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.

[Crime-scene. Time ceases to exist for YOU,
the necrophile. YOU are on top of the corpse.]

YOU:
Cadaver, corpse, a body's just a body
and yes, I'm guilty, sleeping with the dead
it loves me, then it doesn't love me.
                                                             ­ [Beat]

The rosary you must! To rest in peace, so
transfigure me baby while warm on my bed.
Cadaver, corpse, a body's still a body.

Indulge me; martyr to your livid beads
please intercede for me, oh, please I beg
for it loves me, then it doesn't love me.
                                                             ­ [Beat]

Now shall I exorcise you; set you free, from
the purgatory found between my legs?
My body, yours a corpse, but still a body,


And when your sinews loosen, skin erased
by time who shows no mercy for the dead,
will you still love me then, or won't you?
                                                            ­  [Beat]

To resurrect is daunting, but you shall have
the body that my kiss declares undead.
Cadaver, corpse, a body's just a body,
which loves me, 'til it doesn't love me.
                                                             ­ [Exeunt]

Kaitelka; Whale Mongolic down, first whale which said syndrome, evidenced by their presence, as didgeridoo, as spitting but more hypersonic, hyper cetacean moving his tail, Burguete funds, learned to swim faster than anything, but the Nautilus, not He paid attention to his mother in his care skills, but bad luck that can befall if not moderate their exalting and allergic omitted cases to obey.

So all blue, but little Kaitelka, seeking friendship among their peers, but he put  a tambourine limit gave him leftovers and liked more than a day a thousand years of perfect instincts. So step aside by the fire, and dodged the deafening roar of nymph Satinga; the most ancient senator of the headpiece, always full on its plateau of ******* hydrochloride that resistance, if they pass a thousand years and I do not understand these pairs, I adjusted my engine, but to no avail me, my instincts are diluted and slim as downpour edges left by the wayside in infants and solfa. That Jesus Light was said behind the screen rainbow arch, he takes her hand to Kaitelka, and back by the outer estuary, they attack by instinct ministry of evil.

Mildew petrified oaks, disorients the abject warty troughs the disordering of the genetic instinct, if I have to pause my essence, I leave in the hands of Joshua stone from beyond. Where the ticket is worth more to me, but I get the same. Where evil knows well, but tasteless well. Underground, underwater., Kaitelka take any more, wheels come and go, instinct taking shredding herbs near the sea, no longer separates me more. Bright the famous day that rebukes my dreams rather than a whole, plastering, or monument flash highborn of Mongolic loves whales, classless or inheritances acquired record. Kaitelka and in gratitude to accompany my walk, to the junction of Lisbon, walking from room to room, to begin the pilgrimage, his steps were Glup, Glup like a pretty varmint, over the hills she is beginning to the descritery of Satinga, or rather the descritery of Sapiens Hommo, rummaging instinct of love today, then unloved. Native forests make pairings, but separate links non-energy cataclysms, similar to the new alliance valley radial wave, tuned cetacean sonar power can be glimpsed.

The Ministry of Evil is no end to the retrospective marvel at Noe, Isaac or Abraham, or Luther King, is the delayed form of unsettled muscle primo Evo madding to neo Evo updated, and neither bells sound the same, as reboot gray phthisis diseases degenerate and synthetic. The instinct to put your hands into the fire will be lost ..., so more pace to the back of them cutting the seas in arithmetical divisions, if commend my antidepressants depressive relatives, caress the sea in each constipated solstice, I go every night with daisies in my hands defying every cliff, every cave turned into a tavern, killing instinct, when the brain is nothing, sprayed kerosene on stage, to see my beloved before he dies of a blowgun.  

Joshua Stone and Bernardolipus in a crossroad, spin the grazing, the black sheep, is barren, its classic label of Segregated debased soul, but defecated humanoid comment sing out of tune the territory themselves.  Three-step, three-way, Joshua embraces Bernardolipo. Welcome starts. Satinga you slice ferns and wild beast, vomits both diazepams swallowed, do not sleep, dreams transpose half orb. Halos, half halos, iridescent arcades, and warm breezes, must preamble Donated high liking. Soft and warm look, I do not lose my plate potato near my belly, warm adobe cellar. Nymph Satinga of reaction in reaction out of tune and the highlights midwife psoriasis for its reddish dermis by a fungus worming. The re instinct starts to chew his skull, dread end of the border. The cookies Lord is sending us on napkins.

Pre urbane figure born, they appear a hundred suns, so the crowd out who has the audacity to reveal the discrete enigma, the puzzle while the floor moves the seizure ... all stunned waiting for the flash Ritual to start the preliminary stage, the paradigm of unshelled trees, tough tables roll by the church at the foot of flowers crocuses scrolls flat estate. For the baptistery inscrutability warmth your network back double halo on the moon, scrub that level. Abyss where I fall near aspire to the coachman, I go away over time from heaven minute no second in hours where the avalanche of time lose my look to hold any deity that does not prevent the tendency to lose those not facing front, a day like this you do not walk any shadow, nor the Horcondising I would like to Santorini. The Borker wrongheaded, burning a cigar in rib Kaitelka, it provides a stunning scream as the end of the world, giving birth to the sky his beautiful breeding, as a good omen to present to the crowd in the Octagon and pleased transit day often fruity crestfallen fig.  

Adelimpia,  Strongly taken the and Thunder Aunt, washed in the backroom their aprons with Christmas, whose magical and enlightening sense, they were the Three Wise Princes, sons of the same kings of Israel. Sitting on some cobs, heritages from last wheel spikes. On warm evenings mantra Baba Nam Kevalam, I do not stay alone without others to see this magical high flood flow mention aversion in pontificates, necessary, pal meal with wine apocalyptic pale rider, Napoleonic soldier dethroned.

Thousands of hectares grassland in loving with heavenly muddy, as adhering to the force of Sorcery Camphor to move everything to the midnight launch eclipse. Thousands of hectares squirts do not possess any extension ratio, giddiness master eye, losing possession. What is Slice is Caren Lagoon, which is Alhué Village is Polulo mountain near the place, what Pichi of Barrancas... Out of my roles temple or regulators, as night plans still dating Jack, with overall equidistant to all orphan girl lost in the jungle inbenign . Cutting room of breath begins threshing., afar put the trays, and poor saint not to attend, this clever move, all atheists bruised, stiff and deprived of the worst failure smoothness, it´s the earth not plowed,                    
              
Dreams whistles hills ... Ghosts and spurs  ... Elegy opaque optical floors, all at Aunty Thunder dream the same...

If you can call night, inland sea waves have to educate infant’s tsunamis, they live among geological forces off the coast of scudding clouds of ... where she cuts through. Where our conscience, should play down a Machiavellian zero to roll it to the belly of the whale down. Their heavy udders milk, as long as a wild bird dueled, mounted in their beards, but the bird slips for his little body often and disadvantaged, to fall into the enzyme flash neuron meditatively; aspiring meditatively. While tsunamis grow, the mountains grow, decreases Hommo sapiens, conscience, he has left, minus zero exiled to the **** pony pens, to create their neighborhood over the eyes of a pupil of warty lameness. Reborn storm, stately power, Nymph Hetaira, who seduces the ringer smith, golden horseshoe, pal new millennium. His no longer harp, sewing lips ant, threading needles Grandma milking herbs get a grotto, families abandoned, shrill understatement by the echoes of the West, for you my Transients soliloquy turbid straightening of holistic aqueous molecules who want to sleep in my hands.

Good beverage, good consciousness nursery. Sleepily he walks by the barbed wire of stupid sort of busybody in thickness bolognese, or bandoneon, pilaster grandson male, to Vizcaya sailing or North Toscana, where after a barricade, Piedmont jumps to the south under Pichi.

They are falling water molecules on Maitén tree, or Tomato Adelimpia bow, and on the fibrous and head hair grass grandmamma Anna. Junks greet Bernardolipo, which was fishing with his wounded eyes, but the rub his mouth on the back of Kaitelka, calcium verve in carrousel turned. Line up the right hand, bottled lady Juana, he stretched to crush cilantro, but no ... or both...

Reigns for ?, to allocate a stop along the way, West Side Story Pichi. We are a few steps from misting dawn of propionate Stoics lash the oppressed people, clear water, singing  ... neuron in neuron, the cell last neuron, with the bow remained foul-mouthed, to shuffle, or Kawashkar Chilean Indian the slice of the leg, looking shoe children who roam the street without a blanket. They close their eyes, tears of shame. Here you are ecstatic stiffs arrows bows, feathers swaying in edgings shields tangled, hordes of haggard eyes flamed flames that no impudence and, which limp to a scoundrel that stuns resistant to fall on the sand. Show your dream, that dream bathe.

Continues the fierce Primor, falls brochures from red heaven fall prayers stammering to advance on this land saga, fall rustic donatives of grandmamma Mayor of coelum, Joshua insomniac in his tabernacle, defoliating his tome skip and jump down the estuary, before every misstep, holy water to step, a smile the Loica rural place Or a caress to the cheek moon in the arms of a blackbird, manacled to a rasp, stove teapot levitating top where grandmamma Adelimpia wheezes. Hail Mary ever ******, the other day, I heard that in September, flapping fall on Fiddler praise, perhaps mediate, for bad talking, founder of my undying love of life joined empty verbs on clovers where I to live forever, pre, pre paella prize moaning on my shoulder osteoarthritis crucifying collapsed tree. Nightmare builds a ship to reach Legion Mary. Centerfold, guns, howitzers, dissident’s ovaries ... final pages, declamatory winds ... perhaps agonizing leg expectantly... Or delusional feet of premature mortality, which brought pray to heaven, earth ... at soon I have to forget. The earth gives me the cheese, and bread sandwiching it goes...

Between him and earth coelum I doze my motive piece body, my shepherd Beetle Maximilian of Auschwitz sprayed me holy water the Vistula, I kneel down my hinges, and my hands for pray by pure attained effort, ***** great feat, who believes fall the abyss, and just below the earth tremulous, bell, first-throat yawning, loose cassock sounds a rainy morning, falling in the forest priority to see all morning, brimming with couplets of snow.

Continue to fall aqueous molecules, Kaitelka divides the estuary waters. Sheets of – Talami rural high lawns and wise water, South of  Pichi. Follow the dream, and just needed to uprighted the cabin, roaring gallop, wake up tomorrow morning sweaty dancing aqua, font of Lourdes, the four simultaneously open their headlights eyes, unblinking as echoes swimming duck feeding their young in the obsidian lagoon. Rock palafitte a piece of coal painted black each carriage serene, going from the Cantillana Mountain. Blasphemes morning fall roe bellowing wind annoyed tongue, windless striding through the window, thunderbirds mistress thousand flanks, now mount the besieged strands of colloidal solid. Elegy, opaque optical dreams, and drovers days nearsighted, soon saved our lives...

The never End.

the preacher never wrote a poem
about dahmer's baptism:

1.

he leaned across
the jail cell table
and his eyes were honest
when he said he believed in god
deeply
his eyes were honest
when he said goodnight honey
and gently draped his body
in a tub of sulfuric acid
his open jaw glistening in the moon
dissolving in the dusty noontime soliloquy
of crickets outside his apartment window

2.

can an honest man
bathe in those kind of wounds
and be allowed to ask
for a penance?

3.

for two weeks they left
his baptismal robes in storage
they asked if he really believed it
if he could believe in all this

4.

“when i was a kid
i was just like anybody else”
he had said
he seemed to think
being like anybody else
could dull the bloodstains
reduce the skeletons
still tucked into his closet
to powder
make his wishes into holy water

5.

yes jeffrey, anyone can drink it
but getting drunk on holiness
isn’t enough to repent
all of their fingers are wrapped around
your heart
doesn’t forgetting seem foolish
to the brains in your refrigerator
isn’t it just useless
to the spare ribs, in your bureau
drink all the holy water you want
you will always carry their bodies
on your chest
have you ever had a heart
other than the ones you collected
and did you ever know
what a soul feels like?

6.

and that day
they took him to a prison tub
and his body
glistened under the water
like a drowning animal or a martyr
jeffrey doesn’t float

7.

as he opens his eyes
his mouth wide
he looks just like him
suspended in white
ripples curdling in currents across his pale skin
a solar eclipse
covers the sun
as he comes up
for air

I was not always who I am,
In fact, I don't even resemble my previous self.
My friends, if in fact you are reading this,
Put all your old memories on a shelf.


Do you remember the freshman who was always quiet?
The one you might have seen down the hall?
The one everyone called a friend,
But never really knew at all?

You know the one, how can you forget,
His shoes and shaggy hair?
The way he smiled to himself,
When you didn't notice that he was there?

Do you remember the timid laughter,
As he struggled to fit in?
Coming to the monstrous place,
Where not a single person knew him.

I'll bet you never knew.
No, I know you never did.
All the feelings, thoughts, words, actions,
Were all the things he ever hid.

He strut his stuff down dusty hallways,
Secretly hating the way he was.
Incapacitated by his own ignorance,
Choosing to just accept his flaws.


Do you remember the sophomore who always smiled?
The one who was called the nicest boy?
Of course you do, everyone does,
You said his presence was enjoyed.

This was the year he began to see,
The direction his life was going.
He stopped dead, shocked, in his tracks,
When he saw was he was becoming.

He hated himself to the point of breaking,
But he didn't break, he just bent.
He resigned himself, accepted his fate,
As his heart and confidence were rent.

He receded into himself and his life,
Refusing to push harder; to push on.
If only the poor idiot had known,
He could have worked to a faster dawn.

But instead he became lazy,
People only knew him as the nice guy.
And for a while he was satisfied,
Until he found the final question: Why?


Do you remember the junior who always looked high?
As though his mind was always far away?
Of course you do, everyone does.
Because that was the year he learned to play.

That was the year that people finally saw,
Another side to the quiet, nice guy.
That was the year that would change everything,
Because he decided to change what was inside.

"Why?" is such a simple question,
But one that entails the entirety of life.
It was in this search that the boy,
Found something deeper in all his strife.

This was the beginning of a new path,
One that took years to complete.
But it was one that led him higher,
A throne to replace his lowly seat.

He finally learned to love himself,
He learned to throw caution to the wind.
He learned to build and better himself,
He finally learned to love again.

These things did not come easily,
Nor were they close to instant.
The path was long and tedious,
But the boy was finally persistent.

Only a small change was noticed,
He took his seat among varsity ranks.
People noticed a personality,
Where once before had seemed so blank.

The few who he let closest,
Noticed something deep within him first.
Two helped him build and grow,
One tried taking his potential for herself.

Fighting through he found himself,
Another year had passed him by.
But what the boy finally knew,
Was that he could change who he was inside.

Do you remember that one senior boy,
Who walked the halls with a grin and hint of swagger?
Of course you do, how could you forget,
This was the year that boy became bigger.

He suddenly wasn't just the quiet or nice guy,
Everyone looked on as if he were new.
What was the confidence that was in his eyes,
Where once only weakness and fear grew?

This was the question everyone asked him,
The one that everyone wanted to know.
What had happened over that summer,
That caused this whole new person to show?

He couldn't give them an answer,
How could he describe what he had done?
How could have possibly explain,
That he had learned to let go, live, and love?

Suddenly the ones who had ignored him,
Were asking him for his advice.
It felt so good to be validated,
After a lifetime of cowardice.

Do you remember the first game of the season,
When he blew the crowd away?
The ferocity and abandon that he carried,
It was his new favorite way to play.

Do you remember the first dance of the year,
When suddenly he was dating the track star?
Nobody could believe she came onto him,
The quiet boy who had come so far.

Do you remember how he was suddenly important?
It was because he knew all the dark and ***** secrets.
The quiet boy you thought meant nothing,
Suddenly knew everyone's weakness.

Do you remember how he led the class?
He was suddenly leadership material.
You cheered him and his team,
When the trophy was hung with his orange Mercurials.

Only one person thought to ask him,
What exactly had happened, what had changed?
He smiled quietly, once again and said,
I let myself out of my cage.

It took four years for him to love himself,
To find confidence among his fears.
To build himself into a better person,
To gain the respect of all his peers.

The hardest part throughout it all,
Was not to feed on his new found pride.
To retain the innocence of his past,
And somehow keep kindness in his stride.

He was voted friends with everyone,
And indeed, he truly was.
An entire school known by name,
He graduated to thunderous applause.


Do you remember the college freshman?
No, of course you don't.
You haven't really met him yet,
Most of you probably won't.

He's doing well, the quiet boy,
He finally found a balance in good and pride.
He thanks you for teaching him about himself,
The testing grounds where he reached inside.

He thanks you for being exactly what you were,
Some kind, some not, some indifferent.
Without each and everyone one of you,
He might have remained weak and ignorant.

Now he lives his life the best he can,
Living and loving each and every day.
He lets cares pass him all by,
Only letting peace and happiness stay.

He learned to love himself,
That the most important of all that changed.
The confidence and wisdom inspired him,
To live his life unchained.

Surrounding himself with the best people,
Loving life and all its trials.
Holding those he cares about,
Almost forgetting the quiet boy in denial.


I've written here about who I was,
Because it defines who I am today.
I am no longer the weak, quiet boy,
I think the confidence is here to stay.

Learning to love myself,
Was the key to my happiness.
Everything good that has happened since,
Is a result of choosing to leave the sadness.

I write not for my own vindication,
Although in hindsight, it sounds this way.
I merely wish to express my changes,
In as few memories as I must say.

I've lost precious minutes here,
Typing out this soliloquy.
And now I fear that it must end,
There is more life for me to see.

Here I go, into the night,
Who knows what I will find.
I love to live my amazing life,
With this peaceful state of mind.

The wind whispered his name.
He lingered, but he did not listen.
The sun shone it's bright face
Warmly upon his disgrace
And made his skin to glisten.
Bright leaves spun and danced
Taking every momentary chance
To entertain a sullen passerby
Who never did lift his eye.
He was not destined to know
Because he missed the show.

He didn't hear the music of birds,
The crickets all went unheard.
The sun might have been dim;
Rainbows were unseen by him.
He took no joy in a warm breeze
Unless it made him sneeze.
No human could catch his eye,
He was aware of no passersby.
There was no color to his sorrow
No yesterday or tomorrow,
Just the sameness painted gray
That he lived in every day.

The artist that is every day life
Painted his world with palette knife
And every kind of artful brush
But could not interrupt the hush
Of he who looked but did not see
Anything real in his reality;
His discourse with the world
Had become a sad soliloquy
He created his own catastrophe
Sculpting his world without mastery.

His sins bore him sorely down
Bent over nearly to the ground.
A painful stoop to his shoulder
He rested on a nearby boulder.
Replaying his dreadful history
He vowed to keep it a mystery.
He would refuse to bear witness
Certain there was no forgiveness.
He felt he was no better than sod,
Was a disappointment to God,
And in all there was in creation.
He was unworthy of salvation.

Anthony, Anthony, oh dear Anthony. His face is like a little darling's; with tumults of green and gray cheeks blended into one. I wish there had been no yesterday; for yesterday was when he appeared with his rain-soaked, but gay little cheeks; as he smiled at me by the twin moonbeams. Still he is not him; I care not how he wants to tease me in my dream.

My heart is gay no more; its walls are honed imperfectly, and with no goodwill. Its image and charity hath now gone; I am plain, I am like a shy spider grafting about the chattering winter walls. Oh, Anthony, yet how sweet thou wert under the bald rain; and its unleashed forms of cold clouds! Ah, I wish I could lend to you a wonted breadth of my story; but as I gaze, now, into the very soft metallic eyes of thee; I am afraid my words shall never be impossible. Thou hath that brilliant green gaze of nature, my sweet, but thou art not immortal; thou art vital, but thou art not of the same rainbow as he is. He hath, now, been dried and cornered in the unseen lungs of my heart, but his ghost is there. Ah, he, who hath betrayed me like a sparkle of dead candle! How should I treat this misdemeanour, you think? But to my strange suspicion, I cannot but forget of him, even a sliver of memory; for his memories are too elusive, too adequate for my hungry heart. Oh, Anthony, how bashful I am--for not daring to cope with thy questioning eyes!

Like those unanswered rains; which keep wetting the unyielding soil, damaging toiled crops into the limbs of quavering pits. My love was borne with death by him; within the death of his feelings, in which it was but a fossil of discarded flesh like any other corpse. But where is Immortal, Immortal, Immortal? I keep looking for him, in those scarlet hollows, but still I glimpse a sight of him not. I shall keep lulling him to sleep, at least in my dancing dreams; he is the sober prince and I am the guileless princess. Ah, Anthony, tell me how I cannot be guileless; I am honest and decent and carry no defilement of chastity. I am pure myself; with a garden of virginity and its terrific rivulets flowing beneath me. How can my charms be not charitable? Even when I walk, a thousand boughs of blossoms snigger not; they welcome my entry with another thousand wits; they reply to my living steps with a radiance that even heaven cannot forgive. My verbal words might not be delicate, but I am sure my poem is; regardless how hard t'is downfall might be. Ah, Anthony, thou art a miracle still, but thou art no more than an evening story, sadly! I cannot feel my heart become unleashed, as I looketh into thy eyes; I cannot feel grasped by thy cold hands--ah, thou hath grasped me not; but still thy apparition cometh less merited, and rather falsified, than that of his.

How can that be, how can that be, how can that be! Ah, this earth with its villainous glory might blame me once more. It shall toughen my hardship with a whole land of repulsion; it shall intend never again to make me a faithful alliance. It shall satisfy its own self, and metamorphose into a swamp of ungrateful hatred sweated by an edified mockery. Ah, what doth all t'is charm mean, then? I shall face a green apocalypse soon, thereof, before being burned within another blasphemous night. I feel cross, cross, cross, cross, and cross; I grit my teeth whenever I think of my stupidity. I feel as if I was an old dame so gratuitous to thee; I am a luminous fire, but instead I have no seeds and am just as dead as a soundless pumpkin. Ah, Anthony, can thou but restore that lost fire again? I want no speeds, I want to see no miracles, I feel dutiful; but undutiful at the same time. Your heart is right by the doors of Yorkshire--and sometimes grow into the doors themselves; it is funny to see how they are so tidily integrated by the eminence of each other. I shall craft for you a beautiful song; but perhaps a jest like that shall never be enough; it shall be tedious and not pertinacious enough to entertain thy young heart. Thou art in want of my poems, as far as I can see; but all I might do is withdraw my eye and even draw my steps back further, invariably like a rusted old church bell. I am insane; and far trapped in the insanity as I myself am; I am cold-blooded, my heart can, perhaps, be healed only by ease-like murders. I cannot ponder, I cannot think, I cannot consider; I paint the entrance to myself no more-oh, how I miss his laughs like never before! Ah, Anthony, my wintry sun, my autumn soliloquy, my snowy sob; perhaps I shall better be far from thee, for I want not to make thee sore! My heart is as rough as it is; incarcerated in its own heartless panoramic views, brutal like an unattended soil, for hath it just been left unattended for a time; it often wanders to breathe fresh air, but severed once more by the adored's filthy laugh. It comes home and sleeps weeping beside me.

My heart can no longer count; neither can it flinch. It cannot even see colours, including those which were once fabulous; it is far from enormity, but it claims to have one. Ah, Anthony, it is even a brighter scholar than myself! Look, look how hath it conquered my? I have jaws and it has not, I have a heart--ah, I do have it, but I knoweth not how to make it mine. Half of my heart hath been eaten away by a rotten love, even my blood now--as I hath been hearing it, is no longer flowing. I am hurried by the murmurs of the wind every day, ah, but shall I return again to my poetry? I guess, though, I can make time for this gay seriousness; I am poetry and shall always be, I am alarmed by the cries of my poems, and the joys of my sentences. I am mad, as how poets should just be; I am the pictures my poetry paints; and caress them often at night in my arms.

But as you may have seen it, my heart is now dead, plain, and black; my heart who has loved, and still does love, someone. Ah, Anthony, forgive me; forgive me for this solemn labour of my heart; forgive me for choosing to bear this alone. I might love again, someday; I am aware I should triumph over this self-inflicted martyrdom; I shall relieve myself in one blink of wonder, in a more reliable princedom by the sea. Still, I hope, like a gallery of paintings that is planted with a hall of constant transformations, God shall transform the very haven of his souls one day; and refine his atrocious soutane into one righteous and cordial. I might not be the crucial lady yet for thee; oh, how I wish I were! But vain this attempt may be, should we ever doubtfully try it. Ah, Anthony, but gratitude to thee--for once choosing to lay off the puzzle of my heart; for thy gentleness from the very start!

And hath I now finished my breathless narration; I doth miss thee, oh Immortal; I miss thee as I shall miss a piercing sun in these filths and greases winters may bring! Ah, and the clearer picture in my mind carries to me a voice that though thou art fine; thou art dainty no more; and this leaves to me a flavour of
precarious solitude. I loveth thee, Immortal, Immortal, Immortal; my love is as a sky that remains high; my love shall stay flowery until the day I die.

Sunlight, sunlight, you are my eternal sunlight,
whilst all but tender and benign is the night.
And you shine on me like the collapsing moon
but lurk away as morn greets our humanity too soon.
You can sometimes be obscure but real;
and your soul is the ring my poet's heart wants to steal.
Your love is too frequently demanded
Yet as you gaze into me it might just be finally authenticated.
Run, run, as I did once from your thin figure
with flashes of anger and loath but unsure.
How when you are mad you look but tiresome and timid
Odd as it is, as to your very liveliness and inborn wit.
But you are simply too genuine and weak and true
and with your smile you often touch my heart
just like our nature's undying morning dew.

Oh, my secret love-just as it is now and again,
tell me now how to cure this deafening pain.
I might have never told you I love you,
but inside am sure that you love me too.
Probably it is just my longing that is too shy
but how it can ever be please never ask me why.
For in your name I wish never to tell a lie
But whenever dusk comes my secret will be gone
as to truly embrace only the meaning of your sun.
In my dear heart you are somehow mine,
just like I might already be within thine
But how the world will blacken and wrong us
if we give way and surrender to this lust.
Look, my love, at how the trees and birds sing!
With peace at heart they form one loyal lavish string
On this country's honest farms and soil
So that their own joy they shall never spoil.
Hark, darling, hark how they dance throughout the foliage!
Ah! Just like the melodies buried far down in your cleavage
You are now and again my very own vivid shadow,
that trusts my poems and be with me
as I overcome the bleeding tomorrow.

And be with me and the chorus in my dear heart
Although this world seems cruel and is but to tear us apart
As at only your breath my womanhood raves;
and for only your veins my delight and soliloquy craves.
In your manliness my whole solitude shall rejoice
meanwhile my dimmed heart brightens at your grand voice.
Oh! How I want to leave you not-to my destined sphere!
How my blood is stained by and reeks of fear,
and as mischievous like springs are towards bitter snow,
whenst they are to warm off its whining skin
and so scornfully send away whose glow.

O my love, my love! Then tell me just fervently once more
before I needst to leave and walk outside the door.
Release me from this sinister unloved hell
and free me from my single nutshell.
Tell me how you love me, and long to age with me
within the rustic village behind the maple tree.
Amongst the loveliness of the old church and parish
Next to the brown grass and green pond of fish.
And at night, how shall we sit amidst those witty bushes
with two cups of tea and due pairs of romantic torches.
But please, please be with me, and be mine-mine, only-
o my love, thus leave me not within this dire uncertainty
as long as I breathe still and my heart beats within me
but make me stay here and forever crave for thee,
as far as love can go, and as deep as eyes can see.

Yes I heard and cried
knowing that you have died
in the midst of that ******,
sinful ruckus of Nagasaki
but fate is no longer great
tip-toed twinkle of a pathetic
plunge over the dying Sakura
I have not changed for years but
you, you have changed
for the romance, for the sanity
of your everlasting dance.

Fatal, it is fatal, they said.
Denial, it is a denial, I said.
The balloon has escaped for years
and it can only haunt us for years,
but now,

The balloon waved at me
as I was caught red-handed
by an atomic, stoic handshake
drowning athazagoraphobia,
so I left the *** unattended
and I wander for a sweet end
in Misaki, Sennichimae,
calm, youthful exuberance I love
I no longer remember
the lasting kisses
that she left,
as a soliloquy in May.

I am lost in the wildest dream
of an eternal existence.

All the pain a man could muster in his lifetime:
Compressed to a minute.
Then, send it scattershot through the airwaves.
A morose melody. A lovely female voice inflects....
"May I override your rationality and reason?"
Imprints a depression on the mind;
a rope around the deckhand's neck.
Does her voice now command your neocortex?
Yes, but deeper still: it denigrates.
Instills an insistence toward apathy:
existential treason.
musical notes denote a debt to be paid.
They accept just the one currency.
Trade melancholic fervor for nihility...
A payment must be made.
Posit the ship is a sojourn in deep water.
Feeling A sorrow you can't adjourn.
How quickly you will learn:
Jumping overboard
CAN be an act of kindness.
A slave to that recalcitrant sorrow.
Jetsam yourself to lighten the load on your psyche:
It's ideal over facing another tommorow.

Seafaring folk
assume a siren's song is beautiful.

I felt The Earth shake when she sung.
There goes the air from my lungs.
What more to give? Here.
Borrow my body and tongue.
Sitting in the auditorium
of my own soliloquy.
This state of mind is anti-reverie.
Your falsetto sonnet showed memories.
My family.My mishaps.
An altercation out of ennui-with my father.
Before he left,that last thing he said to me...

But.

Why WAS he levied into conflict
over Antioch?
On a whim prescribed, of course;
The pope demanded A crusade on sin.
Father died inside the walls of Jerusalem.
Bled out fighting alongside other mortal men:
Father, is your heaven more beautiful,
than your grand daughter's grin?

Captain has seven sailors hold me still.
I am suppressed inside the fo'c'sle.
He counts down from sixty:
"Let us see if time sets him straight."
A siren's enthrall doesn't agitate long.
Yet,
Even after the weight of it lifting,
it leaves you forlong.
Sometimes-I still feel-
underwater...is that where I truly belong?

Seafaring folk
assume a siren's song is beautiful.
                          I know better.

A violent storm materializes from otherwise
sunny, fair weather.
I guess the myths of the Tempest here are true:
It attacks ships sailing near the fabled
isle Revenir.
Until then,for my own safety,
I had been enroute to the brig.
"All hands on deck
(including me and my captors)
Secure those loose rigs.
Batten down the hatch.
Cap'n is going to steer us-
Right through this Tempest's heart!!"
Steady now.
Or his hubris will tear the ship apart.

I felt indifferent as waves
pummel us relentlessly.
Contrite as our vessel
won its war with the sea.

                   I jump overboard.

Instant remorse.
Father, can your God please alter my course?
A mistake.
This can't be my legacy.
I'm sinking.
Because of what a siren sung.
I can't breathe. Feel water filling in my lungs.
Siren,take what you won
then leave me undone.
I'm sinking.
Is this how I meet my end?
Shimmer from the sunlight fades
as I descend.
Sinking.
And I'll never be found...
My fear, my flailing. My failure to float.
the ocean swallows it all,
ingurgitates my hope.
Is this how you felt?
Facing your ill-fated destiny?
Father.
You always tried-and failed -to quell my misery.
That last thing you said...
Preaching your god's salvation as remedy.

                        I'm sinking.

All along its been my sorrow
that's drowning me.

-

Upon a midnight’s visage airy,
T’was a lake frozen by fairy,
…and weighing on mind’s tonnage bearing?
There for ice’ opaqueness winter’s seized,
…and arms encased in rime; trees.

“Oh my,”

At dark of sky thought the eye of something troubling upon my mind?

And the frosty cloudy glass,
Take to it upon my axe,
…and the sting of shards will pass.
And will I eat at last.

Thusly, thrusting through the skull, wettened, weakened for the cold.

…and burden carry I with me,
So encased in rime is he,
Doth make of fishing’s night a chore,
Something that I do abhor!
…and stare I did into that sea,
…my frory breathe in imagery,
Dismay it did fluster me, when my eye captured by Sea,
...and in whirling thoughts could reflection see?
…and something else came back with me.

Pool with drops, light curves, dark rings; in vapid mind now find nothing...

T’was a misty sheen seen after showers?

A damp muggy place of reflecting hours,
Typhoid strange did make snowing;
The Asteraceae of my wilted flowers,
…and that Wren philosophically sings,
…and at lake a lone be -ing,

Appearing peering my soliloquy, I am therefore I into thee.
…and fixed calm stared back at me,

“What pray tell I Enquiry?”

Did something else look back at me?

...and glaring gaze thus did see, something I had hid from me,
…and gawking in my mind did ogle; a malevolence of thought once frugal...

A gaping, oscillating, pierced Abyss, forced farther back into consciousness...

Deeper in and further still,
Climb atop Old Arthur’s hill,
…and the winged Raven’s nearer, reflected on me in my mirror?
…and time did pass turning frozen dying, icy tears of sadness from my crying,

…so did silent Hume release, all the pain that’s troubling me; whilst frozen frame thus held in peace?

I fell forward and felt submerged,
Both characters, both now have merged.
And that creature which accompanied me?

Found a solace back in wine dark sea.

You put your pencil down when I thought you were writin
Well that must mean you wanna get a little more exciting
Put that pad down make feel a little more invited
If you make me put away this phone I'll get a more enlightened
I see your eyes must mean you serious bout this metaphor
Well we can exchange verbs until we leave the pages letters torn
You always find a way to make it known that you feelin me
You said you had a new trick with your pen.I always like a new soliloquy
And as the page turns like our sheets the composition gets deeper
I can tell by the introduction that this one is a keeper.
Extreme with the pen but I keep it in the lining
This work of art is worth fallin asleep during writing
I want this to be so great that you tell your friends about my writing
Even though your friends tell me that you always tell about my writing
But I kno you got a bad girls mouth
Now come and let me see what them adverbs bout
We pressed for time but I'm sure we can handle it
And you kno I never need help with my adjectives
By the way..will you perform my favorite adjective
Even though last time I could barely handle it
You are my pens favorite tablet
So now my pen is happy and my pen wants you to have it
The way your notebook looks I just want to grab it
So I can rip the cover and we can write some majic
Now put the paper to the pen like a nail to a hammer
Until we reach the writing ****** cuz that's my favorite stanza
Our subject-verb agreement gets tired of fighting
So let's just write until we tired of writing
We crossin T's and dotting I's no mistakes are being made
We should publish our craft it would leave others basically amazed
And after placing my last period you couldn't be more close to me
Girl you the best I'm happy that you helped me create this poetry!

impeccable artwork
splayed red anger
diffused dangerously
imminent explosion

take down your temper
ice it in silence
spread change
draw conclusions
inherent haste

find tranquility
in people places
abstract soliloquy
ethereal furnace

split skin  burnt moments
wanderer waking
in a strange place

stars foretell
insipid futures
we are destined
for another ice age?

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 2 days ago

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11770244-zodiac-misfired.....-by-Marshall-Gass-noguest#sthash.DX0­ajG0s.dpuf

My tummy box is broken
Said the man to the spoon
******* rhymings
To satisfy good tidings
Fake smiles to satisfy
Good people

Satisfied with what I make
Dissatisfied with what I take
Broken satisfaction
A one-man factioned

We all suffer from
Insecurities
So take what’s best of me.
I seem to be the worst at what I do.

Can I visit weekly? Is that cool by You?
I can make a fool of myself at least once a week.
Can you turn so I can smack Your other cheek?
4th wall broken, here’s a token of my gratitude.
I play the fool for a feeling that’s earthly
Wait with baited breath, I’m almost done.

FBI shopping, lets find a bomb to blow.
Legalize this to make me okay with it.
Let’s party it up to make me feel better.
A good grind to get my mind off things.

Opposing the opposable
Folding to the foldable
All I am seems worthless
All I am seems ridiculous.

Whilst wet with rain
beneath a tree
An introspective moment
had a sneaky peek at me.
Who am I and what am I
... and what have I to show?
And should I be concerned
that very few... may care to know?

Slightly left of centre
With a wrinkled, balding crown,
Scarred and bushy eyebrows
And a mouth that tends to frown.
A grizzled beard hides multitudes
Of sins I wish to hide
And the beauty of my burning youth
Has long since shrivel dried.

The paunch has spread expansively,
Athletic legs have shrunk
And my ****** performance
Has diminished with a thunk.
I suffer fools reluctantly
In fact, it’s true to say...
That my patience and forbearance
Is  more limited each day.

Pasta Carbonara
In a creamy bacon sauce
With a smooth rewarding merlot
Is my favourite fare.. of course!
Plus a stodgy Apple pudding
Bathed in double dairy cream
And a steaming cappuccino
Topped with chocolate is a dream.

A powerhouse of action
With the things I Iike to do
And a sloth, to beat the band,
When the Tax Return is due.
An ardent fan for Old Jazz
Vamped on keyboard and the snare
But the world of Rap
Just leaves my head In hideous disrepair.

I’ll face down bullies twice my size
And heaven help the fool
Who interferes with family
For I’ll hit him hard and cruel,
Yet feed me sad old movies
And, any given night, you’ll see
A little tear run down the cheek
Oh so, self consciously for me.

The woman is God’s gift to man
The statuesque, the strong,
The saturnine eyed redhead
Where the gazes linger long.
The magnificence of a ponytail
As it bobs along the street
Atop a Grecian Goddess
With her undulations, sweet.
And ****!.. there is that little dress,
The one that fits so well,
That amplifies your promise
And gives my senses Hell!

And there’s the need to tell the story,
To formulate the plan,
Initiate the living thought
In a delivery of élan.
To modulate the language
To win the ears of youth
With an oratory of promise
To impact them all with couth.

There’s commitment to your Darling
And a tolerance for the kids
And the need for good provision
So we all don’t hit the skids.
And the cat and dog need feeding
Plus the goldfish in the jar,
Then there’s Alf and Frank and Joe
Who all expect me at the Bar.

So what’s it all about you say
This parody called life?
Is it all a headlong rush
Along the road avoiding strife?
Is there any plan or sequence,
Does it pan out in the end
Or is everything a chaos
Driving me around the bend?

Survival is the answer!
Take one small step at a time,
Smile at dear old ladies
And your day will turn out fine.
Avoid the grim policemen
And skirt all growling dogs,
Be gentle with your Sweetheart
And don’t skate on jellied frogs.

The recipe’s so simple
The answer is so clear
Don’t complicate your time with ****
And, please pass another beer.

Marshalg
Still soliloquising under the tree in the falling rain.
26 March 2011

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.

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?

To another day
passing like the parched foliage
dangling from the roofs in
the ***** Bronx

left of the ferry,
right is the skyline
doubled three times,
cloaked in solar panel
glass and shimmering
against the smoggy array of light
that
will
quit—
in due time.

Daddy, sweet
East River father,
where is the little
meatball you had grounded
up for eyes.
For a Roman nose
and Mafian stubble
when your Sicilian tongue
was clipped at age five.

For English-Only stamped on the roof
of your waste factory
of a mouth.

For the neo-tongue that
was bred liked
strong As
and
young ****;
And copious liquor upon
the grounds of your hiking
trips.

Mutation
       of
vile majesty.
Cannibalism of the **—

Buttons budding
for *******.

I saw your phantasm
figure, soiled in
dark tan, curve in
my lens.
Swallow the hazel
like a viscous sauce,
sweet, fresh.
A fuckable baby—
of five. You clipped
my tongue with now
cloying giggles and in the bunk bed,
red and ***,
like a locket, limbs

dangling out the sides, fleeing in
a fountainhead of
DO NOT.
Effaced by an amnesia.

The old man in my skull speaks,
— I was thirty two days ago.

Now the IVs DRIPDRIP,
Chorus with the TICKTICKTICK.
You are the hour,
I am the minute
Hand.
You are slow, I must
go-go-go in compulsive haste.
Run for sixty,
start anew,
encore, solo, imbrued
with the days that twine the middle, framed in
white.
Forget.

The doctor parses the old man like an
obsolete phrase with theatric hands,
-touch-touch-
push,  press.
Then comes the Shakespearean
soliloquy:
—He hasn’t the coverage.

The trigger as a glove of flesh
hits its target, quiets the machine,
puts me to sleep.

What is it that
I must do?
-become the platoon,
an infantry of sun-empired men.
Fight the shrapnel,
the blitzing of
scar tissue.
Become the fireman
with an axe wielded—
Scale the towers like cracks in a mountain.
Die from the smoke or
the spherical flames of the
planes that rode like the hooves
of a horse with bubonic pallor.
Fall like a worker
for stories down until
God, or some sadistic keeper
of this earth, slacks a noose
and reels me in like
a bluefin tuna, prized,

as you
salute. You ‘Nam
prevailer heralding
the lacy harlequins of corporeal
God’s pardon
on
you.

I am in
eternity from
the waist down,
object of the tight, frictiony
satisfaction you
almost indulged in.

To be a daughter, so sonly,
revoked of all features.
Stripped of the places
you liked to touch.

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.

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

’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.

Drown me in self pity
Fill me with gravel and confetti
And I won't scream and shout, or tell anyone about the sarcastic soliloquy

Dance me into a state of disbelief
Your unsteady heartbeat,
will without fuss or pout
Tell everyone about you and me.