such sweet stippling
painted to perfection
your fresh face
in love and like
our altered age
distanced by difference
this conundrum
separated by space

(oh, if you don't like lengthy-reads, do not read any further.. thank you)





how I long to hear you
I am silent now
just like you


1.
from the curtain rail, hang paper-butterflies in gentlest-breeze
you made for us in vacation-time
we loved living and being with you
      so quiet and so serene
never loud, nor ever shouting
you gave us the love we often had to steal at home


2.
dear lady, when our parents couldn't cope
they dumped us at your door
you took us in for days on end
and how we flourished in your care

momma in her perfumed get-up.. always out and about
I couldn't stand her smell
she hardly took the time of day.. to get to know her own
they quarreled all the time
one time, we saw her pull in ugly-anger, a knife on him
      and he punched her hard in the face
      we-took-it-in.. the three of us
      they saw us standing there, looking on
I tried to shield the younger ones' eyes
but the lesson sank in.. thickly


3.
so, off to you.. we got bundled, like hastily-wrapped parcels
and you took us in
and we gleaned the worth of stability

you spoke to us in quiet-tone:
right, now we will read.. alright, my dears?
    we responded with three silent nods
    eyes up at you.. like open-flowers
    our smiles inside slowly blossomed
as a powerful-routine came to life

sit us down near koi-pond in the yard
     after milk and choc-chip cookies
     green dappled shade-cloth overhead and potted plants
she opened up a book - Gift from the Sea.. and she read
     we listened with rapt-souls, open and accepting
     drinking in the delight of her well-intoned voice
she tempered that sickly-void with deep-respect and lasting-admiration

how we filled the hours with your special-technique of patience
        we discover life.. along with title and the author
        one buck to read the first sentence of a new book
        two for first paragraph
        five for first page
we earned a keep to last a jolly ol' lifetime
looked forward to the end of every weekend
when we'd spend the week with you
off to school, you saw our tiny-feet and welcomed in the afternoon
      warm greetings with firm hand, discipline fell in place
      but when chores are done and homework, too
that's the time we'd settle quietly into the routine you set so well

cushions at the koi-pond and each one gets a turn
granny-dear, granny-doer.. you took the time
you read to us and we read to you
and then, we read to one another.. while you did your tasks
        we learnt of the classics and many obscure artists, too
        writers' names became familiar; we discussed at length
        and from your fine library, came three very well-fed beings
who each had a jar filled with love-pennies and mind-notes

tranquil-nap in dimmed-room in the afternoon
eyes sunlight piercing through in stippling-slants on polished wooden-floor
we fell into peace

thinking expanded beyond the lore of words
you'd engage the width of our seeker-imagination with so much
         drawing fine-lines into the unknown
         and paper-mâché and Rorschach-ink
         and let us see how earthworms could be useful
         and transplanting our seedlings from disposable egg-cups
by my teens, my special botany-project grew: orange saplings
how the time, it flew.. weeks and months.. years..


4.
then, one day, our momma said.. no more time at granny
          we questioned and we queried, but to poor avail
          evasive-looks met our searching eyes
and vague answers, even poppa with the *****-glaze didn't talk
we failed to swallow their awkward-energy

the three of us could take no more: affection interfered
      and I took two buses and snuck out to her place
I crept in silent, found her resting
but her eyes were covered up
      her face had blue blotches and cheeks were puffy
sharp-inhale!
      I shrank perforce and cried inside.. and softly touched her hand
she woke up, startled and turned away
     but she knew it was me; she'd learnt my smell so long ago
bowing my head, I gently wiped her brow with unscented-towelette
and I saw her shoulders shaking
she quietly accepted my comfort


5.
the routine continued, thankfully
after we got wind of what really happened
how you were mugged in the subway on your way to work
you've lost the use of one eye and you now slump on one leg
this fall in health did nothing to dampen your ardour
       we read for you when you could no longer see at all
       and when your pensioner-status made you penniless
       you rewarded us with hugs pressed into the psyche
       our night-time pitter-patter slipping to you from nightmares
       and you stitched our broken-pieces and sealed our cracked-assurance
never finer devotion bred from hands so kind


6.
you let us read and it sparked the mind
the penny kept on rolling with great success
long after you left
    my brother now lectures in languages
    and guest-speaks at many places of higher-learning
    and my sister became a lawyer
I became a drop-out early on, but I never sold my dream
I struggled with their help.. yes, I know.. I was always slower
and melted-crayons still do yield.. colour in the twilight of cool-eve

yes, and I bought a farm not long ago
and I tend my own keep
granny, you'd be proud of us
three silent nods to an angel in disguise


now, I stand here.. quiet in my beautiful-orchard of oranges
              stare at the leopard-changing shadows on the tiles
and long to read for you
so, I open up a dream lying next to my koi-pond, an auburn-tail flicks handsomely
and it all spills forth in reams..



can you hear me now?
in silent-vow, I unveil the finest of my heart-words
to you..




S T, 2 January 2013

Get out your sponges, stippling brushes and pens,
It’s time for makeover-Monday-night to begin.
Think Winky Lux, L’Oréal, Urban Decay,
Maybelline, Armani and Fabergé

It’s a black magic realm where brushes are wands,
where a carnival of colors are carefully crayoned.
We have palettes aplenty, in kaleidoscope hues,
to create fashion looks, both bold and subdued.

In the realm of makeup fashion, where trends never end,
we remodel each other - for fun - when we can.
Tonight, our new friend Jammie has come to watch us play,
and he even brought two bottles of chardonnay.

Lisa has a ‘Miss Rose’ case, like she saw in Bernadette Peters’
dressing room, on a backstage tour of the Shubert Theatre.
Konjac, Kabuki, Doe foots, Spoolie, Lisa’s got legit tools to use.
“When it comes to makeup,” she says, “always avoid dupes.”

That night I was the chosen face, the excited living canvas.
Lisa’s a practiced artist, her process is brisk and never tedious.
She painted my lips a crimson cherry, alluring and brightly sensuous,
my brows were moonlit art, my cheeks a midnight adumbrated edifice.

Lisa created a special look, where rebellious edge met elegance.
We took some snaps, then I washed it off - but Jammie was impressed!

Racing thoughts are not an
internal contradiction.
It's not crying while laughing.
It most certainly is not an inept,
young adult that describes
their mood-swings as being "bipolar."
Don't fret,
because I will explain,
in depth.
At this given moment I can list pages upon pages of what it isn't. And that's the point, maybe, considering that these racing thoughts have created enough points to produce a stippling picture of an overall paranoia.

Four days into this headache, an unattainable inquiry is not reason.
It's not reason.
Not reason.
Not reason.

At this point in my life there is nothing to achieve by convincing strangers of my sanity. No matter how many times I may try and blink a person away, it just leaves me with tired eyes, and in the end, less credibility. I'm gasping for air with a plastic bag wrapped around my head, praying that my body can find peace and not twitch. But I'm fooling myself, like a friend, your friend. One that exclaims love and intimacy, but is given a kiss on the forehead, blocking my third eye.
Then after a tumultuous day of unknowing and racing thought, I'm left in a neurotic state, waiting for a cool down period before I'm left
toxic and unwanted.

When I pass into the wall of the glass..
..everything ripples.
A stippling effect which is no doubt due
To the movement of the mirror as it lets me on through.

Alice did it a long time ago and she showed me that
..if I tried really hard..
..I could fold myself flat and no one would see..
..Except the reflection of me
As I went into the looking glass.

She was right as ever.
Alice was seldom wrong but she didn't belong where this world resides
Locked behind images that hide behind faces
that look into places where no one should go.
I should not be here I know but..
..I had to go see.

And looking at me that is looking at me behind the mirrors that free all illusion
I'm confused by the notion that the mirror's an ocean
An imperfection in the reflection?
Am I just a section..a rip in the ripple that I thought due to the stippling effect,

Affecting an air of nonchalance
I try to balance my act as I'm attacked by an idea
I should be a
Circus performer.

I can't stay here forever..Alice never..nor will I.
I've got my eye on the glass
Wonder if it's thinking of letting me pass..
..back on through.

The weight of the world
Sits on his chest
As he breaths
He grasps for it
Rose petals fall
Straight from his head
As his eyes burn
Like fire, again, and again
Mouth sewed shut
Her needle pokes through
Stippling his heart
Like a car wreck
The moment his hands left
He can't remember
When he lost control
Drunk driving
Into her soul

E.s.

A hollow stippling of a soul in the breeze
    hiding in the bushes of perilous vexing
there are days when the wind howls
    whispers darkly  at the ominous night
feel the chill that passes through
           dances coolly on pressed eyelids
                   floats tepid beyond the senses
             know it's the emptiness that comes
        right before realities' disenchantment

“Mysterious Waters of the Naked and Nervous”

She begins her life
along with nine-thousand seven hundred fourteen siblings
in the shallowest part of the pond,
just four days after being laid as a jelly egg
attached to a fern leaf bent over humid water.

On day seven she sallies to neighboring weeds
using a very circular route
quietly clings to ****, watches with terror
as brothers and sisters are  attacked
by sharp beaked birds
swooping down to chew helpless tadpoles,
devouring membranes that cover their gills and necks.  

One of few tadpoles to survive to day ten.
officially becomes a tiny pitch black pollywog
with continuously wiggling tail and  small round mouth
of ***** jaws that scrapes across tiny plants,
searching for something to eat.

She greedily swallows microscopic animals
found inside pond bottom ooze
and slime which clings to pond’s surface.

Devouring a particularly tasty ooze meal,
she is horrified to witness
tadpole brothers and sisters  eating each other,
siblings extending their bellies
by swallowing extended family.
            
Mostly tail with fine stippling of gold,
within  twenty-four hours she breathes
from two gills at each side of her throat
as hind legs suddenly sprout
rounded buds that soon turn into toes  
amazing her how fast she can propel  
away from murderous dive bombing birds of color.

She first demonstrates courage  
by a successful attack of  black fish that menaces her for hours.,
******* on its fish fins until they are ragged,
not in anger or self-defense  
more for tasty algae trapped within them.

But it does feel good to be able to destroy instead of being destroyed.

my heart was a monotonous beeping
a soft old grandfather clock,
background noise at dinner parties
and a focal point for insomniacs
it droned on, neither increasing or decreasing,
neither rising or falling,
a steady beat of a steel drum on a hot summer night

i moved an inch closer to you

my heart was a ticking time bomb,
still steady as clockwork
but adding drama to the movie screen
it was stippling and a connect-the-dot photo of a sailboat
if you wired me up to a machine,
the line of my heart would be a steadily increasing mountain,
closer and closer to the destination
which is you

three inches closer

my heart was alla turca on piano
and impressionist paint strokes
it was dashed-dotted-dashed-dashed
it was swift like wind and current
it was nearly hummingbird wing
nearly death defying

you are two inches away

my heart has broken metronomes,
the tempo reached over five hundred
and chatter flooded into it
speaking words so fast
it sounds like a language from another planet
sometimes i wonder if my heart is really like mount rushmore
but it's not the head of founding fathers carved into the side
but the way you look when you look at me

you are here, i am here

the love i feel for you is plotted out on graph paper covering my floors but it keeps running off the page and i don't have enough paper

*(a.m.c.)

Sterile white cast a sharp sillhouette
Againt burgundy--
That swam with shadowy velvet
And creamy blurs of silk
Each so like a soft brush stroke
Save for that sterile white
In its clean geometry;

And the carpet installed short and durable
By hopeful design it would last
Through years of dance-worthy occasions
Ballroom turf bled into my hiding place
Stippling my palms pink
As my weight shifted

And I leaned into the wafting scents
Of ladies' perfumes and catered delicacies
Every time the table cloth rippled
Out of fear or respect from passerby

Even shimmied with the clinking of glasses
Above the dull congratulatory murmur of guests
Later they would all be drunk
And murmur would turn to ruckus
But then, only indistinguishable voices

Too they were far away, drifting almost
Enough
I imagined nothing but that white
Sterile still, pure
And matrimonially sweet
The tiny bride and groom testifying from atop

But a plan was already in motion
To hide and wait;
The waiting was done
So young, as I was
Finding nothing so sacred I couldn't soil it
Found the oppurtunity to touch my tongue to it
That white, I wouldn't say sterile
But oh so sweet.

I am sure the unintended consequence of mixing past and present tense is in the future,hence I shall go on to see
what tomorrow holds for me.
A thought,the brother to each other wraps itself around me tightly.
I tread lightly on the stair leading off and up somewhere, where I will no doubt find the sisters to these thoughts in mind.
Pay no heed,
I lead to a cul de sac,don't follow there's no coming back,I am the stippling of your day,stay where you are or spread your wings and look to what tomorrow brings. the mountains sing your name,the eagles dare play games with time,floating points within the rhyme of life.
Unwrap your hope upon the slopes of gentle rolling hills and still your  dreams until it all seems
all right.
I walk the line between the good and bad time that we all will know in time,shaving whiskers off the hours until the year that comes overpowers me,
falling free, how from these chains I shall be now,
the spit of rain
feeling nothing
but the feel of your face and the touching of skin,
pinned to consequence of intensity and your elegance
unashamedly.

Away from the scent you love the most,
Eccentricities that cannot anyone host,
Laughs that **** the excruciating woes,
Smiles that swoon the tangled furrows,
Persiflages hidden in the frivolous boasts,
Fleeting skirmishes drenching with Rose,
Trenchant wits stippling Eros.
How can you be extant, my love, I'm a ghost.

Forget the seasons
Their flavors hold no inherent meaning
Manufactured frostbite
Fleeting
Overpaid cosmeticians mask our ugly dealings
How cripplingly demeaning

Forget the seasons
Their flavors still hold no real meaning
Amputated tree limbs
Seating
Underpriced prostitution builds translucent ceilings
How cripplingly demeaning

Was it worth the price of heaven?
To view angels as the demons
To build a sulfur kingdom far away from sheepish bleating
Though joyful sound resounds around the fallen flock I've found, I cannot make a sound that permeates when I'm not bleeding.

Take your trivial differings draw, them up in stippling and call it meaningfully crippling.

You are so much more
than a drunk writer's anthology
of rough verses and mismatched rhymes
of broken sonnets and unsent letters

You are so much more
than the woes of a hopeless romantic
strewn across papers against Juliet's walls
and heavy locks weighing over the Seine

You are so much more
than the regrets pushed back and forth
between the empty gazes of our swollen eyes
as you pull back tears in time for dinner

You are so much more
than the seams unraveling from that sweater
you wear to hide the scars covering your empty arms
and to somehow feel the warmth of being held again

Darling, you are so much more
than you could ever see right now

You are a ballad
boldly written with songs played by angels
and the graceful sorrows of unsung heroes
quietly tugging heartstrings at the break of dawn

You are the moss
tracing cracks along forgotten walls
and worn-out sidewalks reminding us how to bloom
in places we never thought we could

You are the light
spilling through half smiles and broken laughs
stippling agonizing voids with luminous diamonds
that draw constellations of faith and hope

You are the shooting star
stumbling across this dark and infinite sky
as I close my eyes and desperately wish
that you finally see yourself the way I do

My lips are chapped;
The winds were high on the mountain.

The evidence of the climb smacks in the dryness and hunches in the body:
Curled in the arches of the feet, in the biceps;
roped across the shoulder blades;
crisscrossing the palms of the hands and the flanks, stippling the spine.

I sit for a long time afterward
Shivering in the car with the heat streaking the windshield.
I just sit
Staring at the windex smears where I recently tried to clean the windows-down grime of the summer.
I don’t remember how to get to your house -
The climb stripped your address from me
Like it stripped everything.

I experiment with the emergency release on my ankle
As the song Birds by Dominique Fils-Aime rises like smoke from the bottom of the car.

They find me in the morning in my front seat,
Completely flat from a slow leak in the pressure valve,
And gently cradle my head as they lift,
Out of the car and under a mountain
(Under, now)
Of softness and fragrant sweetness so I can sleep for as long as my deflated body will let me
Before it’s time again for the air compressor,
Time again, as always, to climb.

map our trail in starbursts
kaleidoscopic eclipses in the sky

cosmos dripping from my paintbrush
stroking "what"s and stippling "why"s

questions, chromatic aberrations
a twinkle dancing in my eyes

a pause in time
my lips profess a parting, not goodbye