This is the time lean woods shall spend
A steeped-up twilight, and the pale evening drink,
And the perilous roe, the leaper to the west brink,
Trembling and bright to the caverned cloud descend.


Now shall you see pent oak gone gusty and frantic,
Stooped with dry weeping, ruinously unloosing
The sparse disheveled leaf, or reared and tossing
A dreary scarecrow bough in funeral antic.


Then, tatter you and rend,
Oak heart, to your profession mourning; not obscure
The outcome, not crepuscular; on the deep floor
Sable and gold match lustres and contend.


And rags of shrouding will not muffle the slain.
This is the immortal extinction, the priceless wound
Not to be staunched. The live gold leaks beyond,
And matter’s sanctified, dipped in a gold stain.

"And when your fourth love leaves you. You will want to **** yourself, but you won't Because you no longer think of suicide as a house you will build one day" ~ Future Tense by Neil Hilborn.

I keep hoping
That if I keep writing enough about you
About us
What happened and what you did
It'll be written out of the existence of my conscious
That the memories will melt away
As if they were frost coated blades of grass
In a lukewarm spring morning
I care you know
About if you're happy now
Maybe
I keep hoping that if I bleed enough ink
Everything will finally stop
And fall
And reorder itself
That the past five years
Will fade out
Through the tip of this pen
The insecurities will be gone
The trauma will be gone
The memories will be gone
You'll be gone
For good
Never existing
A total and complete stranger
Because who you are now
Isn't who I first met
But that's life right?
People changed
I changed
And it hurt like hell
But after that
Everything melded
Faded together
The sun and moon
Will no longer fight for supremacy behind my closed eyelids
Sadness will finally move out of happiness's home
The unwanted roommate
Never paying their rent
Leaving behind tidbits of loneliness
That would always cover
Your vortex infused days of sun
Cozy winter mornings have reappeared
Snuggled in a blanket
Snow caressing my window sill
A gust turned into
An extinct lovers laugh
Because my days are brighter
My pen is lighter
And the ink that I've bled
Over the past five years
Has finally been staunched
From the incisions
On my ugly blue battered
Gun powder heart.

I'm way past my bedtime
Losing balance, veering to the right
Before I hit the wall
Or the cabinet or the floor
Where did this jelly come from?
I thought I had it down
It wants to come up
So let's help him up
He's already drowned
Twice we drowned him
But they kept coming up

A man I once knew
...he was a professional man...
He should have known what he was talking about
I thought he did
More often than not
I trusted him
Law and natural fact
I could see the love in his eyes
He was convinced the cessation of my problem
Was it's light dying and silently slipping off
Into the air
My, oh my, I must not have been paying attention

Another hour passed
My mind was worked up
Worked up professionally
With pure quality workmanship
But it's not gonna last
I don't care
If they invested millions of dollars
You god, Oh Mighty Jesus Christ on a popsicle stick
I'm just gonna fall asleep
I'm a-gonna sleep until I wake
And I ain't a-gonna wake up until
I'm good and ready

He seemed to know what he spoke of
He was, after all, wearing a doctor's coat
After all, he had a silver-pearl stethoscope hanging around his neck
I was tempted to believe he was a great physician
But I wasn't so sure he was a Good Doctor
Not a very good one
The only sawbones I could afford
He told me that I'm very selfish
But not to worry, he said
"All bipolars are like that
All that they see is filtered through
ME ME ME ME ME".

So I had to think about it for awhile
I had to rub it in my clay-hands brain
Until I understood it to be truth
My hardening heart beats only for me
Prayers found me on my knees
Knelt
Until my legs fell asleep
Circulation staunched, the numbness
I tried to rise and walk
I tried to rise and walk
"Come forth!" I heard. "Rise and WALK!"
I tried to rise and walk
I TRIED
Fell down three times
It was like skating in an ice rink
The pulsating music of KISS throbbing through the loudspeakers
(It was that disco knock-off they took to the charts)
I was the kid who got knocked down
I know that funny man didn't mean to run over my hand with his skate
Accidents happen
(Even if the Good Doctor says that's all a bunch of crap)
I lifted my hand to my face
I felt nothing
I thought perhaps it would take some time to kick in, that there would come a moment when the pain would crash over me tsunami-style. It would overcome me, and at that point I would not be screaming at myself anymore but at everyone. I'd curse them because they were there. I'd **** them for no good reason whatsoever. Wrong place, wrong time. Unlucky twins. God knows them not, nor vouches them for His. One is chosen. The Other refused. ME ME ME ME ME. It is more cruel to be told this secret than to be kept in the dark.
Keep me in the dark.
Leave me alone.
Silence your Teaching Voice and let me sleep
Let me sleep in disbelief
Forget the part where I said,
"I ain't a-gonna wake up until I'm good and ready"

I've been put down
I'm held down to drown
Jelly air to fill my gills
No longer screaming
Abandoned my temple
To the banks of the Ohio
I gave the Good Doctor something interesting
To write in his reports

These days it feels like I've traversed
A whole entire universe
Yet two decades with one year shy
I'm slowing down at Twenty Five.

Short of breath, I close my eyes
Yet keep the inner open wide
Upon a place that won't exist
Unless I choose to reminisce

Sleeping bleeds the staunched off wound
Once bound and kept from swollen eyes
And in the welling, gaping maw
I see the truth swept in the tide.

The sleeping gaze, turned inward then
Sees faces I won't see again
The lover I once washed away
Sweeps shore-ward, where he'll always stay

Within my skull, against my mind
Beneath the dreaming cobalt sky
The softest skin, the sweetest sin
Will always fill my dreams with him.

Where does the world go when it’s swallowed into abyss,
sodomized selectively with its own abandoned sins,
self induced lies and illogics,
it can’t drag it’s eyes across the gritted mirror,
stained scattered across its frame,
It’s drag marks burrowed into its arms,
veins a scab of ache and infected grit,
the world festers,
it’s gaunt and slender,
a skinny ****,
eyes carved deep within the bowels of its skull,
coke left overs flecked at its bleeding nostrils.

Everything is a consentuated trip,
the world’s gone sour,
look at her,
used and hollow,
thighs voluptuous,
yet bruised so tender beneath the surface,
if you could strip her skin rye and clean
to see the muscle tendons beneath
then you’d find hand prints scattered across her,
down through her curves,
violating and probing deep inside her,
no place the wicked haven’t been on and inside her.

Fingers of spider and the unnerving maggots that crawl beneath,
she scatters the buck shot shavings
abound the blood screened room of bodies and fiendish men long lost and bullet beaten,  
the shot gun barrel tokes a puff of gunpowder exhaust as she swings it levered spewing
it’s shrapnel with laughter,
and her grin,
the world’s broken smile,
disease ridden and staunched,
it burns ember as the bodies stain the hotel carpet,
stain over stain,
sin feasting on sin.

World, where does it end?
World, where?
World, will it ever end?

World, death doesn’t take a day off.

It was all the same,
Morning to Morning,
Night to night.
The meaning of beatitude did not exist in me,
Only bleakness enriches my soul.

Little joys in dogs and toys did not entice me,
Neither did the florishing perfums of stores after stores.
A smiles started to become a fabricated motion of crinkling the corners of my cheeks.
Limelight staunched ,
Power in my hands,
And the world at my feet.

The world was no longer colorful,
With hopes and dreams.
Red and blue.
Clouded and pricked.
Black and white.
Vision gray.

It was all the same.
Morning to Morning,
night to night.
My purpose,
The meaning,
Vanished like spring.
It blooomed, it peaked, it died.

It was all the same.
Everything around me turned gray.

Yesterday
I found it a little harder
to pick up my pen
a little harder to smile at strangers
hand limp and heavy
eyelids dry and sagging
life’s **** sometimes
finding myself
caught somewhere between
catch twenty-two and murphy’s law
When did it all turn so dark?

ugh,
inspiration is a *****

And yes, Today
the pen is still made of lead
but my inspiration is stronger
and ink flows

This morning I sutured my open wounds
tears of blood staunched for now
soon, I wish, I hope
to stitch it all up
slap a clean bandage over it all
Pronounce it done

Tomorrow
or maybe years from now
it will fade to a scar, a memory
faint lines, a reminder
and not Reality

There is thunder in my bones where you lay.
Your memories dissolve like salt into a wound.
To this day,
If anyone calls me 'Red,'
I will rain down like the storm cloud you always hoped I wasn't.
My collective tears will burst from the dam
Until not a spot on your soul is dry.
I will tear out the tendons, remove the connective tissues.
You wanted to make me yours,
To erase the personhood until I was pliable for your will.
To some extent, you succeeded.
Your memories are stored in my body, trauma.
The bleeding is internal, is not visible, is just as deadly,
But I have staunched the flow.
There is thunder where you lay in my bones,
Lightning where you touched me.
I am tearing you away tendril by sticky tendril.
I hope you feel the sting inside you.
This girl is not your object.
This girl is a hurricane.
This girl is the end of your world.
There are words for what you did,
****** assault, ****,
But they are not sufficient for the way
My psyche floated out of my skin.
You counted on the scars keeping me bound,
But you had only started the storm.
I am a thundercloud, a lightning goddess,
Made from the sun, wind, and ocean.
You called me 'Red' like my hair,
But I am 'Red' like my temper, like fire.
Try me once more, and I will teach you not to play games
With young girls.

Once a flowing wound of words but now
Creative flow staunched and stitched
No bleeding of verse or prose  
Just an ugly scar of silence
                                    
The need and longing to inflict and cut
For the release of poetic flow                                              
The razor sharp blade of sorrow?
The serrated edge of loneliness?
                                        
An overwhelming desire to ****** deep to release
The swirling vortex of words
Bleeding onto the page
Thoughts, feelings and dreams  

Bringing sweet pain and pleasure
Of the written word
Baring our soul
For all to read

Sit and think
Contemplate
The world as it is
What a difference
A year makes

Joy and love
Gives way to
Sadness and pain
Betrayal
The watchword of it all

Sit and think
What's the point?
Why is there this
Suffering
Torment and pain
Never-ending
Fades from time to time
But it waits

Watching like a jungle cat
Waiting
Just waiting
For a moment of weakness
For the prey to relax
Then it may strike

Contemplate the edge
As you thumb the blade
Wonder
What would it feel like
Is it true
That it's cowardly?
It's easier
To lay down and die
Than to keep fighting
Keep trying
And nothing changes

Forced to walk alone
For all the effort
To care so much
And nothing in return
The mind screams
That's the way it is
The heart weeps
Poor shattered thing
Wants to give
Can't make it happen

Shallow cut
On the pad of the thumb
Pulls the mind to reality
Softly swearing
The tool is cast aside
This time
As the wound
Is staunched

This time
The mind won
Survival
Over the pain
In the heart
We live to fight
Another day

"I don't know what the words
he speaks to the walls
in hushed impatience mean.
A perimeter of experience
perfectly seamed
between the real
and unreal.
A portrait of the forest
with no leaves."

It goes like this:

Our noise
The wreckage of being alive
Will eventually grass over into something natural
and unadorned.

Taking our self-interest away.
Emptying decades of ego
drip by
drip.

Forgetting the birds in the trees,
how vast a neighborhood felt passing by school bus windows,
and the way dew beaded
in front the hospital when they said
“We’re out of options.”

Sorrow,
however human,
has always staunched itself just beyond each hallway’s end.

A vastness terrifying and grim.
Like the inedible gristle
from a cheap steak
forever rolling between gapped molars.

Eventually the coping mechanisms fade,
and we accept the bristling fact
it’s never going
to get better.

Bide time ruminating,
how our bodies careened off one another.
Something primally magical
about the curve of bones
concussed by freckles bloomed in desert sun.

And how time has left each appendage
standing suddenly disconsolate
and devoid of humanity.
The odd one out,
picked neither for shirts
nor skins.

You gradually get worse at self-preservation.
Faltering when remembering words
or what side of the bathroom door the handle is on.
Movement eventually follows, leaving you bed-bound.
Taking note, your immune system quietly packs it’s bags
and slinks out the back door slow
so you can wither to an unencumbered close.

I want my sloughed tissue brain
to struggle against a thin strand of humanity,
fighting the fade of your presence
harder than the fact I can no longer spell my sibling’s names.

Will yours remember me?
Or will it stay tied down elsewhere,
bruises being choked into it’s pliable facade.
A miasma of crop tops and denim skirts.

It will arrive,
certain
but unannounced.
The culmination of a life well-lived.
Feedback, white-noise, static,
silence.
Peace as stark as a womb.

Yet when I close my eyes now,
all I see is the gnashing of teeth.

I want them to say I was obsessed
Crazy mad for the earth that curled around my feet
Tortured by my addiction to touch
Sinful for the hunger that knotted up the trees near your house
That led me to your walls made from
raw words and thick veins
That they would whisper that I was  
Desperate to hold onto the moon like a
healer holds onto mortality
I want them to find comedic relief in
how fortifying  silly colloquialisms are to me
sinking with me when
strangers called me "petal"
All of them would gladly proclaim
I died from drinking too much
from an aching well
of your words
That my bones were wrapped in silky sarcasm
My blood almost translucent in a carpet of
olive moss ,
whispering back to the cumulus
"why?", "of course, my love", and "me too"
I want them to describe my time
as a staunched storyteller
with ears for eyes
and an ocean mouth
I want it to be all okay
That I entered the earth soft and weeping
but left as
a bizarre beautiful form

I lived here far too long
in this cavern dripping its darkness
with accusations and critiques
that have wetted my back with thick moisture
sticky with comparisons.
The crevasses and stones were placed with my collusion
in crazy cooperation with shadow.

Sadly the path of my past is strewn with this profusion
but gladly timely shafts of light spoiled the deception
and I climbed to a luminous plain
encountered rocky mounts
with veins of silver and gold
that bantered with the pain.

Now my long conversation with light
has staunched the blight
and rarely does the tempest threaten
to drown my spirit in its flood.

For now my shortfalls are taken in stride
measured against the serenity of truth
that surrounds me.

Now my hands are joined to fellow travelers,
to the faithful who laugh with me
at the reaper of darkness
weak in the ditch
whimpering over the paucity of his power
in the face of brothers and sisters
redeemed by the force
of honesty, trust, and Love.

Written 11-9-19

My heart beats but is not heard
crying out for love
for anything to grasp onto
cracking under the loss of normality

Longing for a mother's touch
oozing out tainted blood to circulate through an empty shell
beating to a steady, sad beat
these hands of mine caress once what was hollow and broken

They write out things, dark things
allowing my hearts blood to write words lost to speech
gaining strength
losing that gentle soft touch

Etched scars forever staunched from flowing onto paper
creating art one word at a time
darkness is what consumes this clockwork of my brain
buried deep are thought that could never be brought to the surface

Allowing dark thoughts to flow through my hand to meet paper
thinking back to shadowed days of the past
ticking away at catchy lines
sinking deeper and deeper into my souls confines

Dragging to the surface what must be left alone
My mouth tightly sealed
tries to hide words that can't be spoken
tongue silently flitting over my teeth silently speaking thoughts

Feeling the words drip down from gums like saliva
gathering words in a shallow puddle
longing for my lips to speak what I know I mustn't utter
Succumbing to the inner battles the words wages on my delicate mouth

Horrible things have been seen with these tattered eyes of mine
death forever ingrained in my mind through these eyes
Burning and searing into memories sights I have sought after
sights full of beautiful imagery

Leaving my grasping for more
pull in colors to put in little glass vile
so I can go back and uncork my very essence of happiness
These feet have traveled to far away places

Taking me on a journey to behold
taking root to a future
leading me to nowhere and everywhere at the same time
staying put taking in all of my surroundings

tapping out beats of a worn path
leading the way to one endless journey through life

Then thirteen ships came from Ireland to Wales

A splendid fleet, bearing an Irish King,

Noble in their rigging and billowed sails,

Their shields upturned with peaceful meaning.



This sea-king Moir came ashore seeking Bran

The Blessed King of Wales who welcomed him

And asked him what brought them to Albion

And its precious holy land of Cymry.



‘Most revered King, Gentle Giant,

I come to seek the hand of your sister

Whose beauty and chastity are renowned,

And that you may bond another brother’.



Then Bran took aside his sister Bronwen

And asked if she would take this adventurer

Who had chanced the wide grey sea unbeknown,

For island fellowship and love of her.



But she too soon the captive of this fleet

Accepted the warrior’s white gold ring,

Losing her gentle heart beyond retreat,

Gifted in love to Moir the pirate king.



But seldom do the peaceful bring horses -

And Evnissen, Bronwen’s broken sibling,

Saw treachery there, and he was jealous,

Wanting her but hating the saintly king.



Then this would-be incestuous betrayer

Skinned the mouth of each horse to their jaws

Showing no mercy in his hatred there

Blinding the best in fury for his cause.



Then Moir, heartbroken, cast aside his bride,

Angry to the bone at this vile mischance,

And vowing war he readied for the tide

Set to repay dishonour with vengeance.



When word of this came to Bran the Blessed

He was distraught that he should be betrayed,

That his beloved sister should be mocked,

His rule of peace and justice thus destroyed.



And Bran the holy king sought atonement

That Moir should forgive this dreadful slight,

Aside its perpetrator’s punishment,


Pledging his own claim to heavenly right -



Offering a sound horse for those maimed

A staff of silver as tall as a man

Fine plates of gold, and a cauldron, long famed,

That will restore the bodies of the slain.



Then all swore peace as the gods might behove

And Bronwen set aside her tears of loss

For tears of joy and vows of endless love

In token that these ills would fade and pass.



And after feasting the lovers took ship

Coming at last to Ireland and Moir’s keep

With Bronwen soon loved for her fellowship,

And her beauty, and her playing of the harp.



But some of the Irish could not forget

Their losses and their humiliation

And Bronwen became hated and disgraced

Her life demanded in reparation.



Then Moir not wishing to put her to worse,

Made Bronwen the court cook’s scullion

Bidding the butcher, as his killing curse,

To smack her ear with his cleaving iron.



But Bronwen who was pure as first-light snow

Charmed the castle birds which heard her sing

And taught a starling to speak so it could show

Bran a letter she had pinned to its wing.



Then Bran his gentleness and love despaired,

Conspired to conquer Ireland and heel Moir -

And a mighty armed fleet he best prepared

That thus the nations came to bitter war.



Of which so much is sung by the minstrels

Who tell of endless triumph and defeat -

And how the Irish opened a thousand hells

Feeding the sacred cauldron with their dead -



And how Evnissen staunched the warrior flow

By breaking apart the massive grail’s bands

But died in agony as he came to know

The fullest fury one’s own hell commands -



And how Bronwen died of a broken heart:

All hope for peace dying with her son Gwern,

Whose life unified what was torn apart,

The boy immolated by Evnissen -




And how they severed the head of King Bran

Burying it at the white mound in London,

To warn of civil strife and be the guardian

Of every peace the just might swear upon.

The thoughts of a world... so disparate yet un staunched, for even from disease, disuse
It brings together all of us... no matter who
Lasting the day thorium lithium ****** the lot is truly a cat's sampled tongue on the lambs fur woven cot
Screetching yet perking the morning air, perching not to perish, as blackbirds languish in the scant thin air
Ardent stolid dressed for the ****, soldiers found plates, stained by bonfire smatterings of smokey air
Yet in the brash contrasts when life closes down expositions and forces festering thoughts one halcyon of it remains... that of hope
So with Leprechaun gold in the pockets, of time the daydream of a better future, still unstructured no pentameter or rhyme
Yet each creature throughout aviary schemes and broken with doubt sketches wisps platinum from a scry showing fires crossed,
skybound defiance , and rest
With the cache of changing seasons as gold in the pocket and the crisp bite of each night's cyclic affair brings us together, one in the same

Oh Lord, Your Child needs now an heir,
Just one bright  star to guide us where
Wise men gather, not mere fools
Content just being the Devil’s tools.

You’d sent him once this world to mould
Thru’ words of love and tales he told.  
I had no chance his hem to hold,
No time to watch  that  dream unfold.

For I was born a shade too late
Not to his world but one of hate.
Where man with man with violence deals
The poor one starves, the rich one steals.

Truth is crushed and lies are told
The honest cower, the corrupt are bold.
Where ideas born of shameful birth  
Make deadly mayhem a cause for mirth.

Where teachers teach the tomes of hate  
And  men decide  each others Fate.  
Where rapes become a daily game
Played by men in your name.


Where wounded  streets scream in vain
For a  healing touch to dull the pain
Of mans assaults In the name of God-
Where  children play with gun and sword.

Where crystal skies are staunched in grey
From funeral pyres and life’s decay.
Where Earth bereft of flowering seeds
Just holds the graves of man’s misdeeds.

Where widows wail in stark lament,
Their men are dead their lives are spent.  
The mother seeks a long lost child
Amidst a ruined world turned wild.

Tormented, lost her anguished eyes
Gaze in horror as reason dies.
Its place usurped by Hatred’s flame
Lit by men who chant your name.

Scarred by horrors they see and feel  
Those broken souls before you kneel.
The ****** earth with tears they mark
They seek the light caught in the  dark.

Tattered shrouds and silent quest
They call to you for final rest.
Oh Lord let them his face behold
Lend them now his hand to hold.  

RBM

I felt your knees grip me like an ***-licking dog eats a purple turnip
under a bench when it's snowin' & like a ** when wind is blowin' I
staunched your wounds to stop the fiery-red blood from overflowin'