.

Someone said, “Hey Stephan,
what’s up with all this love
It seems in every poem
that’s what you’re thinking of

Why are you always dreaming,
why is it you can’t see
That love is just a legend,
a made up fallacy

The world is filled with evil,
don’t you watch the news
CNN or NBC
or others you can choose

Clinton is a liar,
Trump is just a creep
They’ll both destroy the nation
for fortunes that they reap

Murders by the thousands,
death is in the streets
I can’t believe you haven’t seen
within the many tweets

Our water is polluted,
we’re choking on the air
They even have new bathrooms
for every one to share

Prices through the ceiling,
paychecks in the ground
Protesters are screaming,
you can hear them all around

There’s war in other countries
Servers have been hacked
Innocent bystanders
Caught in the attack

Drugs are running rampant,
****** is king
Coming through the border,
such a nasty thing

Little kids are crying,
not enough to eat
Living in the squalor,
sleeping in the street

So tell me, will you Stephan,
what’s up with what you write
Every poem filled with love,
morning, noon and night"

I looked at him a moment
and with all honesty
I said to him, "I’m sorry sir,
were you talking to me?

I was lost writing this poem
for one I do adore
I didn’t hear you talking,
could you please say it once more?"

**He just walked away shaking his head

Thomas came from the school of hard facts
No Gradgrind, yet, had slipped through its cracks
A Bounderby born saw light in this day
Believing flowers belong outside with the hay

In Louisa G,
Thoughts would flee
It was clear to see
Just not on bended knee

The girl would gaze towards a flame
Far too majestic to tame
And there hours would disappear
As “Fancy” hesitantly slipped near

A circus of thought
Nine oils bought
*****’s distraught
Isolation caught

Her father left home
A sad clown made to roam
Metaphor in a poem
Lost, no need to atone

A foster child of Logic
There’s no need to frolic
Study enveloped her life
While Louisa became a wife

Married and bound to an age differential
That made her hubby seem quite parental

Thomas had begun new work
Money earned, quite the perk
Then it vanished with great haste
Gambled away like simple waste

His sister, Loo, called to bail
Thomas, who had found life stale
Her few possessions drift away
On donations to her brother’s dismay

Time moves on with little give
Debts build like the weight of a fib
Soon Thomas pleads for far too much,
100 dollars, please rush

Louisa, was completely tapped out
Her brother had broken an ever-flowing spout
He used every penny of the girl’s love
Then drifted, like a fleeting dove.

Her husband, Josiah, sat none the wiser,
Cuddled by the facts of a rude little miser
Then came a parliamentary heart of house,
James snuck in quiet as a mouse.

Mr. Harthouse was a man of great esteem
He came to Coketown on track-lines powered by steam
There he met the wife of a cold little man
And his pursuit of affection began

Lousia had no need for affection
Or for that matter unwanted attention
Yet, as Thomas fell
She thought the notion seemed quite swell

Conversations began with ease
Mr. Harthouse was certainly no ******
Operated amongst the ideas of her school
And even sat earnestly while listening to Stephen Blackpool

…

A servant to no deviant will
And master of a mere peasant’s skill
Stephan spoke in broken phrase
Sentences flowed like a tainted maze

A public speaker the man was not
Still, in front of many, he unraveled a plot
The man spoke with flagrant passion
But, it drifted off in latent fashion

The entirety a man stood casting doubt
Blockading the meager man’s route
Stephan carried on until all was lost
His employment in fact the first major cost.


...unfinished :(

WHEN Kylie Minogue began the process of tracking down 25 years of costumes and memorabilia for an exhibition on her (literally) glittering stage career, she had one crucial call to make.

“There were a few items the parentals were minding,” laughs Minogue. “I, too, do the same thing as everyone else: ‘Mum, Dad, can you just hold onto a few things for me?’ It’s just lucky they weren’t turfed out from under their watchful eye.”

Kylie On Stage is the singer’s latest collaboration with her beloved hometown’s Arts Centre Melbourne. She’s previously donated a swarm of outfits to the venue, going all the way back to the overalls she wore as tomboy mechanic Charlene on Neighbours.

This new — and free — exhibition rounds up outfits starting from her first-ever live performances on 1989’s Disco in Dream tour. Still aged just 21 and dismissed by some as a soap star who fluked a singing career, Minogue found herself playing to 38,000 fans in Tokyo, where her early hits “I Should Be So Lucky”, “The Loco-motion”, “Got To Be Certain” and “Hand On Your Heart” had made her a superstar.

“From memory, I was overexcited and didn’t really know what I was doing. I just ran back and forth across the stage,” says Minogue of her debut tour.

Disco in Dream also premiered what would become a Kylie fashion staple: hotpants. “Those ones were more like micro shorts, not quite hotpants, but they started it,” she admits. “There were also quite a few bicycle pants being worn around that time, too, I’m afraid.”

That first tour stands out for one other reason: Minogue officially started dating INXS’s Michael Hutchence at some point during the Asian leg.

“I had met Michael previously in Australia, but he was living in Hong Kong [at the time] and I met him again there. The tour went on to Japan and he definitely came to visit me in Japan.”

Fast-forward from Minogue’s very first tour to her most recent, 2015’s Kiss Me Once, and the singer performed a cover of INXS’s “Need You Tonight”. She remembers first hearing the song as a teenager. “I don’t think I really knew what **** was back then,” notes Minogue. “But that’s a **** song.”

Before the Kiss Me Once tour kicked off, the Minogue/Hutchence romance had been documented in the hit TV mini-series Never Tear Us Apart: The Untold Story Of INXS. Minogue said then it felt like Michael was her “archangel” during the tour — “I feel like he’s with me.”

Her “Need You Tonight” costume was also deliberately chosen to reflect what Minogue used to wear when she was dating the rockstar. “It was a black PVC trench coat and hat,” she says. “I loved that. It just made so much sense for the connection to Michael. I literally used to wear that exact same kind of thing, except it was leather, not PVC.”

By 1990, Minogue’s confidence had grown, something she’s partially attributed to Hutchence’s influence. Before her first Australian solo tour, she performed a secret club show billed as The Singing Budgies — reclaiming the derisive nickname the media had bestowed on her. It would be the first time her success silenced those who saw her as an easy target. Next year marks her 30th anniversary in pop; longevity that hasn’t happened by accident.

Minogue’s career accelerated so quickly that by 1991 she was on her fourth album in as many years and outgrowing her producers, Stock Aitken Waterman, who wanted to freeze-frame her in a safe, clean-cut image.

On 1991’s Let’s Get To It tour of the UK, Minogue welcomed onboard her first major fashion designer — John Galliano. He dressed her in fishnets, G-strings and corsets; the British press said she was trying too hard and imitating Madonna at her most sexed-up.

“Of course those comparisons were made, and rightly so. Madonna was a big influence on me,” says Minogue. “She helped create the template of what a pop show is, or what we came to know it as, by dividing it up into segments. And if you’re going to have any costume changes, that’s inevitable.

“I was finding my way. I don’t think we got it right in some ways, but if I look back over my career, sometimes it’s the mistakes that make all the difference. They allow you to really look at where you’re going. I’m fond of all those things now. There was a time when I wasn’t.

“Now I look back at the pictures of the fishnets and G-strings I was wearing ... Maybe the audience members absolutely loved it, maybe they were going through the journey with me of growing up and discovering yourself and your sexuality and where you fit in the world.”

As the ’90s progressed, Minogue started experimenting with the outer limits of being a pop star, working with everyone from uber-cool dance producers to indie rocker Nick Cave.

Her 1998 Intimate And Live tour cemented her place as the one thing nobody had ever predicted: a regular, global touring act. Released the year prior, her Impossible Princess album had garnered a credibility she’d never before enjoyed. But more credibility equalled fewer record sales.

The tour was cautiously placed in theatres, rather than arenas. Yet word-of-mouth led to more dates being added — she wound up playing seven nights in both Melbourne and Sydney, and tacking on a UK leg. All received rave reviews.

The production was low-key and DIY: Minogue and longtime friend and stylist William Baker were hands-on backstage bedazzling the costumes themselves. The tour’s camp, Vegas-style showgirl — complete with corset and headdress — soon became a signature Kylie look, but it was also one they stumbled across.

“I remember the exact moment: the male dancers had pink, fringed chaps and wings — we’d really gone for it. I was singing [ABBA’s] “Dancing Queen”. I did a little prance across the stage and the audience went wild. I thought, ‘What is happening?’ That definitely started something.”

Then came the “Spinning Around” hotpants. Minogue couldn’t wear the same gold pair from the music video during her 2001 On A Night Like This tour — they were too fragile — but another pair offered solid back-up.

“That was peak hotpant period,” says Minogue. “Hotpants for days.”

After the robotic-themed Fever 2002 tour (featuring a “Kyborg” look by Dolce & Gabbana), 2005’s Showgirl tour was Minogue’s long-overdue greatest hits celebration.

Following a massive UK and European run, her planned Australian victory lap was derailed by her breast-cancer diagnosis that May. Remarkably, by November 2006, Minogue was back onstage in Sydney for the rebooted Showgirl: The Homecoming tour.

“I look at that now and I’m honestly taken aback,” she admits. “It was so fast — months and months of those 18 months were in treatment.”

Minogue now reveals her health issues meant she had to adjust some of the Showgirl outfits: “I was concerned about the weight of the corset and being able to support it. I was quite insecure about my body, which had changed. For a few years after that I really felt like I wasn’t in my own body — with the medication I was on, there was this other layer.

“We had to make a number of adjustments,” she adds. “I had different shoes to feel more sturdy ... It was pretty soon to be back onstage. But I think it was good for me.”

The singer’s gruelling performances involved dancing and singing in corsets, as well as ultra-high heels and headdresses that weighed several kilos.

“A proper corset, like the Showgirl tour one, is like a shoe,” she explains. “It’s very stiff when you first put it on. By the end of the tour it was way more comfortable. The fact it made it quite hard to breathe didn’t seem to bother anyone except for me. But it was absolutely worth it. I felt grand in it.

“It took a while to learn how to walk in the blue Showgirl dress,” she continues. “I had cuts on my arms from the stars that were sticking out on pieces of wire. You’re so limited in what you can do. You can’t bend your head to find your way down the stairs.

“Whether it was the Showgirl costume or the hotpants, or the big silver dress from the Aphrodite tour [in 2011] that was just ginormous, they all present their own challenges of how you’re going to move and how you’re going to do the choreography. There are times the costume can do that [figuring out] for me; other times I really have to wrestle with it to do what I need to do.

“But you’re not meant to know about that,” she adds, “that’s an internal struggle.”

Minogue has spent much of 2016 happily off the radar, enjoying the company of fiancé Joshua Sasse, 28. She gets “gooey” talking about her future husband, whom she met last year when she was cast opposite him in the TV musical-comedy series Galavant. He proposed to Minogue last Christmas.

Just like the “secret Greek wedding” that was rumoured but never happened, reports of summer nuptials in Melbourne are also off the mark.

“I hate to let everyone down, but no,” she says. “People’s enthusiasm is lovely, we appreciate that, but there are no wedding plans as yet. I’m just enjoying feeling girly and being engaged.”

Minogue will be in Queensland next month filming the movie Flammable Children. The comedy, set in 1975, features her former Neighbours co-star Guy Pearce and is written and directed by Stephan Elliott (The Adventures Of Priscilla: Queen Of The Desert ).

“It’s Aussie-tastic,” laughs Minogue. And she is also planning a sneaky visit to check out her own exhibition when she’s back in Melbourne.

“I’ll probably try to move things around the exhibition,” she says. “And they’ll probably tell me off: ‘Who’s that child playing with the costumes?’”Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-sydney | www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-2016

I’m literally sitting here. Literally. I’m figuratively doing nothing. This time allows me to think. Contemplate; the future of this mess we call adolescence. You look at the clock. Tick tock…kids stepping over my feet, as I literally sit here. Figuratively doing nothing. I’m breathing. Writing. Forming a collection of words in this memo. They don’t fit together, realistically. I would go for a smoke, but I have no cigarettes. I am a sixteen year old, who is too awkward too phone her boyfriend’s home phone, and too awkward just to pop round. I have to see miss in an hour, there’s a kid who’s sad and I have to talk to him.
   Apparently I am confident. I’m not. I just listen to powerful music which makes me feel like I can be a queen. That’s the idea. To feel comfortable you need to not care, and look after yourself. You are queen, you care for your subjects. You rule with fair point. You go out and buy yourself a crown, or shoplift one. I don’t know, just whatever makes you feel like the main *****. Find what you like about yourself and spark it. Make what you like stand out. Find the things you dislike about yourself and show it off. I don’t like my **** but hey, just shake it a bit and it’s like simple twerking. I have thunder thighs which consist of a fair amount of muscle; I have perfected the **** drop. I have become stronger because of what I put myself through. I am the only one who can hear my thoughts. So if at first you’re thinking ‘******* I’m terrified, what if I look like a ****’ fake it.

After acting like this powerful alter ego you can become her. She takes over at times. I can switch between quiet, shy Sophia; into the proud, queen ***** Patricia. Patricia the stripper. I admit this is my alter ego. She wears red lipstick, a leopard coat and thigh highs. She owns a tiara and blows bubbles in her gum. She struts to punk music and breaths arctic monkeys. She dances to jack white, ***** wiggles and all. She sings Kate Nash and the kooks, because she needs to keep her showgirl ship with class and talent as well as outright hot radiation. She has no idea what she is doing, as long as everyone is happy and entertained; she is satisfied with her life. She loves everyone because they all contain a characteristic she adores.

I also have another alter ego who has no name. This is the first time I’m referring to her as her own alter ego. She’s like a ****** of crows. An unkind of ravens. She wears dangerously applied dark makeup. She always wears full black. She’s pretty much a Goth who thrives on shock, horror and Edgar Allen Poe. Her favorite author is Stephan king and she has murderous thoughts. She pouts. She is, oh so pouty; with darkened lips of a cherry flavor. She makes sassy comments which sometimes come out as unintended bitchiness. She scares people, but they call her cool. She’s a bass player, with a strong stance and a black bra and thong set. She smokes like a chimney. She has ash-ened dark lungs like her mind. She’s my biting ***** ego. She hates anything that’s negative in the human spectrum of life. Ironic. She can’t stand hate but embodies it. She smiles at kids playing or people busking. Under the black shell intended to scared, she has the interior of a marshmallow. Fluffy hair, pastel teddy choker, and a love for giggling. She smells or strawberries, cherries and bubble-gum. She is actually really happy; this drives people mad as they can’t label her…neither can I, unless this pinkie paradise is one of her own. Like all my egos…she is happy.

   The killer
came crashing down
smashing,  thrashing through.

What is tender's  tender
       so  for itself,   to do?

        --As it runs
        right over the top of her..

       This taker.
       This killer.

In the black,  
now in between;
so lightless and thick..

        blotting out  all screams.
There is an annihilation  here.
A void.

A terror.
To stay, means certain death

      but to leave  
      also means certain death
      So the  d is m e m b e r men t   begins
      as she is ripped, completely into half

And those halves,  into half..

.. into half

--into half..
        into half.

     And still it tears.. rips..  shreds--
Until all,  in between
is nothing  but black.

A black it can now  pretend to fill
with all of its empty promises..

and all of its counterfeit, everything.

..And then--  just up and leaves
once it is fully satiated.
     And for a while..
     the black had something.


Clinging to the rocky crags
on either side of the unlit valley
are now  the pieces of her--
war-torn and shuddering.

Terrified

Of the black, black   empty.


Of what is now  fully
     and  completely   dark.

      ~       ~      ~       ~


Timmy  ain't real tall
but look at his stature,
as his majestic strings   dialogue
the introduction.

And Warren's gotten so fat
See him now, looking so dearly,  back
at his half-pint of Chunky Monkey--
picking it back up,  for the fourth time..
scraping... scraping.. scraping..

But watch his eyes  light up
as Timmy looks up--
  over the top
of those wild-man RayBans

And with a gentle nod,  it all begins..


-- as our Warren  now digs  deep
into his Gibson's beautifully-wanton  ways..

    identifying.


    clarifying.


­    Rectifying.


Clarence, the Magician..
Stephan--  Humble, Unparalleled
And Dave's  so chill
he's part Creole.. I just know it.

So great a cloud of witness:
surrounding you, my beautiful..

coaxing  you.

    Identifying it all for you.

I cannot forget...
אני לא יכול לשכוח

©  STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח"ם בן אברהם
12 Shevet 5778 / 28 January 2018
revised:
3 Iyyar 5758 / 28 April 2018
19 Iyyar 5778 / 4 May 2018
20 Iyyar 5778 / 5 May 2018
21 Iyyar 5778 / 6 May 2018

Shabtai Zisel / 'Bob Dylan' (1964):
'Forget the dead you've left, they
will not follow you'

W.G. Sebald z"l (1966):
'And so, they are ever returning to us,
the dead'

I.

the Path / derekh is silent,
a vacuum,
resonating with the
footsteps of tzaddikim, whose
teachings transcend(ed)
the Kingdom of Night...

where there was no longer
kefitzat ha'derekh
shrinking of the road
jumping the Path
teleportation.

...un die vvelt hot geshivign,
taught Reb Elie Wiesel z"l...
& the world remained silent.

not existing for themselves,
the tzaddikim speak with the
Shekhinah from their throats,
and the mar'ot johanna
visions of johanna
are witnessed by breslover
chavurot on desolation row,
murmurations of starlings
overhead.

listening to them, we survive
to walk / dorekh
the Path, with kabbalists z"l,
R. Chiyya & R. Yose,
the chevraya kadisha
the holy companions,
a derekh through the sea,

away from the energy vampyrism
& relentless phantasmagoric
cyberstalking of
the phantasmagoric Queene,
who engages in quacker
cross-contamination,
while prising her mindfully
plagiarising lips (a mirror image
of a death's-head hawk moth)
for a crucifictionist wafer:

a tax-deductible, copyright charity
deduction for ontological delusions
long after midnight,
clutching her cossetted Yehu'di
hatreds like
a perforated osculatorium,
because, שמח בחלקו.

    ****

Reb Uri Tzvi Greenberg z"l, 1923 [trans.
Michael Weingrad]:
'For so long there has been no water
in the wells. Only curses. ...& suddenly
the icons scream in Yiddish'.

II.

Light is the absence of Darkness,
to acknowledge Rav Rebecca
Newberger Goldstein.
& the holy slow train moves
(when it does)
sideways across flat earths.

consider the post-Auschwitz dilemma for
an opus dei natz'ri  who cannot grasp
the etymology:

prae / before + posterus / coming after
praeposterus / reversed, absurd.

did Shabtai Zisel / 'Bob Dylan' influence the
teachings of R. Yitzhak Luria z"l ?

III.

memories are stalking & ambuscading,
& as you said, Reb David Meltzer z"l,
'the Yehu'di in me is the ghost of me'...

& now the hourglass is invisible...

the windows of perception
to be peered into,
not out of,
as hairline fractures
develop in the retinas of narrow-ruled
yellow writing tablets masquerading
as frenetic mirrors,

never glimpsing tzefiyat ha'yeshu'ah,
the expectation of salvation.

& we are here,  
witnessing cyberian corpses
erecting three-way mirrors to their
obbligato and  mindfulness for girl
children...the mantras of a white
supremacist ****** ****** trained to
effect genocide  at a distance, his
audible hungering  for the  rapture  
of an endloesung in his drive-by
dark carnival, having no
farraginous self to say farewell to.

Lilith, the Midrash teaches, ate the
'bones' of Her enemies, but the
****** uses prayer beads as
majong ***** fired from his cap gun.

IV.

'she' stands on the bamboo porch,
thinking the lotus leaves floating by
are a reflexion of 'her' crumbling
totenkopfverbaende phantasies.

long after midnight, she shrieks to
a cyberian Mytilene, her mind so narrow,
thoughts are forced to crawl through her
fossilised ***** majora, which she identifies

as a personal luchot ha'edot, the glass
**** molded by her proboscis tongue,
as it fabricates yet another delusion
of a 1967 that never happened.

'she' turns, stepping onto an
embroidered nationalsozialist
matt,  'her'eyes a frail ambassador
of demure malice.

it is a moment such as this, when 'her'
desire of wanting to have been an
Auschwitz  Aufseherin, cannot be  
masqued  as a playful Latrodectus mactans.

ephemeral fabrications cling to 'her' --
an unbroken dance of impetuous
mirrors, as 'she' remains on the
porch, clutching 'her' 'we' aliases,

thinking, somehow, they are 'her'
aharon ha'bris...



V.

interlude / הַפסָקָה

Kafka z"l:
'I am divided from all things
by a hollow space'

Shabtai Zisel / 'Bob Dylan':
'I felt that place within, that
hollow place, where martyrs
weep, & angels play with sin'

Rav Yitzhak Luria z"l:
after tzimtzum,
the withdrawal of
'ehyeh 'asher 'ehyeh,
there came to be
halal ha'panui,
'the hollow space'

R. Shabbatai Sheftel ben
Akiva Horowitz z"l, 1719.
Shefa tal [Frankfurt edition]
3.5, 57b [Hebrew]:
'Before the world's bere'****,
'ayin sof withdrew into its essence,
from itself to itself within itself.
It left halal ha'panui within its
essence, in which it emanated
and created' [emended from Reb
Daniel Matt 1995]

VI.

sh'ma...'mir veln zey iberlebn, iberlebn, iberlebn'
(Lublin Chassidim z"l, 1939)...
hear: 'we shall outlive them, outlive them,
outlive them'...

why did R. Moshe Sofer z"l teach
'Chadush aser min ha'toray' / 'What
is new is forbidden in the Torah'?

the trolls here & what they call 'poetry':
collections of letters on a flickering
moon-glow  computer screen behind
a suburban curtain,
letters having no glyphs or sounds,
all encased in Sho'ah denial...

and yet. white supremacist sock monkeys
cannot silence the memories of the
thousands of Yehu'dit children z"l
burned alive on pyres, June-August 1944,
in the holy natz'ri village of Auschwitz,
in october country.

לעולם לא עוד לעולם לא עוד

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
...with thanks to my akhim / brothers & poets,
D.J. Carlile & George Dance & Will Dockery
for reading previous drafts...
...and to the memories z"l of David Meltzer 17 February 1937-31 December 2016
& Anthony Scaduto 7 March 1932-12 December 2017...chaver'im / friends
& for the 'or from R. Paul Laderman z"l &
R. Meyer Goldberg z"l

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח"ם בן אברהם
Torah אלילה Yehu'di Apikores / Philologia Kabbalistica Speculativa Researcher
לחיות זמן רב ולשגשג...לעולם לא עוד
THE KABBALAH FRACTALS PROJECT
לעולם לא אשכח



IN PROGRESS: Shabtai Zisel benAvraham v'Rachel Riva:
davening in the musematic dark

Surround us in white light so that we may be your eternal servants of good
Temptation is pervasive as we remember what we should
Intend our curiosity
Empower creativity
Deliver us from evil
so we may live eternally
Amen

Seven born to a home in the hills
Lost in the waste that time kills
Each segregated to a different day
Or so at least some say

Anthony couldn’t help but fall
Built too tall
As he hit his head upon a door
Running adjacent to the floor
Young Mr. Cooper took form
And quickly ran to his scholarly dorm
On the way he transgressed to
A fellow who
Used to dwell in the same domicile
Until he felt the environment was too vile
Fled the scene in the matter of a moment
Not knowing there wasn’t an opponent.
Reluctant to turn around
With no answer found
Another division began to develop
One, which was quick to envelope
Everything the boy thought
And freedom sought
The new guy Stephan sold the car
Got a job at a bar
Cleaning up there every morning
While other livers were still in mourning
He had to remove the lingering drunks
Still caught up in their mid life flunks
One always takes a swing
Ben Gunn wakes up feeling the sting
In panic he flees
Watching passing tress
Tracing the trail of something known
The place he called home.
Once in sight
This personality takes flight
Out steps Dewey Dell,
Who looks like a glimpse of hell
Takes a nap to restore
His body, which felt quite poor
He had expected to awaken
The boy was mistaken
Waking up on the cliff
Was a boy named Winston Smith
A devotee to a righteous cause
He just didn’t know what it was
Spent his days inside a pew
Surrounded by slim to few
As answers ceaselessly taunt
Halls made to haunt
Without hope he grew less attached
And quickly became Anthony Patch.

I am wanting to thank some very incredible people.
I also am hoping others will , also.
With that in mind I would like to list
ten poets here I feel people need to read.
My list consists of poets who are always active and generous ,
have good humor and sense.
I would like others to add their ten to my list.
And hopefully everyone eventually gets a shout out.
In the comments list ten poets you admire and would like to see
others appreciate. I will add  them to this list.
If you would like to list more feel free , the more the merrier, and the more
poets get a shout out and their name shared. I will add as many as you can type!
After all , this is goodwill and spirit and sharing and I feel good .


Vicki
Mark Cleavenger
Terry Collett
Ja
Sally Bayan
Emily Burns
Jules Winerose
Lady RF
Sukanya Sinha Roy
Valsa George
(Bill Hughes contributed the following)
Mary Winslow
Randolph L. Wilson
Elizabeth J
Bex
Ezra Warhol
my dearest reno
Wordvango
Jeff Stier
taia iverson
Dave Hewitt
Kristy Renae Dalton
(added by Eric W)
SPT
Doug Potter
Lola Park
SoulSurvivor
Inevitably Raised By Ducks
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nivek
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patty m
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William Poppen
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born
Weeping Willow
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elizabeth j
Grumpy Thumb
David Patrick O'C
f
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Eli N
Poetryjournal
Traveller
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Zero
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(Added by Sjr 1000)
Wardha
nagi
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My Dystopia
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Lora Lee
Wild is the Wind
Lalin
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Onoma
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Stephanie
Stephan
Pradip :)
Karishna
(added by elizabeth j)
NB.
Lonely Soldier
Lily Mae
Thomas P Owens Sr
Sir WCA
Midnight Rain
Melissa S.
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James
Kim Johanna Baker
Demonatachick
Elizabeth J
Yasaman Johari
Jean Lin
Lawrence Hall
Landon Miller
Chris Neilson
Pagan Paul
Sun Princess
Elizabeth Squires
Keith Wilson

Warning: This is a political rant so beware as you read.

.

One hundred and fifty billion
(another 1.3 billion reported today 8/25/16)
and four hundred million…in cash
To an enemy who views women as slaves,
second, no third class (not even sure “citizens” works here)
Makes soldiers of children/babies
Funds terrorist organizations
who’s goal it is to eradicate Israel
and the United States or anyone else
who doesn’t share their beliefs

What is our response?
Blank checks for death and (lives)
and the signers smile,
lie, (it wasn’t a ransom) smile, lie (what emails?), smile
(Oh crap, they found more)
Why am I humming "Lying Eyes" right now (sorry Eagles)
The one in office
and the one who wants to be,
who stands for women’s rights…huh?
(See lines 4 and 5 in the first stanza)
WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?

Yet all the media can do
is bash someone with a big mouth
Who shouts, points fingers,
makes accusations, demands that laws be obeyed
wants to protect us, is a racist
(because he calls someone of Mexican heritage a…Mexican)  
Wait, what?
Incites passion and feelings in supporters
who are colored (that’s not racist, is it) as crazy,
losers, deranged, cry babies (Phew, at least not soldier babies)
Because they want something different
Something different…so different,……..like the truth?
(That would be different)

When the rich dude is tagged
#The top recruiter for a terrorist organization
Ha, ha, that’s funny, nice one
Let’s all have a nice laugh, there is nothing wrong with that
High fives all around, media parties ensue
But when he brands those two the founders
and co-founders of the same org.
Whoa, shut the front door, wash your mouth out with soap
Sit in the corner, get a psyche evaluation
Who would say such a thing
Only an insane person, only a loonie, (no offense Canada)
What has this world come too?
Check the news, they’ll let you know (their side)

Still there are those who fight
for their rights to place some of those blank checks
in their pockets, SOLD!!! And the gavel comes down
Who owns who? Should anybody own anybody?
China is fine on nice linen where Russia serves the good *****,  
but that is of no special interest to you or me,
that’s what raising Taxes is for…right?
And hell we can build our own babies,
we have the parts and they are paid for...
by those “T” things I mentioned a few lines above  

Reminds me of another song, let me see,
"Four dead in Ohio" yeah, that's it, CSN &Y;
but it's not, is it?  Something like...
"Four dead in Benghazi" Now there's a song for her,
Dead soldiers and someone's calling
when she's asleep all alone
**** it, one of you answer that thing,
It's the ambassador on the phone...(again)
Just say it's a video,
just say it's a video,
four dead in...
CAN'T HE SEE I'M SLEEPING?

Oh and we all need a firm, sturdy,
corrupt (did I say that out loud?)
foundation to administer favors,
show preferential treatment,
to stand on to count the profits
from the pay to play scheme
Who cares if it is foriegn,
that stuff works just as good a U.S. cash
and besides we need all we can get,
we've got Bill's (women) to pay, and maybe to build those
5 houses in Haiti, maybe...and don't forget
the yoga classes and wedding arrangements,
that stuff ain't cheap
Oh, did I mention that some of the countries paying for
this stuff treat women like crap? Just checking.

Parading around in a stained blue dress,
(no, no, no, that was that other chick)
promising what, where, when, HOW?
"Promising" huh...what's that?
(I always thought it was something you should keep)
Hand outs, free lunches
(but I thought there was no such thing as a free, oh never mind)
That must be it, it must be,
because I can think of no other reason
to support terrorism, to support the lies
and the smiles (and you know I am a smile guy)

Wake up people, (including politicians in the same party)
quit hitting the snooze button over and over and over,
open your eyes, see the light while you still can
For the people, by the people,
Now there’s a novel idea, what a concept
But what am I thinking…I am the enemy,
I am a member of the…middle class,
I should just learn to keep my big mouth shut…YAWN

"Put that in your basket of deplorables and smoke it"

(I was going to send this in an email, but it got deleted with all of the rest of them)  

**My name is Stephan and I approve this poem

so i have this book my Steφan, and here the
unpredictability: Steven?            even elevens?
                       Stephen
Steven          Stephan? no matter, the joke
comes with the diacritics         in the surname...
      they wrote /ˈʊmlaʊt/
when the diacritical marks weren't investigated:
  is that Körner as in ariθmetic
     Koorner?
       or is the poncy
    Kœrner - which is
softer and therefore almost Kerner?
the book? fundamental questions
of philosophy -
hence the dialectical applicability
of diacritics: archeology in vivo:
oh no glass chandeliers darling:
            butchery rather than anatomy:
chop
        chop
                chop
                 ­         (oh looky looky, Jacob's ladder).
y = id est.
                  w? haven't figured it out,
looks like trigonometry to me,
all that sine and cosine jazz.
         you know that mystery of lawlessness?
English, plain and simple,
the English language: good that we had the Scandinavians
and the Dutch learn it better than the natives,
mind you, also the Belgians,
they speak a foreign tongue better than
the ****** natives:
the natives? they speak some urban slang
profanity: diabolical verse;
                                        putrid ****:
sulphuring smoke, astounding.
              reverse dead Latin / living -
was that comma necessary?
  or should i have written astounding sulphuring
smoke?
             or Sartre: existence (quantity)
     precedes essence (quality) -
         qua qua either way, a mode of being,
   duck here, duck there.
          oh me, right? *******, maddened,
i was hanging in the trenches and had a drink:
now i'm really mad, bursting like a tense
   soap bubble: (a bit of nostalgia to cool the nerves)
i come from a generation that listened to
mortiis - and we actually bought the silverware
(c.d.) rather than the liquorice (vinyl),
               and we were the ones that translated hardware
into software (mp3) -
         but as a thoughtful suggestion:
scratched c.ds,
                   right, you have a c.d. and you try
to encode it into mp3... right...
    why is it that scratched compact disks can completely
**** up an iPod? i.e. why can't iPods encode
scratched compact disks?
            cheaper mp3 players can do it,
no problem, you have a scratched c.d.
and translate it into mp3: boom, the whole iPod
shuts down... try a cheaper mp3 player
and the whole thing still works...
          well, it's just a curiosity...
the bigger ones comes from:
i'm probably one of the last dinosaurs to have
actually bought a ******* magazine
from a newsagent,
     the glamour model type,
nothing **** included,
               and feel the agonising shame of
predicating a ******* session -
                  bony **** of the hand -
            looking for soft pouch kangaroos and all,
but how many people these days buy this ****?
       in Belgium i bought one and the woman
was so not condescending that i thought i was buying
penny sweets...
                      there's this culture of ****** shaming
in England that surprasses me in engaging
in relationships, i don't know what these slags
are on, but it's certainly not tango in stilettos
on cobblestones.
                    of course i'm mad,
i tried to rebel against Christianity and got
****** into practising it, i actually forgave my
enemy, a jealous **** who almost killed me,
       and as Nietzsche said: a Christian is a
sick domesticated animal -
              i could have been still rooted to the longship
roofs while roofing, or metrosexual lumberjack
     in an office, concerning paper rather than
blocks of wood.
     but good to know that all of Europe is known
as the bloc, rather than the eastern fringes,
god i love English arrogance, which = ignorance,
now wave bye bye to the Galactic Empire:
******* engraved Latin without barbaric diacritical
marks and had a shot at world *******...
  **** me! even the Greeks are applying refinement,
no wonder the digital sprechen dragged
English into the dark ages if not the caveman
        chant Darwinism! chant Darwinism! hoot, hoot hoot!
rarely do i desecrate books,
                 but i had to write on something,
i have a copy, of Kant's critique,
and in it my macabre Dionysian zenith fury
statement:
                       power is never a cul de sac,
                         for a king to don a crown,
                         a peasant must pocket a penny,
                         if a peasant doesn't pocket
                         a penny, a king doesn't don
                         a crown      (note, colon and italics
translate as bold inscript, double emphasis) -
this isn't cryptic, it's ****** obvious,
       it goes way back in suggesting
we're either smart or naive -
           or playing the adult version of hide & seek
                                    doubt & negation interplay,
so when Charlie Chuckles the Third comes to
power i'll be thinking of Charles the First:
as i told one homeless woman i sat down with
for a cigarette under a bridge and told her
of the Henry VIII likening in terms of the
decapitated wives...
                                    she got up and ran screaming
down the street. true story.
                 only in America a humming sensation
and a deliberate ploy to create a monarchy...
              call it what you like:
you appease the illiteracy of people with only
one book, and have people speak about it
without pontiff or priestly attire: you're bound
to breed a viral infection desiring a king.
         is this the second Elisabeth-ian age? might be,
well, it's nearing an end, anyway...
                        still, English is a lawless language
that transcends all tact of French flawlessness -
                  those nasal harking buggers know all too
well the covert aesthetic they write
      and the counter they speak -
                  leave the exactness of spoken and written
to the Poles, and spaghetti chemistry to the German
excess of compounds hydrocarbon etc.,
                    di-proxy-blah-blah in hyphen-centric
Essex.
            well, because if we can't have proper discussions
about our beliefs, we might are well apply
diacritical investigation into diacritical markings,
  or how long you hold your breath between
.                ,                     ;              -              
                  because that's what i'm suggesting:
invariably this suggestion is pulverising -
                             or how that famous category
of universals (metric)
                          is usurped by particulars (imperial) -
within the bracketed suggestion: units,
                   Francophile centimetre
      Darth Vader inch....
                                                Charles de Gaulle kilometre
                              a Heathrow mile.
if this was a chemistry experiment, which it is,
               i'd suddenly realise it's over,
                                                      and it is
because i feel a sudden rush of radiant cooling down
     from what charged this outburst in the first place.

I put this here to greet you all
I love you all
You all have become like family,
From the Likes of Valsa George, Mother of nature poems, to Soulsurvivor, a brave heart... To Sydrivers, a romantic heart, who left here without informing me,
To KarenN, a conjuring poetess who also left,
To WL Winter, he's like a dear Father of poetry
To SPT, a poet with refreshing words,
To Ja, a must read
To Rosalie, F.... A woman of impeccable poetry, to James, the author of a dear poem to my heart "The candle on top"

To Kristy, a soul-moving poetess
To Vicki, a Strong poetess
To R, A brave Writer
To Professor Marylyn-D, A woman of colors
To Stephan, with poems of wonder
To Stephanie, A warming, calming poetess
To Melissa, with a beautiful smile and heart
To Victoria, writer of intellectual poems
To Mary, A woman of Class
To Jamadi Verse, A poetess that brings heaven to earth with her poems

To Evna-Luna, a friend with beautiful words, to all and all and all,
I greet you all,
I'm currently travelling a lot
But I'll be checking on here once in a while
I Love you all

*Ovi Odiete

Stephan W

The sinking ship wasn't your life, my beautiful--
it was simply a series of messages, unfairly laid on you
so very long ago.. and in such a way
that they became a way of thinking;

    --and in and through them,   your mind..
      and also your life-view,  was formed.

And so, it wasn't one ship, whose porthole
you finally swam out of,   but many--
each time,  only after
  you had enough love  inside of you
  to be able to embrace the truth--
       ~that now told you that you had to exit the ship
       before it was going to take you down along with it~

It was love, that was able to show you
what was on the other side
and it was love that helped guide you to the surface
every  time you exited the ship
and each time you did, you developed a greater trusting
   of the process..

and each time you swam through the porthole
you looked that much more beautiful to me--

     Your beautiful face, glowing..
     Your gorgeous mouth, so willingly   pressed against mine
        so you could draw into your  own lungs
        the very air of mine that I breathed into you,
        as we both made our way up to the surface.

And slowly, in each ship that you exited,
your mind became more, and more renewed--
All the things that kept your mind and heart away from love
were the very things I would need you to
deal with before I could ever be with you

     or someone like you.

And so it was in my love for you
and desire for you to become whole..
and also, my deep contempt for the messages
that have been so unfairly laid on beautiful ones such as you
that have both  caused me to want to take the time  
to help you see..

That each ship who's furniture you were so tediously polishing
was in fact, sinking to the bottom of the sea..

But it was  you  that had to see it for yourself, Love--
in and through the view and understanding
that what you at one time found valuable and necessary
in its ability to keep you alive,
     now stood in the way of you taking in love--  
     the real thing.

So you see, love.. It couldn't have been just one ship..
but a whole series of ships--
and each one could only be exited once you had enough love inside..
and in truth, our bodies, (in their broken state of being) can only
take in as much love that the grace that we have been given
up to that point will allow..

Which is why the element of time is such an important thing,
and I consider it a great luxury that you and I were able
    to come back together
    time and time again--

               even when both of us thought every-thing was over.

I needed time to keep from continually throwing my phone(s) against the wall
(and out the window),
and you needed time to process what was coming towards you...
(and, also your anger at me)
     for pushing you too hard sometimes ..
     and other times being too harsh, or unfair..
     or from bringing too many of my own issues into the process.

But one thing for me I know for sure is true,
and that is every time you exited that porthole,
you became even more beautiful to me  than ever before
And, with-in the tenderness of your trust..
And the way you pressed your beautiful mouth to mine
as you took my air into your lungs.. as if your own..
     In the curve of your gorgeous hips, as your dress--
                                                          clingi­­ng to your skin..
in that warm, ocean water, as you slipped out of the portal
towards me and then up to the surface with me..
body, pressed against body..  as you took my air in

And the way that you learned along the way
to truly trust.. and take the risk to make your needs known:
   how to ask for help, now--
long before your heart, mind, soul  and that beautiful body
     went into despair--

That you would make your needs known to me
in the most beautiful of ways--
ways, which unknown to you,
     would draw me in-   towards  you
     in such a tremendously, deep way..


And so, you can see that our beautiful friendship was
doomed from the beginning--

   what has happened in my heart now,
              was inevitable,

       and is the outcome of your incredible response
       to all that has come towards you..
                                           from me.

השואה גוססת...the Sho'ah is dying

©  STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח"ם בן אברהם
30 Sivan 5778 / 13 June 2018
revised:
1 Tammuz 5758 / 14 June 2018
2 Tammuz 5778 / 15 June 2018
3 Tammuz 5778 / 16 June 2018

I.

and cantillated poetry -- memory being
automatic editing -- may not be enough.

what was not a reality
may never be a reality,
may never be a memory. soon,
survivors will be silent, and
the concierge of film and tape
and books will whisper
in library corridors.

the villanellesque windows of
constantly chanting 'disaster' and
'master' are shattering,
an amphigouri of shadows and
mirrors...

II.

I stand on the balconies of quantum
strings: Auschwitz made my
forebears more Yehu'dit than Moshe.

No one
bears witness for the
witness.
-- Paul Celan, 1971. Speech-grille
& selected poems [trans. Joachim
Neugrosche] (E.P. Dutton), 1-255 (241)

the horizon is grey, in
Poland 2018, the ash still creating
a haze, specks on the leaves,
the shoulders, the watch face on
my wrist having no hands...

III.

how is the memory of a paternal
relative kept 'alive'? she remains like
a flickering match growing fainter
in what will be a night of
receding possibilities,
shadows be-ing alongside
my own. I have one colour 1941
photograph of her.  like salt held
on the tongue
she is carried in my mind.

she would not, a decade later in
Rosemead, speak of the
Kingdom of Night.

one of the fading blue
numbers stamped (not tattoed)
on her left forearm in 1942 was
a four.

she would stare intently into
my eyes, turn her arm over,
the four becoming a chair...
it was Garcia Lorca in 1928 who said
'verde que te quiera verde'...

she loved green, even the green stained
gargoyles she was painting in Paris...
on a sidewalk caught up in a christianist
SS roundup 16 July 1942, the Rafle du
Velodrome d'Hiver, her painting
fingers crushed. soon she was on a
rattling box car in August 1942, sent
to the East...

she was gone in 2006...but her dreams
are still in me...

IV.

teaches Reb Ya'akov Glatshteyn...

Like a tiny candle over each grave,
a cry will burn,
each one for itself.
'I am I' --
thousands of slaughtered I's
will cry in the night:
'I am dead, unrecognized'.
-- Ya'akov Glatshteyn / Yankev Glatshteyn
/ Jacob Glatstein, 1987. 'I have never
been here before', p. 111 in: Ya'akov
Glatshteyn, 1987. Selected poems
of Yankev Glatshteyn [ed./trans. R.J. Fein]
(Jewish Publication Society), 1-215
[Yiddish & English]

V.

let us compell trolls among us
to remember that, at its peak,
their grandparents' vaticanist
Auschwitz was burning 12,000
of us every 24 hours...

when it was happening
sound still reaches us in 2018.

and yet.

when it was happening,
few were listening, but now it is
bashert / inevitable my soul
hears nothing else.

the 'orderly' minds of the
trolls among us are well-tended
cemeteries without
gravestones.

the fire escapes are covered
with psilocybin spores.

long after midnight, when the
darkened carnival is awake,
there are survivors at the
seder table awaiting the
Missing One return with Her
Sefer haZohar, pick up the
empty cup.

the underside of every leaf
is fear, shadows gathering
at the foot of our beds,
transforming gristle into haze,
made real by Hebrew letters
and syllables.

TO BE CONTINUED

'When I am in the darkness,
why do you intrude?'
-- Shabtai Zisel / 'Bob Dylan', 1978

*****



STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח"ם בן אברהם
Torah אלילה Yehu'di Apikores / Philologia Kabbalistica Speculativa Researcher
לחיות זמן רב ולשגשג...לעולם לא עוד
THE KABBALAH FRACTALS PROJECT

IN PROGRESS: Shabtai Zisel benAvraham v'Rachel Riva:
davening in the musematic dark

Stephan W

The key turns,
and each tumbler falls into its
pre-honed slot

There is an infinite magic
in  her world of words--
her heart finds them
through special agreement,

as the door opens wide;  no
resistance at the hinge,
and it is at that very moment  that she
  gives
everything that she has.

Her relationship with eternity--  it
calls me to her.
I want to be near her--

    be her friend..

And with both hands,  brazenly
touch the hem of her garment--
slide  it  off  of  her;

      share..   in the eternal.

( THE LOVE POET )
His verse, like a precious petal, from an exquisite flower
Slowly unfolds, leaving a luscious space, for a poesy to devour

So each breadth, between every efflorescent petals bloom
Is filled, with his alluring words, as one by one they spume

Every phrase, so intricately woven into their beauty, inlaid as a ransom
For his tendrilled script, like a florets mantling, to expressingly blossom
                                                              
Then, like a nectars infusive fragrance permeates through the air
So do his words, release bouquets of love, for all of us to share
BOEMS BY JA 587             copyright 09-18-2016
Be well Stephan

No tell for the heart
No raven clawing at my soul
No sweet Anna Bell
No black cat
No never more
As was before
An open end
To tell me
But my heart is as black as Poe’s
Dark prose pose for life’s light
No agony
Just enough pain
Not enough to **** me
But enough to keep me in limbo
I know I can go lower
But there are only so many circles of hell
So I tell myself
No Shining on it
No misery
Or pet cemetery
No killer clown
Or Last Stand
But I stand on
The shoulders of others
From Stephan King
To Stephan Hawking
From dark dreams
To dreams of science
From shadows to the light of reason
To seize them
Steal and change
Everything
Life is but a dream
And I dream far too darkly

I read a poem from Stephan
It made no sense to me
All those coriographed lines
To the untrained eye unseen
Lies a secret or two
That may contain the key
To his so called happiness
In our own lives lost at sea

So tell me Stephan...
What is it with all this love?
What about some animosity!

the forming of substance 03
Stephan W
(fallen  from grace)
~

"I have just come back from a party
where I was the life and soul.
Witticisms flowed from my lips.
Everyone laughed and admired me—
but, I left,
yes.. that dash should be as long as the radii
of the earth's orbit ———
and wanted to shoot myself."
~Soren Kierkegaard
~ ~

It is not enough...

It is never enough--
we need too much

But, here on earth
we have to make it work
so we call good-enough, "good enough"
and with gratitude, we
learn to take in what it's available to us.
But the truth behind it all remains--
the fact that we need so much;

Where is one that is complete..
and if so, complete--

compared to what?

There is a perfection- cloud-hidden
within everything that is human
The spirit within the body that carries it--
b r e a t h e s  out perfection's truth,
though- we may only experience it
in the moments between awake and asleep-

the human psyche is bent on survival--

and in a broken world, the thought of an
inherent perfection brings on too much--
our own condemnation even.
In our minds we fall too short of even the
concept of it.

Or do we?


The gravitational pull towards Muse
borderlines on that of addiction;
its stirrings touch what is primal in us--
once-inexpressible words, suddenly find expression;

And a Beethoven finds musical notes
that lead to a symphonic masterpiece.

"Words from Heaven" is not saying too much
concerning the poet, or lyricist.
"Music from Heaven" is easier to say,
when concerning a Mozart or Beethoven.
Or a Tchaikovsky.

Perfect reaching into the imperfect?

How about 'imperfect'- feeling, and then
expressing pieces of its own long-forgotten
perfection--
things experienced within the sphere-
made tangible again through the flesh,
simply in a moment of remembering..
and also that of a temporary forgetting--
of limitation.

The beauty of despair is in the heartbreak
of finding out that what is right in front of us
is never truly enough

or worse yet--
possibly even harmful to our own true needs.

What we need most is all and everything
that helps us remember--

That we came from perfection,
and were loved there first,
and now, within the imperfect-
are unable to be denied by the perfect that is
forever inherent in us--

It is completely unable to deny that
which is of its own.

If we were to never despair over what is in
front of us, we might never be compelled
to find the strength to remember-
flashes of the primal--
that of our own history, of perfection.

And if there ever were ever an evil,
or a Darkness-
it would be hell-bent on keeping us
from finding that very thing.


Sometimes.. just sometimes,  death
looks just like love.

Stephan W

I have seen you there,
standing alone, along the shoreline
    --if you only knew--
Your thoughts- a poetic buffering,
spoken out- onto weathered paper,
through trembling hands;  words
let in to the ocean wind--
the dreams of your heart, the needs,
ah, yes.. the deep needs of your heart...

    among these rocks,
    you are always alone.
    ~

At the tip of your fingers-- the small ridges;
fragmental, yet monumental imprints, etched
in to you, the moment your spirit entered
your temple. They tell the world of your story:
through fine, texture-perception, you feel it--
your trembling fingers grip the pen, expressing,
conveying your truth into a world that does not
hear.. a shallowing, that deafens..

    You glance at your fingertips--
    to assure, you're really there
    ~ ~

(The sea has picked up a bit, now
the waves, crashing against the rocks
rocks, that still won't hear..)

And here also, outlined
within the warm beat of the
human heart,
there is a sound that can be heard--
one similar to the aliveness
of the crashing waves.
Place your fingertips against those
that are real-
the sound blends-in perfectly
with the sea
as the uniqueness of imprinted ridge,
moves up against that of the other--
contrasting, here.. fitting together
perfectly, there..

    Scream, "I am!" to the sea; and see, love..
    scream it out, and see.
    ~ ~ ~

I am everywhere near you-- encouraging,
celebrating.. at times, weeping;  hands
outstretched, the uniqueness of my
own finger prints, longing
Along this shoreline, I have watched you
for an eternity, hoping
that you might somehow take it all, in.
Clouds beckon, asking again for the
earth's moisture

      and I respond,  e v ap o r a t i ng.

      ~ ~ ~ ~

Your small, beautiful feet, now
all pigeon-toed- now, standing
at the water's edge; as the
rain cloud gives up its prize
just beyond the breakers--

    (my imprint remains,
    but I am of the sea now..)

    Wade into me, love
    that I may wrap myself around you:
    Along this shoreline,
    may you never be alone again.

They tell me the war is won, that I was some kind of chosen one.
I do not feel like the victor.
There lies this inescapable feeling, a hollow ache inside.
The pills were tough, but I have felt worse.
Beams fired towards me as I lay beneath, as my heart gently beats.
I lost no hair.
I lost no weight.
My face and skin stay clear of grate.
Children, Elders, families, they all gambled with  surgeries fate.
What makes me different?
Why do I remain so free?
Why does this victory seem so empty to me?
That little girl who wheeled on by, why was she the failure compared to I?
My heart weighs with guilt for winning a war I did not even feel.
Every week.
Every day.
Every minute.
Why did it have to be me, crossing the lonely line back into reality?
It should have been Jeana, Stephan, Jamie...
It could have been anyone.
Anyone but me.

Grief on wings of the White Dove
With an olive branch hanging
From her beak.
  
My heart expanding
Yearning  to burst open
Into expressions of mourning.
Grief expanding into mourning  
I lost you!

My inner feelings crying
Thoughts, punctuated with deep sighs.  
Tears, watering the branches
Lying at my feet.

Crying, outside of my self
Longing for you...
So, many tones of agony...

Pouring out of my heart.
The songs  of longing
Music welling up
From deep behind my eyes.
Writing, sharing, feeling, expressing
Art of the heart seeking release

Each anniversary
The day you died
The month afterwards
Each month…2, 3, 4, 5...
Your birthday
The first day, of the sixth month.

The usual Christmas tree celebration
Did not happen.
No popcorn stringer
With gummi bears and gum drops
No snow man soup
No gingerbread house …
My heart so heavy
My limbs were numb.

Oh, I miss your quite
Knowing humor
The gilt in your eyes
One year…two years
7 months & 19 days ago
Around 10 pm….
I still feel the sting
Of  hearing the news
Brother, speaking, describing
I not wanting to hear, " ... he's gone ..."

It just did not feel real!
No, it can't be…
NO! Not STEPHAN!!!!!!!!!!
Lord, NO! Please no!!
I picked up my pen
To scribble the notes…
I needed to see!
I needed to read!!!
I needed to write it all!!!

And when I reread it
I cried! …Sobbing…..
It became the way
To express my grief
My sorrow
My pain.

As the pain poured out
Out come what was left unresolved.
It helped to quiet my soul.
I could feel you
As I asked questions
And the answers
Poured and poured outward.

Pain flowed out
As understanding
Entering my heart.

Flying this path
Healing in my way
At the helm of my love
I reach toward you

Issue by issue
Understanding by understanding
Through rain, sleet and storm
My heart, calming
Though, a little unsteady...
Shaking
Hold on to me
I am a little unsteady.

Through their Misconceptions
I affirmed that  - grief is okay
Yet when mourning
Some still say,  "Just get on with it."

No orderly stages
Neither up or nor down?  
It Spirals round
In and through.
With the hand of Understanding
My heart, now stands in awe..
So this is compassion!

As the  key to the lock
Opens the door
The Dove flying freely
A fledgling peeks above the edge
Of the mud
Of straw and twigs.

I thought he few away
My spirit left mourning
The light dimmed
On this plane

Yet he lives!
My son lives!
His Light Shining
As the Inner Compass
Points the Way.

Now forever
Heart to heart
I embrace my son

It is much deeper now
All the unresolved floating up
As White Feathers Rising
Toward the Sun.
Toward the  Light

And the White Dove her sang of joy
Honoring the Red Rose
Of our Serenity.

the forming of substance 04
Stephan W

"For years I’ve wanted to live
according to everyone else’s morals.
I’ve forced myself to live like everyone else,
to look like everyone else.
I said what was necessary to join together,
even when I felt separate.

And after all of this, catastrophe came.

Now I wander amid the debris,
I am lawless, torn to pieces,
alone and accepting to be so,
resigned to my singularity and to my infirmities.

And I must rebuild a truth–
after having lived all my life in a sort of lie."
~Albert Camus


~
Worlds apart,
there is a tension
an alienation--

now, strangers-
in a not so strange land

So many parts..
fighting the glow
fighting each other-

These parts, hiding--
From having to be seen- when needed,

From the pain of
having to need the other parts
who also are so unable,

From the visibility--
from having to be asked to join in-
to the process of
an integrated internal functioning;
the metabolizing of things.

From the pain of it all-
and the despondency that will come
from any attempt
         to even try.

~  ~
The spirit--
its dimly-lit distant memories
of a wholly different time

now afraid to ingrain itself
into a body- that is as of yet
wholly unable to even know itself--

Fragmented parts of the heart;
broken spirit,
a lonely longing-

There is a division
a separation
immersed in a dank mist of fear--

Parts-- nearly touching
but, so unable to see..

or even feel each other in the dark

And the greatest loneliness
becomes the one that is lived within oneself--

An unlived-living
within the broken internal-world
of fragmented parts-
now huddled into remote corners
with such large spaces in between;

parts, isolated from
other parts.

~  ~  ~
One day they will no longer be
so afraid of each other--

Even in its dimly-lit state of being,
the spirit yearns for a cohesiveness,
a wholeness--

      a re-integration of all the parts;
      a reassembling.

Until that time, everything will be partial;
dis- assembled


                  fragmented.

Stephan W

My beauty is resisting the worldly pull-- to
slip into lethargic un-consciousness,
in order to no longer feel the anxiety
brought about by non-response to the
primal-question's asking,

But instead is choosing to feel it all-- and in
doing so- it, is costing her everything.
Everything.
She is showing us all what true courage is about,
suffering for the greater good:
for that which is within herself
for her children
for all womankind-- and therefore, for all of man-kind also.
She is the firstfruits of the Universe's
deepest dream; that of a full restoration,
allowing herself to be cut-open, internal parts, rearranged,
heart regenerated, rebuilt through love's magical ways
her mind, being renewed through understanding,
repetition of love's true ways, washing it clean
from the shame unfairly pressed upon her
by the broken, fallen love of man

She is the new Eve-- this beautiful-one,
free from the need to re-create what love is--
she is open, believing.. her beautiful receptors-
perfectly aligned with the harmonic-tones
emanating from the garden, as she walks.

And I.. Adam, love her deeply.
There is an ache with in my side-- a reminder
of my consent of its removal
so that I would no longer have to be so alone in all this magic
and as I struggle, taking in all that is beautiful about her,
I see now that she was not produced from me,
the man

But that I was the oyster,
and she, the beautiful pearl--
the one beyond all price,
the shimmering diamond-- formed,
within this lovestrong lump of coal;

over millions, and millions of years.

I sit in awe as I watch her
she has been worth every moment
of the wait.

the forming of substance 07
Stephan W

Radiance.

Within the void  are
the greatest mysteries of the universe,
as matter and anti-matter clash;
only to create a newfound energy..
un-owned, unaccountable, unconcerned--
the energy emerging from the clash negates itself
through mutual annihilation; leading to an increase
of space between what it is that is lit; and in
the accelerated rate of expansion of this space,
Illuminated/illuminating  matter takes on the risk
of being removed from participatory perception,
or better said-- to a place beyond retrieve..

and so it is also-
within the void of space that exists within us;
the galaxy-within--
ever-swinging in polarity between the gravity-pull
of illuminating/illuminated substance,
and the ever-distancing properties of
an unowned, unlit space...
dark Energy-- a repulsive force,
attempting to quantify the space between
all that truly matters--
yes.. creating space,
and therefore more room
for it to engage into its ever-increasing
chaotic activity.. quantitatively participating in
its fine art of distraction, dilution
and extortion of time
through nothing other than the negation of matter,
and therefore, the negation of potentiality--
of substance, and so also
the transmission of light.. luminosity:

      parts within the heart, lit up with
      and by the infusion of our own spirits,
      through the beautiful act of volition,

of which, the countless galaxies in the universe
exist as a type, given.. (what-if)...
if only to encourage us through amazing,
mesmerizing example--
surrounded, each.. by a circumference of support
of the dark matter of potentiality--
providing the gravity of containment,
solely in and through its belief in its own possibility,
giving way to its utter inability to deny itself to
what has become already lit,
becoming then.. not only a defining part of the galaxy,
but also a gravitational-formed hedge of protection
against the everpull-entropy of the repulsive force--
of all that is unaccountable-
in its velocity-based separation from volition.


      And, so it is with the universe,
      so, also.. the universe-within;
      Having left its glass-globe sphere,

      this spirit-centered cosmos
      now unfolds, within skin.

If I focus the lotus turns into a locust.

I sit underneath the Miliband tree and
wait for Ed ***** to fall upon me,
and Cameron, what a  love,
handed me the dubious gift of YouGov,
which to be sure has a tenuous link with that man of old ink in that its current CEO is called Shakespeare,
first name Stephan.

Nadhim Zahawi the former CEO is now a conservative MP for Stratford upon Avon.


The Bard spins or maybe he grins in his grave.


"YouGov is the authoritative measure of public opinion and consumer behaviour. It is YouGov's ambition to supply a live stream of continuous, accurate data and ...Blah Blah Blah, Yawn.

the forming of substance 05
Stephan W

"But I will not drive them (the 'inhabitants') out in a single year,
because the land would become desolate
and the wild animals too numerous for you.
Little by little I will drive them out before you;

Until you have increased enough to take
possession of the land."
~Exodus

.
Within the sphere- formless and void,
there was all but nothing to inhabit.
Existing within the eternity of the moment,
unable to retain--
it could only experience.

It could behold perfection,
but not hold on to it;

No need..
perfection was ever-present--
In full view of the sphere
and the precious spirit- encased within,
now, wrapped within a living, breathing skin-
this body- for the spirit,
and the spirit for the one body

each part of the heart-- a city in itself.

.  .
Reaching across the chasm,
there is an almost symmetry in
the layout of the cities

     but their inhabitants are unruly

and the spaces between far too great
for any kind of order to become able to
break through the chaos--
there is no longer communication
between the cities.

There is a yearning for consolidated-Sovereignty,
but the cities have long forgotten themselves-
Strewn about.. in the pain of it all,
they no longer know each other.

.  .  .
But the spirit within the body-- it remembers.
There is a gathering back into wholeness-
waiting..
and so we learn how to wait also.

Parts, and pieces-- members rebuilt-
little by little
Not too fast- take it easy;
70 years, maybe more.
Which way will it go-


There is a promised land;
waiting to be taken--

    one city at a time.

the membership weren't aware
of this particular disclosure
but the due time has come
for an open exposure

poet Stephan is poet Jack
in his alternate gown
the probity of the facts
so precisely noted down

a revelation shocking
is herein told
of the twin persona's
acting too bold

Stephan W

Muse-induced,  I slip
into a dreamstate--

                      I am floating.

Third-heaven bound,  I am
caught up into  a
galaxy-pull,  cloud hidden
I am bent around objects--
    the very empirical nature  of
    light itself,
drawn into an orbit  that,
always mine--  had
    been waiting for me all along

                          I am home now--


                   Away from this pain
           Away from  death's  stain
  ..away from all of my inabilities

i went through most of them,
   well, at least some of them,
   the ones that would pop up
when the algorhithm wasn't
               a f-f-f'ed     cue: up...
some great bands popped
up, spontaneously like mushrooms,
seemingly out of nowhere...
don't know if this is the usual
diet to some people,
    but some time,
    it was mine... until...
                    i chanced myself finding
an outlier...
the diet?

   - computing forever
    - paul joseph watson
   - styxhexenhammer666
- lionel nation
   - tim pool
   - amy young
   - shaun
   - the iconoclast
   - amy young
   - jacklyn glen
  - dr steve turley
   - stephan mo... mo... moleneux(?)
- sargon of akkad
   - ms pettibone
  - black pigeon speaks
   - joe rogan
- vertigo politix
   - dave ruben
   - jordan peterson
- strange aeons
- red ice tv
   - economic invincibility
- roosh v
  - critical condition
   - gavin mcinnes
   - roaming millenial
   - stephen crowder...

but...
         after a while...
    this was the "in" crowd...
the subject matters converged
and i just,
might as well have stood
in trafalgar sq.
   and listening to the cooing
of pigeons,
   nothing wrong with that,
but when overlap appears,
shared subject matters,
the same subject matters,
you know you're going
to be forced out of the audience
by your own intent...

the subject matters with
seemingly no personal incentive...
what i started to call
vulture journalism,
    changing the main-mainstream
narrative
   into an alternative
competition ranked
                          viewing...

well... that's until today...
today i foundd myself a gob-smacked
viewing time,
       what put me off?
success is fine,
   but the egoism and the bragging
baggage that goes with it,
this persistent need to
    cite viewers, subscribers,
   whatever you want to call it:
lapse in "introspection"...
  
   sure... i'll probably still
watch some of these channels..
it's not like i'm going
to turn on nice news or something...

the first time it happened
that i found videos,
where: the samsung tablet
would light up for a while,
but then be "dooped"
   into switching off the screen,
first dimming the screen light
before switching off...
now... when you listen
to a radio station on such a device...
the device does that...
  but even though the screen
is off, the audio feed is still
intact...
   but not the case...
        with a video + audio content...

so... i guess...
that's the epitome of the edge...
even millanial woes
videos don't have that "problem"...

who's in "question"?
                      surviving life...
i write "poetry",
   unless there's some hannibal
lecter interested in citing
any of my scribbles...
    then why would i venture
into the dark web?

                     if i wanted
to buy some chemically enchanced
marijuana,
   i'd just go to my paranoid
schizophrenic jamaican drug dealer
and listen to him ramble
about the illuminati for a while,
and how he once tried to convince
me that there was face of jesus
in the moon...
   as he showed me a video
he took, outside his house
                                   one night...
he once even asked me to teach
his daughter guitar...
    i couldn't think of a payment,
since i was then moving
away from marijuana
   and working on my liver's worth
of a punching bag.

   great stuff...
        i can more or less
agree to the lower regions
of, what i once thought,
was "edgy", as told by the "edgy" /
now tame youtubers.

it was fun, while it lasted,
oh well.

אני יכול לזכור...I can remember

I.

in the ashes of Auschwitz
February 2018 / Shevat 5778
there exists no
kol hachavvyot,
the Infinite One bring/ing
all of reality into be-ing.

there is no 'ehyeh 'asher 'ehyeh
who formed Light,
who created Darkness.

II.

the candles of the Vanished
World are no longer
sown in the seasons of breath.

in 1920 Vilna, Yehu'dit bones
were excavated for horses
to be buried,
all by the tongue of a priest
covered in ambergris.

in 2018 Cyberia alleys,
the malefactor mime cries
as Long Island parhelia
flicker in the seasonal
ice around his little girls.

III.

the cypress of the
Kingdom of Night are
amidst natz'ri house gardens,
marking in the mouths of
opus dei children the straws
of Poland.

long after midnight we seek
solace in One-Eyed Paritus's
Meditations obliques,
where Sol Nazerman's
zoharic midrashim of
Shabtai Zisel are
narrated by Claude Lanzmann.

the quantum nonlocality
of the corpse of
ha'Kodesh Barukh hu
is the Hollerith tracking
number.

IV.

Nach uraltem, aengstlich beheutetem
Klostergeheimnis lernen selbst Greise
muehelos Kavier spielen.
-- Max Ernst

this is to the memories z"l of
Rod Steiger 14 April 1925-9 July 2002
Roman Vischniac 19 August 1897-22 January 1990
Rose Leamel Ziebell (1933-2007)
Dottie Sutton (1922-2015)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
© 3 February 2018 / 18 Shevat 5778

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח"ם בן אברהם
Torah אלילה Yehu'di Apikores / Philologia Kabbalistica Speculativa Researcher
לחיות זמן רב ולשגשג...לעולם לא עוד
THE KABBALAH FRACTALS PROJECT
לעולם לא אשכח