YOU ask what -- I have found, and far and wide I go:
Nothing but Cromwell's house and Cromwell's mur-
derous crew,
The lovers and the dancers are beaten into the clay,
And the tall men and the swordsmen and the horsemen,
where are they?
And there is an old beggar wandering in his pride -- -
His fathers served their fathers before Christ was
crucified.
O what of that, O what of that,
"What is there left to say?

All neighbourly content and easy talk are gone,
But there's no good complaining, for money's rant is
on.
He that's mounting up must on his neighbour mount,
And we and all the Muses are things of no account.
They have schooling of their own, but I pass their
schooling by,
What can they know that we know that know the
time to die?
O what of that, O what of that,
What is there left to say?

But there's another knowledge that my heart destroys,
As the fox in the old fable destroyed the Spartan boy's
Because it proves that things both can and cannot be;
That the swordsmen and the ladies can still keep com-
pany,
Can pay the poet for a verse and hear the fiddle sound,
That I am still their setvant though all are under-
ground.
O what of that, O what of that,
What is there left to say?
I came on a great house in the middle of the night,
Its open lighted doorway and its windows all alight,
And all my friends were there and made me welcome
too;
But I woke in an old ruin that the winds.  howled
through;
And when I pay attention I must out and walk
Among the dogs and horses that understand my talk.
O what of that, O what of that,
What is there left to say?

You find yourself thinking in color. It permeates through every inch of what you know. Thoughts get processed in them and translated by it. Although I favor the one that shines most bright, I barely claim it. I lack of it. In fact, I come to deny it, to exclude it, rather than make it my own.

Lets think through color. Nelson lives in the reflective imposition of it. She strips it down and eats it whole. She hugs its core and stares right at it. She owns it, unlike the string of light I keep refusing.

He, she, they, constructed this. We, you, them, distort it, reshape it, bend it up, and cut it down.

It is the only lineage that connects us all. Dickinson saw the strength of the grass like your mom did and with the vision you do. But, color gets lost in translation. They used Doves to instill fear and swordsmen saw Paper as a sign of truce.

It hurts as well. Obsidian carries pain within. Marks on his back from a remote past, a past that is still dragged to the present. Obscure in its presence. Regarded as biologically distinct. Yet, we now know better, or pretend to.

Blends. Blends in, it merges, fuses, makes new. Transforms. Distorts. She made me see the core once, and it bleeds.

Not the primary but the others, from distant lands on a new canvas, filling in the outlined sketch.

In the town of Forgotten
One might always forget
But our story unfolds surrounding King Hatchet
He was an evil and determined king
King Hatchet would often have thoughts being the one thing
“I am the King to whom you must respect otherwise, a very high torture sting”
The citizens of Forgotten weren’t surprised of the King’s words
The message echoed out, and it was heard?
But who would defy the king?
It was a man named Defender
He called out King Hatchet to come outside the castle
Now anybody who challenges the King is automatically put to death
But Defender was a skilled warrior, and reigned as a champion
However, King Hatchet knows all about Defender, but doesn’t care how skillful Defender is
But let the challenge begin
It will be death to the finish
Whoever is the victory will be distinguished
So King Hatchet and Defender picked up swords and commenced in the fight
There were cheers on both sides being sheer delight
Swords grasped together, and when Defender pierced the arm of king Hatchet, there a scar and some blood
Yet, it didn’t cause the blood the pour like a flood
However Defender was steadily swinging his sword in not missing a beat
It was determination in there not be a defeat
Suddenly King Hatchet felt to the ground, and Defender had his sword at King Hatchet’s throat
The message, “Defender was the greatest swordsmen throughout Forgotten”
But Defender let King Hatchet live, but only after announcing, “Defender had won”
Cheers from the crowd’s
The hourglass of victory
A chapter that prior could have been considered a mystery
Once upon a time, storyline far more than any book could ever tell
A moment in making a child’s heart’s swell
The closing chapter ended with dreams into the night
But for now good night, sleep tight, and don’t forget to turn off the light.

Casket-boards of our boat all creaking
Against the lapping tongue of tide,
A soft journey of heartache
Had my six swords and I.
Across the war rent oceans
And beneath the mellow moon
All crooned, we few,
We wash-aways, we had
****** our prayers away.
Each sword aboard
The vessel knew no food but thought
And mused through breakfast same as supper
Growing only ever more distraught.
When departed we to shrouded sea
From long forgotten long bemoaned
Setting of the sun upon the coast,
All sapient and strong
These swordsmen mine.
Not withered like the husks they are become,
Mere chaff to rustle utterly along
alone.
They are dry inside, they die,
Their own confusion laying waste to flesh
And mother-hungry marrow. I sigh,
A windy shiver running up my backbone
And escaping into the endless mist and flood.
The strangest glint amidst the heavens sets our course,
And the grim placid seas do not reproach us
For all know,
All the lands of the earth,
And the sea, and the sky,
And every monotonous row of my oar passing by,
All know these six swords,
Know them truly,
And know as well their coming fate.
If swords these six swords were
Instead of men,
Then great forges would I say
Lay upon that further shore:
An empire of magma where all blades are fused to one.
Poor dears,
O my poor dead dears you do not even know the truth,
And you let your brows be conquered by woe.
And that is why you are my merest passenger,
And why I have been bound to steer.

Beware of the man
with the sharpened wit
He be a swordsmen in disguise
Using the air in his lungs
he duels with his tongue
splitting damnable truths
between lies

It was an uphill trek to the dilapidated fort
Reminiscent of the past glory and supremacy
A grandeur which cannot be replicated
The solid stone walls smoothed to perfection
Each stone sitting perfectly, filling the jigsaw puzzle
Taking a walk around, I come across some etched paintings
Wonder what story it narrates, or what secret it holds
I try to peer closely and see what resembles a princess
With all the swordsmen surrounding her
Maybe from the prying eyes of some obsessive suitor
Or is it that the princess was held captive by a rival?
The fort is testimonial to so many incidents
Which may have happened, clandestinely, inside its walls
It must have been attacked so many times
Also, it could have been taken over by force by the enemies
I enter the fort through its imposing entrance
The thick and heavy wooden doors, now ajar
Riveted with iron bolts, now rusted over time
The door must have been attacked and pounded with severe force
Weakened by the ravages of time and the aging wood
I enter the fort and is greeted by huge arches and a corridors
Surrounding the length and breadth of the fort
With so many chambers, that I lose count of them
Wonder, where the princess must have been kept in captivity
Or, may be kept safe from the obsessive lover, from the lower ranks
I weave my own intriguing story, unaware of the history
Once a secured monument of the glorious past
Now forlorn, it stands there in stupefying silence
With each passing day burying the cries, shrieks, laughter and conniving plots
Someday, the whole existence of this fort may be diminished to dust
For it is comeuppance of time, where, even the glorious and mighty are not spared

© Amitav (Radiance)

Beyond beyond the battle cries
Beyond the crumbled walls
Beyond the stony battlements
Where banners rise and soldiers fall
Where bloodied men will weep and call
For gods and mothers at their sides
Where men fight brave and brave men die
Beyond beyond the crumbled walls
Where empires rise and fall

Beyond beyond the carrion flies
Beyond the crumbled halls
Beyond the crimson flooded moat
Where swordsmen clash and hammers ring
Where steel on steel will flash and sing
For gods, for country, lords and king
Where brave men fight and brave men fall
Beyond beyond the crumbled halls
Where empires rise and fall

There is no blade brighter than the wind
No euphony as lucid
as entranced she sways—
No mercy weaved in her delirious wings
nor any dead lands
caked beneath the lambent scales
In serenity she loves, in serenity prays
In turbulence— plays

There is no blood prettier
—still, I sense his finger stir
Yearning for cords
as he climbs up
the old, darkened minaret

I hear them warriors are on their way
Lured to stillness by
an injured dragon they cannot slay
and the rain
beneath her guard
trembles, trembles—

I relish the cold devour of her excited breaths
swirling about like a Koel’s last song
up, up the boy does stumble
up, up the tallest minaret
Which has long ceased to kneel
for the Imam’s groggy knees

The masjid slumbers in arms of the tired town
and warriors appear—
Swords like withering moons,
shields, extinguished suns

And prayer mats are folded
by her vivid claws
As blossoms smile out the yellowed tiles
A lion yells, his deer screams
and one upon another,
the swordsmen fall

But I sense a stirring in him
He plucks the stubborn of his tendons
his fingers— a strange dance
And notes around him
tremble, tremble—
Too young to have learned the words
His lips tear open to birth a laugh
an Adhan of his own

There is no sacrifice like one of the wind
She paints a trench across her
wavering being
and trembles, trembles—

Through the shuddering lips pulled tight
she, into him, flows
like water, like a storm frenzied, she
into him, flows—
There is a stirring in him
As tunes give themselves to the vessels
and vessels, unwilling,
are pulled

I hear it all them
The dragon lured to stillness
by an injured boy she cannot slay
—hear this, too
His being, like baked bread, relaxed
And arrows, his vessels
release—
and tunes— tunes soar about
As the old, proud minaret
is bled to a viscous death

I watch the tunes, they
tremble, tremble—
I wonder where they will go
Perhaps down a Koel’s scratchy throat
or sway by the town’s unmarked grave

Then the folks rise up
and cleanse themselves,
Water up their faces, down the elbows
Coating their necks, and glistening in the hair
A prayer upon prayer
hatching on their tongues
—dried blooms
crusty beneath their feet
and rain, a coward— away

A boy is lost, they say
‘As if vanished,’ they say
but is soon let lost
among the rows of funerals
passing through the town’s dusty days
Mourners, and mourners
— dead upon the shoulders of dying
Death, restless, still
Warriors, warriors no more
and the boy

still sings over that forgotten tower
A dragon whirling within
mimicking our moon-struck Dervishes
—I swear the boy still sings
as he gushes, gushes melodies
with every tremble

an Adhan of his own—

I. Post Alley

Here, darkness isn't the villain.
It's the anti-hero.
We cheer on the absence of light
in favor of insight
- the kind used by blind swordsmen
who distinguish right from wrong moves
by feeling where the fighting spirit
of their adversary sways.
And so we stay awake,
following the signs etched in the neon,
blazing a path toward our fears
with a howl that cuts
the darkness in half like an alley.
We don't dream here.
We embrace the insomnia
like a cup of black coffee
with both hands,
eyes as moons,
tears as tide.

--

II. Olympic Sculpture Park

Every alley finds its way to water.
They all meet their ends
in a view that floods your eyes
at the speed of ferryboats passing.
It's the there and gone of it
that stops us in our tracks.
It's the childlike smile
you may never see again.
Days here
retain an afterglow
that brightens over time
we can't reclaim.

--

III. Alki Beach

I fled here when I thought the world ended.
I ate magically delicious clam chowder
from a paper cup
at the edge of Pier 57,
where a Ferris wheel that no one was riding spun.
Moving became mantra: a prayer put into practice.
So I flew
as far as I could get without crossing an ocean.
The fog I arrived in hid what was gone.
The sub-arctic air was balm
on what was burning up in flames.
Painters believe that lighting
defines what you're looking at, puts objects
as absolute as Mount Rainer in limbo.
I saw the heart differently here:
it was smoke
exhaled from the top of a building
to join the overcast like a freed spirit.
Love wasn't a concrete word,
but a formless mist
that your eyes keep redefining
depending on time of day: the first morning,
it was a cargo ship.
By twilight, it was a one-way ticket
on the Light Rail.
It was something that kept moving.
That's it: everything became far up here,
as if I was looking at it from the top
of a UFO-shaped observatory in a skyline
from the space age.
The sun itself appears removed:
it checks out at 5pm due to the extreme
northern latitude and lets night check in early
like an Airbnb traveler you'll never see.
It's okay to remain anonymously sad and blend
in with the rain.
Locals don't carry umbrellas on purpose.
I'm not okay yet.
So I return often to keep my cool
on their 51 degree summer nights.
Statistically, this is the city with the most single people in it –
soloists, loners, former lovers who understand that oneness is wholeness.
There's healing properties to that.
Up here, nothing is missing.
I'm so far away from what happened
that it becomes invisible,
or at least
lost to the fog that keeps rolling through.

--

who knows how these things start.  some animalistic girl with the air of donation sits beneath the kind of playground slide could convince nowhere of a middle while two boys with cardboard swords keep each of us from the ladder unless we allow her to bite us on the arm.  pretty soon we’re in math class showing each other how many times we went down and pretty soon our younger siblings are smacked or hungry or puckered from being bathed.  some of us run out of room while some of us have two good legs.  some of us pull at our mothers as if all prayed out of playmates.  the girl goes weeks without god before giving in.  her swordsmen move on to pocket knives and loitering.  you see her in the food court of the mall sitting with her wheelchair bound father and brother and tell us there’s no magic that pushes them both.

Crestfallen, cantering
down stumble avenue,
my lucky fountain was
outpouring youth.
About-face! I crafted
a curious inquiry,
endeavoring slyly
the avoidance of truth.
And then I walked on by.
Was it my worthless wince
that made you
hardly deign to reply?

My stomach oft knotted,
ink blotted, but you are
faultless and guiltless of
waxing and waning my
hopeless forlorn hope, my
bellowing attrition,
glazed over in glory,
trampled delicately
with innocent fashion.
Swordsmen leaping over
your bright scarlet ramparts;
wordsmen, in a white gift
resonating outward;
they hinted that my dream,
laced up in slack linen,
was daring enough for
your showered attentions.
...But only for a while.

In Scandinavia's oceanbound counterpart,
a sickly vested boy grafted his life into yours;
now empathetic reminiscence recalls
dry desert days 'neath a cloudless sphere,
as war ripped apart your homeland.
Among all the hubbub of upheaval unfamiliar,
tell me, you who are more worldly,
if I mean anything to you?

A man walked into a bar,

'Ouch' he said, 'who put that there."

A woman was watching and snapped her fingers.

'It's time to raise the bar,' she said,

And forty swordsmen on pure white horses appeared.

'More', she shouted as loud as she could.

And forty pistol packing mamas on motorcycles appeared.

'I need a drink', the man said

'Let's belly up to the bar," the woman said.

And that's the story of two people being called to the bar.