I

He did not wear his scarlet coat,
  For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
  When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
  And murdered in her bed.

He walked amongst the Trial Men
  In a suit of shabby grey;
A cricket cap was on his head,
  And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
  So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked
  With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
  Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
  With sails of silver by.

I walked, with other souls in pain,
  Within another ring,
And was wondering if the man had done
  A great or little thing,
When a voice behind me whispered low,
  “That fellows got to swing.”

Dear Christ! the very prison walls
  Suddenly seemed to reel,
And the sky above my head became
  Like a casque of scorching steel;
And, though I was a soul in pain,
  My pain I could not feel.

I only knew what hunted thought
  Quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day
  With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved
  And so he had to die.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves
  By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
  Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
  The brave man with a sword!

Some **** their love when they are young,
  And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
  Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
  The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
  Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
  And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
  Yet each man does not die.

He does not die a death of shame
  On a day of dark disgrace,
Nor have a noose about his neck,
  Nor a cloth upon his face,
Nor drop feet foremost through the floor
  Into an empty place

He does not sit with silent men
  Who watch him night and day;
Who watch him when he tries to weep,
  And when he tries to pray;
Who watch him lest himself should rob
  The prison of its prey.

He does not wake at dawn to see
  Dread figures throng his room,
The shivering Chaplain robed in white,
  The Sheriff stern with gloom,
And the Governor all in shiny black,
  With the yellow face of Doom.

He does not rise in piteous haste
  To put on convict-clothes,
While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, and notes
  Each new and nerve-twitched pose,
******* a watch whose little ticks
  Are like horrible hammer-blows.

He does not know that sickening thirst
  That sands one’s throat, before
The hangman with his gardener’s gloves
  Slips through the padded door,
And binds one with three leathern thongs,
  That the throat may thirst no more.

He does not bend his head to hear
  The Burial Office read,
Nor, while the terror of his soul
  Tells him he is not dead,
Cross his own coffin, as he moves
  Into the hideous shed.

He does not stare upon the air
  Through a little roof of glass;
He does not pray with lips of clay
  For his agony to pass;
Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek
  The kiss of Caiaphas.


II

Six weeks our guardsman walked the yard,
  In a suit of shabby grey:
His cricket cap was on his head,
  And his step seemed light and gay,
But I never saw a man who looked
  So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked
  With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
  Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every wandering cloud that trailed
  Its raveled fleeces by.

He did not wring his hands, as do
  Those witless men who dare
To try to rear the changeling Hope
  In the cave of black Despair:
He only looked upon the sun,
  And drank the morning air.

He did not wring his hands nor weep,
  Nor did he peek or pine,
But he drank the air as though it held
  Some healthful anodyne;
With open mouth he drank the sun
  As though it had been wine!

And I and all the souls in pain,
  Who tramped the other ring,
Forgot if we ourselves had done
  A great or little thing,
And watched with gaze of dull amaze
  The man who had to swing.

And strange it was to see him pass
  With a step so light and gay,
And strange it was to see him look
  So wistfully at the day,
And strange it was to think that he
  Had such a debt to pay.

For oak and elm have pleasant leaves
  That in the spring-time shoot:
But grim to see is the gallows-tree,
  With its adder-bitten root,
And, green or dry, a man must die
  Before it bears its fruit!

The loftiest place is that seat of grace
  For which all worldlings try:
But who would stand in hempen band
  Upon a scaffold high,
And through a murderer’s collar take
  His last look at the sky?

It is sweet to dance to violins
  When Love and Life are fair:
To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes
  Is delicate and rare:
But it is not sweet with nimble feet
  To dance upon the air!

So with curious eyes and sick surmise
  We watched him day by day,
And wondered if each one of us
  Would end the self-same way,
For none can tell to what red Hell
  His sightless soul may stray.

At last the dead man walked no more
  Amongst the Trial Men,
And I knew that he was standing up
  In the black dock’s dreadful pen,
And that never would I see his face
  In God’s sweet world again.

Like two doomed ships that pass in storm
  We had crossed each other’s way:
But we made no sign, we said no word,
  We had no word to say;
For we did not meet in the holy night,
  But in the shameful day.

A prison wall was round us both,
  Two outcast men were we:
The world had ****** us from its heart,
  And God from out His care:
And the iron gin that waits for Sin
  Had caught us in its snare.


III

In Debtors’ Yard the stones are hard,
  And the dripping wall is high,
So it was there he took the air
  Beneath the leaden sky,
And by each side a Warder walked,
  For fear the man might die.

Or else he sat with those who watched
  His anguish night and day;
Who watched him when he rose to weep,
  And when he crouched to pray;
Who watched him lest himself should rob
  Their scaffold of its prey.

The Governor was strong upon
  The Regulations Act:
The Doctor said that Death was but
  A scientific fact:
And twice a day the Chaplain called
  And left a little tract.

And twice a day he smoked his pipe,
  And drank his quart of beer:
His soul was resolute, and held
  No hiding-place for fear;
He often said that he was glad
  The hangman’s hands were near.

But why he said so strange a thing
  No Warder dared to ask:
For he to whom a watcher’s doom
  Is given as his task,
Must set a lock upon his lips,
  And make his face a mask.

Or else he might be moved, and try
  To comfort or console:
And what should Human Pity do
  Pent up in Murderers’ Hole?
What word of grace in such a place
  Could help a brother’s soul?

With slouch and swing around the ring
  We trod the Fool’s Parade!
We did not care: we knew we were
  The Devil’s Own Brigade:
And shaven head and feet of lead
  Make a merry masquerade.

We tore the tarry rope to shreds
  With blunt and bleeding nails;
We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors,
  And cleaned the shining rails:
And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank,
  And clattered with the pails.

We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones,
  We turned the dusty drill:
We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns,
  And sweated on the mill:
But in the heart of every man
  Terror was lying still.

So still it lay that every day
  Crawled like a ****-clogged wave:
And we forgot the bitter lot
  That waits for fool and knave,
Till once, as we tramped in from work,
  We passed an open grave.

With yawning mouth the yellow hole
  Gaped for a living thing;
The very mud cried out for blood
  To the thirsty asphalte ring:
And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair
  Some prisoner had to swing.

Right in we went, with soul intent
  On Death and Dread and Doom:
The hangman, with his little bag,
  Went shuffling through the gloom
And each man trembled as he crept
  Into his numbered tomb.

That night the empty corridors
  Were full of forms of Fear,
And up and down the iron town
  Stole feet we could not hear,
And through the bars that hide the stars
  White faces seemed to peer.

He lay as one who lies and dreams
  In a pleasant meadow-land,
The watcher watched him as he slept,
  And could not understand
How one could sleep so sweet a sleep
  With a hangman close at hand?

But there is no sleep when men must weep
  Who never yet have wept:
So we—the fool, the fraud, the knave—
  That endless vigil kept,
And through each brain on hands of pain
  Another’s terror crept.

Alas! it is a fearful thing
  To feel another’s guilt!
For, right within, the sword of Sin
  Pierced to its poisoned hilt,
And as molten lead were the tears we shed
  For the blood we had not spilt.

The Warders with their shoes of felt
  Crept by each padlocked door,
And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe,
  Grey figures on the floor,
And wondered why men knelt to pray
  Who never prayed before.

All through the night we knelt and prayed,
  Mad mourners of a corpse!
The troubled plumes of midnight were
  The plumes upon a hearse:
And bitter wine upon a sponge
  Was the savior of Remorse.

The **** crew, the red **** crew,
  But never came the day:
And crooked shape of Terror crouched,
  In the corners where we lay:
And each evil sprite that walks by night
  Before us seemed to play.

They glided past, they glided fast,
  Like travelers through a mist:
They mocked the moon in a rigadoon
  Of delicate turn and twist,
And with formal pace and loathsome grace
  The phantoms kept their tryst.

With mop and mow, we saw them go,
  Slim shadows hand in hand:
About, about, in ghostly rout
  They trod a saraband:
And the ****** grotesques made arabesques,
  Like the wind upon the sand!

With the pirouettes of marionettes,
  They tripped on pointed tread:
But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear,
  As their grisly masque they led,
And loud they sang, and long they sang,
  For they sang to wake the dead.

“Oho!” they cried, “The world is wide,
  But fettered limbs go lame!
And once, or twice, to throw the dice
  Is a gentlemanly game,
But he does not win who plays with Sin
  In the secret House of Shame.”

No things of air these antics were
  That frolicked with such glee:
To men whose lives were held in gyves,
  And whose feet might not go free,
Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things,
  Most terrible to see.

Around, around, they waltzed and wound;
  Some wheeled in smirking pairs:
With the mincing step of demirep
  Some sidled up the stairs:
And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer,
  Each helped us at our prayers.

The morning wind began to moan,
  But still the night went on:
Through its giant loom the web of gloom
  Crept till each thread was spun:
And, as we prayed, we grew afraid
  Of the Justice of the Sun.

The moaning wind went wandering round
  The weeping prison-wall:
Till like a wheel of turning-steel
  We felt the minutes crawl:
O moaning wind! what had we done
  To have such a seneschal?

At last I saw the shadowed bars
  Like a lattice wrought in lead,
Move right across the whitewashed wall
  That faced my three-plank bed,
And I knew that somewhere in the world
  God’s dreadful dawn was red.

At six o’clock we cleaned our cells,
  At seven all was still,
But the sough and swing of a mighty wing
  The prison seemed to fill,
For the Lord of Death with icy breath
  Had entered in to ****.

He did not pass in purple pomp,
  Nor ride a moon-white steed.
Three yards of cord and a sliding board
  Are all the gallows’ need:
So with rope of shame the Herald came
  To do the secret deed.

We were as men who through a fen
  Of filthy darkness *****:
We did not dare to breathe a prayer,
  Or give our anguish scope:
Something was dead in each of us,
  And what was dead was Hope.

For Man’s grim Justice goes its way,
  And will not swerve aside:
It slays the weak, it slays the strong,
  It has a deadly stride:
With iron heel it slays the strong,
  The monstrous parricide!

We waited for the stroke of eight:
  Each tongue was thick with thirst:
For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate
  That makes a man accursed,
And Fate will use a running noose
  For the best man and the worst.

We had no other thing to do,
  Save to wait for the sign to come:
So, like things of stone in a valley lone,
  Quiet we sat and dumb:
But each man’s heart beat thick and quick
  Like a madman on a drum!

With sudden shock the prison-clock
  Smote on the shivering air,
And from all the gaol rose up a wail
  Of impotent despair,
Like the sound that frightened marshes hear
  From a ***** in his lair.

And as one sees most fearful things
  In the crystal of a dream,
We saw the greasy hempen rope
  Hooked to the blackened beam,
And heard the prayer the hangman’s snare
  Strangled into a scream.

And all the woe that moved him so
  That he gave that bitter cry,
And the wild regrets, and the ****** sweats,
  None knew so well as I:
For he who lives more lives than one
  More deaths than one must die.


IV

There is no chapel on the day
  On which they hang a man:
The Chaplain’s heart is far too sick,
  Or his face is far too wan,
Or there is that written in his eyes
  Which none should look upon.

So they kept us close till nigh on noon,
  And then they rang the bell,
And the Warders with their jingling keys
  Opened each listening cell,
And down the iron stair we tramped,
  Each from his separate Hell.

Out into God’s sweet air we went,
  But not in wonted way,
For this man’s face was white with fear,
  And that man’s face was grey,
And I never saw sad men who looked
  So wistfully at the day.

I never saw sad men who looked
  With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
  We prisoners called the sky,
And at every careless cloud that passed
  In happy freedom by.

But there were those amongst us all
  Who walked with downcast head,
And knew that, had each got his due,
  They should have died instead:
He had but killed a thing that lived
  Whilst they had killed the dead.

For he who sins a second time
  Wakes a dead soul to pain,
And draws it from its spotted shroud,
  And makes it bleed again,
And makes it bleed great gouts of blood
  And makes it bleed in vain!

Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb
  With crooked arrows starred,
Silently we went round and round
  The slippery asphalte yard;
Silently we went round and round,
  And no man spoke a word.

Silently we went round and round,
  And through each hollow mind
The memory of dreadful things
  Rushed like a dreadful wind,
And Horror stalked before each man,
  And terror crept behind.

The Warders strutted up and down,
  And kept their herd of brutes,
Their uniforms were ***** and span,
  And they wore their Sunday suits,
But we knew the work they had been at
  By the quicklime on their boots.

For where a grave had opened wide,
  There was no grave at all:
Only a stretch of mud and sand
  By the hideous prison-wall,
And a little heap of burning lime,
  That the man should have his pall.

For he has a pall, this wretched man,
  Such as few men can claim:
Deep down below a prison-yard,
  Naked for greater shame,
He lies, with fetters on each foot,
  Wrapt in a sheet of flame!

And all the while the burning lime
  Eats flesh and bone away,
It eats the brittle bone by night,
  And the soft flesh by the day,
It eats the flesh and bones by turns,
  But it eats the heart alway.

For three long years they will not sow
  Or root or seedling there:
For three long years the unblessed spot
  Will sterile be and bare,
And look upon the wondering sky
  With unreproachful stare.

They think a murderer’s heart would taint
  Each simple seed they sow.
It is not true! God’s kindly earth
  Is kindlier than men know,
And the red rose would but blow more red,
  The white rose whiter blow.

Out of his mouth a red, red rose!
  Out of his heart a white!
For who can say by what strange way,
  Christ brings his will to light,
Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore
  Bloomed in the great Pope’s sight?

But neither milk-white rose nor red
  May bloom in prison air;
The shard, the pebble, and the flint,
  Are what they give us there:
For flowers have been known to heal
  A common man’s despair.

So never will wine-red rose or white,
  Petal by petal, fall
On that stretch of mud and sand that lies
  By the hideous prison-wall,
To tell the men who ***** the yard
  That God’s Son died for all.

Yet though the hideous prison-wall
  Still hems him round and round,
And a spirit man not walk by night
  That is with fetters bound,
And a spirit may not weep that lies
  In such unholy ground,

He is at peace—this wretched man—
  At peace, or will be soon:
There is no thing to make him mad,
  Nor does Terror walk at noon,
For the lampless Earth in which he lies
  Has neither Sun nor Moon.

They hanged him as a beast is hanged:
  They did not even toll
A reguiem that might have brought
  Rest to his startled soul,
But hurriedly they took him out,
  And hid him in a hole.

They stripped him of his canvas clothes,
  And gave him to the flies;
They mocked the swollen purple throat
  And the stark and staring eyes:
And with laughter loud they heaped the shroud
  In which their convict lies.

The Chaplain would not kneel to pray
  By his dishonored grave:
Nor mark it with that blessed Cross
  That Christ for sinners gave,
Because the man was one of those
  Whom Christ came down to save.

Yet all is well; he has but passed
  To Life’s appointed bourne:
And alien tears will fill for him
  Pity’s long-broken urn,
For his mourner will be outcast men,
  And outcasts always mourn.


V

I know not whether Laws be right,
  Or whether Laws be wrong;
All that we know who lie in gaol
  Is that the wall is strong;
And that each day is like a year,
  A year whose days are long.

But this I know, that every Law
  That men have made for Man,
Since first Man took his brother’s life,
  And the sad world began,
But straws the wheat and saves the chaff
  With a most evil fan.

This too I know—and wise it were
  If each could know the same—
That every prison that men build
  Is built with bricks of shame,
And bound with bars lest Christ should see
  How men their brothers maim.

With bars they blur the gracious moon,
  And blind the goodly sun:
And they do well to hide their Hell,
  For in it things are done
That Son of God nor son of Man
  Ever should look upon!

The vilest deeds like poison weeds
  Bloom well in prison-air:
It is only what is good in Man
  That wastes and withers there:
Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,
  And the Warder is Despair

For they starve the little frightened child
  Till it weeps both night and day:
And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool,
  And gibe the old and grey,
And some grow mad, and all grow bad,
And none a word may say.

Each narrow cell in which we dwell
  Is foul and dark latrine,
And the fetid breath of living Death
  Chokes up each grated screen,
And all, but Lust, is turned to dust
  In Humanity’s machine.

The brackish water that we drink
  Creeps with a loathsome slime,
And the bitter bread they weigh in scales
  Is full of chalk and lime,
And Sleep will not lie down, but walks
  Wild-eyed and cries to Time.

But though lean Hunger and green Thirst
  Like asp with adder fight,
We have little care of prison fare,
  For what chills and kills outright
Is that every stone one lifts by day
  Becomes one’s heart by night.

With midnight always in one’s heart,
  And twilight in one’s cell,
We turn the crank, or tear the rope,
  Each in his separate Hell,
And the silence is more awful far
  Than the sound of a brazen bell.

And never a human voice comes near
  To speak a gentle word:
And the eye that watches through the door
  Is pitiless and hard:
And by all forgot, we rot and rot,
  With soul and body marred.

And thus we rust Life’s iron chain
  Degraded and alone:
And some men curse, and some men weep,
  And some men make no moan:
But God’s eternal Laws are kind
  And break the heart of stone.

And every human heart that breaks,
  In prison-cell or yard,
Is as that broken box that gave
  Its treasure to the Lord,
And filled the unclean *****’s house
  With the scent of costliest nard.

Ah! happy day they whose hearts can break
  And peace of pardon win!
How else may man make straight his plan
  And cleanse his soul from Sin?
How else but through a broken heart
  May Lord Christ enter in?

And he of the swollen purple throat.
  And the stark and staring eyes,
Waits for the holy hands that took
  The Thief to Paradise;
And a broken and a contrite heart
  The Lord will not despise.

The man in red who reads the Law
  Gave him three weeks of life,
Three little weeks in which to heal
  His soul of his soul’s strife,
And cleanse from every blot of blood
  The hand that held the knife.

And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand,
  The hand that held the steel:
For only blood can wipe out blood,
  And only tears can heal:
And the crimson stain that was of Cain
  Became Christ’s snow-white seal.


VI

In Reading gaol by Reading town
  There is a pit of shame,
And in it lies a wretched man
  Eaten by teeth of flame,
In burning winding-sheet he lies,
  And his grave has got no name.

And there, till Christ call forth the dead,
  In silence let him lie:
No need to waste the foolish tear,
  Or heave the windy sigh:
The man had killed the thing he loved,
  And so he had to die.

And all men **** the thing they love,
  By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
  Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
  The brave man with a sword!

We took the back road to the house. The shade from the trees made the road feel like tunnel. Not a shred of light came in. We'd have to drive slow. The road wasn't made of concrete: it was made of dirt, rock, and dead leaves. Sometimes we could see the worms come up out of the dirt in the headlights, their pink stretching bodies like weird little fingers. Carrie never looked. She said it was too scary. The rest of us would look and watch them dance around like that. Sometimes we'd have to run them over. Of course, we'd feel bad about it, but we needed to get back to the house. There were things to be done. Nothing planned, but nonetheless, things to be done.
Englend reversed the car up to the front door. The liquor, the food, and the beer was in the back and would make it easier to get it from there. Patty and Carrie (the one scared of the worms) ran straight to the bathroom. They'd been complaining about how we never stopped at a gas station to ***. Englend said we didn't have the time and I just didn't care. Denny was in the same mindset as me. We usually were. Kat was looking out the window, thinking about something she didn't wish to share when we started to unload. She offered to help after she'd finished her thought, but the three of us said we had it. We didn't really, but we let her have her thought while we carried the bags. There weren't that many to complain about anyway.
When everyone was inside unpacking their things, I hung back and smoked a cigarette. I looked down at the river. It was full and rushing. The trees were full with bright, lime green leaves. The branches were tanned auburn from the sun. They looked the forearms of the Mexican girls at my high school: smooth, everlasting, stretching to a place I was never allowed to touch or look at. I ashed my cigarette into a pile of leaves and immediately worried that I was going to start a fire. I kicked it out, thrusting my boot heel into where I thought the ember had went.
"What the hell are you doing?" Englend screamed from the front porch, a handle of whiskey underneath his arm, a glass with ice in the other.
"Ashed into the leaves," I told him, "Trying to take it out." I kicked the leaves a few more times, then walked towards Englend.
"Let me get a hit of that," I said, pointing at the handle.
He spun the top and it rolled off the tread. The cap rolled off the deck and Englend chased after it, handing me the bottle first.
"Take this. Where'd the hell it go?"
"Down there somewhere," I said, pulling the bottle back. The sweetness of the whiskey hit my nostrils first, then the bite of the liquor. I coughed, feeling my eyes begin to water. The first one was always the hardest. After that, they got easier.
June had just ended. July was just arriving. The third was tomorrow and the next day was the fourth.
I took another pull from the handle. I placed on the decks railing and left Englend with it. He was still looking around for the bottle cap.
"I thought I saw it roll under the deck," I told him.
"*******," he moaned. He looked up at me, "Come and help me. It'll be faster with two."
"Can't. Gotta' check on Carrie and get ourselves a room."
"*******," he moaned again, reaching under the deck.
"Don't get your hand bit by a possum or rat or something!" I yelled behind me, going inside. "Carrie!" I screamed, "Where'd you go?"
"Upstairs getting our room ready!" I heard her scream from the 2nd floor, "Come and help me put the sheets on."
I went into the kitchen. Denny was stocking the fridge with the beer and the meat. I reached over his shoulder and grabbed a Budweiser. He had an open one in between his knees. The light stuff was on the bottom to the far left, the heavy stuff in the middle, and the expensive IPA, hoppy stuff to the far right. The top shelf was for food, mixer, and whatever else the girls had decided to get at the store. Fruit and things. I opened up the freezer. There were two handles of Smirnoff resting on three large bags of ice. We would need more ice. I closed the freezer and ran my fingers of the labels of two more handles of Cazadorés tequila and Bulleit bourbon. Overall, I thought we were fairly stocked for the four day weekend, but one could never be to sure. People came out of the wood work for the 4th of July. No telling who would show up at our front door.
I went upstairs to see what Carrie was doing. She was laying on the bed with the sheets resting on the dresser. The light was off. The room was cast in that light grey pigment that happens when the bedroom light isn't there. It was nice. The sun had been straining my eyes the whole time even though I had been driving in the backseat. Carrie was laying face down on the bed. She was wearing a skirt, so I slowly laid down on the bed and inched her dress up. She didn't flinch or move, so I pulled it up until I saw her burgundy lace *******. They looked pressed or ironed or something they looked so clean.
"What're you doing?" Carrie asked me, her face down into the mattress.
"Just looking," I said.
"At what?"
"At your ****."
"Why?"
"Cause' it's nice."
"Close the door."
I got up, closed the door, and laid back down.
"Lets put the sheets on the bed first."
"OK," I said.
We put the sheets on the bed, but couldn't wait for the pillows and the rest of the blankets. We tried to be quiet, but knew we weren't. After, we took a shower together. I rubbed Carrie's shoulders while the hot water rained down on us. She said it was better to get a massage in the shower because the hot water loosened up the muscles. I didn't know if that was true or not, but I did it anyway. I watched her as she unpacked her bag. Her hair was wet and it swung back and forth, wetting her back. She was wrapped in her favorite pink towel. Water dripped from her body down to the floor. I waited to put my things away. I had brought up very little. Mostly *****. Carrie took up most of the dresser. I had one drawer by the time we were finished.
We took a nap. After we were done sleeping, we looked outside and saw the sun had been replaced with the night. The stars and the light coming from inside of the cabin streaked out into the forest like a splash of golden florescent paint. Carrie and I poked our heads outside to listen to the creaking trees and the rustling of animals through the bush. Someone downstairs was lightly clattering dishes as they cleaned them while the smell of red maple firewood burning in the fireplace came up to our room. I took out my phone from my pocket and looked at the time.
"****," I said, "It's already 10 o'clock."
"I'm starving."
"I'm starving and need a drink."
"Let's go downstairs and see what they made."
I slipped on my 501's while Carrie straightened up her hair. We went downstairs and saw two plates with hamburgers and fries on them. Patty was at the sink cleaning the pots and pans. She was staring down into the soapy froth, humming a song to herself I couldn't understand. She hadn't heard us come down. Denny, Englend, and Kat weren't in the living room.
"Where is everybody?" I asked.
"Oh!" Patty burst. She swung around, a soaped up frying pan in her hands. "You scared the **** out of me!"
I put my hands up, "Gotcha!" I said smiling.
"They went for a walk somewhere and left all the dishes for me."
"Leave'em," Carrie said, taking Patty's hands and wiping the soap away with a rag, "Van and I will take care of them."
"I only have a few more..."
"I insist!" Carrie took Patty's arm and lead her to the couch and laid her down. I took a cup from the pantry, filled it with ice, and poured Bulliet half-way up. I handed the glass to Carrie and she brought it to Patty.
"Look at that," Patty smiled, "Full-service."
"What you get when you come up to the Dangerson cabin."
"**** right!" I exclaimed through a bite of hamburger, "Only the best here."
Patty leaned her head back after taking a long sip of the whiskey. She exhaled and closed her eyes. I watched her as her chest heaved up and down. She kicked off her shoes and let her hair fall over the armrest of the couch.
"You said they went into the woods, Patty?"
Carrie took her burger and went and sat next to Patty.
"Lift your legs up," Carrie said, "Let me sit with you."
"Yeah. They went into the woods an hour or so ago. Probably a little less."
I opened the fridge and grabbed another beer.
"What were they going out there for?"
"I have no idea."
"Probably to get firewood or something," Carrie said, "Can you grab me one of those."
"Sure," I said, tossing her one.
"Wait," She yelled, throwing her hands in the air. The beer landed right in one of her flailing hands.
"Nice catch," I laughed, opening the fridge and grabbing another.
"You're such a ****!"
I smiled and walked out onto the deck.
"He really is," I heard Carrie tell Patty.
"I heard that!"
"You were meant to!" she called back to me, laughing.
I shook my head and opened the can of beer. Why did they decide to go get firewood now? We had plenty of wood here already. Patty probably didn't know what she was talking about. That happened often. I strained my eyes to see through the darkness, maybe see if I could spot a flashlight or the round end of a lit cigarette, but the forest was just a wash of thick blackness. Even the stars had grown faint.
"Englend!" I shouted.
Nothing. Not a peep. They were far out there.
"Englend!" I shouted again.
"What the hell are you shouting at?" a voice said from the trees. I couldn't tell who it was, but it was someone I knew.
"Who the hell is that?"
"Well who the hell do you think it is?" It was Englend. He came out of the trees like a wild boar. He had a handle of whiskey in one hand with a pile of small twigs and firewood in the other. What came to mind first was a mix between a drunken Brawny guy and a pinecone.
"What's all the screaming about?" Kat asked, trailing behind Englend. Denny followed behind. They all had armfuls of wood. From what I saw, little would be useful, but I kept that to myself.
Englend came up the deck and handed me the handle. I took a long pull. As I drank, I looked up into the stars, which were now out and shining brighter than they were before. A cloud had moved, wavered off somewhere, presenting the gifts that were behind it. I lowered the bottle and watched Denny and Kat walk up the stairs. They were smiling.
"What are you two so happy about?" I asked, handing Denny the whiskey.
"Gimme' that!" Kat snagged it out of my hand, laughing. She took a long pull. Denny, Englend, and I watched, amazed that little hippy Kat could take such a heavy shot.
"Good God," I murmured.
"She drinks like a pirate," said Denny.
"A ****** pirate," added Englend.
Kat was especially small. Not a small person small, but petite. She also had a great *** and could out drink, out party, and out do the rest of us in debaucherous shenanigans. She had never heard of the word or feeling of shame either and did, really, whatever the hell she felt like.
"I heard that you *******," she said, exhaling, blinking her eyes wildly.
"That was a biggun'," Denny said, taking the bottle and pulling it.
"Needed it. Englend had us wandering around the ******* forest for firewood the minute we got here."
"Do we even need any?" I asked.
"Course we do!" Englend exclaimed, "Gotta' keep our ladies warm!"
He put his arm around Kat and shook her.
"Gross..." Kat frowned, her face pickling while she squirmed out of his arms.
"You love it Kat...where's Patty? Where's my babe!?" Englend thundered off into the house.
"I'm right here," Patty squealed. She was still on the couch with Carrie. She kicked her feet crazily as Englend jumped on her. Carrie jumped off just before he cannon balled onto the couch.
"You guys are SICK!" Carrie screamed.
"You love it," they both said in unison. The two of them play wrestled until Patty finally got Englend by the ***** and kissed him.
Denny handed Kat the bottle," You want another?" he asked.
"I'm good, Denny," she said.
"Hank?" He asked me.
"I'll take one, yeah," I said. I pulled it back as Kat went inside. I exhaled and looked at Denny, "So, you and Kat are the only two legitimate single people here. How you feel about that?"
"Hopeful," he said.
"That's good to hear. I'll see what Carrie can do."
"Sweet," he said nervously.
"Let's get inside. Patty made some burgers."
"Thank God," Denny sighed, shaking his head, "I'm ******* starving. Englend had us walking for ******' miles.
"No idea why. We have plenty of wood downstairs."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah. Lots of it. I cut a bunch the last time I was here."
"******," he laughed, "Englend told us were out."
"He doesn't know what he's talking about," I said. We walked into the kitchen. I put the bottle down next to Carrie, who had made her way from the couch back into the kitchen. She looked at the bottle, then at me.
"What you drinking there?" she asked me looking at the bottle.
"Whiskey," I told her.
"Can you not drink so much?" she whispered so no one could hear her.
"I'm good," I said, taking her hand, "I just drank a little bit outside while I was waiting for Englend. They went on a wild goose chase for firewood."
"Good."
"Denny was telling me they went all over for the stuff."
"Why?" she smiled, "We have so much from the last time we were up."
"That's what I was telling Englend, but he didn't care. Guy gets antsy."
"Who's antsy?" Englend called from the couch. Patty was wrapped up in his eyes, looking drunk from the single shot Carrie and I had given her. Kat was on the couch with a beer. Denny was hovering by the door, rocking back and forth on his heels still holding an armful of fire wood.
"Why don't you just leave that by the door?" I told Denny, "Take a seat. Stay a while."
He dropped the firewood by the side of the front door and took a seat on the floor in front of the fireplace by Kat. He looked up at her and smiled, but she didn't notice. She was sipping her beer, rummaging around in her pocket for something.
"What I was saying was that you guys didn't need to get anymore firewood or kindling or whatever the hell you guys got because we have a lot from the last time Carrie and I were up."
"I saw those logs," said Englend, "And they're ******* twigs compared to what we got!"
Everyone laughed.
"Well," I said, opening the fridge for another beer (I wasn't sure where my other one had gone to), "I'm not taking the **** down."
"All good, we'll take it down."
"You'll take it down," said Kat, "We had to walk through half of the ******* forest to get to your secret wood spot, then walk back. I'm finished with wood for now."
"Fine," Englend moaned, "I'll take it down in the morning."
"I'll help you," Denny added.
"Good! We got two big guys to do it. It'll be done in no time."
I turned around and opened up the cabinet that was filled with shot glasses. I took six out, put them on the table, and filled them with whiskey.
"Let's take a group shot before we all start getting snuggly and sleepy."
"Great idea!" Englend shouted, popping up from the couch.
"For America!" Patty giggled, following Englend.
Kat helped Denny from the floor and walked over to the counter. They parted hands when Denny was on his feet, but I could tell he wouldn't mind holding her hand for the duration of the trip.
"I'm glad to have you all here," I said, "Glad we could do this."
Everyone nodded, smiling, holding their golden brown shots in the air.
"For America," I said.
"For America!" the rest of them yelled. We soaked in the glory of fine whiskey and hazy conversation for the rest of the night.
Everyone was moving slow in the morning. Englend seemed to be the most up out of everyone. I walked into the kitchen to him whipping 12 eggs, grating cheese, pan frying potatoes, bubbling coffee, and pouring orange juice into mimosa flutes. The champagne was already out. I thought, a little alcohol will probably do me some good. It did. After my third glass, I kissed Carrie when she groggily walked into the living room. She preceded to slump onto the couch. I brought her a cup coffee and some Advil. She smiled meekly into my glazed over, blood shot eyes. I could tell she was hurting, but she would be right in a couple hours. Once we got into the river, all would be right.
"Jesus," said Carrie, "You guys are already drinking?"
"Of course!" Englend laughed, "It's the fourth and it's already noon. We're behind if anything."
"And Englend made breakfast," I said.
"I can see th

In memoriam
C. T. W.
Sometime trooper of the Royal Horse Guards
obiit H.M. prison, Reading, Berkshire
July 7, 1896

I

He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
And murdered in her bed.

He walked amongst the Trial Men
In a suit of shabby grey;
A cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
With sails of silver by.

I walked, with other souls in pain,
Within another ring,
And was wondering if the man had done
A great or little thing,
When a voice behind me whispered low,
‘That fellow’s got to swing.’

Dear Christ! the very prison walls
Suddenly seemed to reel,
And the sky above my head became
Like a casque of scorching steel;
And, though I was a soul in pain,
My pain I could not feel.

I only knew what hunted thought
Quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day
With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved,
And so he had to die.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

Some **** their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.

He does not die a death of shame
On a day of dark disgrace,
Nor have a noose about his neck,
Nor a cloth upon his face,
Nor drop feet foremost through the floor
Into an empty space.

He does not sit with silent men
Who watch him night and day;
Who watch him when he tries to weep,
And when he tries to pray;
Who watch him lest himself should rob
The prison of its prey.

He does not wake at dawn to see
Dread figures throng his room,
The shivering Chaplain robed in white,
The Sheriff stern with gloom,
And the Governor all in shiny black,
With the yellow face of Doom.

He does not rise in piteous haste
To put on convict-clothes,
While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats,
and notes
Each new and nerve-twitched pose,
******* a watch whose little ticks
Are like horrible hammer-blows.

He does not know that sickening thirst
That sands one’s throat, before
The hangman with his gardener’s gloves
Slips through the padded door,
And binds one with three leathern thongs,
That the throat may thirst no more.

He does not bend his head to hear
The Burial Office read,
Nor, while the terror of his soul
Tells him he is not dead,
Cross his own coffin, as he moves
Into the hideous shed.

He does not stare upon the air
Through a little roof of glass:
He does not pray with lips of clay
For his agony to pass;
Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek
The kiss of Caiaphas.

II

Six weeks our guardsman walked the yard,
In the suit of shabby grey:
His cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed light and gay,
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every wandering cloud that trailed
Its ravelled fleeces by.

He did not wring his hands, as do
Those witless men who dare
To try to rear the changeling Hope
In the cave of black Despair:
He only looked upon the sun,
And drank the morning air.

He did not wring his hands nor weep,
Nor did he peek or pine,
But he drank the air as though it held
Some healthful anodyne;
With open mouth he drank the sun
As though it had been wine!

And I and all the souls in pain,
Who tramped the other ring,
Forgot if we ourselves had done
A great or little thing,
And watched with gaze of dull amaze
The man who had to swing.

And strange it was to see him pass
With a step so light and gay,
And strange it was to see him look
So wistfully at the day,
And strange it was to think that he
Had such a debt to pay.

For oak and elm have pleasant leaves
That in the springtime shoot:
But grim to see is the gallows-tree,
With its adder-bitten root,
And, green or dry, a man must die
Before it bears its fruit!

The loftiest place is that seat of grace
For which all worldlings try:
But who would stand in hempen band
Upon a scaffold high,
And through a murderer’s collar take
His last look at the sky?

It is sweet to dance to violins
When Love and Life are fair:
To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes
Is delicate and rare:
But it is not sweet with nimble feet
To dance upon the air!

So with curious eyes and sick surmise
We watched him day by day,
And wondered if each one of us
Would end the self-same way,
For none can tell to what red Hell
His sightless soul may stray.

At last the dead man walked no more
Amongst the Trial Men,
And I knew that he was standing up
In the black dock’s dreadful pen,
And that never would I see his face
In God’s sweet world again.

Like two doomed ships that pass in storm
We had crossed each other’s way:
But we made no sign, we said no word,
We had no word to say;
For we did not meet in the holy night,
But in the shameful day.

A prison wall was round us both,
Two outcast men we were:
The world had ****** us from its heart,
And God from out His care:
And the iron gin that waits for Sin
Had caught us in its snare.

III

In Debtors’ Yard the stones are hard,
And the dripping wall is high,
So it was there he took the air
Beneath the leaden sky,
And by each side a Warder walked,
For fear the man might die.

Or else he sat with those who watched
His anguish night and day;
Who watched him when he rose to weep,
And when he crouched to pray;
Who watched him lest himself should rob
Their scaffold of its prey.

The Governor was strong upon
The Regulations Act:
The Doctor said that Death was but
A scientific fact:
And twice a day the Chaplain called,
And left a little tract.

And twice a day he smoked his pipe,
And drank his quart of beer:
His soul was resolute, and held
No hiding-place for fear;
He often said that he was glad
The hangman’s hands were near.

But why he said so strange a thing
No Warder dared to ask:
For he to whom a watcher’s doom
Is given as his task,
Must set a lock upon his lips,
And make his face a mask.

Or else he might be moved, and try
To comfort or console:
And what should Human Pity do
Pent up in Murderers’ Hole?
What word of grace in such a place
Could help a brother’s soul?

With slouch and swing around the ring
We trod the Fools’ Parade!
We did not care:  we knew we were
The Devil’s Own Brigade:
And shaven head and feet of lead
Make a merry masquerade.

We tore the tarry rope to shreds
With blunt and bleeding nails;
We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors,
And cleaned the shining rails:
And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank,
And clattered with the pails.

We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones,
We turned the dusty drill:
We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns,
And sweated on the mill:
But in the heart of every man
Terror was lying still.

So still it lay that every day
Crawled like a ****-clogged wave:
And we forgot the bitter lot
That waits for fool and knave,
Till once, as we tramped in from work,
We passed an open grave.

With yawning mouth the yellow hole
Gaped for a living thing;
The very mud cried out for blood
To the thirsty asphalte ring:
And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair
Some prisoner had to swing.

Right in we went, with soul intent
On Death and Dread and Doom:
The hangman, with his little bag,
Went shuffling through the gloom:
And each man trembled as he crept
Into his numbered tomb.

That night the empty corridors
Were full of forms of Fear,
And up and down the iron town
Stole feet we could not hear,
And through the bars that hide the stars
White faces seemed to peer.

He lay as one who lies and dreams
In a pleasant meadow-land,
The watchers watched him as he slept,
And could not understand
How one could sleep so sweet a sleep
With a hangman close at hand.

But there is no sleep when men must weep
Who never yet have wept:
So we—the fool, the fraud, the knave—
That endless vigil kept,
And through each brain on hands of pain
Another’s terror crept.

Alas! it is a fearful thing
To feel another’s guilt!
For, right within, the sword of Sin
Pierced to its poisoned hilt,
And as molten lead were the tears we shed
For the blood we had not spilt.

The Warders with their shoes of felt
Crept by each padlocked door,
And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe,
Grey figures on the floor,
And wondered why men knelt to pray
Who never prayed before.

All through the night we knelt and prayed,
Mad mourners of a corse!
The troubled plumes of midnight were
The plumes upon a hearse:
And bitter wine upon a sponge
Was the savour of Remorse.

The grey **** crew, the red **** crew,
But never came the day:
And crooked shapes of Terror crouched,
In the corners where we lay:
And each evil sprite that walks by night
Before us seemed to play.

They glided past, they glided fast,
Like travellers through a mist:
They mocked the moon in a rigadoon
Of delicate turn and twist,
And with formal pace and loathsome grace
The phantoms kept their tryst.

With mop and mow, we saw them go,
Slim shadows hand in hand:
About, about, in ghostly rout
They trod a saraband:
And the ****** grotesques made arabesques,
Like the wind upon the sand!

With the pirouettes of marionettes,
They tripped on pointed tread:
But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear,
As their grisly masque they led,
And loud they sang, and long they sang,
For they sang to wake the dead.

‘Oho!’ they cried, ‘The world is wide,
But fettered limbs go lame!
And once, or twice, to throw the dice
Is a gentlemanly game,
But he does not win who plays with Sin
In the secret House of Shame.’

No things of air these antics were,
That frolicked with such glee:
To men whose lives were held in gyves,
And whose feet might not go free,
Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things,
Most terrible to see.

Around, around, they waltzed and wound;
Some wheeled in smirking pairs;
With the mincing step of a demirep
Some sidled up the stairs:
And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer,
Each helped us at our prayers.

The morning wind began to moan,
But still the night went on:
Through its giant loom the web of gloom
Crept till each thread was spun:
And, as we prayed, we grew afraid
Of the Justice of the Sun.

The moaning wind went wandering round
The weeping prison-wall:
Till like a wheel of turning steel
We felt the minutes crawl:
O moaning wind! what had we done
To have such a seneschal?

At last I saw the shadowed bars,
Like a lattice wrought in lead,
Move right across the whitewashed wall
That faced my three-plank bed,
And I knew that somewhere in the world
God’s dreadful dawn was red.

At six o’clock we cleaned our cells,
At seven all was still,
But the sough and swing of a mighty wing
The prison seemed to fill,
For the Lord of Death with icy breath
Had entered in to ****.

He did not pass in purple pomp,
Nor ride a moon-white steed.
Three yards of cord and a sliding board
Are all the gallows’ need:
So with rope of shame the Herald came
To do the secret deed.

We were as men who through a fen
Of filthy darkness *****:
We did not dare to breathe a prayer,
Or to give our anguish scope:
Something was dead in each of us,
And what was dead was Hope.

For Man’s grim Justice goes its way,
And will not swerve aside:
It slays the weak, it slays the strong,
It has a deadly stride:
With iron heel it slays the strong,
The monstrous parricide!

We waited for the stroke of eight:
Each tongue was thick with thirst:
For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate
That makes a man accursed,
And Fate will use a running noose
For the best man and the worst.

We had no other thing to do,
Save to wait for the sign to come:
So, like things of stone in a valley lone,
Quiet we sat and dumb:
But each man’s heart beat thick and quick,
Like a madman on a drum!

With sudden shock the prison-clock
Smote on the shivering air,
And from all the gaol rose up a wail
Of impotent despair,
Like the sound that frightened marshes hear
From some ***** in his lair.

And as one sees most fearful things
In the crystal of a dream,
We saw the greasy hempen rope
Hooked to the blackened beam,
And heard the prayer the hangman’s snare
Strangled into a scream.

And all the woe that moved him so
That he gave that bitter cry,
And the wild regrets, and the ****** sweats,
None knew so well as I:
For he who lives more lives than one
More deaths than one must die.

IV

There is no chapel on the day
On which they hang a man:
The Chaplain’s heart is far too sick,
Or his face is far too wan,
Or there is that written in his eyes
Which none should look upon.

So they kept us close till nigh on noon,
And then they rang the bell,
And the Warders with their jingling keys
Opened each listening cell,
And down the iron stair we tramped,
Each from his separate Hell.

Out into God’s sweet air we went,
But not in wonted way,
For this man’s face was white with fear,
And that man’s face was grey,
And I never saw sad men who looked
So wistfully at the day.

I never saw sad men who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
We prisoners called the sky,
And at every careless cloud that passed
In happy freedom by.

But there were those amongst us all
Who walked with downcast head,
And knew that, had each got his due,
They should have died instead:
He had but killed a thing that lived,
Whilst they had killed the dead.

For he who sins a second time
Wakes a dead soul to pain,
And draws it from its spotted shroud,
And makes it bleed again,
And makes it bleed great gouts of blood,
And makes it bleed in vain!

Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb
With crooked arrows starred,
Silently we went round and round
The slippery asphalte yard;
Silently we went round and round,
And no man spoke a word.

Silently we went round and round,
And through each hollow mind
The Memory of dreadful things
Rushed like a dreadful wind,
And Horror stalked before each man,
And Terror crept behind.

The Warders strutted up and down,
And kept their herd of brutes,
Their uniforms were ***** and span,
And they wore their Sunday suits,
But we knew the work they had been at,
By the quicklime on their boots.

For where a grave had opened wide,
There was no grave at all:
Only a stretch of mud and sand
By the hideous prison-wall,
And a little heap of burning lime,
That the man should have his pall.

For he has a pall, this wretched man,
Such as few men can claim:
Deep down below a prison-yard,
Naked for greater shame,
He lies, with fetters on each foot,
Wrapt in a sheet of flame!

And all the while the burning lime
Eats flesh and bone away,
It eats the brittle bone by night,
And the soft flesh by day,
It eats the flesh and bone by turns,
But it eats the heart alway.

For three long years they will not sow
Or root or seedling there:
For three long years the unblessed spot
Will sterile be and bare,
And look upon the wondering sky
With unreproachful stare.

They think a murderer’s heart would taint
Each simple seed they sow.
It is not true!  God’s kindly earth
Is kindlier than men know,
And the red rose would but blow more red,
The white rose whiter blow.

Out of his mouth a red, red rose!
Out of his heart a white!
For who can say by what strange way,
Christ brings His will to light,
Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore
Bloomed in the great Pope’s sight?

But neither milk-white rose nor red
May bloom in prison-air;
The shard, the pebble, and the flint,
Are what they give us there:
For flowers have been known to heal
A common man’s despair.

So never will wine-red rose or white,
Petal by petal, fall
On that stretch of mud and sand that lies
By the hideous prison-wall,
To tell the men who ***** the yard
That God’s Son died for all.

Yet though the hideous prison-wall
Still hems him round and round,
And a spirit may not walk by night
That is with fetters bound,
And a spirit may but weep that lies
In such unholy ground,

He is at peace—this wretched man—
At peace, or will be soon:
There is no thing to m

It was the man from Ironbark who struck the Sydney town,
He wandered over street and park, he wandered up and down.
He loitered here he loitered there, till he was like to drop,
Until at last in sheer despair he sought a barber's shop.
"Ere! shave my beard and whiskers off, I'll be a man of mark,
I'll go and do the Sydney toff up home in Ironbark."
The barber man was small and flash, as barbers mostly are,
He wore a strike-your-fancy sash he smoked a huge cigar;
He was a humorist of note and keen at repartee,
He laid the odds and kept a "tote", whatever that may be,
And when he saw our friend arrive, he whispered, "Here's a lark!
Just watch me catch him all alive, this man from Ironbark."

There were some gilded youths that sat along the barber's wall.
Their eyes were dull, their heads were flat, they had no brains at all;
To them the barber passed the wink his dexter eyelid shut,
"I'll make this bloomin' yokel think his bloomin' throat is cut."
And as he soaped and rubbed it in he made a rude remark:
"I s'pose the flats is pretty green up there in Ironbark."

A grunt was all reply he got; he shaved the bushman's chin,
Then made the water boiling hot and dipped the razor in.
He raised his hand, his brow grew black, he paused awhile to gloat,
Then slashed the red-hot razor-back across his victim's throat;
Upon the newly-shaven skin it made a livid mark
No doubt, it fairly took him in — the man from Ironbark.

He fetched a wild up-country yell might wake the dead to hear,
And though his throat, he knew full well, was cut from ear to ear,
He struggled gamely to his feet, and faced the murd'rous foe:
"You've done for me! you dog, I'm beat! One hit before I go!
I only wish I had a knife, you blessed murdering shark!
But you'll remember all your life the man from Ironbark."

He lifted up his hairy paw, with one tremendous clout
He landed on the barber's jaw, and knocked the barber out.
He set to work with nail and tooth, he made the place a wreck;
He grabbed the nearest gilded youth, and tried to break his neck.
And all the while his throat he held to save his vital spark,
And "******! ****** ******!" yelled the man from Ironbark.

A peeler man who heard the din came in to see the show;
He tried to run the bushman in, but he refused to go.
And when at last the barber spoke, and said "'Twas all in fun'
T’was just a little harmless joke, a trifle overdone."
"A joke!" he cried, "By George, that's fine; a lively sort of lark;
I'd like to catch that murdering swine some night in Ironbark."

And now while round the shearing floor the list'ning shearers gape,
He tells the story o'er and o'er, and brags of his escape.
"Them barber chaps what keeps a tote, By George, I've had enough,
One tried to cut my bloomin' throat, but thank the Lord it's tough."
And whether he's believed or no, there's one thing to remark,
That flowing beards are all the go way up in Ironbark.

viewing naked body in mirror
as if, its not my own; at my
age I sometimes wonder, am
I still desirable in his eyes?

breast are firm, buttocks
tight, shapely legs; thigh
to ankle toned to wrap
around his sinewy waist.

belly flat, waist trim, he
sneaks up behind; warm lips
to nape, his subtle bait to
taste me, it's never to late.

tongue between breast, I
know now as I gaze into
those baby browns, I've
found my answer.

*** appeal is still renown,
it shows in his eyes; as I
sigh from his touch, ummm!!
his lovings never too much.

******* taut from his touch,
tongue upon belly and navel;
laying on the table, flickers
my jewel; making me mewl.

purring like a kitten, lapping
up my milk; tongue feels like
silk, in and out licking; love
how he keeps me ticking...yes!!!

parting lips; warmly I dip, lightly
I sip upon blooming mushroom;
pulsating in reddened abloom,
spillage slowly from his plume...sweet

finger tracing veins poppin',
allowing throb to easily drop in;
nice and slow watching manhood
grow like a framed Van Gogh...he flows

****** self-confidence I'm convinced
watching him grow long and dense;
taking in every inch, winching in
delicious pleasure; his desired
measure...sexually self-confident

soaped and lathered in wetness

the brother was my age, not a looker.  my parents were nervous and slicked his hair back lovingly.  their hands touched.  I had other presents but I was thinking about the blood in my body and about Stephen.  Stephen was an across the street foster I for a summer could not separate from.  his nose was constantly chapped because his parents found out he had no manners at the table and would have his older sister sneak up behind him and hood him with an empty feed bag.  I went in with Stephen once saying his sister had called him a ******* and his parents liked me enough that they soaped her mouth in front of me then tied a string to her seemingly always loose front tooth and then tied the escaping end of the string to the **** of an open door and slammed it.  because of this honesty Stephen and I were allowed to watch a movie where a white man and a savage pressed their wrists together after cutting them.  the movie looked away from the cutting so we improvised.  it didn’t make us any closer.  the night Stephen ran away I didn’t wake up without having to ****.  it was my dad found him days within the week making boxes a mile gone at a pizza shop because he said his name was Billy and would work for free.    

I looked at the brother and couldn’t see it being so without my blood.  but the brother pulled me to him anyway and I could feel in the heat of his elbows all the time he’d spent mourning the loss of Stephen.

Another day another dollar
Don the thrown on clothes
That worn over washed feel
A face soaped look to begin the start of another start
Another trawl into the big wide world
Yet so held in as my uniform
Becomes my sin

Work the day
Sleep the night
Gone the parties
Gone the life

My dollar buys the tax mans lunch
His change may feed my family brunch
Pay the bills on borrowed time
What a life my common crimes
Twist the fate that follows me
The uniform of life and
I'm the tree

Work the day
Sleep the night
Gone the parties
Gone the life

Holiday beaches from a magazine
Feel the heat and dream the dream
Forget the island sun my son
Paradise park be only for the few
Paradise just aint my glue

Work the day
Sleep the night
Gone the parties
Gone the life

Uniform of life work your magic wand
Take me to another place
Work me to the bone
Feed my luck to the workers book
It's written till the end
Gone my map all washed from the tears of my soul
The chapters complete yet
Empty inside

the brother was my age and not a looker. my parents were nervous about displaying him and slicked his hair back lovingly. their hands were careful and if they touched they did so without independence.

I had other presents but I was thinking about the blood in my body and about Stephen. Stephen was an across the street foster I for a summer could not separate from. his nose was constantly chapped because his parents found he had no manners at the table and would have his older sister sneak up behind him and hood him with an empty feed bag. I went in with Stephen once saying his sister had called him a ******* and his parents liked me enough that they soaped her mouth in front of me then tied a string to her seemingly always loose front tooth and then tied the escaping end of the string to the **** of an open door and slammed it. because of our honesty Stephen and I were allowed to watch a movie where a white man and a savage pressed their wrists together after cutting them. the movie looked away from the cutting so we improvised. it didn’t make us any closer. I knew this for sure when on the night Stephen ran away I didn’t wake up without having to ****. it was my dad found him days within the week making boxes a mile gone at a pizza shop because he said his name was Billy and would work for free.

     I looked at the brother and couldn’t see it being so without my blood. I explored shyly but with faith and was heartened when I could feel in the heat of his elbows all the time he’d been born with.

Full sta(r)ring
I sit as the window
was a pleading enormous nobody
he declared my head
practically lost.

2.
flustered you’ll doubt that
he glanced
sleep can’t.

3.
Crooked conversation listeners
clenched authority grimy
beside the sight attempt

4.
that chanced amusement
obliged its stiff attempt
by askance explanation
he and the slipped tongue
therefore sitting
on the heels of friday

5.
overhead the engine slipped suddenly when
she whispers explanation
grand

6.
growling hurried difficulty
shouldn’t reason but
the creature bitterly
declared in smaller steps
"you’ll doubt when i"

7.
I blinked and riddle
the shifting moral of executed
fright the cunning
underpromised
dependent muddle
congressional huddle

8.
not the sadistic wet world
glaring or the the the
defended
answers soaped the the the
dyed course
hello doesn’t the the the
let my coming

9.
adding highest denial
we tear the despair
rolling secret sea so far
winter guard softly introduced
my remembered underneath

10.
his daughter
a canary warily dared
to pretend to drink in
bound education of judging

11.
the height dating
and pushy she interrupting
like the party
for wonderful
      couple of sharks

12.
elbow listening did dishes
she declared panicky
we will go by asking
uh um
curled hair blank slate
forming saucepan all sobbing

This morning I watched you
stumble into the bus
like a drunken moth:
straw-headed, foggy,
jacket clinging to you
by one shoulder
like an ironic flag.
America has claimed you!
Just like Our Moon,
those ironic flags of liberty.

Chortling, choking
on nothing but your
immovable child-like
sadness. Leathery
wings sprawled, gaping,
stinking of whiskey and ****.
You were screaming
at a woman across the aisle
whose eyes also gaped,
who didn't see the revolution,
who feared her reflection in the
eyes of "Made In The USA".

Who is she? What form
have you given her?
The mother who soaped
your tongue with her bitter morals?
The sister who boiled her
life away on a spoon?
The lover who embraced your wounds
despite EVERYTHING
and then became one?

You were eating an apple
from your pocket,
"Red Delicious,
the MOST American fruit!"
It was mostly rotten, sweaty
brown core staring into me
like a terrible moth's eye.

I watched you until
my stop,
I'm sorry I don't know why.
When the bus-man shoo'ed you off
I heard you scream after me,
really howling.

I'm sorry I can't save you,
I'm a moth too.

I ran home this morning
and left all the lights on.

I don't want you to bother
building up a thick lather,
your shower-soaped hand
moving between your legs,
then reaching the long-way round to
spread yourself wide open, bending forward
just so that you can drag the steel edge of a razor across
your soft skin

I’ve never stood
in a field of wild flowers and
thought it to look overgrown

You don’t need a single drop of perfume
on your *******, near your *** or on
your sheer white tank as I don’t mind
the taste or scent
of your sweat,
dripping
from your summer skin,
glistening in the
afternoon heat.

No need to burn
your soft long locks between
two tongs,
to pull them taut, or blow them dry
to make them straight.

Your curls,
untamed and  
and unpredictable
need no refinement;
I'll follow them as they
twist and turn

I want you my love,
unvarnished,
unapologetic,
unfinished,
unrealistic,
and most
assuredly
unshaven.

They showered together,
lathered each the other,
soaped up
and then

turned on the tap,
washed off and up;
he moving along
her spine his finger,

moving on around
to her *******,
O boy, what a laugh,
better than a bath;

she washing along
his chest hairy,
soaked, then down
to his orchestra stalls

and Moby ****
washed and soothed,
and he kissing
in his blindness

with water,
her cheek, lips,
forehead;
she licking under

his chin, his jaw,
tongued, kissing
his upper lip
(blinded by

water, too),
then he began to sing,
baritone,

some Italian
love song,
not a note wrong,
his hand moving
along her ****
in circular motion,
she filling up with water
and deep emotion.

The alarm clock buzzed beside him as he struggled to reach his hand out to shut the alarm away. He groaned as he rolled over from his side of the bed to the other side of his king-sized bed. The other side of the bed, that used to feel so warm, was now empty and cold. He gave out a deep sigh before sitting up on his bed and proceeded to kiss the picture frame on the side table beside his bed. He admired her beautiful face for a few minutes as he smiled painfully before placing it back where it was before. Ruffling his own hair, he walked towards his cupboard to grab a random shirt and threw it on before quickening his steps to the bedroom beside his. He knocked on the door gently before opening it lightly. Walking towards the snoozing female on the bed, he sat down beside her and shook her petite body.

"Hey... Wake up..." he spoke gently as he switched the side lamp on. Long eyelashes fluttered as she slowly opened her eyes, her brown watery orbs shimmered under the small light. Small groans could be heard as she tried to hide herself under the blanket, making the grown man laugh at her cute antics. "Come on, I need to get to work..." he said as he shook her more.

"Noooooooooo~" a small muffled groan could be heard from under the blanket and he chuckled.

"If you are not going wake up, the tickle monster is going to attack you~" He grabbed the girl who was hiding under the blankets and started to tickle her through the thick cloth and cute giggles could be heard as she slowly revealed her head, sitting up as she came eye to eye with the grown man.

"Good morning, Daddy." she greeted politely.

"Good morning, little princess." he greeted back, smiling as he stroked his little girl's long wavy hair that she grew out ever since the day she was borned. "Come on, let's get washed up." he opened his arms, inviting the little girl into his arms. She did the same and held onto his broad shoulders as he carried her and they both went into the bathroom. He sat her down on their sturdy basin counter top as he started shaving his stubs carefully. The 5 year old independently took her father's toothbrush and squeezed some toothpaste on the brush before passing it to him. He smiled lightly before taking his toothbrush and watched as she prepared her own small pink bunny designed toothbrush. After finishing brushing their teeth, he helped the little girl down from the basin as she ran towards the bathtub.

"Kailee! Remove your clothes before you start the bath." he spoke firmly to the girl as she started running the tap to the fill the bathtub.

SPLASH SPLASH SPLASH!

He squeezed his eyes together so that the water that was splashing around would not get into his eyes. "Will you please stop splashing?" he nagged at the young girl but she merely giggled, finding the scene of her father getting all soaked rather amusing. She continued splashing the soaped water in her father's direction, ignoring the fact that he was literally getting drenched in his clothes as he scrubbed her clean.

After drying her up, he brought her back into her bedroom as he looked through her clothes that were hung in her wardrobe. "Daddy! I want to wear that dress!" she exclaimed, pointing to a sky blue dress, with floral prints on the thin silk layer on top of the bottom half of the dress.

"Again? This is probably the 50th time you wore it this year, my dear." he half-complained as he chuckled behind his words, taking it out from the wardrobe and dressed her up in the dress.

"What~? I like this dress." she responded as she waited for her father to help her zip up the dress before she skipped to the full-length mirror in her room and admired herself.

"I know I know. Go down for breakfast. Your grandparents are probably waiting for you." he said as he went back into his own bedroom and prepared himself for his day at work.

Decked in a simple tight fit black tee shirt and light blue ripped jeans, he started styling his hair, slicking his black hair backwards in a neat style. After he was done accessorising, he jogged down the stairs to join his family for breakfast.

As he sat down with his father and mother for breakfast, he saw that his little girl was already done with her meal and had scattered off to play with the two dogs in the yard. "Good morning Mom, Dad." he greeted before bowing a little and started to munch on his sandwich. "Egg sandwich! Mmm, this is tasty." he spoke with a little hype as he munched on it more.

"Dylan... Why did you let her wear that dress again?" his mother nagged at him, but he merely smiled at her with respect.

"It's alright Mom, you know that's her favourite dress." he said nonchalantly before realising that his parents were already looking at one another with worried looks. "It's alright, it really is." he assured them with a cool smile as he heard his phone ring and his secretary's name showed on the phone. "Alright, we need to go. Come on, Kailee!"

At the sound of her father's voice, Kailee kissed the retriever puppies goodbye before running towards Dylan, who was waiting for her with his hand outstretched for her hand. Small fingers gripped around his masculine hand as he tugged her along towards the posh looking van that was waiting for them upfront. The two of them board the van and the well-mannered Kailee greeted the adult man inside.

"Good morning Uncle Fred!" she grinned brightly at the male whom was older than her own father.

"Good morning Kailee, wearing your favourite dress again?" he commented casually but Dylan knew that he eyed him for a bit there.

"Yes! I love this dress!" Kailee exclaimed, smiling brightly as her eyes turned into crescents, just like how her father's would. The three of them went on their way to the company. Upon arriving, they made their way up towards the studios and the elevator stops on the 4th floor. Before the elevator door opened, Dylan knelt down on one knee if front of Kailee and gently brushed his thumb against her chubby cheeks and stroked her hair.

"I've got to go. Behave, okay?" he smiled at her but she pouted.

"Can't you stay with me today?" she mumbled and Dylan felt his heart clenched a little. He had always felt sorry that he could not spend his time with Kailee, but this career was all that was supporting him and his family.

"Sorry baby." he lightly kissed her on her forehead and smiled at her again, "I love you." he murmured to her.

"I love you too." she replied with a small smile as she waved to her father goodbye. Dylan waved a little before walking out of the elevator, leaving Fred and Kailee in the elevator alone as they proceeded to the fifth floor, where Kailee's private tutor was waiting for her.



"Dylan."

"Dylan."

"Mister Dylan Caleb!"

Finally snapping out of his daze, Dylan raised his head as he looked Travis in the eyes. "Yes?" he realised that he have not been paying attention to the song that Travis was playing for him and he watched as  his partner sighed in front of him. "I'm sorry." he apologised to Travis but his blonde friend merely sighed deeper.

"Let's go for a break." Travis suggested and they both stood up, leaving the studio as they started to take a stroll around the building. They finally came to the room where Kailee was receiving her private tutoring. Through the full glass doors, he leaned against a pillar that was out of sight from Kailee. Staring at her backview, he smiled lightly. His heart warmed up, feeling grateful for her existence.

"Are you alright?" Travis placed a hand on Dylan's shoulder and his eyes started to tear up.

"What have I ever done to deserve this?" he murmured, loud enough for Travis to hear and Travis' face turned solemn as he patted Dylan on the shoulder.



Chapter 3

*He stared in the mirror as he fixed his tie nicely. The black tie went nicely with his black shirt and coat. He turned to take a look at his bedroom, which still held the things that belonged to her. Controlling his emotions, he stepped out of his bedroom and saw his 2 years old daughter held in her grandmother's arms, decked in a formal black dress.

"Must we really bring her?" Dylan murmured to his parents, his head lowered and his hands pocketed. He bit his lips as he kept his hopes high, hoping that he did not have to bring his daughter along.

"She is, after all, her mother, Dylan..." His father replied him and he nodded his lightly. He outstretched his arms to welcome his daughter into his embrace as the innocent toddler giggled and held onto her father, his face struggling to smile for the little girl.

"Let's go..." Dylan said calmly as the entire family left the house.

Arriving at their destination, most of the people were already there although it was pretty early. He left his daughter in the care of his parents as he proceeded to greet his guests politely before moving to the main hall, where his wife was.

He slowly approached the white grand coffin which his wife laid in and he hesitated before looking into the glass panel, where he could see the face of his beautiful wife, all dolled up. She looked so beautiful, and he smiled as tears started to fall down his face. Reaching out his hand, he gently caressed the glass panel as his tears started hitting it in droplets.

"Sky..." he murmured her name softly, his body shivering as he admired her face. Her eyes were closed and the small smile on her face made it seem like she was in peace. "What am I to do...? What am I to do without you...?" he mumbled under his breath as he slowly stroked the glass panel. "Ah... Sorry... I'll be okay...You will watch over Kailee and I... Right?" he mumbled some more. He slowly placed his lips against the glass panel and kissed it, his body still shaking uncontrollably. He heard people walking into the room, but he ignored it, placing his full attention on his wife.

"Dylan..." A deep voice spoke as a hand was placed on Dylan's shoulder. "Be strong..." he said. He turned slightly to see TOP standing beside him before turning back to Haneul as he slowly calmed down. Back and forth, people came up to Jiyong to comfort him and send him their condolences. It was a small funeral as Jiyong was a celebrity and he wished to be able to protect his family's privacy by not blowing it up too big. The only guests there were his close friends and family as well as Haneul's. Finally coming eye to eye with Haneul's parents, Jiyong bowed deeply at his in-laws, solemnly portraying his apologies and guilt towards them.

"Sorry that I didn't take good care of Haneul like I've promised to. I'm deeply sorry, Father and Mother." he said in great sorrow.

"Look up, Jiyong-ah." Haneul's father said in a deep, calm voice as her mother teared beside him. "It's not your fault. It's just Haneul's fate that she couldn't live longer. But she is a fool herself, ending her own life like this."

BASH!

Out of nowhere, Haneul's younger brother, Hanbyun, came out and gave Jiyong a punch in the face, sending him crashing to the ground. Jiyong's friends wanted to help him up, but he shook his hand before turning to look Hanbyun in the eye. Instead of anger, he saw sadness in Hanbyun's eyes.

"I'm sorry, Hanbyun-ah." he apologised, not knowing what to say to the depressed young adult. With no reply, Hanbyun stomped out of the funeral hall.

"Sorry Ji-"

"It's okay Father and Mother. Everyone is definitely not in a good mood because of this. Hanbyun is no exception." he lowered his head, feeling shameful to face his in-laws after what happened to their daughter.

"Let's go send Haneul off nicely." Jiyong's father commented to everyone as Seungri, Daesung, TOP, Youngbae, Mithra and Seungyoon were ready to lift the coffin. He nodded as he turned to see his daughter in his mother's arms.

"Umma. Let me hold Hanyoung." Jiyong said as he reached out his hand towards his daughter and held on to her. Sending Haneul off into the fire, he bid his last farewell to his one true love.



Chapter 4

He held his daughter's hand as they slowly walk along the rows of tombs. Once they had arrived at the tomb of the person they were here to visit, Jiyong passed the bouquet of light blue and red roses to Hanyoung. The 5 year old held the bouquet in her arms and made a small prayer as she laid the bouquet on her mother's tomb. Taking out his hankerchief from his pocket, he knelt down in front of the tomb and started wiping her photo and the words that were engraved on the tomb.

"Haneul-ah... Hanyoung and I have come to visit you." he said steadily and softly.

"Umma..." Hanyoung called out to her mother as her small hands reached out to stroke the photo of her late mother. Jiyong held on to his daughter as he forced out a smile.

"Hanyoungie is 5 years old already..." he paused, "Which means you have been gone for 3 years now..." he said, his lips quivering as he tried his best to keep his emotions under control. There was so much he wanted to say to Haneul, but he kept them in his heart as he made a silent prayer. He wanted to tell her how much he missed her, how much he wanted her here with him and Hanyoung, how everything felt so incomplete without her.

"Appa, don't cry..." he heard a small voice comfort him as her warm hands reach out to wipe away his tears. "Hanyoung knows that Appa misses Umma... I miss Umma too..." she murmured to her father as her face to change. Jiyong reached out to hug his daughter tightly, feeling her warmth as his heart continued to tear apart at the thought of his wife. He started to hear little sniffles coming from beside him and he gulped in guilt.

"Alright... Appa won't cry anymore... Hanyoung shall not cry too, okay?" Jiyong swallowed his agony to comfort his daughter. Hanyoung parted the hug and turned towards the tomb and placed her hand on the photo again.

"Umma... Why did you leave me and Appa alone? I want you here with Appa and I..." her innocent thoughts rolled out bit by bit and Jiyong watched as Hanyoung conversed with the photo. "But it's okay... Umma is in better place now... Appa said that Umma will take care of Hanyoung and Appa from that place..." she smiled slightly, "Please take care of Appa... He seems really stressed out from work..." she prayed to her mother out loud and Jiyong cringed at her words, his heart shattering with every word that came out of the young girl's mouth. He choked on his tears, controlling himself as hard as he could.

"Umma... I miss you... And I love you, forever..." she stroked the photo gently.

"I'm so sorry, Hanyoungie..." Jiyong caressed his daughter's face as he lowered his head.

"It's okay, Appa. It's not your fault..." Hanyoung tilted her head in confusion as she patted her father's head, making Jiyong smile slightly.


Bringing Hanyoung to a restaurant for lunch, he ordered his usual as well as Haneul's favourites, Carbonara Spaghetti and Beef Sirloin Steak. As he fed Hanyoung, he started to speak softly.

"You know... This is the restaurant where I first met your Umma..." he said and it called Hanyoung's attention. Her ears perked slightly as she looked up at her father, waiting for him to continue his story.


Chapter 5


"What do you mean there are no more seats left? Don't you know who am I? I'm G-Dragon. What happened to my usual table?"

Jiyong ranted at one of the waiters softly in the restaurant. He was there for his lunch that day, but the restaurant was packed.

"Sorry sir. Your table is taken by that lady. We didn't know you would be coming by today..." the waiter replied in a flustered tone, not knowing how to deal with the situation. Jiyong frowned in anger as he turned to look at the woman who had taken his seat. His expression softened as he watched the woman twirled on her spaghetti. She was in a white collared blouse and a mini black skirt, a pair of studious yet classy spectacles on her nose as she was studying her laptop as she ate. He was overwhelmed by her charisma and beauty uncontrollably. Just then, her eyes looked up and he met with the most beautiful pair of brown orbs that he had ever seen in his entire life. With a pose of dignity and sophistication, she smiled at him before calling over the waiter that Jiyong was questioning. Nodding his head at her words, he literally ran up to Jiyong one more time.

"The lady said that if you don't mind, you can share the table with her." he st

Living & Giving.
Who would be livid
If ya dont keep brother?

Liver & Kidney
Be askin for respite,
But how would mind cope?

Mind soaped, aw yeah brain washed
By America

Now you want to be a star.

Its ok If you fail, just by being born you won.

The time is now
The past is Gone
& we'll be the past

Give all ya have
Or, man what a waste.

łysy łysy łysy:

ol' baldy - i.e. the moon,
you were nicknamed
by someone prior to me:

now that you're dead
i need to find some solace
again,

i look at the moon
and i remember your own
baldness -

but now that you're dead:
here's me looking
for a full stop,
or blame myself to
make strategy with
a semi-colon...

   new paragraph?
new chapter - or altogether
just a different book...

for a few days to
come i can forget about
the world more and more...

i guess you're more lucky
than most:
prior to this grand "awakening"

social engineering
             as way bypassing
man: genesis ape
through to herr robo-,

and language is no longer
a freedom:
it's no more a quest
for solace as it is:
squatting over a pit
of grammar-shizzo...

i have to thank you
for the grief: i drink less!
knowing that you will
never be able to
extend into shadow
come noon...

or that you might "bribe" me
with some endearing
conversation that
was forever littered with
your memory extract cameos...

Fork in the Fickle: alVough:
                     Dat's
       and PHilandering...
                THrice...
                 my affluent counterpart
you're a dead-op
              and why was it
ever a word salad
and not a word-spaghetti?

i can only thank you:
                soy niqab soy niqab
and she was only "there"
easing into a hijab...

someone stole my face!
someone stole my face!
the scents of autumn in poland...

nuancing brimming to
the topple: the obsolete purpose
of hands...

         hello neu-luddites!
ha'lo!
              but one can -
and all that kicking -
march of the sullen down
beaten brows:

if thought could be translated
into gravity:
for coordinating all this
manure...

            it's impossible
to live through marxism twice...
once upon a time
those slavs under the iron
curtain stupid enough:
but that "they" caught up with
impossibility of:

          deciding upon replica:
no country: new moon!
- and there i thought that
clones were supposed to be
left tender...
soulless as...
       clones are to be
made disposable?
              
believe me: *** is no fun...
but weren't clones supposed to be
this jump strategy to...
oh but the defaults!
and all the faults...
and who's here...
regime essential pushing
quasi-lovie-dubby....

          i can get a haircut:
but my teeth are non-essential...
because: beside milking the bones:
i am sure to grow...
teeth... the length of elephant
tusks!

        to eat? quiet impossible...
then again: my mouth is bogus enough
to shelter the concept of
tongue...

- interlude...
  right now? the most authentic...
whatever the hell that implies...
if i'll ever want to cry
or remember: that when you died
i threw my heart into
a stash of stones...
expected a heaving lung
and a beached whale sizzling
on the coast of france...

every time i'll want to un-pretend
to grieve... i'll probably end up
slicing and dicing an onion...
to erase a need for teeth
i'll such-and-such i.e. **** a lemon...

3 months to spare i tell myself...
grandma could have
called and cited a disturbing sequence
of events...
but the law in poland states:
she will claim your pension...

what of the money! it's not necessary,
not now not even tomorrow...
why this pressure surrounding
saying the words: i was robbed!

from now until her death:
i'll be playing poker...
i'll nuance truth
because there's no need to play
that horrid game of
teasing a nibbling layer
of the same ol' dwarfian lie...

our fishing trips... our cycling trips...
here's me: writing
inconveniences
on your chin, cheeks,
forehead... telling myself:
it is very possible to starve
bewildered looking
at your corpse...
   i will use your spine as a staff
to make dicta parallels
for the quest of eyes:
should i forget to eat
enough carrots...

truly: i'm relearning the spectrum
of lethargy upon the arrival of
sorrow -
it's not an essential "laziness"
it's just this: custard-brain-freeze:
for a brain expected there's
this heavily soaped piece
of clay-alla-sponge...

i test my teeth against
a "riddle" of ice for my whiskey
and: i'm looking for onions!
how can i turn my heart
back into a lazarus...

right now i can imagine: how cheap
it all resounds...
it's not critique-viable
it's not critic friendly...
        it's its own sorrow self:
forever lessened by
a need to stretch it into phenomenological
generic: ah... replica...
observable today, tomorrow...
at best also towing a yesterday...

- hello herr busy-body...
           for the new bureaucracy -
too many vowels... too many vowels...
          RZECZ -
and je suis...
                i just need a caron above a C...
to hide the "z"...
otherwise... out-pops a length
of the tetragrammaton...
although i'm not a hebrew...
i'll still smother myself with fuckety-****-****
prior to: and ha-shem is prior
to... all the words i can type
and typo...

  because this very least is still
sacred...
              as i now pretend to look
toward: the eastern-*****...
          au-stracht... no reason beside
a need to blink...
i've had two dreams of late...
going downstairs to drink full-fat
milk from a fridge located
in the living room...

and that very famous scene where
Moses threw his staff and
a cobra was born...
a quadratic of serpents...
eating each other...
the will of the pharaoh vs.
a merely worded deity...
a pharaoh with gods of stone...

my dear "father" the fog!
my dear grandiosity: the moon,
the fog and your shadow!
how seemingly cowardly
it must be attesting:
that i too will follow down your
route:

no eloquence: cedilla!
fenile cerberus...
           words come into my gob-*****
vacuum that suppose
peering out... dear brain...
sponge being cooked...
a never-ending new tomorrow...

- yes, this pretending to nuance
lethargy... how impossibly devastating
is this mortal certainty...
almost like...
prior to prokofiev's lieutenant's kije's suite
i had no inclination
for the BATTLE OF THE ICE...

alex'dre nevsky - hallow teutons who
found more islam in
the pagan roots of lithuanians
so close to their inkling...
the prussians they were to conquer
would teach the schwab kopf nuances
to compete with
the fidgety saxon...
******* touristy blah...
aus! aus! the trails!
thus the birth of a noun:
   a bushwacker loot upon the heels
of a kangaroo!

         now the world looks: oh so more
grandiose!
relieving me from a very
private affair...
how the proto-:
atheists, materialists debunked
subjectivity...

kije: kidze: sichuan pepper...
mongolian hoof!
dear lord! all of crimea!
the tatars a history of ukraine and...
it was never a civil war
where people speaking
the same tongue warred
against each other!
i... ploY... to translate the impossible:
whoever translated
joyce's finnegans wake...
need no bother:
where are the diacritical marks!

it sort of "helps" knowing that...
SHYLA STYLEZ is
one of those mythological blondes
that's... dead...
and i'm a "necrophyliac"...

you died and i just knew what
world was waiting for me...
thank you: *******...
this blessing of humanity...
this urdu poet: this...
              munawwar rana...
                 because as you *******...
a "mother" a *******...
a niqab... a feather from an angel's
wing... the flesh of a circumcision
extended into the concept
of a belt: for which some pork is
insisted upon...

how's ******* any worse
than phellatio
when you've just spooned
a load of cinnamon...
like... oh my god: like... n'ever!

blatantly: queer is counter-inquisitive...
it's this borrowing
of taboo... strength in the purpose
of a comma...
                      comb-over-y'ah...

now - jetzt - teraz...
i'm looking for either: an uncomfortable pea...
catherine the great...
or a dozen of cushions...
or that would be Cnut -
some otherwise Dane...

i abhor myself for writing in this zunge..
it's this forever alienating prospect...
i'll miscarry denoting
a Cyprite as a turkic bleed
and borrowed... lineage...
never this proud Grecian...
and you were too... solid at...
how Silesia was partitioned...
prior to how coal was made defunct:
and how the winds were
supposed to congregate?

my chandelier of glass...
teasing ivory and a glistening
of a scrap of
heave! dear sir!
remember ol' saxony!
i have here spare... a devil's
dozen of teeth:
burden, i, a "toad" of chew
and munch!
not much, ergo...

                        pleasure / appease
the soviet quest
for a man devoid of
subjective- stampede
inquiries...
                      aren't the soviets:
de facto... ad mortem?
alias morsus?

downpours broke that spring
till i whooped and soaped my
naked hide outdoors

Sometimes I wonder if I ever  knew my mother at all
Growing up I thought I knew her better than anyone
I was naive, I thought she loved me
No strings attached, even with my flaws
Which there were many
She seemed so loving in my earliest childhood years
Soothing my ever constant fears of being alone
It was hard growing up alone, with her
When she was there, then suddenly she  disappeared
Never to be the same mother, I had come to know
The weak fragile mother who needed me to comfort her
Sit with her while she drank her morning coffee
Who soaped my crazy hair as a baby in the kitchen sink
She was a mother, the only one I had ever known
Who became distant and uncaring when I began to mature
“He didn’t do that to you”
“I don’t believe you?’
“Why would he touch you?”
He was her husband
Her love
Mine wasn’t good enough
Remembering the woman I thought I knew is one of the hardest things I will have to do
Especially when she was the one person I was supposed to look up to
To be like her
Painless, unfeeling
Bury it deep so you never feel it
Ignore the problems and they’ll go away
No
That’s Her
Not me

do you want me to pretend?

happiness, spread like a beach
of broken glass,

each tiny little rock aches
with its own weight,

the hands that break me
wrinkled and chalklike,

they do not care about me.

do you want me to pretend?

sadness, like a line a boats
each one begging to leave their harbour,

each one carrying an anchor that will both
keep them stable and refuse to let them move,

the known and the unknown.

I will pretend, for you.

I am not bathed in black water,
I am not soaped in sandpaper,

I am content.

my heart is not carved in the shape
of pain,

it does not cry in agony at the slightest
touch,

I am happy.

For you.

I am happy.