I remember reading
Martin Luther King, Jr's
Letter from Birmingham Jail
Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom
Mark Twain's Huck Finn
DuBois' Souls of Black Folk
For the first time

The words of Chief Joseph
Sitting Bull
Tecumseh
James Welch
and Alexie Sherman
And others of indigenous kind
Linger like arrows in my mind.

Of course, there's
Gilgamesh's forlorn quest for Enkidu;
Osiris, Amun, Ra, and Seth,
Homer's Illiad and Odyssey,
And Virgil's Roman treatment -
(For whom the gods destroy
We all must learn bereavement).

I remember reading
Milton's Paradises (lost and found)
And Dante's Infernal quest for Heaven
Through the bowels of Hell with Virgil's spritely guide
And up the Devil's staircase with Beatrice by his side.
John's Revelation of Times' End;
And LaHaye's money-making Left Behind
Apocalypses here to chill my mind.

I have surveyed Dead Presidents
Washington,
Jefferson,
Lincoln
Both Roosevelts, Ted and Frank,
And Reagan
And smatterings of others...
Then hopped the bookish pond to read
Sir Winston and some others,
Not the least of whom is Gandhi G,
Taught by the Queen to free his brothers.

I have studied
Moses
Job
David
Ruth
Esther
Isaiah
Jeremiah
The Disciples
Paul
and James
(Ironically,
Though Jesus is the "Word"
He never penned one).

British poets's thoughts,
Tale tellers long-dead
Have found their way
Into my head:
Beowulf and Chaucer
Old moral plays
Shelley and Keats
Cavalier Poets
Scott and Brownings
Burns and (not) Allen
Spenser and Shakespeare
Dylan and Tolkien
Lewis and Auden
And so many more
That I leave on the floor

Western Americana I have loved
Hemingway and Steinbeck, all worth the time,
Mari Sandoz' Old Jules, and
Rolvaag's Giants in the Earth,
Keroac went on the road, while
Joseph Kinsey Howard showed us the West
Lewis & Clark in journals scribed
Their journey west and back again

I can't forget psychology
And so I will digress
Or Sigmund's accusation stays
That I have but suppressed:
Ellis, Freud, and Eric Berne,
Pavlov, Skinner, Thorndike, Watson,
Wundt, and Wm James, Piaget and Chomsky
Then Vygotsky and Bandura put a social spin
on cognitive psychology, and Everybody's in.
Diverging and Converging, psychic students, all
Could never make transaction
'Til Rogers tried to make some peace
But Ellis wouldn't have 'im.

And then, of course,
The lighter stuff,
The popcorn of the mind:
Clancy, Rankin, Carole Keene
L'Amour and Will James
Stephen King and Poe,
Cruz Smith and Leon Uris,
Grisham, Deaver, Cornwall,
Asimov, Bradbury and Herbert,
Carroll and Baum...

I remember reading
Martin Luther King, Jr's
Letter from Birmingham Jail
Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom
Mark Twain's Huck Finn
DuBois' Souls of Black Folk,
Adichie's The Thing Around Your Neck,
Sherman Alexie's Part-time Indian tale....
For the first time

The words of Chief Joseph
Sitting Bull
Tecumseh
James Welch
and Alexie Sherman
And others of indigenous kind
Linger like arrows in my mind.

Of course, there's
Gilgamesh's forlorn quest for Enkidu;
Osiris, Amun, Ra, and Seth,
Homer's  Illiad and  Odyssey,
And Virgil's Roman treatment -
(For whom the gods destroy
We all must learn bereavement).

I remember reading
Milton's Paradises (lost and found)
And Dante's Infernal quest for Heaven
Through the bowels of Hell with Virgil's spritely guide
And up the Devil's staircase with Beatrice by his side.
John's Revelation of Times' End;
And LaHaye's money-making Left Behind,
Collin's Hunger Games and Dashner's Maze Running
Apocalypses enough to chill my mind.

I have surveyed Dead Presidents
Washington,
Jefferson,
Lincoln
Both Roosevelts, Ted and Frank,
And Reagan
And smatterings of others...
Then hopped the bookish pond to read
Sir Winston and some others,
Not the least of whom is Gandhi G,
Taught by the Queen to free his brothers.

I have studied
Moses
Job
David
Ruth
Esther
Isaiah
Jeremiah
The Disciples
Paul
and James
(Ironically,
Since Jesus is the "Word,"
Through men He penned).

British poets's thoughts,
Tale tellers long-dead
Have found their way
Into my head:
Beowulf and Chaucer
Old moral plays
Shelley and Keats
Cavalier Poets
Scott and Brownings
Burns and (not) Allen
Spenser and Shakespeare
Dylan and Tolkien
Lewis and Auden
And so many more
That I leave on the floor

Western Americana I have loved
Hemingway and Steinbeck, all worth the time,
Mari Sandoz' Old Jules, and
Rolvaag's Giants in the Earth,
Keroac went on the road, while
Joseph Kinsey Howard showed us the West
Lewis & Clark in journals scribed
Their journey west and back again

I can't forget psychology
And so I will digress
Or Sigmund's accusation stays
That I have but suppressed:
Ellis, Freud, and Eric Berne,
Pavlov, Skinner, Thorndike, Watson,
Wundt, and Wm James, Piaget and Chomsky
Then Vygotsky and Bandura put a social spin
on cognitive psychology, and Everybody's in.
Diverging and Converging, psychic students, all
Could never make transaction
'Til Rogers tried to make some peace
But Ellis wouldn't have 'im.

And then, of course,
The lighter stuff,
The popcorn of the mind:
Clancy, Rankin, Carole Keene
L'Amour  and Will James
Stephen King and Poe,
Cruz Smith and Leon Uris,
Grisham, Deaver, Cornwall,
Asimov, Bradbury and Herbert,
Carroll and Baum...

The list goes on and on, and will, I'm sure, expand beyond capacity.

I'm a Prisoner Trapped Inside a
Little Rectangular Marvel
Which knows, to six decimal ...'s,
My position on Earth

And the irony is that...
Electronically found,
I feel lost.

Way before we knew about
Jeep *** EssSs...
I lived 300 miles away,
In a little town called
Bettendorf, Iowa.

Few days after last
Christmas.
I made the journey
Back. To the
Former.
Place I existed, survived,
Lived, thrived (albeit briefly)

I took my family with me.
Or, I went with my family.
The four of us in the same vehicle,
Anyhow.
300 miles in December.
There was snow everywhere
Else. Not on the road, thank
You.

You leave bits and pieces of
Yourself in the place that is
The home for your feet, blistered
And toe-stubbing sidewalks and
Your hands grasping frozen Gym-
Door handles on Minus 10 Saturdays
When you bundle up and slog 1.3 miles
To play Dodgeball all Saturday afternoon.
(And returning it's twice as cold and dark is
Edging its fangs over the dim, muted horizon)

You sweat in the summer. Profusely,
Drops of the stuff watering brown
Grass. You bleed in the snow,
Stark red on even pastier
White, though it feels
Painful only in the abstract.
Sometimes numbness is better
Than painness.

You get blisters from raking leaves
In that season that seems
To have gone palavering somewhere
East of here.

These fringes of leavings, like
The tiny toenail clippings you spy
As you use a foreign bathroom, balefully
Eyeballing someone else's Medicine
Cabinet of Curiosities.

So we went to the place
Formerly known as home.

You can travel a linear or
Non-line-like distance back
To the place where you cut
Your teeth on life, and life cut
Its own bicuspids on you, but fading,
Fading,
Only the shimmering
Ephemeral memory of an
Equally diaphanous memory
Of those teethmarks exist.

Or, succinctly put:
The past is dead.
Long live the passed!
(But not the vaporous
Kind)

Still, we pine for the earlier
Times, younger and much,
Much more innocent, gull-
Able, even: When time had
Not yet painted and varnished
Us so much, the years piling on
Our faces deeply and thickly,
Lined canyons of worry criss-
Crossing our brows, the feet
Of those ****** crows nestling
Where our eyes end in points;
The sagging, the
Lowering of once springly,
Spritely flesh. 3 chins.
Since when do I need two
Extra chins?
**** you, Gravity!
**** you to Heck!

We travel back on new
Roads over the great
Old ones that used to be
Concave asphalt trips to
Anywhere and Nowhere
Special, they all were, even
The ones that led to hilarious
Dead ends.

Wow! There used to be a
(Insert memory here)
But hey! Lookit that!
A Yarn Barn. Hmm.

And oh! I lost my
(Insert memory here)
In that very back parking
Lots of Tots? What kinda name
Is that for a Pre-School!
Open on CHRISTMAS? Whaaaat?
My hometown has lost
Its mind.

And then silence, as the
future that passed us by
Reasserts itself so strongly-
It might as well be screaming
At us from useless billboards
Selling crap we don't need.

This place is a foreign
Country to me. I don't know
When it stopped being home
And now, I really don't care.
Let's do this thing, family, this
Familial obligation, and then kick
The stupid dust from this town
Off our tailpipes.
Go, Bettendorf!
Go, Bulldogs!
Go, next-town-over!
Go on with your bad
Selves.
Because, people of these
Towns, in 30, or 25, or 12, or
4 years, you'll blink, and find
That you no longer recognize
The place you can't call
Home any longer.

Stars, brilliant, yellow and white, they pierce the total black dome arching over the trees.
Campfires spew sparks, dragons fly and jump to meet the stars,
Miniature electric lights; a spritely accent around the RVs.
Night choristers, peeping, honking voices dispelled by dawn
Morning light creeps up
Dew
Dripped, rivulets ran down the side of the tent
Campfires, lit anew
Pancakes, sausage, oatmeal.
Noon
the heat of the sun bakes the ground, dew dispelled.

It is the same garden that holds,
Prickly rose bushes,
Healing basil and spritely marigolds.

It is here the bees fly, birds rest their wings,
It is here every morning the nightingale sings.
It is here the hare scampers, the squirrel scurries,
The snake slithers, the rodent hurries.
It is here the gecko hides, the worm crawls,
The bat flies when darkness falls.

In the mud and the dirt, the soil and the gravel,
In coarse little stones, smooth little pebbles,
In  topaz skies, in waters azure,
In a lotus that blossoms in a world impure.
In the siesta of flowers, the fiesta of leaves,
In the dance of raindrops serenaded by  a breeze.
In summer's golden glare, autumns russet finger
In the green breath of spring, the white hand of winter..

Beauty in His creations, in every season,
In every color for a rainbow of reasons.
Each special and each rare,
Each, in a bough or burrow,
Has a niche somewhere.

Bumblebees making love or war
On an Easter Sunday morn'
Spritely fairies in pinkish frills
Wearing their patent leather buckles
Little boy blues in powder blue suits
Running amok in the chapel belfry
Sanctuary dressed in lavender hues
As the ***** sounds the call to worship

Autumn robins hop spritely in Sycamore trees
With gingerly voices , with musical tributes
just for me
Choruses of carry on , carry softly , carry me back , carry
me home heard in the breeze
Sing blue for love lost , yellow for childhood
summer , crimson for the coming dusk , violet
for the wildflowers that edge hill country thick pine forest
Chre , chree , cha -chreet
Swee , swee , cha -roo
Perform colors of the bounty of spring , of afternoon sunbeams , of boysenberries and roadside streams
Sing polyphonies of winter , snowcapped hedgerows and holiday dreams

Put this matter with trowel and ***,
Into the dark and fertile ground,
With each hit, he loosed the soil
A once happy man thou condemned to uselessly toil  
His claws, cracked and broken shells
Jaundiced with the duty long days that did require
Lamed by grief and forced to work
Here, till the end of days, within this garden, this mire.
Deep does a ****** live here, past the clay and bedrock
Like the pride and valor and resolute spirit of the domineering ****
Or so her mien, it does beget
Or some other erroneous sentiment
That she, not he, were to bear this labor.
Within the ground, he did remember, in his spritely youth,
He planted, and thought none of, but a seed,
Into this verdant splendor, which bore that infernal ****.
And, thence, thereof came a fruit,
Of malignity infinite,
All the while it poisoned the ******’s white and water’s pure,
As its eerie little spines proceeded to take root.
Her garments poised to emulate white, instead
The ******, to him, had lost her white
Or never had white at all,
The ******, to him, had lost her white,
To him, the ****** was dead.
The fruit and seed, effulgent and pretty, to those who saw them bloom
Attractive were they so to them, irresistible to behold
That they, to him with great chagrin, did immediately consume.
“But the ******,” he cried. “The ****** has poisoned them!”
Yet they continued to eat.
“We do not believe you,” they replied, and slept ceaselessly on their feet.
One by one did they all collapse from the toxin of its juice.
The ****** watched and laughed, of caution was there no use.
Powerless and sullen, he stood, for remedy was far passed.
The ******, now regarded with delight,
Has he, poor, poor man, to tend to his blight.
The garden gone, its cleanliness perverted,
His words were ignored, and thrown wayside,
His admonition he so heatedly asserted,
The ******, her words never to be trusted
Had won over the people, whose homes she sought to entreat,
And with her rite, so treasured, so adored,
They enslaved and force him to his mire, to tend to the rag and filthy lands
Where he would remain with the garden
His words, his skin so like the sands

Twas the last day of school
before a long winter break
Not a student was learning,
they were all munching on cake

The children had tidied,
supplies all snug in their places
With candy cane smiles
lighting up their sweet faces

The artwork was stowed
in their backpacks with care
In the hope that they'd bring
holiday cheer home to share

When outside the portable
there arose such a clatter
Ms. G sprang from the party
to see what was the matter

The class followed her out,
filling up the whole porch
And right out in front of them,
near as a bright as a torch

Rudolph, nose blazing red
through the dark Vancouver rain,
Behind him the reindeer
pulling Santa’s sleigh like a train

Santa jumped out spritely,
red hat bouncing with glee
He waved at the group and
boomed out, "Hello there Ms. G,"

“And Division 14,
all of you good girls and boys.
We’re rehearsing our run
to practice delivering toys”

The reindeer pranced all round,
putting on a fine show
Santa offered his hand and said,
“Come on Ms. G, let’s go,”

“We’ll drop you in Mexico
before we head back,”
Ms. G happily agreed, asking
“do you have time for a snack?”

The class joyfully welcomed
the jolly crew to the party
They delighted in the games
and the food, eating hearty

Too soon it was time
for the guests of honour to go
Santa sprang to his sleigh and
exclaimed, “**, **, **,”

"Now, Rudoph and Dasher!
Dancer, Prancer and *****!
Now, Comet! on, Cupid!
On, Donner on Blitzen!

“To the top of the portable
then over the school
To Mexico we go,
to Ms. G’s holiday by the pool.”

And off the sleigh flew
with Ms. G safely strapped in,
Her pink toque a-bobbing,
her face all a-grin

They heard him exclaim,
ere he drove out of sight—
"Happy Holidays to all,
and to all a good night!"

The colour of fir seeps over the water
A bright spritely white tail dashes past
Home to it’s tea.
Mirror glass ripples as
It’s mist gently rises in the dusk
To form the dew that soaks the grass at sunrise.
Brilliant arcs swell behind
Coots tending the nest.
Blackness has nearly set upon the lake
A ghostly orange tinge on the
Horizon signals the dying of the day
Cold fingers and brisk steps.
Willows make rainbow archways
From bank to water
Lime green fronds dragging the current.
The platter of water drenched moss and spatter on stone,
Blossom trees fit to burst
Dozing in purple twilight

It's stories above where the butterflies rustled,
Whirring between the lights in aeolian bustle.
I'm smiling spritely at a neon halo,
While my organs writhe in jacqueminot El Niño.
Wading the nightscape  with a glitched simper,
I could not change nor attempt to tinker,
Just breaching the moments passing to linger.
Fingers, then palms, then lips, then black,
Then for a few seconds the world collapsed.
A breath, a sip, some wit, I'm back.
Shed the murky vision of captive cataracts.
And now,
The sylph saunters in epitomized elegance,
And I've buckled on the inside to the resonant reverence.
I follow the fragrance in her wake as paralyzed sedatives,
And anything I might say could only lack eloquence.
Then magnanimous mantras attract exact,
It seems way down the rabbit hole I've finally met my match.
There's a mesh of flesh, a smooth caress,
Then I wake and realize these were not visions yonder death.
Particles of my brain erupt,
I can't explain away the unfading elation of touch.
Every pose palatial down to the pixels,
I'd gaze deep in the sheen of her mind gleaming as crystals.
Her eyes open like daybreak in flashes,
Sunstreaks glint over the horizon of her lashes.
There's morning songbirds behind the taste of coffee,
I think she's figured I'm just a well decorated softy.
Unveiling my most human of contentions stripped to the eclipse of logic,
My former self laughs in tones pitched sardonic.
Euphorically strumming at gossamer heartstrings,
Etched in the fabric as sakura carvings.

azure eyes and wolven breath
Her soul is the ocean, and i'm
an angel feather floating on the waters
spritely floral sniffs of the call
wilderness is my love, but so are You
night skies on Your forehead
and the moon in Your speech
solar flares in Your pupils that
sink my heart into stone
You toss out over the stagnant waters
Love is blind
sink or swim
123456789
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
caught in the currents of the world
hoping to drown into myself
orange to green, blue to white
the insanity is growing
i jump off this water
and into the plasma of your thoughts
words are an escape,
but your beauty is inescapable
Death is in Your neurons
and independence in mine
It was meant to be
daisy fields of your mind
galaxies of your brain cells
let's go find a library and sink into the ground

my eyes are heady    **** bloating
                                       from within the sun
       white embellishment lasers out  
                  lending provision
     setting life   to the organic cog and clock
provoking muted growth  to retch a bloom
              leading
                                     ­ spending
                                                       ­         seeding

my tread  destroys nothing
each step    frictionless  
patterning little hovering eddies
                              a fraction above ground
minimal is my disruption
enough    only to promote a deeper observation
    tender fanning     of the life that i am fawning over

how to feel this spritely at all times ?   t'would be a spell
                                                 a fondled thing

         it’s from our night of shared tether
our infection threw out an extra pleasurable souvenir
it carried its energy    into the ensuing day

i am launched affection
beckoned     into the true employment of my surroundings
carrying my socks and shoes in one hand
and my heart?  it is a possession of the senses
i am truly led
i am emitting

Minuscule cockroaches creak
Conspicuously around the crude crumbs
On the dusty kitchen counter,
And tadpoles squirm in the cremated creek.

The porridge poured itself
For the poor stray kitten,
Who was too spritely
For eureka's euthanization,
Triumphant in trespassing
The proximity of the porch.

Meanwhile, the revolving rover
Imitated the raunchy rocket ships,
Launching like fervent fertility
Interceding September's secret,
Sacred admirers of ethereal pyres.
The sepulchre's soma
Spread from the peach's center
Like the terrific thighs of a virile *****.

Jurassic travels ,
Machines running on ancient carcass,
Annulling the terra firma
Of its aloe vera-like virginity,
And courtesans adorned with jewels,
Pretending to be Aphrodite?

Just as Jupiter does,
Joy wears covetous rings..


Originally written 8/12/11
Revised 10/19/14

(c) 2014 Brandon Antonio Smith

She was
not old enough
to have graduated
high school,
nor aware enough to
notice
how many eyes were on her,
sympathetic or
disdainful or
hungry,
as she struggled to push a cart full of
pull-ups
and cleaning supplies
in a cart with a broken wheel

through the warm and somniferous glow
of ill-maintained streetlights,

those obelisks of granite.

Don't call it
pity,

but
something
stirred my gut,
and burned my eyes,

as she trudged past me,
pushing a cartload of motherhood,
trailing a warm autumn breeze,
an aromatic telegram;

lilac and lavender,
a diffident bouquet,
accented by spritely vanilla,

withering before bleach-fumes
and mordant disinfectant.

Crystal is once again, up the draperies.
She has a veritable path of claw marks
leading from the floor to the curtain staff.

I have decided to ignore her when she does this.
But, as she is lurking behind me, atop the draperies, it is not an easy task.
At any moment, I expect her to pounce.
Ah!  Like father, like daughter.... in a sense.

I realized tonight that I excel at being a Vampire.
never a drop goes to waste.
Never a witness spies me.  Not one that lives, that is.
Never do I go hungry.
Never am I bored, or boring.

Why only earlier this night, I went to the Ballet.
A spritely tune was played by the orchestra, while dancers ran hither and yon upon the stage.
I was dressed all in black.
Bland I know.  But "Society" demands somber dress
at the oddest occasions.

I have my own box, from which I enjoy my privacy, while enjoying the entertainment.
Oh, not the entertainment on the stage.
The entertainment of playing the gallant host to my next meal.

I wine and dine them.
Regale them with lively anticdotes.
laugh at the right moments.
Look regretful, when called for.
Show shock, when due.
Outrage, when warranted.

In the end, they leave my box and my company, none the wiser.
mayhap a bit wan and listless.
But, always grateful for a lovely evening.
They always blame their condition on the wine.
Ha!


~Lord Kellington

The land it's name was faraway.
A land so pretty,
The land where fairies play.
The grass verdant and succulent.
Glows in the midday sun.
The trees bow inadvertently to the fairies passing by.
Fairies bearing various gender.
Girl folk with flowing straw like hair, bound with strands of strawberry flair.
Menfolk wearing doublet and hoes.
Black and green.
Obvious features, all fairy men folk sport a pointed nose.
Elder folk, they have aching knees.
Hair tinged with tiger stripes of grey and black.
Could have been zebra stripes,but the elderly fairies, can be just a little spritely, temperamental at times.
They sit under willow trees.
Writing, busking rhymes.
Listen without witness, you'll swear you'll hear them sing.
Leave a pretty penny in the spot where you have been.
Walk silently away.
Peer over your left shoulder and you may just glimpse the fairy queen.
If you should be so lucky.
(c)Livvi

The hawk nosed general in the grey suit sniffed
out his enemies, labrador like, nose to the noise,
chest beating, bleating, blaring in the thunderous
applause, that made his ego bloom amongst the corpses
of the shrunken heads and hands reaching out for bread,
in the shut down quarter of the empire
where the eagles flew in/ out dropping mustard,
caught between a  deadly sandwich of
closed escape routes.

"Burn them all" he said, and turning to his sidekick,
he smiled a thin smile, devoid of the god he worshiped
in the minarets on the mosques that stabbed the  blue sky
with their sharp bulbous  needles of  attention.

At twelve the muezzin called the faithful to prayer and
moaned for mercy on the unbelievers.The call echoed
and reverberated down the streets.
The mustard closed the eyes of  the city where the
gas cannisters jangled on thin nerves and let the
people  sleep forever.

The grey suit, now eau de cologne  scented handker-
chief  
hawk nose sniffed
wiped his forehead and walked
spritely to his armoured vehicle, to call his wife
and enquire if the kids were enjoying their summer swim.

"Yes, darling!" she tingled with excitement.
"How's that part of the city
where these rats live?"
"Good love! Just need to smoke 'em
out some more!
By tonight I'll be home for dinner. Bye for now!"

The line went dead
with twenty others, fried in the concrete
pan of a bunk buster bomb dropped from a drone
with butterfly wings and a sharp upside down minaret
nozzle of spray now stabbing the earth.
Earth to sky, sky to earth?

The barbed wired brains circled the city.
Children soon crunched cockroaches,
mice and rats and grass salads, autumn leaves on wild spinach
thousands  died eating succulent poisonous roots.

Even the carrion claws refused to descend into the darkness
of carcasses that lay down in the streets to pray forever.

The water turned green with envy as lichen,
clogged with blood and ***** and bones rotting
under bridges, ****** up the blue river
and sent the beavers into burrows of omerta
The world watched and waited.

?

Around the dinner table the grey suited general
tucked his napkin under his red,wellfed face and smiled
at his lovely wife in a designer outfit.
" Pass me the mustard please, darling!"

"You who are the Source of all Power,
whose rays illuminate the World.
Illuminate also my Heart,
so that it too can do your Work."
- Gayatri Prayer

...and so Alas, for all along the way
binding Vision with naïveté
spritely skipping as whilst tripping
blinding Truth in night-less day.

though I raise my Palm in promise
I'm as raptured as the rest
uprooted as the lute to lip
charmingly disarming
as the sounding Sirens drip...

the Nectar,
flowing freely from the Fruit
above the Vine, below the Root.

...so may your Wine flow pleasingly & plenty, drunken Bliss upon the Earth
appealing to the healing of All intrinsic worth.

Like the flower, in it's hour of unfolding
bursting Blossom lips
upon the Altar, pierce my Heart fully open, as the Sun and Moon eclipse.

So through this selfless sacrifice,
release the pains of worldly strife.

...and may the Truth bless us Be
within this briefly Mystic blink
in our Moment of reflection with the Universal wink.

*I raise my Cup to thee All ~Cheers!!!!

She’s a pretty little thing
Who treads lightly
She’s a wild little thing
And rather spritely

Don't worry about catching her
Darling, you never can
Just enjoy the show and smile
While she plays with her toes in the sand

Between those smirks and side glances
Dreams and summer romances
She sips and she hums and she dances
While she plays with her toes in the sand

Why do we sit?
"Om" she chanted, the spritely tween she was.
Oh, the sovereingty of those at peace?
"sure" her older sibling said.
Why do we sit to look within? Does it make us strong?
What else makes us powerful?
Speaking, acting.
Does thinking make us powerful.
yes.
Does thinking, speaking, and acting create a lot of unrest?
It can.
Thus, we stop thinking, stop speaking, and stop acting.
"Isn't that what sleep is for?"
Yes. Do you sometimes dream in sleep?
yes.
Sitting in meditation, no thought, voice, or act, induces a dream state, but you are awake.
Do you like sometimes the feeling of dreams? yes?
This ecstasy one feels in a good dream is the same as in meditation.
But to see visions and have feelings like in a dream is only a biproduct of meditation.
So why do we meditate? "?"
TO go beyond, beyond acting, speaking, thinking, even beyond feeling and seeing.
This beyond can only be experienced for oneself.
It comes in many forms.
What is central to it is that you exist before it,
and you exist after it, but after you experience
it, you feel like a new you, a truly awakened you.

Laying With Chris
Posted by Olivia Kent on June 10, 2013 at 6:25pm
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Laying with Chris!
I'm laying in bed with the man of my dreams,
He is kissing my soul with his pen,
I hold him,
I love him,
Feel so content,
Wearing my heart on my opened up sleeve!
A lovely man with a heart to treasure,
A spritely defiant soul!
Who's only breath is special saved in heart for me!
So glad to be here,
I hold him so close,
I have nothing to
fear,
He holds me tight in his head,
Long may it last!
Livvi Kent 2013

Fix me, for I am torn
Stitch me, for I am worn

I wrote it all down, Ma
Many times, all for you
I dug it all out, Pa
Every word, each line is true

"Do you need," you start to say
"To leave the house today?
"To walk outside and leave behind
"The anger you display?"

Perhaps its come at last
My moment the levy breaks
I open my lips but the wire is tripped
"I'm fine," a smile, a fake

But I left the page open
The tab with my last poem
I think to myself, "**** it to hell!"
And bring safari back to home

Is it even worth it?
The wound from afar is small
A scrape, a cut, we all endure as much
But then the other shoe falls

Should I keep it up
My facade, dramatic and spritely?
Or like in the song I've not for so long
Should I let it burn brightly?

Fix me, for I am torn
Stitch me, for I am worn

But put down the ******* needle
I'm fine

Towering, dancing in winds that cannot bow him,
Fierce and ***** in the face of the wild screaming gale,
A legion of fluttering leaves blown full, a thousand tiny sails,
The great tree stands unbowed, the true mast of the world.

Twigs snap and branches creak, the clamor of nature’s wars,
Roots roar under the strain, tearing earth to grip buried anchors,
But the trunk does not tremble, he dares the strong east wind,
Ancient arboreal pride silently scorning childish zephyrs.

A true Tree does not cower before the sky’s elemental armies,
His memory is too long, he calls the airy spirits each by name,
Spritely bravado cannot prevail over noble wooden belligerence,
High-born timber that was old before the gods of men were born.

Let's go out tonight and in the cold, we'll
Spirit ourselves away until
The sun appears, in little
Nooks and hollowed tree middles.
Let's go out in the dark moonlight
And take these clothes off right
As soon as we step off the edge
Into cold wetness and nearly freeze to death.
The precipice will smudge
When we walk down the sloping blur
To where the water is photoshopped so nicely.
Our throats will no longer be sore
So we will shout some more,
So we will shout some more.

Hopping spritely across the river on rocks
With our hoods on and our knee high socks
We shall transmute into the smallest flock
Of Canada geese.

The hawk nosed general in the grey suit sniffed
out his enemies, labrador like, nose to the noise,
chest beating, bleating, blaring in the thunderous
applause, that made his ego bloom amongst the corpses
of the shrunken heads and hands reaching out for bread,
in the shut down quarter of the empire
where the eagles flew in/ out dropping mustard,
caught between a  deadly sandwich of
closed escape routes.

"Burn them all" he said, and turning to his sidekick,
he smiled a thin smile, devoid of the god he worshiped
in the minarets on the mosques that stabbed the  blue sky
with their sharp bulbous  needles of  attention.

At twelve the muezzin called the faithful to prayer and
moaned for mercy on the unbelievers.The call echoed
and reverberated down the streets.
The mustard closed the eyes of  the city where the
gas cannisters jangled on thin nerves and let the
people  sleep forever.

The grey suit, now eau de cologne  scented handker-
chief  
hawk nose sniffed
wiped his forehead and walked
spritely to his armoured vehicle, to call his wife
and enquire if the kids were enjoying their summer swim.

"Yes, darling!" she tingled with excitement.
"How's that part of the city
where these rats live?"
"Good love! Just need to smoke 'em
out some more!
By tonight I'll be home for dinner. Bye for now!"

The line went dead
with twenty others, fried in the concrete
pan of a bunk buster bomb dropped from a drone
with butterfly wings and a sharp upside down minaret
nozzle of spray now stabbing the earth.
Earth to sky, sky to earth?

The barbed wired brains circled the city.
Children soon crunched cockroaches,
mice and rats and grass salads, autumn leaves on wild spinach
thousands  died eating succulent poisonous roots.

Even the carrion claws refused to descend into the darkness
of carcasses that lay down in the streets to pray forever.

The water turned green with envy as lichen,
clogged with blood and ***** and bones rotting
under bridges, ****** up the blue river
and sent the beavers into burrows of omerta
The world watched and waited.

?

Around the dinner table the grey suited general
tucked his napkin under his red,wellfed face and smiled
at his lovely wife in a designer outfit.
" Pass me the mustard please, darling!"

Author Notes
The revolution shifts elsewhere. Follow it.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

The dragon in the garden
breathed out a lonely sigh
for he longed to know the beauty
of the spritely butterfly
as she danced with Rose and Lilly
and with sweet William shared her day
she called upon  sweet Poppy
and Daisy by the way
and all the time he pondered
why it was she never came
as he sighed a breath of perfume
for this dragon had no flame.

What I left behind was my hope
of a dying, a blindness that caused the untimely
decay and fraying of time
and the spaces which are surrounding.

Sometimes was this little smile
on lips undeserving of the words that
were never to be spoken. I have climbed onto
this hill, embracing the sun and moon, they are

part of my heart, and ever leaving me in circular
motions. I gave up my longing but all that was left,
all that lied in the well of my soul was still
rippled and mirrored.

Crystalline laughter and shared sighs, he
was gone so spritely. And there was silence in these walls.
Black on the white so lovely dark, negative sepia
ground down to skewed visions.

He had his voice and he met me over, in the
pitch blackness this release ought to have been
a make of delighted freedom. It is not my
prison now, maybe just a form of grief. Never more

would I be as lonely.


© July 24 2012

From the eager age of three, my mother taught me not to draw on myself, or I would get ink poisoning. Every time ink touched me, I'd wash it away with a warm cloth and some lingering worry. You wrote our initials on my ankle in deep blue pen, and I kept my left leg out of the bath for a week.
At the spritely age of eight, my mother made me promise never to talk to strangers. I kept my head down and my walls built high and I never said a peep to a stranger wrapped in shadow.
The first day I met you, I lay all my secrets down on that warm summer concrete and watched while you picked through them. (You didn't mind.)
Twelve years old, with a crooked, hopeful smile and my mother sat me down to talk about drugs. Those crazy, tempting things that will take away all your inhibitions and make you forget the very lessons that formed who you are. More addictive than anything you've ever had. They'll make you feel higher than the empire state building; without them, you'll go through a withdrawl worse than anything. A coexistent dependancy that will take over yourself. She reeled off a listen of words; Esctasy, LSD, ******, Crack. Somehow, she forgot to mention your name.

A  polished,  old  inkwell  sits  spritely  stag,
ready  to  give­  everything  it  knows.
Its  blood  breathes  brilliant  carving­s  of  words,
its  sight  blinded  to  the  next  encounter.

The­  tip  of  a  quill  c h i p s  a w a y  a t  i t s  h e a r t,
but  it  never  b
                           l
                             e
                               e
                                 d
                                    s where  it  shan't,
And  even  though  it's  shattered  before­,
there's  nothing  a  little  mending  won't  fix.
In  bustling  lives  we  often  forget
what we're handed is simply a privilege,
and  where  there's  give,  there's  take,  inevitably­
it's  easy  to  cleverly  take  for  granted.

Consistently  s l o w  from  brim  to  bottom
but  as  long  as  you  keep  dipping ­ your  phrases,
you  must  remember  that
eventually
what's­  e                                                            d.
               m                                                     e
                  p                                        ­       l
                    t                                      ­    l
                      y                                  i
                      will  need  to  be  **f

Wandering mind (attempt at slam) by NeroameeAlucard
sometimes I wonder where these ideas spring from
I swear to most they seem dumb
but that may because I'm still young
and they say that the young are numb to societal indifference within this messed up world of today
Today? Today wandering eyes can get your rep ruined, hooray! but wandering minds keep you challenged and sickened from the rashest and missing ideas that crawl within your mind
it's storming outside
all rainy and cold
thunder and lightning
making me feel alone
My white Sox bear comforts me slightly
Pikachu only touches my blankets lightly
I'm not this bad about storms, but I'm feeling so spritely
I guess this isn't too be taken lightly
the water flows in from the old sewer pipe
just what else can happen tonight?
water damage, insecurity just bad vibes
oh wait... He's got it I'll be alright