a grey and orange ghost
slips unfettered between
this world and
a quiet place
of muted shadows
hidden
until eyes like marbles
blink into existence
and my cheshire kitten
slinks into my room
with no more whisper
than silk on glass
liquid

Floating above the rifts of apperception I glaze over the gaudy faucets of imagined vector thrusts in hibernation by the lucubration of space-time materialized crystal in the somber beats of fetched farrago of choice slices in delicate hums of hemmed balance rantipole only in ethereal importance but otherwise supersolid above the sprauncy vagrancy of dilettantism. We shout a clarion virtuosity so that the conclamation of neovitalism conjures upon a spell of lapse and regress a motive for further crystallization of epidemiology into harmony with syndicated admonition sleek in design and parceled into renown by feats of completion rather than slugabed gregarious fountains of wasted ingenuity bleeding from the vacuum of an empty hearth in a hospitable dwelling otherwise cleared of imperfection. Right now, I levitate with transcendence with an approximated eidetic memory that is the surgical vibrancy of renewal rather than the chameleons of hidden talents buried by the walls of Jericho sounding tocsins of alarm that the anointed favor of choice destruction is only an encircled rapture of rhapsodies of confluence found in axiomatic truths ribbed with the futtocks of seaworthy but cauponate recidivism into the donnybrooks of apocryphal revelation preceding the whimsical fall of cascading permanence just as gravity so ordained it. We breathe the life of the ethereal numinous spirit of isangelous repute because we navigate the exquisite cobweb of reconciliation to surpass all understanding in peace what would be a miscegenated carcass of war otherwise apart from the incidental apartheid of the drones of causality ignoring the antecedent reality too much to register fathomed streaks of preventive endeavor because of the scars of a scrappy schlep of the rampicks of ecbolic servitude to moth-eaten star-crossed lovers of the mean menagerie of gutless succor renowned only in tepid rejections of harbingers bequeathed in succession but ignored because of the procession of “Billie Jean” politics.

   The citadel aflame with controversy buttresses carnality by witless contaminants of hidebound scaldabancos of ineffable destitution so craven in eisoptrophobia for their hypostasized indolent fatuousness of capitulation that they are but a minor punctuation in the largesse of centuries to favor audacity in candor over the prevarications of catastrophe to dented human pride against humane dictates of theodicy in fatalism that predestination experimented with its own vaulted verve to find permanent solutions engraved in the agrapha of time to solidify the redintegrated truth of God’s divine stewardship above the quisquilous deism of former regnant centuries of blench and blandishment. We revolt at the specter of rot only when the effluvia of disgust elevates the visceral reality above the utilitarianism of recycled prim nuisances of noisome lineage that yet balk because they are bereft of attention but not a vacant talent and therefore should the subsidies of man surpass the ignorance of appearances he will shrug of the demur of the scrimshank and sharpen his scrivello in the service of redemption found through cultivated prowess of gardens beneath where rivers flow above a cubic centurion of embattled visages of the heavens becoming the rampart for the vestigial clarity of Secret Masters to foresee the bypass that heals decadence and rebukes the formalism of puritan endeavor to sweat with exhaustive patience over the gossamer intertesselations of a ripe reality rather than a groveled fragmentary world shattered too much by exigent metanoia to mount the crenellated catchpole of vigilant enmity towards the stew of listlessness found in epigone and farce more than in organic fortunes. We flip the upheaval of society to squander our proportionate degrees of wealth on the necessity created by dire quandary which enamors by interrogations of pulchritude the verisimilitude of participle ivory dalliance of etched canvasses of simultagnosia for the librations of the liberated rings of betrothed liberation despite profound lurches of the mistetches of ignorance presiding dismally over the hulked disdain of glamborge rather than resselenque.

     The winter is a poor porcine glut of ciconine swelters because the prickly obtuse recoil of the delopes of caution find their permeable balance with a sort of photographic photosynthesis that braves the dearth of reprieve for the reprisal of nostalgic deeds found in the docimasy of riveted reflections because the preordination of God is the superlative champion of the witeless grandeval protectorate of infinite concepts guarded from the parvanimity even of the most strident minds squabbling over the braseros and battues of history as though those funereal stains of lachrymose regret outweigh the traditions of vaunted human progress because they are finicky about importunate pleas of subsidiary injustice rather than fulminations of the modern rebuttal to the disclaimers of an uneven history that shepherds the doubts of nihilism into ripe fruition at the expense of very expensive moral rot for the codlings of urbacity and mendaciloquence used to foment that tribalism of totemic justice. We see in Penuel the wrestling match of specters and heroic giants documented on the ageless pages and we notice the ironic twinges of struggle that kneaded the propriety of gentilian privilege that ultimately fostered an insurrection against chosen bravado among those that sear with zeal beyond the yordim afflictions of yobbery because the Jewish heart is stronger than any calamity even if it departs from the reverence of the colporteurs of the integrated syncretism of the attempted monolith that beseeches polyphiloprogenitive growth in mindset rather than in testy abeyance of forbearance because of known scrutinies into the tropology of wilted facts remanded by curious historicity that crumples without disdain when we memorialize the erasure of scepsis by modern standards of thaumaturgy.

    The minauderies of growth are a repositioned tacit allegiance to the untold fanfare and hearsay immunized against the broach of facetious levity to buoy discordant hearts above fumatoriums of relentless ignorance because coherent masterwork can be cobbled without such lapidary toil and toll on sincere affectations of wizened brevity. The seismic precautions for the forefathers of incidental convergences between expectancy and crystallized history are an ironic intortion of priorities because the heralds and tribunes matched the peerless foresight with the gerrymandered figments of apartheid between the imaginary and the real so that the delicate synchrony of events could unfurl a riveting carapace from the shells of protection even in amiable squalor for its impenitent attrition on the volleys of sensible rumor becoming fashioned in covert bedazzled errors in judgment leading to the triumph of the eventual civilization over the futtocks of the burial of the former trekleador of zenkidu belonging to provincial cadasters found so tucked in the hedges that discernment of frikmag would be an indelible scourge on the biognosy of the diagnosed endeavors that elapsed into remediated circumstances that brave the depths of deontological violation for the breadth of apportioned loaves and two swanky fish earning a place among the miracles of transcendent liberation from articles of decree imperious by sardonic disdain becoming nullified by the histrionics of a delicately staged orchestra that cements human achievement.

       We relish the frescades of a ruffled autumnal reminder of flourish above pothers of the screed of admonition swamped by nostalgic backtracks in the séance with ultimatum of design and the impregnated and carnal lusts of a world pitched in darkness with guarded lambent lights fomenting a perjury against tact for the deliverance of freedom in tacit agreement with owleries that every bonanza be tithed in their favor regardless of hibernation of spoilsports or their subsidiary remarks on indelible quills of invented manufactured realities we crave with desperation rather than cower from in requited nescience urging us to depart from affairs and stagnate the loyalty of fealty above the limber of utility mobilized above levities for solemn remarks and rejoinders. Promulgated above the robotic rubble of staffage haywire in wiredrawn contemplative resonance of tremulous subterfuge vestigial but immediate to the yardsticks of reprehensible malarkey, is the barnstorm for erratic dimples sauntered by the saunas of shelter above the chaos of ruined ginnels for the gimcracks of auxiliary duty to service, is the glorification of the sultry intimations of legions of remonstrance in guarded decorum about sunken atrocities lapsed in memorial to the incumbent brunt of sockdolagers of justice returning revenants from the bridewell of historical internment. The symphily of orchestras to cineaste symposiasts of surquedry in impudence beyond the brays of betrayal is the aborning mythos of regimented perceptions of a world that when magnified by minutiae appears starkly contrast to the gapped gubbertushed reality of the average patron of the arts to such an extreme gulf of receptive understanding that the qualia are dovetailed only in the swink of careful kisswonks to certify certitude itself when all the fragments coalesce into subjoined harmony to the substructures of inherent conscientiousness. The miracles at work that are vesicles and vessels for the swage of imprint above the loyalty of the imprinted tribunes of the fluminous is how hidden protrusions can emerge so victorious over popularized glazes on the pastures of a farmed culture itching for timmynoggies of innovation but only finding the etched remarks of pristine imagos of heroism dwindling in motivation to surpass the imaginative leaps accustomed to a newfangled laziness that bedazzles the guzzle of crowds but not the discrimination of the crowded morass of incompletion found in mosaics missing enigmatic philters of intoxicated love for the profound. So to be intermediary as a custodian for artistry we must cozen the wheedled imaginations not of the relic but the archaeologist that discovered the embedded prisms of attentive scrutiny for glinting sunshine inherent in troves of surpassed excellence beyond parochial sympatric blandishment of donnism rather than a resselenque that floats above demeanor to usher the cosseted age of treasure above the glib brocards and florews of past success.

      Immanent to the provisions of God as decreed from a syncretic reconnaissance of the pitiable gulfs that separate boundless divine love from the clavigerous potential for scrappy sympatric affiliation to **** through the barnstorms of internal comestions of conflated priorities we are ourselves prismatic in the indulgence of a tasty life sprinkled with zest rather than tempered with the vengeance of retorted animosity that we knead the pottery of ironclad resistance to a metallic conduit of pruned fulminations of unguided intuition so that the natural accord supersedes the goad of materialism for the sustenance of antiquity beyond its heyday for vital gains against the tauricide of panic and frenzy. The linchpin of all realistic attempts at the sympatric symphily of civilization is a guided remorse through the torment of affliction that sizzles without anteric barbs as it measures through engrenage how to pilot the vehicles of prosperity through the minefields of contingency that invisibly bequeath new hurdles and inestimable obstacles that collude surreptitiously to fulminate measured controversy against the backbites of restrained equipoise created by polities of the macadamized fabric of a welded smithy of a universe that with ubiquity proclaims above the senseless the harvest of conjugal repartee in sensible pride against militant bastions of incidental prejudice for a careen against the flyndresques of danger and the flyndrigs of glaikery alike for a humane spurt of enlightenment to tower peerlessly in supervision of entelechy created by esemplastic unity in apolaustic purpose. We cannot be puritans engaged in a pilgrimage to a palimpsest of priggishness because the daring elements of adventurism are necessary ingredients to catalyze the supply-chain of the innate gluttony of ego-seeking endless balance with a natural sustained biognosy that prizes biocentric harmony above bibliognost scepsis so that the enthused can flock with liberty divorced from libertinism. The ultimatum is a war between hedonism wed with donnism against eumoirety and self-restraint and this battle will be waged on the indolence of a future of cordslave tethers to interrogation of privy conceptualism hamshackled by the gradgrinds into the neat nexility of precise conformity that blacklists the samizdat because the genizah profoundly twists the already jumbled jengadangle and provides a junediggle of procession and ceremony rather than pomp without substantial grit embedded in the showmanship of a reality in need of a fourth-wall.

        It is ironic how we bewrayed our stewardship of the planet as a plenipotentiary sentience waged against the vesicles of instinct but more fundamental to this tattered but pregnant psalm is that the stronghold of our future is the tenacity of filial duty to enthrone the household with husbandry and restraint as an emolument to divine justice that sparkles opalescent in its own redacted notions of gravity imperfect in the taradiddles of science but refined by the eclat of the combustible syncopation of a reiterative trope of realism combined with surrealist caprice to henpeck affectionate violation above inviolable screeds of blood sport rather than conjugal affections afforded to the brood and the feast of the flocks that rein supreme over all things but exert inclement justice over the cattle and chattel of civilization itself. The minkumpf against the sacrilege of a prioritized kosher is to abhor the suffering rather than embrace the penitence of perceived but specious sacrifice which is an ornery thorn on the stained conscience of the yobbery of both the apikoros and the obedient because to attenuate all suffering even of instinctual beings we anneal our hearts to a glorified compassion that supersedes the relegated relics of pushful genuflection by succedaneum of sacrifice waged against the docile whangams of otiose theodicy. The filibusters against the regnant complexity of regalia that is a sprauncy poivrade with terpsichorean flairs to transmute the intimations of hibernated perfidy into finicky transmissions for the riometers that accord orbific merit in a lackluster time enchant the rollicking audience of this auditorium of the prevenance of the conquered universe bracing for the camorra of the insipid entreaty of defalcated casuistry—the prominent exchequer in hoodwinked political agitprop that forges ironclad allegiances to flimsy facades of the verisimilitude of dignity with recalcitrant but incondite bruits of venom militant against secular apostasy—that the fitful arrivistes that swim in dire dearth will be welcomed into the reconciliation of all time with a tempered lurid glint of revelation bounded by sunken albatross of hype unbounded with a peace insurmountable in prestige rewarded only with the highest reservations.


    On 3-1-2020 when I penned my philosophy—even at a slowpoke margin of crafty precision above rapid empirical faucets of folly—I was entirely selfsame with the autotelic engravings of the smoldering aboriginal talents within that many can swing through by tenacity for enormous plaudit but a flagrant majority will apprehend with flippant scollardical tenets of rebuke and remain honest in their appraisal only in meek resignation of parvanimity.
Consider the postulates of rarefaction whittled into a vehement zeal against the prostitution of our species to the anteric cycles of residual molds of dingy spectacle mired by the tyrannical towers of supercilious squirms of revamped novelty rather than enhanced by the freebooters of dirigisme that borrow from time the behest of philandered flairs divorced from the cadges of secular instinct and enthroned by the qualms of engineered virtuosity that is stark, barren but peerless in its outstretched clamor for luxuriant sprees against the silentium of grandeval asylum incurred by the flippant filigrees of recalcitrant modernism endangered by the irredentism of the future upon the whimsy of the present-minded momentary glare of rapture.  This impending architecture of nimble but subservient endeavor is a pinprick rejoinder against the wernaggles of prepossessed fountains of configured animosity against the stapled heed of a modality of trayned invictive invectives against the plodding course of fustilugianation that swerves in apathy of autopilot junediggle to emanate the surrender of epigone to the raktendure of the synaesthesis of the attuned perception of all superimposed minutiae delegated by calculated design into a synclastic focus on veiled caprice that is vaulted above the choppy and sketchy verdure of remiss perception to stellar continuities rather than mundane knickpoints of stodged blurs that magnify syncretic qualia into baseline congruity rather than staid torpefied resignation of the visage of thunder without the pangs of the widely vituperated lightning that bequeaths all certain notions but flouts the tortious saboteurs of the prim trucage of brittle fundamentalism.

     As the flawed paragon of a picaresque youth punctuated by vibrant plumage of self-wrought tropophilous usucaption of remote groomed frontiers of desolate luxury but buoyant morale into the ballasts of a nimble usufruct that hikkles yet still against still-framed thilloire--fatuous in endearment only to the polity of the waterdrip of craven but gravid disingenuous flickers of lambent cloaks of perfidy—that earned its birthright by meditative fruition rather than prodigal tallespin of indolent frapplanks of a vicarious personage rather than an autotelic haecceity showcases the folly of heterodyne inclinations meeting an impasse of accidental dislodgement. The interregnum between the spurts and sprees of luxuriance is a staid pause between continuities of afforded parlance becoming stapled demographic solidarity affixed to a strident gallop of effortful pushes against the tenacity of the slumberous wicked hibernation of vetust magpiety without hieratical internment because youthful industry beats hackneyed bludgeons of wiseacres of a stilted manufacture of steamy nostalgia for lickerish moments that dignify but undermine moral virtues but splash anointed and sometimes disjointed favor upon the congeners to a rabid escapade of a heedless love frowning on the girdles of the prim balderdash of heralded jolts dim on levity and puffed with elusive contextualized control of libidinous serrated defilement because the crotaline **** outmantles the sweedled limber of exploitable folly. The cosseted reality of wheedled gourmands of continuous perception rather than the Gaussian blur of the protean invention of stitches in time that obscure rather than magnify the supernal levity inherent to most artistry is a linchpin of lenient gravitas that levies the lavaderos of ripe perception into annealment.
Excuse the bravado of the gait of winnowed forks in a bronteum for heralds of megaloscopy fastened to the macroscian reality of indelible filigrees of countermanded controversy becoming its best behest in the sempiternal flowering of burgeoned demonstration rather than illustrious overhang of drab slabs of manufacture rather than organism that should be interposed between the constellated concepts of both apperception and the aggrieved counselors to obtuse obsessions that are an improper tutelary for a designated reprisal of the once profane now immediately gratified by ramshackle tenets of a guarded sublimation of the tenets of post-modernism into a sustained force of the internalized tabernacle of haecceity shepherded into exuberance by the manumission of spirit from the ******* of purblind scalds of defamation that incurs the penalty of flippant privation. The refuge the Lord provides is not contingent upon the vagaries of deliberation nor the calculus of oversight but the remontant amaranthine glower of a listed deed becoming an eternal reminder that a dismantled and disjointed world fathoming only remorse rather than the trudge of gentility against the headwinds of brunt asperity will always flout the successor rather than atone for the failure of the imponent condition that constellates around rudimentary drivel grubbing the momentary out of avarice for allotted merchandise rather than glommed magnets to amoeba sentiments for the kisswonk of ulterior motive beyond dungeons of desperation that lurk ghoulishly with spectral frights at the disfigurement of morale created by errors askew rather than a contagion of righteous valor.

   Ask the heedful servant if the captaincy of reneged commitment owes homage to dutiful instruction or whether it is a balking corpse of necrosis accorded to the omphalism of brutish carnal repose in times of sedentary silt siphoned in spelunked rijuice for preordination is a predominant specter for a world scared scurrilous and skittish in a diatribe against the very notion of tribal screeds embedded in the sedimentary heft of traditionalism above the pother of vacillation commended to the apikoros but counterfeit fiat system of a ruddy governance without a supreme magistrate. Now lets venture into the territory of visagists as we envision the swanky subversion of impoverished and nebbich visions of oligochrome that fixates on belabored but dead notions of rigid propriety and levitate above those concerns with a querulous transcendence that never wernaggles about the profaned irrelevance of burlesque tropes of sidereal friction but instead memorializes the thermolysis of permeable endeavor above staid countenances of imposture that lurk in the shadowy penumbra of the connivance of persona above the archetype of the tutelary guardian spirit that through windlass and sometimes deliberation affixes nobility to even the pedestrian in order to assize its proper proportions to granular ironies expounded into megalography transformative by the very rivets of its supersensible existence and cohabitation with histrinkage among human taboos.

   The handiwork of a permeable race prone to exacerbated proclamations of prerogatives bulldozed by the rapid percolation of insoluble quandaries to the gripes of the feast of foofaraw sometimes shelters our otherwise regnant concern about the plenipotentiary God that observes all latent affairs without the paramours that conflate vivid carnality with appeased luxury and superimposes a crafty system of seismic shifts in rantipole dances with numinous flux rather than dissipated militant suppression of the fracklings of dissolute pollution which swirk in their dastardly desperado endeavors to corral the entire monoliths that guard each province into a winnowed rumble of rubble by tarnish of Tyre rather than by the upstart rejoinders of Canaan. Every creature which has the capacity to perceive language is afforded benedictions by the overhailing force of the hypaethral heights of superlative ingenuity founded in the bolted speculation of the endearment of all to tropological seesaws embattled against the hearsay of nyejays that contaminates the telmatology of the ecosystem of revivalism rather than buries the leaden debts of the disjointed revenants of past prominence into recycled irrelevance for posterity rather than for anything but a machination of a clockwork apple rigged for a rotten worm to swindle the sweet delicate tempests of unforeseen disaster to perjuries against financial solidarity.

The spinsters of sardonic drollery underscore the imminence of an incondite cutthroat collapse blackguarded by the hucksters of incontinence grubbing every fetched noisome notion and congealing a bonnyclabber of desiccated mildew that proves vestigial when the victors of time earn their joyous serenade to the pinnacle of the totem of jaundice slits in wavy endeavors for the participles of sejungible syntax of the ephorized furor to outlast the draksteng of droned dereliction manned by half-baked spies of ulterior recitals for imprinted vicissitude in supremacy in synquest for frizzlounges rather than the pedestrian circulatory system of careworn polity. We vaporize the petty hatred of sympatric regelation that neuters the virulence of motivated impediments to the draconian surge of asperity that sinks temporal haplessness as a regaled blasphemy that crowns only the ringed betrothal to spumid serrated halts in slick superstition that is a buggery to the idea of insectivores devouring the erratic chantage of germane germs that pauperize rather than even blind the deafened to be a crutch to vehicular homicide. Melismatic sennet is a dirigible of immense herculean sinew without the traces of vestibulary retches of kisswonked grisly tepid intimidations of eccedentesiasts by the radioglare of wizened corrugations in thanatism that exhort the avatars of narquiddity over the natural departure of revenant souls back to their temporary hostility to crass lifeless decarnate immediacy that slinks with foibles magnified by vertiginous heights of scollardical reputes rigged by the rijuice of the plackiques of meaningless spoils for swashbuckler bonanza borrowed from serrated vengeance exacted in prominence to provide false avenues of extenuation to malefaction that is confidant to the panopticon of exemplary dimples meager in the largesse of the composite realism of a sizable imprint on megalography that outlasts impertinent excuses for dangerous trout swimming against the mobilized selachostomous frizz of sharks gathering to avenge disclosure with insolence and gravid atrocity of incisive surgical evisceration of attempted depositions that falter by innumerable facets of countenance that belie ultimate realism and the perdurable construction of a sturdy hive of bibliognost revelry.

     Even with the blaring sennet of majesty inundating my piecemeal perception with the marstions of flarium that is an efficacy in a flaccid world of otiose pretenses limpid only in folly but contraplex in ironic skewbald skerries of grubbed destination that is the terminus of karezza despite the maledictions of vehement guarded betrayals that conjure up lurid noisome virility against the gamines and gallywows that populate interstellar fictions of virtu rather than mundane pragmatica that astound with the resselenque of contaminated skeumorphs of latent fracture belonging to a skeletonized ossified reification of farce above historicity in seemly seamless countenance with overwrought princely stature deserving integrity to ripples through sparkling opalescence. The vapid insularity of the self-contained mythos of appeased groundlings is based on the rhizic and rhizogenic fracklings destitute in predicative flares to swelter above stratospheres of the illimitable into the dwelling of the highest serenity inherent to the pacification of truth to neglect its egregious errors of mistetches of a ripened pachyderm of bravery in times of austerity and now a reclaimed notion of sempiternal charades swimming above the punitive draksteng of dranger that is enlarged by acclimated attempts at foiled raltention hikkling against its own superior forces of galvanized preterition to elide over screwball insanity of derangement in this virtual paradise of inhabited souls belonging to former times congregating on the pasture of the evanescence of now for all eternity having the optative condition of incarnation above the ferules of the stagnant brevity of oversight in heavenly realms by postulate but not confirmed by regal logic.

     The troponder of the flickered lambent niceties of polity is a countenance that piggybacks on simpered jostles of negligent engrenage to appease sworn enmities among beatific havens for certitude swarmed by the fisticuffs of darbied bridewells of desiccated drainage traversing the distant disdain for the gravel of cemented slits of stilted pragmatica that is a gavel of atrocious estoppel mediated by heroic heresiarchs against pitiable betrayal for forceful remedies in acclimated servitude to the groans and groaks of a life of remorse and dearth rather than the glut of luxuriance in forbearance to its own intorted mirrored ironies that etch infinity with every scrawled rejoinder to austere ploys of checkered rumbles of threat and exigency posed by the clairvoyant hypocrites who benefit greatly by the design of the omphalism above the frays and brays of corporate dogmatism slowly outmoded by vibrant plumages of heteronormative originality beyond petty chantage. A hesitation overcomes the bluster of bravado as the restive earnest concerns of tribulation beset the minauderies of divine affection to reaffirm the teachings of the Gospel so that future generations genuflect beneath the altar of the ultimate stroke of sociogenesis and the blood ransom of suffering that promoted the human latitude and liberty against incarcerated throngs of virtue over caesaraproprism accorded to genuflection beneath denarii rather than absolution by tether to the eternal vine of sensation of the supersensible entelechy of all valiant insurrections against defective polities and renewed policies.

     We thus seek a transdimensional bridge between the morphean virtu of rudimentary alchemy of propitiation divulged by leverage and the teeming rambunctiousness of fiduciary tribes to the ultimate duty of man to consummate the future of eternity even in slowpoke mannerisms that sidle through rigors of entelechy and assize the masterwork of tutelage above the circumforaneous entrenchment of glut above the mastery of the subtle subaudition that beleaguers an adept conflagration of harnessed human ignorance staid in the incarceration of exotic virtues of freewheeling sapience never vulnerary to hospitable concerns that entrenches the verisimilitude of a refracted justice to reign over the stultification of a primitivism inherent to man and not man alone.

On the bank of a rushing brook
I sat for hours watching its course.
Peered into the clear gurgling mass
That cascaded down from a mountainous source

Like a slithering snake, it slinks and slips
It babbles downhill night and day
Rolling and gliding through plains and dales
It winds its way to the wider bay.

Dipping my fingers in its icy chill
How my hand got repelled as from a shock!
In its ripples stirred by the kissing breeze,
I saw trees, clouds and the jutting rock-

All floating in queer, fanciful shapes,
Shuddering, trembling and standing still
And the fishes leaving zigzag trails,
Swishing and swimming in the winding rill.

As I quietly watched her speedy flight
With her ***** rising in mournful heaves,
In my ears fell her whispering soft
Orchestrated by the rustle of quivering leaves

I hardly knew the time speeding by
Nor noticed the birds’ homeward flight
Or the Sun moving to the west end side
And the Sky reddening at his sight

As the brook thus continued her headlong ride
To be mingled finally with the ocean wide
I walked, brooding over man’s relentless stride
To be merged eventually with the Cosmic Guide.

Brave Menelaus son of Atreus now came to know that Patroclus had
fallen, and made his way through the front ranks clad in full armour
to bestride him. As a cow stands lowing over her first calf, even so
did yellow-haired Menelaus bestride Patroclus. He held his round
shield and his spear in front of him, resolute to **** any who
should dare face him. But the son of Panthous had also noted the body,
and came up to Menelaus saying, “Menelaus, son of Atreus, draw back,
leave the body, and let the bloodstained spoils be. I was first of the
Trojans and their brave allies to drive my spear into Patroclus, let
me, therefore, have my full glory among the Trojans, or I will take
aim and **** you.”
  To this Menelaus answered in great anger “By father Jove, boasting
is an ill thing. The pard is not more bold, nor the lion nor savage
wild-boar, which is fiercest and most dauntless of all creatures, than
are the proud sons of Panthous. Yet Hyperenor did not see out the days
of his youth when he made light of me and withstood me, deeming me the
meanest soldier among the Danaans. His own feet never bore him back to
gladden his wife and parents. Even so shall I make an end of you
too, if you withstand me; get you back into the crowd and do not
face me, or it shall be worse for you. Even a fool may be wise after
the event.”
  Euphorbus would not listen, and said, “Now indeed, Menelaus, shall
you pay for the death of my brother over whom you vaunted, and whose
wife you widowed in her bridal chamber, while you brought grief
unspeakable on his parents. I shall comfort these poor people if I
bring your head and armour and place them in the hands of Panthous and
noble Phrontis. The time is come when this matter shall be fought
out and settled, for me or against me.”
  As he spoke he struck Menelaus full on the shield, but the spear did
not go through, for the shield turned its point. Menelaus then took
aim, praying to father Jove as he did so; Euphorbus was drawing
back, and Menelaus struck him about the roots of his throat, leaning
his whole weight on the spear, so as to drive it home. The point
went clean through his neck, and his armour rang rattling round him as
he fell heavily to the ground. His hair which was like that of the
Graces, and his locks so deftly bound in bands of silver and gold,
were all bedrabbled with blood. As one who has grown a fine young
olive tree in a clear space where there is abundance of water—the
plant is full of promise, and though the winds beat upon it from every
quarter it puts forth its white blossoms till the blasts of some
fierce hurricane sweep down upon it and level it with the ground—even
so did Menelaus strip the fair youth Euphorbus of his armour after
he had slain him. Or as some fierce lion upon the mountains in the
pride of his strength fastens on the finest heifer in a herd as it
is feeding—first he breaks her neck with his strong jaws, and then
gorges on her blood and entrails; dogs and shepherds raise a hue and
cry against him, but they stand aloof and will not come close to
him, for they are pale with fear—even so no one had the courage to
face valiant Menelaus. The son of Atreus would have then carried off
the armour of the son of Panthous with ease, had not Phoebus Apollo
been angry, and in the guise of Mentes chief of the Cicons incited
Hector to attack him. “Hector,” said he, “you are now going after
the horses of the noble son of Aeacus, but you will not take them;
they cannot be kept in hand and driven by mortal man, save only by
Achilles, who is son to an immortal mother. Meanwhile Menelaus son
of Atreus has bestridden the body of Patroclus and killed the
noblest of the Trojans, Euphorbus son of Panthous, so that he can
fight no more.”
  The god then went back into the toil and turmoil, but the soul of
Hector was darkened with a cloud of grief; he looked along the ranks
and saw Euphorbus lying on the ground with the blood still flowing
from his wound, and Menelaus stripping him of his armour. On this he
made his way to the front like a flame of fire, clad in his gleaming
armour, and crying with a loud voice. When the son of Atreus heard
him, he said to himself in his dismay, “Alas! what shall I do? I may
not let the Trojans take the armour of Patroclus who has fallen
fighting on my behalf, lest some Danaan who sees me should cry shame
upon me. Still if for my honour’s sake I fight Hector and the
Trojans single-handed, they will prove too many for me, for Hector
is bringing them up in force. Why, however, should I thus hesitate?
When a man fights in despite of heaven with one whom a god
befriends, he will soon rue it. Let no Danaan think ill of me if I
give place to Hector, for the hand of heaven is with him. Yet, if I
could find Ajax, the two of us would fight Hector and heaven too, if
we might only save the body of Patroclus for Achilles son of Peleus.
This, of many evils would be the least.”
  While he was thus in two minds, the Trojans came up to him with
Hector at their head; he therefore drew back and left the body,
turning about like some bearded lion who is being chased by dogs and
men from a stockyard with spears and hue and cry, whereon he is
daunted and slinks sulkily off—even so did Menelaus son of Atreus
turn and leave the body of Patroclus. When among the body of his
men, he looked around for mighty Ajax son of Telamon, and presently
saw him on the extreme left of the fight, cheering on his men and
exhorting them to keep on fighting, for Phoebus Apollo had spread a
great panic among them. He ran up to him and said, “Ajax, my good
friend, come with me at once to dead Patroclus, if so be that we may
take the body to Achilles—as for his armour, Hector already has it.”
  These words stirred the heart of Ajax, and he made his way among the
front ranks, Menelaus going with him. Hector had stripped Patroclus of
his armour, and was dragging him away to cut off his head and take the
body to fling before the dogs of Troy. But Ajax came up with his
shield like wall before him, on which Hector withdrew under shelter of
his men, and sprang on to his chariot, giving the armour over to the
Trojans to take to the city, as a great trophy for himself; Ajax,
therefore, covered the body of Patroclus with his broad shield and
bestrode him; as a lion stands over his whelps if hunters have come
upon him in a forest when he is with his little ones—in the pride and
fierceness of his strength he draws his knit brows down till they
cover his eyes—even so did Ajax bestride the body of Patroclus, and
by his side stood Menelaus son of Atreus, nursing great sorrow in
his heart.
  Then Glaucus son of Hippolochus looked fiercely at Hector and
rebuked him sternly. “Hector,” said he, “you make a brave show, but in
fight you are sadly wanting. A runaway like yourself has no claim to
so great a reputation. Think how you may now save your town and
citadel by the hands of your own people born in Ilius; for you will
get no Lycians to fight for you, seeing what thanks they have had
for their incessant hardships. Are you likely, sir, to do anything
to help a man of less note, after leaving Sarpedon, who was at once
your guest and comrade in arms, to be the spoil and prey of the
Danaans? So long as he lived he did good service both to your city and
yourself; yet you had no stomach to save his body from the dogs. If
the Lycians will listen to me, they will go home and leave Troy to its
fate. If the Trojans had any of that daring fearless spirit which lays
hold of men who are fighting for their country and harassing those who
would attack it, we should soon bear off Patroclus into Ilius. Could
we get this dead man away and bring him into the city of Priam, the
Argives would readily give up the armour of Sarpedon, and we should
get his body to boot. For he whose squire has been now killed is the
foremost man at the ships of the Achaeans—he and his close-fighting
followers. Nevertheless you dared not make a stand against Ajax, nor
face him, eye to eye, with battle all round you, for he is a braver
man than you are.”
  Hector scowled at him and answered, “Glaucus, you should know
better. I have held you so far as a man of more understanding than any
in all Lycia, but now I despise you for saying that I am afraid of
Ajax. I fear neither battle nor the din of chariots, but Jove’s will
is stronger than ours; Jove at one time makes even a strong man draw
back and snatches victory from his grasp, while at another he will set
him on to fight. Come hither then, my friend, stand by me and see
indeed whether I shall play the coward the whole day through as you
say, or whether I shall not stay some even of the boldest Danaans from
fighting round the body of Patroclus.”
  As he spoke he called loudly on the Trojans saying, “Trojans,
Lycians, and Dardanians, fighters in close combat, be men, my friends,
and fight might and main, while I put on the goodly armour of
Achilles, which I took when I killed Patroclus.”
  With this Hector left the fight, and ran full speed after his men
who were taking the armour of Achilles to Troy, but had not yet got
far. Standing for a while apart from the woeful fight, he changed
his armour. His own he sent to the strong city of Ilius and to the
Trojans, while he put on the immortal armour of the son of Peleus,
which the gods had given to Peleus, who in his age gave it to his son;
but the son did not grow old in his father’s armour.
  When Jove, lord of the storm-cloud, saw Hector standing aloof and
arming himself in the armour of the son of Peleus, he wagged his
head and muttered to himself saying, “A! poor wretch, you arm in the
armour of a hero, before whom many another trembles, and you reck
nothing of the doom that is already close upon you. You have killed
his comrade so brave and strong, but it was not well that you should
strip the armour from his head and shoulders. I do indeed endow you
with great might now, but as against this you shall not return from
battle to lay the armour of the son of Peleus before Andromache.”
  The son of Saturn bowed his portentous brows, and Hector fitted
the armour to his body, while terrible Mars entered into him, and
filled his whole body with might and valour. With a shout he strode in
among the allies, and his armour flashed about him so that he seemed
to all of them like the great son of Peleus himself. He went about
among them and cheered them on—Mesthles, Glaucus, Medon,
Thersilochus, Asteropaeus, Deisenor and Hippothous, Phorcys,
Chromius and Ennomus the augur. All these did he exhort saying,
“Hear me, allies from other cities who are here in your thousands,
it was not in order to have a crowd about me that I called you
hither each from his several city, but that with heart and soul you
might defend the wives and little ones of the Trojans from the
fierce Achaeans. For this do I oppress my people with your food and
the presents that make you rich. Therefore turn, and charge at the
foe, to stand or fall as is the game of war; whoever shall bring
Patroclus, dead though he be, into the hands of the Trojans, and shall
make Ajax give way before him, I will give him one half of the
spoils while I keep the other. He will thus share like honour with
myself.”
  When he had thus spoken they charged full weight upon the Danaans
with their spears held out before them, and the hopes of each ran high
that he should force Ajax son of Telamon to yield up the body—fools
that they were, for he was about to take the lives of many. Then
Ajax said to Menelaus, “My good friend Menelaus, you and I shall
hardly come out of this fight alive. I am less concerned for the
body of Patroclus, who will shortly become meat for the dogs and
vultures of Troy, than for the safety of my own head and yours. Hector
has wrapped us round in a storm of battle from every quarter, and
our destruction seems now certain. Call then upon the princes of the
Danaans if there is any who can hear us.”
  Menelaus did as he said, and shouted to the Danaans for help at
the top of his voice. “My friends,” he cried, “princes and counsellors
of the Argives, all you who with Agamemnon and Menelaus drink at the
public cost, and give orders each to his own people as Jove vouchsafes
him power and glory, the fight is so thick about me that I cannot
distinguish you severally; come on, therefore, every man unbidden, and
think it shame that Patroclus should become meat and morsel for Trojan
hounds.”
  Fleet Ajax son of Oileus heard him and was first to force his way
through the fight and run to help him. Next came Idomeneus and
Meriones his esquire, peer of murderous Mars. As for the others that
came into the fight after these, who of his own self could name them?
  The Trojans with Hector at their head charged in a body. As a
great wave that comes thundering in at the mouth of some heaven-born
river, and the rocks that jut into the sea ring with the roar of the
breakers that beat and buffet them—even with such a roar did the
Trojans come on; but the Achaeans in singleness of heart stood firm
about the son of Menoetius, and fenced him with their bronze
shields. Jove, moreover, hid the brightness of their helmets in a
thick cloud, for he had borne no grudge against the son of Menoetius
while he was still alive and squire to the descendant of Aeacus;
therefore he was loth to let him fall a prey to the dogs of his foes
the Trojans, and urged his comrades on to defend him.
  At first the Trojans drove the Achaeans back, and they withdrew from
the dead man daunted. The Trojans did not succeed in killing any
one, nevertheless they drew the body away. But the Achaeans did not
lose it long, for Ajax, foremost of all the Danaans after the son of
Peleus alike in stature and prowess, quickly rallied them and made
towards the front like a wild boar upon the mountains when he stands
at bay in the forest glades and routs the hounds and ***** youths that
have attacked him—even so did Ajax son of Telamon passing easily in
among the phalanxes of the Trojans, disperse those who had
bestridden Patroclus and were most bent on winning glory by dragging
him off to their city. At this moment Hippothous brave son of the
Pelasgian Lethus, in his zeal for Hector and the Trojans, was dragging
the body off by the foot through the press of the fight, having
bound a strap round the sinews near the ancle; but a mischief soon
befell him from which none of those could save him who would have
gladly done so, for the son of Telamon sprang forward and smote him on
his bronze-cheeked helmet. The plumed headpiece broke about the
point of the weapon, struck at once by the spear and by the strong
hand of Ajax, so that the ****** brain came oozing out through the
crest-socket. His strength then failed him and he let Patroclus’
foot drop from his hand, as he fell full length dead upon the body;
thus he died far from the fertile land of Larissa, and never repaid
his parents the cost of bringing him up, for his life was cut short
early by the spear of mighty Ajax. Hector then took aim at Ajax with a
spear, but he saw it coming and just managed to avoid it; the spear
passed on and struck Schedius son of noble Iphitus, captain of the
Phoceans, who dwelt in famed Panopeus and reigned over much people; it
struck him under the middle of the collar-bone the bronze point went
right through him, coming out at the bottom of his shoulder-blade, and
his armour rang rattling round him as he fell heavily to the ground.
Ajax in his turn struck noble Phorcys son of Phaenops in the middle of
the belly as he was bestriding Hippothous, and broke the plate of
his cuirass; whereon the spear tore out his entrails and he clutched
the ground in his palm as he fell to earth. Hector and those who
were in the front rank then gave ground, while the Argives raised a
loud cry of triumph, and drew off the bodies of Phorcys and Hippothous
which they stripped presently of their armour.
  The Trojans would now have been worsted by the brave Achaeans and
driven back to Ilius through their own cowardice, while the Argives,
so great was their courage and endurance, would have achieved a
triumph even against the will of Jove, if Apollo had not roused
Aeneas, in the lik

Heavy head.
Heavy hands.
Heavy heart.

Through my worries it slinks in.
My hopes are beaten
To a thick dry pulp in my heart.
Dully, I sit heavy heavy.

Movement is all impossible.
I am a marionette with cut strings.
Rough and tattered curls.
Ripped and torn dress.

Stoic, so so stoic, yet searching.
Where is the light that once was?
Alone in this mire, I shed my tears.
Secluded and rotting in self pity.

There are no maps, no decisions.
I am lost without guidance
In this game of life limbo.
I don't know when I'll leave.

This is my own prison.

The sea is all flow with no ebb
As the moon hangs full in the sky
He pulls her to him on a breeze
Salty, heavenly, mesmerizing
She comes as he softly beckons
The magnet draws her in close
She inches toward his cool gaze
With the warm water he yearns to drink
For he is parched
And she is giving
Flowing in gentle waves
He calls and she slinks to him in shadows
Locked in the gaze of desire
A gaze broken only by the pleasure
of the deluge of their union
And in that union there is tranquility
His peace releases her
She ebbs, quietly lapping the shore
She turns to see him smile upon her
As she sparkles in the warmth of his glow

My friend Gerard, (who is alive), looks like an Arabian slave-boy, though swarthier and longer of hair than Tony Curtis; an olive –skinned Mowgli, ape boy of Kipling’s  “Jungle Book”, although I have never seen Gerard swinging through any trees, nor eating any insects, nor even kissing a sultan’s foot. But looks can be deceiving, or receiving, with the proper pen, the zen pen of a poet, this proper poet who lives upstairs with his multitude of books piled on the floors, walking on Whitman, sitting on Shakespeare; tripping over Ginsberg, sleeping on Sartre; not a single shelf for this Jung man.
“A place for everything, and for everything it’s place”, he stands and stares out of a window overlooking the jungle of five-foot high weeds that serves as our backyard and wonders aloud “whither Oregon?”; questions our alleged enlightened sense of awareness, his disposition toward liberalness in a world gone madder than usual. Have I convinced him yet, my naïve, trusting neighbor? Yes, he realizes with a sigh that it is so, now that he has finally succumbed and bought a thirteen inch, black & white television of his own, now he can see with his own brown eyes in his own living room, far off wars, instant coffee & instant karma, depersonalized tragedies, faceless fatalities, insidious soap operas and humorless sitcoms, adverse advertisements, Howard Stern; “whither sanity?” we both cry and laugh out loud at this mediocre media, the global sewage, the Marshall McClueless, me and Gerard Rizza, my friend who is alive.

Gerard, (who is healthy), is gay, yet straighter than most men, and has been complaining quite a bit about the ferry service lately; contemplating a move off of Staten Island, and leaving his sporadic substitute teaching gig at a nearby high school, a mere six block walk from our house atop Winter Hill, where he is trying to convince me, a wide-eyed cynic, that a blank, white, unused canvas, surrounded by a wooden picture frame hung upon his wall is indeed a work of art; the job is very convenient, but again the ******* about the ferry, not the boat ride per se, but the incongruities of the ****** schedule, which anybody who has ever just missed a three a.m. boat and had to wait for an hour in the Hierynomous Bosch triptych known as the Whitehall Ferry terminal ,will definitely attest to; and Gerard has this thing about Staten Islanders, like the homophobes at a recent anti-peace rally in New Dorp, supporting the carpet bombing of an oil rich yet still poor third-world country, throwing beer cans at him and his companions while shouting “we know where you live, *******!”. Rizz came home that evening, visibly shaken and pale, (not his usual olive-skinned self), knocked on my door and pleaded “whither ******?”. I went upstairs, sat on his couch and rolled a joint. Gerard puts on the new 10,000 Maniacs tape and tries, once again, to bait me in a conversation about his “work of art”, my work of naught; he speaks of the horrific details of his day. “Isn’t this picture of Doc Gooden on my refrigerator door proof enough of my manhood, my patriotic intent, for those *******? The ******’ Mets, fuh chrissakes!” We sit out on his porch, watching the sun set over our backyard jungle as Natalie sings wireless Verdi cries, and I pass the burning joint to Gerard, my friend who is still healthy.

My friend Gerard, who is *** positive, was quite possibly a cat in a former life, probably a Siamese, thin, dark and aloof; yes, I can see ol’ Rizz now, sprawled out on an old tapestry rug, getting his belly scratched by his owner, perhaps Emily Dickinson or Georgia O’Keefe, Rizz purring like the engine of an old bi-winged barnstormer; abruptly rolls over, gets on all fours, tail waving *****, slinks over to lap water out of a bowl marked “Gerard”. He’d sleep all day on books and original manuscripts, and play all night amongst oil & acrylic, knocking over an occasional blank canvas, which he, in a future incarnation, will try to convince me, in his feline manner, is art. Sitting and staring from his usual spot on the windowsill, his cat eyes blink slowly as he wonders, “whither dinner?”; and begins to clean himself with tongue and paw, this cat who might be Gerard, my friend who is *** positive.

Gerard, who is sick, recently moved to Manhattan, Chelsea, to be precise, in with his best friend; and has stopped ******* about the Staten Island ferry, having far more pressing matters to ***** about, i.e. the ever-rising cost of homeopathic medicine and the lack of coverage for holistic and alternative care; any number of political and social concerns (Gerard was never the silent type); the lateness of his first published book of poems, entitled “Regard for Junction”; his rapidly deteriorating health, etc., etc.; and is now a true city dweller, a zen denizen, a proper poet with high regard for junction. That’s all that remains when it’s all over anyway, this junction, that junction, petticoat junction, petticoat junction – “I always wanted to **** the brunette sister”, I’d once told him; “I prefer uncle Joe!”, he laughingly replied; dejection, rejection, reclamation, defamation, cremation, conjecture, conjunction, all junctions happening at the same time, at now, a single place, a single moment, this forever junction with Gerard, my friend who is dying.

My friend Gerard, who is dead, officially passed from this life on a Saturday morning in early April, a mere two weeks before his junction with publication, although Gerard my friend passed away much earlier, leaving a sick and emaciated body behind to play host to his bedside guests, to help bear the pain of his family and friends; so doped-up on morphine, no longer able to remember any names, he called me “*****” when I entered the hospital room, where this barely physical manifestation of what had once been Gerard Rizza was being kept alive like the barest glimmer of hope, and displayed like some recently fallen leader, lying in state;  “whither Gerard withers” I thought, saying goodbye to this Rizza impersonator, this imposter, this visitor from a shadow world, an abstraction of a friend, whom the nurses told us, his disbelieving visitors, was our friend Gerard, who though technically still alive, was already dead.

My friend Gerard, who is laughing
My friend Gerard, who is singing
My friend Gerard, who is coughing
My friend Gerard, who is sleeping
My friend Gerard, who is holy
My friend Gerard, who is missed.

her skin is jaundiced, quite like the color of the sky before a storm
if you look at her long enough you can almost smell the rain on her skin.
her ribs are not unlike the rungs of a ladder.
once delicate fingers have been burned at the touch of acid and bones have been made brittle.
her nails are jagged, each impacted with crescent moons of soil.
the digging is ceaseless.
she is searching for something she will never find, something that beacons like a lighthouse on the horizon
a sign of safety but blinding when you try to take a closer look.
she slinks along the edge of an unremitting chasm,
dancing with the devil throughout the evening,
but the night draws on and she comes dangerously close to stepping on his toes.
her rhythm is wrong, the metronome is feeding her lies,
but she is greedy and devours them all.
the gnawing inside her returns.
to sleep she goes, under the spell of the guilt washing over her like the sweet, sticky air of the summer, as the gnawing inside takes over.

A reticent fox slinks by beneath
the trees

that still have leaves
conversing for now

the change in colors
sleeps still, unannounced

the rain smells of ploughed earth
& freshly hung-out clouds

& wellington boots
Autumn's child cries it's first word

& inside a low-lit pub
a crisp old cider's poured

September's dreams
fermenting

red stains, fading, cracked, scented

     if i kissed your prints, would they kiss me back?

sighs, thoughts, spaces between prints

     spaces between words, between parted lips and floating thoughts the world! is so crowded with space but yours is the one i want to fill .

     but where are the lines? lines of loss, lines of lawns, lines of ink and rips and more stains and letters, in the hands and on the pavement

where are the lines?

why won't you go there?

why do you hover in these foul, indomitable spaces? why do you seek that which you should not?

     if the shadow of lines slinks in your quiet expression, then why are you still here?

     if the echo of your soft face lingers in my hands, if the whisper of your breath and the heat of your skin still singes my own, then why do you disappear?

lovely wraith, lovely memory of a thing that once was, why do you sit so alone?

because i am coming to your space, and if you can see me, of shadow and fog, then i will meet you there,

     on a line of our own.

>because it's a death premeditated and i can see it unfolding,

     sharp wounding painful

and the discourse in the sky is telling me so, yet why do i keep walking west?

The lizard slinks across the
Warm, smooth stone.
Light footsteps pitter-patter
Through the sand, barely leaving footprints

It curls up in the lamp provided light
Pressed against slightly heated glass
The ornaments scattered in
The clear aquarium
Don’t keep the lizard entertained for long

The lizard is like a Joshua tree.
It tries to grow to a height
That has not yet been seen
Its environment tries to slow it down
It grows with persistence, and moves a bit faster.

The lizard will soon shed its skin,
It anxiously waits for a new chance.
For a roomier layer in which to live.
The days stretch on;
But it won’t be long
Til’ the lizard is in a bigger place.

A lioness roars ferociously
in my feline heart

She claws up my throat,
and tears open my mouth

Then jumps out,
and slinks across the plains

The Empty Chapter
By Zak Whittington

The grey face
The empty chapter
The blank page
The dusty pen beside
-----

Between heartbeats lurks a sad silence
Whose footfalls fall on deaf ears
A beast of pain and shallow fears
He slinks, silent
Soft as the grave to which he will drag you
Cover your eyes
Avert your mind
Cross yourself
Count to three
The monster is here
Between shaking fingers peek and see
A glimpse of profound irony
The Mirror
A horrifying glimpse of Your Self
Alone on a barren world

Desolation

Between lives lies silence
Empty quotes hang stupidly over empty heads
Drying to dust
Turn up the music

Frustration

Shake the shoulder
Strike the hand
Bite the Shepherd
**** the Man
Burn the Book
Ride the Snake
Find the phony
Shoot the fake
Grab the apple
Waste the day
Take the staff
and lead the way

Isolation

With your arms around me
My shoulders have grown cold
Despite the hands on them
The Mirror shows
The Mirror knows
There are no hands

There are no hands in this wasteland
Just me and the rocks
With my heart beneath them

Elation

The Monster awoke before dawn
He put his boots on
He took a mask from his bed-stand
And he tried it on

Hang on quick gimme that mirror my lipstick slipped.
My smile wasn't quite on right.

Watch me dance
Watch me writhe and crawl
Watch me smile through it all
Watch this cheerful, painted grin
As I try to hold it all in
Waiting for the worms to win
I'll never have to lie again
Beneath thin skin,
Flesh rots.

I do a good impression of myself.

Starvation

Fat cat
Big man, pig
Mean one, green one
What do you hope to find?
Love, ***, drugs, joy
Home, cars, health, wealth, life
Cling, clang, fake pain with a tin in hand
Lovey-dove flowers and a Hallmark card
Satisfaction
Exhilaration
Jubilation
The second tree from the corner?
Squinting, with hands awash
Of pennies, nickels, dimes
Buy the way
Buy the light
The rich lead the blind
Kick the bucket
Sell the farm
Leave the world behind
(oh is that the time?)

The diamonds fall from stiff fat hands
Like petals from a rose
Or leaves from a clover
(three leaves? or four?)
Shuffle
Four queens
Three queens
Two queens shine
Two jacks
One jack
One-eyed
Blind
One heart, two heart
Three hearts, four?
As if I even knew anymore

Exaltation

Hot-shot soul man
What a sham you are
Far sight, foresight
Big hats, flashlight
The Family* has it all
Mad man, fake plan
Look down at your shoes
Torn suit
Worn boots
You've got no soles

*The Family:
Forgive me Father for I have sinned
I have watched Brother Jack ******* with the Man
And without a thought of why, I jumped right in
I saw Uncle Sam in bed with the pigs
I have forsaken my kindred
I have held fornication with the Computer and the iPod
I have sold my body for acceptance
I have ******* my neighbor
I have cheated on my wife
And now I love Big Brother too

I have driven the Big Truck
I have ridden the snake
To the edge of the lake
In the heart of the jungle.

When life gives you apples
Make lemonade

Annihilation

Roll out the tanks, boys,
Grab the big guns
We gonna have ourselves
A bit of fun
Spot the *****, sight the Jew
Squeeze off a shot and watch him run

Men run, blood runs
Red dirt drinks it all
In this wasteland
The dogs of war howl misery
Black blood, white blood
The crows aren't biased

Twinkle, twinkle crescent star
How I wonder what you are
White man died red
Saddamite, *******
Surprise the pawn
And now he's dead
Like the top-heavy King
With his massive head
And his high fortress
And his heavy crown
To ashes, to ashes
We all fall down.

But it's all fixed with a quick grin
A hand shake and a blank stare
Then you go back to your corner
And they remember they don't care

Reconciliation

(I do a good impression of myself)

Taketh thy hand up
Rip off thy mask
Do not stop at the skin
For it is shallow and flakey
and comes off quite nice
Don't mind the flesh now
Get to the bones
Dig past the maggots and flies
Until there's nothing left,
Then release your soul with bright knives

...

The world is quiet again
At the eleventh hour
When men are dust
We sit and wait
For the bells to toll

---
The fractured chapter
The soiled page
The broken pen
The jet-black sea
Sprays of darkness on ivory
Splashes of shallow imagery
And dried-up drops of creativity
and with so much left to write

Simplicity is killing me.

That day we came
and having come
lapped at by perfumed light
at once separated.
We bathed in the pool
the water like crystal
in the sunset
our limbs like glass.

On the bank
in the hot conjoined air
we made love again
our sweat
like silver in the moonlight.

the water's suppurating flow
drew our limbs
like flotsam in the reeds
grappling glistering lilies
as we floated in slow, *******
currents.

along the bank, the Camphor
shades the forest flowers
through the long-leaved grass
the python slinks

We leave for home
darkened by the sun..........
tongues digging into melons,
pomegranates laid out
neatly for dessert


******* out the Rambutan-
once the hairy skin is peeled-
fiery, red
the soft core sweeter than coitus-
and stays longer in our thoughts.
is this where the dreams are,
or where the dreaming begins,
between the first caress
and the final gasp of satisfaction?
Where the threshing limbs
devour the sun-shredded wheat
and the panting ribbons of air
swallow the final sigh-
the sleek river flowing
seaward, ocean marshalling
the land,
coral languishing in green pools
of broken light.

Here, within this infused beauty,
******* has power
beyond the weather-bound senses
of our northern homes,
encased in dull precipitation
sunshine a blunted knife

beyond the ***-shaped mountains
high above the trees
like a tear emerging from the sky
drops the waterfall
its descent
languid, its fall sharp and effortless;
tinged with azure, carefully sprinkled flakes
it spreads out like a clear, chiming puddle.
There we spread ourselves
naked in the sunlight
the sea's rumbling noise
distant and fumbling-

spreading its curling claws
into the slyly forming sunset
in reiterated rhythms
like beating hearts
like lungs-
the carefully manufactured beats
blending.

A Tribute

A king takes supper on a creaking deathbed. Featureless, winged creatures zoom by the dark condensed windows. Micro parasites build adobe headquarters in his soft tissue. Reaching for a plate,    he groans the terabyting howl that’s prescribed with chemotherapy. Qwerty and light from the drugs, he stares at the apple on his tray. Lost in its curves, he finds himself trapped in a safari of memories. A dream devolves upon his downtrodden mind….

The canopy is populated with twittering, angry birds. Pools of social blood attract flies to the googolplex degree. He stumbles through the dell, suspicious forest while a tremulous, fiery fox stalks behind his echoing footfalls. Pixar apes swing from trees chased by grisly, disney men with guns and trucks. A large eye tunes the darkness and blinks red upon an aging mountain lion in shadow’s brush.



The sony rays belight foliage in auspicious, plaid-orange hues. This amazon of experience plugs the wanderer into a hard drive of intelligence – a gateway to an encyclopedia of wikis and browsers, expanse enough for any backdrop rooftop audience to be faux-enthralled and eager. There are grumblings in the distance of another engine tromping the scope in search of something new and useless. A rumorous bat upsets the plagiarizing tide of the Atlantic Pea Sea. A snake slinks out of the blossoms clinging to the vines among a macintosh tree and bites the salty flier of the washboard night; cyber venom invades his veins.

The average, homeless, bounding, warrior awakens to find a cold supper on his lap and another syringe in his arm. His remaining gums support his teeth as they bite into the apple. He swallows, sighs, and rests his balding, crescent, once-handsome head on the white pillow.  The green fruit tumbles gently out of bed and mutely rolls to the floor.
With that, Steve Jobs is dead.

Her eyes blossom like a fresh pink bud in the sweet spring

She slinks from her casket like a black cat becoming resident of the shadows

Her fangs emerge gleaming like white sand belonging to paradise

She is ready to feed

Like a patterned rug
Beaten to be rid of dust and
Flopped over a balcony railing, a leopard
Hangs her hefty hands beneath a bough.
Head lolling lazily, she awakens.

Fingers like silent meteorites dig
Craters in the loose, dry earth.
From the grasses emerge many warm black eyes, unseen
And vicious: floral pockmarks on
Her carpeted exterior: cruel camouflage.

Deftly lugging her **** back
Into the branches to feed on its flesh:
Patterned rug stained.

Ears ***** and whiskers twitch
As boughs creak and twigtips reach
For the ground: the impala’s weight
Has weakened her arboreal home.

She panics not.

She slinks softly back into
The grasses: better to sidle away unscathed
From immediate danger.
Pride and body intact, she will **** again
Elsewhere.

In my dreams there are smoke
detectors and crashes and lies.
There is a kiss in an atrium right
before it catches fire. There is placate,
stay straight, evacuate.
Neodymium nitrate always smells
a certain way and always looks
a certain blue. Why does an alarm
go off after I dream I've kissed you,
but never if you kiss me?
What doesn't my brain want me to see?
As Orion slinks into view
I stand mixing solvents at the centrifuge.
There is always a healthy dose
of things I don't know. Always something
for Orion to pin with her next arrow.
If I am not here, asking questions of the world,
demanding answers from what I put
into test tubes,
the next thing could be you.

caveat! —bursting out as the fuse fetters away
wafting t'ward oil spills, tranquilized guns
with pace maker minds
and time to ****

sickle celled, graving shores
plead to crawl underground
through cascading bile and sedatives
that sift through these negatives
like bangled thieves
who crawl on broken knees
and lie idle under haunted bridges.

bouldered bones intertwine
or veins cut along a dotted line
caveat! cries the sayer's sooth,
for he says it scours and devours—
the slinking nightmare sleuth.

the tar is interrupted in carved equinoxes
soak in the crippled toxins
as the air becomes as thick as theophany
and tharm like grease in blood that take me in,
through ash and mud and
all the spider webs caving in
like delicate gorges forges beneath
nightmare sleuth reaching zenith

caveat, silhouettes
stretched out like oil in water
and this silicon tomb can hold me no longer
for i must break out before i am a goner
because it's a mistake that i'll never shake
your face turns opaque
and there was nothing in your eyes
but dripping flesh

wring out all your words for me
your jeers and your juries
but go cling to your crutch
your kings and your qualms
and the church that burns
in its hallow vacancy

for none can resist the urge
that thieves its delinquents from catatonic catacombs
and quagmire junctions
where the swamp will **** you in
and festering sweat sticks like guilt to your skin
and hell is a nightclub where every loss is a life
and heaven's a daydream with your neck to the knife
it needs no rhyme or reason
and every slip of your broken lip
just lose your grip and give in to the treason
would you rather burn at the stake
than suffer your cement heart break
with no reason or rhyme
it's just the weight of the season

backdrop collapse
railroads unfolding
and like a cell storm the train
is coming your way

and slinks away like a nightmare sleuth
it just takes one swipe of the claw
or one bite of the tooth
and it drags you in
feel the sidewalk sleeping
and the blinking lights creeping
above the overpass
and the cold wind reeling--
it'll be your last.

watch you from far away
as the sun slinks beneath the trees
got some
bad luck
a bad body
a curse in love
like it follows me hopelessly like a ghost
wanting to join the living again
you wink at me from your camaro
like it means something
in your gucci flippy floppies
and i giggle like it means something
two strangers never to see each other again
autumn will inherit ohio soon
me promising i won't be scared
of having air as the infill of my arms
and time is a stream with purposeful arrows
who am i to be your burden

Growing up never comes when you expect it:
It's when you realize that the suicide note under your mattress
Probably has a few too many commas where semicolons should be,
And a little too much emphasis on the last four years of your life-
Missed due dates, flunked exams, and friendships that were supposed to be forever.
It's when you figure out that the boy you spent your freshman year of college worrying about
Never even knew the name of your favorite book,
Or anything else that really mattered.
It isn't something you can predict, or prepare for-
It isn't a sudden shift of priorities that all of a sudden appear
Somewhere in your subconscious, making it a lot easier to get up at 9am for a statistics class
That you're inevitably going to fail.
It isn't anything you do that will change, but rather
A shift inside of you that slowly shakes your entire being.
Youth is only beautiful until it's corrupted,
By the sultry hands of time, beckoning you forward when all you ever wanted to do was hide.
It slowly seeps down into the darkest corners of your mind,
Swallowing up all that innocent ambition
Flung upon you in the fifth grade by a board of indifferent teachers
Who decided to deem you gifted, introducing you to a world of knowledge
Too fascinating to mingle with the uncertainty of responsibility.
There's something frightening about growing old,
Maybe it's because you spent one too many hours of your childhood
Pretending to be someone else- caught up in a storybook world
Full of daydreams and simplicity, too one dimensional for reality.
It's not that it goes away all of a sudden: all the premature doubt
And impulsive wishes of death, or something like it.
But rather, it takes a different form-
That which was once a big red ball full of passionate emotions,
Has deflated, leaving you with only a faint residue of what you used to feel.
Maybe, you got your wish after all- something had to die, you know,
In order for you to carry on without losing your mind.
It's a sad paradox, this sequence of living,
As intuition slowly deteriorates, and common sense
Slinks in, in its premeditated, yet lackluster manner,
And before you know it, you're not a kid anymore.
Peter Pan flew the coop years ago, but Neverland still remains,
A testimony to all the lost childhoods of the ones
Too eager to lay their stake in the land of milk and honey.

Petals, oh these metals.

They fall,

Paling.

Blackened.

Dyed crimson.

A celebratory death dance,
I have found a new advance.

And the brilliant yellow sun,
How it slinks in the night!

So comfortable,
I have left it behind.

Toxic were the tendrils
that kept me where it stood.

A million stinging nettles,
In my heart, they took root.

The pink quills of Cyanea,
the futility of their purpose.

They don't always wither away,
So I've set them all aflame.

Romeo's sheath, Hermes' fool-
Treating my human tendencies as a tool.

Forget this fragility we call love,
Cut the strings and rise above.

Past the smoke and ashes,
it will come clearer through these lashes.

If my woven words fail to reach you,
Nothing else will ever do.

At an angle of ninety degrees,
two trees share the same plot.
This one grazes the eaves,
seeking vain attention in the window glass.

The other, its grey ghost lazes
prostrate on the herb garden, reveling
in secrets of lemon balsm and thyme.

At night, the first becomes demonic,
obliterates the universe,
branches scraping the pane, scratching
like fingernails on slate,
its coppery leaves trying to get in.

Its partner slinks to earth,
seeking solace,
wringing conterminous roots till sunrise.

I've had my fill of these unrested moments
fighting the pillow, not settling.
There is no joy in seeking stolen stars.

My dilemma grows horns.

I half dream of ******,
at least amputation.

But even the dimmest light shines in the dark -
I consider its tormented destiny.

At daybreak, like a ****** I scale its gnarled branches
ridiculously one-handed,
the other a keen-toothed weapon.

I am an agile goat shinning upwards
feeding on dreams of peace.

Lost in the sky, I become sap,
melt into its arms,
(a vertiginous release)
I become a curved branch.

(There's someone standing in my elbow!)

Leaves helix down, settling on autumn crocus.
“Look!  Gold on gold!"

The grey ghost yawns, grows its shadow,
waves its arms demanding justice.

I wave back.

Suddenly terrified, I secrete an invisible scent.
The branches contract, tense as ligaments.

My heart plummets, rolls out recumbent,
presses heavily on the earth
listening to fleshy roots recede.

A few deft cuts......

Sun gutters through bereft spaces,
striking the window.
Both trees a shade lighter, a lighter shade.

Tonight I will dream under visible stars,
feel the moon's half-light slide over me.



copyright © Caroline Grace 2012

This Poem's about a close friend of mine. It came about following another tearful conversation at silly o'clock in the morning . . Some guy she'd slept simply waited for her to fall asleep, then just left . . Horrible really . . So, if you can picture a bar where girl sees boy ? . . Meet my friend kitten . .

Kitten

She's More Kitten . .
Than She's kitty Kat

I wish she would
Remember that
Before her claws
Engrave his back . . .
When it's too late . .
To . change her tack . .

Yet she,
As every Kitty will,
Pursues her dream . . .
This pretty playful Kitty,
Craves the saucer,
And the cream . .

She almost chooses
Not to see
That he . . .  
'A shady lady Burglar'
Craves not . .
A yowling prowling Tom
He would deftly
Pick her pocket . .
Tip the catch
Upon her locket . .
He simply seeks
To shoot his lot . .
Move on

She throws a smile
Across the bar
He catches this
Then slinks across
It's not so far
Sits . . .  
Now . . sensing need
He seeks to sow a seed
With sly slight of hand . .
He takes the lead . .  
Flirts . .
Soft verbal ministration
Slowly building her frustration
Teasing her imagination
Brings his tongue up to the table
Till she simply is unable
To . . . resist . . .

She knows tonight . . that . .
Her fairly funky *******
Will . . Be added to this liars list

With verbal tango
Now concluded
Neither party is deluded
To the spot
She stays though . .
Rooted . . .
Excited . .  now She knows
Her Closet will be looted . .
Then her pocket will be picked . . . .

Did kitten let herself get caught
Or was she really tricked . . ?

( k . . So we r gonna pause here, since I didn't write anything poetical about ******* . . Cos, well, it's a doing thing, more so than a writing thing lol . .so, for the sake of the narrative imagine these two knocking back their drinks, swiftly exiting the bar grabbing a taxi, legging it back to hers n having a bit of a **** . .two mins, maybe three if she's a lucky girl . . Then we can finish the poem :-)

Afterwards . . . . . . And in spoons . . I might add .

So now . . . Is not so much
As was before . .
When she was dripping with allure . .
His promises as flimsy
As the Dress which she once wore . . .
And now his points
Are on the board . .
This is a time consuming chore

And as She's Drifting . .
Within satisfied silence
He waits silent for her sleep
Her breathing deepens
He could weep,. .
He Checks quickly, with a peep
Then he bolts . . stealthy
For the door . .
He may . . Or maybe not
Be coming back . . For more . .

All's quiet for a while . . Until . .

Within the dawning of her morning . .
Through soft stretching . . gentle yawning
Only fingerprints betray . . .
The fact he was 'another guy'
Who came . . . to leave . . .
Not stay

Now . .
Should kitty smile ?
More kitty Kat . .
Will kitty p'raps
Remember that
When next is charmed
By coolish cat
Be ***** . .  
Not both door and mat

ten men fishing
on auckland wharf
all with thin fibreglass rods
just that exact distance
(made in china)
all watching each others baits
bobbing in the silver sheen
no one watching his own sinker
bobbing

one twitches down the line
a reel swishes
reeling in
nine men watching intently now

20 cm struggling catch
not much, so back it goes.
a bronze whaler
slinking slowly
under twenty pairs of dangling feet
decides
the distance was too much
to crunch a man for snack

quietly slinks
to the opposite shore
where she senses
feet splashing on a shallow beach.

primitive.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 3 months ago

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11438556-the-fishermen-on-the-wharf-by-Marshall-Gass#sthash.HWKsl­wYM.dpuf

The fog here is thick, until you step into it.  
The storm rages until you get to its eye.  
I wish this same principle could be said of me, too.  
But like a gas giant, you could slip right through me with
                         the smallest amount of pressure.
There is no calming sense of self at the core.
Gravity does not apply to me.

There’s a boat on the lake cutting through the fog.  And then nothing.  
                                                      ­                                    More waves.  
                                                        ­            More birds.  
              The fog covers it all up again.  
The sun slinks and the tide comes in, or is it out?  Does it matter?  
The moon controls it in some way—the push, the pull of the waves.
At least the lake looks blue today,
                           looks green today.
The geese are in the water now.  The families are packing up.  
                             The ice cream shop is closing.

And I do not remember if I was ever here with you.  
                                This, of course, is a collective you.  
Could mean you, my reader,
                                               could mean one specific person,
                                               or two
                                                             ­       or three
                                                                ­                          or four;
could be whoever I'm thinking of when I reread this to myself.  
That’s the funny thing about the litany of loss.  
                                           It all starts to congeal.  

Waves crash against the rock.  Starts to chip away, create something new.
                                                      That’s what memory does.
It’s not permanent.  It’s malleable.  
Flexible.        Bendable.        Moldable.  
It smells like lakewater.  Like
                                                  fish and sand and mud and
                            gulls and rocks and shells and
     algae and fog—thick, thick fog.  
Smell is supposed to be one of the biggest memory triggers, and yet
                                       I cannot place a single memory of you here.
                                                    And that’s mildly crushing.  

So I would take you here:
                                              to where I wish the air was
                                                       saliter and less earthy.  
                                              to where I come sometimes to think.  
                                              where the clouds are so thick and puffy and
                                                            the setting sun makes them look like                                                                cotton candy on the Fourth of July.
                                              where the sun’s reflection on the water
                                                                ­      turns the green lake pink.  
                                              where the geese are back out of the water and
                                                                                                     onto the shore.
I would take you here with me.  
Into a new memory.  
                                      Homemade.        Handmade.        DIY.

Time does not move when watched.
It slinks through the shadows,
preying on our distracted minds,
a subtle movement at the eye's corner.
It is deceitful. Duplicitous.
Dim.
Attached to our hips; Pan's shadow;
unthinking and cruel;
a quantum paradox of certainty,
linked to a count running
silently, sub-consciously.

Assuming, of course, you can count.

I love you the way the sun rises every day, without fail. I love you like the night loves the moonlight, covering the darkness with her glow. I love you the way the universe expands into infinity. I love you for each star in existence and that ever will exist. I love you like seeing a streaking comet that comes around earth once every 80,000 years. I love you the way the soil huddles and heaves in winter. I love you for every grain of sand, and I love you the way sand becomes glass, solid and liquid, when put to heat. I love you for the lovebirds in your eyes. I love you as silkworms spin fine reflective threads. I love you past galaxies and superclusters when seen at the speed of light. I love you at the speed of love. I love you with the wild abandon of migrating butterflies being taken by summer’s wind. I love you for each tear that’s ever washed your face. I love you for every smile anyone has had the fortune of witnessing. I love you like a sunset’s last rays of the day, turning everything pink and fiery. I love you as a boulevard winds between houses with closed blinds and closed minds but the road ahead is open. I love you as words meet paper and poetry is created. I love you for every ant that ever worked to make a home in dirt mazes. I love you like the snowflake, vast in number and each unique. I love you the way bullets explode from chambers stopping at nothing but nothing. I love you like jellyfish sting, unforgettably. I love you the way a lioness defends her cubs unflinchingly. I love you the way fog slinks in, engulfing and blinding and in love with the moonlight. I love you like time heading forward and backward and all that is is now. I love you for every ‘I love you’ ever spoken, written, and thought. I love you like sage growing in a sidewalk crack. I love you as hieroglyphs carved within Egypt's tombs, for the way glyphs of people all face towards goddesses and gods. Je t’aime, je t’aime, mon petit rouge.

some rather dark nights
seems the moon's on vacation . . .

1.
Look, here comes courage
Dragging the moon in its teeth
While stars dapple in its tangled fleece
Go on, you!
Go and put the moon back up in the sky
Where it belongs

2.
Tenebrous nite falls on square
Yet a caged moon shines courageous slivers
Most haunting melodies
Then that dark figure appears
Trying to steal it away

With black birds flapping round him
Like a sombre halo over him
He slinks off into the welcoming shadows.

3.
Girl with long blonde plaits
sits on water-lily petal-pads
In the middle of a mild mere
Mauve moon lies tame in her still palms
But the wrong notes suddenly play out
Harmony not quite jacked up

4.
Elemental whirlpool explodes
As sceptred figures hunch in red dust
A flash of green sky
white elephants drown in shallow puddles
angels sit on the edge of blue teacups
while thoughts crisscross

and moon hops away
galaxial order pleased


put the moon back
where it belongs

let it hang there . . .
in the sky*




S T, 20 July 2013

Syllabus for a Summer Day

Awaken with the sun, and while thin mist
Slinks eerily across the fields, step out -
Labor across the dewy grass, near ripe
For the second cutting of summer hay

The lesson for today is clearing brush
Along the fence lines of both fields and life
The attendance check is for needed tools:
Old gloves, old boots, old saw, and fresh new verse

Awaken with the sun, honor the day
With work and play to earn a grade of A

                       Alternative Syllabus for a Summer Day

Ignore the stupid sun; go back to sleep
Reject the chatter of the alarming beep
And waken at a reasonable Christian hour –
Oh, ten will do; earlier is so sour!

Then bathrobe-shuffle to the coffee ***
See what is on the news, or maybe not
And scratch and yawn and look around to see
That nothing has changed since last night at three

Ignore all work; just stick it on the shelf
And for my grade, I’ll happily take an F!

sleep is nothing more
than pressing pause on netflix;
our minds are put on hold,
our worries forgotten for the duration
of a few REM cycles.
the events of the past day,
week,
even our whole lives -
all of it is suspended,
frozen in the clutches of time -
lurking in the back.
Grendel in the shadows,
only woken by glaring sunlight
and the sound of joy.

the beast slinks inside
and it interrupts
the tranquility of transgression
with splintering, mind numbing, earth quavering reality.
and consequently,
reality is nothing more
than an empty space in a too cold bed.
it is nothing
but a series of unsaid goodbyes and
pleas for you to return;
but only in the mind,
because the words are burning holes
through my lying tongue.
the only reality left is sometimes,
i catch an icy blue glare in the mirror,
haunting and devastatingly familiar.

sleep is escape
if only to a universe where we
were not;
if only to a land where what is done
can be undone,
as easily as pressing undo while typing.
at least there, where i dream of you once,
again,
you cannot leave nor hurt me.
and we always have happy endings,
because i always pictured
that that was all you could bring me.

i never dreamed i couldn't dream,
or that the monsters lurked not in the shadowy alleys,
but instead, inside of me.
and i never imagined them seeping into reality.

i never knew losing you
could **** me.