1
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.

2
Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with
perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.

The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the
distillation, it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.

The smoke of my own breath,
Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and
vine,
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing
of blood and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and
dark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,

The sound of the belch’d words of my voice loos’d to the eddies of
the wind,
A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields
and hill-sides,
The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising
from bed and meeting the sun.

Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the
earth much?
Have you practis’d so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of
all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions
of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look
through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in
books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.

3
I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the
beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

Urge and urge and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.

Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always substance and
increase, always ***,
Always a knit of identity, always distinction, always a breed of
life.
To elaborate is no avail, learn’d and unlearn’d feel that it is so.

Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well
entretied, braced in the beams,
Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,
I and this mystery here we stand.

Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not
my soul.

Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen,
Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.

Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age,
Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they
discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself.

Welcome is every ***** and attribute of me, and of any man hearty
and clean,
Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be
less familiar than the rest.

I am satisfied - I see, dance, laugh, sing;
As the hugging and loving bed-fellow sleeps at my side through the
night, and withdraws at the peep of the day with stealthy
tread,
Leaving me baskets cover’d with white towels swelling the house with
their plenty,
Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my
eyes,
That they turn from gazing after and down the road,
And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent,
Exactly the value of one and exactly the value of two, and which is
ahead?

4
Trippers and askers surround me,
People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and
city I live in, or the nation,
The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old
and new,
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,
The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,
The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss
or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,
Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news,
the fitful events;
These come to me days and nights and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself.

Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,
Looks down, is *****, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,
Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,
Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.

Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with
linguists and contenders,
I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.

5
I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to
you,
And you must not be abased to the other.

Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,
Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not
even the best,
Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.

I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,
How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn’d over
upon me,
And parted the shirt from my *****-bone, and plunged your tongue
to my bare-stript heart,
And reach’d till you felt my beard, and reach’d till you held my
feet.

Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass
all the argument of the earth,
And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,
And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,
And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women
my sisters and lovers,
And that a kelson of the creation is love,
And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,
And brown ants in the little wells beneath them,
And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap’d stones, elder, mullein and
poke-****.

6
A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more
than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green
stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see
and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the
vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I
receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the ******* of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,
It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out
of their mothers’ laps,
And here you are the mothers’ laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for
nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and
women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken
soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?

They are alive and well somewhere,
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the
end to arrest it,
And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

7
Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know
it.

I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash’d babe, and
am not contain’d between my hat and boots,
And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good,
The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.

I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,
I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and
fathomless as myself,
(They do not know how immortal, but I know.)

Every kind for itself and its own, for me mine male and female,
For me those that have been boys and that love women,
For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be slighted,
For me the sweet-heart and the old maid, for me mothers and the
mothers of mothers,
For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears,
For me children and the begetters of children.

Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded,
I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,
And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be
shaken away.

8
The little one sleeps in its cradle,
I lift the gauze and look a long time, and silently brush away flies
with my hand.

The youngster and the red-faced girl turn aside up the bushy hill,
I peeringly view them from the top.

The suicide sprawls on the ****** floor of the bedroom,
I witness the corpse with its dabbled hair, I note where the pistol
has fallen.

The blab of the pave, tires of carts, sluff of boot-soles, talk of
the promenaders,
The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating thumb, the
clank of the shod horses on the granite floor,
The snow-sleighs, clinking, shouted jokes, pelts of snow-*****,
The hurrahs for popular favorites, the fury of rous’d mobs,
The flap of the curtain’d litter, a sick man inside borne to the
hospital,
The meeting of enemies, the sudden oath, the blows and fall,
The excited crowd, the policeman with his star quickly working his
passage to the centre of the crowd,
The impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes,
What groans of over-fed or half-starv’d who fall sunstruck or in
fits,
What exclamations of women taken suddenly who hurry home and
give birth to babes,
What living and buried speech is always vibrating here, what howls
restrain’d by decorum,
Arrests of criminals, slights, adulterous offers made, acceptances,
rejections with convex lips,
I mind them or the show or resonance of them-I come and I depart.

9
The big doors of the country barn stand open and ready,
The dried grass of the harvest-time loads the slow-drawn wagon,
The clear light plays on the brown gray and green intertinged,
The armfuls are pack’d to the sagging mow.

I am there, I help, I came stretch’d atop of the load,
I felt its soft jolts, one leg reclined on the other,
I jump from the cross-beams and seize the clover and timothy,
And roll head over heels and tangle my hair full of wisps.

10
Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt,
Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee,
In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night,
Kindling a fire and broiling the fresh-****’d game,
Falling asleep on the gather’d leaves with my dog and gun by my
side.

The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails, she cuts the sparkle
and scud,
My eyes settle the land, I bend at her prow or shout joyously from
the deck.

The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for me,
I tuck’d my trowser-ends in my boots and went and had a good time;
You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle.

I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in the far west,
the bride was a red girl,
Her father and his friends sat near cross-legged and dumbly smoking,
they had moccasins to their feet and large thick blankets
hanging from their shoulders,
On a bank lounged the trapper, he was drest mostly in skins, his
luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck, he held his bride
by the hand,
She had long eyelashes, her head was bare, her coarse straight locks
descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach’d to her
feet.

The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside,
I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile,
Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and
weak,
And went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured him,
And brought water and fill’d a tub for his sweated body and bruis’d
feet,
And gave him a room that enter’d from my own, and gave him some
coarse clean clothes,
And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness,
And remember putting piasters on the galls of his neck and ankles;
He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and pass’d north,
I had him sit next me at table, my fire-lock lean’d in the corner.

11
Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore,
Twenty-eight young men and all so friendly;
Twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lonesome.

She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank,
She hides handsome and richly drest aft the blinds of the window.

Which of the young men does she like the best?
Ah the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.

Where are you off to, lady? for I see you,
You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.

Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth
bather,
The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them.

The beards of the young men glisten’d with wet, it ran from their
long hair,
Little streams pass’d all over their bodies.

An unseen hand also pass’d over their bodies,
It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs.

The young men float on their backs, their white bellies bulge to the
sun, they do not ask who seizes fast to them,
They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and bending
arch,
They do not think whom they ***** with spray.

12
The butcher-boy puts off his killing-clothes, or sharpens his knife
at the stall in the market,
I loiter enjoying his repartee and his shuffle and break-down.

Blacksmiths with grimed and hairy chests environ the anvil,
Each has his main-sledge, they are all out, there is a great heat in
the fire.

From the cinder-strew’d threshold I follow their movements,
The lithe sheer of their waists plays even with their massive arms,
Overhand the hammers swing, overhand so slow, overhand so sure,
They do not hasten, each man hits in his place.

13
The ***** holds firmly the reins of his four horses, the block swags
underneath on its tied-over chain,
The ***** that drives the long dray of the stone-yard, steady and
tall he stands pois’d on one leg on the string-piece,
His blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast and loosens over
his hip-band,
His glance is calm and commanding, he tosses the slouch of his hat
away from his forehead,
The sun falls on his crispy hair and mustache, falls on the black of
his polish’d and perfect limbs.

I behold the picturesque giant and love him, and I do not stop
there,
I go with the team also.

In me the caresser of life wherever moving, backward as well as
forward sluing,
To niches aside and junior bending, not a person or object missing,
Absorbing all to myself and for this song.

Oxen that rattle the yoke and chain or halt in the leafy shade, what
is that you express in your eyes?
It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.

My tread scares the wood-drake and wood-duck on my distant and
day-long ramble,
They rise together, they slowly circle around.

I believe in those wing’d purposes,
And acknowledge red, yellow, white, playing within me,
And consider green and violet and the tufted crown i

i can make one bottle of beer last hours
From cold to lukewarm
My *** settling into a state of what I call
Perma buzzed
Wussy sip after wussy sip
Perplexed looks and slights from friends
It serves me right to drink so slow,
Evading the glass bottle bottom but
I guess I want to be able to hold onto something so much,
It warms up to me and serves me well.

~

Right now, I want to be buried in a house of lavenders.

Things sometimes fall apart
Among sisters and brothers,
No matter what they once were.
Childhood picnics and dreamy games,
Memories of trips with Dad,
Since Mom was tired of us.
We would climb Appalachian peaks
Or drive to look at the Mayflower.
Every summer there was a golden week
A lakeside cottage and all-day swims
In crystal water, becoming mermaids.
But time passes and bitterness accrues.
Imagined slights grow like slow tumors,
Never excised but nurtured by some.
I go to college and am freed
From the poison of ignorant rage,
From the creeping depression left
Like diesel fog on an endless floor.
Four or five years of delight pass
With only hints here or there
Of a sibling’s misery at home.
Of a once close sister, Maggie,
Who is ignored and never loved
By any man she pursues.
She blames me for it, for reasons
I have yet to fathom.
Of a brother, Francis, deluded, drugged,
Steals the family car in a rage
And drives to New York City.
Of Deirdre, the middle sister,
Whose friend who knows men who feed
On her ignorance and rebellion.
Only Susannah tries to rise above
The maelstrom of misery.
I send her to a school far away
And she sheds despair, at least.
Decades drawl, children are born to us,
While the bridge between us, obscured,
Sags and frays under weight of rancor.
Christmas dinners and birthday parties
Turn into chores, invitations kept as scores.
Petty grudges, like acid, sever the bridge
At last, all ties are abandoned.
When we are all grown and scattered,
No one speaking to anyone else,
Unaware, uncaring about the others.
Only Susannah visits me and smiles,
With no ulterior plan for insane revenge,
Or accusations for errant slights.
Her once dark hair is grizzled and wild
And her girlish skin now creased.
But her treacle eyes, “black aggies”,
I used to call them, still shine.
Only Susannah writes a letter,
Wishing us well and
Healing scars made by others,
Returning the word “family”.
To my basket of small treasures,
I carry with me
Into the twilight.

I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all
    oppression and shame;
I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with
    themselves, remorseful after deeds done;
I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying,
    neglected, gaunt, desperate;
I see the wife misused by her husband—I see the treacherous seducer
    of young women;
I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love, attempted to be
    hid—I see these sights on the earth;
I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny—I see martyrs and
    prisoners;
I observe a famine at sea—I observe the sailors casting lots who
    shall be ****’d, to preserve the lives of the rest;
I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon
    laborers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like;
All these—All the meanness and agony without end, I sitting, look out
    upon,
See, hear, and am silent.

A Rock there is whose homely front
    The passing traveller slights;
Yet there the glow-worms hang their lamps,
    Like stars, at various heights;
And one coy Primrose to that Rock
    The vernal breeze invites.

What hideous warfare hath been waged,
    What kingdoms overthrown,
Since first I spied that Primrose-tuft
    And marked it for my own;
A lasting link in Nature’s chain
    From highest heaven let down!

The flowers, still faithful to the stems,
    Their fellowship renew;
The stems are faithful to the root,
    That worketh out of view;
And to the rock the root adheres
    In every fibre true.

Close clings to earth the living rock,
    Though threatening still to fall:
The earth is constant to her sphere;
    And God upholds them all:
So blooms this lonely Plant, nor dreads
    Her annual funeral.

                * * * * * *

Here closed the meditative strain;
    But air breathed soft that day,
The hoary mountain-heights were cheered,
    The sunny vale looked gay;
And to the Primrose of the Rock
    I gave this after-lay.

I sang-Let myriads of bright flowers,
    Like Thee, in field and grove
Revive unenvied;—mightier far,
    Than tremblings that reprove
Our vernal tendencies to hope,
    Is God’s redeeming love;

That love which changed-for wan disease,
    For sorrow that had bent
O’er hopeless dust, for withered age—
    Their moral element,
And turned the thistles of a curse
    To types beneficent.

Sin-blighted though we are, we too,
    The reasoning Sons of Men,
From one oblivious winter called
    Shall rise, and breathe again;
And in eternal summer lose
    Our threescore years and ten.

To humbleness of heart descends
    This prescience from on high,
The faith that elevates the just,
    Before and when they die;
And makes each soul a separate heaven
    A court for Deity.

A thousand tumbles takes a bottle in the sea-
a thousand dashes and whirls and swoops.
A million grains of sand takes that bottle in the sea,
to break apart, to come to me
in fragments like a snowflake fractal.
How many mermaid miles till she hands that glass to me?
For I've taken out my very-ness, for you.
- And my crossness.
My judgement and wrath.
I've taken out slight hot breathe
               (for you to melt the ice on your whiskers.)
I've taken out my toes when they are reaching for yours in the cavernous blanket world  through the forest of our lazy limbs.
I've taken out my righteousness
and my second guessing.
I've taken out for you (a surprise, I was going to surprise you!)
all the times you were going to be wrong to me-
          and to wrong me...
taken them out to sea, you see?
In that bottle, pretty bottle. Broken now like too many vows.
I've taken out my knowing best and finding better.
I've taken out the half moon of your thumbnail as well
...I will miss that in my night sky-
(perhaps I'll keep that after all.)
I'll take out the complacency of holding your hand getting out of a chair.
and the mindless strokes
as you explain
my commonplace crazy
to
simpler minds-
I'll take out the very-ness of me, and the we-ness of us.
and fill a bottle with a the brine of a thousand tears from hundred slights not slighted quite yet.
I fill the bottle and gift the sea
with the softness of you and the brashness of me.
A thousand turnabouts it takes to reach you on the beach,
a sea glass diamond ring, engage me you engaging man-
and the tides tickles my feet in anticipation, marry me. marry me.
just a sea glass promise
for a mermaid bride
waiting for the sailor man to sing her sweetly with salt on his lips
Just a sea glass lullaby from the man who loves me so.
Marry me, marry me
And we drink sparkling water from a sea glass flute
and we drink all the us and we drink all the we
for sea glass could never hold a second in,
sea glass is far too vain not to shine in the sun fanning
your invite out in a spectrum of color that
a small child's hand creates when he holds it up to the rays.
Spills out all of my intentions
Spoiled child, loved child,
Spills out all of my intentions carelessly on the sandy floor for the tides to swallow whole.
My sea glass prism chucked unceremoniously back to sea
and me the mermaid bride left at her own alter...
But a seashell to your ear and her my wailing sorrow calls,
'marry me, sailor. marry me.'


sahn 8/5/14

I cant tell you how much the hush hush hurts,

the gaps,

[the deliberately left blanks]

the silences that make me scared of saying words out loud.


It's the switching of meanings that does it,

all the tip toe awkwardness

the swift, unconscious side steps.


It's the whole long stretch of silence,

the whole deliberate

accidental

hush hush of something I never even knew the name of.  


It's the casual,

forgettable

drops of slights

that I'm still turning

over and over.


It's a hush hush never intended to be malicious but

the quiet twists and tears

and so I can never tell you how much the hush hush hurts

because the silence keeps me hush hushed too.

The TSA won't let me fly
It seems when airplane-jailed,
My muse sneaks aboard
Without paying for a seat.

Another airplane poem like 30B,
From a long ago flight,
Found dusty, in the poetry sewing box


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

with every breathe he tithes
a packet of whispered wishes,
a blended osmosis of
past and future scenes,
reviewed, previewed,
moments in time,
actual and dreamed

some received,
airborne plucked,
in his chest stored,
prepared for future
takeoffs and landings,
for ultimate insertion
in both
your recesses
and
your abscesses

some native,
combobulated, containerized
packets of seconds,
of joyous moments,
bytes of historical
hugs n' kisses,
as a child
to a child
from a child

those are vanilla frosted,
residual payments for the
good done and given,  
forwarded with all clear signals,
to his loved ones,
now resent, to you,
fellow travelers and sojourners,
intersectors of our peculiar
coded dots and dashes

thirty five thousand feet high,
composure lost,
he swoons as
Bocelli's voce del silenzio
releases tears so sweet,
which are by nature,
gravitated and transformed
into snowflakes to decorate
the Sierra Nevada's
breasted peaks and valleys,
over which his physical notion
is at rest, yet in motion,
within a Delta flying ship

Yet his fevered chest
beats rough,
for every flight seems
a time warp interlude,
a forced reflecting rhyme,
not of his choosing,
a lawful, thoughtful, imprisonment

having donated to you
his best, the remainders,
the man tallies, recalls:

ancient slights, scaled heights,
requiems for his forefathers
scored by cantorial choirs,
liberation struggle weariness,
offers taken and refused,
aces in the hole that proved
insufficient to save his soul.

goal line stands made,
onslaughts refused,
true lies and false truths,
moist lips and monster tears,
occasional A's and calcu-hell-us,
hand me downs received,
help me ups got n' given,
buildings pricked by airplanes,
death wishes granted
and nothing thereby gained,
children, found and lost,
mine, yours, ours...

The sums, always the sums!

engine noises and pilfered winds
are dulled and semi-silenced,
yet the silvered chamber prison
resonates from end to end
as each ledgered memory,
each packet of the
hidden whispered poems
he does NOT choose to send,
dents the man,
leaving claw marks,
screaming pay attention to me,
as if they were the priorities
of a six year old child,
refusing to be ignored

he does,
attention, he does pay,  
allowing rocking guitar heroes
to overtake weeping violinists,
just as newer transgressions
surfeit even his
most really *****,
ancient sins

No matter how he counts,
unable to master the additions,
no matter how many times
counts are initiated,
taken and retaken,
the tally's net net is
concluded, numbered
"forsaken"

his life's W-2 is black n' blue,
deductions falsely enumerate
and thereby underestimate
dues he has paid summarily,
earnings, distorted,
taxes paid never enough,
to satisfy the justice scales,
so wearily he
cries and enunciates,

The sums, always the sums!

THEN COMES HIS SHOUT OUT,
at his most vulnerable,
when a thin veneer of alumina
separates him,
from a fall inglorious
to an end most gorious,
a rapping beat moderne
insists that he go all out,
disallowing no
airy fairy poetry
to disguise that:

If the integers are false,
the entries of a life lived,
are sucker lies
black eyed flies
toxic shockers
that bust open
stinko lockers
where the B.S.
mocking stories
are kept

don't look close
at his documents
they ain't exactly
heaven sent
and the government men
be back on his track
their aviator shades
protect them from
burning light of the
man's furnace
where he burns their liens,
and the agent's ear pieces
drown out his screams of

The sums, always the sums!

God bless you,
keep and recall those packets of
whispered wishes, good tithes,
that the man bequeaths,
gift baskets of
expresso essentials
with God's love delivered

Tho his words,
amateurish and unvarnished,
silly and pompous,
nonetheless, they are the
return on his investments,
his yearnings for your happiness
are the savings accumulated,
though meager jewels are they,
they are ad valorem,
mixed into his confused murmurings

here then,
are his summings up,
what he wills you,,
the tally finale
the best wisdom is
found on coffee cups
at 2:47am.

Dance
Love
Sing
Live

to which he respectfully amends with a
Write.
(See banner photo)

You ask me why I’m so angry all the time
I laugh because if I don’t I’ll cry,
I laugh because if I don’t I’ll cry.
And then you’ll call me emotional and hysterical
As if we’re still in the era of old where simple female reactions
Were pathologised and the bold locked up for being “mentally ill”.
You ask me why I’m angry and I simply scoff
And deny because if I start speaking about why
The rage in me will boil over like lava in a volcano
And then where will we be?
[pause]
I want to tell you,
I want to tell you why.
Why this rage, this utter, all consuming anger, this deep-rooted grief.
Let me tell you how I feel like crying whenever I hear about
Another **** case, another girl murdered for daring to refuse,
Another woman of colour who endured terrifying pain,
All because she was who she was.
Another minority violated, another black trans woman killed, her ****** unsolved,
Another child abducted and sold, like a commodity
Another another another
It never stops and it never ends
From micro-aggressions to gross violence
I feel it all in my heart
Like a stab between the fourth and the fifth rib
And it adds to my rage.
The words burst forth from my lips,
But I rein them in
Because even though I want to protest
Against your complete ignorance and your casual misogyny
And my being revolts in response to your words,
I stop myself
because you are my family, my friend, my peer
And if I say something
You’ll just ask me why I’m so angry all the time.
Sometimes there’s no winning
Resistance is futile
In a world so steeped in patriarchy
That it’s unaware of the consequences
Of perpetuating sexist narratives.
But I still want to fight
The oppressive systems that chain the girl child,
The casual way we respond to certain slights
Against the all encompassing freedom of women.
And I’ll take on a thousand such questions
If only I can change one life,
If only I can spread the word and fight the good fight.
And, I would have told you all this
If only you had asked.
If only you had the patience
To listen as I blathered on
About statistics and documented proof
Of how 50% of the world’s population
Is still under constant threat to their lives.
I repeat, fifty percent of the world’s population
Lives with a constant threat to their lives.
I would have told you about how there are thousands of accounts
Of harassment and abuse and violation of basic human rights,
The right to say no, the right to thrive.
I would have told you,
I would have told you all
If only you had asked.
So don’t ask me why I’m angry
Ask yourself why you’re not.

“Listen here buds”
I’m not going to
**** around
or hold back
or try to even the score
and in return
“Don’t **** with me”
“moooore”*

This is an ode to ol' Stuart
Or Brandon
Or Stubacca
Or Bongshit
Whatever you want to call him
Call him it
Conflict
Resolution
Resided
In Penta rips
I reminisce
Too **** often
That’s what I am here to admit

I guess that is the purpose of this poem
Is to make all the apologies
I left unsaid
And to leave all the unsaid
slights behind

Because in my mind,
I was not a good roommate
And you weren’t either
But our insult based arguments would deflate
Recognizing we were both underachievers
Two ******* calling the kettle black
Denzel Washington Movies
And Back
In Quail
Room 1514
Was a “Kozy Shack”
Was not for the weak
Lungs
The haziest of all hostels
A blaze fest
A Bro-out Brothel
"OB Get the ******* door!"
"And don't forget to lock and towel"
Escape from the real world
Into the mythical Qualcation

The Adherol - know it alls
3 Pills of dex – 45 minutes crushed text
Book and and back when we were hooked
  “This **** is just like doing M”
Thank christ for all your friends in MGMT
As it didn’t stop you from copying them
Mr. Rintoul had bigger fish to fry

And I was frying them
because the kitchen was foreign
So at 4 in
The mornin’
I’d be cookin’ creative
Broke *** creations
Cause stomach pains
Are a serious disease

Please
Don’t take
This poem
The wrong way
Because back in the day
Are the days I miss the most
We played host
To a family of friends
Anyone would want to boast

Thank you for reminding me it was your birthday
Every ******* year
Every elaborate party
You deserved
No Hissy fit was unwarranted
Speaking on behalf of a floor Matt
You know the one you parented
The upmost respect remains
For papa Stewie

And when I got my dewy
I got a few hugs of sympathy
While you laughed in my ******* face
And when you couldn’t find a roommate
I happily took that place
And when I left movie night in the trailer
To go do slam poetry at a talent show
You made me feel so out of place
And when I returned with my 100$ winnings
You were the first person I bought a pilsner case

The fact that you never made the break through
To see the majority of the time
We were laughing at you not with you
Doesn’t seem to be an issue
Because maybe you did know all along
Staying in check
Punishing us
stoner massages
That could break necks

Now these days with a real job that really pays
Stuart Rintoul will still tell you he is LiViN’
Even - If he is stuck in Edmonton
This separation
“Is horseshit”

Let me state it one last time old pal
This poem is not meant to offend
And deep down from Roses to the Corral
I hope you bang all my ex girlfriends

I should have never left you all those times for *******
Or in the words of Tuner “PP!”
I should have stayed and watched Blade 3

To all those
who really knew Stu
It was really me
eating all the peanut butter
by the spoon
But blaming it on you
Was too opportune

Stu,
You are
******* clutch
******* decent
And so ******* “chitty”

You were the best friend
I should have never asked for
And for this
I will never
**** with you
Any
“mooooore”

I want a love, a love who adores me
A love who believes I am the grandest love there will ever be
I need a love to believe in me
Even in slights and not adhere to bigotry of family or loss of life
Mischief dies, true love denies, lost is failure of evil tides
Fortune persists for love chimes

Listen to "Love Chimes" poetry podcast
http://www.buzzsprout.com/admin/episodes/110429-love-chimes-episode-of-relationship-rock-building-relation­ships-that-last

or listen on iTunes, scroll down to #24 and click on Love Chimes
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/relationship-rock-shirah-chante/id670836453#

All perish whence they quest for immortality,
Such foolish dreams will result in fatality.
Critters struggle in nets of ersatz reality,
Hormonal clashes unbalance our morality.

Under the influence by budding, ravishing thyme,
Oft' that sunny beam leaves me doing pantomime.
Chaste clues and envy droughts left me mellowing,
Such pain ipso facto I can't kiss this porcelain.

My seat of notions drives me to calculate,
While undead, fatigued, I falsely formulate.
Floundering in viscous fluids, I am drowning...
My verdant sail is half-mast: lonely, frowning.

Within moon-lit meadows, shadows flow cursively,
Beyond the kaleidoscope lay a rustic key.
Beg you pardon the rust and blackened fissures,
Pardon those slights to open eternal treasures.

To crave two heart beats align in synchrony,
To sluice my fingers through the strands of memory.
Embracing silvery asps soaring on the breeze,
My sight spies thy adieu and I shatter apiece.

Un-writing errors, distantly, unstumbling,
The abyss: now a star, wings unfurling.
'Tween the heavens fell meteoric golds,
Sinusoidal cascades of such sublime codes.

Traversed steadily upon the gilded firmaments,
Was so small, blind to the unseen monuments.
To be offered aristocratic absolution,
From my humble plebeian resolution.

I am sublime. 'Hold my dichotomous, nay,
Such cantankerous introversion within, eh?

It was of the sand,
That found for me to stake upon this gamble of a purpose.
To onward journey, stout of heart, within it lines to draw and part
and dedicate my time to all that live and then depart.

And subjugate the sin of wait.
Dare i chance alignment.
To spite the constant vein of me.
That of constant bye.

For it was within the sands.
That truth illuminated
Divining is of destruct and of grand endeavor.
Those were lessons I to learn.
Yet warnings seen, but not to heed.

So to venture bold, embark.

Here I found myself about, a place that i not know.
Lacking proper courtesy that guides the proper tongue.
At a time of caving doubt in youth while throwing caution.
Such foolishness and acts so grave with naivete.

So of this, my letting go and future now to grasp.
Then of me to newer name and shed of me my past.

That led me to a village, shambled as it small.
Oh so sharp in all contrast,
To all i'd ever known.

And then to her so small of frame
with trouble trembling.

Did I find, i've much of want and more to givings be.

The hope I find within her eyes.
Those burning eyes aglow.
Yet shaking did i look to see, the grief she held alone.

For she with nails so black and pained
with eyes of sapphires ancient flame.
Screamed, "anne nerde"?

To this I said within my lip.
My English voice that caused such shock.
"hello", and then ,"who, you"?

And puzzled as i've not the faintest
slight that cause her hate
and run away and then dismiss
or understanding me.

That left me to the mighty awe, and my stupidity.

"Am i the image of the anger, she must see everyday,
A reminder there's tomorrow, or of horrors yesterday"?

Faintly nothing can be had, so i had chanced hello.
This is me and who are you.
And her away to go.
So i was lost to all the why,
and all who heard it so.

Then to suspect, short of counsel and left of reason why.
I shatter peace with solace small and and watch you drain your eye.

So to all that spun around
with jaws so slack with shock.
Made of this a curse and huddle?
Of what, they they took of stock?

They must be of the panic.
They must be many dead
And this is now my crucible
and now i know there dread?

" How dare i cause such great alarm? in such fleeting passing
" i said hello, only hello
and then, but"who are you"?.


All but mine
All faces white blood.

And then the moment shock!

For then i heard, "olu"!!!

"For I said, hello and who ," but she heard only death.

And forgiveness in this place
Was shown not least the trace.

Awaken this, the anger, rage  the mighty great temult.

For announced by all around  
"You utter with most care.

This place if of the teetering
and none dare hear dispair."

So please a caution with your greeting.
For broken hearts here tear

And the tokens of your kindness,
Can be swallowed up in here
Its brought to doom, this little girl by violence and it's snare
Was brought to this, by fault of tounge
bignine and shambled care.

Then better us
To purse a lip
And hope the slight be small,
The reaping can be had
But never excise fault
It is of divinty
So pray we judgment halt.
This is of the manner known
Yet are still unseen

For all the slights be large or small
None are are fully owned


And All the workings good of heart
Must be done 
and done discreet.

Flutter flutter
little bird.
Flutter flutter
little thing.

Hush and listen
to this song I sing.
Good health and good fortune
to you,
it will bring.

So flutter little bird
flutter to me oh precious one.
Listen to this song that I will sing,
listen to my song
the song of the stars.

“Are the stars in the sky,
like you and I?
Do they flutter
or do they fly?
Do they shed their shining feathers
and make their nests out of
sticks and heather?
Do they sing sweet songs
or forgive each other
of all slights and wrongs?
Are the stars like you and me?
Can they soar in the air
so high and so free?
Can they loop and swing
flip or sing?
Or,
are they just stars?”

So flutter little bird
flutter little thing,
and don't forget a word
of the song that I sing.

Everyone was lazing around, it being the holidays. The intercom buzzed and Lisa got there first to press answer. “Package, on the way up,” the concierge announced. This time of year, a package could be a late arriving gift, there was interest.

It takes a hot minute for elevator three to get to the 50th floor and in those moments, we waited. The foyer of Lisa’s suite looks like a half circle with three doors. To the left is the library (Michael’s office), to the right is a hall leading to bedrooms and straight ahead is the living room.

Lisa was already at the front door. Karen (Lisa’s mom) came into the foyer from the hall and Michael was heads-up at his desk, when the front door finally buzzed. An iPad sized monitor showed a messenger with a bouquet of flowers. “OOO!” Lisa said, opening the door and signing for it.

“Whad we get?” Leeza asked, flying into the foyer, like a vulture, from the living room and saying, “OOO!” When she saw the flowers, following up with “Who’re they for?!”
“Anais,” Karen said with a grin, reading the envelope as Lisa turned the vase for a 360 view.

I was in the living room playing “Disney Dreamlight Valley” on my Nintendo switch when Lisa, followed closely by Leeza, came in with the flowers. “Oh, WOW,” I said, sitting up when I saw them.
“They’re for YOU,” Lisa said, trying to make it sound all casual, but her grin gave the truth away. Leeza gave a hoot of suppressed excitement when I grinned.

Leeza had her phone in hand and took a picture as I accepted the vase from Lisa, setting it on the coffee table as I opened the card. A moment later Leeza pronounced, “It’s a “Warm Embrace Arrangement.” Gen-alphas can research anything, in moments, from their phones. “It cost,” She started to say, and Lisa elbowed her, “OWW!” She exclaimed, then “175 dollars,” as she completed her thought, rubbing her ribs, and took a seat next to me.

“They’re from Peter,” I revealed, (who really can’t afford to spend $175 on flowers).

A week ago (Tuesday), I woke up in a rage, on a vendetta. My eyes opened, and the world seemed dark, like a newly opened box of slights and irritations. Shadows seemed to reach out and the very air seemed gritty and annoying. I wanted to yell at people and maybe ****** someone.
“Remember last week,” I asked the room, “when I was in a funk?”
“I was a witness,” Leeza said chuckling, “I can confirm.” Lisa just nodded.
“Yeah, I needed to rant and you were there,” I patted Leeza’s knee, “Thanks, sorry.”
“All you listened to for days was Rihanna,” Leeza reported, shaking her head.
“It lasted for two days,” I said, wincing at the memory,” that’s when I sent Peter that message.”
“Ahhh,” Lisa nodded, “I get it.”
“Yep,” I nodded back at Lisa, “got my period the next day, it doesn’t usually hit like that.” I said defensively.”
“That explains a lot.” Leeza grinned.
“But look!” Lisa said, putting her arms out like Vanna White, “You got flowers!”
“Poor Peter,” I said, sighing, “I better call him.”

PROCRASTINATION
By
Joe McDonald

Part I:

How often can I keep putting off everything in life that must be done to the point of frustration and despair?  

How often will my work sit and stare at me with the eyes of hungry children always whining their demands for my attention to each task always wanting my full being beyond my own inner abilities and doubt?

How often can I walk past the damaged concrete step on my own house that sneers at me everyday as I walk up to my front door?

How often can I make promises to old friends to get together, celebrate life, and not expect them to wait on my return call of cancelation because of illusionary diseases?

How often can I feign in my backyard the beauty of my roses, sipping white grape while the grass under my bare feet remains brown, coarse, and over grown with dandelions stifling all vegetation?

How often can I pledge my good faith to a worthy cause by ending up watching from the back row as the needs prosper or fail regardless of my lack of motivation?

How often will constant kicking of the can down the yellow brick road be considered the excellence of a long line of Shakespearean resumes?

How often will my lack of courage blind me to opportunities of abundance and force my family to a life of stagnant economic asperity?

How often will I consent to others disrespect of my mastery of skills to the verge of closing my mind to all that is important to dwell in a soup of anger, self-doubts, and ache?

How often will the peeling paint, blistering off of my house like shards of cheese at my wedding feast, augment my anguished indifference finding every physical, spiritual, and any other of a multitude  of “…Why not’s…” festering in my dome of “..Do it tomorrow’s…”?

How often can I rattle my saber of position, roar my battle cry of “Tomorrow” to postpone today’s tasks? Bundling them all into neat piles of future promise completions. All the time smiling a grin of a used car salesman.


How often can I sit on my couch on sunny Saturday mornings enjoying the sun rise? Its beams slowly sliding across the finished oak; warming my unkempt hovel to the boiling point that tuffs of unwanted cat fur dancing over the varnished grain like tumbleweeds in a Sam Pechinpah film. Yet, I sip my morning brew, acknowledging their existence but, my head movies are of other unattended illusions.

How often can my inability to act or respond be accepted by those who expect perfection in all things?

How often can I permit the disappointment of a moment fire the indifference toward the needs of the here and now?

How often will my journey up my front walk be changed from the joy of daffodils and hyacinths filling the air with aromas of lung cleansing delights only to rediscover the pine foliage  are still dressed in the lights of Christmas past?

How often will I put off leading because of failure of seeing the needs of those who need leadership? They cry out for direction but, plead for independence. I use the pleas to drown out the cries.

How often will I have the epiphany of a lifetime only to have inaction and fear
drag it down to the bowels of an enlighten brain ****?



Part II:

I keep plugging in the mechanism of delay to power the animal of the moment.

I blind myself over and over and over and over again again again again to my abilities of now in favor of promises of later.

I smell success in the air every time I do the nows but, the stench of celebration’s to come is easer, sweater, more in line with who I am and not who I want to be.

I hear the praise and accolades of present victories and in time I’ll drag my triumphs out over the gravel road of time until they have lost their luster.

I’ll blindly stare at the tube of adult babysitting, at images of various eye candies trying to escape my own drive to do and yet failing in this as well.

I can’t spit out the bitter taste of the act of putting everything off nor drown it in the wine of determination without repeated reminder that I am drinking from the same cup of vintage to come.

I spend much needed dollars and valued hours gorging myself on self-help aids and assistance. Only they too become part of the beast’s feast of my misused time.

I awake every Monday with dreams of a new but, I’m so accessible to countless distractions. By Friday I face the inevitable doom of looking back over the landscape of a week gone up in the flames of the undone.

I try to grab each day by its throat. Choke out the desired results. Only it offers the slights resistance and I let it go to torment me from its lair growling “…not now, not now, not now…”

I’ll spend time with my mate for life. Half of me is relishing the moments with her. Half is wandering over the tablets of what I haven’t done.

I have mismanaged, misused, balled up, blundered, fouled up, mishandled, muddled, muffed, spoiled, and fumbled the footballs of my life again and again avoiding all that has to be done now driven farther down the boulevard. Constantly stopping at any insignificant store front; staring at juvenile trinkets of distraction.

I have sinned over and over again. I offer prayers to anyone who will listen. Begging for the enlightenment to solve my weakness. “… quia pecccavi nimis cogitatione verbo et in cogitations, et in hoc opera, quod ego facere non, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa…”



Part III:

Who else do I have to make suffer in confused patience waiting for the promised end results of my superficial excellence?

What has to be done to make me arise from the ash of self doubt, indecision, and fear to conquer this demon within my psyche?

Where are the answers I seek in my time of apathy?

Why has this inferior deity have such a grasp on me?

When! Again, when!!! When will I face this issue and start to find the peace of timely attainment?






(“… that I have sinned through my own fault in my thoughts and my words, in what I have done and what I have failed to do, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault…”)
Part IV:

I have lived with this for over a half century.
Trying to climb out of the hole of misused time.
Falling back into my penitentiary.
Serving a sentence of intimate crime.


The venting is complete, pity-pats written down.
My confession exposed for all to share, witness.
If this public sacrament exposes me a clown.
Mock away; have your jest. For I could care less.


My Ginsberg rant is to open doors of avowals.
To aid in my cure; in hope start my salvation.
To trust myself; to believe in oneself. I am all.
To look into the morning glass willing a reincarnation.


Only I can face the beast and make it heel.
Down inside I have to find the straight for each day.
Try a new, lighter approach; a new Don Marquis feel.
“…procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday…”




April 2014

I was an early teen with a black and white TV, staying up way too late to see magnum p.i., while smoking ****** slime re-fries, for a high so intense, i even shat my pants, ****** myself, or collapsed my fat *** on the couch.

I was alive while not

My mother worked typical nine to fives, and even nights, and with no father in sight for guidance, a kid can slide, into redefining the lining of respect, one lining, or even lying instead, it was better than dying inside, and i tried, oh i tried to go outside, inside a box.

I tried to deny my crimes, my thievery, my sublime feelings of neglect, but maybe i was less neglected, and more centered at the core of the universe, where snake eyes protected Bianca from Cobra commanders clutch, but Bianca, was into it, and wasn't like us, ***** knew it, and set us all up.

Dumb *****

Rubber bands
Screws and guns
All piled up
And that's all that's left
Or ever was?

Ninja nothing

My imagination was corrupted
I wanted something
But knew i couldn't have it
Couldn't put my finger on it
But knew the dangle of a carrot
And i was on it

Moth to light

That's how the infection spread, dissecting eloquence, and injecting prisms into the imprisonment of reflectous rages in the intersecting of the yellow projections on my television, as i would just lay there on my bed, and soak it all in, hoping for something better, or perhaps just something different.

I had already written by that time, a thousand lines to the screams, behind the screen, as the programing repeats, and repeats in mastered recipes under a canopy of grief, and humility, holding the people humbly to their seats.

The records not scratched
The needle
Is seated
Exactly
Where it intends
To be

I cheered for tanks
I cheered for bombs
Cheered for any ******* thing
That sounded the alarms

Suits, with ties, next to the soccer moms in line, at the grocery store, complaining about meat cuts, to a brain dead acne laden ****, making 6 bucks an hour, the dream had died before me, and begun to sour, but not one would see what they were doing in the scheme of things, and only seen what they wanted to, and i wasn't about to wear anyone's shoes, but mine.

That's when it whooshed over me, in the spark that grew my heart to be bigger than the rest, and i stepped outside, poking sticks in hives, and even lost a few fights, but saw through my own eyes with nobody at my side, though alone and wandering, i was still alright, and stronger than those family types, who would hide from life, in wealthy slights of hand, i still demanded nothing.

I wont beg for a leg at the masters feet, after i have broken my leash and ceased to be anything close to a functional member of society.

I was 13 and just starting.

We are not quite like monks,
although we, too, sit.

A monk sits and seeks
to find nothing in nothing.

We sit to create
something out of something.

Things float in our minds:
childhood slights and successes,
puberty, hormones, pain,
our first fumbling *****,
our first bewildering wars,
colleges, conquests, rebuffs,
disappointments, jobs,
marriages, children, divorce:

all that has brought
us to this moment alone.

The monk sits in
deepening quiet,
unmoving in silence.

We sit, hand
caressing a pen,
a typewriter, a computer,
waiting upon experience,
hoping that
its loose images
and uncertain memories
will coalesce into words.

When they do (not always),
we call that a poem
and we call ourselves poets.

The monk devolves
into a nothing that is.
The poet crafts
a something that isn't.

Is the something
we have wrought
more than the nothing
that swallows the monks?

Or is it very the same:

not an attempt to touch
the depth of being,
but to become the depth
itself.

Not to be a magician,
but to become magick
itself.

To bow to the god
within ourselves
and allow it voice
or silence.

We both, in our ways,
do what we must do.

Namaste.

  ~mce

I waited too long
to mow my lawn
biopsy my lung
yet lived long enough, anon,
however long is long.
Whatever. It's not wrong
to count along
while busy living. Sing
and stay strong
absorb the sun's photons
and store them in your bones.

Those bones
outlast slights and spurns
are white as lightning and strong
as sticks and stones.
Inside is one's
spirit, soul, the nameless one
the one that's never known.
It has no cell phone
can't communicate or even moan.
Therefore. Why complain?
Have some fun.

Soon
I'll be undone
underground
my garden burned down.
So what. John Donne
died and so did Milton.
Emerson too, and Whitman.
Get over it. Vote. Love. When
the train comes in the station
whistle with it, wish on
stars with passion
or careful hesitation.
Anything's fine, within reason.

Season by season
things get done.
Algebra and calculus, Malcolm X, George Washington.
No taxation
without representation.
A gun
in every den.
People will be governed
one way or another, by a king
or trusted friend. Corporation.
Men
are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than
to right themselves by abolishing the Evils to which they are        
      resigned.

I'm too young
to die! I cry. My generation
cannot outrun the sun
but I want to see what happens
next, a tsunami or tornado, rain
and wind beyond our comprehension
hit in the head by speeding debris, irony
of ironies! plastic contraptions,
rotting computers and yogurt cups, pain
in the baby! Moment's
notice. None,
I notice, live long
enough to see the end. Amen. A million

years hence
human sense
has so modified and mutated under
other moons
we share one mind
and everything's remembered by everyone.
Look it up. There is no death, just perfect rest. A perfect tan
is possible, and work is fun.
I'm going there when I pass on
because souls will travel at warp speeds, using nuclear fission.
About suffering, religion
was right (and wrong) all along.

Oh happy shades--to me unblest!
Friendly to peace, but not to me!
How ill the scene that offers rest,
And heart that cannot rest, agree!

This glassy stream, that spreading pine,
Those alders quiv'ring to the breeze,
Might sooth a soul less hurt than mine,
And please, if any thing could please.

But fix'd unalterable care
Foregoes not what she feels within,
Shows the same sadness ev'rywhere,
And slights the season and the scene.

For all that pleas'd in wood or lawn,
While peace possess'd these silent bow'rs,
Her animating smile withdrawn,
Has lost its beauties and its pow'rs.

The saint or moralist should tread
This moss-grown alley, musing, slow;
They seek, like me, the secret shade,
But not, like me, to nourish woe!

Me fruitful scenes and prospects waste
Alike admonish not to roam;
These tell me of enjoyments past,
And those of sorrows yet to come.

The banker sits for his lunch. He sits with his superiors. They ask, “how do you?” He replies, “Good, and you sir?” After pleasantries comes food. Everyone ordered a salad. Food is picked at with dashes of chatter. After food comes business. Business among superiors. The banker sits quietly using his wasted acting talents on feigning interest. He twiddles thumbs, smacks gums, and adjusts weight from one flank to the other.
The bored banker nods conformatively. When addressed, his name varies from Tim to Tom to Jack. They were close it was Al. He fills in facts and numbers the optimates don’t care to recall themselves. It’s the only use he has at lunch. Those superior to the banker could have brought his report he made up for this occasion. But, there is an air of aristocracy when one has a serf accompany his master to a meeting of patricians. Like all courtly meetings, the barons and governors hide slights in compliments, cloak ambition in kindness. Use pens as daggers, dried ink as poison.
It’s not the banker’s place to notice such things, it is place to serve those who deserve his servitude. Every time he services his lordships, his tie gets tighter, his skin looser, and his bald spot increase its diameter.
The bored and defeated banker rises with the Bourgeoisie, clings to their heels, and gets the door. His lunch is over. His break is done. Back to his desk he retreats. Back to work. His time as a squire is done. Until his masters call upon him again. For lunch.

Flitting around
Feelings abound
Opinions change
There is no ground
It all unravels
And it dazzles
As it spins and spins
And the soul travels
Toward the light
The truth that’s bright
Buffeted by thoughts
Wounded by slights
And it weans
And moves free and lean
Away from its home
It’s seventeen!
And the dices
And spices
Fill the air
With chance
At prices
Running storm clouds
Lifting all shrouds
Finding out
And wondering aloud
Amid confusion
And intrusion
Sorting out
Ideas’ illusions
And the heart stops
And the shoe drops
Pains infuses
Where the ball hops
Changing, flexing
Bursting, connecting
The chrysalis emerges
Cocoon dissecting

I bore with thee long weary days and nights,
  Through many pangs of heart, through many tears;
I bore with thee, thy hardness, coldness, slights,
  For three and thirty years.

Who else had dared for thee what I have dared?
  I plunged the depth most deep from bliss above;
I not My flesh, I not My spirit spared:
  Give thou Me love for love.

For thee I thirsted in the daily drouth,
  For thee I trembled in the nightly frost:
Much sweeter thou than honey to My mouth:
  Why wilt thou still be lost?

I bore thee on My shoulders and rejoiced:
  Men only marked upon My shoulders borne
The branding cross; and shouted hungry-voiced,
  Or wagged their heads in scorn.

Thee did nails grave upon My hands, thy name
  Did thorns for frontlets stamp between Mine eyes:
I, Holy One, put on thy guilt and shame;
  I, God, Priest, Sacrifice.

A thief upon My right hand and My left;
  Six hours alone, athirst, in misery:
At length in death one smote My heart and cleft
  A hiding-place for thee.

Nailed to the racking cross, than bed of down
  More dear, whereon to stretch Myself and sleep:
So did I win a kingdom,--share My crown;
  A harvest,--come and reap.

She evaluated,
assessed and condemned
the mind,
and slights of tongue
but never attempted
to glimpse
inside my heart
which always swelled and heaved.

Those early weekend mornings
spent alone  
while they slept
and the sun climbed
broadly in the sky
were only safe because
of the proximity
of their souls,
her soul.

Maybe the outside
doesn't always reflect
what it can
or should
or doesn't show but feels
in vast measure
the way way a child feels
he's being carried.

Now idle winds blow
seething to be old
and free
of the minds own
burdensome choices
and rhetoric
about the ice
never again getting to melt.

Never being freed
to move from solid state
through flowability,
then wind its way
with out weight
down the road
toward yet another
chance at redemption.

I was beautiful once,
had my magic dreams
& my share of troubles.
I swallowed pain,
sifted through the rubble,
got stained,
tainted by the man,
even been ****** around
by the elite.

I've been drunk on my feet,
indulged in lots of illicit things,
like large doses
of heavy drugs,
***** *** &
petty crime.

I've dreamt of rebellion,
vindication & revenge,
sometimes exposed some
bad tendencies,
but despite all the slights,
all my misfortune & fights,
one thing is for certain,
I haven't found
any good excuse
to become a stone cold
****** killer,
not a single one.

Your words,
like silken tendrils,
crept along my skin,
Passing shivers flared,
Brushed off
with an uneasy smile,
Now these diaphanous strands  
threaten to mummify,
Encase me in a cocoon
of slights,
sarcasm,
and casual cruelty,
Liquifying my insides
to better feed you,
Bloat your predatory emptiness
with my life-force,
Your clacking mouthparts sharpen,
As does my resolve,
My innards are not for your
slurping,
Skitter back to your shadowy lair,
This corpse will not play,
I rise, awakened,
The sun waits for me.

Rusty Hinges

The wood showed its age and its time of neglect it creaked open slowly onto the courtyard the
Individual standing there was you or me the time varies from hours days and years our circumstances
Are different but they do flow with a commonality as one being human so many life experiences happen
To us all but controversial identifiable problems make them Taylor made for us as individual and at there
End they are retold with tread that has a universal constant that can mean many things to a lot of
People that in one degree or another applies to us but in the arena of life and its lustful expositions we
Turn and are in tough straits loss slights disappointments fall across our paths as shadows and in them
Are portents of more unknown difficulty no one gives much thought to the quick and vanishing problem
Unless it holds after the fact considerations that will be a continued problematic ongoing occurrence
These are the ones that we will fight a running battle with they tax our resources emotional or financial
Possibly both are effected nerves and stress makes for quiet an ordeal never to treat something in a
Light manner but that is the very success and exit that all desire the quote its darkest just before the
Dawn is in fact infallible truth but take it a step further with purposeful pause call to a halt all the anxiety
The voices silent or audible picture clearly the situation as best as you can see it and as hard and
Unanswerable as it surly is at that moment your need is to garrison your mind behind high walls
Making any thoughts that would enter at least they will be high unattainable thoughts not just
The little thoughts that have no power they only undermine and play to your fears in this haven begin
To undergird and reinforce stress points that are easily identified make the grandest leap of all deface
The diabolical disjointed confusion that has arrested your mind so terribly and scoffs you with the
Central means of attack confusion scatters your will your God given abilities to combat the war like
Ways that are found in life decisions need to made in clear eyed settings that are not similar to a
Volcanic upheaval but the scene should be a table and chair the floor smooth with sensibility the walls
Hung with diplomas and other unquestioned achievements that vouch of steady prolonged success
No matter the undertaking the chair the place and focal point of a fount that bares on and in it a grand
Ancient hall lined with shelves and shelves of books the gathered power of many minds implements and
Symbols that show in deep detail by their very appearance those that have entered here were men of
Gifts and striking abilities that they now gladly share they set around the table awaiting your questions
With answers that disarmed all foes not one loss was found and all this rest on one hinge and that is
Faith rusty of truth but by humble supplication and expectation you polish it to its formidable formable
Brilliance and Excellence burning away all shadows leaving in brightest detail the answers you seek
Nothing comes to your life without attending gifts attached the greater the struggle means in accurate
Measurement of how much growth you can expect

Painted
The story played out on cobblestone above the arched stone gave the perfect setting for the dramatic
Poignantly rendered blue it alone should cover a dream that spills and chills like hoarfrost if a kiss ever
Put on the human form she would be it in all loveliness questions bidding an answer would start at her
Feet bow in acquiescence knowing full well that this surly is Isis or a perfect mirror image that strangely
Fell to earth and in her confusion she strolled along the current of time touched unexpectedly the mind
Of the artist that just so happened to be seeking inspiration he had fallen as far as a man could fall from
Favor by mediocre works he had produced of late and then with moon full and the ancient city sleeping
In this quiet where stunning intensity now flashed before his tired eyes his hands began to have the
Movements as he was already painting strains of glory in her soft but burning eyes he was transported
To magical spheres all of nature took on deeper colors rich and vivid and slights of nuances crowded
Everyplace was overflowing the seams of earth seemed it would burst he was a man dying of thirst then
She as a rich free flowing spring danced with a totality of shining water by now he was staggering as his
Head was spinning as he pictured in his mind what he could capture from the goddess from nowhere
But everywhere at the same time it truly was the breaking down of reason to much of an overload for
A common mortal these times are of the rarest occurrence but then the fog in his mind gave a clear view
He realized he was in a deep dream though awake and truth crested and then he knew she was all
Women their beauty and charm was distilled from every girl and women he had ever met some times
You get to close to a subject you allow a diffusing effect what causes it male insecurity ego the male’s
Need to dominate this propensity to undermine whatever it was he challenged it and overthrew it in that
Spell of moon light fantasy now his paint would bring freedom and right blessing to the women he
Painted he stopped looking with a superficial eye but let his soul connect with their soul then from
This truth what wonder filled the canvas it was gripping enthralling everything was the same but now he
Got it possibly the tribulation and repressed sorrow that all experience was bleeding through and it was
Feeding into his streaming efforts of expression anyway he is a renowned painter initials M.L. and a
knowing smile mean anything

Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again,
So loud with voices of the birds,
So thick with lowings of the herds,
Day, when I lost the flower of men;

Who tremblest thro' thy darkling red
On yon swoll'n brook that bubbles fast
By meadows breathing of the past,
And woodlands holy to the dead;

Who murmurest in the foliaged eaves
A song that slights the coming care,
And Autumn laying here and there
A fiery finger on the leaves;

Who wakenest with thy balmy breath
To myriads on the genial earth,
Memories of bridal, or of birth,
And unto myriads more, of death.

O wheresoever those may be,
Betwixt the slumber of the poles,
To-day they count as kindred souls;
They know me not, but mourn with me.