NOTE TO THE READER – Once Apun a Time

This yarn is a flossy fabric woven of several earlier warped works, lightly laced together, adorned with fur-ther braided tails of human frailty. The looms were loosed, purling frantically this febrile fable...

Some pearls may be found wanting – unwanted or unwonted – piled or hanging loose, dangling free within a fuzzy flight of fancy...

The threads of this untethered tissue may be fastened, or be forgotten, or else be stranded by the readers and left unravelling in the knotted corners of their minds...

'twill be perchance that some may  laugh or loll in loopy stitches, else be torn or ripped apart, while others might just simply say “ ’tis made of hole cloth”, “sew what” or “cant seam to get the needle point”...,

yes, a proper disentanglement may take you for a spin on twisted twines of any strings you feel might need attaching or detaching…

picking knits, some may think that
       such strange things ‘have Never happened in our Land’,
       such quaint things ‘could Never happen in our Land’’,
       such murky things ‘will Never happen in our Land’’…

and this may all be true, if credence be dis-carded…

such is that gooey gossamer which vails the human mind...

and thus was born the teasing title of this fabricated Fantasy...

                                NEVER LAND

An ancient man named Peter Pan, disguised but from the past,
with feathered cap and tunic wrap and sabre’s sailed his last.
Though fully grown, on dust he’s flown and perched upon a mast
atop the Walls around the sprawls, unvisited and vast -
and all the while with bitter smile he’s watching us aghast.

As day begins, a spindle spins, it weaves a wanton web;
like puckered prunes, like midday moons, like yesterday’s celebs,
we scrape and *****, we seldom hope - he watches while we ebb:

The ***** grinder preaches fine on Sunday afternoons -
he quotes from books but overlooks the Secrets Carved in Runes:
“You’ve tried and toyed, but can’t avoid or shun the pale monsoons,
it’s sink or swim as echoed dim in swinging door saloons”.
The laughingstocks are flinging rocks at ball-and-chained baboons.

While ghetto boys are looting toys preparing for their doom
and Mademoiselles are weaving shells on tapestries with looms,
Cathedral cats and rafter rats are peering in the room,
where ragged strangers stoop for change, for coppers in the gloom,
whose thoughts are more upon the doors of crypts in Christmas bloom,
and gold doubloons and silver spoons that tempt beyond the tomb.

Mid *** shots from vacant lots, that strike and ricochet
a painted girl with flaxen curl (named Wendy)’s on her way
to tantalise with half-clad thighs, to trick again today;
and indiscreet upon the street she gives her pride away
to any guy who’s passing by with time and cash to pay.
(In concert halls beyond the Walls, unjaded girls ballet,
with flowered thoughts of Camelot and dreams of cabarets.)

Though rip-off shops and crooked cops are paid not once but thrice,
the painted girl with flaxen curl is paring down her price
and loosely tempts cold hands unkempt to touch the merchandise.
A crazy guy cries “where am I”, a ****** titters twice,
and double quick a lunatic affects a fight with lice.

The alleyways within the maze are paved with rats and mice.
Evangelists with moneyed fists collect the sacrifice
from losers scorned and rubes reborn, and promise paradise,
while in the back they cook some crack, inhale, and roll the dice.

A *** called Boe has stubbed his toe, he’s stumbled in the gutter;
with broken neck, he looks a wreck, the sparrows all aflutter,
the passers-by, they close an eye, and turn their heads and mutter:
“Let’s pray for rains to wash the lanes, to clear away the clutter.”
A river slows neath mountain snows, and leaves begin to shudder.

The jungle teems, a siren screams, the air is filled with ****.
The Reverent Priest and nuns unleash the Holy Shibboleth.
And Righteous Jane who is insane, as well as Sister Beth,
while telling tales to no avail of everlasting death,
at least imbrue Hagg Avenue with whisky on their breath.

The Reverent Priest combats the Beast, they’re kneeling down to prey,
to fight the truth with fang and tooth, to toil for yesterday,
to etch their mark within the dark, to paint their résumé
on shrouds and sheets which then completes the devil’s dossier.

Old Dan, he’s drunk and in a funk, all mired in the mud.
A Monk begins to wash Dan’s sins, and asks “How are you, Bud?”
“I’m feeling pain and crying rain and flailing in the flood
and no god’s there inclined to care I’m always coughing blood.”
The Monk, he turns, Dan’s words he spurns and lets the bible thud.

Well, Banjo Boy, he will annoy with jangled rhymes that fray:
“The clanging bells of carousels lead blind men’s minds astray
to rings of gold they’ll never hold in fingers made of clay.
But crest and crown will crumble down, when withered roots decay.”

A pregnant lass with eyes of glass has never learned to cope.
Once set adrift her fall was swift, she slid a slipp’ry ***** -
she casts the Curse, the Holy Verse, and shoots a shot of dope,
then stalks discreet Asylum Street her daily horoscope -
the stray was struck by random truck which was her only hope.

So Banjo Boy, with little joy, he strums her life entire:
“The wayward waif was never safe; her stars were dark and dire.
Born midst the rues and avenues where lack and want aspire
where no one heeds the childish needs that little ones require;
where faith survives in tempest lives, a swirl within the briar,
Infinity grinds as time unwinds, until the winds expire.
Her last caprice? The final peace that no one could deny her -
whipped by the flood, stray beads of blood cling, splattered on the spire;
though beads of sweat are cool and wet, cold clotted blood is dryer.”

Though broken there, she’s fled the snare with dying thoughts serene.
And now she’s dead, the rumours spread: her age? a sweet 16,
with child, *****, her soul dyed red, her body so unclean.
A place is sought where she can rot, avoiding churchyard scenes,
in limey pits, as well befits, behind forbidding screens;
and all the while a dirge is styled on tattered tambourines
which echo through the human zoo in valleys of the Queens.

Without rejoice, in hissing voice, near soil that’s seldom trod
“In pious role, God bless my soul”, was mouthed with mitred nod,
neath scarlet trim with black, and grim, behind a robed facade -
“She’ll burn in hell and sulphur smell”, spat Priest and man of god.

Well, angels sweet with cloven feet, they sing in girl’s attire,
but Banjo Boy, he’s playing coy while chanting in the choir:
“The clueless search within the church to find what they desire,
but near the nave or gravelled grave, there is no Rectifier.”
And when he’s through, without ado, he stacks some stones nearby her.

The eyes behind the head inclined reflect a universe
of shanty towns and kings in crowns and parties in a hearse,
of heaping mounds of coffee grounds and pennies in a purse,
of heart attacks in shoddy shacks, of motion in reverse,
of reasons why pale kids must die, quite trite and curtly terse,
of puppet people at the steeple, kneeling down averse,
of ****** tones and megaphones with empty words and worse,
of life’s begin’ in utter sin and other things perverse,
of lewd taboos and residues contained within the Curse,
while poets blind, in gallows’ rind, carve epitaphs in verse.

A sodden dreg with wooden leg is dancing for a dime
to sacred psalms and other balms, all ticking with the time.
He’s 22, he’s almost through, he’s melted in his prime,
his bane is firm, the canker worm dissolves his brain to slime.
With slanted scales and twisted jails, his life’s his only crime.

A beggar clump beside a dump has pencil box in hand.
With sightless eyes upon the skies he’s lying there unmanned,
with no relief and bitter grief too dark to understand.
The backyard blight is hid from sight, it’s covered up and bland,
and Robin Hood and Brother Hood lie buried in the sand.

While all night queens carve figurines in gelatine and jade,
behind a door and on the floor a deal is finally made;
the painted girl with flaxen curl has plied again her trade
and now the care within her stare has turned a darker shade.
Her lack of guile and parting smile are cutting like a blade.

Some boys with cheek play hide and seek within a house condemned,
their faces gaunt reflecting want that’s hard to comprehend.
With no excuse an old recluse is waiting to descend.
His eyes despair behind the stare, he’s never had a friend
to talk about his hidden doubt of how the world will end -
to die alone on empty throne and other Fates impend.

And soon the boys chase phantom joys and, presto when they’re gone,
the old recluse, with nimble noose and ****** features drawn,
no longer waits upon the Fates but yawns his final yawn
- like Tinker Bell, he spins a spell, in fairy dust chiffon -
with twisted brow, he’s tranquil now, he’s floating like a swan
and as he fades from life’s charades, the night awaits the dawn.

A boomerang with ebon fang is soaring through the air
to pierce and breach the heart of each and then is called despair.
And as it grows it will oppose and fester everywhere.
And yet the crop that’s at the top will still be unaware.

A lad is stopped by roving cops, who shoot in disregard.
His face is black, he’s on his back, a breeze is breathing hard,
he bleeds and dies, his mama cries, the screaming sky is scarred,
the sheriff and his squad at hand are laughing in the yard.

Now Railroad Bob’s done lost his job, he’s got no place for working,
His wife, she cries with desperate eyes, their baby’s head’s a’ jerking.
The union man don’t give a ****, Big Brother lies a’ lurking,
the boss’ in cabs are picking scabs, they count their money, smirking.

Bob walks the streets and begs for eats or little jobs for trying
“the answer’s no, you ought to know, no use for you applying,
and don’t be sad, it aint that bad, it’s soon your time for dying.”
The air is thick, his baby’s sick, the cries are multiplying.

Bob’s wife’s in town, she’s broken down, she’s ranting with a fury,
their baby coughs, the doctor scoffs, the snow flies all a’ flurry.
Hard work’s the sin that’s done them in, they skirmish, scrimp and scurry,
and midnight dreams abound with screams. Bob knows he needs to hurry.
It’s getting late, Bob’s tempting fate, his choices cruel and blurry;
he chooses gas, they breathe their last, there’s no more cause to worry.

Per protocols near ivied walls arrayed in sage festoons,
the Countess quips, while giving tips, to crimson caped buffoons:
“To rise from mass to upper class, like twirly bird tycoons,
you stretch the treat you always eat, with tiny tablespoons”

A learned leach begins to teach (with songs upon a liar):
“Within the thrall of Satan’s call to yield to dim desire
lie wicked lies that tantalize the flesh and blood Vampire;
abiding souls with self-control in everyday Hellfire
will rest assured, when once interred, in afterlife’s Empire”.
These words reweave the make believe, while slugs in salt expire,
baptised in tears and rampant fears, all mirrored in the mire.

It’s getting hot on private yachts, though far from desert plains -
“Well, come to think, we’ll have a drink”, Sir Captain Hook ordains.
Beyond the blame and pit of shame, outside the Walled domains,
they pet their pups and raise their cups, take sips of pale champagnes
to touch the tips of languid lips with pearls of purple rains.

Well, Gypsy Guy would rather die than hunker down in chains,
be ridden south with bit in mouth, or heed the hold of reins.
The ruling lot are in a spot, the boss man he complains:
“The gypsies’ soul, I can’t control, my patience wears and wanes;
they will not cede to common greed, which conquers far domains
and furtive spies and news that lies have barely baked their brains.
But in the court of last resort the final fix remains:
in boxcar bins with violins we’ll freight them out in trains
and in the bogs, they’ll die like dogs, and everybody gains
(should one ask why, a quick reply: ‘It’s that which God ordains!’)”

Arrayed in shawls with crystal *****, and gazing at the moons,
wiled women tease with melodies and spooky loony tunes
while making toasts to holey ghosts on rainy day lagoons:
“Well, here’s to you and others too, embedded in the dunes,
avoid the stares, avoid the snares, avoid the veiled typhoons
and fend your way as every day, ’gainst heavy heeled dragoons.”

The birds of pray are on their way, in every beak the Word
(of ptomaine tomes by gnarly gnomes) whose meaning is obscured;
they roost aloof on every roof, obscene but always herd,
to tell the tale of Jonah’s whale and other rhymes absurd
with shifty eyes, they’re giving whys for living life deferred.

While jackals lean, hyenas mean, and hungry crocodiles
feast in the lounge and never scrounge, lambs languish in the aisle.
The naive dare to say “Unfair, let’s try to reconcile.
We’ll all relax and weigh the facts, let justice spin the dial.”

With jaundiced monks and minds pre-shrunk, the jury is compiled.
The Rulers meet, First Ladies greet, the Kings appear in style.
Before the Court, their sins are short, they’re swept into a pile;
with diatribes and petty bribes, the jurors are beguiled.

The Herd entreats, the Shepherd bleats the verdict of the trial:
“You have no face. Stay in your place, stay in the Rank and File.
And wait instead, for when you’re dead, for riches after while”;
Aristocrats add caveats while sailing down the Nile:
“If Minds are mugged or simply drugged with philtres in a vial,
then few indeed will fail to feed the Pharaoh’s Crocodile.”
The wordsmiths spin, the bankers grin and politicians smile,
the riff and raff, they never laugh, they mark a martyred mile.

The rituals are finished, all, here comes the Reverent Priest.
He leads the crowds beneath the clouds, and there the flock is fleeced
(“the last are first, the rich are cursed” - the leached remain the least)
with crossing signs and ****** wines and consecrated yeast.
His step is gay without dismay before his evening feast;
he thanks the Lord for room and, bored, he nods to Eden East
but doesn’t sigh or wonder why the sins have not decreased.

The sinking sun’s at last undone, the sky glows faintly red.
A spider black hides in a crack and spins a silken thread
and babes will soon collapse and swoon, on curbs they call a bed;
with vacant eyes they'll fantasize and dream of gingerbread,
and so be freed, though still in need, from anguish of the dead.

Fat midnight bats feast, gnawing gnats, and flit away serene
while on the trails in distant dales the lonesome wolverine
sate appetites on foggy nights and days like crystalline.
A migrant feeds on gnats and weeds with fingers far from clean
and thereby’s blessed with barren breast (the easier to wean) -
her baby ***** an arid flux and fades away unseen.

The circus gongs excite the throngs in nighttime Never Land –
they swarm to see the destiny of Freaks at their command,
while Acrobats step pitapat across the shifting sands
and Lady Fat adores her cat and oozes charm unplanned.
The Dwarfs in suits, so small and cute when marching with the band,
ask crimson Clowns with painted frowns, to lend a mutant hand,
while Tamers’ whips with withered tips, throughout the winter land,
lure minds entranced through hoops enhanced with flames of fires fanned.
White Elephants in big-top tents sell black tusk contraband
to Sycophants in regiments who overflow the stands,
but No One sees anomalies, and No One understands.
At night’s demise, the dither dies, the lonely Crowd disbands,
down dead-end streets the Horde retreats, their threadbare rags in strands,
and Janes and Joes reweave their woes, for thoughts of change are banned.

The Monk of Mock has fled the flock caught knocking up a tween.
(She brought to light the special rite he sought to leave unseen.)
With profaned eyes they agonise, their souls no more serene
and at the shrine the flutes of wine are filled with kerosene
by men unkempt who once had dreamt but now can dream no more
except when bellowed bellies belch an ever growing roar,
which churns the seas and whips a breeze that mercy can’t ignore,
and in the night, though filled with fright, they try to end the War.

The slow and quick are hurling bricks and fight with clubs of rage
to break the chains and cleanse the stains of life within a cage,
but yield to stings of armoured things that crush in every age.

At crack of dawn, a broken pawn, in pools of blood and fire,
attends the wounds, in blood festooned (the waves flow nigh and nigher),
while ghetto towns are burning down (the flames grow high and higher);
and in their wake, a golden snake is rising from the pyre.
Her knees are bare, consumed in prayer, applauded by the Friar,
and soon it’s clear the end is near - while magpie birds conspire,
the lowly worm is made to squirm while dangling from a wire.

The line was crossed, the battle lost, the losers can’t deny,
the residues are far and few, though smoke pervades the sky.
The cool wind’s cruel, a cutting tool, the vanquished ask it “Why?”,
and bittersweet, from  Easy Street, the Pashas’ puffed reply:
“The rules are set, so don’t forget, the rabble will comply;
the grapes of wrath may make you laugh, the day you are to die.”

The down and out, they knock about beneath the barren skies
where homeward bound, without a sound, a ravaged raven flies.
Beyond the Walls, the morning calls the newborn sun to rise,
and Peter Pan, a broken man, inclines his head and cries...

My chamber teems with tensions, taut, that logic can’t withstand,
fragmenting mental masonry with memories unplanned,
as bitter tears from hazel eyes reduce the stone to sand.

Dim shadows cast by candles flit across the haunted room,
beleaguer apparitions, pale, that stalk me through the gloom,
usurping purloined purple forms forgotten ghosts assume.

The tick-tock clock of time rewinds within the mirrored hall
and pendula suspended, pause, while creatures creep and crawl
on images of effigies, through memories that maul.

The madness of the midnight mass! Perchance it interferes
with spiders spinning spiral threads which bridge the chandeliers
when weaving minds' discarded coils to silken souvenirs.

Reflections graced the vacant gaze of idols as they fled!
Their futile, feigned, far-flung farewells now hammer in my head,
marooned like frozen silhouettes in footprints of the dead.

My lovers smile through marbled masks before they turn their backs
(like furnace flames deserting ash or phantoms fleeing cracks)
with faded, painted, wrinkled faces nightmares carve in wax.

Sometimes a gust disturbs the dust and secrets reappear,
which dance in silver slippers through the dusk of yesteryear -
it's not the screams that drown my dreams, but whispers which I fear.

The hangman posts a letter home, his message indiscreet
about the vestal ****** in the café (where we meet
to savour tea and crumpets) down a one-way dead-end street.

The rapping and the tapping at my tattered, time-worn door
repeat reports of migrant myths, of tales of nevermore,
strung far across a sullen sea, most shipwrecked near the shore.

Forget-me-nots, enwrapped in rain the while a wan wind blows,
recall the faintly fickle fates this drifter undergoes –
alone, unknown with tracks interred in teardrop undertows.

My feet, no longer tied or tethered, traipse within a squall
pursuing profiles long forsaken, buried in the sprawl
of spectres spread amongst the dead, some tattooed to the wall.

At times, the belfry towers toll of anarchy and gin,
of smoke and mirrors, rolling dice and other things akin,
impaled on forks down byway roads, and things that might-have-been.

The skies outside, beyond the night with shutters shut and drawn,
begin to glow on shattered shapes escaping ’fore the dawn
as clouds undone beneath the sun release this captive pawn.

so i get this idea sometimes
that you enjoy being coy
when it comes to me
to conjure momentary spectacle
& make me wonder
if you paint catharsis
on the doors of a home
you've never lived in
as a memory of our first night together
because i do, i remember you
beaming white on blue
speaking softer than any storm
i ever knew, i often think that maybe
you live that night in your mind
when your pillow is cold
& you can't sleep, it makes me wonder
if you do as i do, and rewrite three years fictionally beginning with a kiss somewhere
maybe a balcony or a quiet car
on the sand or in a sunlit grove close to your home but always a familiar scar on the maps we know we know by heart
i wonder if sometimes
the idea of me loving you is too real
and if it teems under your tongue
to stay observant but distantly intrigued
if by this distance you think it safe
to get a dog and pass time
on the couch with a journal & some wine
what i really wanna know is if your fingernails ever wish to have my skin under them
or if they would boast
about winning a war with my headboard
i wonder if you can imagine me
meeting your parents in your apartment & shaking your fathers hand
as a first of many calloused palm readings
and if you know that i trembled before them
how insignificant i had felt
to not know their daughter
in the way i had envisioned
how i picture such poignant moments
so tangibly sharp that sometimes
i replace  my memories with little stories
i tell myself that i can't count on two hands
the number of times i've seen you
& that i don't feel like a crater
when i recollect our collisions
i want to know if you still find madness
in the words that have always been about you
i wanna know if your imagination of me
looks more like an anniversary or an obituary

AMBIGRAM VII

Recto:

This thorny hedgehog world is rolled into
oblivious winter sleep, where fierce dreams
have clawed a hold and block the probing beams
that keep on seeking for a passage through—

a sleep so heavy and so deep it seems
the sleep of someone who had dared to go
to all extremes, had nothing left to know
or do. As winter ices up the streams

and blizzards howl and hurtle snow on snow,
the  narrow valley teems with soldiers who
must face the foe upon the frontier to
that cold new country where we all shall go.

Verso:

This thorny hedgehog world is rolled
into oblivious winter sleep,
where fierce dreams have clawed a hold

and block the probing beams that keep
on seeking for a passage through—
a sleep so heavy and so deep

it seems the sleep of someone who
had dared to go to all extremes,
had nothing left to know or do.

As winter ices up the streams
and blizzards howl and hurtle snow
on snow, the narrow valley teems

with soldiers who must face the foe
upon the frontier to that cold
new country where we all shall go.

Someday I'd like to wander free
like butterfly, like bumblebee,
perhaps to plant a willow tree
beside the silent solemn sea,

before these things exist no more,
from mountain top to shifting shore,
when, soon, bald eagles cease to soar
and build their aeries nevermore,

and fish forsake polluted streams
(where sulfur swims and typhoid teems
since no one really cares it seems)
to die inside our toxic dreams
while ice caps melt and winter steams,

and all the air surrounding reeks
as children choke, for no one speaks
of fracking wells or oily leaks
(Big Brother's silenced all critiques!),

and rancid rains acidify
so woods no longer multiply
(for God so wills, we can't deny,
which is, of course, our alibi).

And as the deepest ocean fills
with plastic bags, and garbage spills
upon the plains, across the hills
and turns to poison dust that kills
wild dingo dogs and daffodils
which sink in swamps’ forsaken swills,

the mocking bird makes light and trills
(midst waning wails of whippoorwills)
"Behold the surreal scene that chills
and greet the dread that death distills!
You've had your day with all the frills
that brought the flood and final ills
that can't be cured with bitter pills
nor yet undone with further thrills
of profit gained that grinds and fills
dead desert sands with dollar bills."

              EPILOGUE

Though swaddled still in infancy,
we feel we’ve reached our primacy
(aloof, though preaching piously,
disdaining deeds of decency)
and have no need of augury.

But in the pit of prophecy
the crucial questions seem to be:

“Is doom Earth’s fate, our destiny
to twist in tides of agony
destroying nature’s progeny
with no return a certainty
assured by death’s finality?”

and

        ”Should we plant a willow tree
to someday weep for you and me?”

“After we were clear of the river Oceanus, and had got out into
the open sea, we went on till we reached the Aeaean island where there
is dawn and sunrise as in other places. We then drew our ship on to
the sands and got out of her on to the shore, where we went to sleep
and waited till day should break.
  “Then, when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, I
sent some men to Circe’s house to fetch the body of Elpenor. We cut
firewood from a wood where the headland jutted out into the sea, and
after we had wept over him and lamented him we performed his funeral
rites. When his body and armour had been burned to ashes, we raised
a cairn, set a stone over it, and at the top of the cairn we fixed the
oar that he had been used to row with.
  “While we were doing all this, Circe, who knew that we had got
back from the house of Hades, dressed herself and came to us as fast
as she could; and her maid servants came with her bringing us bread,
meat, and wine. Then she stood in the midst of us and said, ‘You
have done a bold thing in going down alive to the house of Hades,
and you will have died twice, to other people’s once; now, then,
stay here for the rest of the day, feast your fill, and go on with
your voyage at daybreak tomorrow morning. In the meantime I will
tell Ulysses about your course, and will explain everything to him
so as to prevent your suffering from misadventure either by land or
sea.’
  “We agreed to do as she had said, and feasted through the livelong
day to the going down of the sun, but when the sun had set and it came
on dark, the men laid themselves down to sleep by the stern cables
of the ship. Then Circe took me by the hand and bade me be seated away
from the others, while she reclined by my side and asked me all
about our adventures.
  “‘So far so good,’ said she, when I had ended my story, ‘and now pay
attention to what I am about to tell you—heaven itself, indeed,
will recall it to your recollection. First you will come to the Sirens
who enchant all who come near them. If any one unwarily draws in too
close and hears the singing of the Sirens, his wife and children
will never welcome him home again, for they sit in a green field and
warble him to death with the sweetness of their song. There is a great
heap of dead men’s bones lying all around, with the flesh still
rotting off them. Therefore pass these Sirens by, and stop your
men’s ears with wax that none of them may hear; but if you like you
can listen yourself, for you may get the men to bind you as you
stand upright on a cross-piece half way up the mast, and they must
lash the rope’s ends to the mast itself, that you may have the
pleasure of listening. If you beg and pray the men to unloose you,
then they must bind you faster.
  “‘When your crew have taken you past these Sirens, I cannot give you
coherent directions as to which of two courses you are to take; I will
lay the two alternatives before you, and you must consider them for
yourself. On the one hand there are some overhanging rocks against
which the deep blue waves of Amphitrite beat with terrific fury; the
blessed gods call these rocks the Wanderers. Here not even a bird
may pass, no, not even the timid doves that bring ambrosia to Father
Jove, but the sheer rock always carries off one of them, and Father
Jove has to send another to make up their number; no ship that ever
yet came to these rocks has got away again, but the waves and
whirlwinds of fire are freighted with wreckage and with the bodies
of dead men. The only vessel that ever sailed and got through, was the
famous Argo on her way from the house of Aetes, and she too would have
gone against these great rocks, only that Juno piloted her past them
for the love she bore to Jason.
  “‘Of these two rocks the one reaches heaven and its peak is lost
in a dark cloud. This never leaves it, so that the top is never
clear not even in summer and early autumn. No man though he had twenty
hands and twenty feet could get a foothold on it and climb it, for
it runs sheer up, as smooth as though it had been polished. In the
middle of it there is a large cavern, looking West and turned
towards Erebus; you must take your ship this way, but the cave is so
high up that not even the stoutest archer could send an arrow into it.
Inside it Scylla sits and yelps with a voice that you might take to be
that of a young hound, but in truth she is a dreadful monster and no
one—not even a god—could face her without being terror-struck. She
has twelve mis-shapen feet, and six necks of the most prodigious
length; and at the end of each neck she has a frightful head with
three rows of teeth in each, all set very close together, so that they
would crunch any one to death in a moment, and she sits deep within
her shady cell thrusting out her heads and peering all round the rock,
fishing for dolphins or dogfish or any larger monster that she can
catch, of the thousands with which Amphitrite teems. No ship ever
yet got past her without losing some men, for she shoots out all her
heads at once, and carries off a man in each mouth.
  “‘You will find the other rocks lie lower, but they are so close
together that there is not more than a bowshot between them. [A
large fig tree in full leaf grows upon it], and under it lies the
******* whirlpool of Charybdis. Three times in the day does she
***** forth her waters, and three times she ***** them down again; see
that you be not there when she is *******, for if you are, Neptune
himself could not save you; you must hug the Scylla side and drive
ship by as fast as you can, for you had better lose six men than
your whole crew.’
  “‘Is there no way,’ said I, ‘of escaping Charybdis, and at the
same time keeping Scylla off when she is trying to harm my men?’
  “‘You dare-devil,’ replied the goddess, you are always wanting to
fight somebody or something; you will not let yourself be beaten
even by the immortals. For Scylla is not mortal; moreover she is
savage, extreme, rude, cruel and invincible. There is no help for
it; your best chance will be to get by her as fast as ever you can,
for if you dawdle about her rock while you are putting on your armour,
she may catch you with a second cast of her six heads, and snap up
another half dozen of your men; so drive your ship past her at full
speed, and roar out lustily to Crataiis who is Scylla’s dam, bad
luck to her; she will then stop her from making a second raid upon
you.
  “‘You will now come to the Thrinacian island, and here you will
see many herds of cattle and flocks of sheep belonging to the sun-god-
seven herds of cattle and seven flocks of sheep, with fifty head in
each flock. They do not breed, nor do they become fewer in number, and
they are tended by the goddesses Phaethusa and Lampetie, who are
children of the sun-god Hyperion by Neaera. Their mother when she
had borne them and had done suckling them sent them to the
Thrinacian island, which was a long way off, to live there and look
after their father’s flocks and herds. If you leave these flocks
unharmed, and think of nothing but getting home, you may yet after
much hardship reach Ithaca; but if you harm them, then I forewarn
you of the destruction both of your ship and of your comrades; and
even though you may yourself escape, you will return late, in bad
plight, after losing all your men.’
  “Here she ended, and dawn enthroned in gold began to show in heaven,
whereon she returned inland. I then went on board and told my men to
loose the ship from her moorings; so they at once got into her, took
their places, and began to smite the grey sea with their oars.
Presently the great and cunning goddess Circe befriended us with a
fair wind that blew dead aft, and stayed steadily with us, keeping our
sails well filled, so we did whatever wanted doing to the ship’s gear,
and let her go as wind and helmsman headed her.
  “Then, being much troubled in mind, I said to my men, ‘My friends,
it is not right that one or two of us alone should know the prophecies
that Circe has made me, I will therefore tell you about them, so
that whether we live or die we may do so with our eyes open. First she
said we were to keep clear of the Sirens, who sit and sing most
beautifully in a field of flowers; but she said I might hear them
myself so long as no one else did. Therefore, take me and bind me to
the crosspiece half way up the mast; bind me as I stand upright,
with a bond so fast that I cannot possibly break away, and lash the
rope’s ends to the mast itself. If I beg and pray you to set me
free, then bind me more tightly still.’
  “I had hardly finished telling everything to the men before we
reached the island of the two Sirens, for the wind had been very
favourable. Then all of a sudden it fell dead calm; there was not a
breath of wind nor a ripple upon the water, so the men furled the
sails and stowed them; then taking to their oars they whitened the
water with the foam they raised in rowing. Meanwhile I look a large
wheel of wax and cut it up small with my sword. Then I kneaded the wax
in my strong hands till it became soft, which it soon did between
the kneading and the rays of the sun-god son of Hyperion. Then I
stopped the ears of all my men, and they bound me hands and feet to
the mast as I stood upright on the crosspiece; but they went on rowing
themselves. When we had got within earshot of the land, and the ship
was going at a good rate, the Sirens saw that we were getting in shore
and began with their singing.
  “‘Come here,’ they sang, ‘renowned Ulysses, honour to the Achaean
name, and listen to our two voices. No one ever sailed past us without
staying to hear the enchanting sweetness of our song—and he who
listens will go on his way not only charmed, but wiser, for we know
all the ills that the gods laid upon the Argives and Trojans before
Troy, and can tell you everything that is going to happen over the
whole world.’
  “They sang these words most musically, and as I longed to hear
them further I made by frowning to my men that they should set me
free; but they quickened their stroke, and Eurylochus and Perimedes
bound me with still stronger bonds till we had got out of hearing of
the Sirens’ voices. Then my men took the wax from their ears and
unbound me.
  “Immediately after we had got past the island I saw a great wave
from which spray was rising, and I heard a loud roaring sound. The men
were so frightened that they loosed hold of their oars, for the
whole sea resounded with the rushing of the waters, but the ship
stayed where it was, for the men had left off rowing. I went round,
therefore, and exhorted them man by man not to lose heart.
  “‘My friends,’ said I, ‘this is not the first time that we have been
in danger, and we are in nothing like so bad a case as when the
Cyclops shut us up in his cave; nevertheless, my courage and wise
counsel saved us then, and we shall live to look back on all this as
well. Now, therefore, let us all do as I say, trust in Jove and row on
with might and main. As for you, coxswain, these are your orders;
attend to them, for the ship is in your hands; turn her head away from
these steaming rapids and hug the rock, or she will give you the
slip and be over yonder before you know where you are, and you will be
the death of us.’
  “So they did as I told them; but I said nothing about the awful
monster Scylla, for I knew the men would not on rowing if I did, but
would huddle together in the hold. In one thing only did I disobey
Circe’s strict instructions—I put on my armour. Then seizing two
strong spears I took my stand on the ship Is bows, for it was there
that I expected first to see the monster of the rock, who was to do my
men so much harm; but I could not make her out anywhere, though I
strained my eyes with looking the gloomy rock all over and over
  “Then we entered the Straits in great fear of mind, for on the one
hand was Scylla, and on the other dread Charybdis kept ******* up
the salt water. As she vomited it up, it was like the water in a
cauldron when it is boiling over upon a great fire, and the spray
reached the top of the rocks on either side. When she began to ****
again, we could see the water all inside whirling round and round, and
it made a deafening sound as it broke against the rocks. We could
see the bottom of the whirlpool all black with sand and mud, and the
men were at their wit’s ends for fear. While we were taken up with
this, and were expecting each moment to be our last, Scylla pounced
down suddenly upon us and snatched up my six best men. I was looking
at once after both ship and men, and in a moment I saw their hands and
feet ever so high above me, struggling in the air as Scylla was
carrying them off, and I heard them call out my name in one last
despairing cry. As a fisherman, seated, spear in hand, upon some
jutting rock throws bait into the water to deceive the poor little
fishes, and spears them with the ox’s horn with which his spear is
shod, throwing them gasping on to the land as he catches them one by
one—even so did Scylla land these panting creatures on her rock and
munch them up at the mouth of her den, while they screamed and
stretched out their hands to me in their mortal agony. This was the
most sickening sight that I saw throughout all my voyages.
  “When we had passed the [Wandering] rocks, with Scylla and
terrible Charybdis, we reached the noble island of the sun-god,
where were the goodly cattle and sheep belonging to the sun
Hyperion. While still at sea in my ship I could bear the cattle lowing
as they came home to the yards, and the sheep bleating. Then I
remembered what the blind Theban prophet Teiresias had told me, and
how carefully Aeaean Circe had warned me to shun the island of the
blessed sun-god. So being much troubled I said to the men, ‘My men,
I know you are hard pressed, but listen while I tell you the
prophecy that Teiresias made me, and how carefully Aeaean Circe warned
me to shun the island of the blessed sun-god, for it was here, she
said, that our worst danger would lie. Head the ship, therefore,
away from the island.’
  “The men were in despair at this, and Eurylochus at once gave me
an insolent answer. ‘Ulysses,’ said he, ‘you are cruel; you are very
strong yourself and never get worn out; you seem to be made of iron,
and now, though your men are exhausted with toil and want of sleep,
you will not let them land and cook themselves a good supper upon this
island, but bid them put out to sea and go faring fruitlessly on
through the watches of the flying night. It is by night that the winds
blow hardest and do so much damage; how can we escape should one of
those sudden squalls spring up from South West or West, which so often
wreck a vessel when our lords the gods are unpropitious? Now,
therefore, let us obey the of night and prepare our supper here hard
by the ship; to-morrow morning we will go on board again and put out
to sea.’
  “Thus spoke Eurylochus, and the men approved his words. I saw that
heaven meant us a mischief and said, ‘You force me to yield, for you
are many against one, but at any rate each one of you must take his
solemn oath that if he meet with a herd of cattle or a large flock
of sheep, he will not be so mad as to **** a single head of either,
but will be satisfied with the food that Circe has given us.’
  “They all swore as I bade them, and when they had completed their
oath we made the ship fast in a harbour that was near a stream of
fresh water, and the men went ashore and cooked their suppers. As soon
as they had had enough to eat and drink, they began talking about
their poor comrades whom Scylla had snatched up and eaten; this set
them weeping and they went on crying till they fell off into a sound
sleep.
  “In the third watch of the night when the stars had shifted their
places, Jove raised a great gale of wind that flew a hurricane so that
land and sea were covered with thick clouds, and night sprang forth
out of the heavens. When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn,
appeared, we brought the ship to land and drew her into a cave wherein
the sea-nymphs hold their courts and dances, and

Mother Nature rules the World,
And probably
The whole Universe.

Our Earth, a planet blue,
Just teems with Life.

Even deep beneath the ocean,
Amongst those geysers,
Oh so Hot,
You will find Life.

Lakes filled with acid,
Bone –dry deserts (look underground),
Solid sheets of ice:
They all are home-sweet-home
To bacteria
Or Viruses,
At the very least.

We bomb those cities to piles of rubble,
And poison the Earth with God knows what,
Yet always, given time,
Life will re-assert itself:
That sprig of couch-grass,
Those flowers.
Mother Nature never does give in.
Life springs eternal.

From amoeba to a dancing dolphin.
So utterly determined
To survive.
Clinging to existence
Like a limpet on a rock.
Invincible in Her tenacity.

Paul Butters

stand(ing) here alone in the dark
like a head of tack pirouetting away
  to no music - only acrid scruple
    of this being with and not being with,
     one is always alone.

  space occupies the potteries in
  the garden as a steady arm of light
  stills in its mouth, a flowering dark.
  it is only 3 o'clock in the morning
   and the heat clambers the wall of
   the vacuously atrabilious moment
  of just plainly existing. the slender
  harlequin of moon, like an old lover
  having its own way with me, a child's
  yelp coming home — the hermetic
  air crushing the light, slivering it
  revealing all the ensconced phantasms
  too commonplace like a fork in the road
that i know, or the wayward metropolitan
  that teems with a concatenation of roads
  and gutters bilious with the squall of day.

  a figure moves entering a warm miasma,
   receiving the star of aloneness,
    vacillating between
  place and         placelessness
   telling this originary of repossessing
       the moon with a hand in my hand,
   pressing a question of where
    have you been all the raging while.

Sweet girl! though only once we met,
That meeting I shall ne’er forget;
And though we ne’er may meet again,
Remembrance will thy form retain;
I would not say, “I love,” but still,
My senses struggle with my will:
In vain to drive thee from my breast,
My thoughts are more and more represt;
In vain I check the rising sighs,
Another to the last replies:
Perhaps, this is not love, but yet,
Our meeting I can ne’er forget.

What, though we never silence broke,
Our eyes a sweeter language spoke;
The tongue in flattering falsehood deals,
And tells a tale it never feels:
Deceit, the guilty lips impart,
And hush the mandates of the heart;
But soul’s interpreters, the eyes,
Spurn such restraint, and scorn disguise.
As thus our glances oft convers’d,
And all our bosoms felt rehears’d,
No spirit, from within, reprov’d us,
Say rather, “’twas the spirit mov’d us.”
Though, what they utter’d, I repress,
Yet I conceive thou’lt partly guess;
For as on thee, my memory ponders,
Perchance to me, thine also wanders.
This, for myself, at least, I’ll say,
Thy form appears through night, through day;
Awake, with it my fancy teems,
In sleep, it smiles in fleeting dreams;
The vision charms the hours away,
And bids me curse Aurora’s ray
For breaking slumbers of delight,
Which make me wish for endless night.
Since, oh! whate’er my future fate,
Shall joy or woe my steps await;
Tempted by love, by storms beset,
Thine image, I can ne’er forget.

Alas! again no more we meet,
No more our former looks repeat;
Then, let me breathe this parting prayer,
The dictate of my *****’s care:
“May Heaven so guard my lovely quaker,
That anguish never can o’ertake her;
That peace and virtue ne’er forsake her,
But bliss be aye her heart’s partaker!
Oh! may the happy mortal, fated
To be, by dearest ties, related,
For her, each hour, new joys discover,
And lose the husband in the lover!
May that fair ***** never know
What ’tis to feel the restless woe,
Which stings the soul, with vain regret,
Of him, who never can forget!”

Midsummer midnight skies,
Midsummer midnight influences and airs,
The shining, sensitive silver of the sea
Touched with the strange-hued blazonings of dawn;
And all so solemnly still I seem to hear
The breathing of Life and Death,
The secular Accomplices,
Renewing the visible miracle of the world.

The wistful stars
Shine like good memories.  The young morning wind
Blows full of unforgotten hours
As over a region of roses.  Life and Death
Sound on--sound on . . . And the night magical,
Troubled yet comforting, thrills
As if the Enchanted Castle at the heart
Of the wood's dark wonderment
Swung wide his valves, and filled the dim sea-banks
With exquisite visitants:
Words fiery-hearted yet, dreams and desires
With living looks intolerable, regrets
Whose voice comes as the voice of an only child
Heard from the grave:  shapes of a Might-Have-Been--
Beautiful, miserable, distraught--
The Law no man may baffle denied and slew.

The spell-bound ships stand as at gaze
To let the marvel by.  The grey road glooms . . .
Glimmers . . . goes out . . . and there, O, there where it fades,
What grace, what glamour, what wild will,
Transfigure the shadows?  Whose,
Heart of my heart, Soul of my soul, but yours?

Ghosts--ghosts--the sapphirine air
Teems with them even to the gleaming ends
Of the wild day-spring!  Ghosts,
Everywhere--everywhere--till I and you
At last--dear love, at last!--
Are in the dreaming, even as Life and Death,
Twin-ministers of the unoriginal Will.

I’m whirling about
There’s fruit I’ve never seen
And chainsaws
Hanging from the ceiling
Collections of rusted
And nostalgic
Remnants
Playthings of my
Past memory
The people here
Mimic the eclectic offerings
Every part of the group
Teems with
Individuality
I feel cherubic laughter
Quiver my lungs again
I head for home
Clutching a book
I acquired
From this impeccable
Trove

I'm just a lonely little leaf
So small, so insignificant
But in my dreams, I hold belief
That I could be magnificent

My skin would gleam of emerald green
To ward off snow and beckon spring
My fettered branch would welcome teems
Of chorus birds to dance and sing

My life would know such happy times
As wild winds lift me up for laughs
To flutter onto railway lines
And halt the trains upon their tracks

Yet in the morning, when I wake
From slumbered dreams, I find relief
In knowing god made no mistake
With me, his lonely little leaf

Evergreen tree,
Burning red bushels
Of bark, branches open,
Cloud robed against, beyond
The mighty blue mountains,
Sage colour, rages of green,
Teems immortal as the sun,
Where great eagles landing
To nest in the towering
Chapel of a giant body
Adorn, what was always
Regal, everlasting, true,
Spiraling to the citadels
Of the swirling heavens
And even your crown,
A thrusting spire.

I. (The Upcoming Trio).

There are three.
Of course there is only one right now,
but still, there are three
and they are lurking nearby
like a daddy long legs in the corner of a bathroom;
the more they daintily move around,
the more the need to do something about it.
One is foreign, far away,
young and surrounded by superglue sticky air,
questions having already been posed.
Two will lure you in with lipstick
and teems of sienna hair
but is taken with a drink.
Three, my strangers, is a bit of an unknown,
beautiful with powder blue eyes,
somehow missed on the first of the week.
Older! Would never have guessed.
I ask myself if one out of this group
will join the list of failures-to-be
with their own letters
or flowers
or stories
serving up rich reminders
of amateurish errors.

II. (The Summer’s End).

Before we all enter fall
some actions must occur.
A chat with five of those stepping up
into the world of small rooms,
nights out
and a lack of coins.
A reunion with linguists
for a talk and some tea
after over a year
since food in the market.
There’s also him
before he goes off to learn to teach,
P who had results last time round,
her with guy issues,
a fan of shoes
and the one above the rest
incapable of any words.
Good times ahead
with friends I hold dear
that ought to take place
before we all enter fall.

III. (The Procrastinator).

A ******, a waste
and a bag of mice on the floor.
Newspapers
under every little helps.
Really must be done
now,
now,
but no,
later,
tomorrow,
weekend,
why?
You haven’t gone back yet
to the days of park crossing.
Sort it out mate,
clear some space.
No more than an hour, tops.
How do you expect
to get anything done
if you don’t get up from the chair
and begin to move?

When you asleep at night and hear blood curdling screams
Do you wake up to the light and wonder what it means
Even though it's a controlling fright you don't dare find out what teems
It's better just to tuck your self in tight and pray for sweeter dreams

In the velvet dark that holds all dreams,
A thousand hopes are given flighted chance.
Optimistic wishes waft through empty beams.

A gentle ashen pallor moonlight reams;
A billion shadowed niches seem to dance
Within the velvet dark that holds all dreams.

A bluish glow though leafy vellum seams
Can thread its way through thick and wooden lance.
Optimistic wishes waft through empty beams.

And oh! the silken light above that streams,
Dissolving all the hundred million "can't"s
Within the velvet dark that holds all dreams.

The night that's holding precious breath, it teems
With broken vows, inconsequential rants;
Optimistic wishes waft through empty beams.

The wish for what is come to be, it seems,
Envelopes friendships, hopeful romance.
Within the velvet dark that holds all dreams,
Optimistic wishes waft through empty beams.

Words sworn over a lifetime in both action and deed
Pledges to stand side by side, no matter where the path may lead
Family, neighbors, classmates, teams, roommates, soldiers, and co-workers each
Who knows just where and how far back the bonds of time may reach?

It’s hard to describe what pulls us in and lights the spark
Maybe it’s shared things we’ve done, or grasping for a hand in the dark?
Times when we have no idea what to do or say
And rely on someone new to help guide our way.

Whether it’s for life’s major milestones or just good times with a kink
Like seeing that first skin rag, or being given an underage drink
Or helping you drop a class with untrue initials quickly signed
Those are the people all of us secretly like to find

Why?  It’s not just for the excitement or a quick little thrill
It’s because someone finally sees us the way few others ever will
And when they need your help you almost always agree
Because inside you know, “They will do the same for me.”

But be careful not to overstress yourself
Like a pile of books on an overstocked shelf
For almost without fail at some point over the years
They will push you right to the brink of tears

It may not be with unkind words or a shattering of trust
Each wanting the same lover and fighting down lust
Priorities change as days go forward; in that there is no crime
Hour long conversations may condense to “Sorry, bad time”

Our reaction to these moments is the important thing to see
Each one is individual, just like you and me
Do we accept the change and laugh when we are able?
Or is it forever on the fritz like a downed TV cable?

If the latter is what you decide
Try not to be bitter at the end of the ride
But if you are, remember, as anger and resentment teems
The good old days weren’t always good and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems

Can this be the time once more
Of utter giving up of our control
The simple folliwing of commercial madness
Our desire for the day when food and wine
Have to be gathered about us like the defences of yore
Headlong we run from mid-summer until
We are exhausted in body, spirit or credit
The desperate worry of what to buy whom
Or when to order the especially fattened bird for your table
The ridiculous overspending on presents
When time could be the finest present you could give

Yule tide is a special period for Druids and all pagans alike,
The wonder of simplicity of reflection of our past year
The elements of sleep as mother earth regenerates herself
Resting often under the warmth of a blanket of snow
Gathering of families and loved ones
Blessings of the solstice as the wheel of the year turns
Once more into the light as the sun begins it's journey
Returning to the northern hemisphere
Our birds and native animals preparing for the winter
Storing their food, digging deep as they look for vitals

Likewise the land is resting,
The soil teems with dormant life, every insect and worm
Every root, form and bulb
Slowing right down as the degrees fall to freezing
The frosty and rime ridden mornings giving the flora
A lift of white dusting and sparkling light reflecting
The weak, beautiful winter sun
Heaves itself onto the low glancing position
Just making it to the tree tops before retiring once more to sleep
Leaving glorious swathes of orange and red
Painting the sky as it falls and rises.

Yule tide comes as all seasons, times and periods
But once a year in our short lives
The earthy sounds, the images and emotion
The smell of the newly fallen snow and woodsmoke
The foraging birds and squirrels
The warbling and tuneful song of the blackbird
And the tut tut of Mr Robin resplendent in his
Bright red waistcoat bobbing around in the crisp frost
Our lifetime of Yules is a wonder to enjoy,
I know as I look from my window where my heart is
As the distant tree bare in it's winter shroud speaks
To me as a friend and anchor within this beautiful planet.

.
Evergreen tree,
Burning red bushels
Of bark, branches open,
Cloud robed against, beyond
The mighty blue mountains,
Sage colour, rages of green,
Teems immortal as the sun,
Where great eagles landing
To nest in the towering
Chapel of a giant body
Adorn, what was always
Regal, everlasting, true,
Spiraling to the citadels
Of the swirling heavens
And even your crown,
A thrusting spire.

What should never be
Soul separating at the seams
Bullets in my dreams
Me eyeing that apartment on Bub Teems

What should never be
Mama in the bathtub, in the floor
Pinned to the wall, I can't take any more
In my bed shaking to the core

What should never be
Night time screams and deadly dreams
Pounding pulse and silent repulse
Soaking sheets and floor beats

What should never be
Picking up furniture, who's keeping score?
The fresh metal hole in the screen door
Speak of these things never more.

Evergreen tree,
Burning red bushels
Of bark, branches open,
Cloud robed against, beyond
The mighty blue mountains,
Sage colour, rages of green,
Teems immortal as the sun,
Where great eagles landing
To nest in the towering
Chapel of a giant body
Adorn, what was always
Regal, everlasting, true,
Spiraling to the citadels
Of the swirling heavens
And even your crown,
A thrusting spire.

I have no interest in anything
insofar as a warm pitcher of spit.

there is a lineage of a plainspoken truth
that agonies itself, a slow ticking of clockwork.

all the pubs are filled with
the ugly and the beautiful.
so much the naked darlings,
so much the people writing,
and reading poems wrung dry
like unattended cornerstones.

when the flower dwindles,
the petals begin to shed.
I see people slower than drizzle,
tread the long line of existence.

as I write all words washed away by the shore,
all separated and lonely,
deeply departed as a parting hand of a wave,
all people continue their sameness.

inside me, a well-placed margin
divides flesh and bone.
overwrought the soul, untended to
like drops of water from a spigot left open.

sound of silence like the reproach of fires.
my mother loathes me for my heavy drinking.
my godfathers attenuate the smoke furling
above my brows back to its fetal nature.
somewhere, somebody is making a killing
in front of the billion-blooded.

misshapen. lungs struck harshly by a barrage
of quiet. i can barely keep my soul together
past the horrible billboards of EDSA.
the lampposts, the sun that looks like a lazy eye
magnifying everything that hurt.
I thrive with faces whose existences have nothing
to add me – damage further
I keep working up the old moon’s wane.

we will all fall to the ground,
we will all have our skin scraped out
of the body
and we will hear the paring of the flesh
sifting away from the bone
and it will hurt
like old haunts revisiting us

not because we are out of choices
not out of weakness;
the simple truth that teaches us
to be kind does not have its same potency.
there is an epidemic of death
crawling past hills crunched to the death
by the unrests of horses.

pain sends its
tired battalion of people
lining up across the turnstiles.
the ****** utter
the flimsiest of moans.
the soldiers beat their
wives to the ground with nothing
but bare-knuckled discomfitures.
I fear that soon enough,
what keeps the walls together may soon
touch the end
while I assault the windows

with photographs of slow mornings
reduced to slower evenings.
such falseness teems where
truth should have prevailed.

someone’s time is up
and death strays in the room
proud of its stench championing the perfumes
of boys and girls in the flesh -

we’re all next,
first one to go
finds the impasse all the same.

10pm the radiant moon hangs high
Children captured quiet in resplendent dreams
For this vivid moment i hide my cry

My happiness hidden with driven sigh
We share a dark night and the bright star teems
10pm the radiant moon hangs high

Depths of dark thought but no tear in pained eye
The future so loving, bludgeoned it seems
For this vivid moment i hide my cry

To want no more and create the cruel lie
The extent of desire buried in screams
10pm the radiant moon hangs high

I perceive a fall in my love to die
It flows violently down wide winding streams
For this vivid moment i hide my cry

I pull myself clear as the end is nigh
I fall and fold devoid now of extremes
10pm the radiant moon hangs high
For this vivid moment i hide my cry

To wish, to wish,
To dream a dream,
To writhe in nightmares of the obscene,
To ask, to know, to whisper, to scream,
The Waters of Regret, with tears, it teems.
The Night has vanquished the Softening Light,
The mind and heart, as one, in flight,
They try to spread their wings but unfold
Blackened remains of dreams so bold.
Skeletal and frail, they represent
The nothingness, the loss and lament,
They creak as they move in their fragility,
They yearn to wander eternally,
It happens that I do, indeed, readily
disagree fullheartedly,
With Love and its "virility".
Happiness is a virtue, a privilege,
Not a tome, a text, or pledge,
It holds steady in the worst of winds,
A Northern ship in the tides and spins,
The pitch and yaw of each barrage,
Makes one wish for camouflage,
From life, from loss, from all heartache,
All who I know regret me, their mistake.
Be at peace, I'm at peace,
It's the rest I need,
I try and remember when you were happy

As above...


...Your sky-dial feline mind, unzips
Bold rose-hip teems of fervour, kept
On ice, throughout the needle of
the duty-bound laborious.

You have geared the slug of
greased machines have
waited tables overseas,
have moved your shoes
to rythms of inconsequence.

So below...

Call talons from your lava skin,
in tracings of a milky way, step
ladders through the cotton fields
to set aside a broken string.

Float, leaf, about your symetries
to crook your spine in Gothic arches.
Sovereign , deep in quicksand warmth
through paths of least resistance.

Dissolve in waves of ageless truth
dashesd amber over Roman tiles.
In wild writhes of curling fern,

Your body shines obsidian.

.
Teems in the whirling grasses,
Fire in the daisies, littlest suns
Becoming patchworks of stars
Above the hallowed loams of soil,
The black ants shine in the light,
Spiders construct their silk laces,
Line by line as the wind unweaves
In the crepes, even in round dew,
One can see the globe of waters,
Watching itself in minnows' eye,
The insects, fly, iridescent gods
Floating sparkles, burst, buzzing
Wings, the stems of green ferals
Flowers flagging them into grace,
With chalice, tasting cup in blood
Of the petals, to thirst and quench
Ambrosial nectar, freshness, new,
Sweet in the tendril vines embrace,
The songs of colours, lowly birds,
Even higher, sing, above, choirs
Of the knarled and ancient twig
Branches that flame into briars
With leaves of yellow, feathers
So fair, water cresses in pools
Of the meadow and the violets
And buttercups spun, painted
With splattered, arts, confetti
Whirl, world in meadow sun.

I was raised well and right--
kind, loving, and bright--
but I do not glow
nor drink in light,
for this world I know
teems with walking plight--
preying on silent sighs
cracking loony smiles,
leaking crimson through
pearl bones baring
unfathomable truths

One lesson I've learned
from this congested city
is to remain optimistic
Bathe in the cold
that is the shoulder turned
Keep your eyes wide
so they dry faster when burned
and your cheeks glisten like
the dance of water's reflection

Seethe with laughter
under our calm,
cratered companion
Bleed placid volumes
of heightened reality
and inject the poison
of furrowed brows and
whimpering pleas into
every failed attempt
at hiding your shadows cast
by the foreboding full moon
Be what's been shining
towards a better you

the golden field
i wander
teems with life
like your naked body
teems with life.
i close my eyes
and listen to the
song you sing.
i think of the joy
and happiness
your love brings

In my dreams, it seems
there are means for meaning to convene,
an odd mind space in between
what exists and what is unseen;
often intangible serene,
grand, surreal, green
but just a dream it seems,
just a dream a dream a dreeeaaaammmm
coming undone at the seams
ethereal threads, silky sheen
a dimension where the mind teems
a shoulder for my soul's body to lean
my vivid, living dream

Some days sobriety is easy
I can feel the strength I carry in me
Bare my scarred arms for all to see
Happy with who I am turning out to be
Resilient in the face of adversity
Thanks to peace of mind and clarity
I'm staying busy; like a bumblebee
Filling my time with things that bring me glee
Like my boyfriend, close friends, and family
Along with plenty of activities
Like exercise and my favorite hobby
Turning my thoughts into poetry
I find confidence in a cup of tea
Every day I gain more energy
I even get up and do chores frequently
My hair and makeup I attend to daily
I've unlocked the door to joy; love is the key
At last my spirit feels weightless and free

HOOK:
I love how the sky looks when it's blue
But it is just as pretty grey and cloudy too
Abstinence is a crooked path, hard to navigate
The road to recovery is beautiful but seldom straight

Other days are really hard
Wake up to a sky black and dark
No light can be seen, not one star
My resolve starts breaking, shard by shard
When I can barely lift my head
Much less drag myself out of bed
And the rain outside seems to have no end
That's when I feel the urge to use again
Disappointed, let down by ones who are close
Alone when I need comfort the most
Thoughts spin in circles, craving a dose,
World crashing down, I almost
Give into the shadows and do something gross
Thinking "How much dope do I need to overdose?"
Even break down and pick up my phone
Start to dial a number that to me is well known
I deleted it but it's still in my mind
Guess I couldn't leave all my past behind
But before I complete the call
I picture my mom's face and I fall
Onto my knees, weakly I crawl
Until I am against the wall
I sob and choke on tears as I bawl
Curled up into a pathetic ball
Then I decide today will not be the day
I text my old dealer "I'm on the way."
I won't give in or go astray
If I can push through this i will be okay
I'm strong enough to stay clean at least I am today
Determined to keep walking the right pathway
And manifest the positive words I say
Impulses I'm no longer compelled to obey
See my strength and hang their heads in dismay
I evict my urges, now they have no place to stay

HOOK

Some days my steps are filled with laughter and gain
Other days the path teems with temptation and pain
The walk will get bumpy but in sunshine and in rain
I'll keep making progress no matter how rough the terrain.