I'm cold. A chill in the air.
Wood fire dwindling to smolders.
Ash crisped cinders to share.
Cotton between our shoulders.
That endearing musk of burnt wood.

A soft kiss on your cheek.
My arm wrapped round you.
I whisper in your ear
those words I do love to speak.

"I'll distract you not from the beauty of this world,
nor the loves you've counted.
I'll never let you waver from your hearts dream.
Stay true - look up ahead and mine will be seen."

This faint light up ahead.
It flickers and dances.
Clawing and bubbling to break.
Daylight will be upon us, no chances.
Don't blink or you'll miss this.
The birth of life - light years away.
An explosion of color flooding the sky.
Life inspiring feeling - opposite to grey.
Rain of warm power filling my voids.

A dream born anew each day.
A love found in you.
Explored in every single way.
A never ending gift.
If only we're awake.

Just then as it broke.
Did you feel it?
I felt yours and you mine.
Our hopes and dreams become one.
A valley of trust now glowing.
Warm tones red through yellow.
Delivered by the morning saint.
My dream revealed.
Endless passion only the sun could paint.

J.R. said the man in the helmet said, “Goodbye, my friend,” before shooting his father in the chest. His body sank, but the man shot him twice more, in the head and cheeks. The children said the three men were laughing as they left.*
-Daniel Berehulak, They Are Slaughtering Us Like Animals, New York Times

Manila, goodnight.
The world is watching you slowly die.
Tattered truths & losing sense of life
captivate your battered night. Mud hurls blood
streets batted with horror & blabbed
anonymous spirits ghostlier than ever.

(Even ghostlier than your Martial Law days)

Manila, tranquilize yourself.

Your rest will be disturbed by scourged souls, thunderous cracks of guns,
bullets hitting flesh, motorcycle tandem arrests,
people’s holy shouts shunning shibboleth sounding death.

Hear them not. Sleep well.

Maggots festering wound. Manila,
on your knees, worms stich your broken nerves
healing gunshot wounds with peace.

Your night will be a train of madness
shattered by lies through morbid holes in skulls
& confessions in cardboard signs.

(Justice today is served cold, so cold)

& everything from that day on is simply to be known
as a cold just.

Truth decays. Life smolders, vanishing.

Your nights will be unthreaded from memories
for no one dares to look back to twisted arms clenched
by plastic strips, head bowing to ground (instead of ground
bowing to head), ground kissing the body naked swarmed
either by grease or blood, the body breaking gossips
among gossipers & gossamer among spiders.

Weep not, dead men tell no fiction.
Their bodies are the shocking truth, forsaken
shocking headlines hissing morning papers
peppered with mint or lies.

Manila, goodnight for your night will be remembered
through vigilant myths & nothing more.

Often cold bodies, freezing voices from limbo,
can’t speak nor bothered the living.

Again, Manila, in your arms, dead men tell no tales.

The killing spree of fragmented morality,
mortality, fatality, vanity, sanity, insanity, apathy.

Manila, do not move. You are now sedated with fear,
stronger than cooked methamphetamine of crooked realities,
no less than a drug making your anxious, bothered
in the darker & dimmer night
in dimmer  & darker disaster.

Manila, walk with your graffiti walls.
Your gutters will be banks of blood. Daylight traffic
will erase your night’s unwelcoming sphere. Last night
persists as tiny figment of imaginings photographed
& again, nothing more.

Everything will pass like hyacinths of Pasig River.

Everything will pass like one’s eternal passing.

Everything will pass like a chilling December wind.

Everything will pass either a typhoon or a butterfly fluttering.

Manila, goodnight. I am afraid they will ****** you
in your sleep. I am afraid that everything will just pass
like your breath losing hold of your lungs then your heart.

I am afraid that your death, my dear Manila,
will just be a neighbourhood rumour passing
& everything turns into a fiasco of a madman who believes
that he is a messiah, was he a messiah or never he will be a messiah.

Manila goodnight, I will watch you in your sleep. Your sleep
will be a thousand fold peace. No more of your sons or daughters
will be killed at least not in my memory.

Manila, here comes the night. Sleep,
sleep holy in the hidden lair of my mind. Your
catacomb will be wreathed by flowers & tears.
Incense will be fragrant burning bones. Your life,
your tired life will be a gentle ebbing of time
like your Bay’s sunset beauty, like your lively street people
like your once known heritage, your life
in the busy daybreak of your kindred sons.

Goodnight, my dear Manila.

Ground smolders and smokes

Luminescent men, humps at the front

**** and poke

The air acrid, the smell of burning stone

On a wall three boys

Gaze, eyes wide, mouths

Marleyesque, dropping

Bewitched as the florescent men

Smooth and calm the steaming earth

Spraying water from a can

To quench its thirst

The seething, black

And exhausted ground

Murmurs in sick response

To its own fragmented curse

A yellow dragon near by

Belches black blood

Oozing from its innards

Through Gothic gargoyle mouth

The lime coloured men shovel

This toxic *****, smear it

Across the gasping earth

That lies, ripped like a jagged

Wound on a dying man

The lime colored men

Mount the yellow dragon

Speed off, leaving

The scorched ground

Burning and hissing,

With sulphurous smoke

A million sizzling angry snakes

The three boys run away in freight

Dropping playthings as they fumble

And tumble in their horrified flight

The black earth cries, bubbles

And consumes their toys

Passes sentence

Makes them L'Enfant Commune

The lost boys

Then there is a quiver

A tedious tremble, a treble;

That played like stretched

Elastic flicked with

Forefinger and thumb

Making the heart numb

Extracting false confessions

A stench of putrid untruth

*** charades of delicate

Ravaged faced youth

A drole de ménage

Slave to the hunger

Of the unknown demand

The French grooming

Of horses, that may charm

The curious but leaves curiosity

Still smouldering in the

Hidden depths of the

Universal mind

Sanumbolists in the

Fullness of a dream of

Ineffable torture consume need

The boys cry out, for the

Earth has stolen a liars tongue

Branded them abominable

With decaying enormities

Detestable, enamelled eyes

Lurk and peer from

Behind gauzed curtains

A corpse of understanding

That inspects the invisible

Images of imbeciles

Parchments dripping in powdered

Crystalline drops smear the pavements

The boys wave their arms

But no-one sees them

There is the rise and fall of cryptic waves

That ebb and flow scorching

A shore of silent sorrows

Lapping feverously at the

Arc of a whirlpool

Whose decreasing concentric

Circles **** the boys down

Into an eternity of hot tears

Leaves them without parents

Gives their brothers and sisters

Into a slavery of barbarous belief

A ferocious language

Banning the boys from all beaches

Provides tyrannical pilgrimages

To black robbed priests

Possessors' of serpents' hearts

The yellow dragon returns

Lemon coloured men spill

From its foaming mouth

The boys hide behind

Dead rose bushes

Ah, but their tenebrous

Trembles creak in the

Blotched and bloodied

Butchers sawdust

A fabulous elegance cradles them

Making the smoking dragon angry

It spews molten bile taken

From the bloated stomachs

Of white beasts

The luminosity of the

Lemon coloured men

Increases to blindness

They wave tattered antediluvian

Bark and scream from

Their dark, deceitful, anchored armchairs

From railed and spiked alters

Spitting bitterest gall

The lemon coloured men

Butcher the fabulous elegance

Leaving the boys naked

Prey to the perfections of

Puerile generosities

That vows to extinguish

Their human desire

Vacant eyes with

Nauseating sight strut

A cruel distortion

Terrifying voices offer

Demonic destruction

The boys weep, but

no-one hears them

A violent paradise

Of popular poses tries,

But fails to caress them

The dragon burns the boys

But no-one smells them

Their terror turns to molten flesh

The lemon coloured men

Spread it over the earth

The beast' heart beats

Joyfully in its bulbous belly

Sacred men smile while

Pitiless priests provide

A comedy

The boys become a hallow

Antique night their left

Legs held up for all

To see

Delirium devours the minds

Of a subjugated people

The deadly hissing of the earth

Like a silken spectre rises

Making scintillating shudders

Through the spiked splinters

Of time

Intelligence is reduced

To the rubble of religious

Intolerance

Lime, yellow, lemon drips

Heated plastic from false eyes

There are cries, sights and sounds

But no-one hears, sees or speaks

No real people are left

Similar boys watch from a wall

Huddle together and weep

My innocence and joy, thriving and burning brightly
Beaming like the sun, then flickering like a flame
Slowly dies down to embers
Smolders, wanes.

My laughter and hope, spirited and whirling wildly
Astir like an ocean, then grows steadily tame
Becomes languid and lazy
Stills, drains.

My ambitions and dreams, alive and beating fiercely
They thrum like a heart, then turn tired and lame
Lose their pulse and fade away
Bleed, stain.

I can taste your misery, and it's killing me.

I've walked into a tunnel.
Following coats,
Dragging behind in
Abandon
The light is slitted
The shape above is
Too Close to my head.
The sharp,
Undecided angles bother me
And a nervous twitch begins.

I imagine it like a funnel,
Sorting population
To pass through in
Close quarters,
Contact guaranteed.

I sneeze
And cough.
My fever smolders
Making my skin chill,
And the thought of disease
Enters, and crowds with me,
Suffocating me to one side-
But not too close-
Don't touch anything.
Fear grows.
I am already sick
But I could get sicker.

Conspiracy drips over my thoughts,
My fever leaving the
normal functioning funnel
In my mind
To be burned away-
materializing in the city-
Around me.
My thoughts bunch
In clusters
And pass all at once,
Leaving waves of nausea
And claustrophobia
As I continue through the tunnel,
Paranoia worsening my symptoms
By the step.

In the twilight of harsh day
The melancholy sinks into silence.
The chill, the grey.
Neither dark nor light.
We cast no shadows,
Leave no marks.
Our secrets are as safe
As our silhouettes that are,
For now, unseen.
The flame we wish to start
Only smolders,
Not yet ready to brighten
Our darkened corners
Our guarded eyes.
We are free, for moments,
To feel our sharpest memories.
To bleed in peace.
In the twilight,
Our pain is safe.

A worst-case-scenario mentality
Breeds emotional nightmares of what-ifs
Methodically feeling the pain in each possibility
Preparing for Hell, knowing it is impractical, improbable, and unkind
Each reaction gauged
Smiles erupt in each better choice
A familiar road traveled often
Lead only by a history of pain
It ebbs and flows, bobs and weaves at will
This reality is organized, easy to understand

Random thought of an unlikely, unfathomable future
Vivid like a film
Unwavering, persistent
There is no controlling its outcome
Forced to watch the images forged in a broken mind
Tears burn flesh and a naked heart bleeds
Stop rolling, just...stop
No amount of pleading slows the images
The pain is overwhelming
Far beyond self-inflicted, torturous, methodical thoughts
Uncontrollable, inconsolable
True and real
So very real

There is but one way to stop that future
The one shown in visions of just deserts
The future that smolders through present joy
Preemptive pain is just not an option

I've seen the future my heart has built
The shards of a shattered soul
Offer no comfort

My worst-case-scenario was but a benign freckle on the elbow of a body invaded by metastatic melanoma

What is courage?

Is it a sharp breath before jumping off the edge?
Is it the tightness in your chest
That pulls you up when everyone else is sitting down?
Is it the burning heat in your eyes
That smolders and boils
As you gaze upon those who oppose you?
Is that courage?
Or is courage the defiant silence –
The silence that watches your nose bleed
In the foggy cracked mirror?
Is it the child who says, “I love you”
Between the sniffling and trembling?
Is courage allowing the tears to come
When there are people around to witness your suffering?
Is courage looking up?
Is courage focusing on the next step forward
Rather than the hundreds already taken?
Is courage doing what you believe is right
No matter how much your palms sweat
Or how much your knees shake
Or how much your stomach twists
Or how much your lips tremble
Or how much doubt you feel
That anything you do will change anything?
Is courage a lie?
Does Courage exist?
A dictionary says Courage is
“The quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc. without fear”
If that is truly what courage means,
Then there is no such thing.
Fear is not something that you can decide not to have.
Fear is deep.
Fear is psycological.
Fear is biological.
Fear is natural.
Fear is not a pebble in one’s brain that can be removed on a whim.
Fear can, however, be ignored.
Fear can be climbed over.
Fear can be conquered.
Facing a difficulty fully aware of the fear
Is what makes an action courageous.
Courage is speaking up
Acting out
Crying
Smiling
Holding back
Being silent
Knowing the punch is going to come
Knowing the insult is going to come
Knowing the tears are going to come
And the conflict
And the questions
And the darkness
And the thunder
And the criticism
And the judgement
And the violence
And the doubt,
Disbelief, and denial
And knowing that 3:30 AM comes around every single night
Regardless of whether or not you can sleep.
Courage is opening your eyes
Even when you don’t like what you see
Because you have to.
And you don’t have to just because somebody told you to
Or because you read it somewhere
Or heard it somewhere
Or saw it somewhere.
You have to because there’s substance in you.
There’s a third dimension to you.
You have to because that tightness in your chest
Isn’t something you control.
There is no Courage Switch.
You can’t cultivate courage.
Everyone has it but not everyone has seen it.
Not everyone has used it
But everyone can.

Nothing good ever comes up with something so beautiful.

I heard they found a fossil on Mars,
impossible things are beginning to happen.
Soon enough, we will gloriously collapse and crumble
and the ashes will turn into gold,
and the only thing I'll remember
is the sound of your heartbeat
and the flashing pair of cinnamon eyes,
over the bar's blinking lights.

You are the epitome of every single thing I'm afraid of.
You break things because you don't know how to take care of them.
And I said I've been broken for too long,
I won't be the window anymore,
I will be the stone.

But you we're smiling when you kissed me.
We break each other until we're happy
we hurt each other and call it love.
Our love smolders and it was so beautiful.

A touch of Synthetic Blue
drips
down our tear battered frames
before it catches on
a match made in hell
Becomes an oily
twisting
saffron cold flame
Redefines love
as a pact to collectively
fall apart
Redefines hate
as a pop cultural norm
As it smolders
strife imitates art
Another massacre
Another overdose
Another malignant mass media circus
and maybe now
you understand
inevitability


*Synthetic Blue is a registered trademark of White Spider Pharmaceuticals, a division of the White Spider Corporation, and is used without permission.

**** words fail what is it you want sick hearing about god get attached won’t let go close eyes imagine foreign exotic lands strange beautiful women tentatively open eyes hours later where am i what happened

chicago 1991 bartender Jerry dressed in black pants white shirt black bolero thinks Odysseus intelligent funny hooks him up with drinks Odysseus and Jerry banter libertine remarks “what’s up with you tonight Jerry?” “i wish my life had more balance i work too much i’m getting stressed serving drunks like you” Odysseus smashes cigarette into ashtray orange embers break up smoke smolders drifts Jerry empties ashtray Odysseus says “balance is a funny thing Jerry it’s not necessarily symmetric like yin yang symbol what if balance manifests in form of 9 parts darkness to 1 part light envision powerful bright beam shooting through nine degrees of night” Jerry replies “never thought about it that way you mean like yin-yin-yin-yin-yin-yin-yin-yin-yin-YANG!”  Odysseus laughs “exactly the question is is life just a big joke? what if the world is made up of nine parts evil and hatred to one part goodness and love?  what if the total equation is godless? does existence have a point other than amusement?” Jerry answers “don’t get philosophical on me Odys where is this going or do i already know?” Odysseus expounds “what is more captivating than a woman embarrassed? Jerry did you ever tease torture a woman with feathery touch tongue then finally give her pleasure” Jerry grins nods walks to other end of bar Odysseus drinks 10 or 12 double absolute vodkas on the rocks smokes pack of cigarettes scribbles on cocktail napkins Jerry serves listens Odysseus gestures hands spews out words “this is my church this is how i absolve my hurting let us drink to our own annihilation perhaps some good will come what more fun is there than to desecrate one’s self? to the last man standing” he toasts priding himself with strong constitution a female regular sitting at bar comments “sometimes you can be such a ***** what’s wrong with you Odys? you used to be so sweet you’ve changed you’re still in the game but you’re so cooked black on all the edges” he mumbles “hmmmm” walks home blind drunk led by his dog maybe that state of blind drunkenness is about Oedipus plucking out his eyes because he does not want to see truth

& all of the sudden i have a case of insomnia
thinking about your hazel eyes
pools of golden honey brown
so deep with promise of truth
but inevitable glimmers of falsity

a hollow shell now perched by your amber intentions
still smolders from your hazel touch

Anger
Fury
Rage
Like three tigers in a cage
Fierce like fire
Having a desire
for revenge
Not making amends

Temper
Wrath
Hateful disgrace
The world's often a hostile place
Anger out of control, corrupting the peace,
Becoming a riot, calling for the police
Anger is combative to a truce
When raw emotions are on the loose

Anger comes in many colors:

Tumultuous reds
boiling in your head
Purple passions
in warlike fashion
Seething greens,
for envy is a fiend
Anger that is a shocking yellow
is anything but mellow

They blend together in a melting ***
A big, boiling cauldron, scaulding hot
In its feverish calamity, anger reeks
Of dead men's bones, you shall see
Like tasting gasoline, it is a toxic tonic
You don't want to be anywhere around it!
Its angry concoction you partake in to sip
Though it's like deadly poison on your lips!
In your body, it courses through
Before it makes a fool out of you!

Like two lighted matches on your tongue
Anger does the tango just for fun!

This mouthful of hot pins and needles stings!
You swallow it down, the whole **** thing!

You wash it all down with wine as it smolders
Down your throat anger goes, like jagged boulders!

Through your esophagus, resisting a slippery slide
Anger within you does not want to hide!

Into your gut, like a rugged coastline of pain
You now see the world with great disdain!

Your stomach evolves into a volcanic hole
Hot as a furnace with blazing coals!

Anger soon rises from the volcanic mountain
Lava bursting forth like a fiery fountain!

That is anger's transition that I see
My vision portrayed in this poetic story
Anger does have a rightful place
But out of control, it turns into hate
On one hand, it can help us fight evil
On the other, it can hurt other people

Peter Pan Swore



Peter Pan swore we’d never

age if we, just believed, but



everyday the fairytales fade

away like little fallen fireflies,



instead wrinkles and stress

introduce new heartaches...



no time for childishness

whenever time smolders



james kenneth blaylock

6-24-21

The majesty of a clear sky
is what gets alive in front of my eyes.
Within the deepest darkness consumption
I encountered the path to beauty and seduction.

Your lips I see moving,
your metaphors I see diffusing.
Brilliant onyx magic covered this soul
entitling it to be finally whole.

And now fire feels cold,
no one can ever be so bold.
And all this Power in me
simply makes me be.

The brightness in my smile smolders.
Can you see how clear waters smother?
Can't you see how Light can also ****,
And how obscurity may help to live?

Inside your entangled tale and fail
I dug your own grave and pain.
You may believe the fortune teller
for your destiny to be even lesser.

Search for the Mother Moon,
but I promise it'll always be too soon,
because the Daughter of Night
will forever be on Her side.

Love, such a big word
Creeping for years around
With presumptions of its meaning
Floating around
With emotions far from disjoint
In a flurry
Through your body, mind
Momentarily present
Yet timelessly thrown
Into your toddler meaning of love
From your empty Bayesian trap
That builds you whole
Until your end you've met

So many different versions
Certainty will never be met
Yet trapped in a single word
It doesn't do it justice
But that just might be alright
For love
Is not meant to be spoken

You start out in a fairy
Unscathed from reality
Especially
After a mother's love
You think the world is kind
Without a mother's love
It's cold but you still have hope

You throw your youth outside
Into the gust of eyes
Where you catch a glimpse
Of a girl or a guy
That makes your blood boil
And you're still flying
Throw all your *****
Without thinking of dying
And no matter if it lasts a moment
A reciprocated month
Or an unrequited year
You come out shattered
Reality didn't care
Nothing after mattered

But there you didn't know
That that guy or girl
Is a girl or guy too
You're not the only one
There's everyone else too
Your initial lust
Or a try at a shell of love
Is selfish at base
How ever much
Your emotions
Pointed else

But that did pass
And the several next throws too
Whether months or years
Summer or winter or summer
A cloud followed you there
The cloud carrying
Your void of attention
However big or small
Your loneliness sharp
Whether seconds long or
Weeks on end, quiet yet loud
Your need to be loved,
Recognized, understood,
To be acknowledged present
To be accepted, alive
By a person
Rattling your lust

However above,
In the cloud where you placed
Every next spike of passion
Of a guy or a girl
As bright as the sun,
For the moment
Their face on the idol shone bright
Following your daily life around
And with every next crack
Of reality's peckered constant tap
Your idol cracks
It falls down
Thunders,
Your heart it smacks
The sunshine is over
Your cloud is empty again
The idol faceless remains,
Yet follows you still

Time on end,
Time,
Time, it goes blank
Faceless the oddity remains
Your concept of love
From solid, to liquid, to the cloud
It migrates - shapeless, formless,
Horrid, repulsive, addictive, banished
Away
But hey
But hey!
There
Another glimpse
Lights your fire
Puts on a face
Energizes into matter
The shapeless concept, of love
Quicker than an arrow
Throws down its mollusc, fiery and sparkly
Tentacles, now into form
Grabbing your whole body
Obsesses, possesses
Choking your insides
Paralyzing you whole
"Oh hey
Hi
It's you
I liked a thing you did
How you look
A thing you said
You formed into my eyes
And now you're in my head
And oh
That thing you did, how you look, what you said
Repeats every day for you
Wow
I want that"
Paralyzed there you stand
Seconds you shared turn into hours
Time stretches
Your mediocrity devours
But wait a second
This world of yours ain't the realm we live in
That person is its own
With all the background it comes with
As heavy as your own
Much richer than your conception current
And not richer than the sunshine you imagine
But in reality that person weighs
However uglier the truth it makes
However much real hurt
To your table brings
An amalgam of truth and desire
You idol feeds

You go home
Maybe you create
Something out there
Portraying
As a proof of your time
Spent in that oily chokehold
No matter if you get close to that person
Or not
No matter how much time is spent
How much sunshine you think you got
You'll learn your idol
He or she, is not
Your concept of love
Still selfish
Putrid

But maybe
Just maybe
A random person walks in
A friend
Of mutual ****** preference
Of course
Someone you'd not write poems about
Someone you'd not draw in your thoughts
Someone your lust smolders at best at first
Someone that sticks by your side
Someone your idol accepts not
While there your idol
Faceless or not
Slowly fades away
Your voids are filled
By giving
And having being given in return
Equally self-less
Your base is solid now
Out of the dead molusc
Your meaning of love,
Bam!
With the speed of a supernova
With the frequency of a pulsar
With the density of a white dwarf
Blasts into you like a shockwave
Lights into you like a furnace
Is finally thrown into your Bayesian experiment
A meaningful, concrete test case
That you can rethrow however much again
And even if you reach its last throw
You've learned to self-lessly accept
Whatever comes next
For it's grown on you
And it'll never leave your side, till your end
And your model now knows
Where true warmth lies
Even if the coming days
Shiver in the void's cold grasp
Remember
Remember the light

For it has once grown on you
In its countless shapes and forms
Real, true love

Let's hope
For nothing does truly last

The charred scent of paper
Atop the ******* skyscraper
Burns when a life is consumed
In its greenish greedy gown
On it has been proudly sown
A golden triangle. It assumed
Its complete authority over
The human race we chase
Its glinting giggling gorge
Postponing the petty morgue
Adorning chests in a tower
Of wealth, of woe, of war
Some are the jacks in tar
Others the *****, the ace

Hovering over cities
Teasing the daisies.
That thick soot
Flawless is flaying
Slowly peeling
Away layers of our root
We gambol and gamble
Pitiful onions in unions
Hawkers jaywalking
Hunters, judges, humble
Flock of those who can think
Trying to make sense of ions
We can with a gun link
Deaths and collapsing ink.

The bright dollar bill smolders
On Atlas’ sore shoulders
An intricate golden lattice
In lieu of a benighted bodice
It lifts Man on a rusty noose
King on a heap of newspapers
The charred choking scent
Demonic, deliquescent
Atop the ******* skyscrapers.
For a divine raiment
Would the goofy government
Trade your blood and lymph
For a smoke and mirrors nymph?
I choose not, please turn us loose?

We are the scorching enemy
All in all, possessed by the mark
We gloat over the metonymy
Of our radiant success
We are nothing under duress
But pigs left bound to bark
In the mud of our sockets
Buy this diamond necklace
So you can prove, in the race
Of rats, you are the best of piglets
“How much does it cost?’’, asks the poet
But his voice is regarded as a dandling duet
Society sleeps, makes loves, guzzles
A writer too, probably feebly fizzles…


All the while the creased cremated paper
Will keep on swallowing us over and over
This smoke once was the signal of civilization
It is now the ominous gleam of our globalization
Soothing soot it is not, it throttles us all
I foresee it but soon we shall
Fall back into this drowsy land
Demise of those who did not stand
Up behind the legacy of a quill
That is now silent in steel, still
Child, write down your future
Your literature will triumph for sure!
I’d read his lines instead of gulping down
The shiny pill of tomorrow brand new uptown!

January 26, 2016
Guillotière, Lyon
7:17 pm

The air conditioner hiccups,
as the second half of
Cole Berlin crosses himself--
a face deeply creased by consequence,
looks to the west,
a surrendering sun fractured--
broken by hundreds of stories--
tons of concrete--
mountains of glass,
and the gentlest gloom.

Mr. Berlin's body devours itself--
as the critics and even the diehard fans
run out of time to play "remember when".
The reality enters,
at first no more than an annoying stomach pang,
then growing,
feasting,
shouting,
until each cell knows--
no time for the comeback.

Whatever beams of sun were once banded,
now dismiss themselves,
as night subs in--
Mr. Berlin, closes the curtains of his mind,
falls to the floor,
"Sorry folks, no encore this time".

A week he lay festering,
no more a replica--
only a ruin.
A fly in a web,
rotating on a world without end,
the record, it spits, skips, smolders in ditch,
contaminating the soil,
the virus gently purrs perfection,
no hiccup, no hallucination--
only swag up for collection.

Where has brother bird gone?

Asks dog to sly fox

He is tempted in shadows

caught in twisting maze

cuckold with clover honey

and horns of thorny bramble

He has left us to sway

in dead breeze

our faces loosened

grins too tight

We'll feed our bellies

offal and

dead grass

Stiff bodies to greet the

dawning of day

when brother bird returns too late

to sing blood back to royal throne

Come, all trace buries now

in dead light and heavy stone

Hide madness with me

friend dog

To earth and rooted cellar; there

burning pyre

smolders in the dark -

Goblin King will soon be by.

I have an old farmhouse inside my chest,
wooden siding rotten in places and windows
fractured from too many winters,
the roof of which sags near the chimney--
faint smoke-clouds rising, and a light
glowing yellow inside the kitchen, a beckoning

invitation into the faded blue walls
full with portraits of four--my mother, father,
and little sister--brassy frames hung close
together above the wooden table,
nicks and scratches connecting each placemat
like dots of the coloring book page left
magnet-stuck to the refrigerator.

The countertops have grown dusty.
fruit-bowl collecting gnats and mold,
but the zinnias over the sink flourish, replaced
daily and blooming red as the teakettle
rusting on the only remaining stove-top burner,
the others broken, tossed into the garbage
beside the back door, which leads to a forest--

rib-like oaks bent and bowed
over the farmhouse, ivy vines coiled ‘round
each trunk, stretching limb to limb, weaving
webs tangled as the unruly branches from which
they hang, caressing the slumped rooftop
as if to remind the battered, tired building how,
despite everything, the hearth still smolders.

Twisted corpses
Of loves long gone
Call from across the room
As I stare
And stare
Until my heart breaks in two
Unable to glance away;
Unable to meet your gaze.
You're such a shapeless shell
Of days since past,
Having lost your substance to time
And belittled feelings
As I stand
Motionless,
Petrified.
I am but a pair of eyes now,
a shattered soul-
Still hoping,
Still wondering
If all I ever loved was a lie,
A cruel farce you'd never admit.
I cannot bear your cutting words,
Your effervescent laughter,
As you live a life renewed;
As I linger,
Wistful,
In your wake.
I'm bleeding inside,
These wounds too fresh to cauterize,
Your vision too much to bear
In the aftermath of our destruction,
The clanging bells of calamity
Still ringing in my shellshocked ears-
I struggle to find meaning
In the caustic remnants
you left me to puzzle over;
The scattered pieces of reasoning
That will never add up to a whole picture,
A sane answer.
Scorched and hollowed,
I can't bear this sight any longer,
As my heart smolders with hatred
And thoughts of revenge,
Consuming me
As though I were tied to the stake
That you deserve to burn on instead.
Come now,
Let's end this-
This dance of charades,
This play of puppets and toys-
I'm not your plaything anymore,
And I deserve the happiness
That you sought to steal for yourself.
Come now,
Let's accept it,
These sad monuments that you've erected
From upon your mighty throne,
The confusion you bestowed
When you left me all alone.
After all,
Fate had no say in this,
No approval to grant,
To this end-
You and I both know
You only have yourself to blame.

You let me rub sawdust in your ears.
You let me drip wax on your fingertips.
You let me defenestrate your free time.
You let me run my voice across your lips.
You let me think I can.
It is of my opinion that the basement here smells
of expensive wood varnish
and it reminds me of what you are supposed to be;
an old thought.
A grimy vexation.
A copper colored conundrum,
antiquated and nauseously green.
I hate it when you waste time with me.
You make me feel like we're worthless.
Sitting alone in a stone darkness
with both purple hazes
hanging in the air like rhythmic skeletons
strung up in a celebratory gallows.
I'm happy when I'm with you,
you two-penny *****
of wasted yourself.
I love you.
Now leave.
Out of our lives.
I would be happier if you were out of yourself.
But you knew that.

I know a cedar chest of a hundred years
and you are knees-to-chest inside;
not dead
but breathing through the keyhole
in a white evening gown
with your skin growing tighter against your ribs.
One day I will open the chest
and your blood will flow
and your eyes will open
and your skin will hang more loose
under healthy fat and muscle and life
and you may throw your arms 'round my neck
and I will cry as I love your touch
as you smile with joy
as I take my hand and put it to your chest.
Push.
Down.
Hard.
You will not escape to make me love you.
The latch will close and you will be silent,
breathing through the keyhole,
and I will not mourn.
I will try not to mourn.

You are beautiful,Time.
Why?
You burn heart-shaped marks into the souls of lovers
and whittle them away through yourself
and that is horrendous
yet you change not.
Villain! A pox upon you for a clumsy lout!
You must undress in simmering water for ramen or tea
because you refuse to change until I look away.
You make the voices of a hundred years past
hiss and pop on gramophones
because you didn't feel like sharing 2008's MP3s.
Oh, you wretch,
you curdle milk
and Captain Crunch disapproves.
You make car rides to Washington, DC unbearable.
You masterfully draw out the suspense in waiting rooms,
dangling gender verdicts of newborns over the heads of expectant fathers.
You ****.
You ridiculously unfair goblin.
You murderer.
You toyer of lives.
You are so beautiful.
You make life short so it matters.
This hate is a necessary hate
but so is my love for you.
You will **** me one day.
For that, I loathe every second you give me in your pitiful pity.
I wish I could rip apart every second and return them to the sender
and have them ignite on your doorstep
and burn your house down
and have you cry "I was only doing my job"
as your home smolders to ashes.
But right after I would buy you a nice dinner
and tell you that it's going to be okay
because you made some months of my life matter
and enjoyable and happy.
I might even admit to arson
to make you smile
or grimace.
Time, you toothless wolf.
You spineless snake.
You stringless marionette.
I love you.

Amongst the living,
There are throngs of walking dead
Attempting to wake.

Alive enough to move, but
Not enough to know they’re not.

The students disperse
From long halls lined with classrooms,
Like deer from the corn.

Each fearful of what’s to come,
The mystery of the night.

The clouds, high above
The cold, dark, midnight skyline,
Are full of questions.

Quickly falling into me,
The conundrum of the age.

Landing on my ears,
Caught like rain in a tin roof
On the mountain’s edge.

Je vois le réponse juste,
Mais je ne la comprends pas.

I must understand,
I must know what I cannot,
My Etruscan scrolls.

All the last literature,
Now just embers in the pit.

All of the paintings,
Thrown off their walls to the floor,
Destroyed by soil.

All of their men, deceased.
All of their boys are just boys.

However, in time,
The boys will grow into men
As the sun smolders.

Spinning madly in its place,
Until that final moment.

When time stops ticking
And the cosmos wont expand,
A last kiss goodbye.

Calm and collected, we stand
Staring into the barrel.

Calm and collected,
I must be kidding myself.
Is this collected?

Already segregated
As if the show has ended.

As if we’ve already
Been scorched by solar winds,
Left for dead by friends.

Maybe we're words left behind by night,
Beneath bounding silhouettes of guiding stars,
Or waters of memory lapsed into rain;
As mind of man bleeds his dreams into day.

If there opened a window, none can know why-
When breath counts the years, and moments bide time,
For the hidden soul's body must ever grow older-
Another years living, in the sacred bowl smolders.

The offspring of earth, or day-star's bright child,
Dancing on moonbeams in scintillate shoes,
And impassioned questions, from spirit begotten-
Whatever magic made him, the secret’s forgotten.

The mold has been shattered, the bird has flown;
The seed too far from the father’s blown,
But it’s the secret we hold true because
The world's more beautiful now- than it was.

Little golden haired girl that skips down wooden stairs,
Her pigtails swing in the air as she lands on the sidewalk
Where I used to bury acrid smolders of my cigarette sticks
And laugh with the rabbit toothed woman who coughed too much.
I breathed smoke from her yellow teeth but now the girl,
With rosy cheeks and beady eyes jumps over puddles in yellow boots
She glances with red cheeks and falls face first into brown muck,
To be held up by a man who walks, talks and looks
Nothing like me.

In the cold nights of winter the girl, the woman and the man
Melt themselves in each other’s warmth, I stand alone
Behind their window rubbing my red chest,
Flirt with myself to knock, to go inside
and slice the apple pie and slurp the eggnog.
My fingers immobile, short fragile icicles
But the black beady eyes pierce through pane,
A wide smile with missing teeth calls out
To hold a gaze through  watering eyes.
They see her as an old photograph
Of the woman who would run her  fingers
through knots of hair as I cried on her lap.
I press frozen hands against the glass,
Peer into flickers of those dark gleamy eyes  
And see the mother and daughter walk on sand
with naked feet
and me,
hand in hand.

A crow rested on a fence
and I wondered what this story-book fiend
with his dark, beady eyes, clever sense
and his feathers well-preened
wanted from someone as hollow as me.
I couldn't do anything but wait and see.

What did one say when faced with a crow
who had no appointments to rush to
no place he must go?
As if speaking was something I could do.
So with a wooden arm I gave him a little wave.
Pleased, he came closer, that fabled young knave.

I could not move much and I could not speak
as the crow stopped right at my rooted feet
and prodded my foot with his beak.
I'm a listless liar he deemed worthy to meet.
So I did not speak and I did not move
an inaction of which the crow did not approve.

He flew back to his fence that creaked
and shifted when the wind pressured its joints.
The forceful draft stung my eyes so they leaked
tears, I found I always disappoint.
The crow flexed his black wings
eyes closed as, for him, the gale sings.

I croaked out a question from deep in my throat
the wind became a whisper as the crow paid attention
"Are you here to jeer and gloat
over my bad decisions and poor intentions?"
He shook that dark head and said
"You're a terrible liar. I'm here to help instead."

"But are you not a portender of death
here to show me I have the illest of luck?"
Why can I not catch my breath?
Wondrous wings glide on waning wind then tuck
neatly against his back for he chose my shoulders
to better speak words that doused what smolders.

The crow rested on my shoulders and cawed
a sound soft and broken
and I thought it terribly odd
that the crow would caw when it was well-spoken.
So when the pressure of panic permeated my chest
the crow spoke again so my horrible heart could rest

"If I were just a crow residing on a fence..."
He gestured with his wing to where he was before.
"Then I'd have left you to your own offense
and not show you what you often ignore."
His black wings pushed my head 'til I saw the gate.
Hope swung at my roots freeing my feet from their hate.

"I believe you have many apologies to make."
I nodded my head and the gate opened.
The crow continued, "The right choices often take
an ax to your tree, to your roots. With hope and
desire to change, you can grow something new."
I stepped into the world beyond the fence and away the crow flew.

a whisper—
it creeps through my extremities,
& it persists:
even when my fatherforgivemeforIhavesinned is clutched nearby,
like a slowburningcinder
that chisels at the arches of my feet,
& simmers in my lockedup[treasure]chest,
it tells me:
“iwonderwhenyouwilljustgivein,mylove,
giveintotheembersandbu­rstintoflames.”
[& these wrists, they ache,
with a promise they once held for me—
justopenthechestandyouwillbesetfree]
—

& I hate to be the bearerofbadnews but,
you are a part of it, as well,
my l.ong o.verdue v.icissitudinous e.scape,
& in your lapse of silence,
you whisper, too.
“iwonderwhenyouwilljustgivein,myfriend,
giveintotheembersof­yourheartache
andsquelchouttheselickingflames.”
—

& as the forest is left to its smolders
& as the smoke begins to clear,
I lie awake in
the lulling hours of the morning,
inspecting the charring on my heartstrings
& the scorched remnants of my exhausted energies,
waiting for healing to awaken
among the first few raindropsofremembers & sprigsofspring,
[itrustyou,itrustyou,itrustyou]
only to be engulfed in the rhythm of your illumination again,
for my leaves are dry
& the winds are strong,
& the hypnosis of your glow is too seductive to disregard.

Sooner or later
the time comes
to pick yourself up,
reach for them bootstraps,
pull up out of the dark mire.
Your fire smolders
& staying in the pit
keeps you so.....
but you have so much
more to live,
give yourself
a fighting chance,
flame on & fly away
into the sunlight.

Summer night, heavy with humming:
static hisses from tree hollows,
crickets tick in the garden.
A still life:
bone crunch, tree crack, macaw

Static hisses from tree hollows,
black sap clots the soil.
bone crunch, tree crack, macaw.
Bullfrogs bellow, the scuttle of thunder.

Black sap boils then clots
the rim of a fire, aroma of rosemary.
Thunder shatters the shutters.
A still life:
pea snap, wind murmur, husks

The fire smolders, damp halo of ash.
Hoot owls call to the moon,
ask their question.

bone crunch, tree crack, macaw.
pea snap, wind murmur, dawn.

                                                                                 -km

Shut the Windows.

Turn off the lights.

Lock the doors.

Make no sound.



Cover your eyes.

Cup your ears.

Until the only sound that remains is the steady beating of your heart.



This is where we will begin.



If you were the only thing this town had to offer,

It'd be enough for me to stay.

Or go.

Or try.

Or talk.

Or tear the roots of a sequoia from the earth and mend it together into a spine,

That I would wear for you.

Earthen.

Beautiful.

Strong.



It is like being shown how to breathe and then asked not to.



And these cycles keep forming on my chest like a bulls-eye.

Making me a target, once again, for beauty just out of reach.

And how we seem to perpetuate patterns. Circling uselessly through our transgressions.

Like a broken record.

All grooves and needled and cracks.

Skipping like heart beats.



Seems I am always chasing some sunset or another.

They just have different names.



And we believe the promises. Inscribed on the back of dewy eyes at dawn.



Not me.

Not this time.

Babies in skins.

Mountain tops.

Running away.

Steaming trains.

Landscapes and bedrooms and windows and moonlight.



But then they are always just warning labels.

Fine print.



We have already made promises.

Pastries and the smell of fresh coffee.

Rain on green hillsides.

Mountain tops.



Mountain tops.



But my hands only seem to fold into prayer or failure anymore.



My wolf heart smells familiar scents.

Like endings.



Once again, my branded heart is folly.

And the river of doubt snakes through our canyons, making our mountain tops further away, and settling about our necks like guilt.

Guiding us parallel.



But not yet as one.

I have already lost what I had won.



And my trap has been set and released.

Golden teeth like shackles, clamped to my leg.

Victory on it's grin like plague.

Plating your outstretched wings.



I can see beyond these words of breath and know you are poised to fly.

And finally I understand what it is to stand on this side of the ocean.



It is cold here.



My shoreline is my prison.



Let. Me. Be. Something.



Or just let me be.



And I have held my heart out. Netted together by cast iron plates, rivets, bolts, violin string, and wishes.



Again and again.



And each time, I am told, yes..



yes..



I will take it as it is.



Yes



I will take it into me.



Yes.



I will walk the path. First to make the prints and then to walk in yours that walked in mine.



I believe in how you love.



I will hold your heart in mine.



Just





Not





Yet.



Or ever it seems.



It used to shine.



Running down my arms as I held it aloft on mountain tops.



A beacon.



A light house.



A fool on a tower.



Now it hardly glows at all.



But it smolders madly.



And it could burn.



For you.



Or burn out.



Forever.



Just



Not



Yet.

He wields his hammer
   without mercy
bring
the
metal
d
o
w
n
time and space
    e  x  p  a  n  d  i  n  g
crushing metal to earth
         to vibration to sound

my head snaps to the left
         vibration through earth
                through atom through drum
a fire ignites...a fire BURNS...a fire smolders
nostrils flare
  apertures contract straining to focus
      heart valves pump unnaturally
         oxygen is scarce
knees weaken
and i  s
             i
               n
                  k
arms of steel
     guide my hips...
(keep breathing)
strands of gold
     brush my neck
(open your eyes)
kisses so light
  turn to a force of nature
(by the forgotten gods,
              you are beautiful)
teeth playfully snap
    eyes shine
(breathe, woman, breathe)

our neurons are mirrored
   our pheromones agree
now comply...surrender...submit

your cape is irrelevant
  the crimson does not impress me
you do not need it to take flight

your armor is useless
  i can pierce it simply
with a look from my blue eyes

what of your hammer, Thor?
it is all of what you are;
heavy with burden
  spinning and light with hope
crushing the earth with music
raised high to lead
          with a steady hand
hailing a booming storm
    light electrifying

be assured - your hammer is your own
i do not desire to take what is yours
    to smother your light
         to limit your branches

i only wish to see you grow in strength
  in beauty
       in music
            in light

and so i will wait...
for the thunder of the hammer
   crushing the ground
calling me home.

Shaken, faulted core
smolders Martian red.
Simple kindred corps:
now dormant, fallen dead.

Endless chthonic shore,
this flaming plague will spread.
Crumbling hillsides roar,
****** echoes reflect dread.

Scent of creation,
of seared marrow bath.
A forlorn nation
razed by angel’s wrath.

Jagged forest
greets narrowed death,
splintered rest
and punctured breath.

O’er the loch,
swollen igneous rock:
the Behemoth slaughters the flock.

Sparks fly as swords clash
Fire smolders into ash
Lights extinguishing
Hopes diminishing
Men giving in to desperation
It provides amplification
With their backs pushed against the wall
They will give it there all
Hope withers in their eyes
As they are strangled by an expansive web of lies
Its a rich man's war but a poor man's fight