When I eat my words
I eat them
with bitterness.

A whole
grape
of wine
couldn't encompass
the
sour seed of my soul.

I make promises
over the phone,
that I love you,
that whatever I did wrong
can be made right.

Just like those withered
scuppernogs
I think,
I can climb the vine
again.

But there is no
remedy
for a broken heart,
except pain,
and letting go.

So over dried tears,
I tear myself apart
over the thought of you.

Even in the burgeoning
night
full of fat storms,
I am malnourished,
and waiting by the phone
while my friends go out,
for your call.

Love isn't right,
or logical
or even compassionate.

Love is hateful,
but love
is
also love,
and the well-spring
of humanity
stems from that deep
acquifer
embedded in rock,
where you are the
drill
and
I am the spring-loaded
limestone
full
of
nourishment.

So bae,
come back someday,
let me climb the steel stairs
of your blue eyes,
because I've been out
and
about,
and other eyes have found mine,
but they have found nothing.

You have found
and mined
everything,
and I don't love them for finding nothing,
I love you
for your scouring
and
discerning heart.

So dismember me,
make me human,
I'd rather die mortal
than immortal
and
inhuman.

I have heard a heart
drop and a
heart burst,
but I've never quite felt
a contraction
or inflation
as red
or
as full of life
as you.

You are blue
in an ocean
that never knew.

Yellow paints
the sun,
and your hips,
too.

I gather flowers
in valleys,
blooming without
any stems
for you.

To concretize my theorized love,
I could play the accidental odds and strew
slippery tongues of spotted petals
onto thickly trafficked highways,
or use the best predictive modelling
to deduce when and where I can poke out
a well-heeled boot to trick unwary spills
and ****** a kiss from the unsuspecting
lips of any suitably compatible
passerby oft times inconvenienced and passed
on by.

These well-oiled and crudely experimental
methods do produce expected results,
but not the breakthrough nor the looked-for
satisfaction of appropriate reactions,
so I'll keep my dotted eyes tucked in
their pulpy stems and my shoddy toes curled back
while I beam my bits of invitation through
circuitous routes spatially arrayed along
parallel paths where one might search
with an extra-terrestrial inventiveness,
and wait.

I know the trials of these errant waves
won't add up to a guarantee
my burpy blips of a pulse can reach
the receptively comprehending and responsive
soils I seek, but it's the remoteness of a stead
to come stalking that appeals, and despite
the Hawking drone of unveiled warnings
I might regret such contact, I'll risk it all
on vaguely washed wishes this astronomical
anomaly with an alien sensibility has
one match.

My bare feet take light steps,
Through the wet grasses,
Transfiguring their high-stretched stems,
To the paragon August moon.

The breeze is warm
Against my outstretched arms.

The dew is chill,
Against my feet souls.

Drip,
Drip,
Drip…

The patient, immutable
Tune of night,
Springing from the hanging leaves,
Of surrounding dogwood.

Each leaf’s body tip,
Acting as a gateway,
For newborn water-molecules,
Taking off in a fall,
A fall through expanse of night,
Soon to be swallowed by soil.

I sit now,
My thin legs crossed,
My arms held-high
In the night sky.

Goose-bumps infuse themselves,
Upon my paper skin.

Fingers stretched far out,
Moonlight rays seeping
Through my life lines.

Closing my eyes now,
Retreating into a space of meditative mind,
I hear the doleful song of fowl,
Taking lone flight through the night air.
I feel the shy colors of dawn,
Escalating through the heavens.

August moon departs.

August sun emerges.

Here I sit,
Thin legs crossed,
Arms unmoved from their upward stretch,
My eyes still closed,
My chest,
Rising and falling steadily.

Each breathe slows,
Until the moon is finally out of eyes reach,
My beating heart comes to a slow stop,
My lips smile to the world.

Drip,
Drip,
Drip,
Drip…

I want a Garden of Flowers.
I want Tulips and Roses that bleed red
When the rain hits
Their petals fall on the ground
Just in time for the wind to come,
And make them dance

I want the birds and the bees
To make the most out of my fertile seeds
I want my flower’s honey to be the sweetest,
When it’s in your mouth

I want Daisies and Lavenders
That blossom under the sun
With roots so deep, they touch the earth’s crust
I want Mother Nature to call me,
Her daughter  
Yes, I want a garden of flowers

I want Asters and Chrysanthemums
That sprout when everything is gone
I want the children to marble
At how they blossom

Where wedding planners come to my door
Or mankind comes to pluck off their stems,
To give to their lover
After making them cry
Yes, I want my florals
To be a reason for someone to smile

I want Poppies that grow
On my empire of dirt
And after everything has departed,
A new cycle has started.

50’s beach party
complete with twitchy go-go dancers
leather jackets
and old Plymouths
sand kicked in the faces of squares
as little Suzie Goodtime roller skates across the parking lot
picket fences shift from white to orange and pink
as they capture the sunset on a perfect American day –
free lovers swing signs
written in crayon
attempting to challenge the establishment
create world peace
through **** abuse and music in the park
subjugated and relegated to building a retirement platform
aged hipsters look at faded photographs
imagining a time they changed the all –
blown out coke head
bent on disco ***** and easy living
watches as Miami explodes
CIA operatives feeding high grade dope
to low rent projects
in an effort to funnel money and guns
into the Middle East –
gas wars and brokers as billionaires
death to glam rock and hairspray
the rise of bling and swag
selfies take center stage
unabashed introversion
as the skies are geometric grids
and the crops **** pollinators –
looking over a lifetime
of altering perception
and changing habits
the habitual nature of humanity
shines as a solid base from which all else stems
forced to recognize my own place in the septic tank
I stand as an observer and documenter
cleverly bending the woes
of the world
into words
for the lost –

1.  The things that you have experienced are not your fault.  

2. Recovery requires humbleness and humility. Cast aside your pride, your ego; and accept the help given to you. It might not be the help you want; but it will set you free.

3. There is a difference between supporting others and carrying their problems for them. You are not Atlas. Do not try to hold up the world for other people. Their burdens are not yours to carry.

4. Blaming yourself for what has happened is for naught. You didn't bring this madness upon yourself; and there was no way of knowing or remembering. In the grand scheme, it doesn't matter. You are here now to recreate your life and soul.

5. Memory is a fickle siren's song. Do not forget what this ordeal has taught you; no matter how badly you want to burn it from your brain. Yet do not lose yourself to the past completely. It will only end in misery.

6. Einstein's definition of insanity is the paragon of addiction. “Doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” Remembering will be excruciating at first, but it shall save you.

7. Asking for the help of others does not make you a burden. The twisted sense of pride and self punishment that makes you believe that you must conquer your demons alone will attempt to devour you, but only if you let it.

8. Living in recovery requires resilience and flexibility. You will find a balance and acquire a new normal for your life.

9. Always remember: if you have done your best under the circumstances you are given; you have succeeded. No matter the outcome.

10. There will be days when you want to let go and fall back into the abyss. Do not give in. This fight shall endure eternally; but you will learn how to harness your light and resilience as strength and stamina to carry on.

11. To love unconditionally is to embrace the purest form of yourself.

12. Be gentle with yourself. You are struggling. You are surviving. You are growing. The divine music in your heart will guide your way.

13. Your experience, this life, and the universe are ineffable. You can try to explain it as best as you can; but it is impossible to capture it fully. This is okay.

14. Learning to be okay with the unknown is a difficult battle. Yet it is necessary for your recovery and mental health. As human beings, we crave understanding, yet we are unable to comprehend everything. Learn to sit in silence with this realization and go on living this cosmic dance.

15. There will be people who do not; cannot understand you. This is okay. Let them go and wish them well. You are a rare creature that not everyone can understand and appreciate.

16. You are worthy of unconditional love. Do not settle for anything less. Do not paint yourself as deserving of watered down, tainted attempts at love.

17. This life is a paradox. We cannot fully comprehend it. Once we understand this realization; we are open to wisdom.

18. Be mindful of who you open your heart to. Love everyone; yet only allow those who can love you unconditionally at your most naked and vulnerable a place in your soul.

19. You cannot change other people. If they cannot see your resplendent soul and love you wholly, free of conditions; let them go. Along your journey, you will find your family: the flames that burn in perfect synchronicity to yours.

20. Existential anxiety is part of the human condition. Recognize and accept it for what it truly is. This requires a balancing act: embracing these truths without ignorance, yet not diving deep enough for it to swallow you.

21. You will never not be broken. This, despite how painful it can be; is okay. Life is a cycle of annihilation, rebirth, stitching the pieces back together, learning, growing; and shattering once more. Ad infinitum. Yet in time, you shall learn.

22. Find a balance between the cynicism and overwhelming awe you have for life. This universe is perfectly paradoxical. Understand this in depth.

23. Sometimes, the best healing and recovery comes from being able to laugh at yourself. Humbleness and humility are key components. If you can laugh at yourself, you can heal.

24. Turn your experience into something positive. Giving it meaning will assist in boosting your resiliency and ease in coping, growing, learning, and healing.

25. There will be days when you'll have no idea how everything will work out. Do not let these days end up dragging you back out to sea. Instead, learn how to dance with the unknown: it will strengthen your resilience and confidence in fighting through the fog.

26. "No" is a complete sentence. End of discussion. Do not feel like you must rip yourself open to please other people.

27. You have a beautiful soul. Do not feel like the act of declining to take care of/help other people in order to focus on your own mental health detracts from the radiance and kindness within your being. Humans can be like black holes threatening to **** you dry. Taking time away to nurture your own wellbeing doesn't make you any less of an altruistic individual.

28. There will be times in this life where there isn't an answer, a quick fix, or any single solution. It's hard to come to terms with, but sometimes the best thing is to simply have a support system that loves you unconditionally and will listen to the tempestuous song in your heart.

29. True, genuine empathy is simultaneously the most sacred gift to possess and the most mentally exhausting curse. Learn how to balance both sides so you don't burn out like a dying star.

30. There are only two certainties in this life. The first is death. The second is that nothing is ever given, promised, guaranteed, or certain. There will always be a touch of existential anxiety around this realization; but it gets easier to process with time and wisdom.

31. There will be days where you find yourself back amongst the circles of hell. It will be painful, infuriating, and exhausting. Keep moving forward. You have learned how to walk through the flames; so let your resilience guide you. Your tour abroad will end with time.

32. Learning to sit in silence, stillness, compassion, and neutrality with the dawning comprehension, surrender and the willingness to be vulnerably honest with one's soul is simultaneously the most difficult and purifying tasks to endure. To do so with love, stillness, and compassion elicits the catalyst for our true growth. Healing commences once we remember to bloom; embodying humility and stillness.

33. There is Divinity within the fabric of One's Soul. Embrace and embody this, releasing all which does not serve one's continuing growth.

34. Understanding stems from experience. Knowledge is obtained by integrating the lessons gleaned from understanding. True wisdom occurs through allowing neutral compassionate silence to flow through the soul when faced with that which wounded you from the start.

35. Self care is not selfish. Taking time to water the seeds of growth and unconditional love does not insinuate that one is egocentric or self absorbed. We may only truly uplift others by granting ourselves the same compassion.

36. This life is absurd, full of moments which test our resiliency and development. Occasionally, one will shatter from these bewildering shifting pauses. This is okay. It does not signify weakness or failure. Pick up the pieces, rebuild and seal the cracks; and learn to greet true absurdity with humor and compassion.

Drops of reddish rain on skins
slid dripping, pooled in leaves curled
Steps on stems break dawn's awakening
Little wrecks of nests unhinge
twine thru twigs

Ladders leaned
steps for splintered fingers
Blossomy buds plucked thru rungs
Breezy days go shining

Apple worms burrow
for beaking birds
Bees have flown homeward

In September's slanted sun
we gather sweetest reds

2016 Museum of Modern Art Party in the Garden - Inside
Vera Ellen **** is an American fashion designer who is mostly known for her dresses. But most do not know that she started out with a higher education at Sarah Lawrence College.

She had a bachelor degree in art history. The founder of Vera **** Bridal House has become one of the most successful entrepreneurs. She was able to fulfill her dreams with a college degree. She is one of the world's most successful business tycoons that learned about entrepreneurship. If you want to have a degree in design or fashion, and at the same time explore business, then following Vera ****'s career path might be something you can consider. According to Rasmussen, **** has an estimated net worth of $115 million.

**** grew up with Chinese roots but she was born and raised in New York. She initially graduated from Chapin school in 1967 and then attended the University of Paris. Afterwards, she went to Sarah Lawrence College in Westchester County and took a degree in art history.

What many do not know is that she competed in the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. She was featured in Sports Illustrated, 1968 edition. When she did not make the cut for the US Olympics, she set her sights on fashion.

With her background in art, she entered Vogue as an editor immediately after graduating from Sarah Lawrence. She was the youngest editor in the publication. She moved on to Ralph Lauren 17 years later. At the age of 40, she became an independent bridal wear designer.

With her experience and education, she now works with renowned fashion designers and designs for the likes of Victoria Beckham, Ivanka Trump, Avril Lavigne and Kim Kardashian.

She does not limit her designs to wedding dresses alone. She also ventures into the realm of evening wear and retail.

Vera ****'s success stems from her love of fashion. To this day, she still enjoys skating though as a "multidimensional" sport.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-brisbane | www.marieaustralia.com/black-formal-dresses

~for Jill~

“from your messages”
elsewhere scribed, a
confession that your comments
be challenges like cool
well water drawn, a
fresh mix and minx,
a two flavored scoop
on a waffle (or sugar) cone,
mmm call mine, flavors of
inspiration and aspirations

it’s 2:46am, one would think
that a deadrose would know
better behavior, but up is up,
and down down down-come
tumbling words, as usual,
each screeching hoarsely

“pick me, pick me!”

uncover your note of appreciation,
side splitting laugh in shame md shock,
that spellcheck has altered intent,
one day, likely a  cause of a war,
or e v e n a new poem

peddle a rose
became
“pedal a rose,”
invitingly nonsensical,
my point exactly

but the awake-too-late idiot,
can’t stop me now ~ urgency
has mastered my     common
sensibility, thus        commanded
me to write and shine

somewhere nearby,(1)
babies be borning,
and flippers of coins,
old humans too,
be expiring on the
sell-by-date
some surrounded,
all surrendering

Angels sent to
both sides now,
to ferry them
back home,
their adventures
completed or a
preface begun

Oh
for the ferryman
to ferry them
across rivers whistling
hello my darlings,
to a new home,
with a clean
writing tablet
to inscribe their
owned
future or past,
making their case
for a future or a
memorized posterity

I am dancing on the edge
of that first category,
dancing tap before that ——,
unwilling to cross over
and the angel sent
with collection papers,
mine and JoeBideen,
can’t touch us yet,
while in the middle
of our latest composition
(ya didn’t know?)

where in the world
has this to do with
pedaling roses?

the angels offer enticements,
write like the great ones,
sit at the feet of Leonard & Sylvia,
get introduced to the author of
“Leaves of Grass,”

who will amend and correct
(using spellcheck)
your own new scriptures

for rules From Above,
are carefully careless,
and don’t care about
impossibility so
leap with me,
onto a bicycle of roses,
each pedal a petal,
each tire of  woven stems,

our destination is
everywhere, our purpose
to bring scent to those
who still have need to
breathe, and those’d who have
ceased
being needy
forever

filling nostrils
with colors of roses,
and finding poems
on the floor, full writ,
purposely scribbled
and scripted for just
a jilly one,
(just like
this
one)

just lacking a title,
just lacking a name,
customed for a single
customer, now a custodian
of a new born baby
poem
ready to be fedex’d
to its new owner
and deposited in
the this bank here,
right here

so thank you for
revealing my
inadvertent typo,
and aiding in my
quest to bring it to
a new life,
but must petal on,
for new babies are
being born and need
wrapping in a
a bed of white petals,
fresh happily donated from
living roses!

3:19am

If I wrote about my love for you,
It would take 7 years
and 7 volumes to put it altogether.

I could write forever,
And not be done,
Because thats how strong my love is for you,
Immortal and unending.

How could it not be immortal and unending,
You were,
In every way,
My first love.

Penning down my love for you,
Is everything I have ever wanted to do,
And so I do it,
Hoping for some sort of profit,
Knowing that no good can come from this,
Until I tell you this and try not to hiss.

I know that you know that I loved you,
Does that even make sense?
I mean,
I do love you.

So I try to fit this love into a book,
And it would not stop at page one hundred and twenty,
It just went on and on.

Not knowing what to do,
I fell even more in love with you,
Regretted nothing in this time.

I guess I hoped and hoped for some sort of recourse,
But its okay.

People always say,
If you love someone so much, be willing to let them go if it makes them happy.

But what if,
I am not willing?
Until I get a chance to be happy myself,
And what if,
That happiness stems forth
from being with someone I love so much.

So I sit by this tree,
I sit and wait,
Penning this rant on paper,
Staining it with my tears of 7 years of love.

Seven thousand teardrops later,
I cannot think no more,
So I close this book for now,
Volume 7 of my immortal love.



So I will continue to write,
As long as there is love in my heart for you,
As long as you are there in my life for me and with me,
I will write and there will be volumes!
There will be poems!
All to tell you only one thing that I could not tell you with my own lips.

But I will hide them away from you,
Knowing you will not hunt down my poems,
My sonnets,
My vilanelles,
My free verse,
My prose,

If you do,
I pray you do not decipher them
And learn the truth behind them
They will bring shame to me,
Because I did not have it in me,
To tell it to your face,
What I have written in my words.

So pray be,
Leave them alone,
And if you do decipher these,
I leave it entirely to you.

These volumes and years of my love,
they exist to tell you,
That I.Love.You.

Roses, soft and cold roses

Like her ringed lips around his *******

Creamy scale excrement over your *****,

Fine cut jagged legs with stems inside his meatus

Roses

I'm a peripatetic napper aka a somnambulant philosopher... who is prone to salubrious somniloquy aka hammock rapping, on a variety of savory subjects such as which parts, leaves, petals, stems, peels or fruit of the lilikoi and guava families make the sweetest and most healing teas... for example, I sense that you can swallow this soporific soliloquy straight or with some surf, salt, sea and sunshine and skip the sleeping pills indefinitely..

My dreams are like the dried up stalks
and stems in my Garden,
I have not watered them except with
my tears, the dirt is so porous,
what is against us is not for us,
I mean...me and me.

The container Garden has holes drilled
for purposes (use them for what they were intended)
for greater good (hold on, did you say you were offended?)
why let your mood spoil a sunny cloudy freezing windy wet day,
why do you brood??

Question is can you stop,
and do you, know IT when you are,
and is the Garden only the sum of its fruits
Labour on,
Labour long,
Do you need or want to leave anything behind,
for to be remembered, you know Life the Grind
by ME, or do you want to go out like the hikers
walk in the park, and leave no trace.

Get me out of this place,
the four walls have mirrors,
I am sick of looking at
my face, do it for ME.
I can't break though
or breakout, 7 years of bad luck
may be all that I have left,
unless I cut myself on exiting,
like a bird with a useless wing,
flightless, and bleeding tears.

Pulling at my hair like they are weeds
rooted, like pins to grenades going off
in a worn out hollowed stump that
once held a brain.

©ClemC072013

He's tending the garden.
Earth on his hands
Sweat on his neck.
Sprinkling seeds
From freshly spent flowers.
I can't see his eyes behind his Ray Bans
But I know they're focused, delighted
Observing the occupants and visitors
In his cultivated oasis.
To keep the garden nurtured,
protected,
is critical.
He worries when the storms roll in.
How will they fare?
But he does what he can.
He rids the area of weeds
And cares for slender stems.
It's a promise kept
To tend and till.

In the garden he's a father too.

Persian pink slumping petals on sturdy green stems
Brought a smile to her face
In return you received her grace
But like her heart
Upon their final days,
cut into pieces
lid ******* on tight
glass walls limit sight
The air is fleeting


Slowly they suffocate away

It seems I’ve always been dyslexic
But, I really didn’t know.
I just discovered this about myself
About a year ago.
It was a matter of some bedevilment
To deal with left and right
Up and down, on and off, and more
Excepting day and night.

Opposites like yes or no, black or white,
Were never easy or fun.
Then the days of computers came along
With their trials of zero and one.
It’s a basic lack of understanding things
At a minimal kind of level.
It always seemed I was forever lost
Between the sea and the devil.

I began to realize how deep the effect
Ran within my learning curve.
It was more than just a simple matter
Of which way I would swerve
When riding a bike or driving a car;
I could never drive in Kent.
I would invariably choose the wrong way
When the road was forked or bent.

I don’t take any of this in any light way,
It helps me to understand
Having problems in my studies long ago,
To piece together strand by strand
The insults and the teasing I underwent
When I made the wrong choices.
I can now put to rest my sense of doubt
That stems from chiding voices.

It was such a subtle thing, and back then,
In the methods of long ago,
The parents and the teachers muddled on
Because they really didn’t know
That many of us were not ignoramuses
We just had an uphill fight
We had a dilemma in equal opposites
Like in and out or left and right.

I

top of the valley
))) showerhead & birdsong,
the womanlike apparition
of previous nights,
  confession buries its warmth within fervent tangerine sheets (where the day is hot and the future is formless)

I approach the dawn
in naked repose/horns repeating/soft a hares tail is
spotted with freckled water from Lands End,
youth & ideal kiss-image lost in bedsheets/
  eyes are painted with creekwater
  
to impermanence, guarding the stones we left there
  drying away/I miss you already
  
  (the island which reconciled my heart to that of a lambs infant noise)
  
  all worry and expenses vanished at the throw of an axe
  
     haze/fire/italian wine/the stirrings of March brought forth for inspection
     in the dim glow of our ashes/butterfly asleep/carved dragon
     draped with the fury in your kiss/

I stand naked before the valley, an initial warmth fills its features. A smile stems in the garden loosely protected by wire, I am temporarily innocent of day/
my restless behavior now soaked into a wooden platform

     Clothes placed on a nearby log, I now cloak an inevitability to my skin, one of a whisper, mute in the heart as yet,
     heavy (molten lead) to the rest of me

(questions starve in my mouth,
  for the sake of any dire simplicity/animal truth in tongue/awakened from its hibernation)
  I am gripping the mothmask
  helpless & drawn instinctually
  toward the fire which
  hurts me
(the witch unafraid of being burned)

  stumbling in black of later-spoken confusion/divided tones/two worshippers of the same trickster idol-

-only promising the subdued rising day,
where you monastically
prepare (with such grace) the next meal of bananas & hot tea, cupped with mint leaves, meanwhile,
Ethiopian rhythm fills the trees with a land who's taste they'll never know

      (& suddenly I am the forest)

II

(out of sight)

-hitchhiked home & let out here, a brown ivory-trimmed wood church hardly the size of a house a little ways down the road, myriad
insect conversation & the dry, eclipsing valley, carrying with me a simple liberation of spirit, one I can't let go of by necessity-

-my shoes are scuffed with loose dirt at the sole, I must pantomime the Sea, now more than ever

(without intervention)

-my clothes clean all things considered-

(darling time acts in accordance to nothing but its own divine & careless will)

-as if ingrained to me by the Summer heat, & the earned sweat on my back.

"Life needs to be lived, not to be solved" - Osho

River boats float along,
up and down
from side to side,
Putney to
Rotherhithe

all this
stems from the Thames
the arterial tree

for the sailor in me the Thames will do
on a flat bottomed barge
muddling through to
St Katherine's and Tobacco dock, to
Tower bridge and make a stop

Ferries and Wherries and
waterways
days on the Thames

making friends
with the mudlarks, the spivs
the preachers, the sharks
all parts of the stem
a branch of the tree

life is for me from
the Thames to the sea.

Tongues tied into knots
Like cherry stems.
Sweetness exploding,
Creating a big bang of flavor.
He said I taste like green apple candies,
Smell like coconut chocolates.
Lavender icing coating my lips
As if it were meant to be lipstick.
Sunflower seeds for teeth.
Slit my wrists
And call it strawberry syrup.

I do not know the name of your colors,
they all mate with each other
and come out curiously, like priests
heaving Bibles in that basketball façade
your whites and pinks fit their sort of face.

Yet it stirs some type of discomfort,
also unidentifiable and costly –
these hours, we are not.

You cannot be when I cannot breathe
another shade of blueberries, so fat and
birthing their seeds. Resigned to
their train-track coloring but dreamy,

moonlike, thinking about nothing
and being everything  as tall as a steeple
then as short as Communion glasses.

Say these must be the violets,
in the golden stems and grape heads
found by a grass pit: just like your eyes!
as if artificially placed inside, before you
could only see in black and white.

I do not know the name of your colors
except by the weight of things,
paper & plastic, bows & bird wings,
these heavens I discover on your seams.

she soaked up their hateful words
like droplets of rain falling
into open wide
eyes.

her thin spine straightened,
extended notch by notch.
stems grew in-between
spaces once expansive
with loneliness. leaves
sprouted,  facing up
like palms reaching
out towards
the sun.

the seeds of bitterness
sprouted into vines
that curled around
her legs and burst
flowers from
her skin.

resentment grew into
fox gloves and freesias,
forget-me-nots and
the occasional flax.
venus fly trap for
a mouth to catch
the judgments
where

they will be digested
slowly, but surely,
as she keeps
growing
and
growing.

Spring
A young boy runs through the forest, giggling with excitement.  He had been trapped in the house all winter: kept inside by his parents to defend him from the cold.  The boy runs and runs, driven by the boundless energy that children have.  There is so much to explore in this self-reviving wonderland, so much fun to be had.  Slowly, the boy comes to a stop.  He looks up, mystified by the expanse surrounding him.  It’s so large, so incomprehensibly large.  Buds of new life emerge everywhere around him and melted snow drips from the treetops.  He looks down and sees the small sapling of a tree.  The boy studies it, examines every inch of the tree: the small leaves, the tiny, delicate stems.  Fascinated by the simple treasure he has found, the boys sits in silence to admire his find for a short while, then runs home to share his discovery with Mom and Dad.

Summer
A couple, teenagers, stroll through the forest, laughing as they go.  The forest is completely green now, alive, thriving.  Thin rays of sunlight trickle through the cover that the thick canopy above has created and warm the cool air.  It’s mid-morning and the constant, peaceful hum of the forest fills the air.  The couple comes to the tree, larger now, and sits down to rest in it’s small patch of shade.  They continue talking, teasing each other until they run out of things to say, and then silence.  They sit together, hand in hand.  He looks at her and senses something turn deep inside of him.  She shifts and a ray of sunlight illuminates her face.  She closes her brown eyes.  The boy leans in close to her and feels the warmth of her breath on his face.  He leans in closer and feels the smooth, subtle touch of her lips on his own.  They stay that way for a moment, taking in the sensation, and then he leans back: his first kiss.

Fall
A man walks through the forest, his arm stretched out below his waist so he can hold his daughter’s tiny hand in his own.  They walk side by side, her little legs taking long paces to keep up with his larger ones.  They come to the tree and sit at its base, facing each other.  He tells her a funny story from his past that she gleefully giggles at.  The man feels an overwhelming sense of joy when he looks at her happy face; her twinkling eyes and a smile so large it shows every one of her teeth.  He has never been more thankful for anything in his life.  He feels a tear come to his eye but he wipes it away; she is still too young to understand tears of happiness.  He opens his arms wide in a familiar gesture to her.  She jumps into them, embracing him.  They stayed that way for a while, silent, until he tells her “I love you, I love you…”, once for every orange leaf he sees loftily float to the ground.

Winter
An old man walks through the forest, snow crunching beneath his feet.  He takes small, slow steps, grasping the beauty of the forest he has come to know so well.  The air is thin and harsh on his aged lungs.  It bites at his nose and uncovered ears, reddening them.  The naked branches of the familiar trees around him seem to reach up to the heavens, begging for an end to the cruel winter.  The man comes to his tree and studies it, just as he did the day that he found it so many years ago.  “Oh, how we’ve grown,” he says.  He thinks back on his life: his accomplishments, his failures, the ones he’s loved.  He’s had a good life.  The old man sits down, his back resting against the strong truck of the tree: his favorite spot in the world.  He closes his eyes.  In the silence of the forest and with a smile on his face, he falls into an eternal sleep.

I watched the bees pollinate.
Like a group of tiny black racecars flitting
between the pastel purple bulbs.
I felt my skin
crawl as I listened to their harmonious humming
and yet
I couldn't take my eyes off them -
the way they zipped through the lavender
stems, never colliding with each other gripped
me like a whirl of spring.

I lay back and I thought of you

so oddly beautiful *but beautiful
nonetheless.

My girl is the softest planet
and I am unsure, but she says
the gaseous rings are clinging
tight to her knuckles and it is
after midnight when she finally
exhales and the room turns pink
and bright with starlight

On absent Tuesdays, and only those
of even number, we sit on docks
and watch the city float by
on cumulonimbus and pouring
and hail tie-dying the whites on our shirts
and blue eyes gray in stony reflection

Purple tangle watches, thorny stems
on a chase through the downtown streets
after falling for and off of you
under creaks of a lifting bridge

the following additions will seems like plastic
surgery,
               and in turn will put the encompassed
poem under much strain,
  but as i will say: a 48h marathon can do
that to your narrative "skills"... well... techniques...
   esp. given it's winter in the northern
hemisphere, and two nights and two days
actually feels like three nights and two days,
given we're into our second day, and i've already
experienced a night-time this morning looking
at the clock.

  italics will be pleasantly omitted...

        instead... a maxim style akin to la Rochefoucauld
will be adopted... to merely insert
             toothache when otherwise the ***
is sitting on a leather sofa and thinking what would
be a better chance to juice up the brain with a
psychoactive sedative-effect, i.e. with what liquid?
    coffee on the brain is a sahara, as is famously
known: arabs love their coffee... and their
  baklava dressed in balaclavas - or as we say in
Europe: there's enough water, so we drink alcohol.
    turns out diabetic rates only go down in arabia
if enough sports cars are imported... must be
the g-force diet.

         but hey! look at the title! the title was always
going to to resemble the final version of
the preliminary work, the sketch, of what went on
last night...
                   beginning with the scariest film i have ever
seen: a horror movie without anything to do with
night or its aura (i was about to say aurora, never mind),
a movie from 2002... which ended being more scary
even it almost bagged the lead role an oscar...
        and then what i can only claim to be better than
gaming these days... taking graphic novels onto screen...

which brings me to a question, and if i ask the question
with a mature enough wording,
i might actually get a serious debate going...
     namely? x-men, first class...
         and i share something with this theme,
did you know that people remember far away from
Chernobyl parks being pigmented, where
   there were segregational duo-incisions in the trees
from the radiation? it happened nearing when i
was born, spring, and the women were told to drink
iodine... that 2002 film shows iodine treatment
   on "mental" patients, you pour enough iodine down
the nostrils you get a better understanding of
epilepsy... ah... the magical things people could ever
think of doing on another human being, let alone
   a courgette, or a steak...
                well, yes, in parks, half the trees were
the colour of spring, all green and asparagus juicy...
the other half were brown, and decaying,
    almost potato skinned, if not simply: potato skinned.
      as i said, i was a foetus at the time,
and apparently some Scandinavian got a microcosmic
whiff of it and panicked... let alone those exposed
too close to Chernobyl, a radiation-pH spectrum
emerged, of who and how they were exposed it...
    cancer, for example, is prevalent in Poland of
those who don't get to experience a midlife mental
disorder of buying a yacht... lucky them...
   which fits nicely into the seriousness of graphic
novels, as that film unbreakable clearly demonstrates...
  all realism of graphic novels actually stems
from batman... my favourite... no super-powers,
plus i had a simulation of being orphaned and raised
by my grandparents for 2 - 4 years while my early
psyche developed, and then redeveloped utilising
a different language, then went back to settle old dues,
and then went back again: charged with having read
    antoine de saint-exupéry on a year long
hiatus that allowed me to watch the 1998 world cup
              in a dark-lit room with my great-grandmother
and see France win... with such jubilation as if
Napoleon just came back from Elbe for seconds.
this is not the point, i said i would word it maturely
and not look half as an ***:
    why does francis xavier sympathise with
max eisenhardt, but belittles james "logan" howlett?

   all things start so small, i just remembered listening
to this song that allows you to lay down words like
bricks in a wall (prometheus' 9th - the man who swam
through a speaker)...

  why does he, is francis xavier just ******* that
one of logan's mutation counter-pluses is his ability
   to regenerate health and vitality, while at the same time
creating a amnesic hinderance to apply his psychopathy?
i guess it is... max on the other hand as unchanging:
fixed memory coordinates, because physically:
he's unscratched... up to a point of how this debate
runs its course... i just don't see how francis has to
belittle logan... just like henry "hank" mccoy is first
belittled as simply bigfoot... the problem with
amnesia is that even you have the capacity to
engage in telepathy (rooting out distant pathologies
rooted deep inside your psyche that never allow
you to reach a full potential - or what's Freud's
case of postulating receding pathologies and subsequently
creating a forward looking theory to work with
in creating uninhibiting constructs -
       francis xavier? nothing more than a psychiatrist...
in the modern sense, without iodine treatment,
or electric-shock-therapy... rather the guy that
says everyone is special via talk-therapy...
  and all psychiatrists have this child in them:
they all want to be telepathic... just like all
manual labourers want to be telekinetic) -
           the oldest chestnut, if there ever was a hazelnut
to boot.

       original, as except of what is to come...
  i mean, what i started off is now bound to italics,
  just to make a point that after watching 48 hours
of things, and having finally looked at symbols,
    i could only write so much coherently,
before donning what looked like some poet's clothes,
and stepping into a foggy highnoon for
  a bottle of beer, a bottle of whiskey, and
     a prescription of insomnia pills...
   well (they're called anti-depressants for old people,
who prefer to treat their "depression" - if not
merely old age, while they're asleep)...

no one would ask for this type
of hiatus...
       some would call it:
being an american spy,
      getting caught in soviet
russia and enduring interrogation
techniques -
    yes, a "hiatus" of nearing
48 hours: of being constantly awake.
       or what certain former
east europeans going back
   to see family members might
ask about, when Lithuania, Estonia
and Latvia are under a national
sway of general jittering paranoia
as reported by English newspapers
   and later established by
            an American president's
tour of the region -
                         or how Crimea
is the 37th or 38th or whatever no. it's
now - or whether it's
           Tartar autonom oblast -
but indeed, nearing a 48 hour long
insomniac "hiatus".

            and i can sympathise with francis xavier
experiences when max eisenhardt is first encountered,
this sharpness of a psyche, rather than its automation
or literal non-existence... this is why i could
            stay up for longer than 48 hours if i wanted to,
but i can see so much in being awake for so long
that natural consequence is that:
a. i have lost the capacity to dream,
  b. i have translated the capability to dream into code
(namely the letters you see before you)
   and
c. i have found a "safe-space" to recuperate from
the pain i feel...
  meaning
      d. i know with what ease people acquire a substance
known as a soul... and with what ease they can
think in this substance, like a fish in water...
    what i'm talking is a lobster a boiling basin,
where your exoskeleton can mean a lot upon
jumping off a cliff, but when your inner flesh,
starts to be almost eaten by the mutation of protein
from tapeworm larvae into edible meat?
      i know this substance, i have experienced it...
and i know that i dare not put a soul into a foetus
that doesn't have a workable tongue, bladder and ****.
  i think it's time to end this preliminary "work".

Winter is cold, with gusts of tumbling snow
When rain falls down and nothing ever grows
For children it's the snow that they desire
And cups of co-co in front of the fire

When winters gone, the grass grows green again
Roses and Tulips sprout, with bright green stems
The bees are buzzing, the birds are singing
Sheep are grazing and cow bells are ringing

And then the sun starts to shine too brightly
It's so hot that fans are put on nightly
And so then it's off to the beach or pools
Where people swim about just to keep cool

All the leaves on the trees turn golden-brown
And when on the ground make a crackly sound
In autumn a lot of money you make
For clearing backyards of leaves with a rake

Each season has its own goods and its bads
But since they are all different I am glad!

Wind rushes through the trees sounding like a train
piles of leaves fall off the tree like a rainbow colored rain.
Red, yellow and orange colors capture my eye
it's time again for Autumn's last celebration in the sky.
I watch them dance and sway to their own beat
as one by one they gently land to my feet.
A colorful array like a circus coming into town
waving their tiny stems like hands as they fall down.
I stand there mesmerized, hypnotized by the sway
I stare for what seems like hours, I cannot look away.
The golden sun has now turned the sky to and orange and pink hue
separating the clouds to make way for the moonlight's debut.
A chill has taken over the air, the heat has ran away to places unknown
as I inhale the scents of October's crisp and clean cologne.
As I turn to go in I say goodnight to the world outside
walking into the house I feel somber as if someone has died.
Summer has passed, I hang my head and I mourn
but, the magical thing about the Season's is they will again be reborn.

I’m tired of watching.

Gaping at this cinematic reality as it slowly sinks into my sensitive skin like hot rocks on a not-so-relaxing Sunday morning.

Disappointment after disappointment, I tap my foot with impatience, awaiting a ship that never docks, yet instead, tantalizes me as it nears the harbor but changes its course midway.

I’m limp, dangling over the wishing well in my bathroom that swallows as I heave; attempting to rid my body of all my pathetic hopes and expectations and watch as they are flushed down the toilet.

You are a dagger and I have closed my eyes, preparing myself to die; allowing my flesh to surround your malicious blade as you pierce agonizingly through my shattering heart.

I am (or was) a majestic sailboat and you are a bulwark placed dangerously in my path, resulting in a complete wreckage causing my sail to sink miserably to the bottom of the ocean.

Tired of seeing.

Watching each face blossom with happiness as my stems overflow with jealousy; I stare at the reflection of my forlorn face, painfully plucking each of my withering petals and allowing them to fall to the ground in defeat.

Feeling my chakras disintegrate as my large intestine absorbs my heart that melted at the sight of your hands entwined with ones that aren’t mine.

I’m suffocating, gasping for air as I hug myself until I am strangling my waist, searching for that comforting lungful of compassion.

Tired of noticing.

Releasing my last breath, I let go. Allowing my body to be consumed by the numbness that started at my heart as it froze.