Part One
Nascent Craving

The insular heart unsealed; pearled eyes
Breach parapets of stone— periled shield,
The sweetest ****—
A threatening wonder and irrefragable synergy,
Nervous routes of cognition  
In this nascent, amorous craving.
Locked and abased,
Dissonance lends pathos — euphoric and onerous,
Disconsolate cries curb sublimation,
The regnant bleed diffusing — fervid lust
Fondled, tactile surfaces in throbbing anticipation.

Sullen, aft a veil of laughter,
Visceral aftermath, out of
The ardent ash,
Burns a thirst;
Insuperable numbness and ache.
Efflorescent intimacy,
Table for two
Enraptured in new alliance,
Élan vital (psyche);
Urgent dialect petitions
Equivocation, jocularity blending
Provocation with indecision,
Noted lilt of descending inhibition.

Adrift, the incessant Now;
As occasion inexorably diminished;
Resonant simpatico tending,
Numinous amity;
Heard conversant, cognitive idioms—
Lassitude, time-eaten pangs of the unhinged heart,
Wounds axiomatic,
In disquieting synergy,
Nibbling, the circumference—
Misery’s permeating truth;
None immune, all trundle incongruously past,
Facing intrepid savages.

Licitly felt, reverberations of Amor
Whence the heart behaves;
Measured cadence, pulse elevating—
Treasured lover, contemplative muse;
Undulating clasp, inflated bone of absence;
Incarnation — a woman,
Beyond prosaic;
Ineffable adoration pours in certitudes of verse,
Elenita, enclothed —virtue unvarnished;
Reservoir intrinsic, poised advocate of the innocent:
The crooked lines of insolence,
Brazen culture of neglected youth.
Perceptive blue stare, sensitized tears—
Plaintively, evincing her injustice ago.

Part Two
Tendered Senses

Siren silence, eruptive blush, ampler between phrases
In dulcet tones — stirring discourse;
Foments rebellion, the strife beneath— his ****,
Out of its vast reserve,
Penetrate the narrowed ambit, vaguely announced.
Groping hands, migrating the sensual member
Stern faces grimacing— mirror in abrasion,
Under the blind surf of consent;
Burrowing ambiguity, emerging torsion,
Plunge, enlisted and content in the sea;
Subsumed in the nonverbal cue,
Persuasion’s plea,
Quelled in the post cerebral assent.

Piercing eyes parallel crystalline waters of Lake Tahoe.

An untouched portion of his awareness remains aloof,
Palpable in the subsequential quiet,
Obsequious and febrile, they sinned on sofas;
Peregrine predilections quenched and viscid—
Serenely requited, the room breathes her presence,
Limp, figures *******, mantled in adolescent torpor.

Erudition in bloom, trust undoubted,
Illuminating, satiating; tempest calm—
Under canvas
Terrain soaked and sodden,
Postliminary — rains of invalidation.
Allowance and permission
Recalibrate, salivate, shortly only—
Initiate, obliged consecration, appraising
Curvatures of the spine,
Stuns him obeisant, her femenine pulchritude,
Propinquity inciting vigor,
Emergent allure, the updriven
Tower of wood sprung from the blanket.

Suffused in ether, purring streams of remembrance
Vaginal honeyed dew, sung into
Orchids, remnants of remember;
Drenched down the cynosure of devotion;
Succulent view, diaphanous pantied bottom;
Halcyon mist, saporous wine — compliance of the will,
Freed fires wander,
Pliable rind, twin plums dripping,
Abject confession, dispatching doubt
In tendered senses,
Pivotal tree, lavender Jacaranda holds the key,
Unfurled, cindered vulnerability.

Half-denuded skin invites confessional savor
Acutely bubbled rear, fleshly furnished denim;
Sultry visit, San Ramon Valley in the fall,
Strewed limbs splendid, flowing filmy;
Imagination yields—
Bursting silk congealed
Across deft thighs, ambrosial thong draping ankles,
Grazing ascension, the curvaceous trajectory
Nose inflamed with fragrance,
Inhaling, climb of acquiescence,
The ****** weal, amid the globed fruit,
Focal intention — ploughed lance thrusting,
Absconding, the ancillary perfume of essence.

Perceiving avid validation,
Swimmingly, amid the monstrous gaze.
  
Humid skies simper dank, set swell the incense of Eros,
Surge of poetry engorged
The flame levened shaft,
Nimble ******* flounce, spill the harboring mouth;
Moist hands merging, unfettered,
Weave in supplication,
Vicinity voicing, enmeshed diversion;
Supple and spherical behind
Posterior arch, milky-skin against the lip—
Ripeness jostling their complacency;
Lapped the mooring, ridden decisively;
Recapitulating— spumed forth, bellied over hips warmth.
Abandon the dirge of self-pity
Late under ego’s trance.
  
Part Three
Present Tenses

Tempting trespass across sacred gardens,
Flowering, scandal set luminous: attachment—
Consensual, their corresponsive fear;
Protean manifestations— evocative, perpetual
Unutterable contention in a fictive resolve,
Deliberating the merits of their widely disparate tastes in coffee,
Amorously touring wine, let’s drowse through the gnarled vine.
Sundry deficiencies pale, once contrasted;
The beatific vision—
Material substance unaccompanied,
Imperceptible, tear-streamed cheeks in synch,
Ventral kiss, peak of carnal perfection,
Reminiscence— flesh violent with Love.

Fiction knew to meander the innominate rift,
A tincture of irony soften misdeeds
Immense as the sea.
Insolvent beast stippled with sapience—
Unmasked, the fabric of delusion;
Dependence smothering the disciplined heart
Resentment put up for release.

Waste of residual years
Fate’s apportion, scars bleakly observed;
Chastened by heartache, engulfing fervor
Too faint to recapture.
Vague glimpses dry—
Hypervigilant his defenses,
Veritable suspensions, embers lit linger;
Slender walls of solidity, the horizoned self,
Faith and reason in concert — stone levels of elucidation.

Fractured bones of distance, emanate a rigid salience,
Another ponderous night of absence—
Lingering, cauldron of dearth as indifference ushers,
The quotidian coil of contrition.
Tearful pallor, sequestered —ciphering time and solitude;
The unkissed mouth, his restive brow;
Suspend in the approximate span.
                      
After Lucid alliterations are spoken
Devoid of her face, his lover’s nudge—
The man nurtures his hurt.
Anxious as seldom unscarred,  
Venus’s susurrations,
In present tenses,
Kissed by her serenades of integration—
Notwithstanding metaphysic intrusion,
No chain stays unbroken,
Postponed drifts of deferment left unspoken,
Reverberations of amor.

© 2013 W. S. Warner

She said, ‘You are funny, the way you set yourself up the moment we arrive. You look into every room to see if it’s suitable as a place to work. Is there a table? Where are the plugs? Is there a good chair at the right height? If there isn’t, are there cushions to make it so? You are funny.’
 
He countered this, but his excuse didn’t sound very convincing. He knew exactly what she meant, but it hurt him a little that she should think it ‘funny’. There’s nothing funny about trying to compose music, he thought. It’s not ‘radio in the head’ you know – this was a favourite expression he’d once heard an American composer use. You don’t just turn a switch and the music’s playing, waiting for you to write it down. You have to find it – though he believed it was usually there, somewhere, waiting to be found. But it’s elusive. You have to work hard to detect what might be there, there in the silence of your imagination.
 
Later over their first meal in this large cottage she said, ‘How do you stop hearing all those settings of the Mass that you must have heard or sung since childhood?’ She’d been rehearsing Verdi’s Requiem recently and was full of snippets of this stirring piece. He was a) writing a Mass to celebrate a cathedral’s reordering after a year as a building site, and b) he’d been a boy chorister and the form and order of the Mass was deeply engrained in his aural memory. He only had to hear the plainsong introduction Gloria in Excelsis Deo to be back in the Queen’s chapel singing Palestrina, or Byrd or Poulenc.
 
His ‘found’ corner was in the living room. The table wasn’t a table but a long cabinet she’d kindly covered with a tablecloth. You couldn’t get your feet under the thing, but with his little portable drawing board there was space to sit properly because the board jutted out beyond the cabinet’s top. It was the right length and its depth was OK, enough space for the board and, next to it, his laptop computer. On the floor beside his chair he placed a few of his reference scores and a box of necessary ‘bits’.
 
The room had two large sofas, an equally large television, some unexplainable and instantly dismissible items of decoration, a standard lamp, and a wood burning stove. The stove was wonderful, and on their second evening in the cottage, when clear skies and a stiff breeze promised a cold night, she’d lit it and, as the evening progressed, they basked in its warmth, she filling envelopes with her cards, he struggling with sleep over a book.
 
Despite and because this was a new, though temporary, location he had got up at 5.0am. This is a usual time for composers who need their daily fix of absolute quiet. And here, in this cottage set amidst autumn fields, within sight of a river estuary, under vast, panoramic uninterrupted skies, there was the distinct possibility of silence – all day. The double-glazing made doubly sure of that.
 
He had sat with a mug of tea at 5.10 and contemplated the silence, or rather what infiltrated the stillness of the cottage as sound. In the kitchen the clock ticked, the refrigerator seemed to need a period of machine noise once its door had been opened. At 6.0am the central heating fired up for a while. Outside, the small fruit trees in the garden moved vigorously in the wind, but he couldn’t hear either the wind or a rustle of leaves.  A car droned past on the nearby road. The clear sky began to lighten promising a fine day. This would certainly do for silence.
 
His thoughts returned to her question of the previous evening, and his answer. He was about to face up to his explanation. ‘I empty myself of all musical sound’, he’d said, ‘I imagine an empty space into which I might bring a single note, a long held drone of a note, a ‘d’ above middle ‘c’ on a chamber ***** (seeing it’s a Mass I’m writing).  Harrison Birtwistle always starts on an ‘e’. A ‘d’ to me seems older and kinder. An ‘e’ is too modern and progressive, slightly brash and noisy.’
 
He can see she is quizzical with this anecdotal stuff. Is he having me on? But no, he is not having her on. Such choices are important. Without them progress would be difficult when the thinking and planning has to stop and the composing has to begin. His notebook, sitting on his drawing board with some first sketches, plays testament to that. In this book glimpses of music appear in rhythmic abstracts, though rarely any pitches, and there are pages of written description. He likes to imagine what a new work is, and what it is not. This he writes down. Composer Paul Hindemith reckoned you had first to address the ‘conditions of performance’. That meant thinking about the performers, the location, above all the context. A Mass can be, for a composer, so many things. There were certainly requirements and constraints. The commission had to fulfil a number of criteria, some imposed by circumstance, some self-imposed by desire. All this goes into the melting ***, or rather the notebook. And after the notebook, he takes a large piece of A3 paper and clarifies this thinking and planning onto (if possible) a single sheet.
 
And so, to the task in hand. His objective, he had decided, is to focus on the whole rather than the particular. Don’t think about the Kyrie on its own, but consider how it lies with the Gloria. And so with the Sanctus & Benedictus. How do they connect to the Agnus Dei. He begins on the A3 sheet of plain paper ‘making a map of connections’. Kyrie to Gloria, Gloria to Credo and so on. Then what about Agnus Dei and the Gloria? Is there going to be any commonality – in rhythm, pace and tempo (we’ll leave melody and harmony for now)? Steady, he finds himself saying, aren’t we going back over old ground? His notebook has pages of attempts at rhythmizing the text. There are just so many ways to do this. Each rhythmic solution begets a different slant of meaning.
 
This is to be a congregational Mass, but one that has a role for a 4-part choir and ***** and a ‘jazz instrument’. Impatient to see notes on paper, he composes a new introduction to a Kyrie as a rhythmic sketch, then, experimentally, adds pitches. He scores it fully, just 10 bars or so, but it is barely finished before his critical inner voice says, ‘What’s this for? Do you all need this? This is showing off.’ So the filled-out sketch drops to the floor and he examines this element of ‘beginning’ the incipit.
 
He remembers how a meditation on that word inhabits the opening chapter of George Steiner’s great book Grammars of Creation. He sees in his mind’s eye the complex, colourful and ornate letter that begins the Lindesfarne Gospels. His beginnings for each movement, he decides, might be two chords, one overlaying the other: two ‘simple’ diatonic chords when sounded separately, but complex and with a measure of mystery when played together. The Mass is often described as a mystery. It is that ritual of a meal undertaken by a community of people who in the breaking of bread and wine wish to bring God’s presence amongst them. So it is a mystery. And so, he tells himself, his music will aim to hold something of mystery. It should not be a comment on that mystery, but be a mystery itself. It should not be homely and comfortable; it should be as minimal and sparing of musical commentary as possible.
 
When, as a teenager, he first began to set words to music he quickly experienced the need (it seemed) to fashion accompaniments that were commentaries on the text the voice was singing. These accompaniments did not underpin the words so much as add a commentary upon them. What lay beneath the words was his reaction, indeed imaginative extension of the words. He eschewed then both melisma and repetition. He sought an extreme independence between word and music, even though the word became the scenario of the music. Any musical setting was derived from the composition of the vocal line.  It was all about finding the ‘key’ to a song, what unlocked the door to the room of life it occupied. The music was the room where the poem’s utterance lived.
 
With a Mass you were in trouble for the outset. There was a poetry of sorts, but poetry that, in the countless versions of the vernacular, had lost (perhaps had never had) the resonance of the Latin. He thought suddenly of the supposed words of William Byrd, ‘He who sings prays twice’. Yes, such commonplace words are intercessional, but when sung become more than they are. But he knew he had to be careful here.
 
Why do we sing the words of the Mass he asks himself? Do we need to sing these words of the Mass? Are they the words that Christ spoke as he broke bread and poured wine to his friends and disciples at his last supper? The answer is no. Certainly these words of the Mass we usually sing surround the most intimate words of that final meal, words only the priest in Christ’s name may articulate.
 
Write out the words of the Mass that represent its collective worship and what do you have? Rather non-descript poetry? A kind of formula for collective incantation during worship? Can we read these words and not hear a surrounding music? He thinks for a moment of being asked to put new music to words of The Beatles. All you need is love. Yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away. Oh bla dee oh bla da life goes on. Now, now this is silliness, his Critical Voice complains. And yet it’s not. When you compose a popular song the gap between some words scribbled on the back of an envelope and the hook of chords and melody developed in an accidental moment (that becomes a way of clothing such words) is often minimal. Apart, words and music seem like orphans in a storm. Together they are home and dry.
 
He realises, and not for the first time, that he is seeking a total musical solution to the whole of the setting of those words collectively given voice to by those participating in the Mass.
 
And so: to the task in hand. His objective: to focus on the whole rather than the particular.  Where had he heard that thought before? - when he had sat down at his drawing board an hour and half previously. He’d gone in a circle of thought, and with his sketch on the floor at his feet, nothing to show for all that effort.
 
Meanwhile the sun had risen. He could hear her moving about in the bathroom. He went to the kitchen and laid out what they would need to breakfast together. As he poured milk into a jug, primed the toaster, filled the kettle, the business of what might constitute a whole solution to this setting of the Mass followed him around the kitchen and breakfast room like a demanding child. He knew all about demanding children. How often had he come home from his studio to prepare breakfast and see small people to school? - more often than he cared to remember. And when he remembered he became sad that it was no more.  His children had so often provided a welcome buffer from sessions of intense thought and activity. He loved the walk to school, the first quarter of a mile through the park, a long avenue of chestnut trees. It was always the end of April and pink and white blossoms were appearing, or it was September and there were conkers everywhere. It was under these trees his daughter would skip and even his sons would hold hands with him; he would feel their warmth, their livingness.
 
But now, preparing breakfast, his Critical Voice was that demanding child and he realised when she appeared in the kitchen he spoke to her with a voice of an artist in conversation with his critics, not the voice of the man who had the previous night lost himself to joy in her dear embrace. And he was ashamed it was so.
 
How he loved her gentle manner as she negotiated his ‘coming too’ after those two hours of concentration and inner dialogue. Gradually, by the second cup of coffee he felt a right person, and the hours ahead did not seem too impossible.
 
When she’d gone off to her work, silence reasserted itself. He played his viola for half an hour, just scales and exercises and a few folk songs he was learning by heart. This gathering habit was, he would say if asked, to reassert his musicianship, the link between his body and making sound musically. That the viola seemed to resonate throughout his whole body gave him pleasure. He liked the ****** movement required to produce a flowing sequence of bow strokes. The trick at the end of this daily practice was to put the instrument in its case and move immediately to his desk. No pause to check email – that blight on a morning’s work. No pause to look at today’s list. Back to the work in hand: the Mass.
 
But instead his mind and intention seemed to slip sideways and almost unconsciously he found himself sketching (on the few remaining staves of a vocal experiment) what appeared to be a piano piece. The rhythmic flow of it seemed to dance across the page to be halted only when the few empty staves were filled. He knew this was one of those pieces that addressed the pianist, not the listener. He sat back in his chair and imagined a scenario of a pianist opening this music and after a few minutes’ reflection and reading through allowing her hands to move very slowly and silently a few millimetres over the keys.  Such imagining led him to hear possible harmonic simultaneities, dynamics and articulations, though he knew such things would probably be lost or reinvented on a second imagined ‘performance’. No matter. Now his make-believe pianist sounded the first bar out. It had a depth and a richness that surprised him – it was a fine piano. He was touched by its affect. He felt the possibilities of extending what he’d written. So he did. And for the next half an hour lived in the pastures of good continuation, those rich luxuriant meadows reached by a rickerty rackerty bridge and guarded by a troll who today was nowhere to be seen.
 
It was a curious piece. It came to a halt on an enigmatic, go-nowhere / go-anywhere chord after what seemed a short declamatory coda (he later added the marking deliberamente). Then, after a few minutes reflection he wrote a rising arpeggio, a broken chord in which the consonant elements gradually acquired a rising sequence of dissonance pitches until halted by a repetition. As he wrote this ending he realised that the repeated note, an ‘a’ flat, was a kind of fulcrum around which the whole of the music moved. It held an enigmatic presence in the harmony, being sometimes a g# sometimes an ‘a’ flat, and its function often different. It made the music take on a wistful quality.
 
At that point he thought of her little artists’ book series she had titled Tide Marks. Many of these were made of a concertina of folded pages revealing - as your eyes moved through its pages - something akin to the tide’s longitudinal mark. This centred on the page and spread away both upwards and downwards, just like those mirror images of coloured glass seen in a child’s kaleidoscope. No moment of view was ever quite the same, but there were commonalities born of the conditions of a certain day and time.  His ‘Tide Mark’ was just like that. He’d followed a mark made in his imagination from one point to another point a little distant. The musical working out also had a reflection mechanism: what started in one hand became mirrored in the other. He had unexpectedly supplied an ending, this arpegiated gesture of finality that wasn’t properly final but faded away. When he thought further about the role of the ending, he added a few more notes to the arpeggio, but notes that were not be sounded but ghosted, the player miming a press of the keys.
 
He looked at the clock. Nearly five o’clock. The afternoon had all but disappeared. Time had retreated into glorious silence . There had been three whole hours of it. How wonderful that was after months of battling with the incessant and draining turbulence of sound that was ever present in his city life. To be here in this quiet cottage he could now get thoroughly lost – in silence. Even when she was here he could be a few rooms apart, and find silence.
 
A week more of this, a fortnight even . . . but he knew he might only manage a few days before visitors arrived and his long day would be squeezed into the early morning hours and occasional uncertain periods when people were out and about.
 
When she returned, very soon now, she would make tea and cut cake, and they’d sit (like old people they wer

O how I recall with joy a visit to Jackson, proud capital of Mississippi,
The land of the fearless fatties, the glorious land of the uber-obese,
A paradise enjoying amazingly high blood pressure and diabetes rates,
Thanks to the greed and gluttony of its 'proud-to-be-portly' inhabitants.

How delightful to stroll along its leafy boulevards, admiring the advertising
For junk food shops: "Super-Size Your Deep Crust Giant Pizza for only $1!"
"Real Men love our Emperor Size Cheeseburgers, King Size is for Kids!"
And "Come Try Our All Day Giant Breakfast with Triple French Fries!"

How enchanting to see furniture stores offering discounted extra big sofas,
Builders and carpenters with their cut-price floor-strengthening deals,
Tailors' shops with their displays of buffet pants and elasticated jeans,
Realtors promoting houses with double porches and wide internal doors.

And, O the trailer parks, those truly splendid residential areas,
With their giant size immoveable vehicles with spacious entry portals
To allow the immaculately dressed residents to carry in an armful
Of multi-packs of chocolate iced crème flavour filling Krispy Kremes.

But most wondrous of all, the myriad rival Pentacostal Chapels
With their guaranteed reinforced concrete padded sofa-pews
And their portrayals of plump Jesuses to make the fatties feel at home.
And all those "funeral parlors" with their gaping super-wide caskets.

How I loved the blinking stares of the sleep-deprived bible students
As they staggered out of an architectural wonder of a chapel,
Bleary-eyed after an all-night bible study session, and all eager
For a healthy breakfast of a dozen flash-fried sugar encrusted "donuts".

I was there in this glorious world centre of ever-escalating obesity
With my latest gorgeous lady love (at only 140 pounds and five foot two,
possibly the slimmest woman in the entire Jackson Metropolitan Area)
And we decided to try some good ol' Mississippi fine dining as a treat.

Holey Moley! What a feasts on offer: pan-fried catfish, deep-fried catfish,
Steaks the size of an encyclopaedia and all accompanied by unlimited fries!
Sweet potato and pecan pie with butter, sugar, eggs and extra cream,
And Mississippi Mud Pie with its chocolate crust and sticky chocolate filling!

(The chef de cuisine in our upscale diner told us that Southern cooks
had created this wondrous dessert because its sophicated ingredients
were available cheaply and the recipe required only minimal culinary skill,
and what's more it came with a treble serving of supermarket ice cream!)

We declined the bottomless cup of watery coffee with compulsory sugar
And enquired if we might have a bottle of his finest wine. Quel faux-pas!
The dear fatso was mortified and told us his was a Christian establishment
And strong drink was frowned upon. Did we think he was a degenerate?

That night we lay bloated like beached whales in our tasteful motel room
(its bed reinforced with ferro-concrete to deal with the horrid possibility
that any gargantuan visitors might wish to copulate vigorously);
Oh how we burped and farted, longing for a dose of bicarbonate of soda.

All good things come to an end so, after a nessy session on the toilet
(we filled it thrice), we bade farewell to the desk clerk and sloped off.
"Be sure y'all come back real soon," he declared, patting his fat gut,
"Cuz you both sure do look two real skinny Limeys, ya hear me?."

As we drove out of this elegant city that steamy Southern summer morn
In our rented 4X4 super-strong chassis Land Rover, how we smiled
At the scene outside Walmart where the special offer of the day
Was five pounds of free candies with every single assault rifle sold.

But alas! And alack! Tragedy was not so very far away that day:
Some corpulent teenagers toppled off the sidewalk under my auto's wheels
In their indecent haste to take advantage of the latest McDonald's bargain:
A quart of complimentary Dr Pepper's with a whole oven-fried McTurkey.

Oy! What a horrid mess my fender made of their pudgy, mottled flesh
And how wise we were to speed off before the cops arrived
At least, we avoided being beaten us to a pulp for being leftist libtards
Come to laugh at the dear redneck ways south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

Monster
Trianna POV
It took me time to accept what I was being pushed into. Ever since I was young, my mother and father told me that one day, I might grow to hate myself. I know, what parents tell that to their child right? But they saw no point in lying to me. It was going to happen. I was going to hate myself.

I am half-vampire.

Not because of my mother, not because of my father. It was my paternal grandfather.

It was a miracle my father got none of the vampire symptoms. It was the best miracle. My grandparents were one of those unbelievably fated couples in the world. A vampire and a human fell in love and got married and had my dad. They were prepared to have to deal with a vampire child, but, miraculously, it did not happen. My father came out normal, as normal as any human could ever be. It was not surprising; he had more of my grandmother’s genes. Eventually, my father met my mother, fell in love and got married. I came along. That’s how the equation works right?

They had nothing to worry, for they were both human. However, something was not right. When I was 3, my eye color changed. The color was nothing like my parents’. Their eyes were a nice shade of hazel and dark brown. Mine, was green, dark, forest green. As a kid, my treats weren’t sweets. They were blood, small droplets of blood from my parents. But by the time I was 7, my parents and grandparents helped me grow an addiction to lollipops, making me turn to them whenever I had a craving attack. For blood that is. But craving attacks were rare, very rare. I was only a half-vampire anyway.

As the days passed, I grew into a teenager, my parents and grandparents aged, except my grandfather. My grandmother long got used to the fact that my grandfather would not be able to age with her. After a while, I found it weird that my father was starting to look older than my grandfather. Things all went well, until the night before I turned 18.

It was taboo.

All a taboo.

I really hated myself now.

No one saw it coming. So we didn’t make precautions.

I killed them. I killed my parents. I didn’t even know what happened. I couldn’t even remember. I only remembered that I was enjoying a movie on television with my parents alone at home as my grandparents were out for a friends’ gathering dinner or something. And the next thing I remembered were my parents, lying in their own pool of blood, not breathing. My hands and face, stained with blood. My grandfather tried to stop me but feeding me his blood, but it was too late. It was all too late. I held onto my grandfather’s bitten arm and lay there, just staring at my parents. The clock struck midnight and everything turned black.

I woke up the next morning in my own bed, an urge to puke filled my guts as I rushed to the toilet to throw up. Nothing came out, just regurgitation. I looked up in the mirror, and blinked. I blinked again, harder this time, making sure I was not hallucinating. My eyes were, green, not dark green, but a lighter shade. I pulled the side of my mouth to reveal my canine teeth. They were sharper than before. In a state of shock and panic, I ran down the stairs, where I knew where my family would be. The moment I reached the first floor, I saw my grandparents outside, in the backyard.

I hesitated to move. Someone tell me the nightmare I had was not real.
“G-Grandpa?” I murmured. My grandfather turned, making my grandmother do the same. My grandmother had a tear-streaked face and a handkerchief in her hands. My grandfather looked the worse ever since I knew him. I swallowed hard before walking closer to them, and I noticed two coffins being laid on the ground.

Tears fell down my cheeks as I realized who those two being laid there were.

“Grandpa… Tell me this isn’t real…” I struggled to believe what was happening in front of me. My grandfather held onto me before I could collapse.

“Trianna, please don’t be like this…” he pleaded.

I knelt in front of my parents’ tombs and bid them a last farewell before they were being cremated. The fire was burning away so many memories. I almost wanted to walk into it, almost.

“I’m sorry…” I whispered under my breath and said a deep prayer. I lifted myself up from the ground and dried my tears. Walking to my grandparents, I gave them both a tight hug before my grandfather could go on another trail of apologies about how it was his fault I am what I am now. Worse, I am not a pure. And that is making things so hard for us to decipher. It was something none of us wanted. However, I had to blame myself. And I blamed myself, a lot. But I never mentioned anything about my parents ever since my 18th birthday. I wanted to escape.

For one year, we continued to stay at that same house. And every day without fail, I would walk to the backyard where my parents were cremated and kiss the ground, apologize then do whatever I had to do for the day. I stayed away from school which my grandparents obliged. I doubt anyone is ready for me to have a sudden craving attack again and start ******* the blood out of my classmates since my cravings were stronger now. I used to only have to **** on lollipops whenever I see blood. But now, I had to have a lollipop in my mouth 24/7, considering the fact that we are in fact staying amongst humans, and most probably have to for the rest of my life, and I start wondering how long my life would be.

To start things anew, my grandparents decided we needed to shift to a new state. If we continued to stay in that place, as they assumed, would be bringing me way too much pain. I had no opinions; I just needed to follow them wherever they wanted to go. However, I did mention there was not much need to actually move, I was over the whole blaming myself about my parents’ death thing… I think.

We settled down in a small town called Kingslet based in the United States, where Grandpa once lived with his family. I heard that that town was secluded, but definitely still populated with humans, moreover, rich humans. And probably some vampires.

We moved into a cottage that my grandfather bought over from an old friend. And when I said old friend, I meant like, a really really really old vampire friend of his who happened to want to move away to another town with his family. My grandfather drove a van that he had rented from near the place where our private plane landed to the location where we were destined to live. Upon arriving, my jaw dropped. That isn’t a cottage, more like a mansion, for goodness sake. Alighting from the van, I took one breath and knew it was the signal for me to be ******* on lollipops again. I took one out from my backpack and opened it before popping it into my mouth.

“The smell getting to you already? That’s fast.” My grandfather, who was obviously already immune to the smell of blood, chuckled.

“Shut up.” I mock-glared my grandfather and smiled as I helped with moving the luggage into the house. Being half-vampire, for the moment, was not half bad. I get extra super strength, a cliché vampire gift. I did my own research of my own kind. We get super human strength, sense of smell increases and super human speed. But I figured maybe because I was only half-bred, I wasn’t sensitive to the sun, nor to garlics, or crosses. I consider myself lucky.

Entering the cottage, I placed the luggage on the floor before taking a look around the place. The place was really not bad. It was huge, comfortable and very cozy. My grandmother would definitely love it here. Well, she would be the only one hanging around the house 24/7. I don’t really want my 75 year old human grandmother wandering just anywhere she wants alone. High chances are that she was going to get hurt or something. But touch wood. And true enough, my grandmother was already taking her place on one of the sofas furnished in the living room by the fireplace, smiling at my grandfather.

“It’s wonderful here, Xavier dear.” She complimented.

Both grandfather and I smiled at her then at each other.

“Glad that you like it here, Katrina darling.” He said to my grandmother, making me quiver at their sweetness, but it was not like I was not used to it. “Come on Tri, let’s start moving the things.” He turned to me and suggested. I nodded with a smile. As we were at moving, I was told my room is on the second floor, in which I get to choose between three bedrooms, and the other two would become any room I want them to be, and that most likely means I would be having the whole second floor to myself. This really doesn’t sound so bad. I picked the biggest room, and poked my head in, realizing that the bed and all were already furnished perfectly. It must be grandpa. He knows me really well. Too well.

I threw both my luggage onto my bed and opened them, revealing my clothes and all my other belongings and started unpacking. First, my one and only family photo left after grandpa decided to keep the rest away from me at our old home. He only allowed me to keep one, the one we took when I was 15, in which I really don’t look much different compared to the present me. Staring at the photo, I wished so much that they were still here with me. It didn’t matter if we were going to move either way, as long as they were here, things would be perfect. I quickly put the picture frame at the side of my bed before I could actually start crying my green orbs out again. I proceeded with the rest of my unpacking and once I was done, I had also finished my lollipop. Being lazy to open another open, I chose to leave the empty lollipop stick in my mouth and chew on it instead.

Heading downstairs with my headphones hanging around my neck and smartphone, I hopped onto the longest sofa that was facing the wide screen television, switched on the television and started to channel surf, deciding to figure out the town’s frequency, hoping they have my favorite music and drama channels.

“Trianna!”

I heard my name coming from behind me, before turning to my grandmother. She merely shrugged at me, so I pouted at her and responded to my grandfather. “Yes, grandpa?” turning to meet gazes with him. I instantly felt a bunch of papers being shoved into my hold.

“What is this?” I asked, flipping through the pieces of paper, which I realized had my name and identification number printed everywhere.

“Your new school registration confirmation. I have already settled everything for you. And you are reporting to school the day after tomorrow, on Monday.” My grandfather said, taking a place next to my grandmother as they cuddled up.

“Isn’t this a little bit too soon?” I frowned. I really did not hate school. I just hated the fact that if I have to hang around humans, I have to deal with my control over my craving. It’s stressful and tiring.

“You are not getting away with anything this time, Trianna. It’s been a year since you last went to school. And the sooner you go out there to train, the better. Eventually, you will need to walk out of the house.”

Crap. I struggled to find another excuse. And light bulb!

“What about this and this?” I pointed at my eyes first, then my teeth.

“Don’t fret about it. I’m stocking up on your contact lenses for you, and your lollipops. Plus, your teeth aren’t obvious either, those lollipops are grazing them off.”

“But-!”

“Trianna!”

I bit my lips, “Yes grandpa…” I knew there was no way I can argue further. My grandfather was right; I have to deal with this someday, somehow anyway. Why not just go out there and face the music, get it over and done with? He had already obliged to me for a year, it was my turn to listen.

Dinner was spaghetti with carbonara, my grandfather’s best cuisine. Nothing beats this. It was my favorite behind lollipops. After dinner, it was sliced fruits and television. Once I felt I had my fair share of the night, I kissed my grandparents goodnight.

Third Person POV

After Trianna headed up to her room, her grandmother frowned.

“What’s wrong, Katrina?” Trianna’s grandfather asked, caressing his wife’s cheeks.

“Xavier, don’t you think it’s a little too harsh on Trianna? Making her go to school now? Go out there with the humans?” she questioned, as worried as her face portrayed her to be.

Xavier sighed. As much as he did not want to risk his one and only precious granddaughter, he had to. “Katrina, we have to let her go. She is very unlike me. If we don’t let her go, we will never have our answers about her. I know I promise to ask my friends more about Dhampirs. I will. But Trianna still has to go. I cannot protect her forever.” Xavier let out another sigh, “I don’t even know for sure, if she is a Dhampir.”

Trianna POV

The morning sun shone on my face indicating the new day. I struggled to open my eyes as I lifted myself off my bed. I stretched uncomfortably and yawned. This new bed sure needs some getting used to. After combing and tying up my shoulder-lengthed dark brown wavy hair, I washed myself up before heading down to the first floor.

“Good morning Grandpa. Good morning Grandma.” It was a habit to greet. A good one, I know. It was pancakes for breakfast, I could totally smell it since I was upstairs. Popping my head into the kitchen, I took another deep breath.

“Pancakes?” I asked, excited.

“Bet you smelt it the moment you woke up.” He laughed.

“Not exactly, but when I was upstairs, yes.” I chuckled along, moving to hug him.

“Good morning Tri.” He greeted, hugging me tightly.

“Where’s Grandma?” I bobbed my head around, not seeing her anywhere in sight.

“In the backyard trying to do some exercise.” He answered.

You are seriously letting a 75 year old woman do exercise alone in the backyard. Call yourself the best husband in the world. Creep.

I ran towards the backyard and saw my grandma doing some stretches to the morning radio slowly. Like literally, really slowly. I skipped over to greet her, shocking her a little before I pounced slightly to hug her and give her a daily dose of her morning kiss. Sensing that my grandfather was almost done with the pancakes, I led her back into the house and sat her down on her seat at the big round dining table. After helping my grandfather with laying the table, we three finally sat down for breakfast.

Picking up the maple syrup, I poured enough to cover my pancakes before placing my block butters on them, melting them and coating the pancakes. Love them this way. The silence during the meal was perfect, until my grandpa decided to break it.

“So,” he coughed slightly, “Any plans for today?” he asked, looking straight at me.

“No… Why would I have any plans made in a new town?” I asked, avoiding eye contact with my grandfather because I knew exactly where he was getting at.

“Why don’t you take a walk around the new town?”

I cursed under my breath. I think I forgot to mention. My grandfather’s vampire gift, was reading minds. That was exactly why, he knows me very well. ***** to be me, sometimes.

“Sure, doesn’t sound like such a bad idea before the start of school?” I replied. I was not out of my mind. But since I had already promised to go to school, there should not be a problem with just walking around town and try to get used to humans one day earlier. “Are you two coming with me?”

Grandpa nodded and said that he had already suggested to grandma about taking a walk around town, to let grandma know the place better as well as get to know a few faces around us. He felt it wasn’t nice to not greet if you are new in town.

After getting changed into a simple tee and shorts matched with my favorite pair of converse shoes, I hung my headphones around my neck again, plugging the end into my phone and opened one lollipop to pop into my mouth before heading out. The smell was already overwhelming at the door. Thanks, you pathetic piece of body. But if grandpa could get used to it, so will I. I saw my grandfather picked out his favorite hat and placed it on his head and I smirked. At least I can handle some sun.

Walking around town, we got to know a few people. Like Uncle Tyler, owner of the Italian restaurant along the streets, and a few other people around my grandma’s age or slightly younger. I merely greeted and smiled at them, not knowing what to say. Sadly, my grandpa had to introduce himself as my grandmother’s son. Very heartbreaking, to me at least. My grandparents long foreseen this and had been mentally prepared, I really sal

My first impression of the children's hospital was how nice everything was. It was new, with fish tanks and red sofas; pastel windows which made pretty colors on the floor when the sun went through them; walls were freshly painted and everyone talked with a smile. Everything just looked so peaceful.
It wasn't until my second visit that I saw the flaws. I was sitting on one of the red couches, waiting for my name to be called, and I was looking at the fish tank. A little girl was pressed up to the glass telling her mother that she could see nemo. But when I looked closer, I saw a little fish turned over floating at the surface. A man behind the glass quickly pulled it out of the tank, but I saw. That's when I started noticing other things. Like the bloodstain on the cushion next to me. And the fact that a few tiles were missing from the floor. The wood paneling had scratches on it; one of the pastel windows was taped up; and every parent was smiling, but the little kids holding on to them kept asking what was wrong.
Maybe that's just how hospitals are. They want you to think that everything's okay; that all that goes on inside are couches and fishtanks. They think that if they write out the word HOSPITAL in bubbly pink letters people might get it into their brains that everything's okay. But that doesn't change the fact that it's a hospital. Masking pain only works for so long, until broken bits and pieces push their way through.
I think hospitals are just fish tanks. Everyone is put on display for doctors and visitors and things seem okay for a while, you know, until they aren't. When a little nemo dies, they send away his body and just replace him with another orange fish that people can look at. We are all the cracks in the pavement; elevators shut down for repair; a phantom pain that nobody wants to believe is real. If you stand far enough away; if you distance yourselves from anything close to the word hospital, you can just let yourself focus on the mask they put up. But once it's time, and you're sitting on a red couch in the lobby of the children's wing, with a kid asking you where her older brother went, you'll find yourself staring at the cracks in the facade with a single tear running down your face and with emptiness in your stomach.

And I always find, yeah, I always find something wrong
You been putting up with my **** just way too long
I'm so gifted at finding what I don't like the most
So I think it's time for us to have a toast
Let's have a toast for the *******
Let's have a toast for the *******
Let's have a toast for the scumbags
Every one of them that I know
Let's have a toast for the ****-offs
That'll never take work off
Baby, I got a plan
Run away fast as you can

[Verse 1: Kanye West]
She find pictures in my e-mail
I sent this ***** a picture of my ****
I don't know what it is with females
But I'm not too good with that ****
See, I could have me a good girl
And still be addicted to them hoodrats
And I just blame everything on you
At least you know that's what I'm good at

[Hook]

[Bridge]
Run away from me, baby, run away
Run away from me, baby, run away
It's about to get crazy, why can't she just, run away?
Baby, I got a plan, run away fast as you can

[Verse 2 - Pusha T]
24/7, 365, ***** stays on my mind
I-I-I-I did it, all right, all right, I admit it
Now pick your next move, you could leave or live wit' it
Ichabod Crane with that ******* top off
Split and go where? Back to wearing knockoffs, haha
Knock it off, Neiman's, shop it off
Let's talk over mai tais, waitress, top it off
Hoes like vultures, wanna fly in your Freddy loafers
You can't blame 'em, they ain't never seen Versace sofas
Every bag, every blouse, every bracelet
Comes with a price tag, baby, face it
You should leave if you can't accept the basics
Plenty hoes in the balla-***** matrix
Invisibly set, the Rolex is faceless
I'm just young, rich, and tasteless
P!

[Verse 3: Kanye West]
Never was much of a romantic
I could never take the intimacy
And I know I did damage
Cause the look in your eyes is killing me
I guess you are at an advantage
Cause you can blame me for everything
And I don't know how I'mma manage
If one day you just up and leave

It’s the tail end of fashion week in Paris, the busiest week of the year for fashion buyers.

When I meet Clodagh Shorten, owner of Samui, the game-changing boutique that put Cork on the fashion map, she’s already been here four days and is on her tenth buying appointment — there’ll be at least another five before she leaves in a couple of days time.

These appointments, private bookings with designers, allow her to get up close and personal with the clothes that have just been showcased on catwalks.

She’s deciding which pieces will best suit her customers.

Today, we meet at Schumacher, the stunning German label known for its easy chic look.

A beautiful white space, with lush cream velvet sofas, bare walls and white rails (nothing here to distract from the main event — the clothes), this room, prime space in Paris, is rented by the designer year-round just so they have the right venue to sell at Fashion Week.

It gives some indication of the power Fashion Week wields.

Clodagh is here with her right-hand woman, Samui manager Mary-Claire O’Sullivan.

There are two rails — the keepers and the ‘ones that got away’.

They’ve already seen this collection in London.

Today they are here to fine-tune.

This is unusual, Mary-Claire explains — at most appointments, they are seeing the clothes for the very first time.

“This is a big spend,” they tell me, and they’ll stay as long as they need “to get it right”.

Piecing together a collection is something akin to a jigsaw puzzle.

All the items are photographed — later they will be analysed back in the apartment they rent during Fashion Week.

The mix has to be right.

So the coats, a sleeveless waistcoat, are moved to the rail on the right.

They won’t make it to Cork.

Coats were already picked up this morning at another appointment.

Like I said, a jigsaw puzzle.

Two models are on hand to try on clothes when requested — I hear ‘can I just see this on one more time’ a lot.

There’s no haggling over prices in these sales negotiations — it’s all too civilised.

The price is set, as is the instore mark-up. These lauded designs must cost the same the world over.

Clodagh and Mary-Claire share a language and a wavelength. They can finish each other’s sentences and, while I don’t so much as sniff a hint of tension, they tell me they can disagree on buys.

“Clodagh doesn’t want a yes woman,” Mary-Claire says simply.

From Schumacher, Clodagh leads the way through the Parisian cobbled streets, phone held aloft, Google Maps to direct her.

Her wheelie bag is constantly behind her — inside there’s the laptop for orders and a camera for instant access to photographs of collections.

Her calculator is another permanent fixture in the showroom.

Today, Clodagh is dressed in an Australian label coming soon to Samui, Ellery. The lush black fabric sways and moves with her body; an outfit like that makes you really appreciate her eye for fashion. It’s sensational.

For this 5.30pm appointment we are heading to see another new label for Samui — Paskal (Clodagh will wear a piece from this line tomorrow).

The Ukrainian designer is looked after by an agency so in this showroom there are pieces by a handful of brands.

Again, the setup is the same — private appointments, models on hand.

Clodagh and Mary-Claire have to be more careful here — this is a new label and it’s more fashion forward so black is prioritised.

Not every client at Samui will wear this line. Every purchase, I realise, is a gamble.

“We’ve made mistakes, of course we have,” says Mary-Claire though you get the feeling that could be a rare event.

Pieces bought by these two women rarely end up in Samui’s sales rack.

They know their customer, plain and simple.

There is so much trust there, some clients are simply sent collections each season, allowing Clodagh to make the call for them.

So much of their day is spent discussing various clients (never by name in my presence) — what they might like, the best size.

It is effectively the ultimate personal shopping experience.

The number of items and sizes are limited, so customers know they are truly getting one-off pieces.

As we leave, kisses over, the agency head tells them, “you’re our favourites” and you just know it’s not empty fashion talk.

People genuinely love Clodagh and Mary-Claire. And they respect what they do.

Samui is open 16 years now. Clodagh mastered her trade at Monica John before stepping out on her own. Mary-Claire joined her eight years ago.

It has been one of the few boutiques in Cork to not just survive the downturn but to positively thrive.

As the economy spluttered around her, Clodagh very masterfully decided to go high end.

First came Moncler — the top people here had to come and view Samui to see if it was the right match for their esteemed label.

It was — and, increasingly, doors began to open.

Carven, Marni, Rick Owens — people really began to sit up and take notice of Samui.

Now labels are often vying for space on the shop floor. Still though, it takes work to secure the big new names.

Clodagh spends a lot of time on planes, networking, meeting the key players. And it’s not as simple as a visit to Fashion Week twice a year either.

These days pre-collections are key too: these pieces will be on the shop floor for longer.

So Clodagh and Mary-Claire travel in January to Paris for pre- collections, Milan in February for Moncler, Paris in March. The same cycle begins again in June for A/W pre-collections, with S/S Fashion Week in September.

Clodagh is always pushing, always striving for new.

She was devastated to say farewell to Transit, the brand with her from the very beginning. It was simply time for a change she tells me.

They love seeking out new labels, nurturing them, sharing them with their customers.

The next morning we meet at 9am for Dries van Noten.

Clodagh stocks around 50 different labels, most exclusive to Cork. This Belgian designer is one of them.

Here again is a very fashion forward line.

There’s a minimum €20,000 spend here, and that’s the amount Clodagh and Mary-Claire can play with.

This is a much busier showroom, a slick operation. Buyers are everywhere, the models weaving between them.

They are assigned a seller and a table, laptop at the ready to secure the sale.

Sophie, today’s seller, walks them through the long rails and talks to them about the collection, the fabrics, the colour, the catwalk, the vision.

Clodagh and Mary-Claire repeat the process a second time alone, a third time again with Sophie.

There are little standing breaks for coffee — refreshments and lunch are provided by the designer.

Clodagh and Mary-Claire know to carry snacks everywhere. The buying process can be a long one; Dries could be an all-day event.

The price point is much higher here so, again, each piece has to be carefully thought out. Checked and checked again.

These A/W deliveries will land in store in July.

Watching them make their Samui edit on that March morning, I just know the Dries selection will be a show-stopper this Autumn.

I leave them to sign on the dotted line, wishing them success for the rest of their gruelling schedule as I head for Charles de Gaulle.

“People don’t realise what goes into this,” says Clodagh. And she’s right.

None of us can possibly grasp what it must have taken for one woman to put Cork on the fashion radar.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/short-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/red-carpet-celebrity-dresses

Last nite I dreamed of T.S. Eliot
welcoming me to the land of dream
Sofas couches fog in England
Tea in his digs Chelsea rainbows
curtains on his windows, fog seeping in
the chimney but a nice warm house
and an incredibly sweet hooknosed
Eliot he loved me, put me up,
gave me a couch to sleep on,
conversed kindly, took me serious
asked my opinion on Mayakovsky
I read him Corso Creeley Kerouac
advised Burroughs Olson Huncke
the bearded lady in the Zoo, the
intelligent puma in Mexico City
6 chorus boys from Zanzibar
who chanted in wornout polygot
Swahili, and the rippling rythyms
of Ma Rainey and Vachel Lindsay.
On the Isle of the Queen
we had a long evening's conversation
Then he tucked me in my long
red underwear under a silken
blanket by the fire on the sofa
gave me English Hottie
and went off sadly to his bed,
Saying ah Ginsberg I am glad
to have met a fine young man like you.
At last, I woke ashamed of myself.
Is he that good and kind? Am I that great?
What's my motive dreaming his
manna? What English Department
would that impress? What failure
to be perfect prophet's made up here?
I dream of my kindness to T.S. Eliot
wanting to be a historical poet
and share in his finance of Imagery-
overambitious dream of eccentric boy.
God forbid my evil dreams come true.
Last nite I dreamed of Allen Ginsberg.
T.S. Eliot would've been ashamed of me.

My house will be filled with the things that I love;
Goldfish, dandelions,
Green sofas, Greek mythology,
Books of psychology.
Books. Lots of books with lots of words.
Multiple copies of the really good books too.
All stacked to the ceiling
on bookshelves adequate to
The height of the house
All equivalent to
My love of the place I’ll call home.
A sock monkey here or there,
pillows and throw blankets.
Pictures of Lake Louise, and a souvenir
If I’m ever lucky enough to go there.
I will print poetry, frame it, put it on my walls.
My walls will be yellow gray and blue,
I will have a boombox with speakers that go BOOM
(but at night it will sing me to sleep
with many sweet lullabies).
And it’s music will fade to the sound of voices
Voices of people I love and admire
Who can walk through the door,
of the place I aspire
To make my own,
To share and not waste
With the precious presence of others
And their ideas
And hopes and dreams
So if you aren't a thing I love,
You have to leave.
I’ll probably have a lot of lamps too.

You’re wishing plus wanting
to win the other side
remove your pride,
you untied tidal pool,
the wide subdivide of these paper pages.

Unrelenting numbers
remind you of the next stages,
taking you wildly to Namibia,
surrendering you to Zimbabwe,
the terminal station.
The narration vocalizes the translation of quotations,
your obligation to the violation of the rules, the regulations,
vulgarization of spoken word.

Pretty paintings plaster typecasts,
the pitter-patter of pity’s pretty ******,
quickly shifting refurbished velvet sofas.
Overcast symphonies outlast
witty recast stanzas,
scores with notes naturally quote
verses romancing seltzer spines
noticing the negotiation of sore throats.  
Oblivion’s oblivious to the people,
obnoxiously obscene with syncopated
saturation of public vital signs.

You’re the vain strain of virus
photocopying yourself within skin,
waste your sin on tattoos trapped on shins
safety pins selecting prints
pinning sets of twins to tanned wrappers
protecting official reports.
The ossuary welcomes records printed on thick paper
suspiciously missing skeleton swords.

Writing stories reversed while tipsy,
quickly preforming risky poetry smog,
sweetly omitting secret words,
trying to spell simply without the proper prologue.

Destined to never be satisfied, that is me,
I will swallow the world and purge,
Wiping my mouth of the spittle, off too comes the grin,
Momentous occasions amount to invisible entrapment,
They'll try and tell me that it should be enough,
Sedated and post-op lobotomies on pedestals,
Formaldehyde jars packed with vernal reward,
Plopped on sofas staring at the **** tube barrel,
Fancier and well built imports,
**** measuring contest gone wrong,
Debt built up and drowning rats,
Tunnel vision scoped Dharman,
Wicker trinkets, frail mistreated,
Lunatics that love for the wrong reasons,
Insanity epidemic gross over-exaggeration,
Billy clubs fly from hands of misguided lawmen,
Prayers knelt under the bus benches,
***** corroding the underbelly of the social glance,
Blind blues moutharp in the corner still playing,
Trains running on time, taking the life from the patrons,
Steel breathes burnt crimson,
Foggy cauldrons from medieval nightmares,
The haggard ***** dangles her ***** precariously above,
Just an inch or two in the wrong direction,
And all this meaningless mess might be forgotten,
Books burned, learned forgotten, buildings from the sand,
Starting the sick cycle over again,
With an even wider **** eating grin,
Chartreuse Cheshire cats with inviting eyes,
Taking the breath from the first borns,
Replacing motor oil with sugar canes,
HOWLING what history has shown,
Making a prophet from the scammers and thieves,
I can't believe that we don't all see,
What my path of professed malnutrition,
Gambled stimulus, Golden fleece lined nimbus,
Never enough for the scabbed *****,
Never enough for the howling idiots in the sun,
Never enough for the lunatics undistinguished,
Surely never enough for you and me.
Continuing on snickering underhanded,
Snide underbreath worried about repercussions if found out,
Maybe even too ignorantly blissful enough to not give a ****,
Head down looking at your shoes,
Or ready to inflict a flat tire,
Graceful or oafish,
Humble sniveling whelp, prodding pious peacock,
Dividing rod stuck in the teeth of our teeth,
This is the loner society,
At least tolerance is taught in our schools,
Has anyone really learned anything?

Grab your Kerouac coat,
get on the road and
find everything you lost about yourself,
reclaim it from city street code.

Dust travels with the wind
when the wind is hesitant to go alone.
Along with the clouds that
cover the sky, cover the unknown.

Cars with driver and passengers
flee the mounting mess,
the debris of souls, money,
cash around the necks-

Choking on greed and new sofas,
deep porcelain baths, chunks of
meat: expensive, not kosher.

So grab that Kerouac coat
and get on the road.
Find something worth doing, before dusk becomes sweet-taste cold

Palaces of ****** souls
have green neon text frames
standing sideways like arches;

divine arrows, they guide
the paternal flunks, the tar-soaked offspring,
the lonely and the business bunch.

Here in these palaces, all sin is a freeze, all
lust is a spin.
Fairy lights are often flagged in a net,

to catch mischievous mares flinging
themselves against the glass displays
of overpriced clothing shops.

One finds when wondering the perpetual
lines of restaurants and cafes, the vastness of them
having a motherly touch, for

these palaces, they stretch like the sky and
they spread like the shepherded
fire ants of Gaia herself



And when ones welcome is overbid
they need only to follow  the
evenly laid out,  sorrow yellow street lamps

and bite their cheeks and bare the frost
for soon the polluted lux will lead them to
an overnight joint, a limbo of sorts,

where they can breathe anew.
On those red leather sofas- fast food
or the district kind- when the night seems

to crawl on its final limbs,
they'll lay and slip into sleep.
Some say they never do wake, that they

wither with the moon and then
haunt the attics of the dance halls
where they swirled and laughed and lived

in a previous life.

Snow was a carpet in the front lawn.
The tree loomed in the corner, proudly
decorated with tinsel and ornaments. Piles
of springs and cushions blocked the window,
blocked the cold breath of Father. But as the snow
melted, the Earth began to wake. The tree was
removed, place aside to be set ablaze, and the
leather and tweed was moved to let Mother
in. It was always open, letting the smell
of Her warmth float onto the carpet.
Little brothers liked to invite
the rainy ground inside, let
it splatter the wood and
coat the cushions.
When the sun
shone brighter,
hotter, machines
lured the sticky air
inside, and blew a fresh,
cool, breeze into an empty room.
Dust covered the furniture while the
dominant creatures retreat elsewhere. By
the time autumn comes Mother is growing
tired, Father is growing stronger. the sofas are
moved to make room for a painting or new lamp.
Father crawls in again and the sofas are moved to make
room for the tree, to barricade against Father, just like last year.
The cycle starts again, but with a new year.

We little light footed ants
are free from  giant egos
as we throw them off and live
within our tiny bodies
And we find that we have
so much room,
so much room.
As we keep gravitating in
a  love towards each other.

We work within an almost
sacrificial love for one another
This love so strong that
permeates our bodies it willingly
carries many times its weight freely. 
As we find a freedom in a devotion
as we build a great life together.

Sometimes we let go of understanding
the world and humbly live close to
what feels a boundless earth.
As we realize with a beautiful
simplicity that much of the world
is above.
And we understand however big you
build your ego God and the big picture
have an understanding so much greater.

We see however elaborate your system
however beautiful your tower it is the
lubricating love which enables the whole
thing work.
We live with perfect honor with each other
as we build our empire on stone which
will never crumble.
Many giant egos show us disregard as they
think nothing of stamping on us.
But being humble beings we simply slip
between the many cracks of this world and
remain completely unharmed.      


We know it is the being without ego
that finds himself so surrounded with
so much space and finds so very easy
to find his place.
Empty of ego we are drawn together
with so much love for one another
we just cannot get enough of each other.

As we build great structures almost invisible
to us which can only really be seen by giant
beings like Gods we feel our importance.
And as we work for this higher picture we
we cannot see we all merge together within
an unquestionable trust that always serves
the greater.

Living on a tiny point we feel the worlds
stresses collapsing infinity to a point.
Bursting balloons all pressures released
our souls sits back on energetic sofas.
Sitting on this micro dot we dance and rest
upon this junction spot.

So as we fumble and tumble around within
our daily routine choosing not to be tall
but to be born small.
Within a endless love threaded through million
of busy connecting little legs we work closely
together.
And in a deep cooperation we feel a
fusion as together we feel complete
in one giant heartbeat.    

There is so much to be admired in the
beautiful busy working ant.

It’s strange to be
nostalgic about a
grocery store. But
there it is.

In the lobby were
quarter machines. In
exchange for coins I’d
dig from couch cushions
and mom from the bowels
of her purse,

I’d watch colorful gumballs
spiral down a slide and
tumble through the open hatch
into my awaiting palm,
and another with wax figures
which I collected.

Inside to the left
past the magic sliding
glass doors was a DVD
rental section. Rows and rows
of movies I’d peruse
looking for something to watch
on a school night.

Across from that were
the magazine and
candy aisles with
various furniture—tables and
couches and chairs and sofas—
spread out
in the middle. I would

read skateboard magazines
beating my short legs against
the static incline of a sofa
chair and
one time a lady watched me
placidly reading on a comfy chair
from the security cam
and thought I was reading
something pornographic
and told my mom at the
register.

At the register,
mom would let me get
Archie comics and
bubble gum—

One time when I was five
I stole a pack of Fruit Stripe
gum. In the mini-van I
revealed my sin to mom
and she had me (alone)
walk back into the store
and hand it back to the cashier,
apologizing for my grand
theft.

When my dad would
take me to the grocery store
he would like to play
games.

He once took an egg
out of the carton
and tossed it to me
down the aisle. Too
scared to catch, I let
it fall to my feet with
a wet crack spilling
egg all over the gleaming
porcelain.

He grabbed soda bottles
and junk food from the shelves
and consumed them
then and there, handing
the cashier the empty
containers.

There was a coffee shop
inside the grocery store
he would stop by every
morning. Some Saturdays
he would wrench me from my
cartoons and take me with him
and I would play the 25 cent
slot machines while he got his
venti mocha latte.

Once I had a
nightmare I walked
into the parking lot
and couldn’t find my
dad. I called and called
for him but couldn’t find
him anywhere. Suddenly
his voice boomed at me
from the clouds.

In a thunderous yet
soothing voice of one who
has passed on to nirvana,
he said I would be okay, and
to take care of my mother
and my little brother and
sister. I cried and cried
out to him, searching for
his earthly body in the
grocery store parking lot.

I woke up in my parents’ waterbed
choking on my tears;
dad ran out of the bathroom mid-
shave to his side of the bed where
I slept and I threw my arms around his
neck.

Years,
and a decade later,
I drove my fiancé through
the old town I was raised in
and told her stories of the
pawn shop,
gas station,
video rental,
Mexican restaurant,
and grocery store.

With the video rental
now a tire station,
and the mom and pops
in chains,
we drove by the old grocery store
standing tall and proud
still as colossal as I remembered.

As the memories flowed
from my heart to my lungs
babbling from the driver’s seat,
that old grocery store
I gave my time and quarters to
carried a greater weight
than I ever thought
grocery shopping on Saturday mornings
and Sunday afternoons
could ever have.

It was 5:59 AM when the night ended,
When the night was completely quiet,
Yet, a song moaned incomprehensible verses,
and the portable heater vibrated,
the living room,
like a garden with fresh soil,
ready to be planted with thoughts ideas theories and laughs,
cigarettes half smoked in cups,
a few still swan-ly maneuvering smoke from the neck of the beer bottle,
Everything was good,
an accomplished sensation rushed over me,
with the warm sway of bourbon,
jackets socks shoes pants were sprawled across the floor,
no *** but still,
the sensation of ***, the mind. ******* itself,
being undressed by other Mad Like minds:
lust starving, love adventuring, money coasting, wisdom hungry.
Beside me the trashed 20 dollar sofas occupied by ***** blankets with *** stains and tiny shards of glass with two wise mad men, passionately sleeping, passionately dreaming.
A skinny tall window is in my peripheral vision,
a peripheral vision of the waking city,
of street lights flickering on and off,
the occasional beat-up car trudging along sadly with the wheels and eyes tired,
exhausted,
the car comes to a parking space,
behind the dumpster and it is lost,

The day was pure,
for 30 minutes to an hour,
the day was pure,
I had spent my 10 dollars on bourbon and cheap malt liquor,
which was gas money,
now it was fuel,
for the soul,
the body,
the path,
the vision,
the beauty,
we drove downtown in a blue Oldsmobile with the left tail light out,
while listening to classical music as homeless women and men,
walked heavily in their thin clothes,thin bodies,and torn clothes,
the liquor store was beautiful.
Sad, beautiful, in the way Beethoven's violin sonata No. 5 is,
the building was small,
originally a tiny home,
tall,
with a window destined by the Theological Gods,
to be gazed out of by a youthful girl,
completely fascinated by the world,
the occasional insect that would crawl across the window unknowing,
Unknowing of suffer, of girl, of boy, ***, good teeth, nice shoes, women, lovers, success,failure,death, and oil.
The insect crosses the window perhaps returning to its home,

Hauntingly Georg Trakl divine dead vines engulf the back, like a missing boy hugged by his Grandmother her old aged timed hands holding tight, the sides, where the rib cage of a naked women would be, and the roof of the remodeled destined window girl gazing house,

dead tired, and dead plastic blue and black and red milk crates are thrown out into backyard,
romantically sad,
the only sign of life is the neon 'OPEN' gleaming maliciously on the front door,

Driving back to Anthony's apartment,
made up whiskey jugs,
jugs crafted to be drunken by a platoon of war hungry sailors,
with letter perfumed coated writing lover girls in dresses,
waving their hands, their hearts, their ****** loyalty,
waiting for their man to return,
Braved,

But Anthony was no sailor,
he could out drink a platoon of sailors and still make love to a girl named Clementine with avocado eyes,

as we drive, passing dry and grayed used car lots, and pedestrians. Anthony asks,over the piano and violin,if we should go on a walk through the forest with our freshly purchased liquor.
I agree.
The piano continues on, as does an old black man at the bus stop,
mixing whiskey and orange juice, secretly between his old legs.

We laugh, and both praise him.

Our adventure beginning late in the night,
already drunk on the strong cheap malt liquor,
we bravely enter,
either the mouth,
the bowels,
the ****,
of the forest,
taking a tall can of liquor with us,
avoiding the sharp thin snapping tree limbs from our faces while lighting cigarettes,
passing the liquor between on another,

At peace finally,
comforted by the physical mix of chaos and beauty,
the drunk howling God cursing yelling mad hobo,
some where deep in the thick hairs of the forest,
the freight train smoothing by,
like a mothers eye,
and the distant trickle of a stream waterfall,
we sat in the wet,muddy ground,
monk like,
passing the cigarette,
the cheap malt liquor,
two mad,
wisdom monks,
observing,
the chaos,
the beauty,
our dharma,
our christ,
our buddha,
our temple.

A unit of measurement is a definite magnitude of a quantity,
used as a standard for measurement of the same kind of quantity. Any other quantity of that kind
can be expressed
as a multiple of the unit of measurement.

Length,
for example,
is a physical quantity.

Any value of a physical quantity is expressed
as a comparison to a unit of that quantity.

For example, the value of a physical quantity Z is expressed as the product of a unit [Z] and a numerical factor:

Z = n x [Z] = n[Z] So if we were to let Z be “2 antique sofas” then Z = 2[Z] = 2 antique sofas.

Fifteen hundred miles or so,
converts to roughly 7920000 feet
and 48 hours of land
across approximately 29 counties spread through 5 states

However,
in order to measure more abstract concepts,
different units of measurement are often adapted,
or hybridized, to fulfill ad-hoc need.

Coping,
for example,
is an abstract quantity
represented by

American Spirits:
(farenheit, inches, exhaled smoke as measured in cubic feet.)

Tears cried as designated driver
for termination
of unplanned pregnancy:
(miles, cost of service in U.S. Dollar, speed, tear volume in milliliters)

Furniture thrown:
Forces relevant to stable flight include a balance of
Propulsive ******. Lift,
created by the reaction
to an airflow
Drag, created by
aerodynamic friction
Weight,
created by gravity
Buoyancy, for lighter
than air flight

Holes in drywall:
(Inches in diameter and depth, potential bruises to be explained if the wall is ever further away than the human form in a darkened bedroom)

Unfortunately,
some concepts are still devoid of applicable units of measurement.

Take for example, the concept of Waiting.

As it has no defined beginning,
or end, and is malleable based on
external factors such as perceived value
and level of psychosocial dependency,
there appears to be no observable limit
regarding absolute human capacity capabilities.

Sonnet pour mon épagneul anglais Nils
De son smoking de noir vêtu,
mêmes quand il court dans les rues,
à un artiste de gala
il semble emprunter le pas

Ton ventre est blanc comme une hermine.
Sur ton museau blanc, une truffe
Son dos de noir tout habillé.
Sur le front, il se fait doré.

De « prince », il s’attire le nom
Tant sa démarche est altiere ;
mais de « Nils », il a le surnom,
Car autant qu’un jar, il est fier.

Assis, il paraît méditer,
Sur le monde sa vanité.
De ses yeux noirs il vous regarde,
Comme un reproche qui s’attarde.

Quand il court, parmi les genêts,
Il fend l’air comme un destrier ;
Et le panache de sa queue
En flottant, vous ravit les yeux.

Mon épagneul est très dormeur,
Et aux sofas, il fait honneur.
Mais lorsque se lève le jour,
A se promener, il accourt.

Quand il dort, il est écureuil,
mais jamais, il ne ferme l’œil.
Un léger murmure l’éveille
Tant aérien est son sommeil.
Il semble emprunter le pas

Lorsqu’un aboiement le réveille
De sa voix, il donne l’éveil.
Et les chats, les chiens maraudeurs,
Il met en fuite avec bonheur.

Lorsque dans mes bras, il vient,
Son pelage se fait câlin.
Et la douceur de sa vêture
Lui fait une jolie voilure.

Sur ma table, sa tête repose
Lorsque je taquine la prose,
Comme pour dire ; même par-là,
je veux que tu restes avec moi.

Sous ma caresse, il se blottit,
comme le ferait un petit.
De ma tristesse, il vient à bout,
tant le regard qu’il pose est doux.

Paul d’Aubin (Paul Arrighi), Toulouse.

                     *

Poème à ma chienne Laika dite «Caquine»

Tu as un gros museau,
Cocker chocolatine,
Des yeux entre amandes et noisettes
Teintés  d’une humeur suppliante.

Ta fourrure est quelque peu rêche
Mais prend l’éclat de la noisette
et le reflet du renard roux.
La caresse se fait satin.

Ma fille Célia t’appelle : «Caquine»
Pour des raisons que je ne peux
Au lecteur dévoiler ici,
Mais toute ta place tu tiens.

A ta maitresses adorée
Tu dresses ton gros museau
Et te blottis pour la garder
En menaçant ceux qui approchent.

Tu es peureuse comme un lézard,
Et sait ramper devant Célia.
Mais ton museau, sur mes genoux
Au petit déjeuner veille et guette.

Quand je te sors, tu tires en laisse
Jusqu’à m’en laisser essoufflé,
Après avoir d’énervement
Dans ta gueule, mes chaussons saisis.

Sur les sentiers de senteur,
Ton flair à humer se déploie.
Tu es, ma chienne, compagnie.
De mes longues après-midi.

Paul d’Aubin (Paul Arrighi), Toulouse.

***! my brother, is so destructive, he treats even a jewel like its *******
he is soo stubborn, he gets under my skin like sunburn, but in the end he's still my brother.
i wouldnt have in any other, why? cuhz he down for the fam like southern? lol  

i realized people you can never govern but even currently as he proceeds to walking on the second story on his FREAKEN KNEES! i realize i must make a compromise that there might be something about me he doesnt agree with,, so lets avoid the conflict cuhz it looks like a slippery cliff,,, *** is he doing upp there sounds like artillery ships and ****!!!, im about to throw this fit,, but my homeboy like na flames here smoke this spliff,, na NAGA my mind is a gift and you kn ow im trying to quit!,, witch brings me across the next subject,,, i suspect my inner demons which demoralize my drive to subside with most high take my closest friends minds for a joyride,,, undercover like a spy to poison my ambitions to stay sober im so bipolar, being high is mediocre but when mind is clear i tend to turn into that ogre,,,i feel as if all is hopeless,,, i live in the moment i live in the ocean,, i think my name is Joseph,, and i sleep on my best friend sofas,,, i dont know where this story is going, long as i continue typing i guess its my way of coping i guess its my way of invoking,,,,

Idyllic love poems wander the hills
with a pining goat herd playing his pipe
and singing mournful song
echoing down the quartz sculpted gorge
beneath waterfalls
where alabaster-skinned Naiads
lithe and languorous
bathed in crystal brooks.

Romantic poems lounge on sofas breathless  
wearing corsets and crinolines
desperate
and untouched
*******
strands of hair

   John Donne’s love poems
are wet
  with wit.

it was once called a beyond "good" and "evil"... as if the two were confused... i think the actual confusion comes by calling it: "beyond" good and evil - clearly we have a distinct understanding of the two, in how we treat them in the most extreme cases (as antonyms), and how we can't seem to comprehend them as antonyms: one's a ******* square, the other is a ******* triangle... in that we create a synonym siamese of the two... and how the good men squabble for an argument to contend against their "crimes", and the justice served against them... or this much came from creating Ed Gein into a romance... a fetish for artistic inspiration from Rob Zombie and the Silence of the Lambs... but no one bothers... ah... what's his name... Ted Bundy... no one wrote a song about him... no, he was clearly evil... this is what i find bewildering: the suggested "beyond".

oh, but it's only a game... there no etymology involved,
there's no looking back at words created
from the alphabetical cornflake bowl...
where cornflake-a floats about with cornflake-b
through to c, d, e... m n... l  o      p... and finally
rests with zed.... this is another type of game...
i don't mean it as a craft of etymology,
scouting the tongue prior, to say something
about the word in the tongue, now...
   it could be a raving lunatic using the word
  *δαιμων - and yes... before i make
the incission marks into the two syllables....
    i want to see how a "chiral"
aesthetic of: much the identical sound will give rise
to macron omicron ō = ω... just like like η = é,
   given the standard of epsilon
(ε) being the: quite distinct
measure of the sound suggested / intended.
but then, within a framework of bilingualism,
     made redundant as "schizophrenia" it's an absolutely
blunt statement to say: naturally, i am split mind...
i use two tongues... i can only imagine the horror
of being mono-lingual and having the symptom of
"hearing" "voices" in your case of dis- (negated)
-ease... that suffix needs not exfoliation...
but a game, there is, nonetheless! but it requires
the Caribbean tongue of patois... never know
why certain words sound better in the native tongue
than in the tongue acquired, but hell, they do...
    and to think my bilingualism became squandered on
    imitating a hellish encounter with schizophrenia...
   a condition so misunderstood and so exploited ("romanced")
that it makes no sense, unless if used in slandering someone:
not quiet 80, and actually in a degenerate state of having
lived a life... but i mean someone in their
20s, and embarking on a trip that completely obliterates
the boring tourist in them, along with the hope
of the father in them... and yes, if i wasn't bilingual
and merely monolingual i'd probably experience
the classic symptom: so many went down the route of
taking l.s.d. and so few never realised that the true
essence of horror is: music... people can't never fear what
they can or cannot see... it's what they hear,
or what others think that frightens the living-daylights out
of them! i mean: can you imagine a cultural
revolution when the drug made you
experience auditory-hallucinations
that's than optical variations in fluorescent
colours? i'd love to meet the man
who invented a drug that made you hallucinate
a Bach symphony... i really really would
love to meet such a man...
     meaning there's a bewilderment
about blind men and deaf men...
    sure, you can find them in
supermarket isle testifying that
   an elephant just ****** a donkey with
its trunk... while the donkey bellowed
out some jazzy impromptu...
  cos that **** would, just make sense.
how can anything make sense
when you already have five,
and given the sense of sight you turn
all revisionist and imagine things?
   it can't make sense, given the senses
are already given...
    it has to be the sense, turned into
a faculty: seeing-imagination
hearing-composure,
                           ­   poets are never compared
to musical composers...
my choice of vocab is a bit poor
at this moment...
             give me a tape recorder and i might
just be able to encrust my voice
like a cello in some symphony...
this isn't the game though...
i need patois and polish to play with
this word δαιμων...
     cut open: δαι-         / daj
  in polish means: give... a prompt, not: to give,
but: just give it, a basis of instruction...
   and now the patois... i.e. -μoν
    or man... aye aye mon, the drunken jammy-sailors
sung, drinking and swerving their dreads
    into puke-soaked sofas of the brothel...
so yes, we cheated a tad bit...
   we didn't write down: give me the moon,
we just said: give me man...
              and so pandemonium ruffled
a few feathers of man's peacock known as vanity...
and so the puppeteers said: enough
of strings! to the rook and bishop, pawn, king
queen and knight! suma summarum?
  only in england, could bilingualism ever be confused
with schizophrenia... oddly enough bilingualism
can deflate classical schizophrenic symptoms...
well: the symptom isn't exactly a pain...
     and they did suggest it to be a chemical imbalance...
which i found quiet funny...
given i have a chemistry degree from Edinburgh...
  i can't exactly state what a chemical imbalance is...
    not with the equilibrium theory...
   or any care to call phosphorus dipped in water
after having stored it oil to be an "imbalance"...
    surely we are talking about giving examples,
a bit like regurgitating facts...
but it would appear that there are no examples to
be given, as we are more interested in
simply regurgitating facts...
           i heard this one "dear" friend of mine call
my work a word salad... as if i hadn't heard that
phrase before... well great, coming from a man
who i remember unable to recite the ******* alphabet.
               god, how could i have become so
engrossed in these belittling narratives from past
or present, it's like i'm chewing on roast beef...
and i'm chewing, and i'm chewing, and i can never
even sniff the tulips of transcendence...
  every time i do, i just get dragged down onto
the plateau of being the common man...
             i just don't seem to value
will as my modus operandis -
    only a mere be - and **** me, with that there
are so many things optional...
                 i feel no river needing a travelling down
on in me, i feel no sea in need of
     a tide or a shipwreck...
               i feel no need for a mountain and
an avalanche...
            but whereas the will would guide me toward
overcoming the mountain,
  with each congestion of being bewildered by
a be injected into any thing real or imaginable,
along with that quasi-thing known as thought
that later becomes speech or writing or song,
      i can only state: without a will to overcome
a mountain, without a will to sail across a sea...
     i am both the mountain and the sea...
    in that i am being: set aside by both mountain
and sea in claiming a will over them,
           i am set aside by both mountain and sea:
for i know my own vanity,
            and as counter to res cogitans,
being a res vanus: i am of foremost concern to
fill that void with thought, rather than
   with sights of Eldorado across the sea...
    or a Tibetan monsestary, high in the mountains.

A huge centipede crawls across the floor
He is black
and his legs are orange.
He is enormous
12 inches
Maybe more

And he rears back and attacks the feet of the passers-by
And they smile and reach down and pat him.
They smile.
And he bites their hands.

Their hands swell up around the two deep punctures,
which are swollen up over, the only sign left being two tiny oozing wrinkles.
The purple hands are polka dotted with yellow and dying veins.
They admire the plethora of color that is now their hand.
From the pain they lust for more and more pain and more and more pain.

They rise from their overstuffed red sofas to the middle of the floor and trade blows.
A girl of twenty with black curly locks falls to the ground with a wet thud
and summons the centipede who bites her in the cheek, piercing the paper thin flesh.

He gets a strong hold on her face and drags her across the floor.
She giggles in delight!
The centipede rips her limb from limb and
She giggles in delight!

Another wet thud.
She had a puffy purple companion in a moment as the centipede drags to her a young man of twenty-one.
Fate!
Their lips meet
and their saliva, thick and curdled mixes.
They giggle in delight!
As the centipede rips them limb from limb.
You look like you're losing weight!
The centipede is finding it.

He eats all but their skulls,
shining in a thin layer of blood,
picked clean of flesh
Locked in a sweet embrace of phantom lips
Until a pugilist twitches his leg in an awkward defensive maneuver and sends the girl's skull spinning across the floor
until it hits against a white wall with a crack
and it splits.

Party-goers begin to trip over the centipede.
And with every wet thud on the floor
another skull is left to be an obstacle for fluid movement.
The centipede has to coil up to be able to fit in the room.

And soon there is one pugilist left
And he scratches the centipede's shiny black metallic and spackled red back with a mangled mass of knuckle
and yellow poisoned veins.
The centipede rears back
But falls back on itself out of its own sheer weight
and its back snaps,
spraying the finalist with a mix of entrails of bug and human kind.

Sleeping on sofas, sleeping on floors
Friends are her family
Her mother abroad

Little miss nobody, pin-ball girl
Says why are you being so nice to me
It's our job says the nurse
As she stitches her hand
Everyone is somebody

You folks are amazing
You really care
Best phone the hostel
Tonight I'll go there

So vulnerable
Naive, street-wise in equal measure
If you had a family
You would be their treasure

Defining solitude is an interestingly malleable task
You can be one of strangers dotted randomly around a room, with the nature of your task distinctly yours
Or pressed up against 4 or more others, in the compact discomfort of a crowd that defies personal space, joining hundreds in a shared disdain
Or even with that one, in a similar change to the norms of personal space, but one that is welcomed chemically, emotionally, socially, where you test your nervous systems together, trying to get those **** little noises and faces

Amongst all this it has to be said that you are one person though, a single distinct identity, a single perception, a single source for emotional and ideological response to the blisteringly large amount of stimuli beyond counting over the course of years

With that.. comes uncertainty, especially when younger but settling still sometimes on the oldest of shoulders
An uncertainty, or an adversity, or a challenge
A challenge for some which drops down the back of sofas, or is gratefully piled under by gift after gift of shallow victory or opaque validations
For others they stand taller than the highest of towers with the most intimidating of faces, deconstructing the figurative cells of the beholder
For others still the matter is more personal and individual than two tone truths, the task, the anomaly amongst lucidity, the defining cracks in the mirror manifest in different animals, expressions and caricatures
And the singularity of existence, which is gradually being ballooned by technology convenience well, that doesn't ******* help.

So what do we do about these ******* bits of our brains? These resounding sticks putting pressure on our cogs and wheels, slowing us on our trip to the ideal
Some repress them, building them like ulcers, ulcers which burst in destructive forms or simply crush our backs till our smiles are hollow
Some indulge them, pursuing the irrationality till blood, ***** and tears surround our overwhelmed and tired doors to the world
Others.. those that I always admire, fight them, engage them with a rational or honest stand to last, and some of these ones win
I like to think of myself as one of these but..

I'm not there yet, not truly
But I see things differently, thanks to traditional private channels and a tipping see saw between healthy and really unfucking healthy approaches
The miniature disasters, the minor catastrophes, they've become different, something opaque, analysable and approachable
I can see them for what they are more than how they make me feel, and that is something I'd advice you do next time that thing, under whatever buckets or barrels of soaking context you've got going with it, that's an approach that really works for me
When it has substance, a color, a shape or a texture, when it can be really perceived for what it is, it can be dealt with
And you can be the one to deal with it, let the thing be what it is

Then grab it, squeeze what you need from it onto your plate
Or let it go and drift along to the sides of your vision, allowing you to focus and let go of what is peripheral in sight and insignificant in mind

I can't imagine what you're going through, I will never say I can, unless say, you're eating jam toast.
But I will say that I have faith in you reader, and that if I can face what my challenges have been and what my challenges will be well..

You can too.

these things are yours:
the leather sofas, paintings and mantlepiece chachkas
marked with pink post-it notes
that defined this houseload of secrets to outsiders

as I wrote glories for you in forced smiles garnishing
black and white stories for a world you craved
our home groaned beneath the weight

pink notes

they feel like garottes, the
crafty complaints to strangers
duly noted in a ledger somewhere...

I never noticed 'till now
that even our children have been plastered with them,
sorry little heads bobbing under their wires,
stiff armed puppets, like me
facing ruined toys or threatened death of a pet,
love served contingent like dessert after dinner

my powder blue lips were ever too meager to say anything

I suppose the sofa your cat peed
on is mine to sleep in,
though bleach wasn't enough to get her stink out
no chairs around my foldout dinner table

I never had a stack of blue paper to paste on furniture or people

my meager parts were abandoned by curbside at night:
clothing, computer, tools;
broken finger, blood-crusty nose,
bruised psyche;
memories of a mother and father;
old desk, contents drenched in murky wash water
treasures to be gathered in an Easter egg hunt
before morning

I'm *****, broken on the street
to live in the van again and *** in a cup

yet I elate in this paucity of things; it makes me lighter
I embrace its freedom
like when I used to sleep in park trees
to avoid river vermin, hungry
(yes, pate´ in Paris was divine - I ate the serving you’d have wasted )

or on train station benches with foul-smelling vagrants
you wouldn't understand that interaction …
this devil knows names, shared their bottles and pains
(the view of Prague’s rooftops from the castle veranda -
marvelous over glasses of wine and slivers of brie)

I learned hope is thin, frail skin, aetherial
my scars are hard, heavy, battle-earned wings that will never fly

as to things I do own:
love of self left after your half-portion spent;
poems scorned because
you never understood how they could be born without you

soon enough
we'll both be ashes or dust;
I’ll go in puffs
of swirling cigarette smoke and cheap bourbon
you under soil, I think
while words and our children
will both outlive the good sofa you sit on

I want them to be happy

There were bright lights
from the ceiling
once it got
dark outside

and when big Ted
brought in
the sandwiches
for tea or supper

or whatever
they called it
I sat next to Christine
on one

of the double sofas
and she looked
at the plates
of sandwiches

that were laid
on the table
and said
usual boring stuff

I’m not eating
I’d rather starve
big Ted said
O come on

young lady
we've got
to get you well again
and out of this ward

he offered her
a ham sandwich
real ham
he said

not that tin stuff
she looked at him
don't fancy meat
she said

he took up
a cheese sandwich
Cheddar
he said

good stuff
I’ve tasted it
downstairs
in the kitchen

I could eat a horse
I said
taking the cheese sandwich
no horse sandwiches today

Ted said smiling
Christine gazed at me
then at the plate
of sandwiches

it's an effort to eat
she said
I should be coming home
from my honeymoon now

if the **** hadn't left me
at the altar
done my head in
Ted raised his eyebrows

is there anything
I can get you other
than sandwiches?
they've got

sausage rolls downstairs
all dressed
in my wedding dress
with flowers

and waiting
and he doesn't show
I take a ham sandwich
his loss

I said
he must be missing a *****
not to wed you
she gazed at me

then took
a cheese sandwich
and ate
Ted frowned

and walked off
to get the teapot
and coffee pots
and cups

from the trolley
you'll find someone
I said
don't think

I want anyone now
think I'll become a nun
or missionary
in some far off land

sexless and taking care
of others
she sat eating
in silence for a moment

or two
not sure
I could go long
without ***

come to think of it
she took a ham sandwich
with one hand
and placed a hand

on my thigh
with that dull light
in her green blue
left eye.

In shortening she made me jam roly poly
a Jezebel in a grand fully furnished way aglow
with bold basement statements broad brushed full on
to glaze the way to a plum job whole storey mission
proclaiming sofas as soft as any humble pin cushion
stuffed with unfinished symphonies in a mansion
booming out to empire builders' biggest guns
tended by harems of belly dancing bumble bees
burbling alongside a myriad of louder hues
flowing into bouffant hairstyle shrubs brushed
and blow dried into blooming privacy bushes


but outside she transformed
yet served by outsize platters
prolific with blazing seasonings
glazed with enough sweets
to satisfy a pudding feast
laid before a sumptuous appetite
comforting peahens with broad beans
ripened beside horizons of warm salads
dressed by blooming strawberries
pores plumped up from ladles
dunked deep as finger buns
into sloppy icing barrels
awash with hoarded nuts
of sweet toothed squirrels
engorged to dozing on branch barges
full to the gunnels and slow wallowing
in troughs laden with fatted chugs
rambling across rolling oceans awash
with tranquil rafts of whales nibbling
each morning on shoals expanding
beyond shallows into deep new ports
to offload uncontainable cargo
swung low on sweeping vista nets
dragging tree trunks packed like Jumbo
to land with a thump in wide sided carts


splashing and rocking slowly on their ways
until mopped up by richly saturated bales
of overgrown Danish butter grass pats
resplendent amidst dollops of luscious
double churned cream gateaux farm gates
open for cuddling golden syrup spoons of heat
spreading mellowness deep into the sponge
of unfolded meadows with encyclopedic knowledge
accumulated into increased volumes of decisive “belle”
resounding excitedly across the hills of plenty


chirrups bumping cheekiness into narrow valleys
to settle hawk eyes wide open to opportunities
accumulating it all in seam stretched sack boasts
of the good life storehoused bigger than most
but ready to collect and offload refreshment
like the slow but steady wobbling airships
stretched out resplendent across hay loft skies
fluffed up between a sweating Queen bed cumulus
keen to bounce into cloudless heady ensembles
swung high over thigh slapping oompah band hills


in a tug-of-war snapping heartstring restraint
and low frequency waves of contentment
she apportioned herself and me in generosity
celebrating a fully stocked love stacked larder
sweet with chock-a-block huffs and puffs
and then glad sighs of expansive success
in relief a schmooze diorama all she was after
Summer's glorious bamboozled ardour

the lake hurts. the lake hurts my lake. it’s not one of my regrets. i don’t know what to call the water place inside me, so i call it gothic barbie dream house. no, not its real name. yes, i spend too much time inside. i grow a tail fin. it’s beautiful, but i don’t appreciate it. complain about missing bikini bottoms. complain about sore throat. gothic barbie dream house isn’t on any maps. gothic barbie dream house has a NO DIVERS ALLOWED sign, just in case. gothic barbie dream house is a silent movie with future color. gothic barbie dream house has posters of punk ken in every room that i use to practice kissing. punk ken is going to think i’m such a good kisser. gothic barbie dream house has a room for *** toys and a room for mutilation. i spend equal time in each. not a huge fan of either. gothic barbie dream house has a bathroom; has clutter of perfume crystal, silk wing, menstrual cup. gothic barbie dream house has a kitchen, but i don’t use it. pink and purple plastic. easy bake oven and short tables. tea drinking mice eating tooth sized cakes. gothic barbie dream house has a mouse problem and so many mirrors. gothic barbie dream house has a dungeon, a disco ball and blow up sofas. menageries of giant stuffed animals. there is a demon dancing in the corner with an unlit candle. gothic barbie dream house smells like blood. gothic barbie dream house smells like water. gothic barbie dream house is full of bubbles, new fins, air hoses. this is where i realize the demon is a diver, and it hurts gothic barbie dream house to its distant river. this is where i don’t know what to say when the diver asks, does it go deeper. i tell the diver gothic barbie dream house goes on forever, but they don’t understand. it looks like a lake to them. the diver asks my name, and i say, listen. diving is dangerous. let’s have a tea party. and look. we both have fins-

She lived in that white mansion
Up up on the tar hill
All her life she was wrapped in it
Look closely to find her
Between Christmas trees and patio
Spinning under them wishing so hard
She was a fairy and prayed for a wing
Late evening, she creeped under
this tree she doesn't even know
the name of it
Molding foods out of sands
Driving in a plastic car with her feet
Accidentally her right foot was under the car tyre
But kept trying to drive past this root from this big tree
Crossing over drains so gracefully

She told me the good times
When people praised
That she could write her own name on a markerboard
Or when people said she was pretty
In scarves even though
She looked like hell
She told me it reminds her
Of Fleet Foxes 'White Winter Hymnal' lyrics
With scarves of red tied around their throats
To keep their little heads
From falling in the snow
Her scarves was all red too with ribbons pinned on it
That she regret losing it now

Right back when she could wear dresses
Without remarks from her mom
That it felt good when people don't talk
About her hair that is bad everyday
Chocolates were shared without even a thought that she did not want it
Turtles can be kept because there
Were still aquariums
But they went missing the next day
Just like her hamster named Michael
Also this cat she left at a fish market a few time
But got back home like there's a GPS, itinerary and atlas all in its head

When her dad had to work until daylight
She will have to sleep upstairs with mum
In that little space there are microphones of which
She sang songs that find ways until 3 lanes behind her house
She hated the smell of the sofas
She wasn't afraid of heights but
Everytime she looked outside the windows she just get the chills
At nights engines revving on roads
Passing by frightened her so much

Once a burglar got into the room
Where her aunt sleeps in
When dad was working she slept to the room next to her aunt
At 4:00 she heard a distant cry
Up to this day, she doesn't like
The holes on the bathroom walls
She said she could feel someone
Watching
And still there's this trail of size 7
On the white wall under the window
Images of a flower *** moved to the front door
To stop us from running away,
that *******

Now she is out of her own
Beautiful tragic cage
Now she can be found beside this road
Her last step out of the black gates was no tears
I can still feel the echoes from the pictures of her mansion
Like a phantom limb hanging
The air that surround the mansion now
Is straight out of hell
The fog like a poltergeist in her head
Making sounds and moving things
Oiling cogs in my head
And sow the longing deep underneath
To come back in summer and search for her red scarves

keeping warm by that old stove
kicking back shots and
always a beer in hand
we lived as if nothing could
ever matter for nothing ever
changed the same man sleeping
at six or seven having passed out
from half-a-days work
and a hard days drinking
sitting around there for warmth
some kind of something men
don't often talk about much
women there were hard to
find, not for lack of trying
they just always seemed so
out of place when they
did actually appear
extending the night was
the main concern making
the most out of the ample
time given to us
trying desperately to squeeze
out juice from every instant
with anything free at hand
retreating back to sofas
for sleep waking up with
head aches intolerable beer cans
all around going hard because
there was no where to go
debasing our minds with the nights
succulent spoils tabbed pilled or
powder madness feels like sanity
at the right moment
knowing full well it can't
be caught as it slips
through your fingers only
to be inhaled the following
friday then blown away
once again at day break
a perpetual mind ****
was the goal with actual
******* just secondary reasoning
living to forget what it
means to be alive in
this world where identity
has been distilled to mere
pages in an infinite book
that doesn't really exist
what  else to expect from
shattered youth abused mainly
by design but also by choice
you could class it all up
increase the age and ornament
add black books, black dresses
black ties champagne & chandeliers
still dormant at its core
as time passes and falls apart
the fire still there burns
even in museums at midnight
Dionysus consumes Apollo
so warm your hands for as
long as you can it
only grows more insipid
increasingly cold and bitter
both the truth and the liquor
till everything’s but a pause and black

An old curiosity shop
a lost world depository
dark dusty as pharaoh's tomb
worming squirming carefully through
where 'Breakages Must Be Paid For'.

Stopped clocks claiming time is up
sofas trailing their entrails
peeved pictures offered for their frames
and bureaux bursting with bumf.

Rummaging through dank passages
searching inner chamber book stocks
classic novels at six old pence
thumbed pages bought for improvement.

Nelson Collins Clear Type Press
Dent and Everyman in distress
Dumas Dickens and Conan Doyle
countless cultural references.