You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs?
and the poppy-petalled metaphysics?
and the rain repeatedly spattering
its words and drilling them full
of apertures and birds?
I'll tell you all the news.

I lived in a suburb,
a suburb of Madrid, with bells,
and clocks, and trees.

From there you could look out
over Castille's dry face:
a leather ocean.
My house was called
the house of flowers, because in every cranny
geraniums burst: it was
a good-looking house
with its dogs and children.
Remember, Raul?
Eh, Rafel?         Federico, do you remember
from under the ground
my balconies on which
the light of June drowned flowers in your mouth?
Brother, my brother!
Everything
loud with big voices, the salt of merchandises,
pile-ups of palpitating bread,
the stalls of my suburb of Arguelles with its statue
like a drained inkwell in a swirl of hake:
oil flowed into spoons,
a deep baying
of feet and hands swelled in the streets,
metres, litres, the sharp
measure of life,
stacked-up fish,
the texture of roofs with a cold sun in which
the weather vane falters,
the fine, frenzied ivory of potatoes,
wave on wave of tomatoes rolling down the sea.

And one morning all that was burning,
one morning the bonfires
leapt out of the earth
devouring human beings --
and from then on fire,
gunpowder from then on,
and from then on blood.
Bandits with planes and Moors,
bandits with finger-rings and duchesses,
bandits with black friars spattering blessings
came through the sky to **** children
and the blood of children ran through the streets
without fuss, like children's blood.

Jackals that the jackals would despise,
stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out,
vipers that the vipers would abominate!

Face to face with you I have seen the blood
of Spain tower like a tide
to drown you in one wave
of pride and knives!

Treacherous
generals:
see my dead house,
look at broken Spain :
from every house burning metal flows
instead of flowers,
from every socket of Spain
Spain emerges
and from every dead child a rifle with eyes,
and from every crime bullets are born
which will one day find
the bull's eye of your hearts.

And you'll ask: why doesn't his poetry
speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his native land?

Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
The blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
In the streets!

Dear boy who I threw my virginity at,

I never expected you to like me,
I purposefully picked you because I thought you were a **** boy.
We'd **** and forget.
I was some random chubby senior
and you were some random ****** sophomore.
But then you didn't let me leave,
even when I tried, you only held me closer.

I liked you because I thought you must honestly like me.
I liked you because I could not see how someone like you
could like someone like me.
You went for the skinny, blonde, dumb ones,
I was not skinny, nor blonde, nor dumb.

And I liked your dumbness, your childish innocence,
even though I was way more innocent than you.
I liked that you defied all my expectations
when you were sweet, and vulnerable, and there.

And I loved when you were ratchet,
when you'd slap my *** in public,
or try to force your hand down my pants while I was driving or on the phone.
I loved it when we'd go to parties and not actually show up because we'd just be ******* in my car.

But I was leaving to college and refused to ever call you my boyfriend but I liked you.
I liked you because nothing about us made sense,
but we did it anyways.

and then I ****** someone else, just to show you have much I didn't care about us, but I did.

Dear man who I played,

You came to me when I was at a low,
low point in my life.
I believed nothing I did was wrong and everything about me was perfect.
I was fine,
even if everyone around me told me I was not.
I was not fine.

And then you came to me,
and you were everything I was supposed to avoid.
You were way older than me, worked for my father and even dated one of his exes, and your life was going nowhere.
You were perfect.

And I didn't like you that way, you never gave me butterflies,
you never made me giggle every time you slapped my ***,
but you made me *** and our relationship made me walk on egg shells.

And I saw you fall for me, I saw you wrap yourself around my finger
saying the whole time you expected nothing of me.
And maybe that was true, but you wanted it all, you wanted all of me
and I craved that.

And now every time I see your name pop up on my phone I feel grimy.
I feel grimy because I can finally feel the weight of how wrong you were for me,
I feel grimy because of the overwhelming guilt I feel for feeling disgusted by you,
someone I never liked but almost made fall in love with me.
because of the overwhelming guilt I have for being such a ****
and the shame of allowing myself to be so cold.

so I stopped responding.

Dear boy with the beautiful eyes,

I liked you, I really liked you.
I thought we fit together so nicely,
and yes, at first you were another that I was not supposed to go for.
You could have been fired and constantly had a gun on you.
You were supposed to be protecting us
and that was ****.

And then you whispered sweet things in my ear in your broken english,
and we spent a whole night only kissing, and I loved every minute,
yearning but not needing more.  
I could have kissed you forever.

then came the staring, you'd look at me and say nothing, and I was mesmerized.
and you'd trace my ****** features and I never felt more special, more wanted, more loved.
and I never wanted you to stop staring at me because I never wanted to stop staring at you.

and then I was at your house,
with your lovely, hippie family.
and you made me breakfast and tea, and we read together on the couch,
each in our own language.

and every time we ******, you'd look into me and I felt like maybe this is what people meant when they said making love.

You'd wrap me in your arms, and I never wanted to leave,
but ever comforted by the fact that in a few weeks I would be leaving
to a different country, to a different life, to somewhere where
I would not have to face my growing feelings for you.

and now I sit with a heavy heart, half way across the world, missing you and your beautiful eyes.

Dear boy who gives me bruises,

I think I like you, and it scares me because you do not live half way across the world.
You live down the hall.

It scares me because you are smart, weird, fun, and someone I could actually date.
And I don't date, I ****.

It scares me because I still have nightmares that your ex/my ex-bestfriend will still ****** me if she ever knew we were *******,
but thats another story.

I like the way you are unapologetically odd,
a slob and sometimes completely antisocial.
I'm always sad when you don't sleep over after ***
but I enjoy how awkwardly you say good night and leave.

But I love how ***** and rough our *** is.
it's not the best *** I've had,
but its *** with you that I always want to have
and its the same *** I fantasized about in high school while watching ****.

it's so twisted
and I twirl in the mirror, admiring the countless bruises covering my *** and spattering my collar bone.

We've boxed ourselves in this drunken corner
of such ****** up *** that I think were scared to do it sober.

I love our drunken after-*** rambles about philosophy and life
but as soon as the ***** runs out and the sun rises,
it's all the same awkward laugh and shifty gazes at the floor.

and I wonder what the **** I'm trying to do with you, this boy who loves memes and rough *** and has such a brilliant mind,
and the answer is I have no ******* idea.

And when I'm honest with myself, I think I like you because you don't like me so all this fear is for nothing.

but I wait for the ***** to flow again and the sun to set, and for us to do it all over again.

Sometimes,
words hit like bolts
of yellow and blue lightning.
Erupting from their
bottled container,
spattering bits of
charred glass
and gore of the
words that have been contained for far too long.
Reckless in their nonconformity
with what is expected,
what is,
and what needs
to be said.
When they spill
out of painted or chapped lips
like liquid fire.
Fire and lightning
that burns and singes
and electrifies
everything they touch.
Almost as painful
as the real thing.

'ello little ones with spinning tantrums
join us for roundabout logic with spattering snare drum hits
little is known but all else is shown
greed is implied when famine runs itself dry
feathered hat is also worn quite stylistically

when a painter has it down
when the motions are riveting and somewhat gruesome
the painter laughs heartily with bottom line basics
these basics aren't whatever
they are whenever, correction! excuse me

so don't jump down from your tree yet
so don't tarnish jupiter's rings beforehand
that is saturn in disguise
a method of consumption that is a bit better from time to tick tack

jelly is on my bread tonight
is it off of yours then?
I would count on it if it wasn't my best answer
I would forget without you if I could
but I never do

spinach and sausage mix well
query them further for a hot dog roll with seeds
of the sesame variety
what do you find but bitter taste?
a dessert
inklings of sweetness
and edges of filth

Her prairie hair is grass gone to seed,
her voice vibrates on a fiddle string.
She taught you the meaning of homeward,
Americana Pollyanna, you tangle her name
in the cold northeastern stars.

She spills tall tales across the porch,
the air smells of thunder and cherry pie.
As a child she caught fireflies in jars
and has a scar in the shape of Alabama,
Pollyanna.

Tonight,
snow clouds roll through Chicago, the air is thin.
You stand in the window on a two hour layover
and look Homeward.

Pollyanna Mystica, a sky full of constellations
that you have already begun to forget:
watermelon seeds spit from the porch,
a spattering of insects on the windshield,
beautifully and infinitely random.


Freckles that trail down her knees and bare feet,
meandering paths you have followed before.
Pollyanna Diana, an fat moon smiles down on
the Kentucky dirt, rutted and red
where she will lay down her tired bones.

and i'm not afraid to fight
and i'm not afraid to die
and i
am
not
afraid.

[actually, i am not
much of anything right now]


and i.


there are days when i find it
immeasurably
desirable
to just rip my organs out-

-just rip them
right ******* out,
i never knew nails could dig through flesh like
that until she did it-

- blood spattering all over that painting i
just finished, dear what a waste i was
going to get an a on that.


there's a hollow right behind my heart
that i can't feel until you leave
i feel
incomplete without you, that's what
love is
but i don't-
can't-
love you
because if i did
i'd feel too guilty when i hurt you
and believe me darling i can hurt you.


[ icanhurtyou ]


there's the kind of girl you don't want to love
because she doesn't care
[about you]
at all and that is me.

there's that girl.  
sitting on the rooftops
like she
gives a
****
about her image
she's not vain she's just conflicted
and she's sitting there
like she
gives a ****.

there's a war going on
in my head and it's
****** gruesome.
the doctor diagnosed me
with self-induced apathy
and he was
so right
i
ripped my
heart
out-

i hate my emotions
so much i
tear them apart
and keep them
like secrets
in the pit of my stomach.
they're better food than the lies she told me

and so much sweeter

and i [.]

lied too, forgive me dear.  
forgive me for not wanting to feel.

i
am
too
afraid.

Amber flames flickering In the hearth,
Shadows dance across the wall,
Candle sputtering on the table,
Casting an eerie glow on the page
The book being read, strange tales
Outside the wind surges, spattering
Rain against the leaden panes
Warm and cosseted against the storm
The page is turned, the story continued
A single scratch at the window,
And a rattling of the latch
The book drops …

The sun fires down, oppressive
and I decide to have a break
from my slow trek towards the West and
take a table for a drink—

the conditions being so extreme,
I prepare to indulge myself,
order pizza and green tea
and toast, alone, my youth and health—

there along the subway wall
surrounded by the heights of old cuisines,
the best of ancient cultures crawl
to beg and sell from on their knees

to me, the *** of modern times
who orders pizza and green tea,
who stands to pack his books and lines
then, rising, slow and sluggish leaves—

yet, as I resume my heat-wave march
the décor reveals itself bit by bit:
a spattering of bullet holes—stark
shards from old slabs of wall been ripped

Sometimes it rains a bit
And you aren’t prepared
But it can be rather pretty
So, don’t be so scared.
It cools the temperature
From the clouds above,
Makes a walk the kind
The kind you grow to love.

You won’t need an umbrella;
So what if it’s a smattering?
Nothing wrong with that,
A bit of misty spattering?
Just a bit of a shower
Nothing bad in that.
Be a very happy person,
Under the brim of a hat

A bit of a puddle at times
Depending on your shoes.
It is not a big tragedy
No reason for the blues.
It’s just you and nature
Enjoying the day together.
Mother Nature and child
Spending time with each other.

So go ahead and wander
Out in the misting rain.
Take a cleansing saunter
Let weather clear the brain.
Celebrate just being here
A world gone squeaky clean
Like a painting by Monet
In an artist’s magazine.

Inside, Your cancer's beating heart
My ******* shakes, dirt dust gone
I swipe the sand away. For every ounce of ****
Laughing out meaty red raw steaks and size zero thighs.

     - For everythingsobad. You rattle my dream box with your sweet blue face and your gauges for neither being an idiot or being human. Too cute of you booboo. Captivity claws at you, you big bafoon, intolerant, shuffling your predicates back and forth during your 12am nonsensical *******. So long as it doesn't interfere with your curfew.

Like soggy altered-state popcorn. Your butter catches more flies than knives, the inauthentic gestures spattering over the rhythms and rolls of your fingertips is torture to watch. Kitchen countertop influenza. A tired dictionary of sad words, poor misfortunes, tired eyelids, silty and sandy crusty inside corners of the eyes

                           .rearing privilege

countertop crawlers. inaudible coos used by muses who can't keep their musings from tangling the long distance dial tone soaring through the ears like an Italian operatic melodrama. A horse, three brides, and a funeral. One woman, a sick child, blindness, blinding caused by toxins of the body stuck inside your gelatinous fishlike eyelids. Where's there an eye bib and a lance when you need one? A nifty electric toothbrush shank with extra reach and plaque protection. You're the kitchen sink they threw in, a budget meeting with a data analysis staph infection. A government where nobody wins. All the kids grow up with thin skin and an aorta with no ventricles in it. It's like the cynical prison system that we had to survive in our 8th grade basement dungeon. Thundering, curmudgeons drugging sluggishly, **** teen thugs. Preteen pornstars sluicing cash through their meaty canals, ******* the ******* and ******* the back bare in a messy afternoon of **** *******. Crusty infectious rumors made worse by brothers and moms, eating handfuls of Norco just to keep the family strong.

It began when I skipped lunch
When snacks became meals
And food became calories
I stopped standing and began to kneel
It started with pictures on blogs
Collar bones, thigh gap, dead eyes
Worshiping goddesses who never eat
Whose smoke curls as easy as their lies

It was about being weightless
Being skinny, being happy
To wither and fold into myself
"Somebody please look at me!"
Now my eyes are heavy
I have to hug the wall to get anywhere
Colorful bruises bloom on my legs
The room's spinning, black spots everywhere

I'm like Atlas, holding up my world
With shaky hands, bloods spattering everywhere
Step by step I keep moving, it's never enough
I'm killing myself over what size clothes I wear
Two years ago I wanted this
Asking Google a list of excuses not to eat
Now I think I'm dying, looking up heart arrhythmias
Because I can't follow a single beat

angels.

angels who miss their wings at 3 am when they feel more out of place in this body then before, angels who need pain to bring themselves out of their dreams, who ink themselves with words only prophets would understand; angels who have the most ordinary jobs like bus drivers and paper boys, people see them and think about them for moments too long.

angels who turn to drinking and smoking, trying to forget the feeling of their wings pushing air behind them as they flew. angels who can't avoid the call of the sky and become pilots who are always drinking coffee because the caffeine reminds them of the golden ichor that was once flowing through their veins.

vengeful angels who become pilots as well, who terrorize the winged folk to feel powerful again, to feel control again. angels who message each other, fingers trembling as they type out their dreams, trying to grab those memories that are just out of reach, gauzy and filled with blood and silver-tinted skin and golden eyes and so many feathers. angels who live in church basements and see pictures of themselves in the stained glass windows and go unclothed, trying to reach that feeling of purity, freedom.

fallen angels who burn churches, filling their lungs with smoke as they climb to the steeple, not just from reprisal but from the feeling of mutiny. angels who ride out into the country alone with a handful of stolen cash who steal from nearly empty gas stations and throw rocks at the windows of abandoned barns after they've climbed to the roof and back to earth. angels who streak their backs with ashes because they don't have the scars that they should from having their wings torn away and the golden ichor doesnt bleed away and stain the ground like it used to.

angels who hang out in bookstores and coffee shops because they're looking for an oracle or someone, anyone, who will listen to their impossible dreams of flight and blood spattering the ground, of fighting and dying and they can't explain it.

angels with shaky hands who try to find love because there's something missing and everyone tells them that love will help them, and maybe it does, but there are always angels out there who have loved and loved and there is still something BROKEN, something LOST, and it's been pounded into their minds that they'll never know what it is. angels who run with demons and devils because there's nothing quite like the rush of running in the dark, standing at the edge of the city and feeling the wind nearly blow you off as you curl your toes on the edge of the roof, so close to the sky it takes their breath away.

angels.

Forecasted detachment
Pours onto the floor
Oh, sweetie,
Did you really think I could take any more?

The disorganized mess
A constellation of blood drops
Are spit-sput-spattering
Razor blades are my props.

Barbed wire barriers
Built up in seclusion
I close the heavy curtains
And hide inside my illusion.

I say safety
Is solely for the weak
But trapped inside my emotions
I have no logical right to speak.

Life is like
A buret of acid
In a high school lab

It slowly drips away, imperceptibly at first
But then it's suddenly gone

Sometimes, a careless student
Will unhinge the stopcock completely
And the life will pour out quickly

Sometimes, someone will be clumsy
And knock the buret from the stand
Breaking it in the middle
And the life will drain out
All at once
Spattering all over the counter

And in the end
Wether the reaction was magnificent
Or mundane
Those around the buret will take note
Write up their lab reports
And the buret will be one of the many
Random memories
Of a class and year
That passed too quickly

An empty street succumbs to one
solitary walker, anonymous
in his raincoat, listening to his
own footsteps, and the camping holiday rain,
dripping. Pigeons mutter disapproval
at this inconsiderate interloper.

His stride shortens, pace quickens, feeling
discomfort at his isolation,
his cold wet feet spattering through puddles.

Grids gurgle, lace curtains tremble.
Mute unseen watchers focus on this
dark figure at the centre of the
taciturn invisible crowd.

Guessing his destination and
motives - a night worker
or burglar up to his tricks -
until his key opens number
twenty-six. Uncountable stealthy
spies retreat and sigh.

Rope.
You hung me from your neck and laughed at the choke.
At the blue.
At the fumble of breath.
Ownership.

And a month later, me telling you about the the others.
And the others.

And you- swinging. Blind. Crying.

And me. Laughing.
Teeth glinting in the dim light from the top of the basement stairs.
And the police, in all of their sirens and lights and urgency.
Saving the day saving the night saving lives.

And you- lying on the ground.
Help me, you say.
The police rush to you.

And the door- knives steady and deep in the wood.
My hands are stronger than they look.
My accuracy unmatched.

And me- handcuffed over the red spattering on my shirt,
being forced into the backseat.
"Who's blood is this?" They ask.
I am quiet. Cold. Stone.
I am laughing.
The darkness swallows me.

I am 18.
I have arterial spray on my cheek.

The officer asks for a reason.
A why. Why why why.
That's what they all want to know.
But I grind my teeth.
This car ride is boring me.

The handcuffs are loose, I slip my arm out of one.
I smile in the quiet of the backseat.
Life is too easy for me.

A November memory.

At the sound of the pigeons scratching in the gutters, we both looked up;
your eyes the size of noodle bowls,
my stomach aflutter.
When the first big drops fell, the pigeons took flight,
you wrapped your arms around my legs,
and I bent down to hold you tight.
The front door sheet metal canopy was soon spattering its own language,
but you seemed to understand;
you told me to bolt the lock,
took me by the hand, and showed me the way to the miscellaneous drawer,
Get some candles, you said; your words not yet cold
when the weather took our electricity.
A delightful giggle escaped your mouth as I struck the last soggy match;
you sang Happy Birthday to me!
while the fifth candle was hissing to life.
I burnt my fingers, and a rogue gust of wind took all the flames;
I saw you in a different light
while darkness was juggling with my sight:
that angelic face hovering in front of my eyes,
only for an instant before being painted over,
layered in the colours of all life’s essentials,
which will eventually shape you, some – along the way – break you,
no more could I see your beautiful smile;
a toothless old woman was staring back at me.

Daddy, you whispered with honest concern in your voice,
Is that you? You look so old, Daddy?

I didn’t answer. I couldn't.

A storm was brewing.

In my chest.

Running through the forest,
Beyond the intruding trunks,
Over roots that reached from the soil,
I've been snapping twigs,  
Only to leave a trail blood,
Staining the forest floor crimson green,

But it is his nature to go his own way,
To tear through the pain,
To become the greatest thing he can perceive,
Draining the decadence from his veins,

It isn't like he is a thief,
Just a minuscule entity,
Till he solidifies his being,
So that others can learn of him, even by turn pages on three rings,

Dripping,
Drooling,
Confident he will be confined to the history books,
Despite being destined,
Despite living with the acceptance,
Dredging the evidence,
Of being fit for a grave someday,

Staining the leaves,
We might as well strive,
To leave our mark,
To sight our sites for the sake of a dream,
Whatever helps you and me sleep,

Not seeking violence,
So bless you all,
I wish there was a god,
Because I’d pray,
I beg,
I’d follow the one who could tie the unknown fray
Uniting us all
Bring the silence to my lips,
And peace during your stay,

But demanding an almighty beacon will not help right now,
It is just us my friends,
On a world siphoned from stars,

So we must insure the change,
Because there isn't an chance a deity could save us from our social decay,  
There is no need to cover up your granddad’s scars,
The pillars of our personal rise ,

Not a loss cause but on course for an evolutionary delay,
That is why he’s running through the wood,
Stumbling over roots,
Spattering chromosomes all over the place,

He's you and me,
Just sprinting through an existence,

Only to be sliced by those that brought you into this natural cage,
Captives unable to escape a fate,
Invisible stage, my arrival was set to a predetermined date,

Pleading pity, I was conceived without a say,
We must avoid those twigs they consider the vines of divinity,
To show them your just another human,
Potentially the ending to our plight through a naturally nourished might.

could my restlessness
just be little earthquakes
calling for tremulous gestures
like a flick of a string
attached to
the puppet's lifeless wrist
wherein lies the
constantly turning nebulae
satisfied only by the
empty obsidian space
a spattering of crystal
on midnight whisperings

my bed clings to me
a parting lover
or perhaps a parasitic twin
bound to me by flesh
our surgical silk bond
rope veins lashing us together
tied in perfect boy scout
honor badge knots
sharing my blood that is
now our own

why does the throbbing nothing
seated right between my temples
cry out in agony for
the stillness of a deep sleep
and yet rages against
my fluttering eyelids
hummingbirds on honeysuckle
scattering to dust
at the coming nuclear winter
that ever consuming fission reactor
at precise center
pointing true north
the exact point within me
where each other position is
equal distance

i write to you
somewhere out there
a beautiful part of that world
a string in the tapestry
that no theory could ever define
i write to you so you can know
that i straddle the brick wall
barricading this world
from the ever-present storm of chaos

half of me is woven to you
but half of me is still being pulled
by the unfathomable gravity
of a black hole

Fogged-up glass
Rain drops
Blood drops
Spattering,
****** handprint
Streaking down like the rain

Imaging flashing into my head
I need to turn this into a proper poem

Across the room they sat;
Sipping coffee and chatting.
Young, engrossed in each other,
Blind to the bustling cafe around.
But in came a man, maybe a bull;
His breath vanished when he saw her.
Boldly he challenged, "A duel!
For that hand, fair and pure."
At once hushed, we watched;
The challenged stood with pride,
"With sabres; at once!"
Aghast she watched lover and challenger
Take up arms for her favor.
Quick as lightning they began
Dancing with death as wounds developed.
Equal they seemed after countless clangs,
Suddenly slash! A **** grew
Across his throat, red blood sprayed
Spattering the victor; a messy trophy.
The challenger threw his sabre
Into the fresh corpse of his enemy,
"Now where is my fair hand?"
He could not find her amidst the cafe;
She had vanished. Enraged he withdrew
The weapon and impaled himself.
Where had the beauty gone?
Away with the victor true; who?
I, the bystander.

The lights
Are going
Out.
Slow but sure.
My life is a city
My body
Is a city
Traffic stops and starts
Pumping blurred light through my veins
Webs of
Streets
My bones
Are twinkling skyscrapers
My skyline
Jagged
But blazing neon.
I stand at the center
Of a city
Spread like a galaxy on the night-black earth
But
The lights
Are going
Out.
The day you turned away
The outskirts of my life
Began to dim
Blink
Blink
Blink
Somebody's throwing switches
In a lonely tower
Outside of town
And darkness eats the map
From the outside
In
First the spattering of streetlights on the edges
Goes dark
And then
The outskirts
Convenience stores and billboards
Bridges
Then the boroughs
One by one
Blink
Blink
Blink
It's coming for me
And I see it.
I stand at the center of a dying
Constellation
Of a city
Under siege
I stand and watch the lights go out
Far away
Closer
Closer
Closer
Street by street
Building by building
Day by day
The lights
Are going
Out
And I
Have never been scared
Of the dark
But this
This is new
This is blackness growing steady
Street by street
Between me
And you
Between me
And everyone I've ever met
And I
Am
Afraid
Of that
Dark,
Scared like a child
And
I'm not sure what to do
Because
The lights
Are going
Out.

"A child may not be
considered a piece of property-
only the child possesses genuine rights
the Right to be respected as a person
from the moment of his conception"
He was born in the year 1964
A world on the brink of splitting open,
On the edge of revolution, progress, protest

The stained glass windows speckled from the rain
Incense and old wood covered in fingernail imprints
Matching those on the sides of his arms
A small choir singing hymns of Salvation and Praise
His mother nudges him "stand up straight, eyes forward"
A mind wandering from the homily on Sacrifice
To the images of bombings in Hamburg

Adorned with black and white collars
Gripping an unlabeled wine bottle
The children sprinted through the wooded trails
Mud spattering across their legs and dress shoes
The others spun in circles, as if trapped in jewelry boxes
Their ankles dressed in pink ribbons
This was no place for innocence and imagination
But one of penance and prayer

He kept his toy cars and trains in a green metal box under his bed
It wasn't much, but they were his
Through them locking him in the closet for hours
And being told to not speak unless spoken to
The times of self expression, of emotion, feeling
Shamed and forced suppression - turned to repression
These cars and trains, they were his

Mental illness is a myth
Suicide is a mortal sin
We decide who you are
You cannot feel
Kneel down
Be quiet
Say your prayers

Eat your Eton Mess
and all the rest 
of the fattening food
you can fit into
your gluttonous guts

Make a display
in front of us
in front of them
in front of me
so we can clearly see

      the greed of the aristocracy

Caligula would be proud
to join the ‘Hunt’
to find the fox
to feed the hounds
spattering blood
on red coats
all around

This ‘tradition’ 
is sedition
to the king of reason
and the queen of hearts
who rule these parts

Drops fall from the grey,
Singly spattering leaves
Crashing through foliage
To bounce upon the earth
landing in cracks, amongst the roots
Your tears fall from eyes
To touch to the cheek,
A shimmering memory
Of a twice grey day

Depression and Anger met.
The world thought Anger took charge,
maybe even forced Depression.
But it was not Anger,
laughing at the spattering blood.
LOOK AT THOSE BRAINS

Depression had a plan to die.
To find his freedom, meet his love.
He didn't mind killing for it.

Anger had a plan to ****.
To find his power, meet his strength.
He didn't mind dying for it.

But Anger loved Depression.
Depression didn't care.
As they walked into the school,
Anger wasn't angry.
He was doubtful and afraid.
Depression screamed at the top of his longues.
*TODAY IS THE DAY I DIE

Brilliant little lines etched out to stretch the time.
Minds placing X's and O's in an attempt to make straight lines,
but a circle never ends,
so let's pretend we're stuck in spiral.
Swirling through the twisted bits,
like DNA strands spinning in a double helix.
We're nothing but a mix of atoms mashed together.
An explosion of fused matter;
spattering the heavens with our essence.

A torrent, a tempest
with nowhere to blow
water overflowing
pouring below
nothing to hold
water only flows
no where to go
spattering below

boiling, but no steam
as pressures increase
insanity in reach
with each, with each...
nothing to teach
just energy to burn
and burn
nothing to learn
only burn and burn
until smoke screams

trapped in a dream
can't run
or release, the page
'til it's done

what has our intelligence done for us
other than soften our instinct
slow down our reflex
made us into habitual
connoisseurs of convenience
curators of insta-gratification  
creatures of know it all
without the need
to understand anything
the universe just
a night sky out of reach
just a spattering of stars dot the sky
all the cosmos overhead
and we are too consumed
by the blue screens that feed
the narcissism of our egos
to look up in awe and wonder
to question the arrogance
of our intelligence
to see how little we know
about the things we know
as we have killed the view of heaven
with the artificial light of our pollution
facts blurred with faith
and we ignore all the fiction
that causes so much friction
that we allow our children...
that we force our children...
to ****** other children
boys feeling like men
poisoned by patriotism and pride
in such a rush to die
for the words of freedom
never stopping to question
the definition of the repetition
and redundancy of war
never stopping to question
the repetition
and redundancy of war
never stopping to question
the redundancy
never stopping
the redundancy
the redundancy of war
as we will not question the intelligence
that infects us with
the sovereignty to be exalted
by our own cruelty
how else could we excuse
our history that keeps repeating
keeps its transcripts written
in the death and blood of the innocent
mislead by prejudice and hate
taught by fear and ignorance
all brought to us
by what we call intelligence

why were we given these hearts
this muscle beating below our ribs
what good is it
if only driven
by the intellect of our minds
our self indulgent intelligence
why have hearts at all
if we never stop to listen
listen to the message
of its beating
its pounding on our ribs
if we never stop to accept the wisdom
it sings in ever silent word
words that need no definition
need no ink or blood
written down in a declaration
of its reason to be living
it needs not our intelligence to survive
our intellect to live
it has its own wisdom
the wisdom of love
and in our grand intelligence
we are too blind to see
too deaf to hear
too unwilling to feel the truth
of how useless any intelligence is
without the wisdom of love

She wanted to take him to see a
Work of art that was much too large
To fit inside of a gallery;
The view from a green bridge,
The river down below.
He was afraid of heights and would not look down, but
They walked hand in hand and his warm pulse helped her understand
That the way to frame such a masterpiece, was to
Make it into a memory.
And even though they walk this bridge many a time together,
This particular drizzly sort of night springs to mind, as  
It was then she realised that the orange sky,
Reflected upon stained glass windows,
Pleased the eye.

And so she remembers how the grease in the spattering rain and the filth in the glowing waters
Were eclipsed by the light of her Love.

He had in his possession a smile of which he gave to her with great passion, and with this
She forgot about City Disparity- in her fashion.

With dewy lashes, bold in youth, did he
Paint stars across a purple, ashen sky-
The same that never fade in memory-
And so she remembers
The oils they extracted from the river,
Below the heights they were reaching,
And how they let linger Euphoria in mixing and pressing,
So that this feeling could last
Forever.

These lands
These fields
that deep to bone holds
retains
the supple dream.
Ah! Far, far
the morning glow
that tickles soft
each blade of green
the spattering burn
that flows to the lays
of hill and glen.
Drops that fall
like tiny tears
transforming the lines
of face, tree and leaf.
Here in these isles
between the worlds of yesterday, today
Lies stretched
from corner to yearning corner
The old ways, the ancient days
that are born within us yet.
Vibrant that flow
which stretches out beyond
each pounding beat
mindful thought.
It is here we return
each bone to bone
and flesh to earth
To sleep deep the pools
that are our fathers
and this we call destiny

Alisdaire O'Caoimph