Sitting in a bathtub full of red,
I knew I had been disowned
by the waters of my youth.
No more would I wade into
the shallow green waters of the Blue,
tiny rocks and the shells of long-dead
mollusks digging into the soles of my feet.
I drained myself into the water,
imagined my blood swimming in the Brandywine,
swirling in the dark near the bottom of the Delaware,
letting go of itself, finally, as it flowed into
the arms of the end of the world,
as it broke upon the waves of the grey Atlantic.

Once, I caught a fish in the Cumberland,
I regarded its red-eyed terror with some of my own,
and when we threw it back, I wondered if it would live,
enduring in the water, a new scar in the soft flesh of its mouth,
an amulet against future harm, a fear of hooks dangling within reach,
and black shapes silhouetted against the bright noon sun
as it skimmed across the surface of the stream.
I never threw a hook in the water again,
but I found myself, time after time, drowning
in the palm of someone else's hand,
all for want of a river that would keep me
safely ensconced in its dark secret places.
Like the fish, I dreamed of hooks.

Imagine the end of the world.
Downtown in the dark,
the filthy Ohio snaking its way through the shadows
that fall upon the river valley.
The girl stops to smell the scent on the air,
but she doesn't quite understand what it means.
She has smelled it all her life, putrid water,
but she has never stopped to contemplate the source of it.
She never thinks she will have time to get to know the river intimately,
the way it will caress her slackening skin,
all of the days they will spend together,
on her journey to join the great brown Mississippi,
the river taking as much of her as it can get,
keepsakes to remember her by. It loves, as much as it can.
It loves the fields, the fishermen, the boats.
But most of all, it loves the girls no one wanted,
the girls no one could find. It holds them in its waters,
and when the time comes, it gently lets them go.

The city of my childhood glows white in the Midwestern sun.
The river running beside it is ugly, but not,
shimmering with diamonds of light that float upon its brown surface.
This is the river that breaks a continent in half.
It could take your home if it wanted to, your town,
everything you ever loved and anything that ever meant something to you.
It could break you, like the continent, only it would be easier.
You can cross the bridge, but you can't look down.
You know the river is waiting below you, implacable and constant.
For thousands of years, it has eaten the dead,
and killed some of those it wanted before we had decided to let them go.
Its bottom is haunted by boats, its ghostwaters are dammed with the corpses of soldiers
from wars as important to the river as the dragonfly hovering above the surface.
I look upon this river in my dreams, and it knows me.
The reflection it shows me is dark but true.
All of the rivers have known me.
I whisper their names as my skin becomes saturated.
I pray to the rivers of my youth,
but, like god, they never answer.

Weekdays - we wear cattle trails into the green-space because
They taught us the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.
They told us to stay in school.
We made ourselves fit into the small boxes with bunk beds
Like the kind we always wanted as kids.
Now we nod to the cement snaking around the dorms - residence halls -
and erode the grass underfoot, single-minded.

Weekends - we stumble-snake on sidewalks because
They give us a straight line to follow back to our boxes.
They told us to get involved in the community.
We let ourselves spill outside our borders and backpacks
Like our cattle trails will fill out overnight.
Now we laugh at the cement moving in waves - or staying still -
and breathe on the stars, multi-minded.

It was almost like you were ripping my heart out for your own pleasure.
You easily reached inside of my chest,
through skin and muscle,
snaking my hand through the cracks in my rib cage
and tested the strong muscle.

You held on and help it beat.
But then you got bored with going with the flow of my heart.
You poked and prodded
to see how much damage you could do.
I let you.

You took the muscle out of my chest
and then went wild to ruin my heart.
You returned it back in pieces.
Carefully,
you set it in my chest.

Now,
I lay in the corner.
Tears stained my soul
but a smile appears on my face
and the words "I'm fine" tumble out of my mouth.

I'm not okay.
I need help.
I don't want to be here.
I want to be in your arms again.
I was fine then.

Scars line my thighs and wrists.
Pill bottles lay inside my sock drawer hiding.
Sleep never comes.
Tears start to stain my face.
"I'm fine"

It's too late now.

Hard light and star struck breath
Pinched corners filled with stifled cries
Rash rushed hands in tangled hair
Heart fought racing growing frenzied
Flashing lips tapping tripping touching
Pulling tearing rough handled love
Frantic touches in lost time
Stolen fevered passion crushed together
Harsh rasps gasping in ears of flushed faces
Tight hot lives against the wall
Pitched cries smothered and lost
Falling hands bunched against lush hips
Running lights lingering on glistening cheeks
Sultry lingering brushing back errant hairs
Hands snaking out while looking both ways
Lost in the traffic of people flowing by

cc030711

Orion,
I kind of miss your sandy hair,
and the way your eyes are bluer than mine.
I miss the way you'd watch me fall asleep,
and I'm pretty sure I can hear the absence
of your chuckle every time the night sky is clear.

Orion,
I miss the way you used to tell stories:
your face was the most expressive form of art,
I swear you lit up the entire room,
you were my forever young Peter Pan,
discussing the battles of young warriors
and the chaos of young daughters,
and how their hearts were full of mothering love.

Orion,
I saw you were in town tonight,
I noticed you sitting among the rest of the sky tonight.
Would you mind peeking in my room this evening,
would you mind taking me to fly with the rest
of the lost boys?

Orion,
I miss your tanned arms snaking around mine,
I feel the need to smell the sun on your neck again.

Orion,
Would you visit me, maybe?

Sincerely,
A Very Lovesick Girl

It was not really thee
bards of the ages
who inspired me
but of your wages
I shall purloin lithe lines
to add to the meager confines
of my tailored tale

nineteen
green
inside and out
not knowing when I would be ripe
cramming all the ammo clips I could find
into my fresh jungle fatigues
he
the sage of 2nd platoon
told me of the frightful night
when
in the midst of a hellish firefight
he reached for more clips
and found only the remnants of chips
tasty morsels when first consumed
but then a sign he was doomed
“NO MORE AMMO—****”
he sunk even lower into the carpet of night
but to his ironic delight
“the **** that was shooting at me ran out of ammo too”
after exchanging an infinite stare
both fled into the ebony air
the moral of his twice told fable
grab all the ammo clips you are able

and the sage from 1st platoon said,
one night when our brains were brimming with beer
that a full bladder was also something to fear
for being distracted by the urge to ****
could perhaps be the reason we would miss
“some **** slithering through the black grass,
and that, my friends, could mean your ***”

so their caveats did not fall on deaf ears
although
they were filtered by my too few reckless years
yet, I snatched all the clips I could carry
on my 140 pounds of nineteen
and took not one sip from my canteen

others words bounced around my crowded skull
some were from rapier wit and others were dull
but the ones to which I would listen
were the ones that gave me hope for
another day of light
after the perpetual blind night
in the land of the ******

I had learned to walk without sound
all on my own
and find a place to crouch
where not even the dead
could see me, I would briefly imagine
but they were there
permeating the dank air
with silent dirges to their demise
and me waiting with cracked open eyes
for one to come alive
and yank my young *** into some dark hole

we have always seen things in the dark
while hiding from the devil our sisters said would come
under our blankets with one eye closed and the other agape
he was coming, she would say, to get you
for being….born
sometimes, the chosen, the blessed souls,
would forget he was there
and breath calm air
and walk into the life of nineteen
with a full canteen but
not worried about a full bladder
and missing Jacob’s ladder

but those of us who came to this wicked place
could not blithely put our demons to rest
and they continued their animated fest
in the darkness our eyes could not penetrate
and our spirits could not relegate
to the silent land of the past

there could have been a dozen, live ones,
snaking their way through the grass
close enough to smell my sweat
or perhaps only one
crouched in his own woeful world
miles away through the ****** jungle
but it did not matter
for in my wordless chatter
they were all around
maybe the same ones in my childhood room
coming to thicken the gloom
with another tormented soul
who at nineteen
was afraid to drink from his canteen

I would stop seeing them
at some point
but only for a shallow breath or two
then they would be there again
and I would hear nothing
except the other sages
from those ancient pages
where my eyes followed my fingers in curious delight
far from this lethal foaming night

"Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me
the carriage held just ourselves and immortality"
"Death be not proud, though some have called thee so"
“I looked in vain for another path for my feet
but they were all too small
except the one labeled ‘Death Street’”

and other less ominous verse would take the chance
to make its way into my riddled trance,
“Nature’s first green is gold,
her hardest hue to hold
her early leaf’s a flower,
but only so an hour
then leaf subsides to leaf
so Eden sank to grief
so dawn goes down to day
nothing gold can stay”

nothing gold, nor green I would recall
and when I would lose the light lull of the verse
I would again begin to traverse
into the blind black depths in front of my eyes
and the devils would tauntingly reappear
and I would again hear
the nothingness we all share
there
in the land of the ******
with a full canteen
and an M-16
at nineteen

adolescence fit him like
hand me down sweaters
with missing buttons
he was always meant
to not fit
into it.
he watched
her graceless fingers
lace up the battered boots
that rose past her calves.
his eyes hugged the curves
her legs like snaking highways
in hot arizona summers
heat lightening
in his heart.
they all knew the sweaters wouldn't fit.
maybe he knew it too.
because the taste of her was
like holy water
and the child he never knew

nora stretches her arms like flowers
she is a tiny fighter
who grew from dry dirt

she has been hurt by men
who said they would protect her green stem
and then cracked her open
when they ripped her from the ground
she took her wounds with pluck
and let her sap guts bleed transient
liquid interiors never tasted so tranquil

nora doesn’t seem like the type
who cuts tick marks along the lines
of her floral spine
out of self pity

but maybe out of fury
she is a tiger lily
freckled cheeks and hair like
a sunset
she is obstinate
to make progress
nora wants to **** her sickness
she still has a dark scar on her shoulder
from the day she tumbled down the stairs
would have died at his hands
if her shoulder didn’t get caught
between the railing balusters
after being almost killed by a man
who tried to crack her open
like so many beer bottle caps
nora collapsed in the quiet desperation
of what he had left of her family
screaming pity the fool
who ever taught me
to love the devil
and call him a father

she wants to escape the laughter
of her classmates
pigeon holed in a tiny body
nora wants to escape her life
too often for repose
she wants to close the door
and hide huddled in the bath tub
waiting for the storm to pass
but she has not met many calm eyes
and she cannot seem to escape the storms
that pass through her like a spring in tornado alley
some days nora feels like dorothy
and she wears her red shoe escape plan
in the blood tick marks she leaves
on her arms and legs
each knife and razor blade
she uses to hack herself apart
reminds her there are other ways to crush pain
and she begins to realize
she can't run and hide but
she can fight  

nora does not beg for mercy
she waits
every day she takes another step
down the yellow brick road
leaving lilies in her wake
crawling up with hope
through every stone
she will not be worth only the
pain she counts in fives
on her skin blushing like burnt red cheeks
she hasn’t slept easy this past year
but she watches the sun rise
with the consolation
of how little she summons tears these days
of each stone she grows over
trampling her fears
with heels like roots curled around boulders
nora will survive tomorrow
understand her worth in the snaking path of flowers
she’ll turn around to stare down at
growing in the wake of her progress

Paul, he likes his lighters and his spoon
“Taste that kerosene.” he offers
‘Nah, I’m cool.’

There are people running naked in the street
This one girl, she slipped
Her blood becoming a perfect illustration of a fractal as it mixed with the rain water
Snaking through the leaves
Trickling to the gutter
On its way to the sea
Lucky blood
I wish it was me

I hold the syringe up to the light
Double checking I got it right
And I wonder, in this moment, what you would think of me?

“So then” Paul slides down the wall to the floor
Legs spread in a V, he winks at me
Like a drunken ******* offering more
“What’s your poison?”

‘******. But don’t get excited Paul, that’s not what I’m here for.’

I expose his skin, and let the needle sink in

“You used to be such a good girl. Goody goody.”
He laughs from his spot on the floor
“Goody; such a weird word. But that’s what you were.”

I recap the needle, carefully now

"What happened to you, Goody? What?” He twitches and slides down more

‘The hospital would be more suited for you, ya know.'
I pack up his insulin, store it back in the fridge.

‘Okay Paul. I’ll be back in the morning. Try not to OD again.’

“Goody Goody.” He laughs up at me from his spot on the floor.
“Goody Goody, that’s what you were.”

Here we go
Here we don't

Admit defeat
In surrendering

Arms are useless
No reason in doing right things

Pointless fighting
Lashed out of friends and enemies

Have you seen me running?

No trust and
Not trustworthy

At second glance
Explicit content
Becomes Imaginary

Quickly lost my sweater
Lost my shirt

Summer rolls around
Sadly I can't help this.

We won't speak again
I'll make sure of it.

A stronger drink
In a bigger glass

I can't stand that
It's all going to break.

Needle still spins on
Without echo
Without tone
Without devotion

Laid side by side
Too intimidating

Dead branches of a tree
We still insist on using

Classical vibrations
Muted with a finger persuading

Soon we will be shipbuilding
In arid climate
Is it worth it?

Telegram obsessive
Rumor possessive

Thinking of excuses
For a second time.

Thinking of triplets
For snaking bass line.

Vagabond breath
I'm always losing.

Rip tide took me out
Walls of sand

Struggled then saved by a stranger
but
I thought you were my father.

Back to hotel rooms
Or Empty rooms
As if nothing ever happened.

I can see a stone
They put you under.

Eased our minds
That we could temporarily forget
Then find you again.

We made each other god
In worlds less than holy.

Written in the language of the hard hats and dedicated to each and every one of us who have endured this horrible ****** Winter weather*

Rain in gouts from June till now
There's blue clay mud forever,
Orange excavators ply
With sturdy tracked endeavour.
Lakes of water, turgid brown,
Are Swirling  with the flow
Of four inch pumps in overdrive
With ****** all to show.

Streaming rainfall day by day
As dogged men press on
To concrete saw and generator's
Screaming, nearby song.
Welders, under shelter, flash
Their lurid silver light
And ghosts of reinforcing bars
Reflect like day is night.

Mightily the ironwork
Descends by crane to trench
And snaking snout of concrete pump
Disgorge their load to bench
The magic of the bentonite
Performs it's subtle dance
And the concrete locks for centuries
As thunderous skies advance.

Knee deep in the morass
With perplexed furrowed brow,
An engineer is pondering
A sticky problem he has now
How to isolate contaminants
From mud to water flow,
How to guarantee the purity
As seaward tonnes of it does go

And still the deluge thundered down
Relentlessly it poured,
Day to day and month by month
Despite the plea's implored.
Relentlessly the hard hats
Bent their sodden backs to task
And forged a mighty work of progress
.... More than anyone could ask!

Amazing the endeavor,
Just amazing how they work
How men can face adversity
And simply will not go beserk!
How bounteous camaraderie
Generates between ranks.
When the hardship is shared
And the boss smiles... thanks.

For the roof beams are settling
And those deep holes begin
The tunnel takes shape
As slanting rain whistles in
And the big trucks do loiter
To idle there for a bit,
As the loud water blasters
Clear the clogged wheels of ****.

And the public all clamoured
To wait and queue in the stall
To watch and to witness
A quite remarkable call.
For the old Birdcage tavern
On that grim cloudy day
Promptly lifted her skirts
And slowly scuttled away.

All the glue and epoxy
And the rivers of nails,
And concrete trucks queuing
As the ******* flails.
And steel by the megaton
All rusted and twitched
And worriers worrying
Till the problems are fixed.
And the augers are drilling
In a great tandem arc
And nobody knows
Where the **** they can park!!!
  
Then the bright sunshine breaks
And the smiles all appear
And the work rate accellerates
For the way is now is clear
To inter that  dear old Vic tunnel
Down deep in the sod
Then you'll hear us all chortle
"We've ****** done it ...Thank God!"


Marshalg
Victoria Park Tunnel
3 October 2010

When first we moved on into the house
They said that we wouldn’t last,
The locals told us nobody had
Of the many who’d left in the past.
We asked if the house was haunted, but
They said that it’s not, ‘It’s cool!’
The reason nobody stayed, they said,
Was the serpent that lived in the pool.

The ‘pool’ it seemed was the small lagoon
That was not so far from the house,
‘You’ll notice that there’s never a rat,
You’ll not see a single mouse!’
It seems the serpent came out at night
And fed on the rodents there,
‘You’d better keep all the windows shut,
And jam the doors with a chair.’

We settled in and we laughed at that,
‘They must believe I’m a fool!
I haven’t found anyone out there yet
Who has seen this thing in the pool.
It’s only a superstition, something
Handed down from the past,
They love to shiver and peddle gloom
In the hopes we’ll be aghast.’

We sauntered down and we took it in,
The water was calm and still,
And willows, myrtles and evergreens
Were set in this sweet idyll,
‘I think that I’m going to love it here,
It’s peaceful and quiet,’ said Cass,
I didn’t mention the snaking trail
That I’d noticed, deep in the grass.

She questioned me when I barred the doors,
And shut all the windows tight,
‘You’re not afraid of the serpent, Jack?’
She laughed, and I said ‘Not quite!
There’s gnats about in the midnight air
And I don’t want them in here.’
She laughed again, ‘That’s a good excuse,
I’m sure to believe you, dear!’

Cass would sleep like a log each night,
Would sleep ‘til the break of day,
But I would wake to the slightest scrape,
To a Hoot-Owl, hunting its prey.
I heard a sound on the patio
Like something slithering there,
A tapping sound on the window pane
And the movement of a chair.

It got to the point I couldn’t sleep,
I’d lie there, listening,
Awake to the slightest sound out there,
The barest rustling,
I’d keep a shovel beside the door
Get up, and sit in fright,
Holding my breath, and waiting for
Its visit, every night.

I opened the door one moonless night
And the monster slithered in,
A forked tongue flickering out in front
And cold eyes full of sin,
I slammed the shovel down on its neck
And the head just fell away,
While the rest just coiled through the open door
And the blood came out in a spray.

I must have got it all over me
So I should have washed my hands,
But somehow, some of the serpent’s blood
Got over the pots and pans,
I dumped the body out in the woods
Hid deep in the winter grass,
Then cooked a breakfast fit for a Queen
For the love of my lady, Cass.

I should have known about serpent’s blood
I should have been more than wise,
For Voodoo tells us that serpent’s blood
Will make you grow snakes inside,
So Cass came down with a fever then
And she moaned and cried, ‘Enough!’
She said, ‘There’s something a-move in there,
That’s slithering round my gut.’

I tended her for a week or more
Put a cold compress on her brow,
Trying to get her fever down,
I wouldn’t have done that now;
The seventh morning I checked on her
And she called out, ‘Don’t come in!’
I saw her there on the bedroom floor,
She’d slithered out of her skin.

I stepped aside as she tried to slide
On out through the open door,
She moved like a snake, covered in scales,
I watched her in shock, and awe,
She slithered down to the old lagoon
And disappeared in the reeds,
And that was the last I saw of Cass
I swear, and my heart, it bleeds.

They’ve got me locked in a prison cell
As they think I’ve done her in,
They went to look why she wasn’t there
But they only found her skin,
They think I’m some sort of monster
That I’m mad, or merely a fool,
I keep on saying they’ll find her,
She’s a serpent, down in the pool.

David Lewis Paget

The Internet, for a good helping
of the American demographic,
is the highest-rated of sanctuaries.

I use "sanctuary"
in a filthy and blatantly pornographic manner,

for every time
we post on our nicotine-scented Facebooks
that we're "so ******* bored" we "could die,"
there's at least one other
hand snaking you along
those fetishes you stash beneath your sleeve
like black silk underwear;

and no matter what you do,
nothing will explain away
those two consecutive Youtube videos:
"Black muscle man in blue thong"
followed spontaneously by
"12 year old boy sings Judy Garland!",
each, to the innocent bystander,
juxtaposed like two opposing ******
in one ****** up candy shop.

The grotesque meat show,
always the same introduction,
always right on time with the
churn churn churning of his
loneliness his rage his silence
onto those sheets
with no regard for the family
and friends of fibers.

It used to be hilarious,
perfect lunch table standup,
but once you learn
that with ***, there might be
signs of love in the decipherable thrusting,
that a plot is swimming helplessly
in the oceanic camouflage of loveless living,
sticky hands can really start to sting.

Creepers, snaking in a frenzy
go up on the red  brick wall,
crowded and so full,
an organization, amazing
of its own, how thrilling
to watch them create
the rhythm of life!
Its a weave, so thick
braided together
in so many ways,
my eyes, like honey drunk bees,
refuse to come back,
the flowers, the whole lot
are charming and with full of nectar.
What a fragrance,it spreads,
never experienced this before,
I get a feeling of hovering high
in the air,
**these creepers have a secret code,
to transport me to another world,
up one goes on the wings of that fragrance,
never wants to come back.

awakened cows chewing
a mountain pass
dawn warms their massive eyelash rows
clinging drops of dew
spark in rhythm with the cud

darkness rumbles distant now
clouds dispersed to other nights
while metaphoric bull unhinged resounds
the cosmic rut

must i hide my love for this
unweave my judgment from my sight?
what in me defies all sacred holiness forever sung?
bees will ravish even newly opened buds
who am i to battle with the lightning's surge?

presumtuous coverings
can net me willing lustful
stars i see a field i open fertile
ecstaticly unblessed enough

lost heroic i had thought to know
pretends a second thrum
i see in random eyes the breaking sky
and lightning branches over snaking crevices
a sound of faultlines folding free
tectonic sexplay deep
in lava belly
far behind the summit mount--
there i see the sun a base as well
earthen seedbeds heating heights of life

space is cracked!
vast width enwombs the narrowness i preen
in nervure's shine,
a sponge mycelial with soak of raining
carbon underground
the drumming hoofbeats shake and settle
days dehiscing spinning sun
to somber eve in active rest
dreaming pasture real
within a trailing effort's ease

Your innocent way of snaking open my heart
And tip toeing your pride inside
Shaking up everything in my kingdom
You slam the door to my heart
Over and over
Rattling my bones
Shattering my hopes
Destroying my foundation
Oh how you warned me
But I let you
I watched you take every single piece of my being
That I've spent so much time repairing
And played with it
Until you realized that you didn't know how
So you drained my moat of insecurities
And dismantled my walls of trust
You reconstructed a structure to support your own walls
You called it love
I call it devious selfishness
But within the pain
There was something different about you
And my gut was snagged on it
You've come through with explanations that were in my favor
Pain was never your plan
A submission of a simple antidote was issued
But you never took a second to listen to me
Your selfish needs defeated your focus
Its either everything or nothing with you
We could've waited this out together
Just to sit tight as friends
Wasting no time devouring each others company
Until the dust settled
But according to your behavior
You're just so entirely and terribly confused
At the beginning
When you charged the castle
My mind saw you holding control
Confident with your foot through the door
But time reveals how you're not even a brave warrior
You're just a floppy little jellyfish
You started this trouble and backed out
Before you could finish it
Leaving the ties untied
Letting words be unsaid
Losing the desire to act
And although whispers of secret lust
And crazy attraction
Linger on our lips
Where's the ambition that started this mess
Dig deep and find it
I'm begging you to finish this struggle
Don't make me finish it for you
Be spontaneous
Be forward
Be the strong confident girl that you showed me you could be
You can't lose
After all this destruction
The doors will open with just a glance of your light
You made it far enough into my heart
Please don't turn back now
I honestly just want you to know
That I'm still here
While you cower in a corner of fear
Wallowing in all your questions
Instead of acting on the emotions that are tearing you apart
Give me a chance to show you a whole new world
I'm still standing tall
For you...
You can't stay there
In a place that's unhealthy and miserable
Too scared to come out
So it's safe and predictable...
I can see it in your eyes that you're craving so much more
These feeling are killing you
Let them free and finish what you started
Step all the way through the door
And I'll catch you on the other side

I’m  at work
Buzzing to get out of there
Out of the fluorescence
And the din of screaming children
As it downplays the howling heads
Of their mothers who
Dream of their children’s exposed
Necks and getting out of the grocery store
Before it starts to rain.

I am Bobcat Goldthwait
underneath
The large hanging lamps,
pale green as barge lights
I make little sounds with my lips
And tongue, little incoherent sounds
To push the time forward .

A man comes through
My line holding a beige patch
Of cloth
Over his exposed trachea beneath,

with a voice like he crushes cement
puts it in his coffee
and ***** it up through a fiberglass straw.,
He drops some
Toothpaste and a brush on the counter
And says to me with that mutilated
Voice:
“there are only two types of *****,
Big old *****,
And old big *****.”

His skin is blotchy in the cheeks
like the husks of craters seen from the sky,
and the corners of his mouth
are dry and cracked
snaking and splitting outward like dry riverbeds.

For a second I want to laugh so hard,
That people will think I’m crazy, and
Maybe one of the twitchy managers will have
Me committed.

If he says any more, it’s this:
“You’re young, enjoy it,
if you worry
About the fuckups now,
you’ll Be worrying
until you’re an old ******
and that doesn’t do you any good,
***** hates the old **** ups.”

I feel like a snake

Shedding its old skin

Shaking and snaking

Out of the old

And remaking and refreshing

What is new

What is to come

What it can transform into

Shiny, new, smooth

No longer hanging on to the old

Not safe keeping it

Simply shedding it

Leaving it behind

I’m snaking away into

A new place

I have not forgotten the old

I’ve just simply grown new skin

Tougher and sharper

Better than before

I remember the old

Like it was just yesterday

And older still

Are the ones before

I’ve left them in various places

In remembrance

Of the good times

And the bad

All to learn

Something new

To grow into my new skin.

- soulwriterj

snaking through a modal-jazz fine-tuned evening
      this soft huddle of sweat and tender bodies
     it was purely girls strobed, fired upon by the oncoming *****

of a maddened hand;

     slowly becoming inured to this droning of the blameful balm
of evening, always when    ennui   starts
    to   wane I will     start    the   car
and take myself to the   edge of   everything

and all the  suddenness becomes    inept
  and I myself

a   shot   in the  total  dark
making    it   final

            somewhere in Quezon City
given a   levitation and    you
  
      are     somewhat veined to my wall of disgust
the same as
     finding    an   old,   forgotten   thing
you
     have no    use    for.

We glided east,
Past the canyons of Trevall.
Over the lake of Ebony.

Thy long journey hath proved a struggle,
For my dragon and I.
We only seek the seer of all Dragons..

Jerusalem growls,
Smoke escaping his nostrils.
He seemed annoyed,
By a raven bird below.

"Eas Jerusalem Sa Eh."
I say with comfort.
"Our journey is long...
Conserve thy energy."

With a flourish of his massive wings,
He dives below the tree's.
Snaking his body around the oak,
Elderwood and Evergleam.

My dragon and I are weary,
for this Journey is long.

As a Dark Angel,
A betrayed Valkyrie.
What lies ahead?
For I Cannot see the Throm.

Currents move the water.
Squirming, snaking and slithering
Through the depths till they reach the surface,
And then the gushes of air come,
Plucking the currents from peace
To force them forwards,

Another current swipes,
And another crashes,
Another burns with power,
And another dives through the centre,
The wind moulds the currents,
Sculpting the water to shape,
Until finally a ripple forms,

The gales flood over the crinkles,
They drag and try pierce the perfect folds,
Making the swan into an ugly duckling,
The duckling rises to its feet,
Excessive flesh flying away
Into the moist air,

The wings flap,
It stretches its legs and neck,
More impurities flicker off,
Brown feathers fade,
The beak sharpens,

Currents, gusts and ripples
All bundle into one,
The swan extends its wings fully,
And the water crashes.
Remains of the stunning creature tumble behind,
White foam and twizzling tides are left,

They reach the shore,
Swamping the sand in energy,
Clawing the helpless pebbles off the beach,
And retreating back to the ocean
Where more swans are formed
Endlessly

Auspexes chiming targets acquired
purple smoking lances fire
Cherub dead face wings flutter
Ghost choir sings and voices mutter
Scrolling cognator clicking gears
snaking red glow cables fear
dull black cermite gleaming; polished
through the walls
with violence; demolished
Flags of battle now unfurled
Exterminatus; the end of world's
Atop the pile men stand tall
now fall back quickly to the halls
with bolter, chain, claw and hammer
fight back the witch, the mutant; unsanctioned psyker

This time next week, I hope I will be breathing the air that I’ve been gasping for. I didn’t realize that four months could feel like four broken bones, two arms, two legs, all secretly cracked, only felt under the weight of my own invisible dread. It’s okay that I went back to being sixteen for awhile. It’s not what I wanted, what I planned for, but it’s what happened. I woke up with butterflies in my stomach and the rug ripped out from under me. My car sits in the driveway and I don’t drink coffee anymore because it makes me shake and I don’t know how to handle the shaking like I used to. I never used to worry about sharing drinks yet today I’ve washed my hands fifteen times and still don’t trust them. But it’s August and I’m twenty-three again. Or at least I will be when the key slides into the lock and I take that big gulp and pray for it to add a few years back that were taken away this summer. Everything is a circle cut in half, alternating between hollow and whole, snaking through time with hysterical pseudo endings and beginnings that are really just doors leading down a different hallway in the same ******* infinite hotel. Sometimes Wes Anderson’s, sometimes The Shining. I don’t have to listen to the yelling for the rest of my life if I don’t want to. I don’t have to be so unhappy if I don’t want to. Maybe next Saturday I will drive to the coffee shop on the corner and order something decaf and sugary and thank god that it’s over. It’s over. *******. The leaves will be turning orange soon. I almost forgot.

I remember creeping reverently past
The yawning maw
Snarling braches, overgrown foliage
Sad eye sockets
The defeated roof
Listing drunkenly to the left
The black spirals on the ground
Where the fire had scored earth bare
Crouched from the sanctity of the sidewalk
Damp palm snaking back to
Clasp tight
My best friend’s hand

Fear skittering up our spines
We skirted past poisonous green weeds
That swayed in the yard
Unkempt and our eyes
Darted, seeking, feral
For movement in that open doorway
Her shadow
The witch

Years pass

Looking out into suburbia
Manicured green boxes
And cookie-cutter plans
From my own cracked window
My newly acquired reno,
I spot a flash of moving colour
From beyond the overgrown hyacinths
A tousled flash of curls between the green
Puzzlement ripples as
Three lanky preadolescent forms
Snake from the protection of my shaggy firs
Thin chests taking a breath before
Their whippy arms point accusing
And I barely see a flash before
The clutched rock leaves the
Stupid-looking red headed one’s hand
Crashing through my upstairs master

And I hear it

Witch, witch, where’s the witch?

And I feel it.

My eyes beadily narrow
Peering over my bulbous nose
Shoulders hunching
Toes curl
And I reach for
The broom leaning next
The painter’s cloth
Grabbing on with knobbly fingers
Hurling myself
Out
Of
The door

Their eyes widened
Disbelieving
As they spot me  
And thumbs clutched between index fingers
They run
Leaving me cackling
Breathless

While my familiar
Looks up from
Sunning her black self
On the step.

A fire breathing dragon lived inside the nook of a tree,
Small enough to fit in a man's watch pocket,
Big enough to singe the bark around his door.
We peaked around the nearest trunk,
His smoke billowed around our adolescent ankles,
From his penny-sizes nostrils protruding from the plane of his oak.
We figured he ate the ivy snaking through his neighborhood,
But noticed no pin-sized tooth marks in surrounding leaves.

We then became bored with our own imagination.
We realized this black mark was only mold,
And we aged ten years.

Snaking through the cities roads into highways
that connect people from all suburbs
to a central spinal cord of lanes that
take you up and away from slum to slum.

The upmarket stores are full of bright lights
and little else that is elegant
its a cosmetic upbringing, mirage that
rises over the city's mist and clogs up the minds
magic as it swerves and rustles up the
the energies of other super cities
where commerce and hard labour have
equally sculpted a life of crime and distance.

Watch out for the airport which swings
in between the mountain of rubble
and municipal mania and parthenium ****
what finds every possible nook and cranny
to manifest itself. The politicians mumble and jumble
their way through manifestos and gimmicks
that endorse themselves as saviours of greed.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Her hair flutters in the golden light
a lioness
she knows words like chiaroscuro
and chimera

Her eyes, lit by twilight
chase the evening star
from blushing clouds

The sunset, pink and red
inking out our silhouettes,
releases shadows
snaking through the grass
and trees,
eloping with the night

The wind of death follows me
But I run, snaking through trees
Dodging, immortal

A marked child
Banking lives for debt

The horizon is topaz or citrine
Like an Omen hand delivered
If it's even there

The night is a whole year long
I'm an animal inside out

Surrounded by heavy columns
My mind cannot be overtaken
I have built
an internal citadel in the dark

As the waves fall on stony shore
the sword just sits there,
blunting in the washing sea-foam.

England’s winds carry the sand
from England’s rock to the grazes
on our ankles, our feet and hands.
They from the toes of Cornwall to
rocky Dunnet head
will our courage forward
through the first crawl on cam-corder,
to the last drop to earth.

‘We all began at the seaside’

Though days are gone, we linger
snaking through London with those southern scrubbers,
those diamond white men,
the Caribbean accents, the Guajarati, the Jews -
‘A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better one’
- we all patter round Oxford Circus and
climb aboard the number 9 bus.

‘Who so pulleth out this sword is trueborn King of all Britain’

And we watch the waves fall.

‘Hold very tight’

It’s there behind our ray-ban’s, our fake ray-ban’s,
their halcyon glint.
It’s the same secret, not one of us can keep -
Under the setting sun between
England's canals and sheep
the living live, cry and sleep.

-

It was London and my mother that
raised the muscles in my thighs to look firmly planted
and my face to look resolute when turned to the sun.
It was my mother and London.
They grew me up to look like I could pull out
Excaliber.

‘Lay me down trepanner man, but take the stories with you, if you can’.

So I, always King Arthur,
not a yank, not from Roehampton’s towers,
or Peckham. Not Tintagel, or Camelot,
escaped on an eddie to Manchester,
to bury stories with distance
and stare at cobwebs after rain.

'I’ll hear easy music, find out it’s easy, man.'    

But in Manchester’s plastic, in Manchester’s rain
It ran all the same.
Of a blunting blade, I dreamt,
until the Phrenologist came
and I asked him if I was torn up by London grit,
London loves and London’s spit.
But he said no,
no matter where you go
there’s just one secret that you’ll never keep
Under the setting sun between
England's canals and sheep
the living live, cry and sleep.

-

The sword just sits there,
honest as a dog.

And the sun has more secrets than any man on earth.

my shadow scuttles through the suburbs,
the seaside, the city, sideways like a crab.
The sandy cuts on my toes, ankles and knees
are bleakly investigated by a fly.

Has anyone sat at the round table?

It’s out of reach of my skinny wrists.

Lash me to a pole and wait for the Avalon tide
to slowly roll my English soul.

I better keep on living.
All stories, tears and sleep.
We are all just the living secret,
that not one of us can keep.

Havana, I arrive
in the sweaty thickness of July
caliente y picante
steamy sidewalks, steamy women
chocolate brown, tan and
black against the lemon-yellow walls
strolling through La Plaza de Armas
slurping thick café through weathered lips
in La Plaza de Francisco de Asis
dancing on the pregnant gray stones in La Plaza Vieja
timba, rumba, salsa and son
Cristo, Maria, Yemaya and Obatalá

Havana, I arrive
in the intoxication of your breath
between the acrid fumes
of insecticides and 1957 Chevy's
stepping past the dark grime of your slums
streets plush with tight round bodies
beautiful and sensuously swaying

I arrive snaking past the converted palaces
con las turistas ricos
and the buy-me-a-dress-and-a-ring ******
with their enchanting full-tooth smiles
and undulating earthquake-tremor hips
I hear your beat
the machine-gun laughter of your feet
on the hot cobblestones
with the jinateros and street musicians
chants of Santería drifting from pane-less windows
 
Havana, I smell your heat
under salty faded sheets
smell the long, tobacco-stained nights
with your hips swaying
to the pale drops of ***
spilt from red lips
and the red drops of blood
spilt from your revolutionaries
spilt from the gorging of Machado and Baptista
and 500 years of foreign dominion

In Paseo de Marti
banners of Che Guevara
flapping in the moist tear-laden breeze
Fidel, cigar in hand
tirelessly raging in black and white
on a Russian 1960's TV

Cuba, I can see the green in your eyes
the peeling-paint bedroom dreams and
dirt-poor joy of your richness
laughing out the despair and desperation
dancing out the oppression and the paucity
the aching of your past
the battles of Castillo De Los Tres Santos
of  the revolution
of living
and as I stand on the steps of El Capitolio
looking out at the decaying grandeur
I understand why
I will be back

A great and sprawling land, China.
I flew halfway 'round the globe
To find a vast conundrum:
Cities burgeoning,
Young and old
Spires of glass
Pillars of steel,
Empty or filled,
Roads new and old:
New Bentleys and Buicks,
Two cylindered trucks,
Three-wheeled taxis,
Bell ringing bicycles,
Wheelbarrows laden,
Grandmothers pushing carriages,
A million mopeds...
And everyone busy.

Ships at Qingdao,
Lovers on the boardwalks,
Blue-green glass touching the sky,
Reflecting the ocean.

Sidewalk musicians
Strum Chinese songs
'Neath kite-filled skies
Beside the spiraled Winds of Change.

Beijing, capitol and dragon-city,
Towers beside the ancient Wall,
Hosts the world,
Puts on her civil face,
Bows greetings to the fawning planet,
Eager to earn industrial favors.
She shrouds herself in smog,
Hides her slithering tail
Snaking world-ward over distant mountains.

---------------------------

Uneven is the change;
Wealth beyond imagination
Fuels the work of towering cranes
Pivoting above a poorer crowd's starvation...
A jet set crowd whose growing never wanes...
Economic challenge of the oldest of all nations.

Published today 14.12

Oh, How exquisite it was.
The scent and sight of freshly spilled blood.
The intricate texture of the ruby rain,
Spilling a and snaking down my skin.
Like precious liquid gems.
Oh, how glorious slaughter is.
How full of life it left me.
Cloaked in Death,
With the throbs of my heart,
Far lively compared to that of the corpse.
Oh how my laughs punctuated the air.
How I rebelled in the glory of my deed.
I was made in the image of god,
And now I understood the power of death.
This is not insanity, it is purer than that.
It is not rage, it is wilder than that.
It was never about avarice or fear as well.
It was feral blood lust, the legacy of my ancestors.
As I prey on my second victim, she raises the cross.
Sigh, I wonder, as I watch her wilt away.
Why does man consider all that is above it out of God's grace?
In the field of life, one's angel is the other's devil.
And so it has been unleashed.
Upon the earth, the scrounge of heaven and hell.
Man unrestrained and warped into its vile self.