strew sweet flowers on a sterile beach.

  "Why was I not contented? Wherefore reach
At things which, but for thee, O Latmian!
Had been my dreary death? Fool! I began
To feel distemper'd longings: to desire
The utmost priv

I.
While raging tempests shake the shore,
While Ælus’ thunders round us roar,
And sweep impetuous o’er the plain
Be still, O tyrant of the main;
Nor let thy brow contracted frowns betray,
While my Susanna skims the wat’ry way.

               II.
The Pow’r propitious hears the lay,
The blue-ey’d daughters of the sea
With sweeter cadence glide along,
And Thames responsive joins the song.
Pleas’d with their notes Sol sheds benign his ray,
And double radiance decks the face of day.

               III.
To court thee to Britannia’s arms
  Serene the climes and mild the sky,
Her region boasts unnumber’d charms,
  Thy welcome smiles in ev’ry eye.
Thy promise, Neptune keep, record my pray’r,
Not give my wishes to the empty air.

The bows glided down, and the coast
Blackened with birds took a last look
At his thrashing hair and whale-blue eye;
The trodden town rang its cobbles for luck.

Then good-bye to the fishermanned
Boat with its anchor free and fast
As a bird hooking over the sea,
High and dry by the top of the mast,

Whispered the affectionate sand
And the bulwarks of the dazzled quay.
For my sake sail, and never look back,
Said the looking land.

Sails drank the wind, and white as milk
He sped into the drinking dark;
The sun shipwrecked west on a pearl
And the moon swam out of its hulk.

Funnels and masts went by in a whirl.
Good-bye to the man on the sea-legged deck
To the gold gut that sings on his reel
To the bait that stalked out of the sack,

For we saw him throw to the swift flood
A girl alive with his hooks through her lips;
All the fishes were rayed in blood,
Said the dwindling ships.

Good-bye to chimneys and funnels,
Old wives that spin in the smoke,
He was blind to the eyes of candles
In the praying windows of waves

But heard his bait buck in the wake
And tussle in a shoal of loves.
Now cast down your rod, for the whole
Of the sea is hilly with whales,

She longs among horses and angels,
The rainbow-fish bend in her joys,
Floated the lost cathedral
Chimes of the rocked buoys.

Where the anchor rode like a gull
Miles over the moonstruck boat
A squall of birds bellowed and fell,
A cloud blew the rain from its throat;

He saw the storm smoke out to ****
With fuming bows and ram of ice,
Fire on starlight, rake Jesu's stream;
And nothing shone on the water's face

But the oil and bubble of the moon,
Plunging and piercing in his course
The lured fish under the foam
Witnessed with a kiss.

Whales in the wake like capes and Alps
Quaked the sick sea and snouted deep,
Deep the great bushed bait with raining lips
Slipped the fins of those humpbacked tons

And fled their love in a weaving dip.
Oh, Jericho was falling in their lungs!
She nipped and dived in the nick of love,
Spun on a spout like a long-legged ball

Till every beast blared down in a swerve
Till every turtle crushed from his shell
Till every bone in the rushing grave
Rose and crowed and fell!

Good luck to the hand on the rod,
There is thunder under its thumbs;
Gold gut is a lightning thread,
His fiery reel sings off its flames,

The whirled boat in the burn of his blood
Is crying from nets to knives,
Oh the shearwater birds and their boatsized brood
Oh the bulls of Biscay and their calves

Are making under the green, laid veil
The long-legged beautiful bait their wives.
Break the black news and paint on a sail
Huge weddings in the waves,

Over the wakeward-flashing spray
Over the gardens of the floor
Clash out the mounting dolphin's day,
My mast is a bell-spire,

Strike and smoothe, for my decks are drums,
Sing through the water-spoken prow
The octopus walking into her limbs
The polar eagle with his tread of snow.

From salt-lipped beak to the kick of the stern
Sing how the seal has kissed her dead!
The long, laid minute's bride drifts on
Old in her cruel bed.

Over the graveyard in the water
Mountains and galleries beneath
Nightingale and hyena
Rejoicing for that drifting death

Sing and howl through sand and anemone
Valley and sahara in a shell,
Oh all the wanting flesh his enemy
Thrown to the sea in the shell of a girl

Is old as water and plain as an eel;
Always good-bye to the long-legged bread
Scattered in the paths of his heels
For the salty birds fluttered and fed

And the tall grains foamed in their bills;
Always good-bye to the fires of the face,
For the crab-backed dead on the sea-bed rose
And scuttled over her eyes,

The blind, clawed stare is cold as sleet.
The tempter under the eyelid
Who shows to the selves asleep
Mast-high moon-white women naked

Walking in wishes and lovely for shame
Is dumb and gone with his flame of brides.
Susannah's drowned in the bearded stream
And no-one stirs at Sheba's side

But the hungry kings of the tides;
Sin who had a woman's shape
Sleeps till Silence blows on a cloud
And all the lifted waters walk and leap.

Lucifer that bird's dropping
Out of the sides of the north
Has melted away and is lost
Is always lost in her vaulted breath,

Venus lies star-struck in her wound
And the sensual ruins make
Seasons over the liquid world,
White springs in the dark.

Always good-bye, cried the voices through the shell,
Good-bye always, for the flesh is cast
And the fisherman winds his reel
With no more desire than a ghost.

Always good luck, praised the finned in the feather
Bird after dark and the laughing fish
As the sails drank up the hail of thunder
And the long-tailed lightning lit his catch.

The boat swims into the six-year weather,
A wind throws a shadow and it freezes fast.
See what the gold gut drags from under
Mountains and galleries to the crest!

See what clings to hair and skull
As the boat skims on with drinking wings!
The statues of great rain stand still,
And the flakes fall like hills.

Sing and strike his heavy haul
Toppling up the boatside in a snow of light!
His decks are drenched with miracles.
Oh miracle of fishes! The long dead bite!

Out of the urn a size of a man
Out of the room the weight of his trouble
Out of the house that holds a town
In the continent of a fossil

One by one in dust and shawl,
Dry as echoes and insect-faced,
His fathers cling to the hand of the girl
And the dead hand leads the past,

Leads them as children and as air
On to the blindly tossing tops;
The centuries throw back their hair
And the old men sing from newborn lips:

Time is bearing another son.
**** Time! She turns in her pain!
The oak is felled in the acorn
And the hawk in the egg kills the wren.

He who blew the great fire in
And died on a hiss of flames
Or walked the earth in the evening
Counting the denials of the grains

Clings to her drifting hair, and climbs;
And he who taught their lips to sing
Weeps like the risen sun among
The liquid choirs of his tribes.

The rod bends low, divining land,
And through the sundered water crawls
A garden holding to her hand
With birds and animals

With men and women and waterfalls
Trees cool and dry in the whirlpool of ships
And stunned and still on the green, laid veil
Sand with legends in its ****** laps

And prophets loud on the burned dunes;
Insects and valleys hold her thighs hard,
Times and places grip her breast bone,
She is breaking with seasons and clouds;

Round her trailed wrist fresh water weaves,
with moving fish and rounded stones
Up and down the greater waves
A separate river breathes and runs;

Strike and sing his catch of fields
For the surge is sown with barley,
The cattle graze on the covered foam,
The hills have footed the waves away,

With wild sea fillies and soaking bridles
With salty colts and gales in their limbs
All the horses of his haul of miracles
Gallop through the arched, green farms,

Trot and gallop with gulls upon them
And thunderbolts in their manes.
O Rome and ***** To-morrow and London
The country tide is cobbled with towns

And steeples pierce the cloud on her shoulder
And the streets that the fisherman combed
When his long-legged flesh was a wind on fire
And his **** was a hunting flame

Coil from the thoroughfares of her hair
And terribly lead him home alive
Lead her prodigal home to his terror,
The furious ox-killing house of love.

Down, down, down, under the ground,
Under the floating villages,
Turns the moon-chained and water-wound
Metropolis of fishes,

There is nothing left of the sea but its sound,
Under the earth the loud sea walks,
In deathbeds of orchards the boat dies down
And the bait is drowned among hayricks,

Land, land, land, nothing remains
Of the pacing, famous sea but its speech,
And into its talkative seven tombs
The anchor dives through the floors of a church.

Good-bye, good luck, struck the sun and the moon,
To the fisherman lost on the land.
He stands alone in the door of his home,
With his long-legged heart in his hand.

dragonflies melt
into each other.
flowers meld
shaded silver
upon silver.
string whips of
cotton float by like jacks
thrown by children,
unsusceptible to
the force of gravity.

the mechanics of
heart machines
crank awake.

steel knees bend dull and
swollen.

venetian mask with
sterling tongue
skims the tops
of tiny toes
and errantly spring-ed
grasshoppers..

warm bodies
in bubbling steel
meadow—
cool in nature,
stolen like
gold
crafted and
crafted again
in heat.

There is a bird in the poplars!
It is the sun!
The leaves are little yellow fish
swimming in the river.
The bird skims above them,
day is on his wings.
Phoebus!
It is he that is making
the great gleam among the poplars!
It is his singing
outshines the noise
of leaves clashing in the wind.

bathing myself in this thirsting quench
and now I’ve come to see you
as a drug. a pill.
but not prescribed.
     
Staring blackly at me
on my bedside table
                  and it’s teasing me.
teasing me with the sugar cane
that erupts when it skims my tounge -
I drool.

alluring my own deception  with your
succulent crescendo
that unravels it’s way down my whole
     voice until there’s none left.
And its just the way it sets me so ablaze
that I cremate casually  in your
immaculate ignite.

                       Knuckles clench to restrain that
                 sentiment that nostalgia
             that world that lies behind your door I always see myself
            linger through ghostly.



I’ve never been

To those men who are always behind us, though sometimes we may not see them.
To those men who are too busy flying fighter jets to teach their daughters to make paper planes.
To those sons who will point at every aeroplane that skims the horizon to proudly claim, “that’s my father!”.
To those women whose hearts will return wrapped in the tricolour and chipped aluminium; Who will place dented helmets beside faded polaroids of days gone by.
To those youth who will break solemn promises- “I’ll come back soon.”
To those families that will stare out of windows, refusing to draw down curtains as they hope against hope.
To those men who can truly say the sky is the limit.
To those men who fly above us yet are so rooted to the cause of their motherland.
Those brave hearts whose faces are lined with sweat and determination as they kiss the ground beneath their feet before they embrace the heavens for the last time.
To the men who take every sortie with a last salute.
To the white saris and navy-blue shirts stashed away and medals hung on rusted nails. To survival and martyrdom and the presence of absences. To commodores and flight lieutenants and wingmen. To parades and memoirs and sacrifices and soldiers in the sky.
The Eighth of October is for them.
To those men who are always behind us, though sometimes we may not see them.
To those men who are too busy flying fighter jets to teach their daughters to make paper planes.
To those sons who will point at every aeroplane that skims the horizon to proudly claim, “that’s my father!”.
To those women whose hearts will return wrapped in the tricolour and chipped aluminium; Who will place dented helmets beside faded polaroids of days gone by.
To those youth who will break solemn promises- “I’ll come back soon.”
To those families that will stare out of windows, refusing to draw down curtains as they hope against hope.
To those men who can truly say the sky is the limit.
To those men who fly above us yet are so rooted to the cause of their motherland.
Those brave hearts whose faces are lined with sweat and determination as they kiss the ground beneath their feet before they embrace the heavens for the last time.
To the men who take every sortie with a last salute.
To the white saris and navy-blue shirts stashed away and medals hung on rusted nails. To survival and martyrdom and the presence of absences. To commodores and flight lieutenants and wingmen. To parades and memoirs and sacrifices and soldiers in the sky.
The Eighth of October is for them.

There is a bird in the poplars!
It is the sun!
The leaves are little yellow fish
swimming in the river.
The bird skims above them,
day is on his wings.
Phoebus!
It is he that is making
the great gleam among the poplars!
It is his singing
outshines the noise
of leaves clashing in the wind.

a twenty-six year old woman sits alone outside a coffee shop, waiting
she plays Snake on an old Nokia that was discontinued long ago
her red dread locks are tucked neatly under a worn beanie
that she stole from the boy that she gave her virginity away to
in a skate park when she was nineteen

a twenty-six year old woman sits alone at her desk, writing
she has a one night stand whose name she doesn't remember sleeping in her bed
her mascara is running and her lips are dyed black from henna
that she stole from the girl who offered her shelter when she ran away to live
in her car and dingy motel rooms after college

a twenty-six year old woman sits outside a Stop and Shop, drinking Shasta
she recently tried to publish her book of poems , but it was rejected so:
her shorts barely covered her backside and she wore the bralette
that she stole from her brother's girlfriend while she was visiting
in the false hopes that he would register how badly she needed him (or anyone)

a twenty-six year old woman sits in a little blue rowboat, drilling holes into the bottom
she skims Red Kayak before she leaves home and ties rocks around her ankles
her thoughts are set on mentally regressing the pain of her teenage years
that she wishes she could steal back to at least put some emotion back
into her heart

it'd been better than feeling nothing at all

Draped fabric across ebony skin
blues so bright, even the sky fades its light
nestled over the linen
she glances up
a camera smiling
as she giggles with
embarrassment as she fell
the fall is captured as a moment in
time that will never be
lost.

Chilled wine glass in her left hand
cindarella burning against red painted nails
in the other, looking over the balcony she sits
ponders her day as the night sky
fades to red then a deep pitch black
stars like diamonds in the sky above
crickets among the silence
the only noise she hears
distracted.

Her phone lights up with messages from
the day that, she wasn't able to read
as she skims through, a shout is heard
from inside the hotel room
she drops down the phone, places the glass
to the table, and the lighted cigarette to the tray
more time is allowed some space outside
she finishes her smoke, drinks up her wine
shuts down her
phone.

She smiles to herself red lipstick caresses the glass
like a lovers lips touched
not tainted
bottle in cooler, fills the glass to the rim
her heart is warm, soul content
she knows she is loved
unrequited unknown
for now she has a mind
so occupied it's impossible to
know.

----

"EBONY AND IVORY,
LIVE TOGETHER IN PERFECT HARMONY,
SIDE BY SIDE ON MY PIANO KEYBOARD,
OH, LORD, WHY DON'T WE?"

Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder

© Sia Jane

This scent of you, it clings to my skin,
it clings like a rash that's boiled over from within.
I scratch at this poison that has marked my flesh,
the scent of you, at your very ****** best.
I throw off the covers and hit the wall with my fist;
should lust be a sin, if lust is like this?
And no matter what with who, how, what or where,
everytime i sleep i can feel your ****** stare.
And the weight of your fingers on the back of my neck
drives me to nightmares, and meaningless ***.
Tinged by the moment and forgotten by the hue,
my arms are brusied easily by the scent of you.
I'm running wildly through bracken and fire,
i'm running as a beast would run from apathy and desire.
I, the lone wolf, i'm moonlit, i scratch and i howl,
at the memory of your face, and your sneering sharp scowl.
I, the lone rider, in flight fearless, reckless and abused,
I jump fields, catch branches, torn, bleeding and bruised.
I hide in the woods, and float in the sea
I'm hiding myself from the deepest memory of me.
You're the poision ivy to my deepest forest of bark,
You're the drifting snow to my deepest vision of dark.
This scent of you, it clings to my lips
and i bite my tongue as i stretch my fingertips.
There is no sense in this dirt that flies through my hands
my thoughts are lost as stone is lost in beached sands.
I rip at my skin and i tear at my voice
I made this my dealing, at my beck, at my choice.
I draw upon my body like a breeze skims the ground,
there is no more wanton whimper, than there is my sound.
And at night when the nightmares come and i scream in my sleep,
the scent of you overwhelms my body, and i sow what i reap.
I lightly collect my feelings and throw them in a box,
I wrap in chains and cover it in locks.
I have been fooled, i have been fooled and blinded by you
and this scent lingers, in a memory of a distant bluish hue.
I watch as you walk away, your hips sway, tail high
And i howl and i scream and i sit and i cry.
And whilst i linger alongside this sharp vivid movie scene,
i count my bruises and feel quietly serene.

i scroll through
the symptoms;
the signs once more
finally screen-shotting them
only so i do not have to keep
looking and re-looking
them up

i rummage through the very
personal box of writings
hidden under my bed
i find the paper
with the heading of:
How I See Me, How I Am
following the undepthed title
is a list of short, spiked written words,
words that, all though so very short, mean so much
and ache even worse

down to the bottom of the list my finger skims
my eyes scattered throughout the words
and my tears scarring the paper
finally at the the bottom
i grab the pen and finish the list
with one simple word

depressed

(a.b)

That person who gets you, lifts you
As the stone that fits your hand does
Who loves you as the stone from your hand
Skims out across the sea, loves you so
Many times more
Than you can count
That
Person

Whose love seems older than the stone
Smoother than its perfect roundness
Whose eyes seem deeper than the sea
During the endless time your eyes
Meet. And the feeling

In your heart
Of that stone
That oldest
Perfect
Love

Skimming light, skimming fast
Skimming away
Away

As it fades
As it

Fades

don't **** with Kanye, the crazy Kanye, beefing with Jay-Z Kanye

he's so sick, a *****, an addict, the **** Kanye, take the mic Kanye

take your pick, he'll diss yo' kids, kiss yo' ***** Kanye

can't spell Kanye, outselling your fav' artist Kanye

the old Kanye, the 808 Kanye, he outsold 50 the kim's Kanye,

yeezy for yo' skims Kanye, don't **** with Kanye.

She turns on the water and tips the bottle of bubble bath. The syrup flows a slow stream out the end of the bottle and slides into the steaming liquid. The bubbles swell and fill the tub.

Returning to the stereo she picks a CD and hits play. James Blunt will be the man of the hour to serenade her in her sensuous delight. "All The Lost Souls" seems somehow fitting tonight and having felt the urgency in some of his songs and the wanton plea in others she believes him to be the perfect choice for tonight.

The cupboard is opened and she reaches for a larger than necessary wine glass, the romantic one she likes to use for a long soak, an indulgence designed solely for herself.

Striking the wooden match on the side of the box, 2 candles are lit; one for the counter and the other open flame to dazzle and dance on the edge of the tub. The glow is enough to light her way as her eyes quickly adjust. Pupils growing wider, breath growing slower, anticipation wets her.

Placing the glass of white wine in the corner edge of the tub she lets her satin robe fall to the floor. The white fabric puddles on the rich brown tile as she steps from its folds and into the soft awaiting bubbles that fill the tub to the brim. She slowly lowers herself into the billowing cushion and feels the searing heat torch her skin. She knows the heat will dissipate so she tolerates the almost too hot water in the beginning.

The bubbles are full around her womanly curves, engulfing her, tickling her skin as they break in movement. She sinks in fully, releasing a long relaxing sigh. Her eyes twinkle in the dancing candle light as it bounces off the bubbles and the shiny walls of the tub. Sipping the chilled wine her body finds relief from the hot water. Slipping it down her throat and resting the cool glass on her dampened breast.

As she slides and rolls in the water the bubbles weaken and break. The flickering flame exposes glistening skin as it is visible through the openings in the bubbled shell. A raised leg, the soft mound of a breast, the ***** of a shoulder, the curl of a lock of hair silhouette in the candle light. Knees bent she pulls herself toward the end of the tub and gently smiles as the water caresses her skin while she pushes away. She runs her hands over her body, silky from the bubble bath but her hottest parts slippery of their own accord. Wet before but more wet now.

She hears a slight sound and turns to the door. He is standing there, silently watching her. How long has he been there? What had his gaze enjoyed? Not that it isn't ultimately all his to enjoy anyway. But now that he is there she shall play out her private time to his audience. He loves how she is confident in her own sexuality, how she finds enjoyment with the body she has been given and how she freely gives it to him. It is moments like these that he could explode for her in lust but hangs on not wanting the magic to end.

He steps to the tub and hands her the glass with the last sip of wine, watching as it cools her and slides down her throat. He holds the over sized bath sheet open for her and she steps from the tub. Folding her in the soft cotton he wicks away just enough of the water to stop her from dripping. A breeze coming in the window skims her damp skin and her ******* harden, fully *****.

She is about to get ***** all over again. It's a good thing she is washable.

cliche, boring, bland and weak
based upon a foundation of chic
pseudo-intellectual

you distract from your lack
with your apathetic crap
entomology and intonation
i call it character *******

you do it too often, many of you
just be who you are so we can shine through

i just have to get this off my chest...
your subject matter concerns love
who would've guessed

it rhymes and chimes and deliverance isn't best
and if one skims just beginning and end
there is no need for the rest

lacking originality
either resolve or contradiction
not cryptic nor a riddle in sight
not an original thought nor display of risk

you can learn here from this one write
what you could never tell east from west
and even though, you'll be better so
it will never be
as clever as thee
so just hide behind your traditional text

its not that i seek to pick on the weak
its quite the contrary-

start over with command
so you understand
it is the fraudulent that i detest

it is lack of interest and tact
and i won't take it back
your technique is as the rest.

you slack in approach
you couldn't hold my attention
from the first line
to the next

no captivation
no eccentricity
no enigma
flooding, you are, a pest

parasitic in your relentlessness
attention seeking for all the wrong reasons
leading poetry to its death

you bore me truly
insincerely yours,
unafraid to best.

Golden laced
repeat patterns dance
beneath closed lashes
Sunlight finding it's way

through shimmering ripples, 
I see before me
Woman of the Water.
Stance of resilience,

silloute to sky. She
skims the surface.
An apparition.
This Goddess dancing atop

the waves. Paddle in hand,
solid upon her watercraft.
She knows her strength, gliding
above a sparkling world of secrets.*

~Christi Michaels~June 2015~

Copyright © 2015 Christi Michaels.
All Rights Reserved.

[Dedicated to Horace Sheridan-Bickers]

A vision of flushed faces, shining limbs,
The madness of the music that entrances
All life in its delirium of dances!
The white world glitters in the void, and swims
Through the infinite seas of transcendental trances.
Yea! all the hoarded seed of all my fancies
Bursts in a shower of suns! The wine-cup brims
And bubbles over; I drink deep hymns
Of sorceries, of spells, of necromancies;
And all my spirit shudders; dew bedims
My sight -these girls and their alluring glances!
Their eyes that burn like dawn's lascivious lances
Walking all earth to love -to love! Life skims
The cream of joy. If God could see what man sees,
(Intoxicating Nellies, Mauds and Nances!)
I see Him leave the sapphrine expanses,
The choir serene and the celestial air
To swoon into their sacramental hair!

This burning flame ignites even more

the desire of our senses fill up the emptiness

Of what yearns to be...

Felt

Heard



The passion of the world and all in it turn to

recognition

The truth of parted lips

and from anothers pain

Realization



Beauty and passion comes from the soul

yet it may comes and goes...

The distance is no longer there

The desire of my senses come back

Love





Expression with sincerity skims against your skin

The light gentle touch

one touch

ever so much to go further

I fear for a moment



No pause

but again this repeated motion

this unspeakable trance

leads me to temptation

seduction



sweet passionate comparisons

sweet understandings

sweet beautiful

sweet...



yet again i find myself

lost within the depths

of your very lips



kiss

as rain brusquely clears a
window's record, and a screen
grays the glinting heads of
drops.
as the bacon-brittle bars of a
fire escape press against the
dully scratched green of
distant trees.
melancholy skims the ears,
sews shut their fetal-shaped
holes.

I wish you could hear my heart thumping from the miles between us.

I wish that your finger tips could glide across every inch of my skin just as an ice skater skims the freshly smoothed canvas their feet call home.

You are my home.

I wish I was a snowflake in your hair, I would cling to each strand tightly and become one with every cell, creating a bond between us stronger than any atom.

Then maybe part of me would be stuck to you forever.

In the summer you’d have the memory of the sky I came from and the stars that created me.

The sky was clear the night I met you; each star twinkling with its own perception of fate.

I want to become cosmonaut, so I can visit each destiny. Maybe then, I could find the one that fits us best. The one that would have made you stay.

One night you told me how we should count them all. Tossing our thoughts in the sky recklessly, desperately trying to match the dim lights above in uncertainty.

The darkness consumed our thoughts, ******* them into a black hole that gave no promise for return. Those twinkling thoughts diminished, lost in the vastness of space, forgotten as they slipped away into the night.

The coldness of space is unforgiving and so is your love.

You branded your name on my heart, each letter making a permanent home in my flesh.

The scar of your love is something that my body will never part with, but I wasn’t good enough for you.

I could never take care of you the way I needed to.

The stakes were too high, the distance too vast. It was too good to be true, too bittersweet, and all the other sappy clichés in the book.

I trusted you, with my heart and though you broke it in two, I’d do it all again if I knew that you’d try.

If I knew that you believed that our love was stronger than the bigots around us, and that you believed that the love I gave was enough.

The thought of you resides in the back of my mind; occupying my subconscious like a living dream.

I can still hear your voice just as clear and crisp as it will ever be.

My body begs for you, but all I can feel is your ghost.

Your presence lingers in the air above my bed dancing about in the night masquerading as fireflies.

They used to be my nightlight. Now they fuel an insomnia that is colder than night itself.

Forgetting you is not just as simple as putting your picture away.

I might have to suffer from a concussion that will bless me with mind numbing amnesia just to forget the way you touched my soul.

Your love will forever be infused in my veins and whether or not it haunts me I’m sure it’s not something

I’d reluctantly get rid of, unless I had no other choice.

So I will continue to cherish those memories, no matter how painful. In hopes that someday you’ll come running back to me.

Someone gave me a round metal button with a picture of Ghandi spinning thread.  He says the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.  This is true.  Finding the depth of life, what love looks like, was the most substantial, amazing gift my daughters gave me.

Even before each was born, I found myself tying my heart to each life, their future.  Before, I had always revolved around me and my survival, what was best for me. Now even what I ate and drank affected someone else directly.  Babies born so vulnerable they needed everything I am and needed the best I tried to be, with them first.  Their needs decided when or if I slept, when or if I left the house, where or if I would go.  But in return we both merged into the same clock, the same life for a few years, and I could see the world through brand new eyes.

A Preening Ego, fluffed from a career's fleeting recognition, is told to sit down for awhile.
Timorous Self-Esteem, a façade validated by producing the world's tokens, is put away awhile.
Resentful Self-preservation's ******* up importance, first in line grasping time, is ignored awhile.
Gratification never satisfied by a quick rush from the temporary is told to wait awhile.
Self-centered Goals, a calendar filled because empty is worthless, is taken down awhile.

The Grand Illusion is cleared away.

They grow so fast, I treasure their company.  The afternoon sun shines warmly through the living room window, skims over the top of the couch, reveals some lazy dust floating peacefully in the quiet house, and lights up my 9 month old daughter's baby fine brunette hair.  She has been studying a tiny colorful empty double sided box, the same size as her tiny palms, for 20 minutes. Little fingers working the top, figuring this all out;  I am so impressed with her attention span; this moment is so much more important than a schedule.   My younger daughter was born with brilliant blond curly hair, and tomboy laughter; so laid back nothing phases her.  She is a toddler, standing in front of the toy jeep driven by her older sister, who sits knowing she has all the power right now.  The younger is daring and knows she stands with all the power right now.  I hope they both remember they always do.  When they were in school, Iwas pleased getting notes from the teacher, telling me one is talking in class, or the other can't sit still, interrupting, because I knew they are happy.

Both of my daughters walk around with my heart in their hands and all I can do is pray for their well-being.

And that so happens to be the point of it all.

Inspired by Shel Silverstien’s “Hungry Mungry”

They’re coming. They’ll get me.
They’ll get me, and hit me, and make me bleed my young blood that looks just like theirs,
With skin that looks just like theirs, but something in me’s different.
As different as my mothers before me.

It doesn’t matter.
They’re coming.
Their dark boots clomp down the hall, begging to bash my ribs, or my face, or my shins, or--

--They’re here. They take their fists and their feet and their words, taking turns finding the soft flesh
Covered by my backpack and my shoes and my clothes and my bones.

They found me, and they’ll beat me, and they’ll **** me--
That’s what I think until--
--I change.

I grow. My shins and my fingers and my skull and my toes.
My body elongates, it stretches and lengthens.
I’m still bleeding and bleeding and still bruising and bleeding.
But the blows stop.

They back away, at least I think so, but my body pushes them farther and farther,
I’m pressed against the ceiling, pressed against the lockers, until I feel them give, and I’m free.
I break through the ceiling, I break past the rain, I--

--Stand up. My head skims the clouds, misting my face. I feel myself drift away from this place,
As my head reaches farther, my neck, my chest, my stomach, my legs.

Trees break beneath my feet.
They crack and splinter, just like the houses, just like the schools.

The ground gets farther and farther away, my feet so big they spread across the land and the seas.
I’m blowing up like a balloon, like Violet-*******-Beauregard, from that book I read in in the second grade.
I push back against mass under my feet,
Let them feel the fire, let them feel the heat.
Earth is flying too close to the sun, as I grow, and I grow, and I grow.

The stars drift around me, popping blistering holes in my skin as I grow and push against them too.
I stick my hand in Jupiter, in Neptune, in Saturn.
I crush Mars like a dirt clod inside my fist, and slap nebulas together with a flick of the wrist.

I am the sun, and I am the storm, and the wind and the waves,
From the place I was birthed--

--The place I was birthed? Where was I? Where’s that?

I look to my feet and see naught but a speck,
I do a summersault to examine it closer--

--Not an inch from the Sun, my home withers and dies.

But still I grow, and I grow, and I grow.

Earth is now too small to hold

Still I grow, and I grow, and I grow.

I see so many things from here, but I shan’t get closer, for fear they’ll disappear.
But that’s not enough, still I grow, and I grow, and I grow.

Pushing them away like so many I know.

I hope and I dream for this ride to stop, still I grow, and I grow and I grow.

I grow, and I grow, and I grow.

He skims the haze of the day
like a cat seeking its food
prowling lane alleyway
to find you in bitter mood.

On your door the unwelcome guest
you would not call him to stay
with him time is a waste
he would better be shooed away.

You hate when he starts to speak
his sunburned face is a bore
must cut him short pretty quick
behind him close the door.

Like you are nine of ten
but he knows his job is done
is rewarded all his pain
if he can charm just one.

The one that ears lends
a carer who knows well
how it greatly depends
a family on one sale.

We own a pond;
mottled bluebottle,
flecked in freckles
when the sunlight
skims the surface
between the moss.

I dip a finger inside
and stir. A nebula
swills, swirling like
a whisk of spilt oil
from a water spot
sometimes found
underneath a car.

My fist plunges in,
embalming a gulp;
moss bandages
around the orb that,
withdrawing in drips,
I see a new world
set alight upon it.

I've studied the chess table and its consequent game. I know every inch of every square and what each can provide without doubt. I have seen the creatures of this world conflicting in their natural habitat, like an audience to a drama, watching them devour each other until the math proves the premise on a single side. I've moved according to their stride, like a dancer's partner, gliding across this checkered ballroom floor until the truth sets in stone. It's simple dialectics, a move is made and then, from the other, another follows. White conflicts with Black and Black counteracts, a perfect unity of opposites. Never jumping ahead of themselves, one piece at a time, it's a rising exposition from White's first movement forward, a heat creeping in increments on the desert surface. They're each a step ahead at every moment, each a worthy opponent for the other. The cold, morning mirage becomes blistering afternoon and only once does the volcano erupt from boiling sand, truly agape in a fiery victory. Do you hear that power in the distance?

A horn bellows and I move in the wake of the Divine Voice. I am but a cleric for his queen, yet the king requests my service in these grave times. This foreboding feeling leaves me truly afraid for my life, however, like a snowy dove's feather, I am called to the wind with my brethren towards the direction of the evil swamps. God has blessed our devout; the witchcraft of the Black Kingdom will surely fall to His mystic weaponry.

A farmer's strong-hand makes no strongman in the abysmal depths of this marsh. Tilling the land for fallen comrades, the breath of the Black Eye leaves me entrenched in a dripping terror, coating my lungs in a bitter molasses. I contain my sultry pearl of abandonment in the Clam of Defeat, knowing the king's life to be the insurmountable jewel I must truly protect. The following torture would be an endless excruciation heard from every corner of the world.

From afar this looking tower I notice an encounter of mild defeat. A white knight on horseback casts his sword into the chest of a young peon boy standing guard for the King as he leaves the gates of the Black majesty. The boy cries out and the embers from the magical weapon envelope him in ash. The king needn't make haste, after all, the armored fool is frozen in awe, staring at the remains of his powerful encounter with the child. The half daemon looks to and fro as he skims across the moated bridge. He grabs for the golden kryss at his waste and slowly stabs between the break in white armor, freezing it solid. The blood runs quick on the fallen honor.

She's traveled far from her black caging, ripping down from the sky like a dragon. The wind blows a bastion out of the sand in my protection, but she ignites it with her icy breath, stagnating all those inside, moving ever closer to my advantage. My last warring cleric triangulates a teleportation to the town square, fighting a harrowing defeat that lends her to me. His bravery leaves her chained in physical combat with a half deity, however, she smirks as if the war is already won. I tighten my gauntlets for battle as the flying arrow passes my helmet. Oh my great men of war, your weight is on the wrong side of the world. Now it spins out of control. Eclipsed in madness, I send the eruption beneath her, encircling her in rising doom. She cannot escape her molten grave, neither does the arrow shaft merely graze my heart. Everything is hazy. Everything is dark. It is late in the hour, hearing the Devil's whisper say:

“Checkmate.”

The Earth
is one big ball of twine
Every person has a piece of string lacing up their leg, like ballet slippers that you can walk on
You don’t dance through life on pedestrian slippers
There’s no form of tap, jazz, or hip-hop that’ll keep you from knotting your threads with mine
So as you sit in a cafe in Paris
sipping limonade and watching the river of people on the Champs-Elysees
You’ll pretend you don’t feel a tug on your ankle
from that the little fille in Hong Kong who got an A on her test
the teenager kneeling down to rest a rose on the cross with a Jewish étoile
the old man letting out the sail as his bow skims la ocean
As you stand up from the cafe table let yourself be pulled into a dance
People these days
abuelo says
like people are spit off the tip of his tongue
People these days
always rushing to a place they don’t have to get to yet
Back in my day
in my dia
everything
was
just
slow
Back in your day abuelo
Back in your day
there weren’t seven billion people that had dance slippers made of twine
there weren’t so many playing cat’s cradle with their feet
People rush because they do have somewhere to go
Somewhere to be
obviously, that somewhere to be is not where they’re rushing to
obviously, they wouldn’t go where they’re being pulled
obviously, abuelo

So my abuelo can tap his feet to seven billion cats‘s cradles
As you scrape your feet along french pavestones in Paris
And the twine will knot and twist and make all of us dance
to the beat of the world instead of the beat of sound
because music is made using hands, not feet
and under your feet
there’ll be a ring ring ring
from an Earth made of twine
the best sort of telephones
were always the ones made of Campbell’s soup and string
and as the world goes to voicemail
you might tap answer with your feet
say a prayer-
miss you, please-
I’m sorry, I didn’t-
There’s no way-
What? I can’t-
On that off sort of chance
You pressed answer
and all the messages come flooding in
Pressing answer is like cutting a wire
the electricity sparks and freezes
the caller is stuck
Your answer is like trying to speak over a jet engine to someone underwater
Silence is the loudest muffler for anyone who
Doesn’t want to hear it-
You just don’t understand-
I can’t believe you!-
Wrong, you’re wrong-
Someone else hears a ring from their soup-can-and-twine
You let your’s drop down and tangle with ballet shoes made for walking

Humans are alive for one hundred years
People only live for eighty or so
From when you were a little baby, you’ve felt the beat of a thousand hearts
The breath of a thousand dreams
The spark of a thousand smiles
Through the ribbons of twine that wound up your ankles
But the older you get
The more you fray
And it shows in bruised eyes, callused fingers, wintered hair
That you’ve been walking for as many days as the earth is wide
Collected enough footprints to feed a soul on stories
And when you die
mourir
pethaíno̱
umierać
Death cuts your string with his blunt-honed scythe
Your voice goes from the twine that twisted up your ankles
To the crystallized light that filters in between the leaves of trees
The crackle of firewood on a misty evening
The waves that slip on shell-laden sand
You won’t move so much as whisper
Talk so much as laugh
Be so much as exist
The earth is a ball of twine
We all walk in pedestrian ballet slippers
Die into beauty that we’d never thought we’d flow to
Never going where we need to or where we want to be
Your string is caught up in a thousand others
Twisted with mis-steps and calls made over soup cans
We are a thousand beats off rhythm in melody
A thousand stories in tugs and sound


Welcome to Earth
A world of 7 billion connections
Silence instead of answers
Once thousand languages to say seven billion stories
french pavestones in Paris
abuelos who step in rhythm
Dead who live in warmth
Welcome to earth
Population: twined

I became aware of my legs
At an insomniac’s pace.
Of how far they stretch and where they strain
My right ankle snaps, like marbles on string.

Walking faster through slush branches,
I slip between pine trees, get up and run.

Towers of ****** forms bulge from rot,
Soaked sludge mounds, like snot.
Jutting out from under are hard slippery shapes.

Cold ****** figures lurch similarly in the dark.

I want breath to roll over me.
Warmly with dirt that stings.

Fingers pull to reach a pebble studded scalp.
Scrape to move, hope for it’s help to grip a rigid mouth.

Getting on top, I roll onto relief.
Where the wind skims like nails of a touch.
Exhaling into sheets of fog, I let lids fall and drift into myself.

I'm kind of embarrassed to relate
how utterly stupid my tendency
Something about myself I so hate
To give in to the selfish dependency
Of those who will take me for granted
Like a hamster in my wheel
Falling for charming words that are chanted
While ulterior motives are concealed.

Yes I confess I did it again
I caved to his needy whims
I unblocked the calls & gave in
But still only the surface this skims

It's all about the Benjamins, baby
to make him a happy man
or so I thought but it seems maybe
4 or 5 "Large" seems even more 'grand'

And yet I give without compulsion
no need to whimper or beseech
then immediately after i have that gut repulsion
that I'm being ****** like a leech

How do I put an end to this vicious cycle?
When will I learn that 'no' is an option too?
Can I reject the request without being spiteful?
Or do I just have to totally ignore you?

Any advice or counsel that can be offered
would be very welcome and appreciated
All suggestions shared will be proffered
If you can help me to have this problem alleviated.

The sand's soft underneath my cheek; cool and grainy like a scattered pillow should be. I hear the crash of waves and the call of gulls. A headache starts to brew on either temple while stale *** coats my famished tongue. I feel a light drizzle tickling my face. Flashes of wide smiles and high conversation skims through my broken memory. The suns rising. Its heat is on my back. My eyes flutter and slowly open to a scene of white froth colliding with pure light blue ocean. Seagulls bob up and down in the rise and fall of the waves, their faces look like their made of stone, their eyes indifferent. I smile, getting sand in-between my teeth.
I reach out my hand and grip the hot sand. Tiny pebbles rub in between my fingertips. Another scream from the sea gulls above me. The sky seems like no place for a crowd. Reaching a little farther, I discover a half-empty bottle of Bacardi *** and a packet of cigarettes beside it. A lighter is tucked inside.
"Lucky day," I say aloud to myself, "Lucky day for you indeed." I bring the bottle to my chest and lean it in between my pecs. It rests perfectly there. Smacking a cigarette out of the pack, I place it in my mouth and dig in my sandy pockets for a lighter. It's still there. This surprises me. I light the cigarette and my eyes immediately cringe as the heavy billow of smoke erupts forth. It's a sting I'm used to, so I blink hard a few times. The pain only lasts for a moment, then it's gone.
"There we go," I say leaning my head back, wedging it into the sand, "Let night become this day."
Clouds dissipate and the sky opens up clear. A toucan bird clatters its beak in the distant banana trees. I look to see where it is, but the birds colors are lost in the dark green and yellow of the trees leaves. I fit my lit cigarette in between my middle and pointer finger, push myself up to lean onto my elbow, and tip the bottle of *** back with my other hand. The *** is sweet and warm. Been sitting in the sun too long. I always like with a bit of ice in a Dixie cup. It pinches my lips and eyes for only a second, then starts to travel down to my stomach lining, warming it. The sun passes the dawn and the dark blue night sky becomes a new morning.
I lay there watching the water and the night become day for I have no idea how long. I've no obligation to no one, not even to myself. Time for me is a fleeting thing, but even if time is slipping away, where is it really slipping to? Time stands still and we are the ones that move. Perhaps we have created time to prove to ourselves that we are in fact alive?  
The freight train I jumped to get down to Cozumel came from Arizona. It was crowded like a ******* with vagrants, drunks, dealers, and desert kids. Me, I was in the last train cause I can't run for nothing. Shrapnel tore into my right calf when I was in the war. They tried to patch me up as good as they were able, but once something like that happens, it's impossible to truly get back to normal one-hundred percent. It's hard to come back one-hundred percent from anything when I think about it.
Come to me, lady Dee. Come to me lady who lives by the sea. You are the one I'm always thinking of. You are the one who sends me reeling and in love. Your hair is like honey: soft, golden, and sweet. Your eyes are like acorns: auburn and neat. Oh' when you went away that one winter's day, I was left with a feeling that there wasn't anything left to say. Where have you gone off to? Where do you stay? Will you ever come back to me? When will be that day?
Noon came. Children kick at my bare feet. Their laughter sounds like the echo of birds chirping. I can smell them too: red licorice mixed mixed with fried fish and fresh lemon. Where have they come from? What do they want with the likes of me? One of'em gets me hard in the ankle and I spring up onto my feet and roar. I see they're kids from town. Their skin is maple leaf brown and their hair, long and to their shoulders, is streaked yellow from the sun. I look down at them. Their faces are frozen, stunned. The smallest one of the groups teeth begin to chatter. I roar again louder and they scurry off up the white sands of the beach toward their homes, the smallest one lagging behind like a gimp donkey. I check my pockets to make sure none of them swiped my wallet or keys. Still there. My pockets are filled with sand and I dump them out as I make my way up the beach toward my cabin on the other side of the cove.
I built it myself, my cabin. She sits at the top of a sand dune overlooking the water. It's all I've got. Made a deal when I first arrive with the land owner, Perez Sandiago (Sandy if you know him), that I'd work for his iguana farm once or twice a week if he'd let me have the plot. They aren't too bad, the iguana's, as long as they don't bite you. Once they know you, they rarely do. More prone to sit and bask in the sun to bother anybody. All they need is to be fed, given some water, and left the hell alone as Sandy will say.
As I walk up the hill, a few small ***** and strings of seaweed in my hands for lunch, I see a small part of the roof is gone. The wind may have taken it off or maybe some of the tie came loose. The sun above is hot and relentless. I put my hand over my eyes to shade them walking forward. Sand washes over the top of my feet, warming them. I stop, closer to my cabin now, and take off my shirt. I lay it on the sand and place the few ***** and seaweed on it. Then I tie them up in kind of a ruck sack so the ***** won't get away. They're always running off to some place when they know their gonna' get killed, but I guess I would do the same.
There is a single chair I leave by the front door and I take it and step up on it to get a better look at the roof. There isn't any tie left. It either fell inside or blew away with the missing piece. I look over the roof of the cabin further down the beach to see if it's laying out there. Nothing, just the beach. The roof's too weak to climb up on, so I get down and circle the cabin. I make my way around and reach the front door. The only other place it could be, if it isn't further down the beach somewhere, is in the cabin. I take out my keys and fit it into the lock. It's unlocked. A wave crashes behind me and spreads out on the sand with a sizzling hush. I take a step back and think for a moment, then walk inside feeling every grain of sand between my toes.