Liturgy in Time of War

I will go to the altar of God
To God who gives joy to my youth

ENTRANCE ANTIPHON

The dawn (evening) is coming, another hot, filthy, wet dawn (evening).  Let us arise, soaked in sweat, exhausted, to speak with sour, saliva-caked mouths, to meet the deaths of this day (night).

GREETING

In the name of Peace in Our Time,
For the Hearts and Minds of The People,
For the Land of the Big PX
For round eye and white (black) (brown) thigh,
I greet you, brothers.

PENITENTIAL RITE

All:

I confess to almighty God
And to you my brothers
That I have sinned through my fault
In my thoughts and in my words
In what I have done
And in what I have failed to do,
And I ask Blessed Mary…

But how can I ask Her anything now?

My brothers,
Pray for me to…

But how?
Priest: (But there is no priest)

KYRIE

Lord, have mercy
Christ, have mercy
Lord, Lord, have mercy on us now

Have mercy, Lord, on a generation
That sits smugly in college lecture halls
And protests endlessly in coffee shops
The war they hear, see, on T.V., for free
Justice and peace by the semester hour
Like, y’know, peace, love, Amerika sux
Play the guitar, ****, apply to law school

Have mercy on us
Who crouch behind sand bags
And clean our weapons
And protest nothing
And **** in the heat
And die in the hear
And throw ham and lima beans away

GLORIA

Glory to God in the highest
how many bodies yesterday?
And peace to His people on earth
Vietnamese? Or us?
Lord God, heavenly King, almighty God and Father
ham and lima beans?
We worship you, we give you thanks, we praise you for your glory
Doc, I can’t go home to my wife with this clap
Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father
cigarette, canteen cup of instant coffee
Lord God, Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world
******* magazine
Have mercy on us
relief behind the sand bags
You are seated at the right hand of the Father
i rot
Receive our prayer
i want to be clean and dry
For You alone are the Holy One
clean and dry.  just once.
You alone are the Lord
why do they chew that?
You alone are the most high
you mean the betel nut?
Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father
incoming!
Amen


PRAYER

A

Father, you make this day holy.
Let us be thankful for
The many little joys of
This day, for life, for
The chance to worship
You.  In the end, bring
Us to you, so that we
May be cleansed of mud
And sweat and filth and
Guilt, and live with you
In peace forever.

B

Father, just get me through
Another day of this mess.

LITURGY OF THE WORD –

FIRST READING

From the Intensive Care Unit, NSA DaNang

A twilight world
Of neither peace nor battle
And of both

A man world
Embracing life and the grim death
Both

Peering into infected wounds
Night building shiver
Down from the black sky flares float

Broken bodies from the war somewhere
Eyes of a shattered nineteen-year-old Marine
Staring at the door to Yokosuka

PSALM

A Song of Descents

I cast down my eyes
Into the mud
Into the blood
It seems cleaner than death and drugs and casual ***
Drink Coca-Cola

I turned my eyes away from you, O Lord
And made this
Build this
Came to this
Samantha and Darren on Bewitched

Have mercy on…but how can we ask?  How dare we ask?

SECOND READING

Old Man, Viet Nam

Old man, a dog is barking at your heels
Old man, with the tired, weathered face
Are you afraid to turn around and deal
This dog a kick, to put him in his place?

Or is it, old man, that you’re just too tired?
Just too tired to turn and show anger
Just too tired to have your temper fired
Beaten by years of contempt and danger

Where are you going, trudging so slowly?
What are you thinking, behind those tired eyes?

Probably not about ham and lima beans

GOSPEL

In the Cold White Mist

After an all-night run on the river
Our boats arrive in the village at dawn
Dawn is never cold along that rive
Along that steaming, green, hell-hot river
But the mist is cold, the grey-green dawn mist
And after the engines are cut – stillness
Foul brown water laps at the mudding bank
Sloshing softly with fertile, smelly death

In the cold white mist

The boats are secured, and watches posted
We step off the boats and onto wet land
And follow the track into the deep mist
It becomes the street of a little town
A dairy lane along which cows slopped home
And where dogs and chickens and children
      played
Bounded by carefully swept little yards
And little wooden houses with tin roofs

In the cold white mist

But some of the houses are burnt.  The smoke
Still hangs heavily in the whitening mist
The lane is littered with debris.  A lump
Resolves itself into a torn, dead child
Across a smaller lump, a smaller child
Their pup has been flung against the fence, its
Guts early morning breakfast for the morning
      flies
We smoke cigarettes against the death-smells

In the cold white mist

Beneath a farm tractor rots a dead man.
When they – they – had come at sunset
He had hidden there.  And they shot him there
A man with bare feet and work-calloused
      hands
His hair is black; his teeth need cleaning
They shot him beneath the village tractor
His blackening blood clots into the mud
And our lungs choke in the white mist of death

In the cold white mist

White mist.  The path disappears into it
Smoky skeletons of little houses
In which there will be no tea this morning
No breakfasts of hot tea and steaming rice
No old widows to smile in betel-nut
No children to mock-march alongside us
Pointing at our ******* boots, and laughing
At us, for wearing shoes in the summer

In the cold white mist

They are dead and rotting in the white mist
On the edge of the jungle on the edge
Of the world, here along the Vam Co Tay
And the people pour out of their houses
To greet us on the fine summer morning
A corpse across a doorway, another
******-doubled across a window sill
Still another strewn down the garden path

In the cold white mist

The other patrol doubles back to us
And they tell us that the Ruff-Puff outpost
Must have been overrun the night before
He had heard their radioed pleas, and had
Run the river at night to get to them
And the ARVNs had fled through the village
And the VC had stormed in behind them
And it was knife-and-gun-club night in town

In the cold white mist

A little girl is the lone survivor
She looks may six.  Cute, except for the
Bubbling, *******, bayoneted chest wound
We patch her, and tube her, and use suction
Sort of like fixing a bicycle tire
And in the wet, gasping heat take her back
With us downriver, where a charity
Hospital leaves her on the steps to die

In the cold white mist

It will be our turn again tomorrow
Not a one of us died today.  Today.
But a village is gone, burnt and rotting,
Soon to disappear into the jungle
Along the green Cambodian border
Up some obscure river.  Up there.  Somewhere.
A few hundred people.  Their ancestors’ graves
Will fade with them untended, forgotten

In the cold white mist

Radio Hanoi might blame it on us.
But maybe not.  We made our report and
Nobody really noticed; no one cared
The talk is of the VC battalion
And where it has gone, and where it might go –
Maybe into death under an air strike
“And you guys better get in some sack time,”
Says the C.O. as he turns to his maps.

In the cold white mist

HOMILY

I’m scared, and I want to go home.  I don’t care any more about justice or fighting Communism or winning the hearts and minds of the people.  I can’t think about all that right now, because I’m scared, and I want to go home.
I don’t care about truth or loyalty or bravery or honor.  If Miss March were here she wouldn’t get cold, but she sure would get sunburnt.  And in a few days her skin would start rotting.  Then nobody would want to see her in the **** anymore.  
I’m scared, and I want to go home.
Up the Vam Co Tay, everyone is scared, everyone is tired, everyone is sick, everyone could die: sailor, soldier, officer, priest, farmer, fisherman.  Everyone rots in the wet heat.  The skin bubbles and flakes and peels, and is pink again, to bubble and flake and peel again.  
I’m scared, and I want to go home.
I’m Doc.  I’m a scared, stupid kid with an aid bag and a few months’ training.  But I’m Doc.  I’ve got to fake it.  I’ve got to be cool and calm because this other kid with his guts hanging out will probably make it if I don’t ***** up and if the dust-off from Saigon can get out here now.
I have an old dog at home, and my folks write and tell me she sleeps outside my window at night, waiting for me to come home.  Someday we’re going to run and play in the woods and fields again.  She’ll bark and run wide circles, and dare me to catch her.  I will laugh under the autumn leaves.  But now my nights are glaring darkness, fits of sweat-soaked half-sleep, then sirens and falling glares and falling mortars, and then the Godawful racket of all our engines of destruction.  There isn’t any use in all this.
I’m scared, and I want to go home.

And I don’t want any ham and lima beans.

CREED

We believe in the Land of the Big PX
In presidents in suits, and generals,
In makers of economic strategies
We believe in flak jackets and .45s and peace

We believe in swing ships and dust-offs, yes
In the dark, green omnipresent Huey
Eternally begotten of technology
Blades to rotor, windscreen to machine guns
Made, not begotten, one in being with us
Through it all things are transported to us
For us men and our hunger and our hope
It comes down from the skies
By the high power of technology
It was born of the long assembly line

For whose sake are we crucified today?
Who suffers, and who dies and is baggied?
And on the third will arrive back home
To be neatly packaged in stainless steel

But not in ham and lima beans

LITURGY OF THE EUCHARIST

Preparation of the Gifts

Celebrant:

Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation.
Through your goodness we have this cheap Algerian wine to offer,
Fruit of the vine and work of human hands.
It will become anaesthesia for our souls.

People:

Blessed be…we just don’t know

Celebrant:

Pray, brothers, that our sacrifice may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father, to somebody.  Maybe.

People:

May the Lord, or the baggies, accept the sacrifice we offer with
our own burnt hands
For the praise and glory of…of what?
For our good, and the good of all His Church.

PRAYER OVER THE GITS

Little green cans, and I don’t care
Little green cans, and I don’t care
Little green cans, and I don’t care
Air cover’s gone away.

EUCHARISTIC PRAYER

Preface for the Monsoon Season:

Father, all-powerful
And ever-living God,
We do well always and everywhere
To give You thanks
Through Jesus God our Lord
Even with diarrhea
thanks
When the mail doesn’t come
thanks
When we rot
thanks
When the heat ***** at our brains
thanks
When the mud ***** at our boots
thanks
When the horror ***** at our souls
thanks
We’re alive
thanks

SANCTUS

Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of power and might
The bunkers are full of blood and death.
Hosanna in the mud.  Blessed is he who comes with the mail.  Hosanna in the mud.

EUCHARISTIC PRAYER

The Kien Tuong Province Canon:

A sailor is silhouetted against the dawn
Along a steamy river
Mostly helmet and flak jacket
Above dark plastic gunwales

The sailor has lost his New Testament
But there’s a ******* around somewhere
Naked, willing women –
Miss March wants to be an actress

He also carries an old plastic Rosary
To touch occasionally
While whispering a hurried Hail Mary
He hopes She understands

Those who in bell-bottoms and head-bands
Fight Fascism
In Sociology 201
Will never forgive him

A sailor is silhouetted against the dawn
This day he is to be elevated
His body broken and his blood shed
For you and for all men

OUR FATHER

Our Father, who art in Heaven
this ain’t it
Hallowed be thy name
Thy kingdom come
this ain’t it
On earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day…
not ham and lima beans
And forgive us our trespasses
as we shoot them that trespass against us
And lead us not into ambush
But deliver us from evil

SIGN OF PEACE

Peace on you.

AGNUS DEI

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: have mercy on us.

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: have mercy….

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: grant us peace.

Priest:

(But there is no priest)

People:  

Lord, I am not worthy to receive you,
But only say the word and I shall be killed.

COMMUNION ANTIPHON

They ate, and were not satisfied
They killed, and were not without fear.

PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION

Lord,
If we do not get out of this
Make some sense of it to those who remain
May we go home.  Home.  Or if not,
Take us unto you, in mercy.
Home.  Where you reign, for you are Lord
Forever and ever.  Amen

BLESSING

May you walk on grass that does not explode
May you sleep without rot
Without fear
May you never see or smell ham and lima beans again.
May you live
May you play with puppies
May you find forgetfulness
May you find peace
In the Name of Him who took your death for you

DISMISSAL

This is to certify that____is Honorably Discharged from the____on theday of____.  This certificate is awarded as a testimonial of Honest and Faithful Service.

CLOSING HYMN

Old men, smoking in the sunshine
Exiled outside the doors of life
Old uniforms, old pajamas
The chrome of wheelchairs, shiny, bright

Inside, polished wooden handrails
Line the hot, polished passages
Something to cling to on the way
To the lab, to x-ray, to death

And more old men, shuffling along
In a querulous route-step march
From Normandy, from The Cho-sen,
From the Vam Co Tay, from the deserts,
Past the A.I.D.S. ward and the union signs
On waxed floors to eternity

Portions previous published:

“Closing Hymn” is from “Outpatient Surgery – Veterans’ Hospital,” Juried Award, Houston Poetry Fest 1993

“In the Cold White Mist” is a Juried Award, Houston Poetry Fest 1991

“Old Man, Viet-Nam,” was published in Pulse, Lamar University, 1982

Harsh light falls on my fearful face
She stop thumped against my heart
Gliding night on crinkled tights
She worked and quirked her way in to me
Shoulders clinched as she spun her drift
She stomped trod on my soul
Set aloft in the ***** air
My eyes slopped their tears
Wet down her hair as she clenched
Lips dragged drug down my neck
Lamp lit light flung down and low
Fearful thoughts because I’ll crawl back
Fearsome thoughts as she works again.

cc1210

I
Hear the story of our oil –
Hail to oil!
From the glory days of Drake well we recoil,
To see seabirds flap and shudder,
Dolphins, turtles flop and sputter
With collective dying groan.
Hear our population moan
When the gasoline price geysers to the sky.
Still we drive, drive, drive,
To keep consumer binge alive,
Amid a maritime disaster fast evolving from the spoil
Of the oil.
For the oil, oil, oil, oil,
Oil, oil, oil,
For the gushing and the oozing of the oil.

II
Smell the ancient dark crude oil
Stinking oil!
Engulf the products made refining from a boil:
Guzzle gasoline flambé,
Drive-through fast food every day,
Raise our carbonated toast to Arctic roast…
Then drill more oil!
GM corn and corn-fed beef --
Both born of oil,
The shaving cream I slather on my face is made from oil,
Toothpaste, vitamins and lipstick,
Tires, everlasting plastic,
Come from oil;
All American affliction
Petrolopium addiction –
Truth is stranger now than fiction
And it does not set us free;
We are prisoners of oil,
And as slaves to OPEC pricing we all toil,
For the tapping and the lapping
Of the oil.
For the oil, oil, oil, oil,
Oil, oil, oil,
For the drilling and the swilling of the oil.

III
Soak in news of spilling oil –
Offshore oil!
In grim images of damage that the television splays;
First blow-out slimed in sixty-nine at Santa Barbara Bay
Then ten years next blew Ixtoc
In the Gulf of Mexico,
Two-ninety day gush tick tock
Slick slopped thousand miles away
To Texas shores!
In Alaska’s Prince William Sound
Exxon Valdez ran aground in eighty-nine;
Full tanker load erupted,
Left the rocky coast corrupted –
Prudhoe crude!
Seals and otters stuck in goo
Seabirds suffered coatings too,
Cruising tourists supped in view
Of the oil, oil, oil,
Thickened slick encrusted oil
On the shore!
How it clings and clogs and covers;
All aquatic life it smothers
Marsh and beach are left in cataclysmic mire!
Still we “drill baby drill,”
All our gas tanks gotta fill,
We must shop, shop, shop,
Lest our wasteful lifestyle stop,
So we run, run, run,
Take our car vacation fun --
At the beach…
See the sheen -- how it shines!
Pretty rainbow-colored lines
From the oil!
We love our oil, oil, oil, oil,
Oil, oil, oil,
For economy cachinging in the oil!

IV
Hear the praise of offshore oil,
Miles deep oil!
For the goal of independence on our oceans now we toil,
Till ungraceful conflagration
Twenty April rocked the nation
On the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.
Eleven lives were lost in blast
As the deep crude spewed out fast,
Gushing Hell!
Couldn’t stop it with top ****,
Junk shot, golf *****, caps wouldn’t still
Gushing well,
And the spreading, spreading, spreading
In a steady surging crawl,
Gulf coast residents all dreading
That their livelihoods might stall,
Now the fish and shrimp are ill,
Tourist business will be nil,
And still oil spews…
We must thank God that there’s *****,
For there’s nothing but bad news
And the ooze, ooze, ooze
Oily ooze.
Who will pay, who will pay?
Who will make this go away?
Who’s to blame? Who’s to shame?
Many pointy fingers aim –
Lefty points to rich BP,
Righty points to rock Obama,
And there’s six sticks pointing back at you and me!
We will pay, pay, pay,
At the gas pumps we will pay,
So we can drive, drive, drive,
And keep America alive;
Despite the grim disaster that arises from the spill,
The way we live and spend won’t easily end;
So we’ll still say “drill baby drill,”
Each time our gas tanks get a fill,
And we will shop, shop, shop
To do our patriotic duty --
Spend our *****, *****, *****
For the oil.
For the oil, oil, oil, oil,
Oil, oil, oil,
For the gushing and the oozing of the oil!

Drafted 6/8/10, revised 6/14/10

Zinging the zen-zone I was in
A zany request zig-zagged my way.
Princess Zinnia from the Zuider-Zee
Required a zippy line or two
To paint the zeitgeist of our times.

With the strength of a Zamboni-
With the power of a Zeus-
And an uncommon zeal I set out
To zap the doubt that slowed me.

With the flair of a Florenz Ziegfeld
And his zoftig choir of beauties,
I morphed into a zealot
Gamboling in the zephyrs
That wafted in from Zurich and Zaire,
Not to mention Zanzibar.

I felt like a Zacharias
When my zealous work went bust.
The writing turned into a zonk-
The accolades were zilch.
I felt like I’d been zippered up
Like a zebra in a zoo.

I lost my zest for going on
And slopped around in old Zoris,
Listening to zydeco’s beat
And feeling like a zit.

But then the Zodiac-
My zinging-singing sign
Came to my rescue
And I was marching off to Zion.

I was one wowie-zowie-zucchini
As I zipped across the pages
And zoomed from one idea
To an even zippier one.

So here, Sunprincess, is your verse
I’ve used up every letter zee
And gone from very bad to worse
But of this challenge, I am free.
                         ljm

I travelled straight west
to the epicentre of the southern wastelands
and 'twas with mind-numbing disbelief that
I found an Oak table propped upon the sands

and it was not alone either
for three beings sat it, seemingly nonplussed -
one was a skinny old man
wearing a linen suit faded and powdered with dust

his collar frayed around the edges
a moth-eaten hat sat upon his head,
he had a daisy poking from his breast pocket
so very much preserved, so very much dead,

to his left sat a one-eyed Hare
the sole eye ecstatic and wiggling -
he swore and blasphemed each time the man spoke
from a mouth toothless and dribbling,

sat to the right of the man
was absolutely (absolutely!) nothing,
however I observed with mild humour
that both man and Hare were convinced it must be something

for the man was profusely adamant
scorning the Something for dissing the Hare's hair,
although the Hare was too busy rolling around its one eye
to even notice the man, or simply give a fu- care

"Hey hey talk to I! Hath thou seen my missing eye?!"
Hare asked from a voice shrieky and shattered
saliva running in rivets
upon the table it slopped and slavered -

then suddenly the man started singing encore
his voice cringe-worthy, out of tune,
sounding like a cat back-broke and on steroids
rocking and waving like a spastic-loon;

"If Father Time has no end,
does he even have a beginning -
oh, if there's pain is there gain,
which one of us is it that's winning?"

alas, that's when my attention was brought to the mounds
of surgical needles cluttered on the ground,
feeling sickly aura lick the back of my throat
I started backing away without a sound

["Hey hey talk to I -"]

["If there's pain is there gain -"]

["Hath thou seen my missing Missing MISSING EYE?!!"]

#FLASH!#

the dystopian landscape around me melted
into a field of bloated poppies -

serene, scarlet and blinding 'neath the sun,
feasting upon our charred bodies.

AJ

Brown-Eyed Girl-
they say she is the weakest link
gone and sprung amuck
through clouded fields of poppy seeds
and cottony ******. they say she is a sprain
of chortling pain in the dumpling
maker's yeasting wrist.

brown-eyed girl seeing powdered
blues of glass-stained eyes,
he wore a plaid shirt, nip-and-tucked,
rat-a-tat-tat, and a silly looking bow-tie
slopped slightly off-kilter and to the right,
a frenchie little pear of a man. he said he liked her-
tie-dye thighs. she said, he said, she liked his
dumpling hands - and flakey chest.

they say she is that button-down clad-
sunflowers-printed kind-of, sad.
memories tainted, she said, he said,
she's the kind of girl you've got to love every night,
my kind of a woman. my salted oils, fried
and phat-  
                brown-eyed girl.

His fingers wrap tightly around his cup,
shaking, tingling, raising it to his lips often,
the white frothy coffee drink steaming
while his tongue ignores the intense heat.

She plays with straw and the cardboard cup,
letting the heat of the black coffee
ease the tension between her fingertips
and seep down to each of her toes.

She smiled at him, observing each detail
that she loved about his appearance.
He sincerely laughed at every word she said,
looking deeply into her ocean eyes at every chance.

His white drink remained in his cup
as he carefully took sips to relax his nervouseness,
but she slopped her dark grinds, spilling them
over the edge and permanently staining the white.

The cups, at first sight, seemed to describe their personalities.
And yet, at a deeper second look, described their demeanor.

On the outer appearance, he was put together and cautious,
with a plan for his entire future,
while she was messy and without a care for what's next,
oblivious to her own wreckage.

But on the insides, both were bitter-sweet coffees,
happy to finally see eachother after so long,
but nervous because of their unresolved last encounter.
He was pure, curious white. She was dark, mysterious black.
Totally opposite and yet perfectly compatible.

Neither admitted one missed the other,
yet they promised to meet every summer and winter forever.

i see technicolour but mostly violet
slopped across the walls in polygon inlays as
the bulb from above casts a glare across bare walls
like a nuclear winter, i huddle beneath the coverless duvet
trying to breathe life into sentence fragments as a
freight train tears up the blackened skyline and
with morning, this will be a memory too

He taught them
where to carve
the dead parts
so the rest could live,
to find its flow
and tap its sap.

With every mistake
the mentor took each
student by the hand
on a short walk
to the middle
of the forest

where it slopped
into pools
thick with inky water,
where the mist
often got trapped
between light and dark.

He mixed water and mud
and pressed it into their chest,
took a sharp branch
and gently scratched
his secret words into them,
until it became a tattoo.

He then gave each a bag of seeds
and a canteen of pool water,
guided them back to their errant tree,
chanted for them to mix both
into the thirsty soil until
it no longer screamed for inspiration.

The students repeated this every day,
watching the grass bloom infinite variations,
discovering their tongues speak
at first his and then their secret words
until they knew all of them,
even those yet to be spoken.

I stare at her across the bar, between the bottles covering the worn out stained oak
varnish tarnished, wood soaked
from years
of ashed out cigarettes and spilt beers
slopped spirits from over zealous cheers
she's younger than I imagined, aged as a fine wine
her eyes locked on mine
I see the solar system, galaxies
surrounding the
pupils blacker than the abyss of the outer reaches of space
a lovely contrast to the lightness of her face
I pull up a seat beside her trying to spark a conversation
on life, nature, hopes for modern civilization or even space exploration
she says "quiet now my son, patience"
you're to focused on what you're saying
without hearing what you're conveying
her hand pressed to my heart and she said 43 beats I remember
39 when you sleep, but 84 when you're tempered
I asked her the significance
she said it's all about the difference
how my world is at peace when I am asleep
but pointless rage forces the increase
this life can go no faster
and you will know no master
so focused on breaking the mold, or shattering the plaster
when we really need the subtle hand to make the cast first
she said you see me all in your own ways
I saw her as a woman, soft eyes with a caring face
for no man knows the subtle intricacies and nuances that make living worth the fight
I met god in a bar, she walked me home in the beautiful night
we spoke of love, happiness and the pursuit  of this life...

I wonder if people feel the same,
questioning, pondering,
not knowing in nature,

I wonder if the masses as they walk the streets,
tiny ants carrying a thousand times they're defeat,
see the light refract and carry back,
images form and recollect,
cellulose film with a story to tell,

I wonder if the girl that gives me the smile,
had depth in wondering the same,
had she known the butterflies that ran through my skin,
a feeling of jumping from a formidable cliff,
not for hate, degradation, abhorrence, malevolence or animosity,
but just the opposite,
to show the love we carry
in the arms of adoration,
hydraulic hearts
pumping fidelity, fondness, and friendship,
fueled by breaths of fresh air,
in that smile we shared,

I wonder if the ones who hate,
can also love,
does the man covered in mud,
slopped in filth, mayhem and blithe,
lye by choice,
or is it easier said than done,
would a good man cover himself in blood,
if honest true and to the point,

so I'll sit on this bench,
birds chirp as the children play,
dogs off leashes,
running amuck,
but who can place blame,
as being put on a leash,
restricts our breath,
causing no smile,
not to breath our fresh air,
to pump our hearts,
giving us love,

so I lastly wonder,
had I had the nerves,
to just say hi,
would you have stopped
or just said good bye,
will I be the man I wish,
or am I the man in filth?

Threads get darker
when wet
with tears, salty sweat,
spilled water on a date,
beer slopped, slurred state.
Color is characteristic,
evidence, not mystic,
of time and results
of the feelings from insults
not spoken.
Here is a token
to show you
this is your cue.

"Write a poem"
those three words are all it takes
and before I know it
everything i've ever known
all that i've ever experienced
is wretched from inside of me
and taped (clumsily)
aligned (crookedly)
and stapled (loosely)
to this signpost we call hellopoetry
maybe someone will notice
most will pass it by
but little do they know that it's not my words that are dripping with angst on the pole
it's me
because my words are me
they filter through my brain, my gut
my love, my hate, my biases, prejudices, hurts, scars, fears,
ideas, thoughts, hopes, dreams and most definitely
most importantly
my heart

so remember as you read these words
and their words
you're not just reading poems
you're not just glancing at some scribbles on a page
slopped together to mean nothing
and consumed,
like a 50 cent burger at a diner.
you're reading expression
true, raw, human, expression
and you need to pay attention
because that expression
can sometimes
but more often then not
mean everything.

My tongue sharpened today

Angles fell off it like classroom fancies

Rationalised to a point, its first act

Was to knock out my fangs from behind.


I stumbled about the house

Slopped through the bathroom door

And foamed at the toilet seat, a

Wave broken over a rim of briny coral.


My salt winked about the walls, around the tap, between the wiped tiles

In the shower head of porous sponge

The seaweed in the pipes crawled up

And drowned me in the sickly sweet.


Downstairs smelt the same, logically the sea dumped down

Underwater fish glided past my window, all with the same

Grim face against the mirrors, aping the ocean

With me trapped inside.


I turned on the same song, fifteen times,

The sound tried to reach me with such ambition

But it floated to the top, belly up in its bubbles

Ridiculous, I scratched the date on the seafloor and entered the kitchen.


Drips everywhere, grease stalactites, from the tiles, the yawning oven, the spatulas

A Cretaceous museum where savagery is kept

In little plastic boxes, with clear peelable lids

A fresh, messy ****.


In the hall the grey light descends through slit windows

Colour settling at the bottom like grit, all the greys so tall

Give the narrow rectangle an aftertaste of dust

Just one keeper before me


It devours my key, hacking as it gobbles

But it does not anticipate my twist

I gut it from inside, it spits its meal back at me

And I swing its limp, dead frame 90 degrees.


Stepping out feels like a moonwalk, with Houston's neutral formulas

Unheeded in my ear, finally I can greet the clouds, that probably escaped,

Like me, fumes from the chimney

Pale and fading away from lack of auspicious sun.

In the bottom of the world, where the eye can’t trace,
There is a world. Far from worlds of all kinds, there’s a maze.
It’s slopped down and valleyed to the edge of the earth. From earth it rises
and flashes like an army of ants. Mutinying army ants in hermit clothes praises.

Little huts made of clay. Ants clay-model rants they philosophize the earth. Planet of hearth.
mutineers of hard work, far from working life and politics. Licks the Saturdays to Sunday dirge.

Your sorrow will be gone morrow,
Your silence will be force of horror.

We will help you seek your justice.
All you need to do is now is close your eyes and wait for precipice.
It will bear the name of your Victor. Traitors and victory echoless.

You can rise again, stitch the rashes for Phoenix,
Fluttering to the dewy meadow of blue above. Rise above the sky this time.
Close your eyes and fly this time. Never another time to rise, close and soar but this time.

They lived in a farm on the lower slopes
Of a place called Gresty Hill,
Three sisters, Emily Jane and Hope
And the younger one called Jill,
My father said to avoid those girls
And my mother echoed him,
‘They’re plain and nasty and not for you,
My son, my darling Jim.’

Like everything that’s denied to you
My interest was aroused,
I’d watch them swilling the pigs below
And milking the Jersey cows,
They went barefoot and they slopped through mud,
When they laughed, I heard their cries,
And watched from up on the hill above
Till I caught their laughing eyes.

Then they’d point at me, and they’d strut and flounce
And would shake their tangled hair,
A blonde, brunette and an auburn girl
They would stand below, and stare,
And sometimes, when they were feeling bold
They would hitch their skirts up high,
Put one foot on a water cask
And show me a muddy thigh.

‘Don’t never go down to that Gresty Farm,’
My parents made me swear,
‘For once they get you they’ll use their charm
And will likely keep you there.’
But the girl called Jill had a butter churn
And she made it soft as silk,
And came with Hope to our rustic barn,
Selling the sisters’ milk.

They smiled and giggled when I came out
And they ****** their wares at me,
‘I don’t know whether the folks will want,’
I said, ‘I’ll go and see.’
But my father came and shooed them off,
‘We don’t want the likes of you!
You keep yourselves to your Gresty Farm
And do what you have to do.’

I asked my mother what they had done
And she shed a whispy tear,
‘Some things cannot be undone, my son,
I try not to interfere.’
My father turned to me, stony, grim
Said sleeping dogs should lie,
‘The likes of them are forbidden, Jim,
But you’ll not know the reason why.’

The day came after my father fell
From the tractor, over the hill,
Was crushed, and after the funeral
All of his secrets spilled.
My mother took me aside to say
That my father wasn’t a saint,
‘You know how a cuckoo drops its egg
In another’s nest… Don’t faint!’

‘Two of the three at Gresty Farm
Were his, but I don’t know which,
Their widowed mother would put about
Before they were born, the *****!
It well could be the first and the third,
The second, I couldn’t tell,
All I know is your father made my
Life, like a living hell!’

Jim went down to the Gresty Farm
For the first time in his life,
He lined up three of the Gresty girls
And said, ‘I need me a wife.
I’m told that two of the three of you
Are my sisters, is it true?
I need to know what your mother knows
For I sure can’t marry two.’

Their mother Gail gave a fearsome wail
When confronted by the four,
The daughters said, ‘Well we never knew,
Why didn’t you tell us before?’
‘Emily Jane and Hope were his,
I never was going to tell,
But Jill was William Parson’s girl,
Your father should burn in hell!’

He took Jill back to his hillside farm
And he called his mother out,
‘This is Jill, and her father’s Bill,
I’ve been told that, without doubt.’
Then he said to Jill, ‘Will you marry me?’
She was coy, and answered slow,
‘You’ll have to prove you can carry me,
If you can, you never know!’

David Lewis Paget

You texted me this morning
and I know you didn't mean it to,
but that message made my heart,
and my lungs,
and my stomach
all sink to some new foreign place
down past my intestines somewhere.
Like they all slopped out on to the floor.

I was at work when I read it,
and I swear I saw your face
in every customer who walked through the door.
I wanted to reach out and shake you
like it would rattle some twisted wires back into place
but all I could seem to do was count them your change.

So tonight we'll scream over airwaves
two hundred miles apart,
and try to make amends.
You'll tell me you need your freedom
and I'll try to convince you
that this life we've created in the last three and a half years,
has been worth more than broken down cars
and spilled beer.

Like how I need you more than the houses we've made into homes,
more than the three dollar tips from condescending customers
so I can get a drink at the end of the night,
more than lost best friends turned room mates and back again.

We'll take it slow from here
try to rebuild and repair,
but please tell me is a burning house worth saving
after the paint has melted away
and rooms become blackened by smoke,
what about after the rafters fall in?

Mummy,
Happy birth-mothersday
Throw ya toast out the window
Feed it to the dog
Kiss me with your laughing eyes
Kiss me kindly with your lips
Touch my cheek with your smooth brown hands
Not one more time
But forever more times please Mum
Let's get ***** growing potatoes
Let's get paint on the carpet
Let's write love notes on the walls
Like all normal people do
Tell me to make you a cuppa tea.
(I'm turning into you mum.)
Sing my songs to me mummy
Tell me about Rindacella again
please tell me how she slopped her dripper on the stairs
Can you hear the morepork Mummy? Listen with me
Did you see that shootin' star?
Are you smelling these trees?
Wrap me up in itchy woollen cardies
Put my odd socks on
Puddle jumpin' in my gummies
In a land called Honalee
I'll climb into bed with you tonight
Lace bedspread catching my toes
Curl up in the nest of the crook of your knees
It's cold, sleep back-to-back
Dance in front of my friends if you like
They all think you're cool
Sorry I didn't tell you.
Teenagers ****.
Tell me I'm amazing
Adventurous and strong
Your courageous daughter
Smart and beautiful
Remind me I can sail ships through storms
That God is always close
Pray over me and praise with me
Read the bible again to me
Come play piano with Isobel
Or computer games if you like
I think I've killed your Farmville farm
Sorry .
Mummy
Chat with me on Facebook
Ocean's teacher likes Donald Trump
Be outraged with me please
Come with me to the school
I'll hide behind your storm
People aren't afraid of my
Gentle, steady rain
I think I hear my babies stirring
They're amazing Mum
You should see the stuff they do and say
You should see how fierce they are
You should. You should. You should.
Be. Here.
They're creeping round the house now
Making my heart laugh
I better open up my bedroom window
Ready for the toast.

We were probably thirteen. I told
my parents I'd be bowling, borrowed
five pounds and you
did the hard part. Asking men out-
side the off-licence to help us.
I tried to make if look like we were old-

er or together but it wasn't
long before we had the bottle
or six of Bacardi Breezer. Prising
each lid off with my keys,
you picked out seats from the dusk
deserted cricket stand.

A couple through, you showed me
how to put my hand in someone's pants
as sticky alcopops slopped
round and down again. I couldn't open
our last nightcap so we stamped
its neck against a brick and doubled up.

We didn't kiss goodbye, just
staggered into swaggers step
by step across the Common.
My mouth fizzed with syrup
residue and blood from broken
glass.

Clicking heels make an almost deafening sound in the nearly empty front hallway. The bright florescent lights sending glaring light on the ***** linoleum tiles. The trophy case full of empty accomplishments and forgotten triumphs.
The few straggling students stumble in slowly shuffling to the attendance office for a pass. A few stop and ask for the time, what hour to go to, only to realize they have a full day ahead of them.
The gossip type chatter of the counselors drifts into the hallway, and you can sense that they need just as much counseling and bully prevention as the kids. The annoyed pessimistic voices of all the men and women in the office spill out like gusts of wind every time the door is opened.
The cold depressing feeling of this prison haunts, as the real physical cold of the building chills you. A girl crying runs into the counseling office only to be taken back out to talk about her problem in public.
The tisking of the janitor is overpowered by the smell of chemicals just being slopped onto door knobs and sloshed over fountains. The disapproving scowl of the assistant principal is directed at kids drudging through the halls aimlessly, but a voice of guidance is never heard.
The smell of cigarettes marrs not only the kids but the teachers and adults coming back in after going outside. The police officers stand joking by the front entrance.
But its all good, its just another day in Highschool.

Monday started off sunny
We finished the north forty
That lunch you fixed
Was a real big hit with the rest
Old man Jose sends his best

We had a few laughs
When the tractor got stuck
Jack ripped his new jeans
On the old combine machine
All the while yelling what the truck

No love tonight honey
I’m feeling the fog
Yes, I moved the car
And yes I slopped the hogs
Not tonight honey
Some **** fool stole my favorite dog

The man in the suit
Only offered us half
We’ve been nursing that crop all year
To move things along
I thought of this song
Btw, is there any more beer ?

No love tonight honey
I’m feeling the fog
Yes, I moved the car
And yes I slopped the hogs
Not tonight honey
Some **** fool stole my favorite dog

The radio went out somewhere around noon
To pass the time and not lose our minds
We sang old Motown tunes

This coming weekend would feed my habit
Tex and I planned to go hunt rabbit
From a little pup that dog knew what to do
Both of us loved coming home to you

No love tonight honey
I’m feeling the fog
Yes, I fixed the sink
And yes I chopped some fire logs
But, not tonight honey
Some **** fool stole my favorite dog

We’d picked up the cottage for peanuts, as
It sat on the edge of a wood,
The air was damp and we used a lamp,
No power in that neighbourhood,
But the sun came filtering in through the leaves
On the pleasant summer days,
It was like we were living a hundred years
In the past, using former ways.

We carried our water in from a well
That sat just outside the door,
We had to lower a wooden pail
And it slopped all over the floor,
But Meredith laughed, and said it was fun,
She felt like a pioneer,
‘I’m getting to know how things were done
In the neck of the woods, round here.’

We fired the stove and the hearth with wood,
Gathered among the trees,
For branches fell, in the storms as well
When the wind was more than a breeze,
I chopped it up on a wooden block
And carted it all inside,
To see it stacked by the kitchen clock
Gave me a sense of pride.

Upstairs was a single bedroom with
An attic room beside,
The walls were covered with wallpaper
From a distant time and tide,
The bedroom was an ocean blue
And the attic was painted green,
I said to Meredith, ‘Shield your eyes,
It’s the brightest thing I’ve seen.’

The damp had got in the attic wall
And the paint had started to rot,
Up in one of the corners you
Could see a slight fungus spot,
But we didn’t need the room just then
So I said, ‘Just let it be.
I’ll find the time to attend to it
When the rest has set me free.’

But Meredith’s sister came to stay
So we had to use the room,
We turned it into a bedroom with
A flick of a whisking broom.
Rhiannon was a beauty, I’ll
Admit that she took my breath,
So young, and with her life unsung
And yet she was close to death.

She’d been and slept in the Green Room
For a week, or maybe more,
When she said, ‘I fell, and I feel unwell,’
Then she coughed up blood on the floor.
So Meredith was distraught, and thought
She’d sleep at her sister’s side,
But early the following morning she
Then told me her sister died.

She stayed with her sister’s body there,
She said it was like a tomb,
And soon my Meredith coughed up blood,
She said ‘It’s an evil room!’
A doctor came with the ambulance
And looked at the flaking mould,
Then said, ‘I think it’s the paint, my dear,
I’ve heard of this stuff of old.’

He scraped it then, and he tested it
And he came back round to see,
‘You know that paint’s full of arsenic,
There’s a well known history.’
And life was never the same for us
When we sat in the cottage gloom,
I could always hear Rhiannon’s cough
Up in that attic room.

While Meredith put the blame on me
Packed up her things and left,
She said that I should have scraped it off,
Then left me, feeling bereft,
She’d lost her sister, and I lost her
So I sit alone in the gloom,
My heart has stopped like a ticking clock,
And the cottage, now, is a tomb.

David Lewis Paget

Our wedding license was
Just a promissory note;
A thing a compulsive
Liar once wrote.
Something Billy Jack
Once said, in short,
"Written so you could
Get out of it in court."

I find myself saying
When it's all said and done
"What  are you, anyway,
A secret republican?"
I thought it was just political
But, you devious little cuss,
Your sidewinding ways
Have slopped over into us.

A one-sided marriage
Is what we have now.
I put up with it all this time
But please don't ask me how.
It has been rather like you
Don't know what marriage is for
So write this down someplace:
I'm not gonna take it anymore.

One person by himself
Simply cannot make a pair.
Hey saddest thing of all
Is I doubt did you will care.
A month or two from now
Or maybe further on
You might look up and discover
That half your team is gone.

Inattentive to blackened slopped lashes,
which run coal tributaries land-sliding
from her eyes to her chin, he walks
in direct aim for an exit. She squawks

her “You never loved me,” wailings
to whom she, never loved herself. As frenzy
slams between them, violent collision
of his realization, sparks his next decision

and he stops. One hand in empty pocket,
on empty wallet, he is spun illogically
and holds second palm against door.
Lacquered eye in peephole’s furor,

is  batting on other side. He softly makes
his sweet tortured apology, “Sorry.”
You see how for pitiful poor love,
is for pitiful poor, all there to speak of.

I walked along the shore,
   orchestra of shushes
as water slopped
                        across my bare toes,
jangle of pebbles
as I placed one foot
                                 in front of the other.

In the distance
                         the orangeade tang of neon lights
                         punctuated the view,
electric hyphens
from the arcades
crammed with Irn-Bru-skinned tourists
   there for a week
on this comma of coast.

In the winter          it is different.
A silver fug that sweeps the streets
     like the cocoons of a thousand ghosts,
machine jingles muzzled,
cafes only drip
                        fed with regulars
                                                     from around the corner
coming in to pick the horses
for the 2.10 at Uttoxeter.

The phone quaked in my pocket -
   my mother, calling me home.
I passed the sandcastle rubble,
   slobber of seaweed
   like the drool of a kelpie,

my socks speckled with sand
as I texted back
on my way

Dappled sweat, bile, snot, the quick
Boiled then burst. A flushed anemic,
My body nothing but a seam.

Rag slopped, sodden shot to wick,
Smeared the table thick with sheen,
Rutting reek on things pristine.

Outpours the raw and unhygenic -
Perfection is this bowl swabbed clean.

The pen seeks
         A new ink
As we jot
A new thought
         And think
What needs to be said
Caught in the web
Of our heads
   Spider spun sync

        The fly gets caught
And we prey a new plot
Devouring this meal
         And the reader
Gets wrapped up in our knot

The pen hungers
A new thought
A new ink
A new jot
So we feed it
To please it
Like a pet peeved
For another meal
And the readers get fat

As the audience gets big
Words fill the pig
And they joyously
Roll in the words slopped

The pen seeks
And it finds
What the readers won't let stop

Hunger

Matthew loosened his grip with a sigh,
Those smallnesses regained strength
Freedom felt cool against released fingers,
Strangely wet and salty from his oiliness.
I didn't want to get up right away,
It felt good to just lay in his arms,
Breathing in spring air, secure in his warmth,
Listening to him breathe in discretly,
Like he didn't want to make any noise.
His black tunic was somewhat rough against my skin,
But it was better than staining my cloak with green,
Dandelions had conquered the entire field around us,
An old waterwheel slopped up water and dropped it back into a stream,
Gently easing away my cares, my senses were dulled,
Spring was here,
We were alone.

When you don't have a home
you begin to appreciate
the things you do own

the cloth that hugs my arms
and back and neck
that warms my body
and becomes a pillow
for a nap
on a slopped fleshy hillside

Mandolin plinking from a tiny speaker,
McKnight doing his damndest to make my knee bounce,
Bringing tunes that remind me of Appalachian summers,
Transporting me to those mountains and hills.

Summer barbeques with Carolina gold slopped into mashed taters,
Sweet corn smothered in butter,
Gentle breezes and acoustic guitars,
Grilling meat and beer in ice-filled coolers,
Giggling young'uns and laughter of their parents,
Such vivid memories of the oldest generations,
Telling of the time their homesteads received electricity.

These wise elders regaled us with oddities and anecdotes,
Nuggets of delivered knowledge wrapped in allegory and stories,
Their amusement evident in their not-as-bright eyes,
As they watch us trying to suss out true blue kernels of wisdom from the tall tales.

Family friends that are loved just as strongly as my own parents,
Friends they grew up with,
From WAY back in the day,
Telling each other the same tale for the millionth time,
And yet laughing uproariously like it was the first time.

These are days that have been in the past,
And snapshots of days in the future,
When supper in summer Appalachia happens once again,
Great nostalgia and anticipation wrapped up in a great ball of joy,
South of the Ohio Border.