At dawn on my twenty fifth birthday
416 pilot whales beached themselves,
in the shallow tides at Farewell Spit.

I woke to rain on the wooden roof
of my new flat
and confused myself in unfamiliar blankets and
the words of your message,
written heartfelt and wobbly
in the early hours before morning,

caught in the marine ebb and flow,  
that stranded us too.

The inaugural bang swiveled with the vacant expressions of a muted feral crowd indignant about ethnic identity and swift in the recourse of tyrannical thugs pandering withered abuse

I solemnly abided in a chirpy itinerant glower against the exclusive system for stranding the disintegration of lyrical integrity for the Potemkin cheers of the culmination of too many jeers

Withered words for the abeyance of silence I incurred with wistful pleas for resurgent clarity beyond   sheepish fears

So I loitered in the evanescence of words..

Watching with alacrity as the strident ignorance of grafted wretchedness writhed its last mustered exsibilation at the sound of windbags bloviating beyond prodigal extravagance without a visible tweeted word

I measured my pause…..as I considered the heft of poignant exposures to a dismal serenade of miscegenated politics and garbled breaths of wheezy mendicants seeking participation in the trophy of smothered compliance

But I marveled simultaneously at the extinction of the shriveled crowds as they sized up the minutiae of wastrels glamorously inviting a frozen recapitulation of sorrows borrowed and wasted on minced platitudes that swindle still the votive confidence of regimented sympathy pretending empathy for soured hearts professedly defiant at their bereaved will

My pulse I clocked at 120 as I wondered where on earth the 140s and 150s have frittered their patience on with such brazen alacrity for the garish snarl of a sojourn into the ineffable effrontery of aureate mutiny against the tyrant of deaf spoon-fed indignation without the luxury of shared ignominy of memorable cadence for frippery in sparse blurbs registered in braille rather than brawn

Then I remembered my vociferous persnickety temperament and the curdled hatred of procrustean swan songs to an etiolating standard of ethical entanglement in aloof issues delivered with a decisive swoon too swift in earnestness to outfox with a quipped rebuff or a calculus of classical spoof

Then I wondered with a problematic but inherent prolixity…..
I too could adorn the adoring moon with a lyrical lampoon geared for a clockwork punchline or a winsome rebarbative tune….OR…. enchant with an incisive acerbic rant about how pasquinades outstay their welcome because of the clambered insistence of happenstance years ago in a blinkered mirror but never rehashed too soon

But where would affection heap its laurels if I dared to swindle the spotlight away from frisky poetasters who proved a renegade inspiration for fluttered triumph in a seaside tragedy only the crestfallen waves of pestilent Idiocracy could steal from my outstretched tenacity in verse and verve

Boom went a fulmination of hatred at my labored words! And then I swerved to avoid potholes of tenuous gainsay…. and other miscreants littering the world with misappropriated labels for laments belabored with publicity for displaced enmity distilled from a cauldron of mismatched ignorance….tethered to the vagrancy of gripe plucked at the ripe time for a twenty-dollar prize give or take a dime

But that dime separating 1990 from 2010 meant more than anything to a life littered with hallowed word crimes…. against the sanctimony of syncopation with cheap bleats too arrogant to be sheepish at the lavish indulgence of the marginalized wines…. brewed in a castle flickering on fiat worth rather than the simplicities of minutes of warbled time

So I currently warp minds with the proctor of a gamble too garish to finesse the quicksand of attrition but jaunty enough to bypass the limitations of a linear self-referential memorial about the circular nature of irony espoused by divorced rhymes

Now I stand ascendant….waiting for the retinues of retinas to absorb the wavy rigmarole of the serpentine pathways carved beneath the buzzwords of race and division and towards soldered unity with a human race beyond racism…. and a class divorced from socioeconomic crass division

Just then I arrived at serenity…. as I realized that the BAR exams that encage so many aspirant hearts are counterfeit in the court of the highest judiciary art that believes that insidious artifice is an embezzled venture of frolicsome guttersnipes wallowing in division can never revive a lifeless heart…. even if quick-witted credentialism rattles the slaves to vapid artforms that any humanism would never deem smart

Ditch the agitprop as a human frailty indentured to endure the curated disease without a cure to make the snollygosters in Washington ever so cocksure with their cockalorum disregard of the palatable consensus to make news real again….Finally for the fraternity of an enlightened human race in a benighted world of trendy fatuousness that infests the planet with the debauchery of glorified urchins jerking the levers with severed brevity to promote infectious foofaraw with cultural indemnity

I leave you with this

What is ornate complexity without the luxury of concerted beatific bliss that the parsecs that flummox your minds throb vehemently with cohesiveness in my internal design are not remiss

And remember the benighted standards of kitsch for the kitchens of penury bewitched don’t stand a chance against the overriding itch to vanquish mountains one after another to cross them off the list

My Sunglasses

I’ve got all of Tucson trapped behind my sunglasses
I’ve framed mountain ranges in the frames of my Raybands
I’ve got reflections of saguaro’s stranding still in front of my eyes
I have sunny days taking refuge underneath my shades
I’ve domesticated the giant star that rides blues skies into walking the edge of my brow
I use black plastic as onyx shields
So Tucson, I see you.
There’s an art revolution beating at your horizon
I’ve seen it skirting around these wastelands
They tell us we’re wasting our time
Telling the roadrunner to run back home
When its nest was here since the beginning of time
Tucson.
I’ve seen folklorico and mariachi pay tribute to your origins on the hottest of days
I’ve seen in the shadows in underground art forms
Graffetti. There’s a protest in there somewhere.
I’ve even witnessed it in pen to paper
In lips to mics. In cafés in your desert nights for your desert nighttime audiences.
Tucson, your culture and artistic value shines too bright for others to see.
Your artistic worth shines too bright for others to broadcast
They tend to only record your overdoses and murders
Seems like our televised story tellers prefer to paint us in immoral reds
The only time they pay the south side attention is when the south side is aching
It doesn’t help that schools force you to choose business
Give you chance to study law all the while cut out your art programs
Fine art is required by universities but they don’t always expect you to get that far.
Tucson’s fine art is too fine and infinite to be recognized by those undeserving
Society wants to capture our southern brethren as outlaws not poets
We’re called the misfit of the desert. As if every spray can, paint stroke, choreographed twist,
Slam poem wasn’t something to take pride in.
I’m sorry they only pay your schools attention when ambulances are parked in your driveways
And administrators get caught in doing ***** deeds.
I see your talent wasted. Your talent shown.
To remind myself of your artistic significance, I’ve framed you
On walks home I photograph your murals.
Listen to the poets in the hallways.
Observe the dancers compose and the musicians choreograph
I’ve caught your reflection in my corneas’.
I’ve dilated my pupils thoughts behind my sunglasses.
Framed your mountain ranges in my frames.
Took cover in your shades.
Trained the artistic freedom and right to walk on my brow
Tucson
I see you.

stripes of dawn sift through the grey departing night,
and in my home, behind those rays of dust,
furniture warms.
the freedom i love will soon be claimed by an incessant morning phone.
my heart numbs, longs for the kindness, constant kindness of the night

the music of my pulse already starts to fade,
a weight sets in, invisible grimace of so many trailing thoughts unraveled now,
to bear until the darkness-swilling reach of soul can span again...

would i fly at brightened glass in fractured urges,
bolstered yet adrift in any day's torrential memes?
rage at seeming machination's constant interruption of my highest rarity of living well?
or smile at the herdlike expectation's threat to condescend,
and at least scour remnants of the search undone... throughout the day
insufferable choice of final future origins
the mail arrives,
my forehead stops to wonder at the door,
and at that pang of hunger

running, overrun, the mind churns night in such sweet shadow shifts!
to fall, legless and dissolve into the rising light..
as if a Noh play were being heckled through to end by gaudy ads
to jolt us bridgeless from that subtle world
and wander long on lethe banks of noisome blare.
at times i stroll this nowhere stranding here, pretend, and gaze from hiding,
between a wincing coffee swill
imagined easeful face of signs,
"easy as a gentle summer wind..."
tolerant to all, to blow a "selfless" stillness into me
to wave, and smile --breathe a blanket on acuter truths
with which i meet the day enwrapped.

but quietly  i wait... for Time to die:
an hourglass to shatter in the instant of eternity!
and birthe anew each 3 am, create anew--
those  kisses,  frozen  birds  of  static  bliss  become
a moulded wax to shape the plenum love as roaming peace,
darkness-rest to calm a pointless labor,
abate the drift into an unwalled corner's only inward exit--
as whisper hands can cradle nescience
such, that grains become a world,
in which invented seas are sweeter than the toxic real
whose bitterness a cherishing of death unveils awry,
or right as winter dust.
i yearn in flight and add to fullness,
find fullness once again
to hover equipoised at love's encrusted center,
where pain gives way to peace i cannot have.
if i would have this other 'purest' love,
and for instance find the meaning once again in wartime's bated negligence--
as in a perfect silence wind can brush the lips with all of life's aroma--
and as a gentle fire smouldered long,
at Spring, ignites within the splay of tender leaves--
so archetypal solitude of being beings manifolded one, i may fulfillment find...

i may go find myself alone now,
or swagger to an ancient drinking song,
or fall into those evening arms,
to find abated also, idols of the heart in each
for what the greater heart amends...
all for yearning better worlds
the pain has sent me reeling prone--
curling at complacent murmurs,
coos of love to torment all without
wherein i wallow, fallen from all heights,
absurd escape, removed---surrounded still
by so-called metalove, abject phantasmal swoon
i grit my teeth against,
as heaving sand would send the shore to sea and drown nostalgia evermore,
as only total extrication serves to quell an everpresence such as this,
ringing in the twilit dew,
or starlight whirl--
or inverse in a heedless curse--
horizons cease in this expanse
surging at the birth and death of things

I sought satisfaction in stupid sheepishly and shallow strides.
Scared subconsciously, I swallow and sustain substance for pseudo self esteem strengthening.
I seemed of in service to slumber and stinging sadness, shots sank like ships, submerging into the sea of my swarthy stomach in seconds.
I somewhat sympathies as a sailor, sweating, struggling and swimming in slipping sobriety saturated in my sulking style.
Scanning swarms of serial swindlers, striking sculptures stances of self-doubt.
I stammer in a storm of slurs, ******* down my safety, stopping myself at the stoop of the saloon I see a seductive silhouette staging the space.
She stroke my sight, standing sanguine in scarlet, soul sold in high heels.
The smoothest sculptures in seven square miles were subjugated into scree and I was ****** in submission.
Stubborn staggering suitors, stand shaking silently as she is stopped by sharks stalking and snarling sycophantics.
So straightforward in suggesting their secret starvation to strip sensations, seem by seem, like a sub-par **** cinema scene.
They step and speak short.
She smokes off, stranding the scree in smoldering slaughter.
Its sad this soul-less sanctuary soaking up sorrows.
So self inflicting, and so satisfyingly side splitting.
She sported her spurned, scorned off into sadistic solitude and stained sticky stigma, sobbing to sleep.
So spent from simple stocked, stored and supported senescence of ceremonial subjection of ****** status.
I savior my sincerity, and stretched out of this strange stadium of stooges.
So long scarlet sanguine I sang softly, as she stole my sight suspiciously in sync with hers.
Sacrificial seconds split from smearing stolidity to sharing a smile.
That's simple satisfaction, so I seen scripted in sitcoms and shows.
Supporting sapiens in stasis to see sappy stunners on screen, to stare snoopy, as stabs and slashes strike socially into socialites of so called sanity and sovereignty.
To sweetly pay salvage as slaves of soppy studio slander.
Such is this sorry Saturday night, I am solidified in sedation.

August before the arrival, cloud water hearted, Yula drift, long Sasa, Laji a monk's footsteps, I walk alone, walk in July.
Breeze disrupted my thoughts, I will stand in which to stay, at what station will also continue to drift, but life was however, learned to understand life, to understand life, learned in this way and the way the landscape room becomes indifferent, learn to be a wanderer. (Yiwu export)
Standing on the junction of the season, I do not know the years makes us hurry, or we go hurry.
Earth road, Journey, life mountain water a ride a ride, who can use words of happiness and sadness to resist the pace line prime years. I like the night, a person can go to find quiet in the memory, to the longing to stray, along the way, seen the earthly noisy, bustling seen the world, I think I should be quiet, give yourself a little heart lake, let my heart sink to the bottom of the lake, guarding a suitable melody, so that I can put down his heavy heart. Let yourself get a little dry soul to rest, get a little water moisture.
How many nights like repeat such feelings.
I do not know, tonight the cold moonlight cut the silence who dream? (Yiwu buying agent)
I do not know, who are independent of Migiura up for ages?
I do not know, a cappella blowing a flute in the moonlight hurt much Red?
Youth wind gently blowing, will we gradually grow, gradually happiness, sadness gradually, gradually, we are lost.
Our short life is to experience something, meet some people came. Some encounter in life, like gentle wind, snow, like (yiwu export agent) purity, should meet, then please cherish each other, give each other a warm smile, a warm hug, Xiangxi too, cherished, Should really gone, maybe not leave any regrets, I remember your world I have been to in my life have your shadow. Vicissitudes of time to write more than just wandering, there was a Shizumori, a quiet beauty. Sketch moonlight, I write and draw, describe all the thoughts became a ****** pieces of painting, set into roll of a roll, hidden in the depths of my heart, you can go to wait until spring, waiting to all things prehistoric, waiting for the world to the next reincarnation.
Life, melodious, memory or stranding, go learn to really make a person do a lonely wanderer. I was alone silently took years before the trip, like the horizon of their Su Yi Strider, became a vagabond, wandering around the world.

He lived alone along the coast
Small hut he built back in the 20s
He survived the war by
Stranding himself and living off
Critters, tiny insects, and berries
Although he lacked education
He was severely intelligent
Struggling most his life to stay alive,
He would write poems to women
That he never met, but only
Thought up to pass the time:

"I saw you in my sadness
One night we were alone
We had no clothes on
But we were no longer cold
There was fruit out for us
And blankets on the floor
In front of a small fire
I would kiss your back
And with each kiss
Upon your glowing skin
You had shed a tear
First from the left eye
And then a tear from the right
I kissed you over and over
Never asking why you cried
Because your turned around
With an enormous smile
And kissed me on the mouth
And held me so tightly

Later you told me that each tear
Was a layer of yourself
Peeling off
A bad memory in the past
It was you losing pieces
Of who you once were
Of what you once knew
And you wanted to start over
Tonight with me
Right here in front of the fire"

He wrote poems and ate berries
For the rest of his life

Rangers edge of the city


August before the arrival, cloud water hearted, Yula drift, long Sasa, Laji a monk's footsteps, I walk alone, walk in July.
Breeze disrupted my thoughts, I will stand in which to stay, at what station will also continue to drift, but life was however, learned to understand life, to understand life, learned in this way and the way the landscape room becomes indifferent, learn to be a wanderer. (Yiwu export)
Standing on the junction of the season, I do not know the years makes us hurry, or we go hurry.
Earth road, Journey, life mountain water a ride a ride, who can use words of happiness and sadness to resist the pace line prime years. I like the night, a person can go to find quiet in the memory, to the longing to stray, along the way, seen the earthly noisy, bustling seen the world, I think I should be quiet, give yourself a little heart lake, let my heart sink to the bottom of the lake, guarding a suitable melody, so that I can put down his heavy heart. Let yourself get a little dry soul to rest, get a little water moisture.
How many nights like repeat such feelings.
I do not know, tonight the cold moonlight cut the silence who dream? (Yiwu buying agent)
I do not know, who are independent of Migiura up for ages?
I do not know, a cappella blowing a flute in the moonlight hurt much Red?
Youth wind gently blowing, will we gradually grow, gradually happiness, sadness gradually, gradually, we are lost.
Our short life is to experience something, meet some people came. Some encounter in life, like gentle wind, snow, like (yiwu export agent) purity, should meet, then please cherish each other, give each other a warm smile, a warm hug, Xiangxi too, cherished, Should really gone, maybe not leave any regrets, I remember your world I have been to in my life have your shadow. Vicissitudes of time to write more than just wandering, there was a Shizumori, a quiet beauty. Sketch moonlight, I write and draw, describe all the thoughts became a ****** pieces of painting, set into roll of a roll, hidden in the depths of my heart, you can go to wait until spring, waiting to all things prehistoric, waiting for the world to the next reincarnation.
Life, melodious, memory or stranding, go learn to really make a person do a lonely wanderer. I was alone silently took years before the trip, like the horizon of their Su Yi Strider, became a vagabond, wandering around the world.

It was a tuesday night in January
A flight delayed two days late
Stranding me in California sun

I ask Ari
To take me to hear poetry
Without hesitation she takes me
To small crowded theatre on Fairfax
We sit cross legged on stage when she encourages me
To share words I had never before spoken aloud
Puts my hand in the air
My name on the list
Volunteers my voice to a hundred unfamiliar faces
So I stand
Bow legged facing microphone
Open mouth
And for the first time
Hear myself speak

Vulnerability has never been a strength of mine
But in those 3 minutes I was given
I let out the sawdust buried beneath my tongue
In those 180 seconds
I learned how to breathe open
Learned how to listen
That tuesday night in January
A flight delayed two days late
Left me stranded in California sun
And fate
Grabbed me by the wrists
And led me into poetry's arms
I never knew
That night
Would become start to new beginning
Would become catalyst
To finding voice in this echoed hallway of a body
That night
Handed me future
Gave me
What I hadn't even known existed
But had always been searching for

I was introduced to opportunity that three girls and one boy later
Would become family
I never expected
To find home in a place other than comfort zone
But leaving was exactly what I needed to reach it
Found parts of myself
In the words of four strangers
Found purpose
In the rhythm of our pens against paper
Found steady
In voice speaking vebrado
I did not plan
To navigate four hearts at once
But learned how to connect our valves
Just enough for it to work
Learned from them most
When raw and ******
Shaking at the times we couldn't bare our own thoughts
Our own feelings
Our own memories
I learned
That each weakness of theirs
Is outnumbered by asset
By strength

Cheyenne
Has a voice like a welcome mat
But closes herself off to most
For fear of goodbye
For fear of repeat abandonment
I want to tell her
That she has a smile like summer
And dimples one could live in
That I don't understand
How anyone could ever leave someone
Who is so much like sun
Is beauty and warmth
In a mixture that can only be swallowed
By those worthy enough to hold her
Sophia
Is crystal eyes and steel bullet
Loves nicotine
Almost as much as she does coffee
Knows how to stand stripped and bleeding
Without worrying about covering up
She
Has a voice like honey bourbon
The kind you want to pour down your throat
Until inhibition disappears completely
Julia
Fell into these words the same way as I did
Composes hers with softness wrapped in strong
She may not believe it
But she is more metal than any other element
Knows anxiety as well as I do
Knows loving is never going to be easy
But doesn't know
That she is so easy to love
Laughs at herself between embarrassing stories
Doesn't realize how much courage that takes
I can see
When her heart attempts to leap out her chest
Doesn't know
That I wait with open hands
Ready to catch it
Erique
Is old soul living beneath 15 years
Knows smiles and laughter
As the most important entity
Doesn't get upset
At my mention of his youth
Loves human almost as much as they love him
Looks to strangers
With outstretched arms
And ready heart

I came into this group unexpectedly
Expecting poetry
And leave
With more than just an understanding of language
I leave
With passion I had never known possible to find
Leave
With stories strung together by veins
With a family
That is more of one
Than I have ever known
More of one
Than my own has ever been
I leave this team
With gratitude
For three months spent working the hardest I ever have
Gratitude
For it being the driving force in my decision to move
To leave my past behind in another city
Leave my demons to the cold and highrises
I found purpose
In a time where I questioned its existence

To the army of fighting poets
You are the most peaceful war fought
Toughest calm ever written
Your battles have not been easy
But you have grown strong
The only casualties being the perceptions you killed
I do not know
If I will ever find this vigor
In another lifetime
But I do know
That I will never find it again
In this one.

I spent your birthday riding busses trying to forget you. HSBC's and courthouses falling by the wayside give way to farmland. $25 left in my chequing account and I can't help but consider stranding myself on Salt Spring. strangling myself with salt water. what is it worth, life, if love fades and creatures exploit each other like coal mines till 9 PM- or maybe it's just my life that is so empty and void. maybe this is my last day alive because the last time I lived was so long ago I can't remember. I'm put on antidepressants, then I'm put off you. I'd seek out *** to validate my self-worth but I don't much feel like sinking to that level would do much to purge my system of this evil presence. I hate myself and you made me hate me more. I watch the highway land scape by like a collection of our hopeless, anxious hopes, and I wonder- what was I doing in the first place?

So this is the watermark
The stranding after the deluge
Tidal storms recede
And I am wreckage on your shore
Gulls hover
Strident cries they scrabble
For cast off sparkling trinkets
Dead flesh
Winging requiem for a life unlived
Slip the yellow tape boundary
Drape daisy chains and platitudes
Across my fractured hull

Would you find wild beauty
In weathered wood
Barnacle scars
And the echo of measured surf
Set this longship by the sunstone
Radiant light when skies are heavy
Sullen with winter chill
Would you cleave to the beat
Aegir’s heavy hand on your prow
The moon pull of open water
The tease of salt spray
On full lips whisper my name
One more time
Quiet
Voice across the deep
And I will breathe

Will you simply wreath
My memory
“ see the line of my people back to the beginning
Lo, They do call to me”
Cast the fire and plot the stone ship
Pebbles skipped cross brackish water
My legacy sinks
Little rippled terminus
Wont shred butterfly wings
Or froth the wild tides
To the maelstrom
So this is the watermark
Strand my heart
With one spilled tear
TL Boehm
09/03/2014

she sat with her back to the brick column
holding up a vestibule, she found useful
as a public sorting place for the private
contents, of her camel coloured purse, remarkably ****-
tered as her "****** life", her short term
fix, IT, took a carefully cared for, crack pipe.

Running late was I, and eye contact was made
and I quietly but firmly said to the seated glazed eyes look-
ing up at me, "might be best if you leave."

next day kilometres away, early morning bank
deposit, and a coffee run, me and the dog, out
for fun "car rides" bring her much delight, a voice
from behind said "mister, mister you gotta help me!,
I'm, not an addict, and last night I could not get home,
rode transit for free out to here from Kitsilano but,"
she breathed, "in the it cost me a ticket for one
hundred and seventy five dollars, when I got caught"

I looked at her, seeing her hair dishevelled and a face full
of what, despair...? "so what do you want from me?"  
She
ran on with her mouth, playing with her top, the sentence was
run on and wouldn't stop.  "I made some bad choices, came here to meet my EX, found him with a girl having ***, and I need ten or twenty,
bucks to get me home, the transit cop said he would not let me back on and would still be working until three A.M., stranding me, until this morning see?!"

We
went back and forth, verbally,
"transit does not cost that
much, stop asking me for
money!", and she fired
back,
"my math is bad,
the money would be
nice and do your Karma
good, I am a big  believer
in that", finally I left her
with a small handful of
small change and watched her walk
away, got in my car, got my coffee, got  going home...

but as I drove by her, she was standing back to the hedge,
calm had returned as she waited, her hair was in place,
I saw something I failed to observe during our dialogue....

under her arm was
that camel coloured
purse...two women
suddenly became one

THAT  ADLESTROP  MOMENT

Train stops.
Stranding us in real life countryside.

Townies gobsmacked.
Silence attacks.

The world melting
in a heat haze.

Where has our real
reality gone?

Tracks lead away from us
be we are going

nowhere
fast.

As if the future
had ceased to exist.

We are like the male member
caught in the teeth

of a too hastily
done-up zip.

Yep,,,,,,,doesn't go up!
Oooops,,,,doesn't go down!

A kestrel free
of our dilemma.

Laughs at us
"Humans, eh....who'd 'ave 'em!"

Smaller birds gossip
discussing this all too human

situation.

I recite Adlestrop
in my mind

to my reflection
staring dumbly back at me.

"There is a countryside
in my face..."

I Marvell.

As if Nature
had invaded my physiognomy .

"Unwontedly...something
something something or other."

Oh bother!

"No one left and no one came."
The birds stop to listen.

"Yes, we remember Adlestrop!"
they twitter.

"Hear it one day
in what you humans

call
the Past.

Wot a laugh!

They unaware that there is only
one great big forever."

I fell silent.
Deserted by all thought.

"Give us some more
of that good old Adlestrop stuff!

The birds chirrup.

"No what less still and lonely fair
through cloudlets in the sky."

I ventured.

"Naw...naw...naw mate!"
a crow caws.

"The bit 'bout us birds
if you please!"

I cough and continue.

"Farther and farther, all the birds
of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire."

The birds all cheep and cheer.
"Hip hip hooray for Edward Thomas!"

The train remembers itself.
Rouses itself from its slumbers.

As if all this
had been but a dream.

"Yes, I remember Adlestrop"

But not all of it.

It was June.

do not say it, express it*

my life in a moment has been
a momentarily lapse of reason.
my heart in this venture has been
a vexing vent into a loving treason.
my soul caught up betwixt has been
a bewitching of what makes "me".
my fate in mutation has been
a mutinous stranding at sea.

She rode the wave of exclamation,
a borrowed  stirrup  buckled the wind -
of promises  broken,
turning pledges to  gorse
yellow stranding into  infinity.
She  pardoned with  forgiveness,
self serving without a kiss
and  finished  the  morsels
the  crumbs
of  her  hard fought victory.

by Arcassin Burnham


Going through a life filled with pain,
Thought Being born in this life was a shame,
In the making it was love I always wanted from my family
and friends and a girl to call my name,
cut a human being off like a speeding limit,
Only to be pulled over with a speeding ticket,
learning to do right in an economy that doesn't care
about your well-being, or your soul and spirit,
You were in it,
honorable mention,
linked up all your limits,
and the feelings, well,
they just left and did some feral shifting,
Stuck in a dark fantasy or maybe a death stranding,
i was here from the beginning and when you took your last standing,
you were,
misunderstood in a world full of impurity,
lived for the love of another in this monstrosity,
serve a near purpose for people you'd die for in eternity.

words words words.

in what language
could we ever say
all that we mean,
ever be seen?

silence thus glides.

a shore for stranding.

Those dreams fading away,
carried by the clouds, that suddenly surfaced.
Those worry clouds - surely able to take away those infatuated love.

Those guiding hands of yours are no more here,
I am so lost in the wilderness,
Without you by my side.

Those feeling of not wanting and wanting at the same time,
I am so perplexed, yet try to understand the full context of it
by seconds by minutes by hours and by days.

Maybe not maybe yes,
we are so selfsame however unconnected, unrelated here and there.

So here we goes our epoch of love, swaying, stranding on the beach of blurriness. I stood dumbfounded not knowing what to do.

Do I failed miserably or we haven't tried at all?

I thought you loved me
Showing unfathomable amounts of passion
Understanding me on unreachable levels
Accepting me for me
And then you vanished
Stranding me with thoughts of anguish
Questioning, what I did wrong
You abandoned me
Leaving me empty with 3 words in your wake

What is love?

I crave her warmth,
However, her love was filled with thorns,

my eyes sparkled when I saw her as if she were golden,
only to find the blood in her veins was frozen,

so close to her, I could hear her rapid heartbeat,
I wish our love were more concrete,

I wish I could stay with you one more night,
And Make love to you as if it were destined for life,

Hours would go on and we end up panting,
Now those meticulous details have me stranding,

Now I look back and I consider it my zenith,
But people think of it as a blemish,

My affection was myriad,
And I desired a longer period,

Whatever we had was venerable,
Oh lord, I wish it were not ephemeral,

And now I have been yearning to feel your skin,
But you repudiated it by committing a sin.

I remember, I remember
The fall that splintered
into your eyes...
Our kiss goodbye
Your first time and my last night
Everything is alright

It’s alright
if we shudder,
I’ll stutter
every time you walk by

The legs and your neck,
My teeth; stuck in between
The curtain and the chimney
It’s not what it means

Do you see?

Let me lay down now
Let me see what’s at store
I wanna see your bluebird fly
I want to tell you what it’s for

It’s all for nothing!
Oh no,
Not now...
Not when!

Maybe things will be different then
Maybe I’ll look like a stranger that you once knew
Maybe you’ll begin to wonder
What it is about you

What is it?
It’s
death stranding

Leaving me lost in a fog
that was never there.

We’d made things once, things of substance:
Copiers, straight-sixes for Chevelles, Novas, Impalas,
And tons of film, of course, loaded into tiny Instamatics
Which accompanied us to everywhere and everything
(Unless they mystifyingly scampered away from pocket or purse,
In which case we drove, cursing and volleying blame to and fro,
Fifteen, twenty, maybe more miles to retrieve them
From the kitchen table or back of the toilet)
To document births and baptisms and weddings,
The in-betweens and hereafters,
(Renderings of children and dogs
Sitting under trees with blossoms of pink and red
The blooms implausibly bright, child and beast stolid yet smiling,
Or tableaus of tux-clad cousins and brothers,
Squinting blankly in the aftermath of a visual right-cross
Courtesy of the supernova-esque emanation
From the blue cube perched on the camera’s top)
So they would not be victims of the vagaries of memory.

All of that is gone--no, taken--from us now,
The means of production having embarked for Memphis or Mumbai,
Those things which sustained us now simply vestigial curiosities,
Like hand-cranked presses or ancient milking machines
We’d tittered at on long-ago school field trips.
The march of time and technology, to be fair,
But it has left us obsolescent as well,
Stranding us without context or clarity,
With access to neither advance or retreat
(The old photographs simply mock us now,
The red-eyed images fading to the soft tones
Of a rose at the end of its summer,
The name of the third man on the left,
Who’d worked on the line with us nearly three full decades,
Refusing to be conjured out of the thin air)
Leaving us diffuse and unordered
As the old and cracked negatives
Stuffed higgledy-piggledy between old snapshots
In an enveloped at the back of an old file drawer.

As I walked to you,
your high green limbs moved with me.
Your path covered in old dream leaves,
so the crackle of my foot steps reveal my presence.


Your aroma gave off a slightly herbaceous scent,
with elegant woods and hints of citrusy amber.
That musk was so nostalgic,
it reminded me of past dreams,
when we would lay together and,
I would roll in your pine sipping on whiskey and mesquite.

After breathing you out, a rush of fresh air penetrated my lungs,
forcing me to become aware of the life that surrounds me.
Commanding attention from all of my senses,
humbling me into a seduction.

Each time it seems your path is further and further,
stranding me in your remote timbers,
so that I may live off of you,
forever in my dreams.
Never-ending it seems,
forest of mine,
until next time, be well.

The pilot's off the wagon and on the sauce,
leading his pod to rot on the rocks.

She said I'll see you later and I said why not.
Steak dinner, body massage, whatever gets you off.

Short of breath and out of my depth.
Low on cash and I don't want what's next.

Wrung out, tapped dry, limped ****, heavy sigh.
Asking Gungan questions like, "are we gonna die?"

you swallow the pill
and then you feel like
you are drowning;
almost floating,
stranding on the shore of
your body.

Memories like sweet black cherry; ****, sour, soft.
Memories like the salty black sea; crashing, stranding, flowing.
Memories like plain bleached oats; vapid, flavorless,over.

Sitting as the picture melts.

Conversation.
Erasing.
Mindful.
Stairway standing shallow.
Head full.
Of stranding speech that floods through the lips.
Careless.
Does it feel well.
Walk to the sink.
Lavender still though the stomach pain.


Garrett Johnson.