She'd swooshed by on her skates.
He'd seen her in her reflection that day
On his car’s rear view mirror,
For the first time ever.
The new neighbour, was she?

That very night, for the first time ever,
Both happened to be on their respective rooftops.
The clock had just scaled eleven.
Now that they’d seen each other,
Tonight's coincidence sufficed to make way
For a rendezvous every night, thereafter.

He’d often be smiling his sheepish smile,
Panting for breath as he’d reach the terrace
While the clock would strike eleven,
A few heartbeats later.
Oh, but she would often already be there,
A teasing laughter on her lips,
A childlike smile in her eyes.
Relief followed by exultation in his heart.

And so, they’d be standing a lane's length apart,
United under the zoetic starry sky, every night hence.

You’d wonder, how both were somehow convinced,
That the other still believed
This nightly tryst
Under the sky's roof to be a coincidence.

She'd light cigarette after another.
He'd pretend
To be caressing his pet,
Fast asleep.
Or some such silly thing.

How he’d wish the whiff of smoke from her cigarette
Would drift across to his terrace.
He’d imagine the wafting smoke
That’d emanate as she’d part her lips
To be a peek into her coy desires.
And many such cheesy things.

They hadn't exchanged a word till date.
Oh but they'd exchanged hearts that very first night.
She didn't even know his name yet
She'd wonder if he knew hers’?
'Has it ever mattered?' she'd think.
'I'm better off not knowing her name!'
Thinking a name could define her
Is to be silly', he’d think.

She was at his door one evening,
To hand over a letter,
Mistakenly delivered at her home.
Or so she said. Something he'd happily believed.
She'd slipped her heart along with the letter,
She later happily realized.

The ensuing night lingered
Six and a half cigarettes longer,
The first time ever.

Fifteen evenings gone by since
She wouldn’t be seen.
He stayed for a brief bit on the sixteenth night.
Disappointed less, worried more.
Did she feel this silent encounter
Of their worlds had stayed silent too long?
Words could never suffice, didn't she know?
He went down to his room ruefully.
Oh but she’d reached just the terrace at that instant.

And they thought coincidences could only always favor them.

A few evenings later he saw her.
Not veiled by the sepia-tinted street lights this time.
Nor in the crimson blush of that evening.
Decked in bridal finery
The vermilion vows on her forehead
Staring starkly at him like an exclamation mark.

And you thought coincidences could only always favor us,
Seemed to be the rhetoric she was throwing at him.

That night, his tattered heart
Writhed in dead wakefulness on the rooftop.
Even now, he looks across
At her absence, a presence in itself.

the words fluttered,
swung, swept, swooshed,
bemoaned, bereaved, bedazzled,
leapt, lauded, littered,
hovered, heckled, hiccuped,

made U-turns, took deep dips,
underwent saucy somersaults,

played like notes,
acted like songs,
usurped as oaths,
humbled as prayers,
slaughtered as killers,

punctuated, presided, presumed,
abetted, adhered, attacked

while the paper endured all with love.

The mist clouded my sight
The dress I wore was white
I was lost I could tell
So, I followed the **** of the tower bell
The wind swooshed past my face
It was a mystifying maze
I was cold
All I had was the warmth of
your love                          
My hair was damp
You switched on the table
lamp
The branches creaked
Under my feet.
At some distance the water cascaded
The trees in front of me faded
The insects were buzzing
The paper on your nightstand were rustling
The woods whispered
The birds no longer chirped
I am still looking for peace.
Our photo frame on the mantelpiece.
You burned it down
I tripped on the frozen ground.
I knew I was losing you
I could no longer feel you.
The scratches on my elbow and knees
The frost on the leaves.
I feel like I’ve heard and seen this before
I cannot take it anymore.
These sounds are noise to my ears.
All I see are my fears.
They screamed at me monstrously
I can’t handle this cacophony.

If this isn't good,
I don't know what is.*
I thought to myself.

It was a habit I picked up
from reading too many books;
to acknowledge the good
occurrences when they occurred.

It seems they happen more often
when you pay attention.
However, don't imagine
that the scene was perfect.

We woke up
on a hardwood floor,
hungover
and sleep-deprived.

My jacket was
the pillow,
and, luckily, someone
had draped a blanket
over us.

A cat wandered
under the blanket,
and sat down on my
naked shins,
which shook us
from our slumber.

She laughed as his tail
swooshed slowly across her leg
and pulled my arm
around her.

"I never expected
to wake up next to you."
She said,
in a whimsical way

We shooed the cat out
(he was quite stubborn)
and laughed together at the
absurdity of it all.

Later, we kissed farewell
and promised to meet again.
Now, I sit in contemplation;
recalling all I can about the night.

Moments are just that --
moments.
Parsed smaller and smaller
the further you look.

I don't need to remember each
minutiae -- how many seconds
elapsed between each breath --
only how I felt at her side.

I think this is what I'm aiming to do:
to hold each reminiscence sacred.

"Man is a crushed being. Floats like logs on an empty river in a wild with no predators,
because, Man knows, a predatory wild is immoral."
no regrets.

and water once said to the wall
"Can I speak? And if I speak why do I speak this particular language? Beyond my reflective frailties and your broken back, there really isn't much to be said for the anglo-saxon remembrance of loss, now, is there?"

and the sleep in the corner of her bedroom was like a feminist strike for equal wages
there was a resentful bitterness to the way she spat her measured love.

often, she would say nothing as a means to everything,
and everything as a means to nothing,
but either way the only one listening was every one of us, so we couldn't really hear a word she was saying.

some mornings, I awoke to the curious wondering of subject versus object, and sad endings versus no endings, and you know what?
not once did an answer appear and if it did, no way was there a syllable empty enough to describe our lack of a point
so I stopped calling I, I
and started calling I, we
so we slept until 1 in the afternoon with the only shame being that of novelized continuity with its great big book on the cons of finitism we tried to return for store credit only to realize it wasn't Chapters selling, nor the writ of the holy ghost, but instead that particular angle of our face that can only be witnessed if one mirror is placed in front of another with a third to the left

and suddenly, 'I' made more sense,
what a shame?

and water once said to the wall
"all things are all things," and the wall listlessly agreed to nothing.

so we walked to the water and agreed on behalf of the wall
and the water swooshed kindly as we lay out a towel
sleep on the beach.

and the sleep in the corner of her bedroom was like a feminist strike for equal wages
there was a resentful bitterness to the way she spat her measured love
so my nervous flinch began to wonder why the real world teases with stillness, distant mountains, open roads, warm kisses, sunrises, and cold rain
when I still have to get up for work in the morning.

A masterpiece was painted
with a trunk-ed hand he held the brush
swooshed lines in black
graceful strokes, deliberately
he spoke
finishing with a flourish



This is incredible, it is true as well....god I so love animals!!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=He7Ge7Sogrk&feature;=player_embedded

swooshed the wind right through me
as bleakly whispered in my ear
the unspoken muzzy words
left my stun as they steer

for now I knew something
I knew not before
as I saw the utmost ray of hope
consumed by the darkness
craving for more

such was its haste
mollifying the very urge
just like sun relieves its ray
right at its verge

I went on a walk today. My feet led me to a place past the horizon where light and darkness where at a simple harmony. They coexisted in a way I hadn’t learned to do with myself, with an ease that made me envious.

I went on a walk today and my chest felt heavy for my legs to carry. It was suspended past the dome of my ribs, inflated to a point of discomfort so I crossed my arms atop it just to hold it in place for fear it would explode at any moment. My tears fought for release and I tried to convince them it was not I holding them captive but my heart, this cave made of snow beating icicles in to my veins.

I went on a walk today and I felt neither the cold nor the warmth of the consecutive hours. It simply swooshed past me without a second glance. I watched it leave with awe wondering if my ghost status had inverted to official that even ethereal beings would not acknowledge me.

I went on a walk today and saw a flock of birds and saw one seating on the phone wire away from its group. I stared at it and felt its eyes on me, and for a moment their was an instant familiarity. That was the moment I realized loneliness was a language, only few could understand but still, a language.

On a perfect spring night,
the Moon rises high into the sky,
Illuminating the dark, night sky
The stars twinkling joyfully,
As if they were happy about something,
The cool breeze swooshed over the world,
The air  filled with joy...
*On A Perfect Spring Night

The evening spotlights
Shine on the walls
Of David's ancient abbey.

Raised by Border people
And peasant Picts.

Shadows and silhouettes
Fill thresholds that once
Let light and glory in.

Foundation walls protect
Winds still whispering
In Gothic naves.
A thousand years' stories
Are sounded in her bells.

Night surrounds Jedburgh Abbey.

I strained my sight for movement
Of Augustinians who thrived
In cloisters and walled streets
For a story to bring home
Of a phantom cloak or hood
Disappearing on ramparts
Or passing an empty window.
Just a sound, or simple wail
Would do.

Just then, dark legs
Swooshed past me,
Fitted in knee-high boots.
I lost my thoughts
Of ghosts and sprites
With an astral figure in tights.

It’s been two months and you are still giving me things.
This time I inherited your long tan coat.
The one you wore along with a plastic bag on your head
when it was raining.
The one that swooshed when your arms swung back and forth
while the long belt would drag
along the ground on one side.
The one nobody wanted.

I slid my arms into the sleeves
and felt the sleek fabric hug my skin,
unlike the way it hung
from your frail shoulder blades.
I slowly
reached my hands further
and further
into the deep pockets,
dreading that I’d find leftover food wrapped up in napkins-
and cried when it wasn’t there.

Vacant Streets
Barren homes
Concrete rubble scratching beneath my feet
Am I all alone?

Towering viridescent leaved Giants
On the other side of the road
Wind swiftly whispering hollow secrets
Into the grove.

I intently observe the grooved bark of a tree
What species is it?
I don't know, but I would like to know
My eyes scrupulously make their way up to the reaching branches at the very top
Next to this tree I observe is a tree stump
It doesn't look like it was cut with precision, it looked like a flash of unpredictable lightning chopped it right in half
Incapacitating it to no longer grow, ragged shards of raw inner wood
Now blackened with death.
The difference between the stump and the outreaching tree was one proliferated while the other did not due to death.
I felt my heart in my chest and arteries transporting blood to a part of my mind neglected and depressed
As the realization swooshed and then swelled into my heart,
that these conditions of my mind and circumstances were not forever
But temporary lessons
Yes, that's all these bad things are,
Temporary lessons
A tree can be cut but if not cut through all the way to cause death, it will grow around that cut, and everything else about it will eventually become bigger than those few times it experiences pain
The key to all of this was to move forward, grow
With limbs outstretched to the sky.

It's amazing to think
that just two years ago, today
I looked at you
straight in your dark mysterious eyes
and told you I loved you.
With your hair in your face,
you swooshed it out of the way.
You pulled me close.
chest to chest
and whispered
"I love you more"


It's sad to think,
some time last year
was the last
"I love you more"
I heard come out
your lips.


It's the worst feeling to know,
that we just got off the phone
after studying for a test
and you left to go talk to her.


My best friend.
You left me
to talk to my "best friend"
She asked you to leave me, just now.
And you did.
She asked you to leave me, some time last year.
And you did.

A song in the background
Happy smiles on our faces
None making a sound
The car travelled so many places

It happens so quickly
In the blink an eye
You don't even feel sickly
Until you lose th high

The hood had snapped
And made a whoosh
The windshield cracked
I'd been swooshed

We were not hurt
And I said my praise
My mind is on alert
It put me in a craze

nothing can keep me occupied
im bored of all i love
his eyes are light somewhere deep down
and off the edge im shoved.
restless im pacing round the room
no corner to escape
dont want to sit, no strength to stand
and fainting comes so soon
the noose inside my chest is spiked
and off my feet im swooshed
no turning back, no drinking less
as off the brink im pushed.

Upon the blowing wind
lives my Autumn dreams.

With a delightful glee
my soul took flight
as the breeze stole
my heart.

The whispering pines
swooshed and bowed,
the dirt grew into
a foggy cloud, as
Autumn changed her
gown.

Greens turned brown,
purple, and deep red
as the leafs shimmied
to the chilled ground.

The shadows slowly lengthened
as the night creeped,
crawling beside the sun
before saying farewell
to his brother he kissed
the sky with his full moon smile.

The stars winked
and the sun swooned
as the moon stole the
hour.

© 2019 By Amanda Shelton

The stars that fell ,
from dizzy heights,  
tallest of tall,
found themselves there thanks to
giants who had blasted rock, to create that highway.
Those  riding on the
hem of their cloak,
earned not by their own merits,
judge those desperately holding unto
true nobility.
On that day
fake luminaires get
swooshed away,
it's impossible to reach that vault
without salt,
you cannot cry or whine ' not my fault'
you had access to Heaven
Sophia spoke enough is enough
you blamed  on the weather.

there shall be moments when happiness
is not your state,

however in ever that happens,

it is, virtually, bound to happen,

but
in a literal existence of mere words, happiness

occurs ever after. You may be a

babbler wisher-for-happenstance to pirrouette on a pen
and whisper deep insights locked in hap

pens powered by magi-tech i-magined manufactured in mortal minds,

as it hapt.

---
the grip slips, words cease clinging to meanings and mean

- as in evil, mean people, mean words, mean spirited
things

arize to ****** the tiny hap...

which happens not to wish
to vanish
like a thought from a dream, but but

but re
mains, takes priority, exalts itself above the heard news,

you/me/we are irrelevant to, non-integrail to maintaining the flow of

peace that happiness always leaves in it's wake,

ah, always, we re
call the dry place, where we made no wake, no waves
to propagate

ripples, in time, near the nearest shore,

then, in time, near the farthest shore; nay,

in those dry places,

no such woken waves foam, dust rises as one step,

is taken by faith, no reason, save war is wrong so find some peace,

take a step, you might have to live like a refugee,

that's the story of confusion being unsnarled to reuse the meaning
in messengers going up and down,

and to and fro -- all balanced in the mix, a step taken to see from far away,

what if, another,

then one more, re becomes the rythm mmm re mmm re

call the idea, hap. Many haps must be that plenty state, happy,

plenely, right, plenty clear see happy is sufficiency of hap.

That is so simple, a child could be saved, if

it be possible, to live at peace, among all men. If ye say?

If? What, when ever what ever crisis of existance takes peace from the

dust,
breathe,  we left pure whist in the wind as we passed Kansas, in the spring

back when there was no morning dew,
any more...

and the farm blew into the Bermuda Triangle, by all accounts extant.

Considerated galactic storms were aitia-tic tic tict off, like war in

the heavens,

{ sloow read, while breathing aware, software in the air, just there}

the whole, integral system of life on an orbit around Sirius,

undeniable by flat earth witnesses all over the globe,
they admit. Sol is ellipticating pro

cessionally toward Sirius, the freakin' dog star. So,

we could make up a reason for war, with this much knowledge.

... but we can't tell the worker ants, those used to believe the six o'clock news.
For their own good,

suffice it to say, war makes money. Loving money, what makes that?

Lack of haps.

So simple, a five year old child can comprehend,
nothing beats money in the bank,

for giving a whole family that feeling of safety and security,
so much so
amen
that now the usage fee to the usery class, the tax-collectors and money-lenders, lets them lend to themselves at no interest.

No, child, not tree climbing tax collector
Zachias,
but he was a fanatic,
so don't take him for a role model... there were Mithraic bankers under the sign
of the Red Shield, in the Ghetto, about which Elvis sang,

Amazing-ly, from Graceland, in 1968, as an old idle word winks in passing,

I'm okeh, howeryew?

who converted then reverted, then, with riches in faith past Midas, one man, changed
ever after that,
says the story, Walt Disney

erected an image of a national pride,

The happiest place on earth, there where oranges grew, in Anaheim.

Golden apples, is what oranges were called, where oranges never grew, long ago,
in the realm of Asgard, where ever held cold hope, for mortals and gods,

Did you know?

Selah. I read the news today,  oh boy...

now, the peace I made is splashing as my cup runs over with love, as sung

by the guy who played the Tonto role to the official American hero history
Dan'l Boone or Davy Crockett,
Fess Parker - the official Disney-ify version,

American frontiersman model for boys, {a message from the sponsor}

with telescopic sight... see threads of star stuff swooshed before fore words in books

we read, we learn, we live and all we leave behind is the meaning intended unattended,

-so say the happy Sisyphus culties,

once a word loses meaning, each time you utter nonsense saying it, just take note,
give account.

What does that happen to do? How do you do? What's up?

Well, as it hapt,
I was odd. When asked, I answered true to how did I do, well,

i said, my side is winning. How are you? How do you exist at all, if

you choose to oppose me in this, your side lost when the referee

declared at all the crossings where choices are made  for patterns
in happenstances,
bliebe doch-- said Faustus now
now, ever never allows meaningless beyond

{slow- breathe}

good and evil, belief and dignity, dasein design,

oh-- a gleam, see, in the smile, tooth paste ads say that's *** appeal.

That's how boomer kids got *** ed... freeze, mind of a child, or you can't see

heaven is Disneyland. -- hush grandpa, don't spoil the fun...

Closed? There's no closing in Happiest Places on Earth, said Forrest Gump...

no
frozen statues query sphinxy riddles - with only old boomer stories left to hold

an eye for the needle all camels pass through,

if you get the tip of this thread,
wet,
and aim, steady, straight, miss, try again, we got all the monosylables in time

to find and redeem worthy of rereading for the possible metaphor left sealed.

And then you get a Corona, on the beach, it's a lifestyle.