I miss
the forest of
        your magic
    as it winds its
                  tattooed way
through the
          serrated textures
                  of nightfall
all up inside
          my vertebrae
the soft wind
       rustling in your
elms,
outstretched to me
                   like arms
as stars burn through
       this brewing sky
in molten,
    fiery charms
They beckon to me
unexpected
          in quiet      
      apertures of subtle
they sneak upon me,
          unprotected,
when I'm sunken
in my tunnel
and sometimes
              in the
                   quiet stream
of the lonely, sacred night
I hear a whisper
whirring soft
as it permeates
            my spine
I let it take me over
                   as I sit,
slumped,
     in the bath
it creeps and seethes
over my wet skin
eats out my silent wrath
I let it
       fill my senses
as I walk inside
                 the deep
and on wooded paths
of solitude's carpet of leaves
when I feel
no soul is watching
     the deer start shyly peeking,
  and lynx resume their stalking
then long slashes
                  of ache
are reawakened
           from their lair
snaking through my ribcage
choking up my hollowed air
        yet, somehow
        in the longing
of bottomless, falling space
I see in distant, faded visions:
the precious contours
of your face
and so,
like an enchanted
          secret box
I open you,
inhale the confetti
of your floating stars
wave them over and through
my strands of vein,
my tripped out,
           healing scars
your essence
       penetrates
my presence
   like misty mountain rains
seeps inside my pores
opens up
       striations
of seismic,
      writhing pain
Your invisibility
            takes form
and then
            in sudden,
whipped-up heat
        it pours out in
honeyed rhythm
       to our own
             invisible beat
and just like that
I get taken.
Overcome
by slakes of love
rushing through my
arteries
like sweet
    manna
from
    above

Starlings fly in silver sky
Bullfinch in the dry grass sings,
Emerald teal in tandem fly
Explosively on phosphor wings.
Miracles are in the air
Golden sun in evening glow,
Marigolds of orange flair,
With lavender, in patchwork grow.

Sap is flowing in the wood
bursting buds of olive greens,
Winter flees as winter should
Whilst bubbling brook transform to streams
Miracles are in the air
Colour rich in reddish hues,
Greens of fresh lime , aqua flair
Spring arrives in vivid views.

Silk striations lace the sky
With molten, mackerel clouds of gold,
Evening chill for you and I
Suggest we snuggle close to hold.
Miracles are in the air
A Moonrise breaks horizon’s door,
Hugely round with craters bare
We laugh with joy and seek for more.

Tantalizing night upon us
Stars ignite the heaven's fire,
Black as pitch with jewelled Adonis
Hot white pinpoints of desire.
Miracles are in the air
Passion in the blood doth boil,
Moonlight through her silver hair
Exquisite as blue fire on oil.


Marshalg
@thebach
29 August 2011

Is life a story, is life magick dreaming to love?

I gazed up. “Standing below the elephantine magnolia,
the ground still bore Tuscany ochre from autumns last kiss.”
My eyes solivagant orbs fed on spring’s dews in mourning
──jewellery clinging opulently to her naked form.
Dawn chilled the breeze caressing her body as abscission
demanded she undressed her emerald gown of leaves.
Magenta and cream blooms sprang “loudly” seducing
─ blushing mauve crowned centres,
a population of endless figurines perched motionless on aching
naked branches.
Solomon’s seal burned white within me drunk impending suns arrows, opulent words of silver Verbus diablio kissed in a cauldron
of Magnolia words, a banquet for mortals that seek loves gold.

A lone spider echoed silence bearing the sigil of Jupiter’s
vermillion and white spun striations luffing on the breeze
warming. “Magnolia dressed the day ardent in perfumed
── glorious plumes that each set sail across waking skies.”
Ablaze I am luscious dreams wrapped in sweet nectar,
travelling limbic memories breathing deeply, held captive,
wanton within her labyrinths of silk caresses, petals whispering,
sweet love as she engulfs my last resolve.

In raptures white velvet gown my hem sweeps over gold russet
and brittle autumns words forged in winters need for warmth──mind leaves crunching beneath life’s changing seasons,
stitched I cling enamoured to mortal honeymoon summered fields.
I am the female of sapphire tears twisting, glittering melting ice shards, bequeathed of pained black stars travelled on passionate magick fires, breathed on melodious Roma nights.

Rested among the branches a mantel crucified- drunk once more,
a bloom held silent in time weeping, exploding fragrant in a coloured soul, a luffing flower creature to life──crowned

──to sun hope thorns.

©ASPAR (A Sol Poet Arnay Rumens)

To read or watch movies, that is the question.
When tired at workday's end, depressed about death's
certainty and my recent surgery
unable to contribute purpose
i.e., figure out whether to bomb Iran
or worship Krshna
and other gods such as Homer gives us in the Iliad
I lack vision therefore I choose television.
Chemistry text, bifurcated plant key
esp. grasses, intro to calculus, physics
unopened time slides by inexorably.
That's the dilemma with no resolution,
drooping rachis, striations on the lemma.
Dying chooses you. You don't choose dying.
So go slow as the day will allow.
The cancer patient's real work is facing
harsh realities and making adjustments:
getting the most out of life, considering
what his children will need after he's gone,
preparing his wife, parents, colleagues and friends,
and completing important professional tasks.
Get the most out of life. That's all God asks.
In Life of Pi the tiger is tiresome, short-sighted
eating everything in sight today, no plan for tomorrow.
The boy, however, is beautiful, reading
the lifeboat manual, building a resting place on the ocean
from oars and life vests, writing about his emotions,
loneliness and observations. The tiger's obsession
with killing keeps our boy alive with fear,
an aphrodisiac, a distraction from any hint
of hopelessness. And then there is the ultimate unknown,
the boy's conversations with Krshna which explain
the innumerable stars and their gentle glow.

Snowdrifts piling up
as brain melts down to zero sum
Not sure, now, what functions become
but, sure enough, what's piled high
          in streets will become flood

Slide past corners
wash away
These torrents still insistent shakes
The quaking stops, now reach the sea
and rock on shifting waves.

Peer through striations clouding clouds and
                                                     sunlight
Soak into liquid, reach the bottom
                  grasp the floor
Handfuls of silt melt out through wrinkling digits
Withered faces, pickled organs: zero sum

Trickle down through strata--
read the layers
peel them back
Then, at the core, can settle down.

This park bench gets so cold, so worn.
Sitting here
perplexed by the motions,
the grays, all in different shades;
all going
nowhere.

This bench and I, we're friends;
He's a little
quiet,
but he means well.

I've been distant lately,
removed.
I'm not sure that he
cares;
at least, he doesn't show it.

We both see things in the same way;
all the gray wisps of condensation.
Don't get me wrong,
we both
see color,
but its rummy.

we are
always going to be the
same temperature.

The snip-snips
halo my shoulders
in curtains
Ever-changing colorations
striations
maculations
depending on your mood
either flat as a newly paved ramp
or as ***** as Friedman
You took a class on this
you tell me
adjusting your headband and baring your teeth
your version of a smile
I steel myself against the guillotine
It falls to the ground in leaves of auburn
going against the nature of winter
and longevity
(there go four inches
off my life)
You lean in
boing the spring beside my face
inhale and ask me
what is my conclusion?
as your panda colored drapes swish by my cheeks
Sometimes it smells like cinnamon
or the cactus flower oil you bought that one time
and sometimes I get nostalgic and remember what it was
before I let you touch it
(autumn, soap, and vanity)
but now mostly it smells like one thing:
smoke.
And phantom pain.
I thought you were an expert.

Blue haze is in the air at dusk
Wet dew descends on grass,
Sunset’s red striations touch
Horizon’s clouds of glass
A heavy silence permeates
With the settling of the day,
And clouds of starlings flock to roost
With nightfall underway.
The homestead paddock’s horses
All graze quietly in the gloom
As evening light turns purple red
To a distant blackbird’s tune.
A golden leafage carpetry
Is spread across the road
And the farmer trudges through it
homeward bound, beneath his load.
The cottage lights are glowing gold
As daylight dwindles now.
The softly spiraled chimney smoke,
The lowing of the cow,
The leafless alder branches
Stretching to a sky of stars
As the chill of late Autumnal
Celebrates the birth of Mars.


Marshalg
In the Autumn leaves
Victoria Park Tunnel
24 April 2010

Fowl meadow grass - Glyceria striata - the striations
on the lemma. Drooping rachis
a weeping willow of a grass.

Recurring periwinkles, myrtle, Vinca.
Helicopter petals. Evergreen leaves.
Escaped from gardens, alien or native?

A little further by the spruce stand
a new mustard, cuckoo flower - Cardamine -
with pinnately compound leaves. What a find!

A good day turns bad.
After you've died, one of them dogs digs up your grave.
You may sit in the rain and think.

Maiden pink.
The dark circle inside the flower
a g-string or garter.

O to fail well. To lay low. To live long.
To run slow. Feel the hill. Pressing down.
Do less. Until one thing's done well.

Twin peaks pierce the sky
air of my reality twines
around their reaching heights

Eddies of stone slip under
my breath-blown snow
and winding clouds slide
into each fold and crevice
as I search for the path to
fiery gold striations
living in the center seams

But I have to breathe
and the caverns give way
to narrow passages
that condense my breath
suffocating into stillness

Cream and Red striations
wind along the wall
In places dirt obscures them
still I heed their call
to follow twisting passages
unending canyon hall—

Yet parched map lines waver
heat bends and turns the air
here I am left breathless
and thirsty in my stare.

HARD Issoft, nearly almost always
to phalanges strung in distinct feminine howling
striations pressed on all the everywhere of
cobbled mucous enunciated with thick muscles bent
on masculine bones packed slightly tight
and i'm **** lungs bunching across the varied consistent
folds of your open naked mouth
        that i         sting                  in                               everfor

a hideously beautyfull beAst

Transient action
I wonder if he wanted to
Geometrically pinpoint constellations
Pastel hues in a camouflage fashion
Springtime daisy blooms
What wicked way comes
If she thought she could auto not
It was a choir singing harpsichord
In street trash gutter subterfuge
The tops of trees swayed in the winds
With the gated cage striations

I think not to write
any more love poem
her strands of silver hair
face's blossoming striations
and sunset pinks on her earlobes
rekindles a flame
that begets
one more love poem!

White striations stack up on skin
neatly horizontal parallel lines,
your corrugated left arm that bears witness
to a right handed brain and I'd
forgotten that as I see you, as you see me,
and I didn't know you'd kept a piece of me.

How could I have known that you'd be casual,
twirling that piece around your index finger,
slinging it over your shoulder as a summer jacket,
not needed for warmth, or that I'd feel it.
There's a tattoo on my **** that used to spell out your name,
and now I wonder if you can still picture it.

From the first floor window
Sadly noticed her age showing

The moon striations martian canals
Cutting her face
Scarring her youth
That day and night
Being around her like a satellite

I missed.

I was too close
As rose the marks
Expanding imprinting devouring
Shaping her
In time

To be the perfectly aged woman!

Perfectly aged

I saw myself in the mirror

And knew

I too now could lay my claim

To be her perfect mate!

A pine forest is the hand,
The soul of the palm fans out in fingers
Like the clayey striations of the sun.
The forest has no sound but the bonebreast
Wandering round of a similar hand,
All but shut now except for the unspoiled nest
Of browning needles and the ancient realmless mound of love.

₁Peering into my eyes in a darkened room
Your dog curled up, lilliputian,
Quietened behind the wall across from us
Your hands cradle my face as if I am crumbling marble
₅Venusian statue that you've finished carving
Delicacy and care reside in your fingers

I cannot see you, your everything is blurred
You are a frustratingly unfinished masterpiece
You are an out-of-focus black and white Kodak photo
Candid snapshot a girl has taken with her camera phone
Wordless and soundless,
Silent in an equally soundless room

I hear our syncopated breathing,
Softened, pulsing rhythm, cadence of your breath
Fanning across my bottom lip
You open your mouth
A sliver of light from your window
Curtains, diaphanous, like gossamer silk
Flutter in the stream of your quiet fan

You speak
My eyelids flit like moth's wings on a Spring evening
You speak
There's approximately four striations of shades
In your irises,
Flecks of opaque peridot and ochre
God drizzled in spools of honey
Swirled in the colors of crisp autumn leaves and sun-dappled orange
Called it done

I press my face against your cheek
Leave a lasting imprint of you there
Your touch will be ghost-like
I'll feel it on my skin seven months later

“You are so pretty you know that?”
Your eyes split me open
Like a cadaver whose bones were strung
With pearls and fitted with chains
Beauty in the macabre
Beauty in a breakdown

pink striations bloom on my neck,
curving and running like rivers
or the creek behind your childhood home
because when faced with the thought of living
in a skin void of your touch,
what am i supposed to do
but scratch?

<for my friends>

Poets, let us examine this friendship thing, again.

This is a poem of humans, regardless of our natural multi- flavored striations, that tend to over-define us, thus separating, instead of celebrating commonalities.

Like most things we enjoy, our five senses are the gateway to pleasure, even the pleasure of friendships.  They act in concert, a symphonic interplay that reenforces and heightens so that in combination they create a whole greater than a single sense could provide singly.

This is on my mind this week, as I wrestle to understand the meaningful possibilities, the limits of friendship.

Poets form bonds without hearing each other’s voices.

Poets connect despite geographic distances that makes grasping each others sinewed arms, caressing the softness of hard cheekbones, without ever having been granted the unique, all encompassing satisfaction of embrace, hugging.

Poets sometimes can hear but not see each other’s words.

Poets sometimes can see/read each other’s words, but never hear them voiced aloud in the authors own, true voice.

Poets sometimes cannot smell or taste each other’s words, though it can take a poem to another, higher sensory level of coloration.

And yet, a bond so strong forms that defies the conventional limitations of the physical. Should we share such a bond, them you know it, no need to ask for confirmation.

Words, can be gifted, without teleportation, even when and if the bridge of a shared spoken language is not extant.

This is nothing short of miraculous.

Just like friendship.

All my wrestling to true comprehend this state, for naught, for the miracle of words is like the color of water. Universal, invisible, but so varied, that it too bridges and is shared by every ! human body regardless of any human shape, color, form of the billions conceivable.

But wrestle I do nonetheless, for the pleasure of this (non?)soluble problem that both creates queries & quenches simultaneously, so I break off this thinnest wafer to share with you, offering this notional:

All humans are poems.

All poems are human.

Solve this poem for human.

(And ignore the wet spots of my watery, clear tears staining this poem).

(but this is an excerpt)*

"...There she is.
Lover has been wearing the same sneer
since the dawn she was drawn from the womb;
only today,
I notice it has softened, faded.
It is even more perfect.

She had the cerise lips of Calliope,
pensive and piquant.
I never saw them pursed or closed. Instead,
the corners of her mouth curled into parenthesis
around some sardonic remark about to be made –
yet all this time,
I had never heard her speak a word.

Exposed below the weight of the cosmos,
I imagine curled-up dreaming foxes in their dens
and I close my eyes
and she fades into existence. Clarity
in crisp blue jeans,
poised with hips sweeping up sensual imaginings
from a corpus of creative possibilities.

My lover is standing on a cold brick sidewalk
of a city affixed firmly to the soles of her
black suede boots — as if the earth
would fall out from beneath us
if I were to lift her up.
The profile of her face is obscured by
strokes of deep mahogany tresses,
woven with striations of brushed brass. I study her
smooth and flush skin,
the curve of high cheekbones, and the gentle bend
of a gloved wrist
as she tightens her black scarf..."

Inhale that symptomatic silence,
with a martyr’s monstrous thirst,
Conducting symphonies of violence,
wish me well and do your worst.

Another monstrous machination,
summon me with dark decrees,
Flaunt your roadmap to salvation,
but I won’t walk there on my knees.

Seeking that softly-searing static,
sanitize stains that made us pure,
Hide from that demon in the attic,
hoping this pill conceals the cure.

Trapped atop this ****** tower,
Where our darlings fight and die,
I wish I had just one more hour,
I wish I could have said goodbye.

A scratch of me is from him
Carved from current’s flow
Glows in setting sun

Life as summation
Illumination of
Striations cleft

The bereft
Must instruct
The rest

it's a place i've only seen in pictures
a ruddy monument of sand and stone
with bold striations like ancient scriptures;
a history engraved upon a colossal throne.