I have wearied of grand romances
Of deep sighs and swooning trances
Of doting gentlemen’s advances
And all manner of courtship play
I am tired of love confessions
And of dizzied, dazed professions
And of unrestrained obsessions
I grow sicker day by day

I once dreamed of adoration
Went quite mad for veneration
Laughing, flirting with temptation
The queen in Camelot
The lonely, lovely Guinevere
Dainty-masked with girlish fear
But when King Arthur wasn’t near
Dreaming of Sir Lancelot

These days I want no noble knight
Despite my seeming helpless plight
I wish to set myself aright
And tread upon the ground
Yet here I am, pedestal-high
Too close to the dazzling sky
As my life keeps passing by
And boys keep running round

I’ve let myself grow much too proud
Drew up arrogance from the crowd
Heard the cheering, bright and loud
The queen in Camelot
And though I had my faithful Sir
Still my heart was all astir
With flying fancies, all a blur
For Guinevere and Lancelot

These fantasies have grown too old
I’d rather let my bed grow cold
For I have wearied of being told
“You are mine to keep”
Men have tired me to the core
Left me sad and sick and sore
And have turned into such a chore
And I’d much rather sleep

What blasphemy for a maiden fair
To toss such doting to the air
To turn away without much care
Though queen in Camelot
But I have withered, I have tired
Felt as if my brain’s been mired
And find not Arthur much desired
Nor dashing Lancelot

Is it so bad to want respite
From endless longing, day and night?
This constant charm becomes too trite
With ever staler tone
I only wish to rest a while
Recover from incessant guile
Forget the weight of lovers’ trial
And simply be alone

Her vitals are dropping like flies

The air in the room is staler than bread

Everyone here is a critic of sorts

Amidst curtains and curtains of black, sunken eyes


Her dreams are breaking like stone

The table beside her is colder than ice

She feels love on her arm but can’t love it back

Can only see curtains of palpable bones


So meager, her breath, it drops.

Falls flat.

..[O]..
:::::::and
:::::::::::::::::shy
some moths dare
hang around a light,
dim, peeping....a lone
terra cotta lamp........not
bright enough....to guide a
journeying mind.....through
some dark paths......one....two
more  lamps could help stop the
tripping..... .on life's many humps,
it makes the air....stale......with sighs,
uncomfortably moist, with  cold sweat
the window curtains are a shield, a weak
wall, pregnant  with longing
and apprehension.......soon
it will collapse, more moths
will fly free........the fleeing
the healing.......could make
nights longer...........the air
staler...............in this dark
conquering.............silence
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::­:
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Evening rain  showers  merge with the
humid air.......the strong scent of the
growing pine tree...the scarce light
the aroma of chicken, simmering
in a mix of vinegar, soy  sauce
...............garlic and spices
penetrate my nostrils and
infuse the atmosphere,
and.....disconcert  me
i'm taken back, i gulp
i salivate...a late solo
dinner awaits...glass
of  wine.......beckons
i give in....i sit by the
garden table.......raise
my wine glass.......i say
"Cheers!"...........tonight's  
.................not so full moon
..........is shy............and hazy
as i hum....Patsy Cline's, "Crazy."
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
::::Sunday moon, May 1, 2016:::::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::


Sally


Cop­yright May 1, 2016
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan

Staring blankly,
All I see are glasses,
All half empty…

Chartreuse drips drop
Tip a tap a top.

Atop empty glasses,
And empty bottles,
On my empty table,
On my empty room—

On my empty house,
With no one else but me.

All I see are bubbles.

Frail.
Empty.

More like the reflections,
Of the sad sad face on every bubble,
Staring right back at me—

Frail.
Empty.

What if I’d just pop,
Whenever I’d take a drink?

Fated only of two things—
     To burst or to sink—

Staring bleakly,
All I see are shards.

Shards just mended together.
Shards made empty bottles,
Turned to empty glasses,

Reflecting the same empty face—
Just like glass shards…

Just broken.

I see that same forlorn face,
Behind all the alcohol bottles.

A spark quickly burning out…
Deprived even ash to even trace.

A fire that is melting…
Dying of thirst inside.

With all fingers crossed,
Hoping somehow beer could sate her drought—

All I see are bubbles,
So many bubbles,
But each single one just the same…

Frail.
Empty.

Drowning in ***,
Engulfed by *****,
Christened in whisky—

Sinking deep.
Deeper and deeper.
Down, down, down—
Always going lower,
Down, down, stop.
And then continues,
Colder, staler, darker,
Until I hit rock bottom,

Oblivion—

Pop.

Make Out a Healthy Vision
I am a gainful, young-eyed lad;
Innovate of gooey truth,
It’s yummy dishonor.
You idle, now,
staler, evil one.
-Idle Wrath
—————————————————————
I Love You --------------
My Language failed you and I.
I have not forgotten you.
My mind is your host.
You lied now,
Love is eternal.
-Wild Heart

We were holding hands in the summer
and the street was cracked
and the clouds were being greedy
even through their kindness
and their tears turned salty on my cheeks
when I looked at him

It became too much;
he slipped down the rabbithole and faded
like eighty year old newsprint
until there wasn’t much left but the tattered shoes
I told him to replace months ago
and the echo of his last breath
on a breeze that was
staler than the bread left out on the counter
this morning

I saw the things I didn’t want to see,
the things he didn’t want me to see,
and I wished at that moment
for a gallon of bleach to pour into my head
just burn it all away

but no one can fade like he can.

1.
I am optimistic enough this day clings to the highest mast,
is now born out of prophecy.
                           I pass by the old mirror: see myself: blear myself:
is blot to canvas, slit from the wrist of this home:
   I witness how it is to sustain beatings.

2.
In the empty lot, age 9, we wrung frangipanis and ruined
   the pedicle somehow a map of a history where this ground
  shook that was once an old cathedral. We blew

               bubbles out in the haziest of days, pallid and droopy
    the clouds identify in their short collisions – the stream that was
   the sky
       the  face of  my mother when found news of my would-be death
    1996, Kawasaki my mother's clutch on the soiled linen
                 beginning an autopsy

3.
I conjure a frayed upon image of death in its colloquial.
       a fractal of mistakes taken as righting out. I sense prognostication
when potential for a satisfied framed encounter or out of luck that was
       a night making all of this less than total.

I     remember the discoloration of the many lights – the sky beginning an
  erratum: this could have been your last – what is exacted here
        like a tarot, the culprit a newfangled man in the rearview mirror.

4.
How can I forget you – all of you? You wear light like karsunsilyo.
You are all flowers I arrive at a contusion of gardens.
  Rinse me with light – abandon me after.

5.
  Made air staler. Dew my maiden when lit
  from the matutinal – in tow, a bedraggled kite soaring in the heat
  one distinct summer,
      wish it pure that was I, almost touching the vermillion,
my faintest image of freedom was a bird trapped in between
   the venetian.

6.
  In a dream, I am pursued by a train in an alley – in the next scene,
I am being forced to take a plunge
       into a chasm: the fall did not scare me – but my acquiescence
made me flinch: standing before space, anesthetizing
       the skin so it made me more than metal, the clangor

   suggests a tragedy. Awakened by violent nudges
from       my mother: it was the New Year. Pyrotechnics paint the sky
over and over an ephemera in the bleak behemoth of this:
       a makeshift home ruined by untranslatable music

the sound of rain at 11 in the afternoon and a nearby funeral.

Faded building-tops
Tips erased by smog and haze

Are dulled, washed out
As the sky comes down, smothering the ground.

Flags lay limp, ephemeral trees
Like phantom shadows, dissolve

Into **** heads
Or bare crooked limbs.

Everything is cloaked
In staler colors.

The mind, too, is dull.
Stale people drag in driveling stupor

To places I do not
And never will know.

Nothing here
but crisps and beer.

A hundred thousand reasons why
and I
have not found one.
Passing wind on the Central line
or passing time in the wind
it's one or all,
but we're all going to fall
in the final round into
the cold dark ground.

and there's nothing
nothing
nothing there
but stale smoke
and staler air.

bein' alone with my thoughts, that’s my own personal hell
no wonder mom and dad convinced I need professional help
meanwhile, the air’s getting staler, sicker than Vlad the Impaler
this girl is fit like she's tailored, and I just want to impale her
and nail her and maybe regale her with a tale or two,
a sick and sordid affair, yeah that’s the tale of my youth
harried and scared of the truth, and very wary of you
unfairly comparing myself to Mr. Magoo
what it do, baby boo, hoo, you need to quit crying kid
it's not like you grew up poor or surrounded by violence,
my right mind, I can’t find it, the shine, my memory’s blinded
I forgot what my line is, I need to be reminded
another day goes by, sidesteppin' the pain
count the hours, that’s another 24 down the drain
that’s just more of the same, steadily losing my way
riding the pines like a veteran who just lost his game
call me Juwan Howard, call me Tracy McGrady,
call me a coward, I’m exactly as the Lord made me
this is what the world made me, a shady container
of creativity and malice and lust and anger and talent
and flesh and blood, I’m a man with no plans, and too much time
on his hands, that’s a bad mix, dangerous equation,
temporary high, always chasing that elation
sick of being patient, and putting up with this fake ****
I’m packing my bags and making my way to the station
need to increase my concentration if I’m ever gonna make it
take it one step at a time, this ain’t no nickel and dime
I’m already this dope and not even close to my prime yet