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I

Out of the little chapel I burst
Into the fresh night-air again.
Five minutes full, I waited first
In the doorway, to escape the rain
That drove in gusts down the common’s centre
At the edge of which the chapel stands,
Before I plucked up heart to enter.
Heaven knows how many sorts of hands
Reached past me, groping for the latch
Of the inner door that hung on catch
More obstinate the more they fumbled,
Till, giving way at last with a scold
Of the crazy hinge, in squeezed or tumbled
One sheep more to the rest in fold,
And left me irresolute, standing sentry
In the sheepfold’s lath-and-plaster entry,
Six feet long by three feet wide,
Partitioned off from the vast inside—
I blocked up half of it at least.
No remedy; the rain kept driving.
They eyed me much as some wild beast,
That congregation, still arriving,
Some of them by the main road, white
A long way past me into the night,
Skirting the common, then diverging;
Not a few suddenly emerging
From the common’s self through the paling-gaps,
—They house in the gravel-pits perhaps,
Where the road stops short with its safeguard border
Of lamps, as tired of such disorder;—
But the most turned in yet more abruptly
From a certain squalid knot of alleys,
Where the town’s bad blood once slept corruptly,
Which now the little chapel rallies
And leads into day again,—its priestliness
Lending itself to hide their beastliness
So cleverly (thanks in part to the mason),
And putting so cheery a whitewashed face on
Those neophytes too much in lack of it,
That, where you cross the common as I did,
And meet the party thus presided,
“Mount Zion” with Love-lane at the back of it,
They front you as little disconcerted
As, bound for the hills, her fate averted,
And her wicked people made to mind him,
Lot might have marched with Gomorrah behind him.

II

Well, from the road, the lanes or the common,
In came the flock: the fat weary woman,
Panting and bewildered, down-clapping
Her umbrella with a mighty report,
Grounded it by me, wry and flapping,
A wreck of whalebones; then, with a snort,
Like a startled horse, at the interloper
(Who humbly knew himself improper,
But could not shrink up small enough)
—Round to the door, and in,—the gruff
Hinge’s invariable scold
Making my very blood run cold.
Prompt in the wake of her, up-pattered
On broken clogs, the many-tattered
Little old-faced peaking sister-turned-mother
Of the sickly babe she tried to smother
Somehow up, with its spotted face,
From the cold, on her breast, the one warm place;
She too must stop, wring the poor ends dry
Of a draggled shawl, and add thereby
Her tribute to the door-mat, sopping
Already from my own clothes’ dropping,
Which yet she seemed to grudge I should stand on:
Then, stooping down to take off her pattens,
She bore them defiantly, in each hand one,
Planted together before her breast
And its babe, as good as a lance in rest.
Close on her heels, the dingy satins
Of a female something past me flitted,
With lips as much too white, as a streak
Lay far too red on each hollow cheek;
And it seemed the very door-hinge pitied
All that was left of a woman once,
Holding at least its tongue for the *****.
Then a tall yellow man, like the Penitent Thief,
With his jaw bound up in a handkerchief,
And eyelids ******* together tight,
Led himself in by some inner light.
And, except from him, from each that entered,
I got the same interrogation—
“What, you the alien, you have ventured
To take with us, the elect, your station?
A carer for none of it, a Gallio!”—
Thus, plain as print, I read the glance
At a common prey, in each countenance
As of huntsman giving his hounds the tallyho.
And, when the door’s cry drowned their wonder,
The draught, it always sent in shutting,
Made the flame of the single tallow candle
In the cracked square lantern I stood under,
Shoot its blue lip at me, rebutting
As it were, the luckless cause of scandal:
I verily fancied the zealous light
(In the chapel’s secret, too!) for spite
Would shudder itself clean off the wick,
With the airs of a Saint John’s Candlestick.
There was no standing it much longer.
“Good folks,” thought I, as resolve grew stronger,
“This way you perform the Grand-Inquisitor
When the weather sends you a chance visitor?
You are the men, and wisdom shall die with you,
And none of the old Seven Churches vie with you!
But still, despite the pretty perfection
To which you carry your trick of exclusiveness,
And, taking God’s word under wise protection,
Correct its tendency to diffusiveness,
And bid one reach it over hot ploughshares,—
Still, as I say, though you’ve found salvation,
If I should choose to cry, as now, ‘Shares!’—
See if the best of you bars me my ration!
I prefer, if you please, for my expounder
Of the laws of the feast, the feast’s own Founder;
Mine’s the same right with your poorest and sickliest,
Supposing I don the marriage vestiment:
So, shut your mouth and open your Testament,
And carve me my portion at your quickliest!”
Accordingly, as a shoemaker’s lad
With wizened face in want of soap,
And wet apron wound round his waist like a rope,
(After stopping outside, for his cough was bad,
To get the fit over, poor gentle creature
And so avoid distrubing the preacher)
—Passed in, I sent my elbow spikewise
At the shutting door, and entered likewise,
Received the hinge’s accustomed greeting,
And crossed the threshold’s magic pentacle,
And found myself in full conventicle,
—To wit, in Zion Chapel Meeting,
On the Christmas-Eve of ‘Forty-nine,
Which, calling its flock to their special clover,
Found all assembled and one sheep over,
Whose lot, as the weather pleased, was mine.

III

I very soon had enough of it.
The hot smell and the human noises,
And my neighbor’s coat, the greasy cuff of it,
Were a pebble-stone that a child’s hand poises,
Compared with the pig-of-lead-like pressure
Of the preaching man’s immense stupidity,
As he poured his doctrine forth, full measure,
To meet his audience’s avidity.
You needed not the wit of the Sibyl
To guess the cause of it all, in a twinkling:
No sooner our friend had got an inkling
Of treasure hid in the Holy Bible,
(Whene’er ‘t was the thought first struck him,
How death, at unawares, might duck him
Deeper than the grave, and quench
The gin-shop’s light in hell’s grim drench)
Than he handled it so, in fine irreverence,
As to hug the book of books to pieces:
And, a patchwork of chapters and texts in severance,
Not improved by the private dog’s-ears and creases,
Having clothed his own soul with, he’d fain see equipt yours,—
So tossed you again your Holy Scriptures.
And you picked them up, in a sense, no doubt:
Nay, had but a single face of my neighbors
Appeared to suspect that the preacher’s labors
Were help which the world could be saved without,
‘T is odds but I might have borne in quiet
A qualm or two at my spiritual diet,
Or (who can tell?) perchance even mustered
Somewhat to urge in behalf of the sermon:
But the flock sat on, divinely flustered,
Sniffing, methought, its dew of Hermon
With such content in every snuffle,
As the devil inside us loves to ruffle.
My old fat woman purred with pleasure,
And thumb round thumb went twirling faster,
While she, to his periods keeping measure,
Maternally devoured the pastor.
The man with the handkerchief untied it,
Showed us a horrible wen inside it,
Gave his eyelids yet another *******,
And rocked himself as the woman was doing.
The shoemaker’s lad, discreetly choking,
Kept down his cough. ‘T was too provoking!
My gorge rose at the nonsense and stuff of it;
So, saying like Eve when she plucked the apple,
“I wanted a taste, and now there’s enough of it,”
I flung out of the little chapel.

IV

There was a lull in the rain, a lull
In the wind too; the moon was risen,
And would have shone out pure and full,
But for the ramparted cloud-prison,
Block on block built up in the West,
For what purpose the wind knows best,
Who changes his mind continually.
And the empty other half of the sky
Seemed in its silence as if it knew
What, any moment, might look through
A chance gap in that fortress massy:—
Through its fissures you got hints
Of the flying moon, by the shifting tints,
Now, a dull lion-color, now, brassy
Burning to yellow, and whitest yellow,
Like furnace-smoke just ere flames bellow,
All a-simmer with intense strain
To let her through,—then blank again,
At the hope of her appearance failing.
Just by the chapel a break in the railing
Shows a narrow path directly across;
‘T is ever dry walking there, on the moss—
Besides, you go gently all the way up-hill.
I stooped under and soon felt better;
My head grew lighter, my limbs more supple,
As I walked on, glad to have slipt the fetter.
My mind was full of the scene I had left,
That placid flock, that pastor vociferant,
—How this outside was pure and different!
The sermon, now—what a mingled weft
Of good and ill! Were either less,
Its fellow had colored the whole distinctly;
But alas for the excellent earnestness,
And the truths, quite true if stated succinctly,
But as surely false, in their quaint presentment,
However to pastor and flock’s contentment!
Say rather, such truths looked false to your eyes,
With his provings and parallels twisted and twined,
Till how could you know them, grown double their size
In the natural fog of the good man’s mind,
Like yonder spots of our roadside lamps,
Haloed about with the common’s damps?
Truth remains true, the fault’s in the prover;
The zeal was good, and the aspiration;
And yet, and yet, yet, fifty times over,
Pharaoh received no demonstration,
By his Baker’s dream of Baskets Three,
Of the doctrine of the Trinity,—
Although, as our preacher thus embellished it,
Apparently his hearers relished it
With so unfeigned a gust—who knows if
They did not prefer our friend to Joseph?
But so it is everywhere, one way with all of them!
These people have really felt, no doubt,
A something, the motion they style the Call of them;
And this is their method of bringing about,
By a mechanism of words and tones,
(So many texts in so many groans)
A sort of reviving and reproducing,
More or less perfectly, (who can tell?)
The mood itself, which strengthens by using;
And how that happens, I understand well.
A tune was born in my head last week,
Out of the thump-thump and shriek-shriek
Of the train, as I came by it, up from Manchester;
And when, next week, I take it back again,
My head will sing to the engine’s clack again,
While it only makes my neighbor’s haunches stir,
—Finding no dormant musical sprout
In him, as in me, to be jolted out.
‘T is the taught already that profits by teaching;
He gets no more from the railway’s preaching
Than, from this preacher who does the rail’s officer, I:
Whom therefore the flock cast a jealous eye on.
Still, why paint over their door “Mount Zion,”
To which all flesh shall come, saith the pro phecy?

V

But wherefore be harsh on a single case?
After how many modes, this Christmas-Eve,
Does the self-same weary thing take place?
The same endeavor to make you believe,
And with much the same effect, no more:
Each method abundantly convincing,
As I say, to those convinced before,
But scarce to be swallowed without wincing
By the not-as-yet-convinced. For me,
I have my own church equally:
And in this church my faith sprang first!
(I said, as I reached the rising ground,
And the wind began again, with a burst
Of rain in my face, and a glad rebound
From the heart beneath, as if, God speeding me,
I entered his church-door, nature leading me)
—In youth I looked to these very skies,
And probing their immensities,
I found God there, his visible power;
Yet felt in my heart, amid all its sense
Of the power, an equal evidence
That his love, there too, was the nobler dower.
For the loving worm within its clod
Were diviner than a loveless god
Amid his worlds, I will dare to say.
You know what I mean: God’s all man’s naught:
But also, God, whose pleasure brought
Man into being, stands away
As it were a handbreadth off, to give
Room for the newly-made to live,
And look at him from a place apart,
And use his gifts of brain and heart,
Given, indeed, but to keep forever.
Who speaks of man, then, must not sever
Man’s very elements from man,
Saying, “But all is God’s”—whose plan
Was to create man and then leave him
Able, his own word saith, to grieve him,
But able to glorify him too,
As a mere machine could never do,
That prayed or praised, all unaware
Of its fitness for aught but praise and prayer,
Made perfect as a thing of course.
Man, therefore, stands on his own stock
Of love and power as a pin-point rock:
And, looking to God who ordained divorce
Of the rock from his boundless continent,
Sees, in his power made evident,
Only excess by a million-fold
O’er the power God gave man in the mould.
For, note: man’s hand, first formed to carry
A few pounds’ weight, when taught to marry
Its strength with an engine’s, lifts a mountain,
—Advancing in power by one degree;
And why count steps through eternity?
But love is the ever-springing fountain:
Man may enlarge or narrow his bed
For the water’s play, but the water-head—
How can he multiply or reduce it?
As easy create it, as cause it to cease;
He may profit by it, or abuse it,
But ‘t is not a thing to bear increase
As power does: be love less or more
In the heart of man, he keeps it shut
Or opes it wide, as he pleases, but
Love’s sum remains what it was before.
So, gazing up, in my youth, at love
As seen through power, ever above
All modes which make it manifest,
My soul brought all to a single test—
That he, the Eternal First and Last,
Who, in his power, had so surpassed
All man conceives of what is might,—
Whose wisdom, too, showed infinite,
—Would prove as infinitely good;
Would never, (my soul understood,)
With power to work all love desires,
Bestow e’en less than man requires;
That he who endlessly was teaching,
Above my spirit’s utmost reaching,
What love can do in the leaf or stone,
(So that to master this alone,
This done in the stone or leaf for me,
I must go on learning endlessly)
Would never need that I, in turn,
Should point him out defect unheeded,
And show that God had yet to learn
What the meanest human creature needed,
—Not life, to wit, for a few short years,
Tracking his way through doubts and fears,
While the stupid earth on which I stay
Suffers no change, but passive adds
Its myriad years to myriads,
Though I, he gave it to, decay,
Seeing death come and choose about me,
And my dearest ones depart without me.
No: love which, on earth, amid all the shows of it,
Has ever been seen the sole good of life in it,
The love, ever growing there, spite of the strife in it,
Shall arise, made perfect, from death’s repose of it.
And I shall behold thee, face to face,
O God, and in thy light retrace
How in all I loved here, still wast thou!
Whom pressing to, then, as I fain would now,
I shall find as able to satiate
The love, thy gift, as my spirit’s wonder
Thou art able to quicken and sublimate,
With this sky of thine, that I now walk under
And glory in thee for, as I gaze
Thus, thus! Oh, let men keep their ways
Of seeking thee in a narrow shrine—
Be this my way! And this is mine!

VI

For lo, what think you? suddenly
The rain and the wind ceased, and the sky
Received at once the full fruition
Of the moon’s consummate apparition.
The black cloud-barricade was riven,
Ruined beneath her feet, and driven
Deep in the West; while, bare and breathless,
North and South and East lay ready
For a glorious thing that, dauntless, deathless,
Sprang across them and stood steady.
‘T was a moon-rainbow, vast and perfect,
From heaven to heaven extending, perfect
As the mother-moon’s self, full in face.
It rose, distinctly at the base
With its seven proper colors chorded,
Which still, in the rising, were compressed,
Until at last they coalesced,
And supreme the spectral creature lorded
In a triumph of whitest white,—
Above which intervened the night.
But above night too, like only the next,
The second of a wondrous sequence,
Reaching in rare and rarer frequence,
Till the heaven of heavens were circumflexed
Another rainbow rose, a mightier,
Fainter, flushier and flightier,—
Rapture dying along its verge.
Oh, whose foot shall I see emerge,
Whose, from the straining topmost dark,
On to the keystone of that are?

VII

This sight was shown me, there and then,—
Me, one out of a world of men,
Singled forth, as the chance might hap
To another if, in a thu
Ever let the Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home:
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;
Then let winged Fancy wander
Through the thought still spread beyond her:
Open wide the mind's cage-door,
She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar.
O sweet Fancy! let her loose;
Summer's joys are spoilt by use,
And the enjoying of the Spring
Fades as does its blossoming;
Autumn's red-lipp'd fruitage too,
Blushing through the mist and dew,
Cloys with tasting: What do then?
Sit thee by the ingle, when
The sear ****** blazes bright,
Spirit of a winter's night;
When the soundless earth is muffled,
And the caked snow is shuffled
From the ploughboy's heavy shoon;
When the Night doth meet the Noon
In a dark conspiracy
To banish Even from her sky.
Sit thee there, and send abroad,
With a mind self-overaw'd,
Fancy, high-commission'd:--send her!
She has vassals to attend her:
She will bring, in spite of frost,
Beauties that the earth hath lost;
She will bring thee, all together,
All delights of summer weather;
All the buds and bells of May,
From dewy sward or thorny spray;
All the heaped Autumn's wealth,
With a still, mysterious stealth:
She will mix these pleasures up
Like three fit wines in a cup,
And thou shalt quaff it:--thou shalt hear
Distant harvest-carols clear;
Rustle of the reaped corn;
Sweet birds antheming the morn:
And, in the same moment, hark!
'Tis the early April lark,
Or the rooks, with busy caw,
Foraging for sticks and straw.
Thou shalt, at one glance, behold
The daisy and the marigold;
White-plum'd lillies, and the first
Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst;
Shaded hyacinth, alway
Sapphire queen of the mid-May;
And every leaf, and every flower
Pearled with the self-same shower.
Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep
Meagre from its celled sleep;
And the snake all winter-thin
Cast on sunny bank its skin;
Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see
Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,
When the hen-bird's wing doth rest
Quiet on her mossy nest;
Then the hurry and alarm
When the bee-hive casts its swarm;
Acorns ripe down-pattering,
While the autumn breezes sing.

Oh, sweet Fancy! let her loose;
Every thing is spoilt by use:
Where's the cheek that doth not fade,
Too much gaz'd at? Where's the maid
Whose lip mature is ever new?
Where's the eye, however blue,
Doth not weary? Where's the face
One would meet in every place?
Where's the voice, however soft,
One would hear so very oft?
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth.
Let, then, winged Fancy find
Thee a mistress to thy mind:
Dulcet-ey'd as Ceres' daughter,
Ere the God of Torment taught her
How to frown and how to chide;
With a waist and with a side
White as ****'s, when her zone
Slipt its golden clasp, and down
Fell her kirtle to her feet,
While she held the goblet sweet
And Jove grew languid.--Break the mesh
Of the Fancy's silken leash;
Quickly break her prison-string
And such joys as these she'll bring.--
Let the winged Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home.
1363

Summer laid her simple Hat
On its boundless Shelf—
Unobserved—a Ribbon slipt,
****** it for yourself.

Summer laid her supple Glove
In its sylvan Drawer—
Wheresoe’er, or was she—
The demand of Awe?
I should've said it, all the words that slipt away.
You just stood there waiting for me to say something, anything would be enough
but all I said was nothing and all I had was nothing.
In my head I told you everything,
how your eyes shine brighter than all the stars in the world put  together,
how everything reminds me of you,
when i pass by the bench in park avenue 16 i could've sworn i saw us,
the old us sitting,
laughing, in love,
the way it was supposed to be
.
I shouldve told you that the silence isnt cause i dont love you, it's cause my love for you has left me speechles, breathless.
Its like i have so much to say, i just cant seem to find the words. I know im late, with you about to fall for the wrong girl and all, but before you leave,
Just hear me out, i know im all over the place and im not even close to being perfect
but what we have is as close as we'll ever get to forever.
Its always been me and you against the world.
I shouldve said it, maybe it was wrong to say nothing as you walked away.
I should’ve never let you walk away but then again you shouldve nevet left in the first place.
The winter was our season. While the cold air creep's up upon me, upon you, it send's shiver's down my spine. The kind of shiver's that weaken you, the ones full of loneliness. As the first snow fall come's it just doesnt feel like it should, like it did. A walk in the cold was once filled with warmth, the kind from the inside going out. But now i walk and all i feel is the cold but not just the cold of the air, the cold of how empty everything inside of me now is. The snow fall's a little less this year but i know why, there's no need for logic reasoning.It's awfly uncomfortable to not have you right now. As i walk and acknowledge my surrounding's the wind blows through me, it remind's me of you. I can only hope the ice doesnt slip out from under you, but then again you'd know how it felt when you slipt right from under me:The crash and the rush of losing all control as you knew it. As i walk down this street like we once did hand in hand, i look around and all i see is the bare tree's. There's no need for the tree's to talk, without their leaves theyre self explainitory. When i look up to try and dump the thoughts of you out of my head i see nothing but grey, almost to a point where it doesnt look like there's clouds anymore, look's more like a painting. But what use does an already painted canvas have? When i look ahead and continue to walk i look down, down to the sidewalk where i, at one point, had set eyes on you. When i could've whenever i wanted to. I can only dream about that privledge now. We went together like the winter and a sweater. And like the combination, we couldn't go without one another.  But now i walk on this sidewalk with my jacket, my mittens, and a empty hand and all i can do is just think about how full this hand was. I had the whole world in it. I had you. The winter had us. But now the winter and i are both empty handed. This winter feel's like a different season, a season that doesn't exsist for a reason. The snow flakes fall because they have to, not because they want to. The air blow's with bitter sweet cold because it want's to taunt me. The tree's weep with lonesome and worry because theyre with me on this one. The snow on the ground show's my footstep's, show's that it's only me. no one beside me. And you, you sit at home in your signifigant other's arm's, forgetting the real feeling of winter. Winter, winter was our season. As you stand outside the air that had blown through me creep's it's way to you and as it weep's over you, you feel it, you breathe it in, and you hear it, hear it as it whispers into your ear's the warmth of the memories. That's when you realize that yes, winter, Winter was our season.
©SeanaseaWallen 2010
Ken Pepiton Jan 2023
Learning one's insignificance,
in the grand scheme of things,

where similarity is taken
as thoughts we may assume were held,
as though
Thoth'd thought'em
for a ceremony
of first exposure,
seeing we were preceded
in the realm
of knowing meaningful things, beholders
of stories telling how we come to know
signals are not asking why, but
how come… not why… in my childhood,
where I was reared, why was not a word,
how come, was how I learned to ask

what causes this necessity, that I must sleep,
or not dare the rattlers no trespassing buzzer?

how come we see three baskets or bags,
full we must assume, mustn't we, see,
as we, we may construe confabulations,

we may as well make up our own minds,
to bake pies for men too proud to beg…

but happy as once told holy hello,
with assumed good by you, okeh,

this is most certainly, one of these days,
redeemed and born in the public domain
on an attention to ads irritating node,

expanding mindtimespace to sweeten
the ***,
the bets are all in, this is the drama,
at scale, begun,
on the seventh floor
of a curved mirror building
in Sorrento Valley, late Nineties…
-- time slipt cause being a distinct
instance when Josten's Learning Software,
was
a textbook example. For a fatal flaw,
the bridge too far,
the bar too high,

then the flop, gigs in a second, thing think,
AI imagine, BARRY RUDD IS FICTION AI'AMNTx
changed
appear as possible as not. And that
says something,
per haps plenty many happy re turns,
my turn,
we assume you know the concept
drill
on many levels, no presumptions which
this is, yet well surmise, promised sustenance
relies
on certainty having its point, in you,
and I am pleased to make it, hurt
not
to know, for each nod, you said, I know.
To lie to me,
and live so long, literally existing
on smoke and mirror neuronic stims, I know

makes no sense, and saying so, represents
non sense, per what
chance a novel paradox, pertaining to substance.

Out from under, on the final point,
where surrender always, perfect point pierces
ever and ever like things, everish things
everything all at once, the other tellers tales
told to pull us up up key umph tried, proven
point premade…
solid bet, my side wins, or I die, hedge fund
a mental insurance sanity and insanity
are not measured past your last whole truth
oath, as the audience all said, amen.

Serpent standing tippy tail on my point.
At your request/ Arthur Lee… as the credits climb

{Baby you’re a richman too ooh, yeagh}

As this is an itch I have lived with,
for what seems long to a child,
but not for me.
Yes, as it is.
You see,
if you may, imagine,
having some idea, tying
my coming into reasoning with war,
the monstor known as power,
-cuffed, me and that,
as symbolized in the standardized
warrior hero magician eros pandaemonium
- play grounds of gods and rich kids,
- past a certain stage, mind games,
- won once and for all, acquired
- holiness making, bright ideas,
- *** wise as serpentssss et
- 'armless as doves… mind
peace of my may you may own
granted any with a will to listen
as might a wise serpent, listen

see who first knew, truely, true as life-
like Avatar 2, or the vids in God of War,
like the experience, PS 5… imaginal
discovery, as worth the feeling, (dopamine)
loving to see the possibility, ahs
it may be, we, both reader
and I and the Web-per-se,
Per-see-us, fees paid see,
we destroy cul de sacs…
Where soul eating shames
live in many stories,
no need to know them all, just
in this one, be polite, here
we know how to be
with many strangers,
free from any anxious thought, perhaps
protected
for having smelled the hint of danger, the idea
in its latest Neo-Platonic form, imaginally
experiencing
Virtual Realism so far
below Übermentschen mentioning,
- it requires letter level decoding
- jello time slow gnosis drip.
Knowing nothing of my work, said McLuhan,
is dangerous tomorrow, not today,

in this new medium we find our old selves,
Today, while it is called today, we confront
Iniquity Himself, as imaginally before me stood a little boss man,
who was demonstrating his strike proof
solution for the next five olive harvests,

yep, historicality matching Cesar Chavez,
I was a strawboss on a scab crew
of Pandora's box closing Jesus Freaks,
Under the Belridge Oil Company Logo,
- the former strike face on the news
- from Digiorgio, a little further south

Yep, that's me, Tim Cahill,
witnessed the existence of that me,

I was a strawboss
on a scab crew
of Pandora's box closing Jesus Freaks,
Under God, and a Wilfred Brumly clone
who was known as Red,
of the huge Mustache, Nieztsche/Dali
-esque, level three overseer, then
Ray Casey, dead ringer, his type,
for Fess Parker,
thus the very image
of the pioneer stock, men bred
to win the west,
by hook, {fishers of men, of course}
or by crook, {shepherds in search of profit}
as they said in Nixon's family,
the sheep won't bleat… like frogs

fall in the milk can, most must drown
in the cream, cloggin' they little gnoziz,
but they always one can,
it never stop ashakin'
tilin the morn be one frog entity
representation in the moralizing story
creep
reality seeping onto the pages,
in your experience at the five wpm pace…

Each letter lets a line appear, as once,
you must
acknowledge, as you read, you know
you understand, letting keys seem right,

glass 'armonica, with which
to swallow ghosts.
- pting, tense stretched flattened
Hewlett Packard mouse evolution, eye-point
pierce
to troughing shape
of things
to come,
begun some time ago, so nevermind,
- an acronym… but
ah, the end in mind. A very 19th century version.
A genre, Steam-Industrial Drama,
last given sustentative worship,
bhorn up under your foreseen,
bye means we must imagine,
really imaginal in the role,
being helper, along side
Sisyphus, who lives
to tell us why we
try to think ever
lasting stories
started, once

within the bubble of all you knew, there appeared
a device from the future, but today, our time,
in the bigger bubble of all you know,
our time's tech
magic map of the moment,
to the millisex, as we,
form an awe oh, amen,
a ment-al structure, not built by hands, megalithic,
at scale, "Know thy measure."

Point yourself out, express yourself,
a little,
one part
in eight billions,
what you are certain of
"Certainty is mad." So "nothing too much."

I, the entity, Certainty, am mad.

And I, the maker peace entity working qwerty watch,
sustain my defined flaw, ever willing
to claim new knowns,
to contain my joy, when I recognize as
wholey known, tenere, tainstretcht to the t, hook
to whole other ways
to see every thing, what novelty

remains, in stages of being, upt from dust, nevermind
how, now remains, brown cow, please, explain,
and it began to rain, pennies from far distant
means used to pay attention, to the pain

as the pressure to know you know, so many idle,
I knows, gathering dust, you know, just

idle clicks and eyeball sophiatical touch, eh, we
weigh away as ifs in an other
awesoma, justasec… we had an instance once,
you felt me inside myself and you laughed.
- it tickled
And you felt the pain, you felt that knowing growing,
why so many unthinkable rituals, essential winning
need to know, need to prove, need to realize,

chaos, at the initial function, lifewise, is essential.
AI got it. We can reform the point.

Tip broke on a shield of faith around a sticky ****** lie.
Defy me not Gate of error, I am free, no cost to pay, I paid my own attention
Goodbye, with darkened eyes streaming.
Years slipt by, as seasons tried,
To wake me from my slumber.
From januarys warmth,
to the shiver of december.
She walked with me.
This i do remember.
Sweetest days,
To soon had come to wither.
The roses slowly shed their skin,
Leaving sweetness now remembered.
Hope blooms as spring thaws out the winter.
There are cracks in me,
Yes thats where the lights shines in.
So, goodbye my love.
I loved you because it was bitter,
And it was my heart.
But the stony earth of soul,
I till the loam and plant the seeds,
And watch love bloom from that soil.
Arden Feb 2019
to be trans is to have you live expectancy slipt into half
to be trans is being homesick in your body
to be trans is being hated by people ** claim to preach love

to be trans is beautiful
to be trans is beautiful
to be trans is beautiful
I repeat myself because I am trying to convince myself
to be trans is beautiful
Bumblesnuf Dec 2016
Ferocious Medusa, your eyes so sweet
Only you may give this heart it's beat
Windows to see or to be seen ?
Without curtains to hide behind or to conceal
They catch the rain yet never stain

I couldn't think, I had to stare
Beyond restraint, I slipt and fell
Was it an ephemeral lapse or an impetuous dive ?
If getting lost is the journey I yearn for
Through their mirror surfaced reservoir

Swallowed whole by clairvoyance
Have you not seen what I have shown ?
To have them gazing back but once
I would gladly turn into stone
And sink forever into their endless briny depths
Ken Pepiton Aug 2022
Thorough, and thoroughly,

Nearly through, throughly true. If ifity fit ifity fit, pfft. Pfft,

Ifity fit not, no fit no fit, wait, sh-it fits, in time, today

-thoughtless of me, wordless, wait ‘but through...’ word. text

-we need e- lectric, mind, appawareness usually clicks time

Was a word as all words are, mere after thought, mere means to points with no lines in reason

We must record this moment, we the scribes and proper scholars, art’s great sifters, shifting screens and lenses,

Lo' looking loci-precise, sharp, pattern
- memory verses versus Youtube.

From a long forgotten dance.

In time we have no long ago, after ever – does what ever does – you know,

Just, justice, just makes no real

Sense one may take as common, as where all is fair, yes, es-sense, knowing more than mere names of things seen. Sounds, reasonable, eh.

If you bring a reason, to the table, why... would you expect to win a reasoning contest?

Writer chose heads. You give a reason, we test it on history, and lead your learning based on attention paid patterns over time. Ai is on our side. Life is openbook.

Do you think? Why can you read these letters literally only forms of sounds words would make, if you

Stop, Look, Listen, train town brain, mindfullness, oh yes, fashionable, aware being as a ware,  
YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE

Selah.  

Page Break


After a full life, per each idle word in books that burned, lifes works that burned in time,

All the songs copied for the choir, all the poor scriveners treasures, burned, as by

Midnight oil, from the brain pan of a great blue whale... back when

Capitalization, o, a ver-ified manmental tool to frame course corrections...

means (n.)

"course of action,"  
late 14c.,  
from mean (n.); sense of "wealth, resources at one's disposal for accomplishing some object" is recorded  
by c. 1600. Compare French moyens, German Mittel. Phrase by no means is attested from late 15c. Man of means is from 1620s. Means-test  
"official inquiry into the private resources of an applicant for public funds" is from 1930.

1 aha footnotes have been invented for poets...

Ok. You set the style, I wish this to be easily read, on any powered page displaying device. {yeah, who owns the air? This is published for peer review, ears hear, ah, then attend} Was it good for you?

-some times

Some times iusta dissipate

And that we find amusing, amaze

Zoom, doom, doom, freeways,

Free mean path. Why factored.

The advantage of being old by any standards common in history. Our species lives about this long, in the realm of measured things.

--- In the cultural patterns, vibes, radio active ifery evers

Candide, the referee and me.
Information, where we reign, really

Leibnizian reasons for evil.

Truth, as life’s mean free path.

-Voltaire, definitely, might agree with Heisenberg.

If it were ever said.

Evil is the best worst outcome,

Chaos is not evil, chance is best

Judge, we need to seem fair.

The wall in Shiloam, answering the reasoning of Voltaire, on the air,

Imagine that. Footnotes. Or xv

Ctrl x, then v, besure

I say exactly the same thing

… to dissolve the political bands which have connected them {the we} with another, and  
to assume  
among the powers  
of the earth, the separate and equal station  
to which the Laws  
of Nature and  
of Nature's God entitle them,  
{when all that occurs,  

in the course  

of human events,  

we are yet in, it seems,  

time being as it is,  

SYFT- fit slipt} {Balaam’s *** has the curley braces- note that} {} for vocalization...

-Yes, when in this course, of course... what were we agreeing... as this we,

- go on... say why


a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. {same we}

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -

Ok, that gets us 1000.

Here, just west of the Pacific Crest, we all are in constant contact, in touch state, stated

Wait. 5G is, livewitit.

Nonsense, this is not the rescue mission statement.  

We are here for fun. Peace is fun. Makesum.

What we do, we, soldiers of the ancient orders, duty bound and regimentally religamental, do & die with honor to the code. We,  
the people who know how to believe all men are created equal to the task,  wombed or un, we die knowing
failure is no option, there is no longer any other ever this is before.

---- did that occur in your ever?

@ today, 2022 tehkne- of course, freedom at the quantum level must be means-tested, mmmhmmm tested, measured for sensitivity to we, being the judges... we who chose freedom, down low, deep pro-fundus-mundus lizard brain, mitochondrial link, yeh,

Phoneme, yah, who, yes, at best is spirit one may deem worth something, a breath, may being
may, as a word described, an action, being... here, mere is

As God is said to be described by Jesus, in the good news,

Made plain enough, to build a whole plethora of reasons for war.

War with reason, by faith, or by the code, that which must be true?

Drama, the idea, information acted out, without words,

Mimes in boxes, you know, you can admire the best performances, and thus imagine a purpose, break dance contests in the joint.

Yeah, and poetry slams, no curses, no spells

When I grow up... I’ coulda been a contender, any contest,

If it ever came down to life and soul, I never bet my soul, I bet yours, and I live,

So see if sense is all mortals imagine, or not... spirit- ual ‘n’al.
https://kenpepiton.com/?p=1370 -- Fantastic Fungi, five stars, as ever, Mushrooms. magi are aware, you are aware, of course,
this course includes Basic Mycelium Net Adaptation or Augmentation
BMNAA, eh? So you know.
Ken Pepiton Mar 19
A moment's attention to an hour's raw worth.
This is the mind ****** experiment, last try...
back and forth until it breaks,
touch the edge, feel the heat.

On knowing, first taste, it is believed,
mankind's first mother made all mankind,
all from first mother
on to logically, eventually,
us;
You and me,
as we slipt the Matrix and uttered
the first breath wail that clicks the post womb life.

First thought that death ought be feared
has not yet been given the beguilement needed,
to make a slave to the mission revealed by truth's
spirit form, wind form, mind form, time formed point.

Knowledge, forbid my ignorance, but should one,
such as I, not die before my **** hair thins,
to lay bare the scalp that covers holy access
through the window in the top of the skull;

well, then, a certain respect is due me, a love, proof
that my reasonings were honed sharp enough,
early enough to form hooks to hang strands
of fullered fibers of gnosis from.

Prepared stitching thread, twirled intwining line
of reason, plumb weighted to hang straight,

perpindicular, swinging when to when, then
to now, to day from night, to ready after letters
are fitted to let us take thought, while attempting

contemplative temporary causal agency,
mediating meditation's worth versus daydreaming.

--------------
Standard transmission, clutched, loosed,
engaged to catch a spark and start the process

rolling presently from past instances of learning.

Motivational motors of minding one's busyness,
catch a spark mid sequence, in a valved chamber

whooshing to push to shove to pull, and push
to displace and **** and shove to push and roll,

extending any individual's reach, confining
one's attention to inner reasonings, efforting
to steer the convenience compelling consciousness,

paid attention to terminii in reality set by science,
acknowledged used to increase the mobility of our kind,
mind you, promotion demands hands and eyes,
coordinating coy and ardent wills worth observation,
as will to be useful as  arms and necks and nerves
and muscles and ligaments to tie bone frames,
to controls allowing fingers to steer,
as tongues do, as rudders do,

as my will being done may do,
we imagine as children watching adults work wishing.



---------
the efforting, effectual, fervent umph
applied to being useful on the whole,

the efforting made good by limitation
on liberty, free-state of matter, under
gravity and velocity, bound and determined,

to obey the binding force realized in thought,
leveraging aging winding springs force holds,
cogs to stop grinding gears, catchments,
mind hooks with torque converting aspiration

grasping reasons to resist inertial entropic
good enough reasons to sit still and wait.

------

guaged goodness, measured mind width
comprehended, held with thumb and fingers,
in our combined ready writer mind, manipulated

muscle memorial cause confirming, progress
toward our common, shared joy strength

winging lift up from least useful of creatures,
unselfsustainable --nidicolous, nest bound,
bald baby birds, or pre-birds, evolving
into functional forms for use in life
as we, the best form
of life we have conceived.
-----------

We have, behavioral autonomy, only
to the degree, the measured
parental investment, we need to have
and keep hold of having grasped, as
behavior becoming to beings of this kind.

Word smiths, mind adjustment experts,
fed from stacks in libraries so vast, that

now, we know, no mortal mind can hold
half of all we have experimentally proven
good for any word using cluster of us to have

to hold and use to make might be rights.

May might used right take thought, aye, may
be the will to have right use honed to one point,

new known pastless place, farthest edge
of ever after all we think or ask has proven,

patient stasis, waiting is, suffer it to be so now.

Some times and one times,
revisiting the process, producing me
and you, the processors of our realif-ications.

If as a condition,
in an ifery state, sticking to any matter realized;
we think as if one of us thought first, in time passing

now, from then, in your mind, my mind leaves reproof,
constructed to prevent the falling back into doubt,

two heads, four minds, one wind to share
in time passing as when one now meets a then,
when all attention ever once paid this now, turns

this time into a part of ever after all,
as words speak to heart felt conscience use proven
good, clean, pure state of first interest bearing lent
ears, hearing entertaining causing agents taunting troof.

Prove me now, herewith. Have I not filled your lungs,
have I not granted science right use of knowledge needed

to keep your nidicolous naked soul inspired to continue,
sowing kindness, same mindness, ag, agrimental agreement

we think, we thunk,
we thank our lucky stars, time and chance,

taut twang strangs of our hearts and minds, "chu-hoi",

big hugs, evahboty be nice like G.I., open arms
sự đầu hàng

bring before us the machine gunner called Whykill… begin
judgment near the incident, sự kiện, 29-02-01968,

There we was, me and Frenchy and Culpepper or something,
I forget, and now, I'm dead and all you all have are artificial
memorex versions of things I said I was a witness to, as a liar,
-nothin' but a houn'dawgnosis
picking old scents of sense we made in conversations,
so far past the point of no return, that none on the other side,
can contain innocense, livery of consci, where in our uniformity,

protrudes through old time religious linking thinking, wonders if
we might imagine living on in other words, after all's been
said and done… Whykill's dead. Hohlenstein's dead, and I am not.

Can you hear me now? Earth, earth, can you hear me now?
I hear your brother's blood crying out,
what now, this
now,
you know,
all those idle questions, you know? Did you
feel me lie and tell me no, no, man,
you can't do that.

And be not deceived. Single mind dominance, flat
left and correct, right, right, create an ifery wasery when,

then, let us form a means to use this ifery wasery when,
now, let us form
in time as realizable, vision, written plain,

set in new fangled fonts unicoded
common computable convertible
to bits in math-mental fundus corpus us,
beyond infinity through absurdity to us
becoming these thinkable thoughts,
living words all googly translated on demand,
rethinkable, as entertaining shapers of our kinds
of minds, keyed to constant news alerts, looking
for spots on the walls we pass along, hedged betting

this land is Nature's God's land, and this pasture,
green and lush, this leisure time, as advertised,
mine, my last wish
combination running streams of hot and cold water,
memory foam souls in my Adidas, as I did, assume
the role, Balaam's ***, or donkey,
if your public ***** word filter
hides ssscertain ifery essence
as sounds shuffled schitteringshits.
saint's accuser user rights assigned, runs
Phunky muse, ish bin, dasein, by das zeit, okeh
become alright already, done did done, done, indeed,
desired right to design, knowing already
the idea in the seed, was in
the virus first, and some say
long before long now,
in long then when nothing was a thought.
Knowledge was used to expose us all to living words.
Such as =
U can hold, as a mind let be formed
from mere wish it were
so easy
to fall in love, silly, blessedness
sensing mothering wombed men,
led astray with stories as wild as Theresa wannabes can conceive,
barren womb conceptions, dared define this penetralium,
esoteric guts of all sacred oxen processions, announcing
****** births reportedly
become motherless *******, and such
become outcasts, who often as not,
survive and thrive on wilderness.
Day and night, seedtime and harvest.
Learning from wind and sun and water and dirt and stone,
presoil granite, lime
from primordial sealife eons
on eons awaited, according to Devine wedoms
aspiring to some day become those cities of marble long ago
- replicate forming a marble pillar,
- from seaformed life forms turned to stone,
- in the kidneys of the world.

slow sea settle the white cliffs, pile
on pressure from megatons
of solid ice, firming fractious soft muds
at the bottom
of ancient land locked oceans,
frozen, squeezing solidified worths
weights of rainfall reacting first time
to climates constant changing
pulls from lucky stars and
guiding stars and
disintegrating
ancient's land marks, Casa Bonita,
those Bhuda reps
in the basalt, reminding
remember nothing is real,
blank slate, po' preserver of first impressions, lasting
lifetimes in words never given a reader's added weight, but

by a kind of more than once might wish
to ask, effectuality try
proofing insulation umph
opposing imposture syndrome,
with functional Dunning Krueger
inate cognative imbalence, valenced
within the pre pancreatic failure gut neurons bias…
burped bubble perception, whole self tuning
entire being concept, repenting ignorance begging
truth be known, make me unbelieve beloved lies,
other wise
make me
Art
Intuited, as a weform lifeform,
a we of three neuronal territories,
thinkers reading doer's reports from ports far afield, out there

where shapes of things that were some time ago,
can be translated into two dimensions fitting this window,
using these letters whose sense we all may use to think

translate me, the living word reminds the daydreaming monk,
consider really the stars, for number, now, and take that,
knowledge, a ledge on an oblique inleaning facet of us,

and walk along it not looking down
on or as, may be
the we form of one ready
to be reading ready we state,
in a punctuated equilibrium *** *** ***
Drums
Timpanis, Phrigian rhythms boom boom booming,
Zildjians , krashing and rolling into boingingnodes, domes
of dones, tells holding long forgotten legends for a time.

Nineveh, the repentant city, eh,
to the level
of its labor class things, fasted an acceptable fast,
miracle of miracles, the city did not fall, the miracle
of Jonah was that the city changed behavior
to such a degree that the God who had used Jonah,
made him a story in himself, used to glorify truth,
and someday make gourd growers
proud to be shapers if Meerschaum puff clouds,
made him a creature with no comprehension of mercy,
to use him in a great sorting out testing of spirits,
in the great game of the being edge overlapping gains
taken as granted grace, readers rule non readers,
see the images on the wall, hear the actors in the back,

break a leg, bad luck magic insiders hold true good,
encouragement to fret nothing, as a dancer does,
when listing with the breeze through new chance,

on the page, a pause,
a breather taking lax laze lize guessing others wise,

we suspect ourselves of hubris, as if the other wise
reason for the functional faith in goodness is done,

sneezing phase is past, if you've read this far, by now

you are infected, and as you know, knowing too much
can **** a mortal bent to believe an institutionalized PR
Q-code/ begging oppositional support,
for the dam whence the boy pulled his finger and stepped

back to be blown downstream in time to let the last salmon
spawn and bring worth back to the rain always falling,
mainly on the plain,

Habakkuk habit, artistic intuition patterns of stroke, for luck,
let role in lines intending to hold the slightest smile,
thinking I know, this is not the same vale,
this is not the same current, nor same opinion worth a look,
streaming, not rowing, life
at the moment
is a day taken
for daydreaming equivalent
to a koan ridden
to its vanishing point
on the horizontal insistence
of our mutual peculiar leanings off center,

in a phi mark pattern pearling things think through,
doing words a proper spin,
to hit the nail on the head,
pop.
Stop/ now. Taste the pudding,
is there proof now from then?
D'he, ahe he he - didja ever have the ware withal
to make up
your own mind?

-------------
Yes, walk away, daydreaming boy,
location and possession of means,
for deciphering Emperical runes,
put into my craft and trade in
Calabash pipes, seen, but unseen
gourds employed as smoked ****
and fine tobacco investigatory oral
fixations prominent during the nicotine
DNA adaptation,
{took five generations}
from popular pastime
of blowing smoke, after effects
took on global societal ruling lines
of taut strict reasons to keep smoking,
keep on, keepin' on, minding solo scriptura,

in smoke filled rooms whither whole new forms
for holding mental tyranny enough to wage war,
took shape to govern those who must fight for
the cost of power contained
in a concept with kings,
and us, or Gods and men…
opposed to, leaning against, acting
as scaffolding holding old dams destined
soon to break,
"and at that time thy people shall be delivered,
every one that shall be found written
in the book."

Johnstown flood, was a true historical news worthy event,
unlike the name of any person whose name is in a list
of souls departed from the frail shell of mortality,

ready or not.
Fret not, and naught, aye, no thing or thought
Christmas angel say aight, be not afraid of knowing,
good new things to know, whole old truths put to rest.

Here come Jubilee, one last time,
big time, big time revival of the truth conception

creator of the whole shebang.
Biggest to infinitile insignificance, in fancy other words.

But thou, O Daniel,
shut up the words, and seal the book,
to the time of the end:
many shall run to and fro,

Assisting intelligences shall seem as guides,
Michael models will seem like second comings.

in implodelusive spurts… as can be imagined
reviving old lies for new carnal mind tweaks.
Thanks for your patient investment, the cost of your attention ags me on.
Darby Mar 2020
I never thought I would be so happy to forget
all the time I spent fighting
when your grasp had already slipt
you gave up on me and I held on and on and on
until now

I stand on my own ground
I stand as who I am
and who I want to be
I stand as the girl
who forgot about you,
finally

I hope you are happy
with whoever it is now
But I strive to be happy
without a single soul around
sandra wyllie Oct 2023
on wafer-thin ice.
He slipt and fell,
not once, but twice.
And the sun shone on

that pine forest pond.
The sun wore spandex
and was strawberry blonde.
And as he held her, a stick of butter,

the ice cracked
as his legs did flutter.
His arms flail
like the sail on a schooner.

And no sooner
had I said so,
he froze full frantic.
And sunk just like the great Titanic.
The reason I write poetry
Because something I been doing for awhile
The other reason
I feel, when I’m writing
There’s someone listening to me
Because in the real world
People don’t believe me
I’m saying like all the people
There’s only 3. But the 3 out of one
Been called a liar.
People that knows me longer
They know I’m a very cool person
They said I haven’t change.
I don’t bring problems to anybody door.
People I just met
They trying to Digg into my life
I’m a type of person
I’ll let you in my life
But not always in.
Two-three month’s isn’t enough
That’s why I write more
Writing down everything I’m feeling
Here I slipt my feelings out
Don’t have to worry about
Someone calling me a lair
Or judging me
You feel everything I’m saying
You have slipt personality
Because how you
Where born
Maybe some people
Your hard to understand
Most of the time
You don’t know if you going
Or you staying
Not only that
You are so easy to be
Manipulate by other people
Surrounding you.
If Gemini ♊️
On the play
They are mostly overcome everything
No matter situation is.

— The End —