Light the first light of evening, as in a room
In which we rest and, for small reason, think
The world imagined is the ultimate good.

This is, therefore, the intensest rendezvous.
It is in that thought that we collect ourselves,
Out of all the indifferences, into one thing:

Within a single thing, a single shawl
Wrapped tightly round us, since we are poor, a warmth,
A light, a power, the miraculous influence.

Here, now, we forget each other and ourselves.
We feel the obscurity of an order, a whole,
A knowledge, that which arranged the rendezvous.

Within its vital boundary, in the mind.
We say God and the imagination are one...
How high that highest candle lights the dark.

Out of this same light, out of the central mind,
We make a dwelling in the evening air,
In which being there together is enough.

read his stuff
https://hellopoetry.com/r-2/

n.b. nowadays I write here only in praise of others,
as the rewards are far greater than any of the meager
stuff I got  laying around.

a poem for his summer soul-stice
<>


self-confessed to the priest, we us, both, meeting
in the confess-******, wee needy for a solid projectile
purging, me, cause, I’m a plagiarist of inspiration

**** it every time a ce r tain poet writes,
its a sock to my multi faceted square sided~head,
discoloring my eye shadow, my maskara crazy running,
frustration, admiration, mortar and pestle pounded

into a white powder of unadulterated adultery with a
frothy topping of a jealousy muse laughing face, at me,
cappuccino made from bitter herbs and pink sea salt.

in eight lines the man accomplishes
what would take me eight, eight full
poems, even then, not coming close

still failing to retake his brevity skills,
his summer solstice way of seeing,
by keeping the dark away,
by inviting the dark in,
making it under duress,
spill the beans of his life’s
ironies, some hellish,
some not, all well kept,
in Georgia granite stoney face.

the softest steeling of words that irritates
me into a fine frenzy... what’s the use,
point made, in how he undresses
the eyes
into just outright gasping,

and that is the only
permissible comment emoji.


______

r

Her verse
I need to taste the salt
of her soliloquy
be drunk on the sobriety
of her verse
those words she writes
behind my eyelids
makes me want
to crawl inside her skin
and listen to her heartbeat.

Hear this beloved river, in halcyon days
I was loyal to this majestic tree, I am attached,
to the sun I often spoke how loving
the tree is to me, and how eager I too am
to transfer sun's boons to my object of adoration.

Each season did visit us, with a  message
different, and I gathered this with joy:
The tree is a book of nature for all to read
and get exhilarated by the poems colorful
that speak in metaphors the tree invent
with water from  it's heart and sun's fire
working the magic only a tree is capable of
to show us as  flowers, fruits or  seeds that, attract
satiate, drive to the pinnacle of aesthetic delight
at times  create forests of future,with a vision too.

I am just a word, with a limited meaning I hold,
in the book of the tree ,that contains millions like me
my unconditional love to the tree is my fulfillment,
in return he loves every word that make his poem complete.

We were in love all through the time I was green,
the day I wore  yellow, got crinkled at the ends,I began
to think of you, river, with a devotion unknown until then,
though you a silver ribbon, was in my eye view , singing a song
of mirth flowing towards the unknown, imagined in our dreams

Our lives, at turns take directions that are not known
the tree once all I have is now from my world detached
flying down from the branch now a freedom I enjoy
receive me on your bellowing bed of water, comfortable
Let's flow together to the beloved destination,you've in mind.

It was the coldest day of the year.
We welcomed the return of cooler weather,
Fellow followers of the southern sun.
Winter had almost begun.
Delicious cool breezes uplifted our spirits.
Inspired these awesome(?) lyrics
There was a luminescence to the light.
It sparkled with the dearest delight.
The days were shorter.
The nights' longer.
The seasons were changing.
Change was in the air..
Change was everywhere.

Southern change is slow and steady.
Unlike the north where one must always be ready
The mass migration from the north was still underway.
Hordes and hordes of high blood pressure,
Scoliosis afflicted octogenarians invaded our state.
We who bore the brunt of the brutal summers,
Felt like we belonged to a sunny exclusive club.
Entitled to space, the roads, the sunshine.  
Now we must share with the worst drivers of vehicular crime
Accidents galore.
Everywhere you go.
Someone overran the barricade,
Cars totaled
Cars mangled
Twisted and tangled
Cars flipped & chipped  
A road detours
In the land of the aged & mature
Mature, I say, only in age
Otherwise, it would be an absolute outrage.
And it is.

People meeting people in the most unfortunate way.
I tell you it tests your mettle,
It tests your patience,
It tests your good nature,
Not to mention the nomenclature
of your exclusivity.  
Better rethink civility.
Better rethink senility.
Better rethink livability
In the south
In the wintertime
  
Missing you had become a pastime of mine...
Seeing you and Robert in the coffee shop that day-
Delighted me.  
So that I completely forgot to order tea.
I knew I would see you soon,
As fate would have it.
Not being in the habit
Of that particular time
That particular coffee shop
That day,
Anyway
Unplanned as this was.
That is to say
Not planned in the usual way.
Did the afternoon gods align?
Should I take it as a sign
Or is it pure coincidence
I know you agree with the ladder
It doesn’t much matter
Coincidence and me don’t agree
Nothing is accidental
No, I’m not mental
If you agree with me.
I admit it’s a hard nut to swallow,
Unless you’re in the habit of swallowing hard nuts,
Which most, I think, are not
Although I’ve never actually inquired
For the usual reasons
Excuse the nut reference
If you have a hard nut allergy
In which case you should stay away  
It’s not a bad thing,
More hard nuts for the rascal squirrels,
No hard nuts for the hard nut adverse.
How nutty is this verse?

I digress
As you can see
My thoughts always take me back to thee
Thought I’d get a little fancy.
Back to the Day in question
Referenced by me in this digression
If I thought something interesting was about to unfold
Oh no, oh no
It was the same old, same old
After the polite amount of time
You picked up your phone
It was a sign
Business as usual
Or is it you hiding behind
Some kind of some kind  
I don’t know what
I such a nut
Stale coffee sits in the microwave
It pings its readiness
Forget my forgetfulness
One more round
The coffee’s cold
Like you
Still
I take it out
Drink it anyway
While I wait
Still
The coffee’s cold
And so are you
That’s all I have to say
And that’s why
Without thinking
I grabbed the phone that day
While you were busy texting
Hey, I wasn’t getting in the boxing ring
You knew that

Robert was rather overreactive
It was only me being me
I’ll meet your cold
And up the ante
Are you all in
Do I win
I was only playing, all along
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t write me a love song
Two for her
One for me
I think you’ll agree
It’s quite unfair
And you want to be fair
Don’t you
This isn't optional
Even rational
Or actionable
*******
My phantom love
I get it.
Still
I’m missing you.
Do you miss me too?

Death
is
the
Confession of
when the past
comes back
to haunt

lost echo's of past speeches
into the silence reaches
deaf ears worn and tired
of pundits recently expired
cut by the votes not acquired
phrases left uninspired, to
levy the taxes required, for
visions  of  political  spires
the confetti and ballots left
of the candidate now bereft
the slogans all slaughtered
by means of political machines
as the campaigns death left
a soliloquy of silence


All the Work here is licensed under the Name
®SilverSilkenTongue and the © Property of J.Flack

To eat or not to eat, that is the question.
A doughnut, ******, airy I’ll consume--
adjust my diet later to make room--
or falsely reject pastries’ sweet delight
while bingeing pasta deep into the night?
Doughnut, thou art satisfying, sweetly
filling morsel, savored now discreetly—
perhaps a little midday’s sugar craving
is better solaced, hunger I’ll be staving
off, resisting better night time craves.
‘Tis better, easier to have the faves;
by portions small on calories I’ll save,
and skip on other dishes that don’t taste
as sweet and crispy, but go straight to waist.

What repose and subtle wonder it is
to venture looking backward
upon my written name.

Scribbled, lacking coherence in its characters,

doctored suggestively towards containing
 an inherent “literary” edge

out of just what it is,

an association of sounds,

(parent’s gifted accidents of intention)
commingled and pushed into

an accepted truth by repetition

and repetition alone.


The surges of black-tongued self-consciousness

-that I’m far above the spot-scratching undergraduate

notion of admiring my personal stamp, of falling in love

with myself by using “bigger” words to fetishize
my most basic claim on having existed, of being HERE-

are given rise. 


These fade, by examples immemorial, to give way to other voices

striving for attention, to grasp their mark upon the page.

Late evening



On a wall,

Initials carved with a filthy bar

of rationed soap

In Dungeon Europe’s eastern range.

Where prison bars once hounded in

where beating’s sounded off 
morning’s crisp hue

The inevitable made its finer points here

Trampling over names and voices

lost to history.


Now a museum

the lunch-time rush 
of internationals

(who mostly work for corporations with offices in every place they travel)

Photograph themselves with expensive cameras

After shuddering, some even hazarding a tear

in considering what fates have befell

occupants on the wrong side of a different bureaucracy

 ....but all that matters, after they leave, is the the proof 

they were there. And how it was just how they imagined.


Morning, in my bedroom

and I’ve written something again...



I can stack it away

if I feel that I failed to capture

what I wanted to be seen

(if not in my own handwriting,

then on some gilded white screen

letters upright and well-rounded.)



How much can it matter to me?

Seeing my own name

allotted above or at the end

of some juvenile thoughtpiece
the kind editors everywhere
are doing their best to get rid of.


I suppose I write because it pushes me out of the expected

it releases me, on these mornings, these graceful, time-blessed

mornings, out of the cell.

To roam among the other skeptics, who thought aloud to wistfully

spend time away from the routine

To hold aloft a lighter-flame for those trapped inside.

THE ARTIST'S SOLILOQUY*

I reproduce the world
in pictures
man in himself
in life
and in the universe
this eternal inter-play
is the sanctum
of all my works

I am a visionary
(a humble one
but no less sensitive)
I cry more than I laugh
as the world is the place
where mankind's tears fall
without end
due to man's own making

the heart desires
what it should not
for things
that don't sanctify
but man is weak
and morally falls
too easily
and drowns
in the nameless sea

nature weeps
for the callousness and greed
of man
who has her beauty defiled
and marred

progress
what progress?
it's just the breeding-ground
of greed and indifference

bulldozers knock
down the trees
chemicals pollute the seas
grasslands and fields
are sacrificed for construction
land has turned into concrete--***** and ugly

as I paint
my heart
is heavy-laden
and I ask
over and over again
what has happened to man?

You are a hard ghost to pin down
my will-o'-the-wisp

If I approach you . . .
you recede
If I back up . . .
you approach

But you never let me touch you
My marsh lover

A light unto my heart
Burns where I cannot touch
Cold flames of blue leave me
No traces of heat upon my lips

My heart shivers from lack of loves inferno
The strength of my skin
Cannot be measured
The merit of my bones
Cannot be weighed

Nor will my love be finite
Caged or displayed
My lips seek soft wet kisses
That reign down on my soul

I close my eyes and see
Him standing beside me,
His arms tightly around me,
As his lips press onto mine.

I close my eyes and see
Us sitting side by side
As laughter fills the air
His fingers locked into mine.

I close my eyes and see
His eyes gazing into mine
He whispers in my ear
The three words I long to hear.

But when the night is over
I find myself alone.
I know that he is deaf
As I silently scream "I love you!"

’Twas now the noon of night, and all was still,
Except a hapless Rhymer and his quill.
In vain he calls each Muse in order down,
Like other females, these will sometimes frown;
He frets, be fumes, and ceasing to invoke
The Nine, in anguish’d accents thus he spoke:
Ah what avails it thus to waste my time,
To roll in Epic, or to rave in Rhyme?
What worth is some few partial readers’ praise.
If ancient Virgins croaking ‘censures’ raise?
Where few attend, ’tis useless to indite;
Where few can read, ’tis folly sure to write;
Where none but girls and striplings dare admire,
And Critics rise in every country Squire—
But yet this last my candid Muse admits,
When Peers are Poets, Squires may well be Wits;
When schoolboys vent their amorous flames in verse,
Matrons may sure their characters asperse;
And if a little parson joins the train,
And echos back his Patron’s voice again—
Though not delighted, yet I must forgive,
Parsons as well as other folks must live:—
From rage he rails not, rather say from dread,
He does not speak for Virtue, but for bread;
And this we know is in his Patron’s giving,
For Parsons cannot eat without a ‘Living’.
The Matron knows I love the *** too well,
Even unprovoked aggression to repel.
What though from private pique her anger grew,
And bade her blast a heart she never knew?
What though, she said, for one light heedless line,
That Wilmot’s verse was far more pure than mine!
In wars like these, I neither fight nor fly,
When ‘dames’ accuse ’tis bootless to deny;
Her’s be the harvest of the martial field,
I can’t attack, where Beauty forms the shield.
But when a pert Physician loudly cries,
Who hunts for scandal, and who lives by lies,
A walking register of daily news,
Train’d to invent, and skilful to abuse—
For arts like these at bounteous tables fed,
When S——condemns a book he never read.
Declaring with a coxcomb’s native air,
The ‘moral’s’ shocking, though the ‘rhymes’ are fair.
Ah! must he rise unpunish’d from the feast,
Nor lash’d by vengeance into truth at least?
Such lenity were more than Man’s indeed!
Those who condemn, should surely deign to read.
Yet must I spare—nor thus my pen degrade,
I quite forgot that scandal was his trade.
For food and raiment thus the coxcomb rails,
For those who fear his physic, like his tales.
Why should his harmless censure seem offence?
Still let him eat, although at my expense,
And join the herd to Sense and Truth unknown,
Who dare not call their very thoughts their own,
And share with these applause, a godlike bribe,
In short, do anything, except prescribe:—
For though in garb of Galen he appears,
His practice is not equal to his years.
Without improvement since he first began,
A young Physician, though an ancient Man—
Now let me cease—Physician, Parson, Dame,
Still urge your task, and if you can, defame.
The humble offerings of my Muse destroy,
And crush, oh! noble conquest! crush a Boy.
What though some silly girls have lov’d the strain,
And kindly bade me tune my Lyre again;
What though some feeling, or some partial few,
Nay, Men of Taste and Reputation too,
Have deign’d to praise the firstlings of my Muse—
If you your sanction to the theme refuse,
If you your great protection still withdraw,
Whose Praise is Glory, and whose Voice is law!
Soon must I fall an unresisting foe,
A hapless victim yielding to the blow.—
Thus Pope by Curl and Dennis was destroyed,
Thus Gray and Mason yield to furious Lloyd;
From Dryden, Milbourne tears the palm away,
And thus I fall, though meaner far than they.
As in the field of combat, side by side,
A Fabius and some noble Roman died.

It really is beautiful on this night
The sky is clear, the wind is refreshing
And a dead man is writing poetry
Well not exactly poetry, and he's not exactly dead
More so dead inside, expressing his feelings
Of which he has many, sometimes too much
He really is the wonder of humanity
Essentially removed from all thoughts of living
He exists purely as a matter of fact
But he's not depressed or sad even
He's accepted this, a dead man walking.

Written for a challenge on my
former site... he wanted us to
rewrite Shakespheare...
a daunting task to say the least!
I can only hope that I
did The Bard justice!


O! Wretched Stars!
Look not down upon this maid!
Your wheels moved well upon
your merciless plans so laid!
You cross' d conspirators!
You... content in your spheres...
do you not find my eyes stricken...
... with tears!

O! Morose and meddlesome Moon!
So swollen full!
Let not this dagger pulled
from my loves gold'n sheath be dull!
You... gliding the uncaring sky
as ship with sail...
let mean, pernicious fate take me...
... your winds prevail!
Take me to where
my lover doth wait...
... take me to shroud, I prithee...
... to my mate!

O! My fairest husband!
Do not lie so still!
Can you not kiss me this last time. ..
... by force of will?
Can you not, with your
fair hand instead,
Take slender blade
and pierce my bossom
til it be bloom'd rose red?!!

Romeo... Romeo!
Wherefore art thou Romeo?
At last you're dead...
... and thus without a name...
As in the halls of graves
... all occupants the SAME!

A pox on your house!
A noisome pestilence!
And thee, o dagger?
Come and take me themce!
As for my house? Let them lie
with palsey in their beds...

... but not 'til this sweet dagger
finds me... its host... DEAD.


SoulSurvivor
(C) 4/26/2014

Skin
Fingernails, moonlight, low-light
What’s the beast in the mirror I see?
It stares at me, it’s features moaning a sad soliloquy
I find it’s eyes, green, green, the colour of envy
Envy. Envy.
I find myself stretching skin.
Skin, it’s anthropomorphism deeply disturbs me
Why can’t I take it off
Peel it off, rip it off, burn it off, cut it off
Snip, snip
The more I stare the more it crumbles, it crumbles
I paint it’s mask with lacquer but the same pair of green eyes stare at me
What is that, who is that beast
The low-light consoles me but still I see it for what is
Me

Tangents fly
As serpents die
Life ends as it begins,
The ups and downs
Terrain of clowns
Commits it all to sins,
So, go for broke
It's just a joke.....
'Cos he who loses...Wins!
M.

But....Wouldst thou see
Thy perjury
In pondering my
Soliloquy?
And should thou wear
Thy penury
If truth should prize
Thy concience free?

Then, writhing thus
For all to see....
Wouldst thou blush
A smile to me?
M.

To buy, or not to buy: That is the Question.

Whether it is better in the end to suffer

The moods and whims of some outrageous landlord

Or take loans. against your future earnings

And end up owning something? In hock, for years;



Pay rent? And by paying rent to say we end

The heart ache and the thousand natural shocks

Home ownership is heir to.  Reduced Consumption?

No Politician’s wish! To rent?    To lease?

To lease, perchance to own? Ay, that’s a thought

For in the grip of debt you’re paying bills

Till you have shuffled off this mortal coil



It gives one pause. That’s the aspect

That makes calamity of  adjusting rates

For who would bear the years and years of debt

Fine dining now reduced to happy meals,

Buyers remorse, and the long delays.

The Questionable title and the risk

Your credit rating doesn’t rate the loan.

When you yourself know if you lose your job

You’ll end up sleeping in your S.U.V.





To grunt and sweat under a heavy load

Under the threat of something worse than debt

The forced short sale, from which, once closed

No equity returns. It puzzles the will.

And makes us rather bear such debts we have

And, if necessary, refinance them still.



Compounding thus make cowards of us all.

And so our youthful promise and ambition

Is hobbled by the weight of student  loans

made by lenders judged too big to fail.

In this regard the risk is very real
we lose the house to auction.

I prayed with light voices, but a burdened heart;
You are not here--that I am supposed to know of.
But still, my mind cannot accept that we are now apart.
I am despaired by my own hands, by my own love;
Your images keep shrouding me--you keep haunting me.
Your portraits shout your name, but none of ‘em is truthful;
They reject my bliss, though they told me I was beautiful.
I keep looking for you in the shades: but all I find is blueness,
And as daylight grows mature, I feel but scarce and clueless;
I am entrapped by my own wishes, and I can no longer write.
Ah, ‘tis over now--I should declare;
I walk home and sleep, and decide I should no more be in love--
Some sheer charms I might better not be.

I was running across the moors, and secretly hoped I would find thee there;
Thee with thy own giggles and mockery and childish wishes;
Thee with a resemblance of moonlit skies on thy face.
Thee with a thousand arches in thy brown eyes;
Eyes that were genuine, hopeful; with spirits that would not die.
And those lithe hands; and thy handful of full lips;
Thou always startled me within thy black jacket,
Yes, that black jacket with gruesome naughty little pockets,
Thou always asked me to chase around the bogs;
While peering naively into the hidden summer spider webs.
Thou woke me up with thy morn noises;
Thou wanted to tell me a tale of castles, friendship, and promises.
Thee with a thousand smiles, hopes, and legitimate fears;
Thee with the sweetness of a moonbeam, thee with one hundred kisses.
Thou wert like a lonesome butterfly at first;
And on a shiny day I but caught thee;
and weaved my colourful love onto thy plain nest.
Thou shined again, and I felt but merited;
As time passed, I grew hungrier for thee--and always delighted;
Thou wert a summer to a pleasant summer itself;
Thou made my heart warm, and my seasons magnified.
Even my lavenders were stupefied by thy cleverness;
They were warm always, to welcome and greet thee at night.
Ah, my darling, my half spirit, my sweet;
Thou owned the second spare of my green light;
Thou wert my frost at conned summers, and mild winters;
Thou wert the white snow I played with--and its evening rainbow!
Ah, and at times--thou wert like a nature among yon shrieking green grass;
I smiled always, as I entrapped thee within my clear glass.

I should twist this story away, and welcome him;
Welcome whoever shines through my love--in reality, and in dreams.
I know I hath to celebrate him behind the furnace;
I shall smile sweetly and charm him by my maiden’s face.
He hath a lovely aura as the unheeded stars;
And his steps are awkward, but stately as the moon’s.
He hath smooth and virile advantages about him;
He hath a weather, but still he hath not thy playful air.
He is serious, thou art more festive and thoughtful;
He is cordial, but I findeth him at times uninnate and insoluble.
Ah, Immortal, he liveth but in a cold bubble away from me;
And so you know, the love of him is but a love of pain;
Sometimes I want to find thy face in his poetry;
Sometimes I want to see again, but your fairness.
Thy heart is, as thou hath figured, widespread within me;
It ambushes me and glides me around like a cheeky star;
But as thou gazed into me,
I found that thy charms were absolute;
I pampered this notion of thee--as I still do;
Thou wert my nymphic and immortal dream;
Thou art my sane and insane ambition;
Thou art my sand, my boats, my sails!
Thou art the sea worth a thousand miles;
And I care not what foul and fuzziness thy soul might carry;
I shall purify thee, I shall endorse thee, I shall welcome thee into my lonely heart!
Ah, Immortal, I am but a spoiled of ruins and wreckage now;
As I woke up t'is very morn, I knew I wouldst not see you tomorrow.
And guess now--how shall I define our once glossy, faint Sofia?
I do not want to pronounce to Sofia, ah, our very dwellings, a goodbye;
I shall never pronounce such; and on t’is I shall care for thy sayings not--
As telling such wouldst indeed be a remarkable lie.
Instead, I should dream again, of being by your side;
I shall be the terrified mermaid--but thee--my gentle merman;
We shall swim across the sea and startle the aquatics by our depth;
And thereon I shall dream of myself cherishing you--and holding you in my arms;
As I pray and bow and submit the rhapsodies of my heart, all day and night.

Ah, but where is Immortal, Immortal, Immortal;
Without whom my heart is bleak; and winters are hard.
Ah, Immortal; by whom rains are pretty, and colours are magnificently saturated;
By whom storms are no more storms, and no more downpours are petty;
By whom lakeside houses are not cold, and slippery rocks are not frightful;
By whom birch trees shall sing, and honey bees shall farm away for hours.
Ah, Immortal, by whom my poetry stays alive, and fed tranquilly by yon earth;
Immortal, by whose lullabies I fall asleep among the midnight’s icy hearth.
Immortal, whom my heart values, and urges me to love;
Immortal, by whose side debris are whole, and ruins picture unity;
Ah, Immortal, by whose singing melodies are songs, and rhythms are but poetry.
Immortal, Immortal, Immortal, by whose words--the entire worlds are but Sofia;
And all merit and grace but belong to the romantic Bulgaria.
Immortal my entire darling; who taught me to see how the moon teases the sun;
And how the latter becomes fainted but mirthful, at t’is very realisation.
Ah, Immortal, Immortal, Immortal, by whose absence I feel but frightened.
Ah, Immortal, do you think I should hurry--shall I fleet and run?
I shall meet thee again tonight, around the corner by the lake;
Before such an eve grows genuine--causing the day to turn fake.
I should meet thee before everything is but feasted and pierced;
And I shall bringeth thee my midnight poems and soliloquy;
I shall embrace thee by my myths, and relish thee within my solitude.
I shall make thee remain by my side, and keep shady thy burly night;
I shall, perhaps, make thee my mirth itself--I shall keep thee warm, and safe, and bright.
Ah, Immortal, one who was always aired by my fresh recitations;
One who was entrenched in my tales of craze, atrocity, and vanity;
One who cried by me like a selfish child--but at times, became the radiance itself.
Ah, Immortal, one within whose palms the moon is transparent;
And the harmony of night becomes more possible;
Ah, my darling Immortal, who was once infatuated with my nights--and 'twas apparent;
Oh, my darling, my own darling, my very darling--how I hath only words to play with!

Where is but Immortal, Immortal, Immortal,
My jokes cannot sleep, and even my eyes choose to stay awake.
My heart feels absurd, as it is not calmed and soothed by him;
Even as I can sleep no more, I am but unable to edify him in my dreams.
Ah, where is my Immortal--for as I scurry outside, I cannot locate him;
While he is but the golden lock I need to deliberate my heart.
Ah, my husband, who owns but the charms heartbeat cannot describe;
Ah, Immortal, by thy words--thou knoweth, vanished worlds are real to me today.
The rush of your blood still, knowingly, flows within my breath;
You look like that little lad proudly standing by yon bridge faraway.
Immortal, my little sound, my eager song, my profound lilac;
How shall you ever know what you mean to my heart?
To me, you are more than any gold, brown silver, nor white bronze;
You are my tears, my growth, and the height of my winter;
You own the youth and throne my heart hath always longed for.
Ah, Immortal, no matter how hard thou hath defeated--and perhaps, betrayed me;
Thou art still more immortal than a thousand suns outside;
And more mature than t’is benighted winter as it already is.
Ah, Immortal, 'tis hath grown silent again, and I need to greet my lavish worlds;
But for you know--your scent shall remain better than the sun's on its own, and more lively.
Ah, Immortal, and while those winds shriek, and hop, and wail;
‘Tis your voice still, that I but imagine in my *****;
And while their spread and take rule of their wings;
Thou shalt remain by prince, my ruler--the one I choose to be my king.

My heart hath borne thee since I was in her womb;
My mother's chaste womb--and there, just there--
I had but been formed by her sheepish threads.
Ah, and thus I heart her like t’is-but not as much as I heart thee, perhaps;
If I doth dream of her; it meaneth I'd but dream of thee;
And thou knoweth--my dreams of winter shall be but one about thee;
About thee--my vigour, my shadow in my traces, my vengeful spirit.
Ah, Immortal, Immortal, Immortal; my century of blessings, my time
and poetry of such an endless eternity.
Ah, Immortal, in whose heart there was purity;
And in whose love I felt reified, and no such tyranny,
Ah, and t’is loss of thee perhaps means a life of illness;
A time of neglect, but a loss of my valid youth.
I want not to age, for thou art, thyself, young and ageless and immortal;
I want to dwell but only in yon Paradise of thee;
And be fueled solely but thy desire, and not anyone else's.
Ah, Immortal, I want to feel but the flavour of thy skin;
And be engrossed but against thy stomach.
I want to be thy lily, and thy novel rose that shall never wither;
Ah, Immortal, I want to be little again; and thy most awesome lavender.

And thy blame--such as t'is one, shall mean a brawl to my destiny;
And its glam is but my fiery--while insuperable--destruction.
As I promised thee--I shall not be weary, I shall not be sad;
But never shall I love, never shall I be satisfied.
Ah, Immortal, I shall never agree to love again;
I want to keep my love for thee; for whom I shall advocate my youth,
I want never to share my trembling love with anyone else.
As I hath loved thee just now, perhaps I shall love thee forever;
Ah, Immortal, as how it usually is, thou shall be the sailor-
And ever the painter, in our very own colloquial poetry!

Immortal, my grace, my perambulations, my ecstasy;
Immortal, my good, my one, my irrepressible;
I hath fulfilled thy wishes, at least at present, to bear t'is alone;
But for you know, that life without thee is no Paradise;
And even when I am dead, perhaps my soul shall never lie;
I shall wander the earth still--to look for thee, my tears and my lost love;
And insofar as thou remaineth away, I shall too stay on earth; and never ascend above.

The state of our future society is not to be blamed on our parents, or corporations, or warring nations.
The responsibility of our future lies solely on our own shoulders.
For nothing will or can be done unless every single one of us decides to change the world we live on in each waking moment.
Within myself, I hold no blame for the future, only for my past…

But I must take responsibility for both.
This is my soliloquy.

He said with ardor that he loves me
That his heart for my heart pines
Of this obsession I see 
Insanely innocuous signs.
He called me his Winnie the Pooh
His panda and his dove
(Ought I lock myself in the zoo?
Seems I'm an animal that he loves).
He said that like an anthology
I was an interesting read
(He doesn't know the e of my etymology
For I'm written all in Greek).
He said that he would be thrilled
To have me as his wife
(But if I were to light his kitchen
He'd have a short shelf life).
He said that like the sky
My eyes were blue and deep
That my voice was a sweet lullaby..
(Dear me! Should I put him to sleep?).
He said that my pretty smile
Was as wide as a well made road
(Well, he'd have to run for miles
Before he reached my sweet abode).
He said that I was a Wonder
Like the great barrier reef
(I sure hope he goes down-under
I might get some reprieve).
I think it's really not me
That with fervor he thinks he loves
But what he wants me to be
For I am none of the above.
And when I am by his side
Like a bubble I do burst
From him, I must hide
For he brings out my very worst.
And so my handsome lover boy
He rants on and on
How atrociously he annoys
So ****, scram and begone!

There once was a man who wrote poetry
Which alas was not read that widely.
Until, that is, he passed away
And became the talk of the day;
Lauded, albeit posthumously!

some people are just plain *****-*** crazy
and i can't help feeling bad for them
but if i feel bad for too many people
all i do is feel bad all the time
and that just don't work
for this girl
some crazy people i have to let slide
i can't let them use me as a foothold
every time
footholds just get stepped on
and that just don't work
for this girl
that just don't
work

Woe is me, for I am sad.
The saddest of sad, for the reason being selfish.
I feel myself fading into the background.
I'm not mysterious, I'm not a new and shiny toy. (Person?)
I just blend into the mold of adulthood.

I want to capture life's greatest moments.
I want to make people love with all of their heart.
I want to stop having to defend my opinions.
I simply want to make my mark.

Do I want attention? Or do I want to be a better person?
I'd rather be lazy if I could. Or would I?
I need the motivation to start moving forward.
Shouldn't that motivation be myself?

I'm sick of being lazy. I need to stand strong.
On my own two feet. For my own well-being.

*Life is the longest moment in time that we have.
I need to make it count.

My one mistake was that I didn't make more
I spin and twirl over an impossible girl
Energy expelled on a perpetual war
Watching as the robins unfurl

From your record store I did adore
And from that ****** place I did implore
I searched so that I could be sore no more
Trying to simplify what's on the other side of my eye
Where panic and bliss fly and fear and loathing kiss
It's better to be alone then be surround by people that make you feel alone, like you have no home.
I sleep now on the fire, waking in sweat as I fight and fret over the problem of the day.  But I never bother to pray. Are we made in Gods image ?we are afraid and unhappy so I hope he is too
I don't want to be another statistic of the Suicide Production Company
In a world with an end why prolong the inevitable I want this on my own teams I'll take my live in my own hands I'll take my life by my own hands

If I want to die, I'll do it myself
I'll save a kid or some **** and make it look like I died a hero
But nah, I had a death wish.
Didn't any of you know?
I said it probably forty-million times.
It's cool the kid is alive, though.
And it's cool that this all rhymes.

Tell the kid while I convulse, choking on blood that  I said,
"Eat your vegetables. Stay in school. Being in love is really cool.
It's okay to be alone. It's okay to be afraid. Don't make the decision I made."

Then play some surfer music and have him stand in front of a projector,
projecting video waves and dreams, as they start to dance.

Honestly.
If I wanna die, it's by your side.
But you're gone.
Away.
It was too hard, and you're afraid.
I'm afraid, too. I don't wanna die.
But this isn't living, what I'm doing now.
It's survival, and it's just
blood and bone.
Eat and walk.
In a crowded room, alone.
Smile and talk.
I can't feel. I can't feel. Keep saying it: I can't feel.

But I feel it all, and if I want to die then it's by your side.
If I wanna die, then I want to talk to you before I go.
If I'm going to die then it's because it's hard to cope
knowing that I love you, and you love me, but you don't wanna anymore.
So I don't wanna anymore, anything.
I don't wanna be here.
I don't wanna be anywhere.
I don't wanna be.

I dream a lot now, more than before.
Reality has become the compass to a draining nothingness,
and I don't want to stick around.
Either way, I'll dream or think of nothing, and it couldn't be that bad.

"No one is worth taking your life over."
"It gets better."
"What if she wasn't the one?"

How do you know how I feel?
What if it doesn't?
What if she was?

Can I bathe in nihilism or is that too transparent?
Should I shake the salsa in the silver room of the Lisbeth Salander character arch or should I be in the ark, two by two, with Noah?
At least I'll be able to feel, taste, see the shine, relate to another's pain, realize a life, be next to one meant for me in the shelter of doom and eventual hope, and be with a man with as much certainty, perceived as crazy or brilliant as me.

Can you walk home to me?

To know that what I knew is what I may never know is something I don't want to know, and something I'll always know could be something I live for and by, and that's all I knew before and now I know nothing but that.

If I wanna die, then it's knowing you as I walk to you or you walk to me, in depth, in death, in soliloquy.

The crumbling clock is my hoarder as it keeps everthing I don't need like memories, future events, and times and dates for places I don't want to be.

Is it too much to want to be a fly on the wall that is smashed?

I've never been so lost.

"Don't be so dramatic. Don't be so dramatic. Don't be so dramatic."

Okay, thanks. Now I can think of that, and what else is wrong with me while I feel lost. So lost, and unlike ever before if I ever was lost before.

What do I even say on my note?

Ooops?
Whoops?
My bad?
It's never enough, isn't it?

If I could wrap your sorrow around my lungs to where I could only breathe your sadness as I give you my hopes, joys, and everlasting essence to fuse with you as you feel complete, I would, I have, and I lay empty.

Is this enough to say?
Do you get my point?

it's a weird feeling, this emptiness. this feeling of existing, but not living. just walking, wandering. lost in life, with no destination in sight. I had one once, but now it seems that a goal that was once at my fingertips has moved miles and miles away from me. I feel like my mind has been tortured by words of negativity— my existence has been threatened by my own hands due to people voicing their "opinions". This Generation has turned the amendment 'freedom of speech' into 'freedom to destroy the soul of a human being.'
Words hurt just as much as being physically beaten, think twice before speaking your mind. Will your words build that person up, or crush their minimum amount of joy left in their frail bodies?

Tonight, as I lay in bed, thoughts playing old memories on rewind - stop & pause at the good moments, fast forward through all the bad - my brows begin to furrow as I ask myself... what if? What if I would’ve decided to go a different college? What if I actually changed my major when I realized I would never be a striving politician? What if I would have not lived for others and lived for myself?

Well, here’s the beautiful thing about what ifs: it’s not the life you’re meant to live. If I didn’t study what I did I never would have met my husband. If I never met my husband I never would have realized I wanted to become a nurse. If I never lived these moments, I never would have found my true destiny. I can’t say I’m happy that it took me so long to find my purpose in life, but when I reflect on my life I now realize the mindset I needed to get to where I am today and not where it was 5 years ago. Unfortunately, life doesn’t wait for you to catch up. Thankfully, I have someone who undoubtedly believes in my abilities to succeed.

Regardless of how long it took to figure out or how long it takes for me to get to where I’m meant to be, I’m proud of the woman I’ve become and am still becoming.

As a child he remembered Cardiff as a city with red asphalt roads and yellow trolley busses. On a Saturday morning his grandfather used to take him in his black Sunbeam Talbot to the grand building of the Council of Music for Wales. There Charles Dixon presided over a large office on the third floor in which there were not one but two grand pianos. At seven a little boy finds one grand piano intimidating, two scary. He was made of fuss of by his grandfather’s colleagues and – as a Queen’s chorister – expected to sing. A very tall lady who smelt strongly of mothballs took him into what must have been a music library, and together they chose the 23rd Psalm to Brother James’ Air and Walford’s Solemn Melody. After his ‘performance’ he was given a book about Cardiff Castle, but spent an hour looking out of the windows onto the monkey-puzzle trees and watching people walking below.
 
50 years later as the taxi from the station took him to the rehearsal studios he thought of his mother shopping in this city as a young woman, probably a very slim, purposeful young woman with long auburn gold hair and a tennis player’s stride. He had just one photo of his mother as a young woman - in her nurse’s uniform, salvaged from his grandparents’ house in the Cardiff suburb of Rhiwbina. Curious how he remembered asking his grandmother about this photograph - who was this person with long hair?– he had never known his mother with anything but the shortest hair.
 
He’d visited the city regularly some ten years previously and he was glad he wasn’t driving. So much had changed, not least the area once known as Tiger Bay, a once notorious part of the city he was sure his mother had never visited. Now it was described as ‘a cultural hub’ where the grand Millennium Opera House stood, where the BBC made Doctor Who, where in the Weston Studio Theatre he’d hear for the first time his Unknown Colour.
 
Travelling down on the train he’d imagined arriving unannounced once the rehearsal had begun, the music covering his search for a strategic seat where he would sit in wonder.  It was not to be. As he opened the door to the theatre there was no music going on but a full-scale argument between the director, the conductor and three of the cast. The repetiteur was busy miming difficult passages. The two children sat demurely with respective mothers reading Harry Potters.
 
The next half hour was difficult as he realised that his carefully imagined stage directions were dead meat. They were going to do things differently and he had that sinking feeling that he was going to have to rewrite or at the very least reorganise a lot of music. He was then ‘noticed’ and introduced to the company – warm handshakes – and then plunged into a lengthy discussion about how the ensemble sequence towards the end of Act 1 could be managed. The mezzo playing Winifred was, he was forced to admit, as physically far from the photos of this artist in the 1930s as he could imagine. The tenor playing Ben was a little better, but taller than W – again a mismatch with reality. And the hair . . . well make up could do something with that he supposed. The baritone he thought was exactly right, non-descript enough to assume any one of the ten roles he had to play. He liked the actress playing Cissy the nurse from Cumbria. The soprano playing Kathleen and Barbara H was missing.
 
He was asked to set the scene, not ‘set the scene’ in a theatrical sense, but say a little about the background. Who were these people he and they were bringing to the stage? He told them he’d immersed himself in the period, visited the locations, spoken to people who had known them (all except Cissy and the many Parisienne artists who would ‘appear’). He saw the opera as a way of revealing how the intimacy and friendship of two artists had sustained each of them through a lifetime chasing the modernist ideal of abstraction. He was careful here not to say too much. He needed time with these singers on their own. He needed time with the director, who he knew was distracted by another production and had not, he reckoned, done his homework. He stressed this was a workshop session – he would rewrite as necessary. It was their production, but from the outset he felt they had to be in character and feel the location – the large ‘painters’ atelier at 48 Quai d’Auteuil.  He described the apartment by walking around the stage space. Here was Winifred’s studio area (and bedroom) divided by a white screen. Here was the living area, the common table, Winifred’s indoor garden of plants, and where Cissy and the children slept. As arranged (with some difficulty earlier in the week) he asked for the lights to be dimmed and showed slides of three paintings – Cissy and Kate, Flowers from Malmaison, and the wonderful Jake’s Bird and White Relief. He said nothing. He then asked for three more, this time abstracts –* Quarante-Huit Quai d’Auteuil, Blue Purpose, and ending with *Moons Turning.
 
He said nothing for at least a minute, but let Moons Turning hang in space in the dark. He wanted these experimental works in which colour begets form to have something of the impact he knew them to be capable of. They were interior, contemplative paintings. He was showing them four times their actual size, and they looked incredible and gloriously vibrant. These were the images Winifred had come to Paris to learn how to paint: to learn how to paint from the new masters of abstraction. She had then hidden them from public view for nearly 30 years. These were just some of the images that would surround the singers, would be in counterpoint with the music.
 
With the image of Moons Turning still on the screen he motioned to the repetiteur to play the opening music. It is night, and the studio is bathed in moonlight. It could be a scene from La Bohème, but the music is cool, meditative, moving slowly and deliberately through a maze of divergent harmonies towards a music of blueness.
 
He tells the cast that the music is anchored to Winifred’s colour chart, that during her long life she constantly and persistently researched colour. She sought the Unknown Colour. He suggests they might ‘get to know the musical colours’. He has written a book of short keyboard pieces that sound out her colour palette. There is a CD, but he’d prefer them to touch the music a little, these enigmatic chords that are, like paint, mixed in the course of the music to form new and different colours. He asks the mezzo to sing the opening soliloquy:
 
My inspiration comes in the form of colour,
of colour alone, no reference to the object or the object’s sense,
Colour needn’t be tagged to form to give it being.
Colour must have area and space,
be directed by the needs of the colour itself
not by some consideration of form.
A large blue square is bluer than a small blue square.
A blue pentagon is a different blue from a triangle of the same blue.
Let the blueness itself evolve the form which gives its fullest expression.
This is the starting-point of my secret artistic creation.
 
And so, with his presentation at a close, he thanks singer and pianist and retreats to his strategically safe seat. This is what he came for, pour l’encouragement des autres by puttin.g himself on the line, that tightrope the composer walks when presenting a new work. They will have to trust him, and he has to trust them, and that, he knows, is some way away. This is not a dramatic work. Its drama is an interior one. It is a love story. It is about the friendship of artists and about their world. It is a tableau that represents a time in European culture that we are possibly only now beginning to understand as we crowd out Tate Modern to view Picasso, Mondrian, Braque and Brancusi.

Promise me adventures.
Promise me we'll be okay.
I need that promise, the kind
the fisherman tells to the sea,
the kind you'll tell to me.

And when the wind blows
the shingles off our tiny, little house,
promise we'll take me to that sea.
I think we'll be okay
with a day by the sea,
where the wind will push us onward
and sometimes further than we imagined,
into the gray
and murky green.

Promise me with a map
and the road
and the static in the radio
Help me find the promise
in the static in the radio.
I'll see the promise and the ocean
and in the hands clasps together
at my knee.

And when we find hope inside the clouds,
promise me the rain
will cascade
diamonds
into the sea,
onto the shore,
and onto you
and even me.

You penned a soliloquy
yet I heard my own voice
You spoke of your own hardship
yet you gave me no choice
You talked about your pain
yet I writhe in agony
You penned a soliloquy
yet you said nothing worthy

You spoke of nothing but yourself
you spoke only of your pain
You spoke of a singular truth
you forgot to mention my heart slain

What?
You couldn't write a sonnet?
14 artful lines are not that long
You couldn't Acrostic this?
I HURT SOMEONE

No!

You write a soliloquy
Where your discourse is so obtuse!
Even in the form of Poetry
you deny me

*Is it the truth?

I believe in the match, white phosphorus,
scratch of Bic lighter spurting like a miniature sun
in the deadpan havoc of the darkest night.

I believe in the neon sign, blare of argon
red like lava. The invitation to come inside a place
where everyone is a saint in rehabilitation.

I do not believe in a steeple. I do have a church:
it is full of cripples carrying their hearts like a crutch.
It is full of ***** fingernails, swollen thumbs,

epileptic prayer circles, a choir of bums, riff-raff,
pulled off the street into the warmth of this fiery song.
We are all martyrs burning, like pyres, exploding

in moments of sorrow like gunpowder. God is not
in this church. We are too far from his icy heaven to hear
the cold menace of his manic threats. We are aflame,

making heaven out of the hells we were born into,
the ones we had no choice but to carry like a deformation,
but making our heavens the kind where work is.

We have built heaven out of pillars of words. We
have scorched even the newest of testaments, sifting
through its ash to divine new meaning of resurrection.

I do not believe heaven or hell are nouns. I do not
believe they are adjectives. They are verbs! ******* it
they are verbs: boiling or churning with photographs

of every failure, every success, every bruised knee,
every severed tie, every father that did not love us,
every mother who could not save us, every lover who

kissed the dark sides of our light hearts. I believe
you make heaven, that you make hell. I believe in
only the fire, crackling like skin molting from sunburn.

I want only to be consumed. The world is too far ruined
to douse this from me. Let me burn. If you look closely,
there are doves in the smoke, my bones glowing branches.

Crescent orb radiates its crystalline sight,
languid lips coalesce like a tessellation,
the vexing vines wilder the incandescent-
glimmer but the burning impression remains.
Celestial bodies affixes a soliloquy amongst-
a halcyon tongue that revelate a rhapsodic-
episode.

Quiescent ambience rings a plethora of-
sentiments stinging on the mellifluous
lullaby. The lithe wildflower murmurs-
the euphonious recital of a sonnet that-
is unacquainted to the mind.
Luminous assemblies of fireflies retire-
behind the myriad of evergreen forest
as the insouciance wildflower approach.

Precocious primrose locked from the
scorching sensation of a wildflower
exhibited a lassitude facade like a -
waning lantern fiery on its final residues.
In the distant a wildflower and in
the presence, an idyllic primrose:
so scarce and so strange.