who knows if the moon’s
a baloon,coming out of a keen city
in the sky—filled with pretty people?
(and if you and i should

get into it,if they
should take me and take you into their baloon,
why then
we’d go up higher with all the pretty people

than houses and steeples and clouds:
go sailing
away and away sailing into a keen
city which nobody’s ever visited,where

always
            it’s
                   Spring)and everyone’s
in love and flowers pick themselves

Not funny but this was written on 4-15-12 exactly a year to the day


I re-post this for our last battel field Boston these words are nothing but as you read you will find the one who lives in them and He is everything all the comfort and hope we can ever want


Sorry if this seems at first confusing all my friends on facebook and Redbubble will get it right away as
I asked them to use their love and caring to pray for my hurting distraught friend at her time of great
Loss if you are hurting it will help to at least a degree or it will help at times of future loss

Well dear sweet precious Addy this brutal day is at an end I hope you sleep well I prayed for you and
Kathleen’s son way into the night at first I was terrified you weren’t going to get my post and you would
Enter as I told my wife you would enter the lion’s den the lions all have familiar names pain sorrow
Grief and many others and they maul with cruelty without pity I didn’t want either of you to take those
Fatal steps without your armor not to be to descriptive but reality waited with a blast I tried to diffuse the
Coffin the grave and headstone never could I do it immeasurably my fight for you could only be in the
Smallest victories comfort mined at times like these is like uranium white silver metallic with almost
A power that can’t be harnessed the same as loss of a love one what blow back again the same as a
Nuclear test one problem you don’t get the protection of a bunker no just suffer the blast in your
Body mind and heart you are stepping into the shoes the same as young woman who lost her father
That as she described him he was the light of her life our paths crossed on line when I thought she
Was a classmate’s wife her story of her dad touched me deeply I’m going to add that piece here plus
The comfort I tried to write for my friend that was more like my brother when his mother died I will
Include a small background so it wail make more sense let me add those here the first was Fathers story
What you read here is her hearts knowing and the undying love that it created and that continues.
His precious hands were removed from earthly things. A great and gentle man his greatest possessions his family. I only knew him from his business and the fact that one of his beautiful daughters married a classmate of mine. Then much later by error I made acquaintance with another of his daughters you can tell a lot about a person from the actions of his children. She told me that he passed away and that he was the light of her life. With God’s help I would like to pay tribute to him.
A light did shine it was magnified by the eyes of a daughters love. He took his journey he went above his ship was the care they shared he the captain made the course straight and true he didn’t slow her run until heaven was in plain view they would have cheered but it hard to see through eyes filled with tears. All the wonderful years seemed to be eclipsed by the sickness that came it seemed an angry wind from their lives this stalwart precious soul it did rend. It left the greatest empty hole it took the longest time to fill and then with the sweetest cooing the grand babies made the hole enlivened not the terrible twisted knot that had the family bound but without being able to speak a word grampaw was found. If you looked in their faces his smile is bound to bundles only heaven can design. I’m not saying they asked him how to work these miracles yet this is true he watched with intense interest and was happiest since his departure he knew that back through time and space healing was for all time secured. Their stoic acceptance could now be laid aside the family could run in softer climes know the sweetest of times that were thought to be forever gone.
Love spills down from heights distance is only on a map in peoples heart its no farther than the end of your finger tips. Images are so strong not because we have great minds it’s easy to make these rich finds when your love and its power shake the foundation of the universe is it not said that love is the greatest power. Oh how so many in dark shadows cower when they possess the power to ignite the world on fire. From heart to heart it does dart the wildness of the spirit is told blotting out all of the cold. Yes there is winter but also the spring. The light spoken of is no longer beholden to earth and so the family is free by love he joins his light to the Christ the all glowing light
Life force by haldenton
To all who have lost heroes
This was written to Eva’s son Bill to help him at her passing. With this writing I took him back thirty years when he was in the truck wreck that killed his dad his recovery saved his mother I hoped by him being reminded of that now it would help him the same way.
Tribute to Eva Wafford Life force
For all who lost heroes
In your soul freshly the wind of death did blow.
Cold eerie shadows marched against your tender broken heart.
What defense could this onslaught repel agony’s volcanic flow.
Ominous well filled with grief from this weight no relief.
The child the grim reaper did spare.
Only after leaving the body bruised and in despair.
From this broken body drops of mercy started to make the mother well.
I held your trembling frame today this memory rings sweet as a bell.
Streets and houses without number fill the land.
I can’t help when I look to recall memories grand.
Now they are but dreams that ache in the night.
Images that over ride the present in their glory I take flight.
Brush aside caution raise your voice as a trumpet.
They live only in yesterdays even so indelibly they wrote their stories.
We hold our children we cling only a moment as mist on the summit.
Your life Eva continues to build the next generation.
Your voice is heard in the breath of your grandchildren.
Wonders they spin from golden thread, now that you have gone ahead.
Your spirit glows in the fire that warms the house against winter.
Summer’s cool breeze not sent by chance she doe’s tenderly incite.
Death silently said what I already knew.
To me you were always immortal you were bigger than life
Many were the days when the wind of storms blew
those who know us feel the calm; this is only your life on review

One more
Simply Jim
Old Abe said it right ‘It is right and fitting that we speak these words here to honor these lives so honorably lived. I can say that about Jim and this also he was a prince among men if I do this right the words will convince you.
He had a gentle way and nature he spoke softly but a softness that flowed to you like ribbons that bounced in a little girl’s hair how delightful. He should have been a doctor his hands his mannerism was ideal for that job. I guess thats what made him stand out so strongly like a gentle calm breeze if you came in a panic his soul would float down around you like a parachute first it safely brings you from great anxiety and exaltation to a graceful landing then gently envelops you in its silken embrace. I had this privilege of watching him inter act with his wife as I said and truly he was a prince and I was the beggar that benefitted richly from the sidelines God knew my needs.
He was called from this life but all the days he filled before his home going are the sustaining force noticeably seen felt with keen awareness you know that a gentleman passed this way. In the lives left behind there is a blend of sadness and astonishment you realize you are looking at the work of a master workman who left behind a tightly and perfectly fitted family this unfortunately is sadly rare in this society that boast of its accomplishments.
As a friend his breadth and depth was sufficient you weren’t a burden he had a way of dispelling trouble making you understand with wisdom and unerring judgment then with ease you could extricate yourself from the problem. His heavenly father filled him with tenderness it stood him and others well in a somewhat crabby world. If you’re pressed and anxious about life take from this life expressed. A portion of the good will you need use it as a defense Jim couldn’t be everywhere but God saw fit to make an original that you can duplicate benefit from and be a part of his ongoing legacy. Thanks friend for a life lived well

Well hurting one in the earlier part of a writing I said I am God’s battle field reporter and medic
These writings are my bandages and gauze God gave me great big hands and I fill them with
Salve with all the love I know I gently apply it to your broken hurting wounds mingle it with
Tears that are not always mine alone but His mixes with mine one day He will abolish all tears
Until then this is our duty your heart we hear and we can do no other God bless you Addy and
Your nephew and all others who find this helpful

Mirrored Pool


Wonder for all the hurts

First I knelt just to see my reflection then the depths started to reveal first the flowing thoughts were
Restrained and then a bubbling seemed to dislodge from greater depths hard truths churned with
Violent twisting but the motion made it impossible to turn away there were great large white clouds
From depths then even above the pool they rose fourteen stories high the sensation was you were
Standing outside clear air intoxicating views the pulse of many were throbbing in your ears their
Thoughts and dreams were known and their sorrows were weights that pulled you from the heights
It was a colossal game of tag and you were it first reaction fear then the appearance of bundled gifts
Broke down the fear it was promise in different sizes that met the required needs it was like a divine
Warehouse had just made a delivery there were cards with names and writing gave clarification tears
And smiles intermingled then the outer knowing postulated the difficulty the puzzle an enormous
Streaming that was now congested and it was beginning a vortex all was understood now human thought
With doubts was pulling the answer into this destructive hole where was one to find the lever to stop
This action that would disallow was the answer to touch the water bring the finger to my lips possibly
A blazing thought would occur that would strike the mind no all that brought was words that had the
Letters jumbled they made no sense unless there is a special book that is alive in it the letters and words
Are already set but they cover every act in the human condition the broken can pour over the pages
You won’t find thorns to repel your efforts there are thorns but they will speak and assuage your hurts
At the most basic and needed levels the points of your hurts will begin to dissolve from your eyes to
Your mind this inward rush and power will dislodge even spears driven deep by enemies carried for
Years you searched in vain over sad and lonely paths and days now you journey is at an end thorns of
Suffering for another produces profound power and mercy go in peace beloved one another bears your
Burden now maybe words cut you at depths you can’t even identify what if there is an antidote in a
Book you pick it up with trembling hands your body tingles from the knowledge that this is ancient texts
It will have a revival of appreciation in this world of texting but with gentle fingers and eyes that glow
With respect as you see the wisdom and the love cannot be denied you leave the world you know and
With total abandonment you swim in this sea of words until the your tears spill on this rich world of
Words those cruel barbed words that pierced tender skin and have bled internally all of these years
Begin to dissolve with stories and accounts of betrayals then the swells love and mercy you read about
Restoration not always found after apologies are given but the teaching of forgiveness strikes a cord
You have been made free from your prison the tangles of life are great as a great black cloud it hangs
Over head many are its troubles this isn’t mild but the disruptive made to strike and pierce deep the
Hidden that steals the morning blessing while other feast your hunger and unrest only enlarges a
Tormenting unquenchable fire a slow burn this is a forest being burned at the thermal level the hidden
Roots a slow process destructive but not so visible agony torture I have seen men crawl in war or fire
Fighting that where all else is lost you will know greater thrills than any other living soul with the
Desperate and those heavy burdened unable to stand a word will flow it puts out fires and gives
The luxurious buoyancy heaviness changed to joy the bouncy laughter every outward blast attack
The enemy launches is within its pages they are repelled overwhelmed by love you suffer unduly
If you don’t hold this fortress this informative book of stratagems that have made everyone a victor
Who has ever found themselves at their wits end no place on earth has a contingency plan though it
Will make the greatest claims all is just empty air when life as it too often does ***** the very air of life
Out we practically are unconscious but this help this rescue is activated by one name it’s not just a book
But the word is a person what a pool you will find what a reflection will engage you beyond your hope
To imagine just say Jesus all will be total peace your heart will know no more sorrow peace will surpass
Sorrow love will disallow the specter that was once a constant it will disappear it will return to the
Darkness from which it came stand in this newness totally free abide by still waters as the good
Sheppard stands by bless you



Disgrace

This land void of devotion gone is the church steeples.
Replaced by voices and shadows of drug dealers on each corner.
Now they are the keepers, lost cities, death stalks its peoples.
Nothing is sacred in this polluted and diffused land.

No longer hallowed be thy name, it’s as if he never came.
Forgotten is any standard of moral excellence.
The once high ideals only represent a fool’s parlance.
Man declares I throw off these restraints only to find darker chains.

The book that once guided this great land.
We now betray with each waking day.
Our hearts and mind it did ignite, now it’s word we can’t stand.
Powerless and feeble we stumble, anxious ever moment.

Just to remember is not enough, best confess our pride.
Make sacrifice with our lips, to burn on altars on high.
There is a short season for all to make amends to regain our stride.
March on to glory with it burning on the inside.

You don’t have to be astute in business to see the sound investment.
Bring your poverty of spirit leave with the riches of his last testament.
It offers the greatest rate of exchange.
Light for darkness, life for death, selfless love for selfishness.


Streaks of Jefferson


In freedom’s blessed glorified sky through streaks of immortal gold his visage we behold
He looks upon the fields of liberty that he and the founding fathers sowed he sees the

Richness America has become he also beheld her struggles catastrophic wars abroad
And the most painful the one that divided the nation marred it with southern and northern

Blood saw the affable the sad giant Lincoln take the reins of discontent hold them by
Shear will and with uncommon sagacity guided it back in line to fulfill its destiny as the

Powerful fount that would always pour forth waters of freedom for all of earths peoples
Total unconditional acceptance of liberty and all the fruit it bears to establish a

Government like no other this golden grain has waved under bluest skies and brightest
Sun light its rich harvest has gone to darkest prison cells Mandela was sustained by it

For twenty nine years and by its moral purity it fed the lives of those that over threw
Apartied and Mandela finally freed by principals it avows rose from prison clothes

To wear the mantle of president of his country and the honor of the man instilled
Quality that transcended political office Jefferson not to be disrespectful to his progeny

Whispers today’s politicians could do well to look on this African model of good
Stewardship of public trust with that Jefferson faded back into the mist pray that’s
Not the fate of this country






--------------------------------------------------------------­------------------

1008

How still the Bells in Steeples stand
Till swollen with the Sky
They leap upon their silver Feet
In frantic Melody!

We wear this city on our feet
Planting our roots with each step
Our shadows

cast shapes of ancient oak trees stretching out over old squares at daybreak
We grow here

with the spirit of buildings past,
present and rising like a staircase to heaven in the distance,
the plumes of white smoke from their rooftops as burnt offerings for incense,
spires for steeples,
the bundled masses of people moving beneath as the calloused soles
of our feet pounding the pavement,
Our congregation

seated in reverant silence on the R-Line hissing to a stop
Their hushed prayers filing out from within to bring the reclaimed sidewalks of Fayetville Street back to life to join this pilgramage
They march

downtown toward Capitol
holding signs for disarmament
They bar-hop through Glenwood toasting to deliverance
They move in a blur of faces that become us,
Rush at all hours through our veins
Cross our hearts and keep us breathing,
Moving
wearing the city on our minds
like the greyest pieces of their winter sky and the way it caps the peaks of Mount PNC, BB&T and Wells Fargo like hoodies over our heads
We assume monk-like appearances
in robes color-coded by season- from blue collar sweaters to cold hard sweat
We'll wear their city until we're worn out and wet,

We'll wear their dreams at night
like streetlamps flickering on beneath wired telephone poles carrying conversations about each one as far south as Florida, fears unspoken, made visible
on iron park benches too cold to sit on at this hour
We'll keep walking

and wear this city like backpacks over our shoulders

under the watch of their heavens,
the skyline
a glowing testament
of every step taken
toward someplace higher.

1.

From our
safe windows,
we crane our necks,
rubbernecking
past the slow
motion wreckage
unfolding in Homs.

We remain
perfectly
perched
to marvel at
the elegant arc of
a mortar shell
framing tomorrows
deep horizon,
whistling through
the twilight to
find its fruitful
mark.

In the now
we keep
complicit time,
to the arrest
of beating hearts,
snapping fingers
to the pop
of rifle cracks,
swooning to
the delicious
intoxication of
curling smoke
lofting ever
upward;
yet
thankfully
remain
distant
enough to
recuse any
possibility
of an
intimate
nexus
with the
besieged.

2.

From our
safe windows,
we behold the
urgent arrivals of
The Friends of Syria
demanding
clean sheets
and 4 Star
room service at a
Tunisian Palace
recently cleaned
and under new
management
promising a
much needed
refurbishment.

The gathered,
a clique of
this epochs
movers and shakers,
a veritable
rouges gallery of
ambassadorial
prelates, Emirs and
state department
bureaucrats
summoned
with portfolio
from the
darkest corners
of the globe.

They are
eager to
sanctify
the misery
of Homs,
deflect and
lay blame
with realpolitik
rationalizations,
commencing
official commissions
of inquiry,
deliberating
grave considerations,
issuing indictments
of formal charges for
Crimes Against
Humanity
while
remaining
urgently
engrossed
in the fascination
of interviewing
potential
process servers
to deliver the bad news
to Bashar al-Assad
and his soulless
Baathist
confederates,
if papers
are to be
served.

Yes, the diplomats
are busy meeting
in closed rooms.

In hushed circles
they whisper
into aroused ears,
railing against
Russia’s
gun running
intransigence
and China’s
geopolitical
chess moves.

Statesmen
boast of the
intrepid justice
of tipping points
and the moving poetry
of self serving tales,
weighing the impact
of stern sanctions
amidst the historical
confusion of the
asymmetrical
symmetries
of civil war.

Caravans
of Arab League
envoys roll up
in silver Bentleys,
crossing deserts
of contradictory
obfuscations,
navigating the
endless dunes
with hand held
sextants of
hidden agendas.

The heroic
Bedouins are
eager to offload
their baggage
and share
on the ground
intelligence from
their recent soirées
across Syria.

They beg
a quick fix,
the triage of a
critical catharsis
to bleed their
brains dry
of heinous
recollections,
pleading
release from a
troubled conscience
victimized by
the unnerving paradox
of reconciling
discoveries of
perverse voyeurism
with the sanctioned
explanations
of their respective
ruling elites.

The bellies
of these
scopophiliacs
are distended;
grown queasy
from a steady diet
of malfeasance
an ulcerated
world parades
in continuous loop;
spewing the raw feeds
of real time misery;
forcibly fed
the grim
visions of
frantic
fathers
rushing
the mangled
carcases
of mortally
wounded
children
to crumpled
piles of smashed
concrete that were
once hospitals.

We despondently
ask how
much longer
must we
look into
the eyes
of starving
children
emaciated from
the wanton
indifference
of the world?


3.

From our
safe windows
we wonder
how much
longer can
the urgent
burning
ambivalence
continue
before it
consumes
our common
humanity in
a final
conflagration?

My hair already
singed by the
endless firestorms
sweeping the prairies
of the world.

How can we survive
the trampling hoards,
the marauding
plagues of acrimony
fed by a voracious
blood lust aspiring to
victimize the people
of Homs and a
thousand cities
like it?


4.

From my safe
window I stand in witness
to the state execution of
refugees fleeing the
living nightmare
of Baba Amr.

The ****** of innocents,
today's newly minted martyrs,
women and children
cornered, trapped
on treacherous roads,
mercilessly
slaughtered and
defiled in death
to mark the lesson
of a ruthless master
enthralled with the
power of his
sadistic fascist
lordship.

I cannot avert my eyes
marking sights
of pleading women
begging for the
lives of their children
in exchange for
the gratification
of a sadists
lust.

My heart
is impaled
on the sharp
spear of
outrage
beholding
careening
children mowed
down with the
serrated blades
protruding
from marauding
jeeps of laughing
soldiers.

I drop
to my knees
in lakes of
tears
reflecting
a grotesque
horror stricken
image of myself.

My eyes have
murdered my soul.

The ghastly images
of Homs have chased
away my Holy Ghost
to the safety of a child's
sandbox hidden away
in a long forgotten
revered memory.


5.

From my safe window
I seethe with anger
demanding vengeance,
debating how to rise
to meet the obscenity of
the Butcher of Damascus.

The sword of Damocles
dangles so tantalizingly close
to this tyrants throat.  

The covered women
of Homs scream prayers
“may Allah bring Bashar to ruin”

Dare I pray
that Allah trip the
horsehair trigger
that holds the
sword at bay?

Do I pick up
the sword
a wield it
as an
avenging
angel?

Am I the
John Brown
of our time?

Do I organize
a Lincoln Brigade
and join the growing
leagues of jihadists
amassing at the
Gates of Damascus?

Will my righteous
indignation fit well
in a confederacy
with Hamas and
al-Qaeda as my
comrades in arms?

Do I succumb to
the passion of hate
and become just
another murderous
partisan, or do I
commend the power
of love and marshal
truth to speak with
the force of
satyagraha?

I lift a fervent prayer
to claim the justice
of Allah’s ear,
“may the knowing one
lift the veil of foolishness
that covers my heart in
cloaks of resent, cure
my blindness that ignores
my raging disease of
plausible deniability
ravaging the body politic
of humanity.”

6.

Indeed,
physician heal thyself.

I run to embrace my
illness.

I pine to understand it.

I undertake the
difficult regimen
of a cure to eradicate
the terrible affliction.

This
pernicious
plague,
subverting
the notion
of a shared
humanness
is a cunning
sedition that
undermines
the unity of
the holy spirit.  

The bell from
the toppled steeples
still tolls, echoing
across the space of
continents and eons
of temporal time.

The faithful chimes
gently chides us
to remove the wedge
of perception that
separates, divides
and undermines.

Time has come
to liberally
apply the balm
that salves the
open wounds
so common to
our common
human condition.

The power of prayer
is the joining of hands
with others racked
with the common
affliction of humanness.

Allah,  
My eyes are wide open,
my sacred heart revealed,
my sleeves are rolled up,
my memory is stocked,
my soul filled with resolve,
my hand is lifted
extended to all
brothers and sisters.
Lift us,
gather us
into one
loving embrace.

Selah


7.

From the safe
windows of
our palaces
we live within
earshot of
the trilling
zaghroutas
of exasperation
flowing from
the besieged
city smouldering
under Bashar’s
symphony of terror.

Our nostrils
fill with the
acrid plumes
of unrequited
lamentations
lifting from the
the burning
destruction
of shelled
buildings.

Our eyes spark
from the night
tracers
of sleeking
snipers
flitting along
the city’s
rooftops.

The deadly jinn
indiscriminately
inject the
paralysis of
random fear
into the veins
of the city
with each
skillful
head shot.

These
ghoulish
assassins
lavish in their
macabre work;
like vultures
they eagerly
feast on the
corpses of their ****,
the stench of bloated
bodies drying in the
sun is the perfume
that fills their nostrils.


8.

From our
safe window
we discern the
silhouettes of militants
still boldly standing
amidst the
mounting rubble of an
unbowed Homs
shouting;

Allah Akbar!!!
Allah Akbar!!!
Allah Akbar!!!

raising pumped fists,
singing songs
of resistance,
dancing to
the revelation of
freedom,
refusing to
be coward by
the slashing
whips of a
butchers
terrible
sword.


9.

From my
safe window
my tongue laps
the pap
of infants
suckling from
the depleted
teats of mothers
who cannot cry
for their dying
children;
tears fail
to well from
the exhaustion
of dehydrated
pools.

10.

From my
safe window
my heart stirs
to the muezzin
calling the
desperate faithful
from the toppled
rubble of dashed
minarets.

We can
no longer
shut our ears
to the adhan
of screams
the silent
voices that echo
the blatant injustice
of a people under siege.


11.

From my
safe window,
I pay
Homage to Homs
and call brothers
and sisters to rise
with vigilant
insistence
that hostilities
cease and
humanity be
upheld,
respected and
protected.


12.

From my safe
window
I perceive
the zagroutas
of sorrow
manifest as a
whiling hum,
a sweeping
blue mist,
levitating
the coffins
from the rubble
of ravaged streets.

The swirling
chorus of
mourning
joins my
desperate
prayers;
rising in
concert
with the
black billows
of smoke
dancing
away
from the
flaming
embers
of scorched
neighborhoods.


13.

From my
safe window
I heed
the fluttering
wings
of avenging
angels
furiously
batting
as they
climb
the black
plumes,
lifting from
the scattered bricks
of the desecrated
city.

It is the
Jacob’s
Ladder
for our
time;
marking
a new
consecrated
place
where
a New Adam
is destined
to be formed
from the
pulverized
stones of
desolation.

14.

From our
safe windows
we peer into
resplendent
mirrors
beholding
the perfect image of
ourselves
eying
falling tears
dripping blood,
coloring death
onto the
blanched sheets
of disheveled beds.


15.

From our
safe windows
our voices are silenced,
our words mock urgency
our thoughts betray comprehension
our senses fail to illicit empathy
our action is the only worthy prayer


16.

From my
safe window
I hear the
mortar shells
walking toward
my little palace,
the crack
of a ******
shot
precedes
the wiz of a
passing bullet
whispering
its presence
into my
waxen
ear.


17.

From my
safe window,
my palms scoop
the rich soil
of the flower boxes
perched on my sill.
I anoint the tender
green shoots of  the
Arab Spring
with an incessant flow
of bittersweet tears.

Music selection:
John Coltrane
A Love Supreme
Acknowledgment

Oakland
2/28/12
jbm

The steeples are white in the wild moonlight,
  And the trees have a silver glare;
Past the chimneys high see the vampires fly,
  And the harpies of upper air,
  That flutter and laugh and stare.

For the village dead to the moon outspread
  Never shone in the sunset's gleam,
But grew out of the deep that the dead years keep
  Where the rivers of madness stream
  Down the gulfs to a pit of dream.

A chill wind blows through the rows of sheaves
  In the meadows that shimmer pale,
And comes to twine where the headstones shine
  And the ghouls of the churchyard wail
  For harvests that fly and fail.

Not a breath of the strange grey gods of change
  That tore from the past its own
Can quicken this hour, when a spectral power
  Spreads sleep o'er the cosmic throne,
  And looses the vast unknown.

So here again stretch the vale and plain
  That moons long-forgotten saw,
And the dead leap gay in the pallid ray,
  Sprung out of the tomb's black maw
  To shake all the world with awe.

And all that the morn shall greet forlorn,
  The ugliness and the pest
Of rows where thick rise the stones and brick,
  Shall some day be with the rest,
  And brood with the shades unblest.

Then wild in the dark let the lemurs bark,
  And the leprous spires ascend;
For new and old alike in the fold
  Of horror and death are penned,
  For the hounds of Time to rend.

Blood means nothing
Unless it's staining the streets
Family has no merit
When they don't even See me

You want me to be passive?
And let them spew racist hate?
And all that "gendered" *******?
You can't stop me, too late

**** the systems that oppress us
These prisons are stealing lives
Locking up innocent people
It's a form of modern genocide

We are all human
But our brothers are killed by police
And our sisters killed for their gender identity
But you'd rather look the other way
And defend hateful "free speech"

I am aware of my privilege
And I will not stay silent
You turn your eyes away from police brutality
But try to preach anti-violence

Our country is run by the white and the blue
While the red is the blood of its people
We need to look up at reality
And stop focusing on the steeples

Your hopes and your prayers
Do not end the violence
Instead they teach hate
And oppressive silence

Blue Hill Avenue

It begins with Spanglish-speaking merchants
conducting business inside of bulletproof stalls,
where the faint scent of dried cod follows you
to the flat fix next door, into the auto body,
a hair shop, and to the steps of a church
for first generation Cape Verdean-Americans,
their offspring and that old lady --
someone’s  grandmother --
who wears a black dress on Fridays
and walks home from the Market Basket
the same time that you get off the bus
who wears a shopping bag full of tropical foods
and memories on her head.

And if you stand at its first **** south,
you will notice how the families disappear
in the African American section.
There are fewer stores here, lots of energy boxes
with epitaphs: “Tiffany Moore Died Here”;
a seatless swing set, a playground gone fallow.
You won’t see any church steeples in this section
that feeds on a neon CITGO sign too small
to illuminate the skyline like the mega one in Copley does.

A few blocks away, a ghost of the Jewish past sits
with pointy stars of David nestled inside its
bulbous steeples that simmer on summer Sundays
where Haitian congregants stew inside,
praying and giving to the building fund
in damp envelopes that will go to the omnipotent one
who will someday replace the stars with crosses.

And as you keep walking, past the temple,
you enter Grove Hall’s Mecca, a strip mall
with a drive-thru Dunkin Donuts,

a Stop & Shop, CVS, Bank of America,
and a Rainbows that sells your teenaged aunt
the sequined one-off shirt she needs for a date
and the fishnets she wears to the carnival
that parades through a sliver of the avenue,
the very next section of our beloved Blue Hill.

Across the street, Check Cashers speak English
as good as the number of dollars and cents
they count when they hand you back your cashed check
or the double win you scratched out of a Gold Rush ticket.

Adjacent to them, a Greek-owned sandwich shop
that feeds you steak bombs as long as your forearm or
Festive Fridays: 20 wing dings, a pound of fries,
a Greek salad, and a gracious gulp of fountain cola --
essentially, a heart-attack meal.  

Next, another ghost of the Jewish past,
a church in the former Franklin Park Theater,
where Yiddish entertainers performed vaudeville acts
which nobody living can remember.

Then a building that resembles an African footstool,
one that will allow you to see over the **** of the hill
and down below at a gospel choir trapped in everlasting song
against the wall of the one-hour cleaners and that store
where a turkey-shaped lady with flour dusted hands
stands behind a window, noticing you,
while guarding her beef patties and cocoa bread
with a bulletproof smile.

This time for Oklahoma



I re-post this for our last battel field Boston these words are nothing but as you read you will find the one who lives in them and He is everything all the comfort and hope we can ever want


Sorry if this seems at first confusing all my friends on facebook and Redbullble will get it right away as
I asked them to use their love and caring to pray for my hurting distraught friend at her time of great
Loss if you are hurting it will help to at least a degree or it will help at times of future loss

Well dear sweet precious Addy this brutal day is at an end I hope you sleep well I prayed for you and
Kathleen’s son way into the night at first I was terrified you weren’t going to get my post and you would
Enter as I told my wife you would enter the lion’s den the lions all have familiar names pain sorrow
Grief and many others and they maul with cruelty without pity I didn’t want ether of you to take those
Fatal steps without your armor not to be to descriptive but reality waited with a blast I tried to diffuse the
Coffin the grave and headstone never could I do it immeasurably my fight for you could only be in the
Smallest victories comfort mined at times like these is like uranium white silver metallic with almost
A power that can’t be harnessed the same as loss of a love one what blow back again the same as a
Nuclear test one problem you don’t get the protection of a bunker no just suffer the blast in your
Body mind and heart you are stepping in to the shoes the same as young woman who lost her father
That as she described him he was the light of her life our paths crossed on line when I thought she
Was a classmate’s wife her story of her dad touched me deeply I’m going to add that piece here plus
The comfort I tried to write for my friend that was more like my brother when his mother died I will
Include a small background so it wail make more since let me add those here the first was Fathers story
What you read here is her hearts knowing and the undying love that it created and that continues.
His precious hands were removed from earthly things. A great and gentle man his greatest possessions his family. I only knew him from his business and the fact that one of his beautiful daughters married a classmate of mine. Then much later by error I made acquaintance with another of his daughters you can tell a lot about a person from the actions of his children. She told me that he passed away and that he was the light of her life. With God’s help I would like to pay tribute to him.
A light did shine it was magnified by the eyes of a daughters love. He took his journey he went above his ship was the care they shared he the captain made the course straight and true he didn’t slow her run until heaven was in plain view they would have cheered but it hard to see through eyes filled with tears. All the wonderful years seemed to be eclipsed by the sickness that came it seemed an angry wind from their lives this stalwart precious soul it did rend. It left the greatest empty hole it took the longest time to fill and then with the sweetest cooing the grand babies made the hole enlivened not the terrible twisted knot that had the family bound but without being able to speak a word gram paw was found. If you looked in their faces his smile is bound to bundles only heaven can design. I’m not saying they asked him how to work these miracles yet this is true he watched with intense interest and was happiest since his departure he knew that back through time and space healing was for all time secured. Their stoic acceptance could now be laid aside the family could run in softer climes know the sweetest of times that were thought to be forever gone.
Love spills down from heights distance is only on a map in peoples heart its no farther than the end of your finger tips. Images are so strong not because we have great minds it’s easy to make these rich finds when your love and its power shake the foundation of the universe is it not said that love is the greatest power. Oh how so many in dark shadows cower when they possess the power to ignite the world on fire. From heart to heart it does dart the wildness of the spirit is told blotting out all of the cold. Yes there is winter but also the spring. The light spoken of is no longer beholden to earth and so the family is free by love he joins his light to the Christ the all glowing light
Life force by haldenton
To all who have lost heroes
This was written to Eva’s son Bill to help him at her passing. With this writing I took him back thirty years when he was in the truck wreck that killed his dad his recovery saved his mother I hoped by him being reminded of that now it would help him the same way.
Tribute to Eva Wafford Life force
For all who lost heroes
In your soul freshly the wind of death did blow.
Cold eerie shadows marched against your tender broken heart.
What defense could this onslaught repel agony’s volcanic flow.
Ominous well filled with grief from this weight no relief.
The child the grim reaper did spare.
Only after leaving the body bruised and in despair.
From this broken body drops of mercy started to make the mother well.
I held your trembling frame today this memory rings sweet as a bell.
Streets and houses without number fill the land.
I can’t help when I look to recall memories grand.
Now they are but dreams that ache in the night.
Images that over ride the present in their glory I take flight.
Brush aside caution raise your voice as a trumpet.
They live only in yesterdays even so indelibly they wrote their stories.
We hold our children we cling only a moment as mist on the summit.
Your life Eva continues to build the next generation.
Your voice is heard in the breath of your grandchildren.
Wonders they spin from golden thread, now that you have gone ahead.
Your spirit glows in the fire that warms the house against winter.
Summer’s cool breeze not sent by chance she doe’s tenderly incite.
Death silently said what I already knew.
To me you were always immortal you were bigger than life
Many were the days when the wind of storms blew
those who know us feel the calm; this is only your life on review

One more
Simply Jim
Old Abe said it right ‘It is right and fitting that we speak these words here to honor these lives so honorably lived. I can say that about Jim and this also he was a prince among men if I do this right the words will convince you.
He had a gentle way and nature he spoke softly but a softness that flowed to you like ribbons that bounced in a little girl’s hair how delightful. He should have been a doctor his hands his mannerism was ideal for that job. I guess thats what made him stand out so strongly like a gentle calm breeze if you came in a panic his soul would float down around you like a parachute first it safely brings you from great anxiety and exaltation to a graceful landing then gently envelops you in its silken embrace. I had this privilege of watching him inter act with his wife as I said and truly he was a prince and I was the beggar that benefitted richly from the sidelines God knew my needs.
He was called from this life but all the days he filled before his home going are the sustaining force noticeably seen felt with keen awareness you know that a gentleman passed this way. In the lives left behind there is a blend of sadness and astonishment you realize you are looking at the work of a master workman who left behind a tightly and perfectly fitted family this unfortunately is sadly rare in this society that boast of its accomplishments.
As a friend his breadth and depth was sufficient you weren’t a burden he had a way of dispelling trouble making you understand with wisdom and unerring judgment then with ease you could extricate yourself from the problem. His heavenly father filled him with tenderness it stood him and others well in a somewhat crabby world. If you’re pressed and anxious about life take from this life expressed. A portion of the good will you need use it as a defense Jim couldn’t be everywhere but God saw fit to make an original that you can duplicate benefit from and be a part of his ongoing legacy. Thanks friend for a life lived well

Well hurting one in the earlier part of a writing I said I am God’s battle field reporter and medic
These writings are my bandages and gauze God gave me great big hands and I fill them with
Salve with all the love I know I gently apply it to your broken hurting wounds mingle it with
Tears that are not always mine alone but His mixes with mine one day He will abolish all tears
Until then this is our duty your heart we hear and we can do no other God bless you Addy and
Your nephew and all others who find this helpful

Mirrored Pool


Wonder for all the hurts

First I knelt just to see my reflection then the depths started to reveal first the flowing thoughts were
Restrained and then a bubbling seemed to dislodge from greater depths hard truths churned with
Violent twisting but the motion made it impossible to turn away there were great large white clouds
From depths then even above the pool they rose fourteen stories high the sensation was you were
Standing outside clear air intoxicating views the pulse of many were throbbing in your ears their
Thoughts and dreams were known and their sorrows were weights that pulled you from the heights
It was a colossal game of tag and you were it first reaction fear then the appearance of bundled gifts
Broke down the fear it was promise in different sizes that met the required needs it was like a divine
Warehouse had just made a delivery there were cards with names and writing gave clarification tears
And smiles intermingled then the outer knowing postulated the difficulty the puzzle an enormous
Streaming that was now congested and it was beginning a vortex all was understood now human thought
With doubts was pulling the answer into this destructive hole where was one to find the lever to stop
This action that would disallow was the answer to touch the water bring the finger to my lips possibly
A blazing thought would occur that would strike the mind no all that brought was words that had the
Letters jumbled they made no sense unless there is a special book that is alive in it the letters and words
Are already set but they cover every act in the human condition the broken can pour over the pages
You won’t find thorns to repel your efforts there are thorns but they will speak and assuage your hurts
At the most basic and needed levels the points of your hurts will begin to dissolve from your eyes to
Your mind this inward rush and power will dislodge even spears driven deep by enemies carried for
Years you searched in vain over sad and lonely paths and days now you journey is at an end thorns of
Suffering for another produces profound power and mercy go in peace beloved one another bears your
Burden now maybe words cut you at depths you can’t even identify what if there is an antidote in a
Book you pick it up with trembling hands your body tingles from the knowledge that this is ancient texts
It will have a revival of appreciation in this world of texting but with gentle fingers and eyes that glow
With respect as you see the wisdom and the love cannot be denied you leave the world you know and
With total abandonment you swim in this sea of words until the your tears spill on this rich world of
Words those cruel barbed words that pierced tender skin and have bled internally all of these years
Begin to dissolve with stories and accounts of betrayals then the swells love and mercy you read about
Restoration not always found after apologies are given but the teaching of forgiveness strikes a cord
You have been made free from your prison the tangles of life are great as a great black cloud it hangs
Over head many are its troubles this isn’t mild but the disruptive made to strike and pierce deep the
Hidden that steals the morning blessing while other feast your hunger and unrest only enlarges a
Tormenting unquenchable fire a slow burn this is a forest being burned at the thermal level the hidden
Roots a slow process destructive but not so visible agony torture I have seen men crawl in war or fire
Fighting that where all else is lost you will know greater thrills than any other living soul with the
Desperate and those heavy burdened unable to stand a word will flow it puts out fires and gives
The luxurious buoyancy heaviness changed to joy the bouncy laughter every outward blast attack
The enemy launches is within its pages they are repelled overwhelmed by love you suffer unduly
If you don’t hold this fortress this informative book of stratagems that have made everyone a victor
Who has ever found themselves at their wits end no place on earth has a contingency plan though it
Will make the greatest claims all is just empty air when life as it too often does ***** the very air of life
Out we practically are unconscious but this help this rescue is activated by one name it’s not just a book
But the word is a person what a pool you will find what a reflection will engage you beyond your hope
To imagine just say Jesus all will be total peace your heart will know no more sorrow peace will surpass
Sorrow love will disallow the specter that was once a constant it will disappear it will return to the
Darkness from which it came stand in this newness totally free abide by still waters as the good
Sheppard stands by bless you



Disgrace

This land void of devotion gone is the church steeples.
Replaced by voices and shadows of drug dealers on each corner.
Now they are the keepers, lost cities, death stalks its peoples.
Nothing is sacred in this polluted and diffused land.

No longer hallowed be thy name, it’s as if he never came.
Forgotten is any standard of moral excellence.
The once high ideals only represent a fool’s parlance.
Man declares I throw off these restraints only to find darker chains.

The book that once guided this great land.
We now betray with each waking day.
Our hearts and mind it did ignite, now it’s word we can’t stand.
Powerless and feeble we stumble, anxious ever moment.

Just to remember is not enough, best confess our pride.
Make sacrifice with our lips, to burn on altars on high.
There is a short season for all to make amends to regain our stride.
March on to glory with it burning on the inside.

You don’t have to be astute in business to see the sound investment.
Bring your poverty of spirit leave with the riches of his last testament.
It offers the greatest rate of exchange.
Light for darkness, life for death, selfless love for selfishness.


Streaks of Jefferson


In freedom’s blessed glorified sky through streaks of immortal gold his visage we behold
He looks upon the fields of liberty that he and the founding fathers sowed he sees the

Richness America has become he also beheld her struggles catastrophic wars abroad
And the most painful the one that divided the nation marred it with southern and northern

Blood saw the affable the sad giant Lincoln take the reins of discontent hold them by
Shear will and with uncommon sagacity guided it back in line to fulfill its destiny as the

Powerful fount that would always pour forth waters of freedom for all of earths peoples
Total unconditional acceptance of liberty and all the fruit it bears to establish a

Government like no other this golden grain has waved under bluest skies and brightest
Sun light its rich harvest has gone to darkest prison cells Mandela was sustained by it

For twenty nine years and by its moral purity it fed the lives of those that over threw
Apartied and Mandela finally freed by principals it avows rose from prison clothes

To wear the mantle of president of his country and the honor of the man instilled
Quality that transcended political office Jefferson not to be disrespectful to his progeny

Whispers today’s politicians could do well to look on this African model of good
Stewardship of public trust with that Jefferson faded back into the mist pray that’s
Not the fate of this country

THE SINS of Kalamazoo are neither scarlet nor crimson.
  
The sins of Kalamazoo are a convict gray, a dishwater drab.
  
And the people who sin the sins of Kalamazoo are neither scarlet nor crimson.
  
They run to drabs and grays-and some of them sing they shall be washed whiter than snow-and some: We should worry.
  
Yes, Kalamazoo is a spot on the map
And the passenger trains stop there
And the factory smokestacks smoke
And the grocery stores are open Saturday nights
And the streets are free for citizens who vote
And inhabitants counted in the census.
Saturday night is the big night.
  Listen with your ears on a Saturday night in Kalamazoo
  And say to yourself: I hear America, I hear, what do I hear?
  
Main street there runs through the middle of the twon
And there is a ***** postoffice
And a ***** city hall
And a ***** railroad station
And the United States flag cries, cries the Stars and Stripes to the four winds on Lincoln's birthday and the Fourth of July.
  
Kalamazoo kisses a hand to something far off.
  
Kalamazoo calls to a long horizon, to a shivering silver angel, to a creeping mystic what-is-it.
  
"We're here because we're here," is the song of Kalamazoo.
  
"We don't know where we're going but we're on our way," are the words.
  
There are hound dogs of bronze on the public square, hound dogs looking far beyond the public square.
  
Sweethearts there in Kalamazoo
Go to the general delivery window of the postoffice
And speak their names and ask for letters
And ask again, "Are you sure there is nothing for me?
I wish you'd look again-there must be a letter for me."
  
And sweethearts go to the city hall
And tell their names and say,"We want a license."
And they go to an installment house and buy a bed on time and a clock
And the children grow up asking each other, "What can we do to **** time?"
They grow up and go to the railroad station and buy tickets for Texas, Pennsylvania, Alaska.
"Kalamazoo is all right," they say. "But I want to see the world."
And when they have looked the world over they come back saying it is all like Kalamazoo.
  
The trains come in from the east and hoot for the crossings,
And buzz away to the peach country and Chicago to the west
Or they come from the west and shoot on to the Battle Creek breakfast bazaars
And the speedbug heavens of Detroit.
  
"I hear America, I hear, what do I hear?"
Said a loafer lagging along on the sidewalks of Kalamazoo,
Lagging along and asking questions, reading signs.
  
Oh yes, there is a town named Kalamazoo,
A spot on the map where the trains hesitate.
I saw the sign of a five and ten cent store there
And the Standard Oil Company and the International Harvester
And a graveyard and a ball grounds
And a short order counter where a man can get a stack of wheats
And a pool hall where a rounder leered confidential like and said:
"Lookin' for a quiet game?"
  
The loafer lagged along and asked,
"Do you make guitars here?
Do you make boxes the singing wood winds ask to sleep in?
Do you rig up strings the singing wood winds sift over and sing low?"
The answer: "We manufacture musical instruments here."
  
Here I saw churches with steeples like hatpins,
Undertaking rooms with sample coffins in the show window
And signs everywhere satisfaction is guaranteed,
Shooting galleries where men **** imitation pigeons,
And there were doctors for the sick,
And lawyers for people waiting in jail,
And a dog catcher and a superintendent of streets,
And telephones, water-works, trolley cars,
And newspapers with a splatter of telegrams from sister cities of Kalamazoo the round world over.
  
And the loafer lagging along said:
Kalamazoo, you ain't in a class by yourself;
I seen you before in a lot of places.
If you are nuts America is nuts.
  And lagging along he said bitterly:
  Before I came to Kalamazoo I was silent.
  Now I am gabby, God help me, I am gabby.
  
Kalamazoo, both of us will do a fadeaway.
I will be carried out feet first
And time and the rain will chew you to dust
And the winds blow you away.
And an old, old mother will lay a green moss cover on my bones
And a green moss cover on the stones of your postoffice and city hall.
  
  Best of all
I have loved your kiddies playing run-sheep-run
And cutting their initials on the ball ground fence.
They knew every time I fooled them who was fooled and how.
  
  Best of all
I have loved the red gold smoke of your sunsets;
I have loved a moon with a ring around it
Floating over your public square;
I have loved the white dawn frost of early winter silver
And purple over your railroad tracks and lumber yards.
  
  The wishing heart of you I loved, Kalamazoo.
  I sang bye-lo, bye-lo to your dreams.
I sang bye-lo to your hopes and songs.
I wished to God there were hound dogs of bronze on your public square,
Hound dogs with bronze paws looking to a long horizon with a shivering silver angel, a creeping mystic what-is-it.

Ya Know ....
  
I'm Beginning To Think The Truth Is ...
A LOT of Folks Are ... STUPID ... !!!  
    
You Can Tell By The Way They're Moving ...  
And Who They Choose To ... Move With ...  
    
It's CLEAR Some NEED Improvements ...  
Because They Deal In Looseness .............................. !!!!!  
    
Like CLAIMING Their ... " Religion " ...  
DEFINES How They Be Living ... ?  
    
Here's What I Mean You DON'T EAT PIG ...
Because It's UNCLEAN Is Your Religions' Theme ...  
    
BUT One Night You're At Home ...  
And Your Hunger Says ...  
    
"Yo it's time for some food !"  
    
So Do You Start To Cook ... ???  
NO You Go To The Phonebook ...  
INSTEAD And Have A Look ...  
For Something You Can Order ...  
    
An Option CLEARLY shorter ... !!!  
Than Cooking For ... Yourself ...  
    
So You Then GET A FEVER ...    
To Order Up ... Some Pizza ... !!!  
    
Ya' Hunger Says ... " Oh well " ...  
    
You Order Up ... " A VEGGIE " ...  
I Guess Cos' That Is ... " Healthy " ... ?!?  
    
ONLY To FIND Later ... That Night ...  
That Something MEATY Was Inside ... !!!  
    
Because THAT Night You Spent The Time ...  
With The Toilet By Your Side ... !!!!!!!  
    
It Now Becomes CLEAR ...  
STUPIDITY Steered Your *** To A Place ...  
Where It Had To ................................ DISPLACE ...... !!!!!!!!!!  
    
WHATEVER You Ate From That .... " Takeaway " .... ?!?  
    
Next Day When You Check ...  
The Pizza Then Said .... !!!?!!!
    
"If you didn't want meat,  
why did you eat me, without double checking !  
Why now are you stressing ?  
You were stupid to believe that you'd really receive,  
what we say we'll provide. The sales what rules our vibe !  
If you truly were, all that concerned about swine being a part  
of food you ingest, that makes you **** !  
You'd of got off your ****, and cooked at home,  
so that you'd of known, what it was you had,  
and wouldn't of eaten, a piece of ham !"  
    
You'd of Marked Your Own Card ...    
And Then Wouldn't Try To BLAME ... ?!?  
To .... "Cover Up Your SHAME" ... !!!  
    
It Seems Your Brain Is ... LAME ... !!!  
Cos' STUPIDITY Holds It's REINS ... !!!  
    
Your ANGER Is A FARCE ... !!!!!  
You People Make Me Laugh ...    
    
Actually ... YOU DON'T ... !!!!!!!  
Cos' STUPIDITY ROAMS ...................................
RIGHT THROUGH Your Bones ...  
And Into Zones Where It SHOULD NOT GO ... !!!!!  
    
It Seems That ALL YOUR Bleating ....    
DEFINES Much Like Your ... Leanings ...  
    
Your Faith To Be A SHAM ...    
And Quite Stupid At That ... !!!  

Just Like Wearing ... " LIONS " ... ?!?  
As If They Are ... YOUR TRIDENT ... !?!  
When NOT ONE Lion Roams ?  
In The Place That You Call ... " Home " ... !!!
    
Isn't That Something You STOLE .... ?!?  
From AFRICAN ... Time Zones ... !?!  
    
Somebody's CLEARLY LYING ... !!!!!  
And DOESN'T Come From ZION ... !!!  
    
I Clearly Am STUPID ...
To See THAT As FOOLISH ... !!!  
And PROOF of POOR Schooling ...
That Is Mind POLLUTING ... !!!  
    
Who'd They Think They're ...
..... " Fooling " ...... ???  

A GREAT MANY People ...
Like Those Under Steeples ... !!!  
CONFESSING Their SINS ... !!!  
Because of BAD THINGS ...  
That They Have Been Doing ...  
    
It's Church They Are USING ....    
To ACT As Their CLEANSER ...  
These STUPID PRETENDERS ... !!!!!  
    
USING Religion ...
To Give Themselves Visions ...  
of AGAIN Being ... PURE ... ?!!!!!?  
    
That's STUPID ... Fa' SURE ... !!!!!!  
    
A Leopard DOES NOT Change His Spots ... !!!  
    
He's A LEOPARD ... FOREVER ... !!!!!  
YES Humans Can BETTER ...    
Themselves ... YES IT's True ...    

But NOT In A Morning ... !!!  
That's STUPIDITY ... Calling ... !!!!!  
    
Is It Stupid To Say These Things Nowadays ... ?!?  
NOT IN My View But MANY Would Choose ...  
    
To Say .....  
    
" It is true, cos expression moves, and causes issues,  
and if you're not careful, may turn and bite you !"    
    
Man ... FEAR of YOUR TRUTH ...  
Seems Like ... FEARING YOU ... ?!!!?  
    
Something I View ...  
As YES A ... STUPID MOVE ... !!!!!  
    
Stupidity REIGNS ...  
When FEAR Takes The Strain ... !!!!!  

That's Now What's IMPRINTED .....  
And Runs Through My Veins ... !!!!!!!  
    
I Try To Use THINKING ...  
To Avoid ... STUPID TRAINS ... !!!  
    
Cos' Thought OVERPOWERS STUPIDITY's Power ... !!!  
    
As Does DISCIPLINE ...
Which Is Where I Begin ...  
    
NO RELIGION ... Within ... !!!  
    
Just Faith In Reflection ...  
And Thought FILLED Selections ... !!!  
On Life And It's LESSONS ... !!!  
To Give Me ... "PROTECTION" ...  
Against The INFECTIONS ... !!!!!  
    
STUPIDITY Spreads In UNDISCIPLINED Heads ...  
It's CLEAR TO ME Now That FOOLS Run Most Towns ... !!!!!  
    
And My Thinking That THOUGHT ...  
In People ... Runs FLUID ... !!!!!!  
    
Gives Me LIVING PROOF ...  
That I'm Being ........  
    
..... " STUPID " .....

You don't think like me
And I don't think like you
But it seems to me
We're both *******.

We can do the math
In our various ways
And we sum the total
To the end of days.

I am right
And you are wrong
But you'll play the numbers
Like it's all your song.

I don't care
So long as they hear
The same sad song
Of everything going wrong.

But you spin out the bliss
Like a drunken fairy wish
Disregarding all the facts
And sending us all back.

It's a redo, people
**** the ice age
Get reacquainted with your dogs
And repaint the steeples.

103

I have a King, who does not speak—
So—wondering—thro’ the hours meek
I trudge the day away—
Half glad when it is night, and sleep,
If, haply, thro’ a dream, to peep
In parlors, shut by day.

And if I do—when morning comes—
It is as if a hundred drums
Did round my pillow roll,
And shouts fill all my Childish sky,
And Bells keep saying “Victory”
From steeples in my soul!

And if I don’t—the little Bird
Within the Orchard, is not heard,
And I omit to pray
“Father, thy will be done” today
For my will goes the other way,
And it were perjury!

Bredon Hill

by A. E. Houseman

In summertime on Bredon
  The bells they sound so clear;
Round both the shires they ring them
  In steeples far and near,
  A happy noise to hear.

Here of a Sunday morning
  My love and I would lie,
And see the coloured counties,
  And here the larks so high
  About us in the sky.

The bells would ring to call her
  In valleys miles away;
'Come all to church, good people;
  Good people come and pray.'
  But here my love would stay.

And I would turn and answer
  Among the springing thyme,
'Oh peal upon our wedding,
  And we will hear the chime,
  And come to church on time.'

But when the snows at Christmas
  On Bredon top were strown,
My love rose up so early
  And stole out unbeknown
  And went to church alone.

They tolled the one bell only,
  Groom there was none to see,
The mourners followed after,
  And so to church went she,
  And would not wait for me.

The bells they sound on Bredon,
  And still the steeples hum,
'Come all to church, good people'--
  Oh, noisy bells be dumb;
  I hear you, I will come.

Sun swollen
reddening as it sank
that brutal ****** disc
scored by church steeples
and chimney stacks
almost lost in the drifting haze
of sulphurous yellow
and char-black smoke.

Duck boards dip
into the sodden earth
as men ***** along in conga lines
holding tight the pack of the man
in front, lest they should slip
lose quick their footing
be ****** down and smothered
by mud.

The walls of the tunnels
are packed earth
rich with blood and bone
bits and pieces of human
anatomy dangle and hang
as if posed by an artist
with a strange and cruel eye
for detail.

The scrabble for fox holes
and rough scraped ditches,
anywhere, below the line of fire.
The ting and ****-bang
of a night of action
The whistle, the dash
and the forward push
counted more in men
than metres.                                                                

© M.L.Emmett

291

How the old Mountains drip with Sunset
How the Hemlocks burn—
How the Dun Brake is draped in Cinder
By the Wizard Sun—

How the old Steeples hand the Scarlet
Till the Ball is full—
Have I the lip of the Flamingo
That I dare to tell?

Then, how the Fire ebbs like Billows—
Touching all the Grass
With a departing—Sapphire—feature—
As a Duchess passed—

How a small Dusk crawls on the Village
Till the Houses blot
And the odd Flambeau, no men carry
Glimmer on the Street—

How it is Night—in Nest and Kennel—
And where was the Wood—
Just a Dome of Abyss is Bowing
Into Solitude—

These are the Visions flitted *****—
Titian—never told—
Domenichino dropped his pencil—
Paralyzed, with Gold—

I could hear the choirs songs as they rang from the steeples
and that morning the pneumatic frequencies of those opalescent voices
left deeper scars in our hill sides
than the gunpowder ever dreamed.
Carving up the sockets of our youth,
I could feel the restraint of their hands
as mine were freezing.
Offering me only your body as salvation
I was drowning in the thick stench of nicotine
I used to cover your unfortunate forgiveness.

A forgiveness that tapes tongues to cyanide walls
A forgiveness that leaves a thick coat of bitterness on the throat.
A forgiveness that I can no longer stomach-

You're coughing up cancer
and I can't choke it down fast enough.

Hail Mary.
Hail Mary.

Mother to a war between pews,
and a mis rendering of youth.

They said blame not the miss loved boy
but the gun in his best Sunday suit.

~

In ode to all who succumb
through wayward passages
lined of scribble notes
dripping ink’s savagery,
staining cursive patterns
in Sylvia-like depressions

Jarred bells ring
down lost tunnels
around each dark corner…clang
from steeples we chase
and beds we lie
draped in sadness
and shapes of
poetic happenstance

Tear drop vinaigrette
spiced of leftover lifetimes
drizzled on leafy desperation
bids a tired farewell
before time collects
*the deserved rewards

318

I’ll tell you how the Sun rose—
A Ribbon at a time—
The Steeples swam in Amethyst—
The news, like Squirrels, ran—
The Hills untied their Bonnets—
The Bobolinks—begun—
Then I said softly to myself—
“That must have been the Sun”!
But how he set—I know not—
There seemed a purple stile
That little Yellow boys and girls
Were climbing all the while—
Till when they reached the other side,
A Dominie in Gray—
Put gently up the evening Bars—
And led the flock away—

When I look into the moon I see the only dependent part of me that still exists. Its as if the silence in her vocal cords spoke words of solitude. I gave her the only bio mechanical part of me that mattered.

The gears in my chest keep turning like clock work.
I count seconds into minutes and minutes into hours and hours into days. I keep thinking time is standing still while im still standing still.

I'm waiting, waiting on patience and as unjustified as it sounds I'm impatient. Dreams are just your natural thoughts heavily sedated, a sub-conscious reality based off the feelings we cant display them.

I don't consider myself a writer, I see the constant flow of words and as a kid it left me inspired. I'm more of the sub concious reality type. I drink coffee and outside of that I really don't have a life.

For me writing is self exspression without being judged by others.
I opinionate my feelings and organize them in ink. The papper is my empty canvas, my thoughts are my judgment, and the pen is the deliverer.

Sometimes writing is the only thing that can stitch my wounds, like the words curved inside my brain penetrating like the needlesof a tattoo. I wonder what will become me, in what paradox will I redeem the sum of me?

I just hope this bio mechanical heart ticks away. I hope people continue to be people with different mindsets and open steeples. I want love to be found and dreams to be created.

Kalvin Moon

The bows glided down, and the coast
Blackened with birds took a last look
At his thrashing hair and whale-blue eye;
The trodden town rang its cobbles for luck.

Then good-bye to the fishermanned
Boat with its anchor free and fast
As a bird hooking over the sea,
High and dry by the top of the mast,

Whispered the affectionate sand
And the bulwarks of the dazzled quay.
For my sake sail, and never look back,
Said the looking land.

Sails drank the wind, and white as milk
He sped into the drinking dark;
The sun shipwrecked west on a pearl
And the moon swam out of its hulk.

Funnels and masts went by in a whirl.
Good-bye to the man on the sea-legged deck
To the gold gut that sings on his reel
To the bait that stalked out of the sack,

For we saw him throw to the swift flood
A girl alive with his hooks through her lips;
All the fishes were rayed in blood,
Said the dwindling ships.

Good-bye to chimneys and funnels,
Old wives that spin in the smoke,
He was blind to the eyes of candles
In the praying windows of waves

But heard his bait buck in the wake
And tussle in a shoal of loves.
Now cast down your rod, for the whole
Of the sea is hilly with whales,

She longs among horses and angels,
The rainbow-fish bend in her joys,
Floated the lost cathedral
Chimes of the rocked buoys.

Where the anchor rode like a gull
Miles over the moonstruck boat
A squall of birds bellowed and fell,
A cloud blew the rain from its throat;

He saw the storm smoke out to ****
With fuming bows and ram of ice,
Fire on starlight, rake Jesu's stream;
And nothing shone on the water's face

But the oil and bubble of the moon,
Plunging and piercing in his course
The lured fish under the foam
Witnessed with a kiss.

Whales in the wake like capes and Alps
Quaked the sick sea and snouted deep,
Deep the great bushed bait with raining lips
Slipped the fins of those humpbacked tons

And fled their love in a weaving dip.
Oh, Jericho was falling in their lungs!
She nipped and dived in the nick of love,
Spun on a spout like a long-legged ball

Till every beast blared down in a swerve
Till every turtle crushed from his shell
Till every bone in the rushing grave
Rose and crowed and fell!

Good luck to the hand on the rod,
There is thunder under its thumbs;
Gold gut is a lightning thread,
His fiery reel sings off its flames,

The whirled boat in the burn of his blood
Is crying from nets to knives,
Oh the shearwater birds and their boatsized brood
Oh the bulls of Biscay and their calves

Are making under the green, laid veil
The long-legged beautiful bait their wives.
Break the black news and paint on a sail
Huge weddings in the waves,

Over the wakeward-flashing spray
Over the gardens of the floor
Clash out the mounting dolphin's day,
My mast is a bell-spire,

Strike and smoothe, for my decks are drums,
Sing through the water-spoken prow
The octopus walking into her limbs
The polar eagle with his tread of snow.

From salt-lipped beak to the kick of the stern
Sing how the seal has kissed her dead!
The long, laid minute's bride drifts on
Old in her cruel bed.

Over the graveyard in the water
Mountains and galleries beneath
Nightingale and hyena
Rejoicing for that drifting death

Sing and howl through sand and anemone
Valley and sahara in a shell,
Oh all the wanting flesh his enemy
Thrown to the sea in the shell of a girl

Is old as water and plain as an eel;
Always good-bye to the long-legged bread
Scattered in the paths of his heels
For the salty birds fluttered and fed

And the tall grains foamed in their bills;
Always good-bye to the fires of the face,
For the crab-backed dead on the sea-bed rose
And scuttled over her eyes,

The blind, clawed stare is cold as sleet.
The tempter under the eyelid
Who shows to the selves asleep
Mast-high moon-white women naked

Walking in wishes and lovely for shame
Is dumb and gone with his flame of brides.
Susannah's drowned in the bearded stream
And no-one stirs at Sheba's side

But the hungry kings of the tides;
Sin who had a woman's shape
Sleeps till Silence blows on a cloud
And all the lifted waters walk and leap.

Lucifer that bird's dropping
Out of the sides of the north
Has melted away and is lost
Is always lost in her vaulted breath,

Venus lies star-struck in her wound
And the sensual ruins make
Seasons over the liquid world,
White springs in the dark.

Always good-bye, cried the voices through the shell,
Good-bye always, for the flesh is cast
And the fisherman winds his reel
With no more desire than a ghost.

Always good luck, praised the finned in the feather
Bird after dark and the laughing fish
As the sails drank up the hail of thunder
And the long-tailed lightning lit his catch.

The boat swims into the six-year weather,
A wind throws a shadow and it freezes fast.
See what the gold gut drags from under
Mountains and galleries to the crest!

See what clings to hair and skull
As the boat skims on with drinking wings!
The statues of great rain stand still,
And the flakes fall like hills.

Sing and strike his heavy haul
Toppling up the boatside in a snow of light!
His decks are drenched with miracles.
Oh miracle of fishes! The long dead bite!

Out of the urn a size of a man
Out of the room the weight of his trouble
Out of the house that holds a town
In the continent of a fossil

One by one in dust and shawl,
Dry as echoes and insect-faced,
His fathers cling to the hand of the girl
And the dead hand leads the past,

Leads them as children and as air
On to the blindly tossing tops;
The centuries throw back their hair
And the old men sing from newborn lips:

Time is bearing another son.
**** Time! She turns in her pain!
The oak is felled in the acorn
And the hawk in the egg kills the wren.

He who blew the great fire in
And died on a hiss of flames
Or walked the earth in the evening
Counting the denials of the grains

Clings to her drifting hair, and climbs;
And he who taught their lips to sing
Weeps like the risen sun among
The liquid choirs of his tribes.

The rod bends low, divining land,
And through the sundered water crawls
A garden holding to her hand
With birds and animals

With men and women and waterfalls
Trees cool and dry in the whirlpool of ships
And stunned and still on the green, laid veil
Sand with legends in its ****** laps

And prophets loud on the burned dunes;
Insects and valleys hold her thighs hard,
Times and places grip her breast bone,
She is breaking with seasons and clouds;

Round her trailed wrist fresh water weaves,
with moving fish and rounded stones
Up and down the greater waves
A separate river breathes and runs;

Strike and sing his catch of fields
For the surge is sown with barley,
The cattle graze on the covered foam,
The hills have footed the waves away,

With wild sea fillies and soaking bridles
With salty colts and gales in their limbs
All the horses of his haul of miracles
Gallop through the arched, green farms,

Trot and gallop with gulls upon them
And thunderbolts in their manes.
O Rome and ***** To-morrow and London
The country tide is cobbled with towns

And steeples pierce the cloud on her shoulder
And the streets that the fisherman combed
When his long-legged flesh was a wind on fire
And his **** was a hunting flame

Coil from the thoroughfares of her hair
And terribly lead him home alive
Lead her prodigal home to his terror,
The furious ox-killing house of love.

Down, down, down, under the ground,
Under the floating villages,
Turns the moon-chained and water-wound
Metropolis of fishes,

There is nothing left of the sea but its sound,
Under the earth the loud sea walks,
In deathbeds of orchards the boat dies down
And the bait is drowned among hayricks,

Land, land, land, nothing remains
Of the pacing, famous sea but its speech,
And into its talkative seven tombs
The anchor dives through the floors of a church.

Good-bye, good luck, struck the sun and the moon,
To the fisherman lost on the land.
He stands alone in the door of his home,
With his long-legged heart in his hand.

I converse with the insane,
And I see dead people,
I seek no fame,
Or salvation from church steeples,
I am alone,
Yet in my head we are many,
A clamoring of voices,
Above the anarchy of it all,
This world is broken, a place where life is a gamble,
And familial bonds are broken down in shambles,
I am a grateful dead, of a time long forgotten,
And like that I shall remain, till my bones are long rotten.

O America, wake up from your dream.
Your top of the hill
Perception.
I plead, awake.

Awaken from your false beliefs, your
Warped view of the world.
Believing it is yours to buy and
Consume, while others starve.

O America, I see your shadow,
Cast over your deprived. A desperate
Attempt to hide the desperate,
The lost and the depraved.

The waste of your creation,
Left to wallow in the filth of
Your existence. The broken
Pieces of your people. Invisible
to your people.

O America, I see your wretched youth.
Apathetic and sadistic, desensitized by
Your lifestyle.  Enslaved by your media
to buy any which way.

Your whorish children, your joke of a generation.
Raised like cattle in shameful schools, reared in
Broken homes. Self destructive and stupid.

O America, turn off your television prophets,
Preaching their gospel of guilt in exchange for
Credit card numbers. Bastardizing science
And teaching bigotry.

Protesting human rights and feeding fallacies,
Indoctrinating children with fearful remorse.
Extorting their sheep to build their steeples,
Making sin out of human nature.

O America, I pray,
Wake up from your nightmare.
Before you collapse upon yourself, before
You're swallowed by your unfeedable mouth.

Arise, before you die. Cut the strings that
Manipulate you like a puppet. Reject society,
The cultural cancer.
O state of damnation, awake.

So, here we go,  again.
Defining the prolific tranquility of my fellow men
Reproducing the rhythmic reflection like a Godsend.
We'll run along this tightrope until the world spins
And by the end of the night we'll slip right out of our skin.
Blasting the brainwaves like a fully automatic bass,
Kamikaze wasteland, humans waste, self-destruct without a trace
Just give these DJs a little space so they can give you a better taste!
And don't let us argue semantics so we can find the truth encased
In the back of the skull, underfed and oversold.
Truth be told, no one would like to feel that cold...
And you can deny it all until you crack and you fold,
But you know that by now you would have lost your soul!
Scandalous heresy mission, I'll describe the world I've envisioned
No carbon emissions, because there are no more cars to sit in
No more music, because there is nobody to listen
No more prison, because there are no buildings to live in
Until we've built it ourselves, and then we excel.
Civilization rebuilding itself right out of a living hell,
Like a phoenix, in a nutshell, and not a soul will tell
The truth about the world before the acid rains fell.

The world spins on a tilted axis of evil,
Over-trusted in the hands of incompetent people,
Lazily ignored by all the church and the steeples
Taking the arms of the weak and the feeble.
The rest of us wait until the bombs begin falling.
We no longer care, and frankly, God's stalling.
The end of the world is constantly calling.
No more of the bodies all twisted and sprawling.

I sever my hand to prove that I can still use my eyes;
You'll understand when you begin to open your mind
And if you really don't want me to do this, just give me a sign,
Maybe I'll do it anyway to disprove your design.
I'm losing time, someone come along and feed me a line.
Sever my spine, open my jaws wide, skin off my eyelids,
Why? The truth is inside these pockets of lies
And you can find it in the sockets of my eyes, it's fine.
As long as you can understand why the smog
Becomes a distant cousin to fog and road-hogs
Morph into another distraction from the absence of birds,
And why roads replace the forests until they no longer work.
The cities will be made of buckets and cans and bags of sand,
And supply and demand will win out over the prehistoric plans
To re-instill the aristocratic mastery monopoly pills
Produced from the radiated depths deep within the hills.
Buildings from old bits of iron and sheet metal pieces,
Our voices on intercoms to rid the world of its diseases,
And finally ignorance will not attempt to sway or displease us
And the love of the people will reflect that of Jesus!

The world spins on a tilted axis of evil
Over-trusted in the hands of incompetent people
Lazily ignored by all the church and the steeples
Taking the arms of the weak and the feeble
The rest of us wait until the bombs begin falling
We no longer care, and frankly, God's stalling
The end of the world is constantly calling
No more of the bodies all twisted and sprawling

Here comes The Change
That has the range
Of emotions
And demotions
And devotions
Of a perilous populous
That likes to raise a fuss
When they eventually learn who I am
And treat me like I'm the Son of Sam

To be specific
They discover I'm gay
And begin to filet
My mentality
In totality
For fatality
Merely by acting differently

If my sexuality isn't the first thing people know about me
I get to witness The Change
Like a dog with mange
I am shedding my hair
While screaming no fair
Because of the shift I see
Because of the **** I need
To make my heart bleed

There is a steady bellowing burdensome baggage
From those that want to ****** some *******
So I search for weight lifters
But only find shapeshifters
That become great grifters
When The Change occurs
And The Change burns
So The Change turned
Me into an interdimensional changeling
And an unintentional rage king
After they use words like flaming
Because the results are so draining
It becomes hard not to hate people
Who are inspired by hate steeples

They say I'm going to Hell
While I notice the smell
Of being buried in their banal ****
While they play their greatest hits
That are as unoriginal
As they are cynical
They say I'm a degenerate
An embarrassment
A parent's lament

I want to change into a carefree bird
Instead I stay in Hell with the herd
Wanting to escape like Lupin the Third
Rather than be oppressed like the Kurds
But there is no relief
Only re-grief
When changes aren't permanent
But The Change is

There's an illustration of my life
That will change your perspective
The picture is in my words
When the painting is what I choose to say
And the canvas is your mind
Whose textures I could never imagine
So I jump off a cliff blindfolded
Expecting to be changed once I land

Aroused and angry,
I thought to beat the alarum, and urge relentless war;
But soon my fingers fail’d me, my face droop’d, and I resign’d myself,
To sit by the wounded and soothe them, or silently watch the dead.

1

First, O songs, for a prelude,
Lightly strike on the stretch’d tympanum, pride and joy in my city,
How she led the rest to arms—how she gave the cue,
How at once with lithe limbs, unwaiting a moment, she sprang;
(O superb! O Manhattan, my own, my peerless!
O strongest you in the hour of danger, in crisis! O truer than steel!)
How you sprang! how you threw off the costumes of peace with indifferent hand;
How your soft opera-music changed, and the drum and fife were heard in their stead;
How you led to the war, (that shall serve for our prelude, songs of soldiers,)
How Manhattan drum-taps led.

2

Forty years had I in my city seen soldiers parading;
Forty years as a pageant—till unawares, the Lady of this teeming and turbulent city,
Sleepless amid her ships, her houses, her incalculable wealth,
With her million children around her—suddenly,
At dead of night, at news from the south,
Incens’d, struck with clench’d hand the pavement.

A shock electric—the night sustain’d it;
Till with ominous hum, our hive at day-break pour’d out its myriads.

From the houses then, and the workshops, and through all the doorways,
Leapt they tumultuous—and lo! Manhattan arming.

3

To the drum-taps prompt,
The young men falling in and arming;
The mechanics arming, (the trowel, the jack-plane, the blacksmith’s hammer, tost aside with precipitation;)
The lawyer leaving his office, and arming—the judge leaving the court;
The driver deserting his wagon in the street, jumping down, throwing the reins abruptly down on the horses’ backs;
The salesman leaving the store—the boss, book-keeper, porter, all leaving;
Squads gather everywhere by common consent, and arm;
The new recruits, even boys—the old men show them how to wear their accoutrements—they buckle the straps carefully;
Outdoors arming—indoors arming—the flash of the musket-barrels;
The white tents cluster in camps—the arm’d sentries around—the sunrise cannon, and again at sunset;
Arm’d regiments arrive every day, pass through the city, and embark from the wharves;
(How good they look, as they ***** down to the river, sweaty, with their guns on their shoulders!
How I love them! how I could hug them, with their brown faces, and their clothes and knapsacks cover’d with dust!)
The blood of the city up—arm’d! arm’d! the cry everywhere;
The flags flung out from the steeples of churches, and from all the public buildings and stores;
The tearful parting—the mother kisses her son—the son kisses his mother;
(Loth is the mother to part—yet not a word does she speak to detain him;)
The tumultuous escort—the ranks of policemen preceding, clearing the way;
The unpent enthusiasm—the wild cheers of the crowd for their favorites;
The artillery—the silent cannons, bright as gold, drawn along, rumble lightly over the stones;
(Silent cannons—soon to cease your silence!
Soon, unlimber’d, to begin the red business;)
All the mutter of preparation—all the determin’d arming;
The hospital service—the lint, bandages, and medicines;
The women volunteering for nurses—the work begun for, in earnest—no mere parade now;
War! an arm’d race is advancing!—the welcome for battle—no turning away;
War! be it weeks, months, or years—an arm’d race is advancing to welcome it.

4

Mannahatta a-march!—and it’s O to sing it well!
It’s O for a manly life in the camp!
And the sturdy artillery!
The guns, bright as gold—the work for giants—to serve well the guns:
Unlimber them! no more, as the past forty years, for salutes for courtesies merely;
Put in something else now besides powder and wadding.

5

And you, Lady of Ships! you Mannahatta!
Old matron of this proud, friendly, turbulent city!
Often in peace and wealth you were pensive, or covertly frown’d amid all your children;
But now you smile with joy, exulting old Mannahatta!

i.

Pink doesn’t play into it, that delicate
petal of perfume & flower stuff.
She abhors it.

Red suits her better.
Red for Fridays & red for Aries.
Red for the blood her dagger could draw.

Her seal of wax is no
rosebud adhered to
fine paper.

Warrior, she escaped its letter.
With Roman candles & Roman sandals,
sword, wand & chariot,

defender of her Eden.
Seashells are her votive gifts, the
stars of her Atlantic.

It is within her reign of Camelot.
At the edge of the Earth,
her kingdom dreams.




ii.

Blue maid
a curious ***** in her armour.
But she wouldn’t flinch

if an army of soldiers came crashing in.
They are hunting the witch.
A woman can never have such power.

It is reserved for the patriarchy
to wield at will.
Up it goes.

They can ***** steeples with it.
They are stoking the fires & sharpening
the axe with it.

But threats of torture
don’t make her beg, plead or recant.
She is guilty of nothing.

Even broken on the Catherine Wheel,
Athena still keeps her
bow & quiver intact.

The doctor of Geneva stamped the sand
That lay impounding the Pacific swell,
Patted his stove-pipe hat and tugged his shawl.

Lacustrine man had never been assailed
By such long-rolling opulent cataracts,
Unless Racine or Bossuet held the like.

He did not quail. A man who used to plumb
The multifarious heavens felt no awe
Before these visible, voluble delugings,

Which yet found means to set his simmering mind
Spinning and hissing with oracular
Notations of the wild, the ruinous waste,

Until the steeples of his city clanked and sprang
In an unburgherly apocalypse.
The doctor used his handkerchief and sighed.

When biting Boreas, fell and doure,
Sharp shivers thro’ the leafless bow’r;
When Phœbus gies a short-liv’d glow’r,
      Far south the lift,
Dim-dark’ning thro’ the flaky show’r,
      Or whirling drift:

Ae night the storm the steeples rocked,
Poor Labour sweet in sleep was locked,
While burns, wi’ snawy wreeths upchoked,
      Wild-eddying swirl,
Or thro’ the mining outlet bocked,
      Down headlong hurl.

List’ning, the doors an’ winnocks rattle,
I thought me on the ourie cattle,
Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle
      O’ winter war,
And thro’ the drift, deep-lairing, sprattle,
      Beneath a scar.

Ilk happing bird, wee, helpless thing!
That, in the merry months o’ spring,
Delighted me to hear thee sing,
      What comes o’ thee?
Whare wilt thou cow’r thy chittering wing
      An’ close thy e’e?

Ev’n you on murd’ring errands toil’d,
Lone from your savage homes exil’d,
The blood-stain’d roost, and sheep-cote spoil’d
      My heart forgets,
While pityless the tempest wild
      Sore on you beats.

Chronic, demonic, eccentric, magic, poetic, tragic! Dreams it seems of comical or unusual! Visual sights of many sites! Plenty fights, heights, nights, plights and lights! Dreams it seems of chimes, crime, gleams and grime. Moonbeams, rhymes, screams and times. Dreams it seems as they attempt to tempt with contempt! Some become exempt
and unkempt! Dreams it seems of afros, arrows, buffalos, rainbows

and sparrows! Ample, purple-apples hung from chapels! Dreams it seems of hurdles and simple people as pimples jumping from steeples! Dreams it seems of the begotten, forgotten and rotten. Dreams and themes of cotton candy clouds! Crowds in shrouds! Dreams it seems
of the dandy and handy! Glories and gory stories of the holy or unholy. Dreams it seems of crud and mud! The loud and proud! The

vowed and wowed! Dreams it seems of blood and floods! Dreams it seems of amazing, crazing and gazing! I’m phrasing; “Is this a dream a scheme or hell?” Well I couldn’t tell! As I began to scream and
yell! Those streams of dreams that I dream… Dreams that I may, these dreams that I say. Dreams it seems in dreamy dismay.

And I've got this tragic talent
Where I can fold up my feminism
And stuff it between my legs
Torturous ******, it's toxic shock syndrome

Apologies to suitors as I run fast from their drunken hands
When really I should be cutting those inebriated limbs loose from the bodies they've succumb to
Because I was taught not how to defend myself from charming attackers,
But rather to refrain from setting my drink down at parties and bars and family reunions

How is it that the Boy's Club manifested itself into the bible? And how the ****** Mary is only remembered for carrying greatness below her breast
Giving birth to the boy wonder all while keeping her ***** intact

And finally, once that sacred space rock exits the womb
We must answer to that almighty lord of genitals
Like if Jesus was a girl, the Ascension would have taken place much sooner
And that archangel would have had to start all over

Opening my hand,
you read the lines
rooted in my palm

before

taking the fingers
to crook them.
They splinter

new

spines, grow
tall steeples
ringing out

like

church bells,
or wind chimes
once your fingers

touch.

oh how we worship the pretty people
despite them being the source of so much evil
and lust to be just like them
we find so much ******* believable and think each of them a gem

the glamorous, the beautiful, the ****
"did you see the new tweet? after the show I hope they text me!"

we follow them through the movies into their church steeples
hollywood and all it's heights of it's anointed peoples
the magazines are their bibles and we hold none of them liable
for the lies they've told or the lives they ruin being unreliable
with every story they're spinning
they want us to believe they're "winning"

marriage, divorce, wife number three
new baby carriage, move to the golf course, life under palm trees
remain calm and know things are always ok if you can sing and be pretty
I pity the soulless with hot faces, no social graces but lots of *** in the city

and we love their scandals we can't get enough
every news stand proving america has more than a crush
on the movie stars, on the models, on their cars, on the rush
of thinking we could be them if we just got a new nose and a tuck

who put Brangelina's kids' new brother on every magazine cover
but never the military heroes who live to protect you while they duck for cover?

**** the sheep who keep the weakness in our families
who want the news filled with the new runways fashion and grammys
instead of the problems that need solutions and what real life should mean
we need action and my reaction is to lift the small faction of thinkers up to be seen
we need a cause to cut loose the famous like weights and hate their *******
ignore the models, shun the actors, pay the teachers, appreciate the surgeons

being pretty is a gift not a skill
being hot isn't exactly curing cancer or healing the ill
but we still want what we can't have, much worse than reality
another prada handbag under the disposable christmas tree

them or us, I don't know what's a worse diversion
I guess I'm just not pretty enough to be a "real" person

meandering the chorus of his scent, i am lost
between the steeple of his belly
and his mouth

i wander. consuming his pleasure  with teeth,
softly, as though he were a baby bird.


i worship the sunrise in his neck. on all fours,
i pray that the sun sets between us
beautifully. maybe in another life, we

could be a temple of a shared two bodies,
twilight after twilight, upright, hand in hand.

but as it is, tonguing the canyons, the valleys
the napes, and the summits
       his mouth
becomes melody. singing without words
that he will encapsulate me. wholly

much like a tremendous hunter. but gently,
with purpose alight, we surrender. together,

shared steeples above our carnage, heaving.
the doorway to mutual softness   open

172

’Tis so much joy! ’Tis so much joy!
If I should fail, what poverty!
And yet, as poor as I,
Have ventured all upon a throw!
Have gained! Yes! Hesitated so—
This side the Victory!

Life is but Life! And Death, but Death!
Bliss is, but Bliss, and Breath but Breath!
And if indeed I fail,
At least, to know the worst, is sweet!
Defeat means nothing but Defeat,
No drearier, can befall!

And if I gain! Oh Gun at Sea!
Oh Bells, that in the Steeples be!
At first, repeat it slow!
For Heaven is a different thing,
Conjectured, and waked sudden in—
And might extinguish me!

past wavering lights
  B. Serrano and Bagong Ilog
love struck us down — sees no votive
clearing of the fog or a word sharper than any blade wrought from frays.

i have a photograph of you
somewhere in the ken of my silence
  and on it paints lightsome hue
and sometimes pale when it rains.
KM 24 on a blue alloy and underneath,
   a Baguio — some memories we keep
almost left by the last carriage homeward
   from too much fire in our hands
  only tremors could extinguish both
striking a balance and counterbalance;
the frequency of the electric and the
immense decibel of lions drowning
    the disquiet. some places or some
looking back makes you want
   to lose yourself in slight wonder and when

a memory comes back with the dreary
   weight of its forgetfulness,
we fall asleep traipsing the steeples
   of our dreams of each other
all-telling, still dizzy with the pirouette
  of some distant longing bracing
the fall, triggering our darkness
  and shooting out

   ourselves, small,
love striking us down. arraying a triplicate
    of hazy trails forking all roads
and we cannot find each other again;
  throwing stones rippling
multiplied waves by the sea arriving
  at separate mornings beneath
our feet,

   bends on the bludgeoned curves
of love and hate ascertaining something
   so unsure as a door agape and swiveling
  in tense wind, tender is the night

  and love continues
to smite us down, locking in, predatory precision,
            running away, and away, and away
   from the ache of it all.

California Dreams Part I

Time is falling apart,
My heart is stumbling,
the road is ending, so

follow me on.

Take my hand and forget yesterday, let me
get out of the country of Texas, see all of the world.
Don't worry so much, I'm always there,
and the world is free, let me show you.
Then let’s fall in the swift winds of adventure.

Let’s go!

Now look at the map in my brown eyes, and hold tightly
my hand, and our fingers will never grow cold.

After Christmas we'll travel to Highway One,
we’ll first set our eyes to the crystal skies
of California. And your dreams could come
true, under the lime light, everything
will make sense and our dreams will
rise like skyscrapers.

The dreams, euphoria, the fights and the pain,
it'll make sense through the hard times, it will.
If we falter, I know, we can still climb the gates
of paradise.  We can do everything. And we will.  

For in one year we'll climb to the stars,
stand on the purple mountains of Alaska
and conquer the midnight hours, we'll post
our banner on our mountain, call this our kingdom.

As the lot falls, we'll work, we'll go to school,
we'll pick each subject like roses and carve our hearts
into the trees, we'll find sweet the kiss of unity.

In the season of the blue moon, when we
get weary of one another.
 I'll find unwritten ways to love,  for 
 I will love you always.  It will be all okay.
    It will all be well. I promise.

As we fall in love again,  we’ll turn under the sun
To Arizona where the valley’s our only beauty, and
our voices are thunder in the Great Canyon.  
The eagles will perch  under the sycamore tree,
for we will lie down in the
fullness of peace and rest by the
hawk and the snake at noon.


Part II

Let Me Show You The World

Now I'll show you the world.
We'll see all of it.

Let's go!
Let's go!

Let's starve, let's eat, let's see.
We'll go on ship to Africa. We'll buy a jeep and and visit the brown hills
of Zimbabwe. We'll sleep with the cheetahs and run with the lions.
Our hearts can never die here.

Knowing war and love ,
we’ll lower our hearts to the children and serve them.
And look into the eyes of the broken, the hurt, and the dying.
We can help them. For as the warrior children destroy mothers
And fathers inside the streets in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt.
We can save that one Child.  

The following year we'll walk upon Mary's path to Nazareth,
and see where Jesus grew up and David
defeated the mightiest of armies.

We'll remember the creation of the world,
and the end of it all, on the valley of decision,
Where the world will come to ruin.

Don’t’ worry dear, we'll find our romance and rest.
We'll follow the road the road to Rome.
We’ll see the catacombs of old, the virgins and saints buried
with love so perfect.
We'll see see so many things and all the color of the world walking together, the nobleman, the thieves, and the harlots at dusk,
we'll remember our love, as the wind of our prayers
carry them.

follow me on  

Let's turn to the twisted hills of France and
find fragrance, and the lips of war.
We'll walk in the evening and lie down upon the roof of Notre Dame
and watch the morning light spill into the city of Paris.

Don't be surprised, for war will come again.
We will be ready, against our enemies we will fight.
We are mortal my dear, we must fight.

When the wars boil over and settles down
we'll escape to London.  Where books fly high,
and parties go higher, where love seems but a
gentle lying dream.

Before we die in the darkness, we can always hide
under the blood and water of our prayers, we can be forgiven.
As our sanity returns, we'll lie down on the rocks of Stonehenge
and dream once again.

Part III

Let's Lie Down, I Will Be Your King

Let's turn our way to Scandinavia,
and taste the richest cheese and
then bicycle to the home of Germany's finest chocolate.
Let's find our fill!

follow me on,

Next  we'll buy to the ticket to the mountains of Romania
the land of many orphans. We'll grow a garden
of orchards of olives, and make our wealth and peace.
And we'll feed everyone of them,
Everyone of the little children and hear their forgotten history.

Three more years later, we'll call our home in Siberia
where puffins find refuge in the white mountains.
We'll learn to fish with the Eskimo and
watch the faint heat of dawn whisper away.

Let’s Go!

In Beijing let's learn Karate and the arts.
We'll know the greatest of warriors and find peace
in the red blood sky. And we'll rent a yacht and live there for months
and make a business with great merchants. See it'll be okay.
It will all be okay. We’ll find our fortune and
lie down on the ****** shores of Hiroshima.

My dear, If the world wasn't enough, we will rule paradise
on a thousand islands near Malaysia and
compose immortal songs about the world between you and me.

Like the kings of the northern stars we'll explore
far out. For in the land of New Zealand,
we'll see where  beauty cannot
die and mountains cannot fall, where paradise
begins. We’ll surf on the silver waves,
and write more songs till’ love draws us home.

We will lose it all and have nothing again
we’ll make our last campfire
and tell the village people our winds
of adventure.

Until  the moon turns to blood, I will be by your side,
morning by morning I will be your king and love,
your warrior outside, beneath
our  balcony we will see a thousand
blue and yellow rivers, flashing their gates of paradise!

Let's Lie Down  

The Return Part IV

In our old age, we'll go back to our home in Texas.
Where the oil never runs dry and where corn crops still grow;
where friendship is only a second away, let's go again.
Let's get on our motorcycle and visit where we grew up
and remember it all. And look at the playground where I fought
the bully in the third grade, and where you
drew your first kiss. Let's see our
first Sunday school, where the air
touched our first prayer.

As our hearts grow in splendor
like a garden of strong delight and the
fearful valley is stricken with good rain.

Let's lie down there at the white steeples
where we got married, where our eyes can close
and drink in the heavenly shores and

      thirst no more.
     
 and thirst no more.