My feelings are like dandelions.

Like ones in the spring
they can be linked
together in a chain
loosely held together
in a moment
tenuously connected.

but they are more like their fall counterparts, seemingly rooted, but blown away by a slight breeze

a field can be covered by hundreds yet they do not define the field
nor does the field define them.
what are my feelings if not definitively me?

like wispy dandelion seeds, soon to be more
but perfect in their imperfect potential
they are ephemeral fragments projected by heart and mind

my feelings are dandelions. i am not a dandelion.

i am a creator of dandelions and of fields and of breezes. of chains and of seeds.
i am the master of my universe.
i am the master of everything and i am the master of nothing.

i am the master of dandelions.

As the last waltz playing in my jacket ceased,
Loneliness and longing spilled out,
Along with a few coins and a recorder
From my roomy coat pockets.

The phone booth stood there,
Frosted by icicles of promises
Never thawed to life,
Yet a haven from my impasse;
A womb for the stranded & unwanted.

I closed the door behind me,
And fed the phone a few coins,
Punched your number with numb fingers
And fogged up the insides of the glass,
As I waited to hear your voice.

“Hello?” You said, but where were my words?
I must have lost them on my way,
I must have fed them to the phone
Along with the paltry coins,
Could you hear what I wanted to say?

“Hello?” You repeated, a little alert,
I listened to your silence, trying to smile,
It sank like warm music on my heart,
Waltzes and sonatas were so cliché.

Where were my words? Just one would suffice,
Couldn’t I sum us up in a single word?
I couldn’t find the kigo to our season.
I had lost it, left it with you,
That and my voice
In the world I was forced to leave,
And all this while I was held,
Tenuously to you by this phone call,
Till I heard the strained dial tone again,
In this silent world I’ve come to inhabit.

On elephant’s back,
Mahout tenuously perched,
Swoons over moon!

These words don't belong to you
or me

They come from down deep
From the low guttural rumblings
Of our sleeping planet

They come on the wind
as it flies into your ears and eyes
forcing you to take that deep breath: inspire

They come, gently, from the trees
whispering the song of the season
as you stroll beneath their branches

They come from the heart
as it pumps blood through us tenuously, with a rhythmic beat

They come from the stardust
of a thousand dreamy worlds
drifting slowly through the universe
and out the tips of our pens

LOVE AND LOVERS

by

TOD HOWARD HAWKS


Chapter 7


“Read me some more of your poems,” said Bian.

“OK,” said Jon and went to get the box that contained his poems in the  closet. He looked through the stack and selected several of them, then sat down next to Bian on the living room sofa.

“The first one I’d like to share with you is titled SOUTHWESTERN KANSAS.


SOUTHWESTERN KANSAS

When you fly to southwestern Kansas,
you see a different kind of Kansas.
The land is flat,
the sky is big and blue,
and the folk, the common folk, well, they get along,
the common folk get along in southwestern Kansas.

On a ranch down near Liberal,
the black night roars
and the wind is wet.
All are happy tonight, for there is rain
and tomorrow the pastures will grow greener.

In the morning when the sun first shines,
the hired hands
with leathered countenances
and gnarled fingers
awake in old ranch houses
made of adobe brick
and slip on their muddy cowboy boots
and faded blue jeans
to begin another day of hard labor.

On the open prairie made green by rain,
tan and white cattle huddle together,
munching on green grass and purple sage.
A new-born calf bawls.
Her mother, the Hereford cow,
is there to care
and the baby calf ***** her belly full
of mother’s milk.

About 60 miles to the north
and a little to the west,
The sun stands high in a blue sky
dotted with little puffs of white.
At noon in Ulysses,
folk eat at the Coffee Cafe:
Swiss steak, short ribs, or sweetbreads
on Tuesdays
with chocolate cake for dessert.

The folk, the common folk, well, they get along,
the common folk get along in Ulysses.
They got a new high school and a Rexall drug store,
a water tower and a drive-in movie theater.
They got loads of Purina Chow,
plenty of John Deere combines,
and co-op signs stuck on almost everything.
And they got a main street several blocks long
with a lot of pick-up trucks parked on either side
driven by wheat farmers
with silver-white crew cuts
and narrow string ties.

Things are spread out in southwestern Kansas.
A blanket woven of green, brown, and yellow
patches of earth,
sown together by miles of barbed-wire fences,
spreads interminably into the horizon.
Occasional, faceless, little country towns,
distinguished only by imposing grain elevators
spiraling into the sky
like concrete cathedrals,
are joined tenuously together by
endless asphalt streaks
and dusty country roads,
pencil-line thin
and ruler straight,
flanked on either side
by telephone poles and wind-blown wires
strung one
after another,
after another
in monotonous succession.

But things, things aren’t too bad in southwestern Kansas.
Alfalfa’s growing green
and irrigation’s coming in.
Rain’s been real good
and the cattle market’s really strong.
The folk, they got the 1st National on weekdays
and the 1st Methodist in between.
The kids, they got 4-H clubs and scholarships to K-State.
And Ulysses, it’s got all that the big towns got–
gas, lights, and water.
So the folk, the common folk, well, they get along.
the common folk get along in southwestern Kansas.


“The next poem is SIMONE, SIMONE," said Jon.


SIMONE, SIMONE

Simone, Simone
I’m all alone.
Simone, Simone
I’m all alone.
Simone, Simone
please come to me
and bear your breast
for me to rest
my weary head
and shattered heart
upon a part
so soft and warm.
Simone, Simone
I’m all alone.
Simone, Simone.


“The final poem, Bian, is TREE LIMBS,” said Jon.


TREE LIMBS

A long time ago,
I used to lie on my bed
and look out my window
and watch the big elm tree
as it died slowly.

And I used to watch the cars
as they traveled by,
some fast, some slow,
from right to left, and left to right,
and wonder where they were going to
and coming from.

Once from my window
I hit a bus with my BB gun.
I was scared
because I knew I wasn’t
supposed to shoot buses,
even though it was kind of fun.

And sometimes I used
to hide behind my curtains
and watch the pretty
girls walk by my house
in their swimming suits
coming back from
the pool in the park.

But mostly I just used to lie
on my bed and think,
and watch the big elm tree
as it died slowly.


“I love not only your poetry, Jon, but also how you read each one,” said Bian.

Jon gave her a kiss.

They drove to the tip of Cape Cod to watch the sunset, then drove back to the Twenty-Eight Atlantic to have dinner. Bian ordered oysters, lobster “Carbonara,” kale salad, and scallops. Jon had salmon tartare, chowder, baby green salad, and grilled octopus.

“Well, I’m excited!” Jon said. “We have a tremendous amount of planning to do, but we will have the experience of our lifetimes, and my greatest pleasure will be sharing it with you.”

“D’accord!” said Bian.

You are banded for life -
marked and set apart
to be despised, hated.
The yellow stripes tell it all -
you're to be feared
should one get too close.
Only among your own
are you accepted,
and then but tenuously.

--

Red rooster is yet to crow
but I feel
my pulse racing to
to embrace the new day.

Shadows of the night
cling tenuously to
parked cars and trees
awaiting the golden brush
of dawn's early light.

Sleepy elbows and knees
complain in vain;
my brain yearns only
for the kettle's
shrill persistent refrain;

caffeine's coveted crutch is near.

Roasted vapors of
Kenya's finest beans
thrill the air
with redolent coffee streams.

Breathers flare,
lips quiver,
tasters salivate,
first sip is here...

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!

My heart sighs...

It's time to write!

~ P (#writerscrutch)

i want to sew myself into you

black wire stitches to close the
gaping hole and
ragged edges of my fragmented self
held together tenuously by
crocodile ocean tears and
a bloodlust that is the only drive
keeping me alive

but you

you are somehow whole
a sweating glass of full fat milk
a body that is not
fragmented
a mind that hasn't been
shattered and the minute shards
ground into an irreconcilable dust
scattered to the wind
and how could you not be
ripped to shreds when
a hurricane fueled tornado
ripped your world apart one day
and cracked the looking glass
through which you saw the world

perhaps you are as self-deceiving as i am
maybe you have an even darker
wool pulled over your eyes
a piston to continually
push down
and errant emotion that
threatens to remind you
of that nameless pain
or shame
an inky black spot i would
rub out of you if i could
if you'd let me

i want you to sew me into your broken places

those crumbling cliff faces
bowing to the persistence of ocean waves
those places where you feel yourself
growing thin
threadbare hidden places that you
lead me away from
because why would you lash out
like a cornered animal when
i inadvertently touch on that
raw nerve which you
tried to ignore but the
wound just festered and now
leaks a pus and
emanates a stench of your
fear
trust issues

how can two broken pieces
from different people
fit together and make one
coherent functioning unit

i want to sew myself into you so you might trust me
like you trust your own self

but maybe you don't even trust him
that uninhibited man who lives
at the core of your being and
transcends all the pain and hurt
and is a perfect mirror image of the
man you were before she
cut out your tongue and
blinded you

i've let you see the
emptiness
the grand canyon that gapes
and yawns open
in the center of my being
with the gravitational pull of
a black hole with the entire universe in its
orbit
but you're like the stopper for
a bath tub and you
fit perfectly into that void

if you'd only let me stitch the edges closed
to a soft pink sensationless seam
a roadmap memory of
where we came from
and couldn't it be a scar that
reminds us of how we came together
reminds us of growth
of a vibrant returning spring even in
the bitter cold winter
we both escaped

and your eyes were the headlights
on the front of a screaming
ambulance that brought me
broken and bleeding to
the emergency room
and your face was the one of
a meticulous doctor
frowning on my damage but
methodically sewing me closed
to keep my entire self from
spilling out

i want to sew myself into your heart
just so that i know
you'll be just as torn
just as wounded
just as broken
when i watch you walk away
into the blinding sunrise
of a new day.

once more, with feeling
he calls as the bow skitters across the strings, my fingers
artfully pouncing down and around in a small space,
an elaborate tap dance and I feel my body reeling back as my soul
takes over, into autopilot and if I think, I'll make a mistake
I can feel the beat of the percussion moving through the section as I
am united to my standpartner and we to the rest of the world,
with feeling as the cellos strike their solo,
with feeling as the flutes take the melody,
again and we support the violas
I'm plucking now,
I shall never forget this,
the music swells and we are one, we are all
tenuously supporting each other with a connection that is so fragile
if it breaks now, it is lost, the world shall begin again but a little less
magical without it, the crescendo ripples and our hearts thrum,
too special even to write about accurately,
we know each other, we are all that matter now,
I have never felt more or less of a stranger,
it is just for the moment,
it cannot break, with feeling this time.

No man is an island,
but some are surrounded by water
just offshore
away from land.

Maybe we are bridges.
A golden gate or Brooklyn
or perhaps just a wood plank
here to join you to the world.

I am a peninsula,
joined only by one,
attached by but a thread
tenuously perched on the verge of seperation.
Drowning in salt water,
but saved by a bed of flowers.
Securing me to a place I see only from a distance.

Others are continents.
Surrounded by everything
home to many.
The lucky ones who are always full,
joined and attached.
Only a few live this way

No man is an island,
some are bridges,
others peninsulas.
Only the lucky ones are the mainland.

Rarer than diamonds, knowledge or hallowed life itself, valued beyond reckoning, two souls lay in the warmth. Their sire's face was awestruck, openly joyous at the miraculous news he had just received. The sheer happiness and tears that happiness had brought forth was almost as unprecedented as the event that caused it. His usually stone like mask almost completely melted as he embraced his wife and for the first time in 200 years, truly laughed. In the comforting softness of their mother’s womb, two consciousnesses  peacefully rested, unaware of the joy that their existence had wrought. In this warmth they stirred, feeble minds looking about for something to latch onto; and something they found. Metaphysical tendrils tenuously probed the lowest reaches of the upper dimensions. The twin psyches emitted an aura of precinct, but naive curiosity, 'looking' for some form of contact. Feeling the projection and reception of joy from the warmth surrounding them, they absorbed, discovered an experienced that joy, if only for a moment. As the wandering tendrils of not-thought climbed higher and brighter they came to an open Plane; the middle. Unable to go upward or back, they drifted forward, each in an opposing direction. They 'saw' each other. Timidly and slowly, each danced around the other tendril of thought, assessing and recognising its companion.
Hesitant, wondrous and cheerful, the strings of unstructured consciousness circle closer and closer, until one audaciously brushes against the other. At contact, they each shyly shuffle closer feeling and tasting the other. The tendrils give a faint shiver, grow taut and then still, before glowing. Revelling in their newfound closeness, the twin minds rapidly pulse, imitating a feeling felt but minutes beforehand; crisp, pure and untainted joy. The sensation flares majestically, before dimming to a low hum of contentment. In the material realm, their mother looks at her husband, her face lighting up at what she feels inside her; her children. Diamond tears slowly wash emerald eyes as she is embraced tightly, from both without and within.

Lay with me
In this moment
The shadow tantalizing
Love I never believed in

The sky our divine blanket
downy earth the only bed we need

A green sea I'm begging to drown in
And dream of the knowledge
That flows between us,
An ethereal link of pure-spun moonlight

Counting clouds and wishes
Like we hold the key to the universe
Behind tenuously pouting lips

Golden the only color I see
Golden summer
Golden smile
Golden you

The joy of you giggles up like champaign,
Dancing the giddy line of innocence and passion

Certain in the teenage naivety
Of times and truths and us
Of a summer fleeting steps to more

Hold me with the strength to fight the world of sorrow
Preserve the silken petals opening
Slowly to breath your sunlight and live

you rock me
like the wind on an old sailboat
and i'm thrown off my balance
tilting from one toe to the other
tenuously tightroping above a terrible tide
with a smile plastered on my fragile face
so you don't know
that i'm hurting inside
that i'm dying inside
and my words never seem to amount
to anything at all
you hear them
and you answer
but do you really mean what you say?
would you really run away?
with me?
well,
i'm still here
and you're still
there
way over
there
and i miss you
but you rock me
and i don't know if i'll make it
to the end of december

Until that cold truth bubbles to the surface
I let the sweet, soft silk of your touch press into my thigh.

Unflinching vibrations, a platitude
Frothing vibrations as connections tenuously entwine.

The swell within, clench tight, open deeply
I will rewrite your troubled past.

Chaotic words, chaotic thoughts,
Bombastic ideas and pensive deliberations
That float, even fly like volcanic ash,
Pounded out of the molten Earth as if
God were hitting the crust with a hammer,
And the masses of ash and dust cloud the sky,
Streaming like red and black chalk
Across the asphalt of uncharted thoughts.

And they rain, rain down
Like a tempestuous conflagration,
Beating upon the earth like mallets on drums,
Vibrating ever-so tenuously in the ears,
But resonating with verve somewhere within,
And then it stops,
Never to be heard or seen again.

And in its place are the bright rays of the sun,
Shooting light like a harpoon toward the ground,
Digging into the supple soil with a medley
Of confusion and anger,
Of apprehension and isolation,
And they burn caustically,
Warm the body as if they were pockets of magma,
Sliding across the flesh
And trickling into the pores, digging down
Into the heart, shaking it, squeezing it, weeping atop it.

And then the night comes on
As the sun retreats below the horizon,
And it brings with it the complacent lights
Of the stars high above,
That glow gently atop our brows and
Reflect dully off our shirts,
Dotting us with the paint-like
Stains of the unbridled release
Of laughter and intimacy,
Of love and vivacity.

And the placid night lights,
They seem to **** up all the heat,
Seem to save it from its vice,
And they dispel it into the great beyond,
Into the great unknown that stares down on the Earth
And renders it quiet and inhospitable.

Yet for some reason,
For some ungodly or unholy reason,
This night brings peace,
Even if dangers lurk somewhere in the dark.

2020 -day 201

Sunday, July 19, 2020
6:49 AM

first 活 {livelihood}
remember meeting the enemy
seeing it is I
I am my opposition
I am the reason I lie I know

this is the day to keep my head,
if all about me are losing theirs.
this is
the day
the schism in the isms is widening
we may see scabs falling from
wounds healed at word
one,
hope, really, no wu wu, wei true hope
taken unseen as possible
- in a realm of imagining all things
- either possible or not things at all

wise to the ways of thought taught
conditionally
from the vibe in the tribe who took
triggering the primal scream from a theory
to musing drum music isn't good to sooth
the troubled soul instituted intuitive as
stories passed from inside to insider
states of waiting for
inseeing
ensuing peace...
----
䕕 accepting subtility as grace abounds

positioning super beings in mythic roles
once played by mortals,
is there an institute rising from its knees,
believing a we is enabling, any we

audacious hope tied to the idea that was
institutionalized in a polis with no
memory of standing as free men,
free to imagine the world we
formed from was an institutional lie.

Tweet... retweet liar liar seat on fire,
get up and run
with the lemmings disneyfied as a certain
truth, we all saw the cute little rodents
unreasonably leap into the sea,
as nature guides for the good of the species...

but we know the scene, the stage, was set
off stage, obscene, the critters were
herded over the cliff, for the shot, but
we saw it
we know how it was done, but the message
institutionalized in baby boomer minds,
passed on to children who had children who
live fully disneyfied lives,
in true imaginary prowess of children...
----
䕕 accepting subtility as grace abounds

A good man leaves an inheritance to his
children's children.
Mine get the wind, not good union
jobs, no guild proven tasks to perform to spec,
to gain
tenure, hold on
confess, professor, confess

are you now or
have you ever been the other in a mob,
did you run the other way?
or did you stand
institutional, alone? stretch it stretch it
-post Patriot Act,

is this the turn-key total war,
are we the children in the wolderness
hidden
by old hippies who read books and smoke *****,

but never lied, not even a little bit
to skip taxes,

the law does protect the satisfied poor,
who rear curious children formed
to fit smoothly into forms of being being
sold for tasks needing intel
teliosis tell me is that the goal, that brave
sorting of knowers from those
who can't get a grip on the
truth in the military
universal mind,
unified as the us, the objectional form of
we, the people, who hold certain truth,
as our state, once we swear allegiance,

wait. watch. lie, say you know you saw
lemmings suicide for lack of reason,
just as crazy as a riot of *******,
marching into my valley
through the fourth wall into you,
inner you,
what do you know?

You got infected by an idea virus
vaccine, some old hippie dreams set aside,

as sub science connected tenuously sparks,
shock
pain
why
-- oh, I see says the pin, penned between
trigger and spiral rifling
misfires of the un loaded gun...
----

䕕 accepting subtility as grace abounds


once, north of the rairoad track,
down in slaughter house canyon,
I met a Gila Monstor, face to face,

I assumed it was a he as much as me and
I heard a question, I would have asked
were I such a thing being a he as much as me.

The question was why I would think
**** it, fear it, jump back

while I were so far away, come closer,
come and see,
I
think of me being a she as much as me
as
any pain avoiding being,
I am she who uses mornings,
to recover from each night by
basking in the morning light to loosen
old bones stuck in the cold
inner being, the soul at the heart,
of the mindless, dreamless state of being
mortal
under the influence of time and chance
and creatures of the night
ah, she says, I see,
why you seem afraid of me,

differing POV, see, down low, you know,
no big fat lizard, big around as a ball bat,
long as a little leaguer's arm,
looking me right, seeing me straight from
an angle I never imagined
possible,

insanity, as defined by the inner child,
who still can hear hummingbirds
asking renewal of the famed
font of aqua dulce from
the legend that led
them, the flock that lives in the oak,
nearly always  only after the
flowers have gone brown in July...
----

䕕 accepting subtility as grace abounds


No unfinished thing is ever finished,
only finished stories end in hell,
and even then,
we unbelieve our way out,
time and again we escape the madness,

merely to stir up the dust that first formed
a reason to be at all.

Were I a gemstone cut to fit a brazen niche
beneath a gear and spring in an old watch,
fit, solid, held in underling relationship,
as a point,
balancing, perfectedly enough for a time,
the measuring assuring we see, as
life passing before our very
un ordinary, common sense of self

con science, con carne, con fusion
sub all that
under all that, sub conscience, sub knowing
I know you are you alone and the bell,
tolls for me, the after all,
being
imagined as you

stand and see if you were I
as I am me,
would you have reason to **** me?
...
----
䕕 accepting subtility as grace abounds


In my youth, we all lived in
Real McCoy
Western movies, tales of conquering
common folk,
whose signs needed Dave Wassen to make any sense,
but that link is likely lost,
despite all the merit badges earned
-- you could not learn the sign language of the plains
-- you needed to live in a time before we became enemies

we welcome strangers passing through

bo'weevilish little critters, jes' lookin'
fo' a home... the pattern,

the frame, the threads themselves all twisted
and tied, crisscross
woof and warp, first we weave the canvas,

then we set the sail, or stitch the story,
Cluny Abby edifies some,
as did Medussa, on reflection,
subtle ivy bound
gardens of stone people memorialized,
became wordless tales for children to believe,
you see,
you may become as one of these,
the leaders who led us to now, some how, we
imagine,
we were manifested now, from underlying
circumstantial evidence of unseen, yet

see-able, visible, ignorable or not,
feeling a blind insight where darkness seems
a spot,
only empty. A place to rest a while and
imagine
peace as a river flowing from another's belly
to swallow me in being
as I seem
some days more than others, aware of efforts
to wind the invented witnessed cloud
of unknowing too tight to tic,
tic,
take a clock from long ago, one of those
hour glassic witty inventions for
timing eggs. Nada mas.

But, imagine, time shifting phase, each grain,
each
Leucippus bit re read as Democritical atom,
bouncing in picometer hops
in picosecond times
spanning all the years since one, the number,
was the onliest number
that you never see,
being as
you are later, after ever began, you began.

You continue, after I am gone.
But, don't forget your lines, your cue, you know
the reason you read.
My angel told you, no excuses, read or end up,
famous for your ignorance.

-- note: I read that the Donald Trump, as seen on TV,
claims a real bond to the Bible that binds him
and his base spiritua/financial
constituency, that which constitutes the
aberration being bid by mobs to become great, once more
swell up into an epluribal us being
under a
boss, the man on the horse LBJ wished to be,
the sky pilot Bush two boasted of being,
from the backseat, screaming Mission Accomplished,
while the BeeGees signal once more,
we started a joke...
that has the whole world laughing
at our grovelling
under the man we witnessed rising on the Obaman ashes
in Afghanistan, prophesied from Hollywood when Jack Reacher
was fit to that little guy, who stars in the Scientology
story. Jack Reacher is a myth, from my youth,
a type - like Marshall Dillon, but un civilized, and
able to accomplish any less than Supermanic impossible mission,
with pure Horton hearing, and Little Red Hen persistence.
But this was not my knack, I rest my case,

Once we are aware, you are the point of balance,
my point is made.
-- buried deep behind the guilt and shame and blame
wait, while seeing

Nothing doing is nothing done and
never imagined impossible again
(Peter Graves was Marshall Dillon's brother,
and both were Jack Reacher sized men, once sent on
Missions Impossible, as messages embodied, like
messianic hope some say
has always been a lie, heros always empower Tyrants
history claims, after all,
look around,
see...
past why or how, reasoning now,

it is true,
some wise of our kind, wandered to the edge
of the civilized state, believing as they walkt away
fore warned, each had a vision, a
knowing for some unseen reason, next is solid,
now is not,
take one step toward all you wish were true,
do
not lie to you
and you will never
lie to anyone regarding self
being me, not I,
we
see.
there was always a way to get by,
any damming thing,
and if you can not handle that truth,
you are fired,
go to hell and wait, end of story,
time out
test me, I am an American,
claiming this grew from seed Ben Franklin sowed,
I chuckle. You underestimated life,
witnessed from so great a cloud as commonly
contains reasons for having been,
stacked neatly in examined lives, lived. Read or be
ignorant, actively ig nor ing if nition.

Behold how great a fire...
----
䕕 accepting subtility as grace abounds
䕕 accepting subtility as grace abounds
䕕 accepting subtility as grace abounds

A thousand tailors stitching in the darkness
Cutting grotesque patterns from the whole cloth
And fitting them to phantom saviors
Who are fat or thin depending on the day

They use colored threads and wishful thinking
That tends to break at awkward moments
Leaving a garment tenuously sturdy
Until the moment when it’s not

As waterproof as cotton candy
As close fitting as an id
As cost effective as a wedding
As colorful as oil on water.

The garments must all be delivered-
A shiny new one every sunset.
Tailors strive to meet their quotas
Such urgent need for what they make.

They must replace the fraying tatters
Spattered with the grime of loathing
captured from the filthy air
And the footprints etched in mud.

They must fill closets ever empty
Though FedEx comes by every night.
It’s Cinderella’s slipper syndrome
When the clock hands stand up straight.

Tailors with their bleeding fingers
Have no idea what they make
And who will wear it for what purpose.
That’s why they labor in the dark.
ljm

Whispers that morph into screeches
Disturb the strands that tenuously hold
The ragged edges of reality aloft
In storms of self recrimination and regret.

Slender stalks of rationality bend down
Beneath the weight of foolishness
Grown fat and heavy in indulgence
That is justified by cobwebs of desire.

The music in the background plays
On bagpipes and a penny-whistle band
While the conductor tries to turn them in
To violins and harpsichords, and fails.

A river jumps it’s muddy banks
And floods the playing field with muck
As strands and stalks give up their load
And it all falls to nothingness.
ljm

Patience is an easy taste to slide across the tongue
When dull grey clouds accumulate as this long day is done,
When orographic clouds appear through every feeling sought
And rationale deteriorates with atmospherics bought.

Panic feeds the tendrils leading downward to my ****
As shards of eccentricity wind these turgid thoughts to lock,
Lock out all solutions to banish a release
Of all vestiges of patience from a tenuous sought peace.

War worn in a weariness, I cast about for friend
Full knowing this miasma deep within, may never end,
Full knowing the genetic flood engulfing DNA
May hold the key unlocking fragile answers to this fray.

Slouching in the shadows feeling tenuously spent
Reflecting that the best of all intentions often vent
A release, as a tear drop slowly trickles down my cheek
In accepting realisation of futilities I seek.

M.
Feeling so much better with that off my chest!
Hamilton
28 January 2017

Meet the boy standing on the stump
of a tree, (species undisclosed) lopped because
of reasons unknown, on the sidewalk,
towering over his shadow unrolled tenuously
like a policy behind him on the road littered
with mouldy cups, hired ants, ****** breathing-
you cannot find him on a GPS.
That would be delusional.
You can't meet him either. He's a service,
a tangy satisfaction that doesn't want dinner
until he goes back to his house,
plonks his backpack, bats his way to consequence-
rounds up his Kinley heart,
that limpid stare-ahead.

it's like suddenly
the dam has burst
and the words
won't stop tumbling

and isn't that what
you get after
a drought
the flood?

my scalp itches
but i just washed my hair
it itches
begging me to do something

a dozen half-baked
thoughts accumulated
a blank space in the
narrative of my life

to recap
what i missed
the things i
never wrote about

a toxic job and quitting it
watching my friends
and former friends
get married

watching myself
get married

that time when
i almost died

the constant struggle
between myself
and the body i so
tenuously inhabit

my boring job
where i sit at a desk

there's a lot i haven't
let myself think about
and maybe now
is the time to do so

my doctor told me last
time i went to see her that
she understands why i don't
want therapy right now
therapy is just a tool
that doesn't work for everyone

(it certainly works
if you find the right
therapist and the odds
align to keep them
but i've done this before
and i will do it again)

so i should do
something that
restores my soul
to maintain myself

and i must have forgotten
how calming
it is to put things into
words on a page
in lines and rows
to let myself happen

hate that it took me
this long to realize
what i'd
been missing

after the drought
comes the flood

I find your sin
deeply embedded in
soft silk stiches that you threaded,
the dark dyed lines you used
to imbue your touch
with more than the magic of
love and lust,
attaching me to the dangerous
state of us.

A practiced deceptionist you are,
spinning illusions with your webs of words,

oh deceiver, oh wicked liar
I bind your mouth with twine and wire
to trap your voice inside your mind
but still become ******* in your webbing.

Tenuously tangled and mangled,
I manage to unthread from you
to find a new avenue to the truth,
but just as I am about to unwind
I find I am inclined to stay entwined
with the very vines I used to bind you
because I am not ready to lose
the one who misled my lately leaded heart.

should Trump swindle electorate by hook or crook,
(1003 days, 9 hours, and
32 minutes until 2024 election),
yours truly steels, girds, braces... himself,
and plots serious outlook
pondering exiting United States
(stage door left)
while streaming media services
bridging, fording, navigating...
modus operandi to brook

potential violent political malevolent maelstrom
in the offing since... Revolutionary War
finds nonestablishmentarian comfortably numb
currently sequestered within apartment unit b44.

Maybe good samaritan
would sponsor me
(affable wordsmith afflicted with anxiety)
and the loving wife,
I can imagine emigrating to the
second largest country in the world
on par with dying and being reborn
into idyllic and Edenic afterlife.

Lifelong Pennsylvania opportunistic resident
desirous to move away from capitalistic bust
mein kampf, a miserable existence
peppered, pockmarked, punctuated...
with adversity - subtracting instances
being exponentially nonplussed,
(which lifelong mental health
analogous to psychological rust)
leaves mine lovely bones in dog I trust

eventually repurposed into ash
(since I will choose cremation)
an increasing eco-friendly choice,
cuz burial with casket and tombstone clash
with holistic humble paradigm,
but before transitioning into lifeless body,
an impetuous notion arises, a flash
in the pan far fetched whim
to craft reasonable rhyme

communicating intent to live abroad
amidst one of ten provinces
and three territories
constituting Canadian federation,
which genuine motive not emblematic
of huckster nor fraud,
nevertheless one run of the mill
garden variety **** sapien flawed
yet he aims to dwell with citizens who applaud

voluntary simplicity likened and linkedin
belonging and hallmark characteristics
kickstarted intentional community,
where self sufficiency touted,
and physical labor de rigueur,
which lifestyle change
would rank as welcome adjustment
versus housed within Highland Manor
a quite reasonable single bedroom facility
yet devoid of stimulation
enervating body, mind spirit triage

of one ordinary human
who finds himself a mystery
within terrestrial firmament
and frequently feels in a feverish pitch
as tempus fugit whips
him around the sun
at a furious dizzying speed,
while he tenuously grips
with blistered hands
gripping sharp outcropping,
meanwhile his spindle shank legs splayed
and sprawled haphazardly across
the bombed out war zone.

Rather than get further
bogged down with inane zeal
I best steer clear of further poetic poppycock
courtesy imaginary wheel,
thus the following pablum I unveil
nsync with titled malady all to real,
which plight involves hyperhidrosis
quite a debilitating ordeal,

especially when thinking
to pursue gainful employment
emphatically steadfast
and honest think (me) leal
course this humble communicates
(hyperbolically) embodiment ideal
if seeking to gain insight how I feel
about myself, a tense body
inept to cartwheel.

Detachment from the realm
of thoughts has kept tenuously
linked emotions trapped in unconscious mind waiting for
someone to unload them.

The earliest recollection with
lower gastrointestinal eruptions,
viz psychosomatic induced distress
occurred when yours truly
quite a young lad, which specialist
invited me to ingest barium sulfate,
whereby the pinkish chalk like solution
traced a path thru digestive tract
visible while I stood behind a screen.

Rear lee if ever attested subject
suffices as an apt poetic title
amidst bookish canon - while
this writer (similar to other aspirants
in their respective creative pursuits)
aware arbitrary perusers may deem vile

core body of voluntary selective readers
mentally affix probationary trial
before unequivocally gravitating
toward my genre or signature
swiftly tailored harried style,
which unique modality
of expression eventually

accruing some degree of popularity
affecting unseen frown or smile
nonetheless, accepting, enjoying,
and tolerating how I playfully rile
aware that anonymous reader's
patience can wear thin relegating mine

worded persona on par with a reptile
unknowingly breaking fragile bond,
hence she/he might not reconcile
without awareness a valuable kinship,
dismiss me as puerile,
thus forsaking tenuous link, one

that may never bare tangible fruition,
yet all along self scrutiny occurs to refine
thy cerebral thought provoking profile
also intimating months gone by bias
arises toward my
figurative handily prehensile

expansive vocabulary, could
(and/or does) rank as a pile
of unpleasant gluteus maximus
sphincter muscle missile
imposing effort to tone down exuberant,
flamboyant, and gallant mercantile

flashing blindingly exasperatingly,
and inflamingly nauseating vocabulary,
not deliberately juvenile
but this luxe lavish embellishment
a labor of (lost) love with English
Language (inherent since...

in utero), thus...infantile
asper taking shape without conscious
deliberation, though imbecile
appellation possibly affixed
as lasting impression,
perhaps even engendering hostile,

whereat no effort to exhort
unconditional acceptance of me guile
will transpire, cuz this chap
recognizes how tenuously fragile,
the online choice to remain a steadfast
virtual friendship quintessentially fissile

oft times casting the notion how facile
mine arrangement springs from one
core textured intellectual domicile
that houses persona of one docile
amphibious descendent, whose forebear,
yes twas a crocodile!