I saw my world again through your eyes
As I would see it again through your children's eyes.
Through your eyes it was foreign.
Plain hedge hawthorns were peculiar aliens,
A mystery of peculiar lore and doings.
Anything wild, on legs, in your eyes
Emerged at a point of exclamation
As if it had appeared to dinner guests
In the middle of the table. Common mallards
Were artefacts of some unearthliness,
Their wooings were a hypnagogic film
Unreeled by the river. Impossible
To comprehend the comfort of their feet
In the freezing water. You were a camera
Recording reflections you could not fathom.
I made my world perform its utmost for you.
You took it all in with an incredulous joy
Like a mother handed her new baby
By the midwife. Your frenzy made me giddy.
It woke up my dumb, ecstatic boyhood
Of fifteen years before. My masterpiece
Came that black night on the Grantchester road.
I ****** the throaty thin woe of a rabbit
Out of my wetted knuckle, by a copse
Where a tawny owl was enquiring.
Suddenly it swooped up, splaying its pinions
Into my face, taking me for a post.

I

Before the sea the sound of sea, before the wind a mask of wind placed on the face, before the rain the touch of rain on the cheek. The lee shore of this finger of land is a gathered turbulence of tea-coloured, leaf-curling wave upon wave, wholly irregular, turning, folding, falling. No steady crash and withdrawal hiss, but a chaos of breaking and turning over, no rhyme or reason, and far, far up the beached misted shore. There, do you see? - suddenly appearing in the waves’ turmoil a raft of concrete, metalled, appearing to disappear, the foreshore’s strategic sixty year old litter shifting and decaying slowly under the toss of water and wind.
 
II
 
From the lighthouse steps to the sea fifty yards no more: the path, a brief facing of the wind and spit of rain, then turning the back to it see the complexity of low vegetation holding its own on the shallow earth-invading sand and rolled leaves of marram grass. Sea Buckthorn is the dominant plant, not yet berried with its clustered inedible oil-rich orange fruits. The leaves, slight, barely 5cm long, but in profusion, clustering upward, splaying out and upward on thin branches, hiding the wind in its density, never more than chest high, so the eye looks down, sees the plane of the leaves, long, thin, suddenly tapered, dense, stiff, thorny.
 
III
 
You said, ‘look the door is curved.’ And it was. In the late afternoon light filtering through the oblong window 150’ into the grey sky the panelled wood was honeyed. Covered with a well-varnished frottage of swirled marks, some of the wood itself, some of gathering age and infestation, the single window’s light blazed a small white rectangle on the larger rectangle of the door. The passage outside the door too narrow for the eye to take in the whole door straight on, one has to move past and catch its form obliquely.
 
IV
 
The curve, the long four-mile curve of the finger into the afternoon mist and sea cloud. From the road: only seen the smooth ebbing tide waters retreating from the archipelagos of mud and sand and slight vegetation of rusted grass.  From the road: only heard over the marramed banks the sea’s sound of waves’ confusion and winds’ turmoil. Follow the fade of the curve’s progress in the echo of distance. It paints itself from the brush of the eye, the sea a grey resist. This spreading away is a long breath taken . . . then expelled from the lungs of looking. You can’t quite hold it all in one view so you’ll build the image in sections, assembling and projecting across two adjoining landscape sheets as if the spiral binding isn’t there. The resulting image when digitally joined will describe the negative space of sea of sky, silent and uncluttered by marks. Only the curve of the land will collect the drawn, a vertical stroke here for a lighthouse, a slight smudge for the lifeboat station.
 
V
 
From the road looking south to an invisible North Shore, the mist hiding the true horizon, there is layer upon layer of horizontal bands: of grass, of mud, of nested water around mud, wet sand, layered water, mud-black, water-grey, a dull sky-reflected white of a sheltered sea, and patterning everywhere, dots of birds near and distant. Then, in the very centre, a curlew in profile, its long downward curving bill dipping for worms into the wet sand and mud. Breeding on summer moorland, wading winter estuaries, this somewhat larger than other waders here, so distinctive with its heavy, calm stance.

A piano plays softly through my ears
My fingers waltz along the keys
Splaying my life out into a symphony
Every note
Cool
Calm
Cultivated  
A captivated audience is a blind one
They can't see what's going on behind stage
The puppets that rise along their strings
Forever to be suspended in space
Controlled and motivated
As long as I'm behind this piano
Mesmerizing the audience
No one will ever see the pool of blood
Arcing along my high heeled clad feet
No one will notice my strained smile
Or the flashing glint
Knives of bone
Protruding from my finger tips
Pray tell
Might I play a song for you?

"The problem is..."
he drawls
"that it is'nt us who see people differently from you,
but you see things different from us. We are not the problem you are.
You see the basest humans when we paint majestic creatures,
we tell stories of superheroes with no faults,
we expect our boyfriends to mirror night skies in their comfort,
and speak like Kerouac. Kiss our scars like white girl tumblr pictures."
"People like you," he says;
"...Dont ever **** yourselves. You're used to the disappointment. Your used to kissing your boyfriends sweaty upper lips and smelling...just that. You clean up the puke on bathroom floors without complaining because you know what people look like from the inside. That's why your art will never be good. Thats why today in class when I asked you to paint a human body cut open, you drew a colorless man with his organs splaying out of him, and *******" he laughs..
"I have to fold petals into my boyfriends armpits just to stand the sight of him
our ******* is'nt *******,
its *******. Supposedly.
When I tell this story later,
I'll leave out the spit and saliva and how the human body
aint that pretty, especially *******. Even 6 ft 3 chiseled muscle of it, ill write metaphors about his eyes and similes to his fists,
you will tell us about the humaness of his breath and how
it annoyingly kept you up at night,
you will speak of storms but not of the ones in his eyes.
The ones in your belly
when he farts during *** and you will
describe every putrid detail, like the fact that waking up in the morning aint so pretty,
morning breath is something we dreamers leave out in movies. And, it must be exhausting
living here seeing things how they really are, but atleast when you expect disappointment, theres room for surprise.
People like me expect the good and are disappointed when its ****** on."

You
Are untamed
Reckless blood and wit intertwined
A twisted, brazen
 mind.

Your mind
Is so clearly different
It leaps and soars, so acrobatic
And your thoughts appear to me so hazy and enigmatic
Your mind is simply not pragmatic
Yet your perception knows no bounds.
You have thoughts that come close to insanity
That sometimes flow in the form of profanity.
  
Your spirit
Is either very high or very low
Up and down, to and fro
There is no in between for you
Some say you are stupidly crazy
The dull ones say that, the ones too lazy
To see beyond the rugged surface.
The subdued and vapid ones
Will never understand the magnetism
Of your sweet, exquisite devilry.

On your face you often wear
A fierce and restless stare
A wan, discontented expression
As though you're always awaiting
Something bigger,
Something better.

You
Are fluid, swaying fire
And I will never tire
Of watching you burn
I can see you brain boil and churn
As it reels into into areas of
 madness and chaos.

Your psyche
Is an endless field of dark reverie,
Of fear and vagary.

I know your night terrors
Your savage dreams of death
Screams and bated breath
Unutterable visions
The grotesque world of horror thats spins itself out
And dribbles into your drawings
All those creatures, skeletons gnashing and clawing...

You
Are gentle and thoughtful
Yet you are terrified
Of this dark thing that sleeps within you.

Your eyes - they’re stunning
They’re tempestuous,
Wild, like some fierce animal peering out of a rusted cage
Oh, your eyes
They are something beautiful, but annihilating
Like Autumn crocus flowers, innocently poisonous
Lids splaying delicately like its violet leaves.

You are tall and strong
And uncontrollable,
And your smile
Is the biggest paradox I've ever encountered
Childlike
And fatal.

You are not
A creature of the commonplace
You are not a slave of the ordinary
You are not a mindless drudge of the mundane
You are free.
Or bewitched, what's the difference

I would die to say here, truthfully,
splaying my arms round as the sky,
this, this! is how it is possible to live
and not sink under a faint surface,
and not run, windfaced, against a distance,
and not lay down, weary as nothing.

This is how it is possible for us
to look without shaking skin or heads
or blenching eyes, writhing like mangrove
limbs in this incomprehensible slough.
To live as discovery of life and still not know
if ever we were born, or when, if ever, we’ll have
died.

But to you, I cannot say this, truthfully.
My person is not truthful. It has a voice
you hear through air in the daytime, I am
not truthful to you. Else I would be
fringes of all time
stretched. You cannot see me, truthfully.

I am ground movement, just under, welling
untouchable imperative unattainable.
Are you bound by the point to create
your own destruction, as I? Then proclaim it
yourself, truthfully, waving your fresh
roots out to me, soil juiced and ripely plucked.

I will try to remember crossing the plains from
dawn till dusk, before I made the world fragile.
If I do, I will dissolve, and will come out your
breath, speaking truthfully. But will you remember
too? So that, disappeared, I may find you?
I would not have to die, then, truthfully.

Winsome bee at my bloom,
writhing and splaying, he gathes my perfumes,
He stayed and he waited, I gave him my heed,
Oh winsome bee, you are my doom.

Curiosity got the better part of me as thine swiftly splaying fingers
typed Matthew Scott Harris (yours truly) into the google search bar,
lo and behold, and much to my chagrin and amusement,
others with mine namesake constituted roles in various walks of life carrying out their wonderfully wicked whiles and ways,
sans existence covered the gamut earthen realm
from administration of President Dwight David Eisenhower
the celebrity circuit, where his claim to fame and fortune
as movie Producer (born in Jacksonville, Illinois)
for silver screen cinematic debut enterprise finished regal Dimension far off beaten track pocketing a degree (from University of Illinois)
in Civil Engineering, After practicing as an engineer for several years,
a decision made to open a restaurant in Chicago
with nary a harbinger - After operating popular eatery for more than ten years,a whim directed destiny viz hit time to make movies
arced renown sent same nom de plume doppleganger
quest skyrocketing
analogous to aligning skill sets into stratospheric isobar
which exertion pitched head stone carvers to acquire vital context
where next of kin content with obituary hiz death
unexpectedly Tuesday morning, Feb. 24, 2015 of Loudonville),
tomb epitaph incorporated passion as avid outdoorsman,
who loved fishing, hunting, and canoeing. I aced as supervisor with telecommunication company, Telecom Towers Inc.
yet by some stroke of premature pronouncement,
whence during funeral the coffin lid rise a jar
scaring the s**t out the backsides per mourners,
where demise found sights drawn to undertake
a totally tubular career as graphic artist from Buffalo
(Educated at RPI), who constantly looks for work today, and to mar
row, out of necessity to pay bills, as prodigy with plugging numbers and spitting out calculations
attained plaudits as financial solvency ****, and par
for the course irresistibly tempted forging credentials -
with a self crafted faux pas star
re: expert as a fraudulent Loan OfficerNMLS # 240801 -
but Youngblood’s hired fretful dexterous dude for extra cash tip play *** tar, while police got tips from wagging tail, and unfortunately butter field bursar ruse landed rising star into clinker
sans Cook County Inmate at age 49
CB NUMBER 19043182, when arrest occurred Tuesday,
January 13, 2015 11:53 AM, and released the next day due to first
time misdemeanor plus absent recidivist incarceration possession
of 5000+ grams of Cannabis, which exposure to magical, miracle
and mystical herb set sites to become a professor
Clinician of pharmacology to help fight the so call "drug war".

Our men are heroes, of course.

They protect us, gun in hand,
against enemies plastered on posters
vandalizing once-beautiful stone storefronts.
More every day.
Stapled on top of one another
until words blend.

"But now,"
the overly made-up woman at the podium says,
"women can do our part."

They’ve gathered other pretty blondes
with symmetrical features measured
by a myriad of devices.

          Beautiful,

              demure

                   women

with

          beautiful,

              Aryan

                    genes
to breed with our handsome heroes.

Because women,
and the children we bear,
are the key to Germany’s future.  

I glance at the woman to my right,
eyes skiing down the ***** of her nose
to rest on smiling lips.
Is the blush on her cheeks genuine,
or set by rouge?

It suits her.

She catches me staring.
My breath hitches in my throat.
I throw my attention back to the woman
glorifying human broodmares.

Heat assaults my cheeks.

“Your rouge is lovely.”
Her whisper warms me.
“Can you believe this?
Us, with war heroes?”

She sighs.
I can practically see the dream
play through the air.

A husband coming home in uniform,
splaying a hand on her swollen belly
and kissing her forehead.

A fantasy.

These men…
they’ll come,
take what they want from us for granted
and claim they did us a favor
when they leave us alone
with child.

But my fingers would dance
never-ending pirouettes
across that porcelain skin.
Swirl intricate patterns
through golden hair,
all for that sigh
to carry a dream with me in it.

The sporadic notions of morality
Encompassing the ridge, he rigs the rig
A ******, an addict, searching the attic
Looking for teeth in boxes
Cooking crack in a crock ***
(Imagine such images, dancing on walls of brick houses crumbling)
The home with boarded up windows, and children watching television sets with the sound on full
This is free form living, an avant-garde way of life
Concrete music from the paving slab, door-stop bedrooms
and the dead dogs rotting in shallow graves in the grey grassy garden
Suspended in animation, needles in the arm
Why is Mummy crying on the kitchen counter top,
and why are you in my room?
This is a house for dealing, a house not fit for stealing
This house is a home to the ones who live and a grave for those that don't
Your house smells of rose petal, sweet summer serenades and  home baked cakes
My house is dilapidated and smeared in ****, my house is lonely, my house is a rut
Infantile impotence, playing on a rainbow welcome mat
Crystal hanging in the window, splaying colour
Tap the vain, vein young valiant boy, pull the tie from Daddy's arm
Between you and me, the back door slides easily open in the spring
and perhaps freedom in the trees you seek
and maybe you can forget
Just for a moment.

Like a C-clamp
pistons in my ears
drawing together as if magnets
drawing together as a punishment
for having thought for myself
for having thought of others
for having thought and
my thoughts diverge like
a meteor shower
splaying hither a-thither like
blood spatter at a crime scene but
the victim will not be silenced
even in death there is an
effluence of ideas like
beads at Mardi Gras and
a sense of here and now expands like
easy-cheez on a ******* and
your vice-like grip on my mindset will
     not
contain my ideas
because my mind is a river
undammed and
inherently willful
because my mind is
set free

To hold a pen, all trembling nib and leaking tip,
At your mercy, supple in your hands,
Over the skin of soon-to-be words, people and places:

Gently exploding ink bombs of which I cherish total control –
Until I have to let them go -
until they are released and left to their own free will.
They bend and curl
And I bend and curl with them – through a place of rubble and debris,
Of clear water on emeralds and grey, creamy smoke.
A wasteland – but far from empty – a silvery mire filled with all the things of this earth.
Something both post and pre-apocalyptic that smells of old wood and heady incense,
Nostalgia and new memories.

Accidentally, messily, flawlessly crafted.

I wait for more sporadic dark poolings,
And they happen within quick succession of one another;
Splaying,
Isolated limbs and drops of a purple chemical
Spreading, bleeding, dissolving
Over the grainy paper.

The page is torn and frayed at the edges
Where almost fabric-like fibres
Were unable to withstand the impact of a knife’s blade,
Ripping all the tiny seams which bind them together,
Coming apart,
Undone,
Strand by dusty strand.

What is finished, what is done –
Is what has been given kindness,
And settled to rest.
As if drunk, sleepy, disorientated but somehow acutely aware of exactly where you are.
The feeling of dizziness where everything is hazy, fuzzy, blurry –
Inducing a comfortable, ***** slumber
In an old *** and vanilla shop.
Aureate, bronze pearls slide over each other, silky and luke-warm,
As you peer through glass and lace,
The spheres chinking together, a thousand times over.

A pen held above the paper, now still and impassive.
It is mine and I am its,
And we stand alone on the corner of a pavement,
A streetlamp
Rendering the scene golden in the rain.

Your embrace, like being pressed against a
fridge door
Painful, but I couldn't rub the pain
in public, but endure it as I walked away
through the silent quad
Your goofy smile as I gave you
your birthday present last year
when there was that heat
And when I touched your heart like your mother once did
and you tried to hide, but couldn't resist
You are coming
Looming large
Coming yes, with your newest girlfriend
They come and go and come again, swirling around you
backs arched, hands splaying as they reveal their inner thoughts to your
rapt attention, cross their legs, uncross them, flip their estrogen hair,
your little subordinate girlfriends
What pleasures you could have if only...
You come to judge me, with your eyes and hers.  
Your eyes I used to watch, but now you avert most times
You must maintain your detachment and judge me and
converse about me with her, as you "mentor" her
Meld with her. It must be a palpable connection between your center
and hers. Teach her how to think like you, feel you, be a part of you
Let her accept you into her
And me, up there, trying to impress both of you
to keep my job
to save my apartment, my unpaid bills, my cats
my dented car, my anti-depressant pills, my life sans
trifles, but deep and thoroughly lived
I am a slave dancer, unclothed and unprotected, but skilled and
nothing can take that away from me, not even you
As you will not look at me, only at your little electronic pad and at her,
As she sees me perform for the first time
and she won't have any idea that I was once in her place
and you were not detached
And I can only hope, that through it all, my skill
will prevail
And you, now detached little man
That I mourn, will keep me at my job
And sad as I will be to watch you watch me
and feel the energy between you both, as I
an experimental animal under a scientists eye
As I am there, and she is next to you
I still hope you stay detached and
let me keep my job and
I will be free forever.

When I want to write
And the words are churlish and
Sluggishly slow in coming -
And even when they come
They linger at the door-frame
And rub their soft cheeks
Against the painted grain -

I read in a special voice.
Sometimes it's the voice
Of my English teacher from
Junior class. We didn't get along,
But not a word passed her
Lips that wasn't as gilded and
Mellifluous as edible gold-leaf
On a chocolate-chili sundae.

Or the voice belongs to
Rives, who plucks meaning
Out of words like candy
Out of an Easter egg.
He savors every syllable
Like it's an annual treat
And lines them up neatly
In his throat like some kind
Of spoken-word songbird,

But the things I write are
Least likely to be read aloud
By Rives and my English teacher.
(And reading in their voices
Seems too proud.) So I pen
The last of the stragglers down
And clear the alien voices out
Of my own (often sore) throat.

I enjoy my words, wallow in
Phrases, and praise lines of
Alliteration about as often as
A soldier runs past shelter
Helter-skelter and takes his
Chances with unfriendly crosshairs.
My voice quavers, quivers, shakes,
And shivers when I read my work.

I find every letter and line
And nuance absurd, but
I keep myself in check. Editing is
A controlled demolition of
Punctuation and capitalization;
Sometimes the "submit"
Button is hard to hit after
Splaying one more page of
Myself into crisp computer print.

But I breathe and repeat
The words that are lodged
Under my ribcage like a
Stray bullet: "You are not
Superlative; you are not
Fantastic; you will not be
Famous; you will not be
Any better for a long time
And even then you may be
Terrible, unbearable, and
Infinitesimal,

But everyone is."

                                                            click

half-feigning a convenient drowsiness,
half-closed eyes and half words shot at
a bedroom wall illuminated by early sunshine,
and it happens to be quite bright.

happened again, redoing, recurring,
an ordinary oration, a silent sermon
the same words again, a slightly different version
every morning, inside out in eversion

the wrong things again, waking up
getting out of bed, out of my head, growing up,
getting old, aging fast, coming to terms with the fact that
one’s life is only as long as one’s past

all this future-talk’s got it feeling a lot longer
And vacancy is at least not my mistake
Filling in a bubble blindly of multiple choices
Splaying multiple regrets for something’s sake.

I will wake up and grow up
But if childhood is living in the sun’s light
then what’s staying up all night to watch its rise?

in the part of the cool hill's soft thighs
trembles the callous shaft of dawn
penetrating the ephemeral violence
of the stabbing rods of arbor scent
damply the night mare goes galloping
whinny little sins of star caresses

but none are so shy and sly as the
eye clasped hollow in the stench
of (and also the slender flowers
smirk at the blossoms young
flesh broken by the light song)
Morpheus' guileless laughter

as shattered the disheveled clubs
swing ransoms of heart lips between
the twain of the enchanted leaves
there rests a silver bit of girl so
blisteringly beautiful blushes all
the world for holding this trembling
aperture of onyx plait holding femininity

so electric is the artifice of her glimmering
chastity, swore the sun it would never
shine on any other thing so savagely its
shivering skin of golden pleasure as this her
(but just so the moon loved her too
as passionate as any other lover ever imagined
or material. spitting delicate strands of shimmer
upon the golden-brown skein of her shoulders)

she woke startled by the amorous dome
crinkling on the perfection of her lithe
sensual frame. stupidly the ideal birds
sang, trying to match the elegance of
her narrow waist; but failed hideously
drowning the silence in virulent soundless
noise. then brimmed every god to the lip
of everything to peer upon this unbearable
visage and dither in the perfection of its curves.

suddenly the Rose blistered from the soil
and came wetly a residue of crimson from
its supple petals mounting the vision of her
absolute eyes. splaying the gentle hips of
sight to receive the splendor of its thorned
stem into her hand and ***** the silk
of her hands slowly releasing a jewel of life

all this witnessed by the cloistered huddles
of gossamer children. hideously perfect men
wantonly begging for the grace of her sensual
pond. beckon they, to them, her but she refuseth
and make for the realm of Hades. quietly, in
death, waiting for some heat to unfreeze the
skin of her blue heart frozen still darkness.

I find myself far gone, drifting alongside the beach
of some nubian kingdom
A sharp inhale of starlight and cutting holes
of awe,
she's there for me.

but,
Not in presence,
Red clouds limping through my comfort,
keeping me safe
far far off, in its tempered perfection.

Writing my fiction, one word at time,
biting into my rotten ear,
cracked surfaces of
sugar lined castle spires
pointing downwards,
In the paradox named perception.

Release!
Stretched out in our isolation.
yet I'm alone, becoming longer,
wandering,
raiding into an artificial night
Where no time appears to pass.

Encroaching on the expectation.
for food,
be it wanted or difficult,
for lips, ink nor illness.
The coast brings in
an ease that I drink from,
when dilly-dallying,
along the mad irreverence
of a random bed that you dream of
each time you wake,
each time you sleep,
There is no content in your bed sheets.

Spiralling in and out of information infection,
Oh how? Oh how can I sleep,
when I stand with my back to space?
Splaying limbs as they exert
the last beams of recklessness
- reverting to old habits,
obsession with erratics,
no form and no care.
Riddled with a chaotic mop head of stringed stupid.

How cute.
Juiced from his tender prospects,
intent on separation
entering use
****, bored and loose
Frothy white moaning flow,
tenderly crushing
Contingency.

I avoid moving inland,
for fear of peace of mind
Combing the canal with the brisk
jaunt of my limping legs,
unsure of themselves
in amidst,
the warmest blanket on the coldest day.

An old kingdom,
founded on consumption,
tradition and extraction.
We keep our distance,
I keep my distance.
Cold water minces around my feet.

Pith/Medulla.
Falling to earth,
beneath the sedge.

Lovers Cathedral

Sweeping her into his arms, breathing gently they searched into each other’s eyes, locked the light flowed between them, both turning their heads the cathedral opened, the grand forest lay before them

Gazing in silence, willow trees graced the soils as though bowing to king and queen, tall oaks reached up into the stars and unseen truffles perfumed their basis,
Rocks glowed emerald by cascading streams, where fawns of pale red whispered their thirsts, and doe’s liquid brown eyes watched in peaceful sermon

Pathways threaded in pristine white onion and blue bells, and pouring’s of wild milk orchards clustered as golden sun sprang forth, painting endlessly into a picture, their luscious orange centers exploding like solar flares, below green prongs quivered on the light warm breeze as though princesses skirts splaying in curtsy.
Webs hung delicately through the trees and leaves encrusted with tiny suspended emeralds reflected sun rays that cast upon pathways

Around sweet flowers of gold and fuchsia bees played the air with the sound of drums, and fairy folk rowed their soft backs each carrying baskets of shimmering dusts, ants paused in reverence as light clouds of purple cascaded down, then continued on their way.

Ivy touched by sun glow wound lovingly around trunks in lovers endless embrace, and giant silver ferns spread the miles dancing like royal court members, one in front of another lightly touching, young succulent growth centers curled as though bowing listening to celestial music

Fresh sea salt perfumed the air and waves rumbled the forest floor, excited they turned to the distant mountains, pathways fell below scattered with quartz as glittering rainbows of colours awash formed ponds.

And the two lovers whispered in chant;

“We lay behind the star bright sky,
we do not fear pagan of heart are we.
Lore of old we both do share, my love for you,
by day, by night, in thought and in sight,
will my soul lean meaning of this life again,
from our moon lit throats candles high flare,
our dance begins, I meet you there.

Gazing back into each other’s eyes, he stepped forth still embraced their hands fasted, behind the doors closed as they laughed into the cathedral mists

── goodbye they mused

© Arnay Rumens / A Sol Poet  2014

with certain jesting apprehension
i entertain her moist ***** darting elocutions
she's splaying candidly 'pon ever
witless grunting foul vocular aberration
outside the roaring box of wet tinder
's a window slapping manacle
of steely girth. the sky's tongue
folds straightening air into the fat
oblong of the sea particularly
as probably i'm listening listlessly
to grand nothings plopping gently
from loose teeth grinding small
headed sally i'd could hardly say i                               care

Razor-sharp fingernails scrape layers of flesh from eyelids
Splaying them eternally open
Can't unsee what's been seen
Can't unhear the sounds
Or unsmell the odor that rots in nostrils, infecting every rose
There's no stopping when they all stink the same
Can't undo, can't undo
Safety in bile where nightmares are birthed in reality,
In places that fester like the remnants of the lids that blinded
Bleach doesn't clean untruths
Fire doesn't  burn hot enough to mask pain
Blisters seem like hope
Hope to heal
Hope to resemble something familiar
Peeling skin back with teeth
Wishing for them to bleed
When scalding tubfulls try to cleanse
the grime that sludges through a broken mind
Attached to a heart mindlessly lashed in the shame of

Love

fruit tastes better forbidden
i can't stop myself
i'm breaking all these promises
like a ******* animal
i'm writhing
squirming
a seizure of ***** pleasure
torment!
demons dance around my head
like flower girls
splaying the ground with sin
i'm a ******* animal
thoughts pulsing
a constant state of primal ******
controlling me
like a leash
dangling meat in front of my face
somebody purge me
exorcize me from this
and distill the evil
and cast the black water into the sea

i beg
for my
catharsis

Cross legged and blank-faced
I sit and wait
Flowers swaying in the wind
The sun shining in my face
Music and laughter play in my ears
A phonograph for things that I don’t feel

Dancing images all around me
Skirts twirling, feet jumping
I used to jump and twirl
I think
Before I finally sat down
Staring farther than they can see

I just knew
Bombs fall all around me
Earth splaying in clumps
Waiting for someone to find me
I sit and wait
Cross legged and blank faced

White walls
white halls,
Hospital or
Residence hall?

Screaming, crying,
moaning -
All echo from
each room.

What is perfection
other than a reflection
of desires accompanied
by petty blindness
to the off-color hues?

I feel a criminal -
For the dynamic intrusion of existing by myself forced upon this nature - conqueror ****** the child of his first **** -

But the sky shines,
splaying us with light
so we may live.

The bells tolling and gallow stools
Carved by a crisp knife sharpened by a stone flint-shaped among the garden tools
The molded and weak rose like the solid and stolid coveting
The dolorous limelight seekers were sure about the fun settling
The call-in your wake is sure to make you disagree, subversively
Pretentious till it leads me into ruinous states, with each verse
Troubled and telling about the stoic salacious dread, of your *******
The sins and arresting rebels brought you minister and spirit
The apologetic and shrieking in their walls their apologies
Am I the only one, who thinks
They don't change their disposition
Time I'm tearing you up into fragments
My stories are getting caught up in their endings
Caught by the hook of standing on the ceiling, rear-ended
The knee-deep hell, mountain high harp, what the ****!
Reelin' and rockin' in heaven, indeed purgatory calls your bulls and porgies
Greed and corporeal blood and recipe for dreadful disaster, and luck you yammer about out-and-out too
It's in your flesh and bones, ****** vain too
Feels like time is slipping and sliding out of my oval face and hateful hands
The friends you seek to hold you when you're ready?
Blows, busy days, France in its hey-day had some passion rather saints who come marching in
Are you ready to read your death in the newspapers, when your stomach lurches like holes in the air
Or here from storytellers like a burnt legacy, in the papers that herald flying guns and leveraging politics
And hate, rising with the ashes, the education burning blue like a phoenix
Apogee, really, after so many a doubt and clusterfuck of redactions, I'm ready to learn about counted visage among the many faces on a business street
About my attraction to nature and fantastic reality, I'm jumping with joy
But, smaller than the cosmic bubble that keeps us from dying
I can tell no one, this is our one and only time with faded humor
You're breeding and you're dying with famished and frayed daughters of petulant sons believing hilarious rumors
I am dismembered much to my won't, the stentorious frolicking reeks around astute anecdotes of my pain of having a name
Even it's a fake one and adopted by pretty old me
The antidote of all this, love and peace, it must be the end of fashion and integrity
Peace and love cradling the waves wandering in mystery
Walking among the feet of trembling rage hungry for power, our love is just an island, but, not the little flower that just matured
If I engender myself, I will be free from being prematurely always on
Smidges and shakes for the collared contingent of successful women
For the one, surreptitiously resting under the invisible sun, sticking out their necks for none
Smack her flesh across till light turns still
The center light pops in expectation of blue days and flooring her money on her mind
On the reeling hail, tying the wrong laces and pushing wrong buttons
I left the hall crazed and surprisingly fully-dressed
Snake-like heads facing away from each other with their smothering hands around my neck
I unhand my royal touch and my license for the cream-crop
Not sure about my violence and clammy hands, but, my old man didn't like it all that much
Handing the trembling papers of my record for another dispensary
The errands that I have to run, I would recommend this to no one
Watching movie reruns and playing my new dreams in my trailer park, every time she was the one
Tea and teeming, brink and livid feeling, reelin' with the great high upstart
Cosmopolitans and Neapolitans, I'm probably going play to Jupiter jazz for another meridian of Earth
Red rain splaying like the sand Andalusian like, waving my hands care-free, only to slam my self down easily
Into another speakeasy with a wake-up call and nightcap, dusk till dawn
The day seems brighter and the sun scintillating like the queenie-eyes on the resting sunshine on the iridescent soil
Ecstasy open miles ahead, the eyes lay in peace and capacious lamps full of soul food and meals
Like lamps and little lintels, the coruscating fire makes the colors of the day seem much more real
The tears in Heaven are adjusted for a place in my salvation
Vitriolic, but, mellifluous in it's surmise, you're sure about the music you're hearing
Crouching upon old times like washed memories
Or is it the waters of the ocean afar from snake-like repellent waves of the oceanic dreams
The snake passes by, in the time of your lifeless soul
You were just pacing yourself, the motto is "Always look your prime and best"
They are your true reflection, this is the one and only reflective surface I will attest to, lest I sound sanctimonious
Bo vine and in vino veritas, you're ecstatic about auriferous objects
Sheep and tipping civilization with the conquest of the times, and the same sundial from Eratosthenes that made citadels
The conquest of Troy is any different from the present oligarchy
Librarian of Alexandria, and the Trojan horse of cursed hands mixed with the opportunity
A couplet for a couple of composite numbers is enough to tempt the prime number
In showing up in your  classes brimming with achievers, some students among them
Eratosthenes' sieve is diligent work on simplicity, so yes, whoever reads this, the wake-up call is not a snake bite
This is Stoicism, and poetry is stoic writing cannot be duplicated
The moral could be looking at hopeless dreams, helplessly
Just passing by without shedding any of it on your probity

From the stem of the brain comes spiders
Already dead and ground
Into black arachnid paste
Filling up a small white polystyrene cup

Precariously balanced atop
A faux wood computer desk
2ft from the ground and shoved in
The corner of a dingy, sterile office space

Twelve floors up and three streets from wherever
Seemingly, and willingly
Standing still, waiting, to be thrown
Across the room and crushed

By the thick rubber so(u)le of conscience
Peering into the nebula of hot exhume
Each grain of plastic simultaneously
Destroying and creating infinite space
As the bigger pieces shard sporadically.

It's cold tonight
Breath could be seen in the damp
Air of every extending cubicle
If only anyone were there
To see such a thing...

Begging for a question could only it be asked
Obscurity fills the halls and laughs
Across the windows, creating an organic
Incandescent glow, which broods
Around the ankles...

But only to those who are there...or were

The angles, the geometry
Of this vast open space - Seem to bend
When not observed, as if omni-present
And transformative - Shaping itself to jest
With the known & unknown
This midnight city is hot, buttery and populated

But stretching down, splaying -
The idea, the presence, the cold

Never seems to leak into the real world
Not even when a window opens by itself
And an outside wind rushes in,
It is escorted without even the softest sombre

All that is left is foundations creaking
In the high winds, as the battered bricks cry,
Yet this seems to only be heard from the outside
As the air settles, the structure sags
And shifts with every push - spinning almost
From under itself

Yet, we cannot see this or feel it...

Emblazoned.
Can you feel it?

The fire,

The white hot, radiating flame

Set ablaze by an intangible being
Something nobody knows

Like an unsolvable mystery

A question left unanswered

Left there to decay

Like an unopened letter,

Corners tearing and wasting away
Edges beginning to burn into nothingness

So the contents may never be seen,
Never be felt

Never be heard again

The ink melting and splaying

Across the page, tiny remnants of it
Forming a microcosm of the unrelenting haze

That is suffocating the night sky
Forcing itself upon the tops of the trees

The smoldering branches and withering leaves

Making a revival of the forest almost impossible

For all the trails and paths are unnavigable

Clouded by a smokescreen of pain and misfortune

The once endless, lush, 

Serenity of branches 

Attempt to reach for the sky

Like a baby reaching for its mother
The only thing it knows that can give it life

That can keep it safe

But are constantly smothered by the endless grey

The seemingly perpetual mess of burning air

But somehow,
Somehow, 

There’s a pinnacle of light

One last glimmer of hope
That hope is you

You’ve started a spark in my soul

And even though my face has started to burn up

I finally feel whole.

We all have infinite interior strength

Cycling, chasing love in my dream,
embodied by an unidentifiable spectra,
of a woman.
Through San Franciscan streets,
I reach a hill too steep,
but not for the woman I follow,
and
I, filled with trepidation,
attempting to remain surreptitious,
inch down
hands firmly squeezing on my brakes,
only to fall, flat on my face.

I sit front row on a mid-week ******,
in surprise to catch the closing act
of
the Berkeley based Morning Benders.
The drummer jumps down from the stage
to
land on my chest. "Ben!" He proclaims.
No.
"Bobby;" I exclaim. We catch up-talking
the state of Indie music,
as my family drives away from
the venue, into the distance, to leave me
in the biting cold. I forget my jacket,
and
walk back to the hotel, or, campground?
Freezing
and alone,
mid-******.

In the rough of the Devil's camping ground,
Satan, the Prince of Darkness himself tramps around-
holding the infinite trump card-(A 40 ft circle)
in which nothing living may stay and survive.    

I get into a fist fight, with a kid
who has been in the same rehab,
at the same time as me,
over the past three years.
In and out. In and out we go.
But, together.
He is lanky
and
gets hold of my wrists,
attempted head butts,
I struggle free
escaping his vice of a grasp
and
lay him out
with one right hook,
splaying him down to lay
between two cars.
For, we are in a parking lot,
(To mention this, I forgot)
outside of some conference
being held. I assume it is
recovery related. I always liked
this kid, and thought we were friends.
What happened?
I wonder.

North to the Liberties, let's
go to the punk show
and
dance as we would to
Joy Division, even when
everything is going wrong,
it can be ironic that we are
still so happy. Standing
outside with the kids in the know.
She stands staring, from her lips
hangs a clove. I dangle on the edge
of the wall, and stare back in awe.
Everything brightens clear, as
my senses are heightened. Everyone
warned us not to fall in love,
at this bar.

A very Bill Murray Christmas, takes us
by pleasant surprise. Cuddling in a
corner, with a fire crackling away.
This scene, is no dream. The rest are,
beamed from my unconscious.

We all have infinite interior strength