Eve of Holi

A spring eve that’s all different from others
Zephyrs blowing away the leaves
Orange sky adding the flavours
Blooming flowers nodding in a rhythm
So Ironical is nature of this evening
That all these beauties act as ornaments of Kali


On a normal evening man would work
They would work appraising weather
They know it will not last long, they enjoy
Today they as if ignore it, of morning celebrations

Morning is gayest morning of the year
Every reason to see every man
Mankind being unanimous
Evening on contrary balancing it to a usual day


An unexplainable soundlessness, vacuum of thoughts
A day depicting environment without men on work
Streets still hold colours on their chest
But this colour no more is a sign of happiness


People meet each other, everyone has a smile
But that doesn’t match with nature suit
There smiles have scope within its sight
Body of people walking on street enjoy zephyr
Their mind stay startled of unusual quietness


Standing on my entrance, I observe
A swinging litchi tree, missing sound of saw mill
Smiling flowers, orange cloudy sky
Empty streets, parked wagons, and utterly silence

in this world of the limped nuptial
i’ve appeared as a power-missile of the lac-dye
that is used by the hindu women
to paint the border of their feet

the tooth-ache of some-one pumpkin
that grows on the thatched roof of a hut
has wringed spirally  
my mythological birth with corporate death

managing and arranging  my thoughts
on what I was in the past
what I would be in the future
or what is my dos at present  
the wonder-paintings of the altamira cave
unfolds its wings beside my painful in-growing nail

and in her own sky of miss marry  
my hands become so much condensed in every drops
as if within that moping smog
without any speech
speaks the twinkle twinkle little star…

beside  that labour pain what awakes then
is the patronage of a one-horned idea
along which while walking  without much preparation
i can enter into any e-mail

though our love pulls a very long-face about itself
and in the opinion of the married women
the sigh of the sin θ of our love wants to cultivate
mustered-seeds on the soil of the inhabitants
of this human-life
with a stick by which the monkeys are driven out
what more can i say in lieu of
a piece of red-salute written in green ink

if i say in the dawn of the 52-cards
i touch your face
by the hands of a school-boy
your calmness and earthly perfume
make me stunned

then in this field of sweat and war
the explosion of logic and intellect
of your top-floor
seems more famous anchor than the milk
that spilt over on the fire

and more to say
when daubing all over the body
all taste of the path of joy
enter into then fort of gold you can notice there
when in some unknown moment
my pajama dies socially
by the bite of the snails and oysters

to keep the heart of the break-kiln always move
this form-less interactions are so well
in the harvest-arrangement of the late-autumn
we are all uttering the name of cherry-flower
and begging shelter from the mango leaves

the cause of spreading over of the fragrance
from our secret myrobalan to every side of the pillows
is not only such that in the morning
an empty ink-*** says to the rain-water
you are beautiful

it is also remarkable that
coming to our half-articulated  travelling
the writings carved on the granite stone
become very much ashamed also

and  taking the busy market-price of the sun-glass
in the fold of the **** cloth tied at the waist
my both hands are also marked very much
in the omnibus of the dancing-bar

such is just because it is the art and science of navigation
that pastes some earth-wave
having no number-plate
with the public
rolling down  on the mat of the summer

it is impossible
to memorise the history of  those
so much contended-hunger
so much contended-sleep

it is all right that the staff-members
of our vibgyr university are all alive  
but they are the existence of some
bio-data only

arrangement of so much smiles and tears
in the nomenclature of banana-bed of mrs sofia
is not to tell the directionlessness of her fishery products
but if the culture of the wild trees assuming figure
then there remains no separate entity of the rbcs
inside or inside-up of the veins and arteries

all are the world of cosmetic-surgery
all are the arena of displaced national integrity
that is the only way to get admitted
into the still water of the horse-race

so the making of this self-portrait of the tip-cat game
by own-hand
so is the fancy of the engagement ring of the bursar

as a result of the headache in the au fait knee-joint
all the rats on the rice-*** of margaret  
become very angry
and when they make their performance  
you can’t catch them by extending your hands

so there is this sky-blue printed sari of desdemona
now take refuge under her perfumed disaster
and it is feared that there may be the drops of sweat
on the lobes of her nose extremely devoted
that the trees become to reside in

how much confusing is that cascade
in each of whose earings the dark fortnight
and whose eden garden is so large
that all those  people with crevasses dwell there

they stay in a group of nine
neither eight nor ten
just n for 9
n is also meant for the nancy
and the narcissus
and the sensational appearance of the
nereid  

once again we rub green-chilly after pouring water
in the parched-rice on the ancient plate made of brass
it is right that the peak is separated down from the temple
but it does not hurt the priest

by the right of our walks strewed outside
we too when hiding ourselves in the regime of fire
with our intention and activities
with our standpoint
with our conduct and  behaviour
or any instant rule or direction
or our deeds
that compel the rotation of the deodorant

thus after the eye-operation
the love between you and me is now
seeing more week-ends than before
to her knee has been submitted many caws
painted in water-colour

in every corner and every hole of the body
that pulls the rickshaw the wind enters
and in every root-cause of the sufferings
the ripple of annihilation of love

from the shop of dip-swimming now
you can also purchase soundlessness  
to feel  the spirit of  chrysoberyl

now you need the work for 100 days
to gain the power you need to keep pace
with the graph of the terracotta
that may also be a long day of fasting  

then on the back of that hungry conch-shell
a globe shouts
the other’s world puts its office-water
in the fountain of cactus the roaring of which
pours so many telephone-calls into the ears

then in our market the ear-bursting sound of the generator
then in our forest-land
the bullet-fight between maoist and the joint-force

then with the enlarging and waning of our moon
are the bright fortnight the dark fortnight and the leaves of wood-apple

you may say now
those demerits relate to the seeds of the gm oranges
but just think the scanning of hibernation of the philtre
or of the kite the thread of which is cut off
they can’t escape their responsibility too

then tell me to whom i could give
my sad melting point  

but then to do any work means
this trigonometry
outside the territory of copyright

then the connection of the biscuits
with the thoughts of the fire-works
is clearly dismantled

the border-zone of all relations thus keep themselves apart
and due to a sharp difference in the chromosomes of sand-stone
our dwelling-house becomes a museum

to build a hospital with a big moustache
at last within the hypnotized company
the shadow of our bed-room appears

then the light of the social moon  is like the materials
with which the inner parts of the sorrows of the pomelo
is made up

it may be well for making great
the art-work of the horse-rider
that is wrapped with the handkerchief of ocean  

it must be waiting for my shampoo-power too

some cure may be offered by the paraffin
and her open hair

but one deed of the rose-petals
and the convex sweet drops of molasses  
is the flame of thumb-impression
that is born and brought up by the pan-cake
in-between sauce-pan and peter pan

in this all-pervasive panorama of slang-opera

To the discontented dreams walking through the dismal decadence of a generation’s misplaced sincerity, along the corners of empty markets and abandoned townhouses and drug-infested parks and housing projects, the blanket of eternity warms the contemporary chills of sadness along a stranger’s spine,
To the soulful singers and the tired poets, the dreamers, idealists, and the hobos whose dust clings to the ghost engines of locomotives of Southern melancholia, along the thickets of thorns coated with the blood of the Negroes and their unchanged magic and blood soaked karma, the America we know must confront such chilling histories,
To the woeful songs of the youth, spilling across the timeless waves of devolution and unspoiled shores of lost memory, the melodies churn with thunder within the basin of toxic sewage and the lifeless poets dare to dream the dream no man can find satisfying,
To the sun and the moon, the two entities in the sky passing by the horror all eyes wish to pierce with flame and melt the plastic Hollywood images of our time, with the serrated edge of a knife’s blade flickering like a silver jewel in the moonlight, where Hamlet’s laughter stimulates the rhythm of consciousness like the quickened excitement of a perfected sonnet to the empty epiphany brain of our reckless care,
To the mothers who long to smother their little boys and girls with the cradle palm and the warm breast, for her eyes weep at the chaos with folded arms and crooked necks, and to gaze at the unemployment lines are to follow the coiled stems of the snakes and the thieves, the politicians and their two-faced theories,
To the father’s who have lost their fathers to chance or depravity, to the neglected sons whose hearts must pump concrete with panic, their soccer ***** and toy guns have yet to be touched by the jolt of masculinity as the father climbs his mountain of abandonment and carelessly invokes the same demons that destroyed his father,
To the lonesome drunkards, the  feverish crack dealers, the dismal ****-heads, and the 9 to 5 dead end workers, I shall greet them with a glass of enlightenment and reason, but their skin is far too thick to be punctured with the spike that shimmers on Liberty’s head,
To my generation of apathy, how unchanged the afterlife must be, for you know nothing of oblivion but you know everything about the technologically advanced systems of dishonesty, you utilize such things to mask your insecurities and dismal glares and vacant grins and fake smiles, but we pray for you in Time magazine and the newspapers hate both of us,
To the madness in every age, that horrid illness that touches the infant and the elder, that rapes the ****** and the *****, and pushes time and stops it, we have crawled far into the prison cell to escape the shadows that are our shadows,
To the innocence splattered on the sidewalk, the blood flows imagination twisted, images of the worse kind, marketed and packaged by the hands of those who work mindlessly in the factories of tyranny, who have wept at the clock longer than the clock has wept at them,
Who have played the guitar with ****** fingertips and poured truckloads of sweat into their musical dreams as the mirrors on the walls reflected a howling skeleton beyond the gates of Eden, who have slept with friends and a friend of a friend as the world turned them against each other by a simple twist of time,
Who have challenged the social order with a gesture or a pen or a bullet as the world broke out against the police and the Pagan feasts, those ragged Bleeker Street dwellers that mopped the Village with ****** hands and hopeful poetry, Simon and Garfunkel’s Sparrow died because of them, those misguided souls that turn their face from the *** who remind them of themselves more than their own reflection, bones, and mistakes,
Whose false impression we are admiring on the vacant walls of impossibility, where the nurturer and the wicked step-mother run circles around the fiction of truth and the books you shall never read but read anyway,
Who have walked the road no one else would walk, but crawled as they talked and walked as they barked beneath the haunted turns of memory wooded wandering, therein lies the hollowed caverns of abyss, the holes within you that turn out to be true, truer and finer than anything you could do,
Who have fought in the wars called upon by the unbearable static currents, those who have lost ears, eyes, fingers, and legs, the wheelchair bound poet in his muted expression, the condemned man and the electric chair, to the barber, teacher, priest, judge and his wife,
To the children at school and the dancing childless fool, who have witnessed death passing by, the lovers and isolated writers, even the aunt and uncles who sigh, we watch, we eat, we challenge what we greet, and the nameless shall remain nameless through the obscured faces of the shameless,
Undertakers reveal their hidden identities as the wealthy man’s child wanders in confusion, to the traveling blues men who have sold the man in the long black coat more than a few songs and strained strings of struggling strumming sorrow,
Painless pandemonium within the pipe-dreaming poets, who have watched houses burn in haunted hapless hoping, but the Nun knows not to place her loyalty with the **** and the sinful nature of our universe,
To the weakened hearts and the heavy souls, to the oversaturated handkerchiefs and the pain very few shall ever know, who have promised the great promise on a lonesome night and waited up for the end of the world as the world ended them,
Who have waited for assurance on the front of the daily newspapers, it is the soundlessness of ignorance that writes all these papers, and the ink reads black, glazed, political, right, left, middle, left, right,
To the editors in chief and the homeless firetrap, to the wrinkled feet caught on nails  throughout America’s chest, the dreamers have dreamed and you shall all wake, to the findings of truth on every corner, to epiphany’s immortal idealized intelligence, the poetry written on dead-end walls and the forgetful shall remember what was lost,
This intoxicating fume of poetry caught, the flame of predication, and all that assuming has deeply wrought.

I challenged him
burly ******* captain
stubbled beard as coarse as sandpaper
standing there in muggy dusk
arms akimbo,
mama san starched uniform stained with swagger and sweat

two silver captain's bars ******* any of my brilliance or bravado
all he had to do was speaketh the words
“need those maps, head out at 2230 hours”
and that was a death sentence
which was commuted to life
if four decades since has been life

there are not words for the black
of moonless jungle
except nothingness and paralytic fear
and through that lightless, lifeless, abyssness
I crawled, crouched and crept along
sometimes as slowly as the minute hand on my watch

the silence, the silence, the silence
became my splintered cross
to carry to my place of crucifixion
at my Calvary Hill behind barbed wire, blue lead barrels and
fearful eyes

silence, silence, silence, black wordlessness
black soundlessness
punctuated by shallow precious breaths
and imagined slant-eyed demons
waiting behind each berm
to turn the timeless night into timelessness
of more black

should I chamber a round?
and follow its solitary sound
into the silent holy night
and shatter my own fragile fright?
would that end this knowing without knowing?
and answer the question,
“is this fear worse than the answer?”
since questions have answers but answers have nothing
the nothing of which I was sure I would become a part
in the silence, the silence, the silence
of the black canopied jungle
in Tay Ninh Province
in 1967

where I was sentenced to death but allowed to live
in silent, black wordlessness
sentenced to live
to wonder, after all these years of shivering fright and flickering light
did the captain become a human?
And was I really allowed to live?

projective geometry used to get me *****
all those positions

,palmately pink and ever green
breathing vasts of void my dark heart laughs in gulping wholes
moaning plenums, hooded over boundless venus-vim

now i'm tired of infinite lines
too many shapes to fit in
too wide, too tight, sharp or empty

,too many ways to come

this was meant to be a disclaimer before a collection of poems

,a way to unclutter
                angst of public  
                              lexicality,
years  after  ­ 'explaining'
                  Samir's 'polygonal me'
                                                to only-me-myself-i-was,
to then indulge this analogic soundlessness...
             
        as i disengage

i can't write without planning on it
i can't write about  writing  without feeling like a fool
                                                            ­                 (,Lear is the only one
that saves me now
                       as now i am the Fool,
                                                 dividing hearts along
in storm-***-love-like railway-*****
                                 steaming full of fiberoptic nooks,
chaining spectra-cogs of a good-will-spirit-****:
                                       concatenated hard-ons every word
each thought a pulsate vulval dream awake,
                                                redichotom­izing lives
                         of shining mons my Athene forehead
                                                      forging fountain thought,
                          urethral letting-beings-be...
freely, my chubby comes back to me
                                         prone before the prostate god)

,in other words
              the same,
                     i cannot write as other than a fool
for
why should i repeat the abject horror of the world?
isn't despair a bit.. overdone at this point?!
and why should i write just the happy!? i'm not in denial, am i?
or am i in denial
about insisting on being in denial absolutely?
--like mind-only schools...
(O the uselessness of words, dismissing patriarchal vigor with yet another wave, the 'brine-milk' ends unending,
forever Femen liberating us of words,
replaced with Fragilaria,
wasting diatomic seas and waterways,
depleted algae gone, extinct: metaphysiCalListo-craticality aborted on a broken Amazonic spear,
our bodies, bodied-hearts, finally won as ours, across Alternaqueeria, fully lucid human-species spanned
i blink my tears and blur my gaze at weeping Pleides

the plan was this: painful poem, pleasure poem, painful poem, happy poem... **** poem, sterile poem, carnal poem, priggish poem, punk poem, open poem, confessing poem, eros poem, **** poem, 'obscene-attractive' poem...
to cleanse inverted mainstreams of my steady-rhythmed pratitpaksha-bhavanams; not "poem, poem, poem, poem..."
but a taut poeming in and out of poems of poemed poiesis prosing poets free to **** again in Issa's snow, or *** on Chiera's cumaholic Shards.

pendulum left, pendulum right; then two pendulums, then none; then one that swings right and left at the same time; then one that spins all the way around, but only clockwise; then one counter-clockwise; then one both clockwise and counterclockwise; then one timeless, then one imaginary one... full of infinite little ones... to represent all the pendulata in the universe as experienced through minor parts of self.. itself as universal part-whole-parcel self-hood spanning star-births yet to come...
,
,
,but it's time to eat a 'square' meal
take off my job-search tie, my peddled lies
                   forget the sunrise vestibules we sipped from,
                                           sleeping by commoding cows

and pretend i'm not dicking myself over
                                                          by­ retreating
into cryptic spectionism-voids again
                                               all seagull-divert-adverts, play
of frozen youth abstrused,
                      self-referred referring loosed
                                          staggered worse than marginalia
no single species 'seagull' singing here

Silence cuts like a slow knife,
Its blade,
Ice cold,
Ruptures my bowel,
Eats up my yearning,
Swallows my defiant screams.

I'd rather rage,
I'd rather have a storm,
Than cruel silence.
I'd choose a song of thunder,
Over a minute of soundlessness.

I'd rather slam doors,
Smash our dinner plates,
Hurl books from their shelves,
I'd rather break things,
Than have the silence break me.

Can I have a moment of silence?
No.

Why can't we just talk it out?
No.

You need to calm down.
No!

I speak the language of
The gods;
Silence.

Years of practice, flexing
Soundlessness
Repeatedly

Until its grip around
My brain's mouth became
Inescapable.

Dead center of any
Construction site;
Loud meetings,

City streets.
I carry a flame of tranquility
Anywhere.

This morning I watched the
Sun rise over Oslo from
The roof of my

Workplace. Pink touching
Blue pushing February
Darkness gently away,

As if whispering a child
Back from sleep.
Seagulls and crows

Dancing. Silences matching
Inner with outer,  
I stood smiling.

Smiling so
Hard I
Cried.

Flies buzz around the still room
like dogs chasing cars.
An old crone is heard nagging beyond the door,
"Don't you think you're leaving to one of them bars!"

Light hasn't entered the room in days;
the dark green curtains have all been closed.
The old lady began banging against the wood,
"You still need to clip my toes!"

The room reeked of cigarette smell.
A half-burnt one existed within the ash tray.
Weeping could be heard from the other side.
"Honey, open up. Don't leave me astray.."

Next to the lime-green chair where he lay,
a dried up pen could be seen leaving his hand.
One scribbled note stood out upon the lamp table.
"Can you get off your *** and fix the **** TV stand?!"

Matilda,
            I have loved you for sixty-three years, sixty of which we've been married and I wouldn't trade it for the world, but during these past couple of years, you've become heartless. You've changed and it saddens me entirely. You're not the woman I fell in love with all those years ago, but rather this ghost that preys on the misfortune of others. Maybe it was all the radiation treatment the doctors performed or perhaps the endless drugs they made you take to numb the pain, but regardless of the mental distortion you now face, I can no longer bear it. I love you, Matilda, but it breaks my heart to see you like this. I'm sorry, but this is indeed goodbye.
                                                                                                            -Henry

The soundlessness lasted for weeks
except for the one shot that ran.
Nothing living remained in that room,
ending the life of that one old man.

Scent of the storm you arouse in my heart
sends rainbow of blessings to bathe
my dreams
in showers of tasteful repeats with which
to start a cascade
of crystaline waterfall in glass-streaming rays.

Soul-warming feelings
in my pounding breast always astound me,
then reeling, set me alight.
Can a soul drown in vibrating soundlessness ?

Threads of an almost-created new heart stand
now impaled
by arrowed decisions because they have found
a fresh start.

They have embroidered time at each corner
of my blazing need,
stitched it with seed-beads to spare
the over-sewn grasses of autumnal hope
to show that though worn,
life is not yet beyond careful repair.

That being so, the taste
of passion's sweet stormy voice will never
again become effaced.

my chest is as smoke, the atoms
are too far apart
from
each
other, and otherwise
like a half-knit-yarn-scarf
fingers dug in and pulled, and
pulled
until the knots all
hung loose
rattling, rattling
there was a nothing there
and i was nothing for
more than a moment.
her voice on the line
was the fog that seeped
around my mind
still seeps up from
the grating now
I am flat, crumbling
stone
loosely in the ground now
pelted by rain and cold
I am cold fever chill
I am the hollow, drifting
gutteral and weakened howl
of the wind, whipping
now languidly, now violently at
my father's tombstone.
His name is carved out
the open grating between my shoulders
he left this world, woken
in the dead of night
in the pain of death
fading to confusion
to the loss of voluntary
and involuntary function
he raised his arms
opened his mouth soundlessly
and wept wide-eyed
into the frozen-form.
the scene of my absence
is the broken record
the image that haunts
I can picture vividly
the sofa he laid on, the burgundy carpet
the bad-body smells
of death, and incontenance
the flashing lights
of a too-late ambulance
the echoes and shadows and smells
clung to and possessed the walls, the floor
for months after
the echo of his open mouth
and open eyes, animal  
it is a home again now, I think
but
I am a shade of
his fear, his reduction, his
soundlessness.

::::::::::
in stillness...in what appears to be quiet
so many things take place...
there's buzzing, hearts are pounding,
faraway drums beating, like thunder, blaring,
in a soundlessness that reverberates,
:::::
       no one can tell when dewdrops fall
      not a sound permeates the air
      they have long been nourishing,
      moistening the grass of the earth, yet,
      no one hears, no one sees, how, or when...

       the leafholder, without a fiber of speed
       in its body....devours a whole leaf,
       there is no chewing, or munching heard
       even when watched, it gives no sounds.
:::::
my purple dendrobium proudly
shows new flower buds with such calm,
from the base of the cattleya orchid, young
green roots take a grasp on the driftwood.
how, or when these took place,
i really didn't hear, or notice.
:::::
      on the street, a humble, lightweight
      house spider, with less than eight legs
       suddenly moved....like tumbleweeds,
       rolling with the blowing of a gusty wind,
       a crawling see-through ball,  entangling
       fallen strands and tiny strips of street dirt,
       i almost stepped on it,
       i didn't notice....i didn't hear...

      the faucet leaks...pail is nearly filled
      there's a gap of many seconds, before
      each drop falls and touches the surface
      of the rising water...too long....most often
      too late....when heard, and noticed...
:::::
so many babies...young children disappear, they
pass away...adults die from many unacceptable
causes......some self-inflicted...some make it normal
an entry into statistics....read, heard, with passing winds...
:::::
we live in this noisiest of planets
every nook, every part, occupied
yet, significant parts of this world....of our life
remain unheard...........unnoticed.

      "i look....but i don't see...
        i listen.....but i don't hear."



Sally

Copyright October 28, 2017
rrab

fallen,

like rivulets of wind pluck autumn leaves
and carpet the ground
they'll be revered for a fleeting instance
and become forlorn,
despite their regal golden-cerise mantle

so have my feelings been regarded,
gone berserk and drowned
frothing on their agape mouth

I curse ego's starvation for human love,
when my spirit pleas for detachment-
I bend my knees with shame
for plunging into ocean of emotions,
those that sprint skin deep
with pragmatism blindfolded

I want no lectures on fate
for I've seen its countenance's smirk,
yet I have bowed like a silent monk

and in this coarse parody
of Hermes' loss of wings,
I precipitate down the abyss
feathers melted down
by the selfsame sun I adore-

but I fall with my heart overflowing with love,
and though deep inside it mourns
in soundlessness,
I embrace its bitter tang with stoicism

then I gently close my eyes and whisper:
“I will always love you,
even with your about-face demeanor
wearing garments
of a million queens…”

I fall into the rain, beneath me;
My sky a glittery dust to thee,
Calling the joy I hath not met,
Thou cometh sweetly, but late.

I fall into the cold, and just me;
Only I understand the clouds,
Oh! I cannot seek that ‘tis so loud,
Too much noise, sickly around me!

Those fallen tears around my head;
The soundlessness of one’s fate,
And hark, in such quietness,
The decrepit being of hotness!

Those ragged stars about my hair;
Closing in on me, and my air,
With hues dyed in drowned sunshine,
But proud still, in its dried signs.

For such heat hath closed me;
Hath sifted me away from you.
For such guilt hath haunted me;
Hath kept me away anew.

For such a love, that thou felt;
But not yet felt again, today,
The gaze that I once beheld,
The words my heart cannot say.

Wherefore art thou, my beloved;
For t’is passion is tainted but pure,
To behold, to instill, to demure,
The meaning of this first love.

Wherefore art thou, my paint;
These poems hath not been said,
I see chaos, and not a flesh of fate,
I hath been loving in vain.

Wherefore art thou, my gaze;
Why cannot I see you through my face,
To hear such a bountiful voice,
To be about thee, in this bliss.

Wherefore art thou, my voyage;
I cannot stay this sober longer,
And hysteria, turning into sobs,
Like death, as my heart throbs.

Wherefore art thou, my colour;
Bestowed on thee my honour,
And age, with my fleeting skin,
Waiting in haste, to be seen.

Wherefore art thou, my winter;
Having too many doubts in summer,
Awaiting a lover that lasts,
By the moonlight and stardust.

Wherefore art thou, my rain;
And the sung that sings again,
To release my midnight, its pain—
To be my beloved, then.

Wherefore art thou, my kiss;
I can see your solemnity,
A thousand unsung melodies,
To bless, to make love to me;

Wherefore art thou, my art;
Too much of me is in my heart,
But none with a charm like thee,
Like the poet in fire, that in me.

Wherefore art thou, my sword;
I am bland now, and unheard,
Unheard as the rain that falls,
Amongst the sheltered walls.

Wherefore art thou, my piano;
The sound that arriveth late,
But not late to be my memento—
To remove all conscious hate.

Wherefore art thou, my word;
Improvised but reckless, my Lord,
Ah! Calm but poisonous, like me,
A fastidious silver, like thee.

Sometimes an emptiness can occupy a room with happiness.
Others may thought this as dumbness and hopelessness.
But they don't know your sickness and soreness.
Emptiness is not nothingness nor numbness.
Its soundlessness speaks inner peacefulness
Bringing inexpressible happiness.

And as I feel your presence
Receding behind me,
Unable to turn around
I freeze
Unable to take a step forward
A step away from you.

And yet you continue to recede
My nonchalant facade
Fading away with you
And I close my eyes
Knowing when I turn around
You'd have disappeared
Leaving darkness in your place,
Sightlessness
Soundlessness...
Lost to a place
Where I can't reach out
And sense your warm memory.

So I don't turn around.
I don't let my emotions flow,
Slowly opening my eyes
To the sight of a grey
Barren world again.

When the last shot has been fired and the dead have been lain to rest, the warriors now must sit in silence and wait for the battle to be over. Though the leaders have come to terms, the wounds of battle might never heal. All that is left is to wait and see what comes next. The sound of cannon fire  and the bugle call sounded the battle to rage on. Now in the silence, the soundlessness is deafening. Louder than any shell explosion. It returns the solider to terror in the night. Knowing peace is harder still because the sense of purpose is lost and guidance has stopped. There is a new enemy and it is from with in. A battle that every warrior must fight after the guns have stopped.

sleep
drops
on
your
body
gravitating
toward
the
embellishment
of
­dreams
and
then
running
off
into
a
reality
chiming
the
bone
to
ma­ke
sound
in
soundlessness
to
knit
the
walls
together
threadbare,
­loose
free
as
a
body
is
like
flotsam
sprinting
back
to
sea

seated by the bedside of a

said street...a flower girl hunkers

down a misreading of color, that

claims family to spring's own.

Chaplin fidgets takes--wala, and it's

ramifying  light years in black &

white, yin and yang proposing to

one another at the same time.

rumpus of a penguin-footed mage.

production costs haunted by the

obsessive revisitation of a moment in

time, that only the right take could

liberate.

rheumatoid arthritis of bad directions,

as skyscrapers nicked by forwarding

motion.

a car door interrupts soundlessness.

the syllable of a first fold--emitting off a local

screen.

Charlie's obstinacy from the first flit of onscreen

voices.

the flower opens...the flower girl smiles.

more overpoweringly than she weeps.

supposedly confusing Charlie's purchase,

offering change to an unwitting elderly gentleman

that enters a car whose door slams, startling

cinematic history.

too spare for the things she thought she

couldn't see...

as it were, Charlie could not abscond

from the blind flower girl.

he actually fired and rehired the same

actress.

she finally doused him with a flower ***,

as he attempted to sit beside her.

The quiet.
Something so simple
Something that used to terrify me
But now
Now I find myself finding comfort
Comfort in the creaks of the floorboards
Comfort in the wind again the windowpane
Comfort in the soundlessness of it all
The quiet.
No longer something I fear
Instead it becomes something I long for
A moment alone with my thoughts
A moment alone without a care in the world
A moment to appreciate the little sounds around me
The quiet.

silent droplets on true blue pool
      humid taxi twilight
           I stare, aware

My mother was worn down
By another fleeting frantic morning
My brother bounced 'round
And erupting with around
Earned himself another scorning

I lay between sleeping soundlessness
And wakeful motion
And me in my restfulness
So comfortable and not yet dressed
Was committed to my devotion

To be obstinate through disruptions
ignoring the turmoil of my mother
my brother's scheming decptions
His  boiling youthful eruptions
the sounds of smacks that fell upon my brother

And me now stiring
Smiled at the swelling scene
And now aware of what was occurring
Laughed with senses keen
And still not prepared
To intervene
Stretched and stared
At the battered fiend

Introduction: once again I incorporate
my trademark penchant
to fabricate fictitiously
portions of the following poetic endeavor
can you care to
discern fact from fiction?

Attempts at lifelong friendships and holy matrimony...

Shot thru with figuratively cankerous nub,
cuz yours truly did flub
even though as a scouting cub
how yours truly - alias Phil Anderer
committed faux paw unlike me papa bear,
he set admirable example
sidestepping and skirting carnal temptation,
(****** one... two...; ****** one... two...)
squelching roaring testosterone
against succumbing, rutting, quieting
call of the wild desire meaning
inevitably envisioning seducing,
mounting, kissing, caressing...
receptive quite pleasing gals,
nonetheless merely fending off such
verboten enticement left him panting.

Think surrendering to playful kibitizing
as kickstarter to hanky panky;
said violation against matrimonial covenant,
thwarting potential indiscretion subsequently
linkedin with Capital one aplomb.

I never bore witness
seeing me dada caught
in sexually compromised contretemps
to any aforementioned high fidelity hubbub,
yet his sole male offspring (me)
begat courtesy Harriet and Boyce,
(but one minor tidbit to share,
neither father nor mother physically alive
they long since passed away
to Elysian Fields)
found their one and only son - nada faithful
blithely nixing pledged troth,
which rent asunder filial bond

between self and precious progeny
plus provoked wrathful ire
and eventually forgiving soul of thee missus,
nevertheless her heartfelt
initial fury at discovery
of absent husband from Bryn Mawr quarters
didst activate pulse
to throb considerably faster
and louder than usual subdued lub dub
and even at present
when daring to discuss
mine moonlighting one night tryst
as Casanova wannabe, which
hard drive of mine generated message
Abort, Retry, Fail?

Though ***** never freed
flagellated empowered gamete sea men
despite libido being shifted to high gear;
****** ******* never consummated,
nor ****** ******* bliss experienced
much less allowed, enabled and provided
ditto the recipient of mine adulterous affections.
Far fetched fanciful whim
(hard to believe) fallacy
complicity, excitedly, and willfully
following imaginative thought,
though following whim never expressed,
but how rousing, spellbinding,
tantalizing the thought of foreplay
exciting, fondling, goading
receptive flirtatious paramour,
an alluring mistress of color
to attempt and strategize my abduction
as random human trafficked heist
held prisoner until an undisclosed
sum of ransom money
delivered to the captors.

The wife ofttimes references taboo subject
regarding aborted love affair
(alluding to side piece as underhanded gibe)
upon being probed, questioned, and raked
over figurative coals with intimate queries.

These mild interrogations
trigger a sudden uptick
in voluminous silence;
tick tock transpires soundlessness
spikes male level lent rub,
between one once randy husband
and grateful wife; she exhibited forgiveness;
how virtuous ma lady accepting spouse,
which whole frisky fiasco
(on a Freaky Friday)
fostered felicitous flagrante delicto
induced reciprocal black barbs upon psyches
their paternal parent inflicted.

Although antics unbecoming
monogamous kickstarted, declared, and avowed
essentially compromising legally binding union
long since ceased
(matter of fact yesterday April 21st, 2022
me and the missus
went shopping at BJ's. Whole Club
200-C Mill Rd, Oaks, PA 19456),
the psychological fallout
still indelibly etched.

Tumultuous emotions roiled
driving past long gone
home of me childhood
324 Level Road no longer exists,
yet chuckful of memories
flooded mine consciousness
flashback triggered gamut
of existential trials and tribulations.

As a youngster behavior of yours truly
(i.e. mine) never purportedly "bad"
rather reserved, I gave no indication
then how such a cute beastie boy
when becoming acculturated
within loving family provenance
versus disaster later married life evinced
displayed, exhibited, and flaunted
characteristics antithetical, diabolical,
heretical, and piratical
(so much for hyperbole)
par excellence of an exemplary cad,
a most definite poor example

and embarrassment of one
good for nothing dad
to two adorable daughters,
who deserved better egad
myself as basket of deplorable
father figure in retrospect me not glad
carrying on illicit affair
trying to compensate
while cultivating the row
(elle) regarding husbandry
during and post pubescence
never going out on date,
nor kissing an attractive lass,

when poet of Perkiomen Valley
scores of years ago
besotted with anguish
extremely, governed as introvertedly,
and painfully shy lad,
(he knew nothing about
powder milk biscuits)
and more or less describes himself
during his adolescence as a "wallflower"
self deprivation concerning experiencing
life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness
found aging logophile mad
at himself missing out

on typical social/interpersonal casual forays
donned in fashionable dungarees and plaid
fast forward to mein kampf as unhappily wed
whereby hours spent
(rather wasted) posting
and answering personal classifieds
for female assignations
numbering well into bajillions
in other words quite a scad
only countless lunar months ex post facto
did sincere regret prevail
mooch more'n a tad;
dalliances involving barenaked ladies
costing inxs of any legal tender ***.

it was done through you on April Fool's Day 1876--Offenbach, Germany.
even so, irony is for the pairers of unlikelies, wowed by what poetic mystique they can milk.
you were carefully stacking fresh copies of the first part of your magnum opus:
"The Philosophy of Redemption"--on the floor of your apartment.
the weather must've been hiding evidence of winter, with sloven chills hasting its spine.
a raw cusp of bipolarities, like an unwelcome lovesickness.
you were winter for thirty-four years, its
last will & testament.
it was ****** upon you with your mother's ****--no one could see where that would go but you.
as far as death can go as a religion, it got into you as the only purifier.
there was Phillip, death & its world.
it was more than the transitory triteness of a: "living-death", you were its absolutist.
you gave nothing time to transition to that inevitability, death was--inherent & imminently supreme.
constance with no need of reminder, this
rootless seed durated until your philosophy was realized.
strange was the way that had you, finding it appalling for heads to rear at the way you were--you published under a pseudonym.
outside was a pregnant music box, atypical sounds made by soundlessness.
your four walls unfortified, they stood after the fact while before it.
you stepped on to the stacked stair of your philosophy--to the word.
as you were given to a noose whose knot
tightened with more confliction than you.