Come on do The Locomotive with me
Shildon smoky days with black sheet cloud
terrace rows
buy some cheap beef shank for the dog
open shuttered butchers smell of blood
sit at the bar peel the sheets soggy New Statesman
by the glass
started reading it on the toilet at home
had to get out
sink the pints eat a chicken tikka masala flavour
pork pie isn’t that an oxymoron? and humour
Gappy slumped at the bar no longer violent new leaf turned
collects shopping trolleys in the Asda car park
he’s got a badge and a green jacket waterproof
which is nice
so come on do The Locomotive with me
roadside ****** familiar faces though not so many
these days
faded glory days wall images of train filled
old days of engineering and purpose and place
the starting point of a world phenomenon a
phenomenon that brought global joy and death
in equal measure but sod that
Darlington and Stockton
got all the glory.

I was the childlike girl next door for him.

He was a gentleman and the crush of almost all the neighbours.

He never spoke too much so I was never a good listener.

For him I never mattered so much.

But I, like all other neighbours, had a crush on him.

His body never got my focus, but his writings were.

Day by day I fell in love with his unspoken words.

On a rainy day I wanted to express my love,

As because it was his favourite season after all.

Yes, he loved monsoon a lot.

Many neighbours had asked him once, 

Why he love monsoon so much?

He never spoke too much, as I have mentioned above.

But he said he will narrate it on a rainy day.

When I went and knocked his door, 

His roommate said he had went upstairs.

Greeting him a smiley bye, I went to meet my guy.

Love for him or for his words, I was confused a lot.

But I had already started calling him as my guy.

Silly or stupid or again childlike girl, what he will address me now?

I was wondering and riding towards him.

He was sitting near the terrace door and was writing something.

Hey, hi, Writing some poems I guess Mr.... 

I was silent for a while.

It didn't bother me anytime, but I realised,

I do not know his name.

***! what a great lover I am,

Without knowing his name I had fallen in love with him.

My heart corrected me this time.

You have fallen in love with his writings and unspoken words and not with him.

I smiled and said to my heart,

May be I have fallen in love with his writings and unspoken words, 

But the love for him is pure and real,

And I believe the love for him is also devine.

My conversations with my heart was broken by his touch.

Seeing me lost in my own world,

He had given me a **** on my shoulder and said,

I am a writer so I want to be known by that.

He may have wanted to say something more.

I truly like a bad listener stopped him and said,

Shakespeare had once said,

"What's in a name!" 

And being a lover of your writing, 

I too want to say, 

In name there is no fame 

Because fame is there where creativity and innovation resides.

He actually smiled and kissed my forehead,

And then took me to the terrace and said,

When I had come,

The place was new, people were new,

But when I saw you, I felt something not new.

I do not knew by your name but your smile was very much known.

Your smile was like the sunshine which I knew from a time immemorial.

Then were you spoke to me for the first time,

Your words were like the breeze which inspires me to write.

I used to notice when you read my poems after coming home.

Your comments after reading my poems everyday,

Was the best gift for everytime.

And you thought you never mattered so much!

I was happy that you understood my writings more than I had expressed in words.

I am not worried about the answer, I may get now,

But after knowing about your favourite season, 

Monsoon became my favourite too.

Without any fear, I want to confess that, 

I have fallen in love with the childlike girl who stays nextdoor.

Whatever be your answer,

Just say it keeping the raindrops as our witnesses.

Drenched in rain but my tears were real.

I felt like Monsoon had gifted the best rain that day.

Without any confusion, I hugged my guy.

Many days, months and years had passed since then.

Then what! 

He continued with his Writings and unspoken words.

He now goes for world tours,
To spread his unspoken words.

And I?

Being his better half, accompany him everywhere.

At evening, sitting on this terrace,
When the sun from the west, beyond Pisa, beyond the mountains of Carrara
Departs, and the world is taken by surprise ...

When the tired flower of Florence is in gloom beneath the glowing
Brown hills surrounding ...

When under the arches of the Ponte Vecchio
A green light enters against stream, flush from the west,
Against the current of obscure Arno ...

Look up, and you see things flying
Between the day and the night;
Swallows with spools of dark thread sewing the shadows together.

A circle swoop, and a quick parabola under the bridge arches
Where light pushes through;
A sudden turning upon itself of a thing in the air.
A dip to the water.

And you think:
"The swallows are flying so late!"

Swallows?

Dark air-life looping
Yet missing the pure loop ...
A twitch, a twitter, an elastic shudder in flight
And serrated wings against the sky,
Like a glove, a black glove thrown up at the light,
And falling back.

Never swallows!
Bats!
The swallows are gone.

At a wavering instant the swallows gave way to bats
By the Ponte Vecchio ...
Changing guard.

Bats, and an uneasy creeping in one's scalp
As the bats swoop overhead!
Flying madly.

Pipistrello!
Black piper on an infinitesimal pipe.
Little lumps that fly in air and have voices indefinite, wildly vindictive;

Wings like bits of umbrella.

Bats!

Creatures that hang themselves up like an old rag, to sleep;
And disgustingly upside down.

Hanging upside down like rows of disgusting old rags
And grinning in their sleep.
Bats!

Not for me!

Which one you choose; whatever?
Jimbaran, Kota or Nosadua
happiness inside leaves us forever

Took pictures with terrace rice fields background
thinking of hanging on the wall around
dancing decor all surrounds; echoing sounds

Looking for the bedcover pink and blue
Cotton floral design so beautiful true
when we can use it without a clue

Having a candle lit dinner on Uluwatu cliff
beside a table without a script, a band of music
breezing air across the ocean; not restrict

Tasting Luwak coffee on way to Mount Butar
the buffet was not super but we felt like Michelin cook rooster
Thinking of happy ever after

We went for banana boating
I was afraid of chocking though it was floating
while you're holding me tight but soaking

Now you are there without me
I'm sure your eyes will be full of tears
of the memories
can we call it tragedy?

I had not been born yet.
Still, I can see you at your labor -
alone, scouring the meadows
for the stones -
lifting their gray shoulders
from the moist earth -
pulling them from the
green grasp of briars,
goldenrod, and
Queen Anne’s Lace.

The smell of the earth
must have filled you with
your own childhood memories -
of plowing fields
and cold mornings
trudging across barn yards
mud thick on your boots -
promising yourself
that someday you would leave
and never return.

I can hear the pick axe -
the sharp strikes
against the stones,
and the dull thud
when the earth
swallowed the blade -
and the deep exhalations
when the stones tumbled into
the old wheelbarrow – new then -
that now leans rusting
against my garden shed.

Some of the stones were so large -
far too large for one man –
how did you move them?
I look at the old photographs
and you seem so young –
so much younger
than I am today - and so thin –
staring off-frame beyond the camera.
What were you looking for
in those fields?

I can see you sorting the stones,
stacking them -
building and unbuilding
and rebuilding the walls
and  terraces
until the walls were true
and the terraces level
and planted with dogwood,
birches, soft grass for bare feet,
and bordered with roses.

Did you know
that you were building my castle?
That the highest terrace
would be my tower and keep?
I remember calling out to my
knights, my legionnaires,
and tribesmen –
rallying them in defense
of the citadel –  ready for
the coming siege.

I also remember looking out
across that verdant kingdom
for the last time -
no longer a king or a boy –
and miles away, across the river
to the west, I imagined
the new home that awaited us.
I couldn’t know
how far away it would be
or what it meant to leave.

This morning,
as I looked out across
the garden that I have built,
I felt the weightlessness of time
and its gravity
settling me into place.
For a brief moment I had
the sensation that I was standing
on the shoulders of
gathered stones.

(for my father, Guy Spencer.)
Tom Spencer © 2015

Oh fair Milly Brandon, a young maid, a fair maid!
  All her curls are yellow and her eyes are blue,
And her cheeks were rosy red till a secret care made
  Hollow whiteness of their brightness as a care will do.

Still she tends her flowers, but not as in the old days,
  Still she sings her songs, but not the songs of old:
If now it be high Summer her days seem brief and cold days,
  If now it be high Summer her nights are long and cold.

If you have a secret keep it, pure maid Milly;
  Life is filled with troubles and the world with scorn;
And pity without love is at best times hard and chilly,
  Chilling sore and stinging sore a heart forlorn.

Walter Brandon, do you guess Milly Brandon's secret?
  Many things you know, but not everything,
With your locks like raven's plumage, and eyes like an egret,
  And a laugh that is music, and such a voice to sing.

Nelly Knollys, she is fair, but she is not fairer
  Than fairest Milly Brandon was before she turned so pale:
Oh, but Nelly's dearer if she be not rarer,
  She need not keep a secret or blush behind a veil.

Beyond the first green hills, beyond the nearest valleys,
  Nelly dwells at home beneath her mother's eyes:
Her home is neat and homely, not a cot and not a palace,
  Just the home where love sets up his happiest memories.

Milly has no mother; and sad beyond another
  Is she whose blessed mother is vanished out of call:
Truly comfort beyond comfort is stored up in a mother
  Who bears with all, and hopes through all, and loves us all.

Where peacocks nod and flaunt up and down the terrace,
  Furling and unfurling their scores of sightless eyes,
To and fro among the leaves and buds and flowers and berries
  Maiden Milly strolls and pauses, smiles and sighs.

On the hedged-in terrace of her father's palace
  She may stroll and muse alone, may smile or sigh alone,
Letting thoughts and eyes go wandering over hills and valleys
  To-day her father's, and one day to be all her own.

If her thoughts go coursing down lowlands and up highlands,
  It is because the startled game are leaping from their lair;
If her thoughts dart homeward to the reedy river islands,
  It is because the waterfowl rise startled here or there.

At length a footfall on the steps: she turns, composed and steady,
  All the long-descended greatness of her father's house
Lifting up her head; and there stands Walter keen and ready
  For hunting or for hawking, a flush upon his brows.

"Good-morrow, fair cousin." "Good-morrow, fairest cousin:
  The sun has started on his course, and I must start to-day.
If you have done me one good turn you've done me many a dozen,
  And I shall often think of you, think of you away."

"Over hill and hollow what quarry will you follow,
  Or what fish will you angle for beside the river's edge?
There's cloud upon the hill-top and there 's mist deep down the hollow,
  And fog among the rushes and the rustling sedge."

"I shall speed well enough be it hunting or hawking,
  Or casting a bait towards the shyest daintiest fin.
But I kiss your hands, my cousin; I must not loiter talking,
  For nothing comes of nothing, and I'm fain to seek and win."

"Here's a thorny rose: will you wear it an hour,
  Till the petals drop apart still fresh and pink and sweet?
Till the petals drop from the drooping perished flower,
  And only the graceless thorns are left of it."

"Nay, I have another rose sprung in another garden,
  Another rose which sweetens all the world for me.
Be you a tenderer mistress and be you a warier warden
  Of your rose, as sweet as mine, and full as fair to see."

"Nay, a bud once plucked there is no reviving,
  Nor is it worth your wearing now, nor worth indeed my own;
The dead to the dead, and the living to the living.
  It's time I go within, for it's time now you were gone."

"Good-bye, Milly Brandon, I shall not forget you,
  Though it be good-bye between us for ever from to-day;
I could almost wish to-day that I had never met you,
  And I'm true to you in this one word that I say."

"Good-bye, Walter. I can guess which thornless rose you covet;
  Long may it bloom and prolong its sunny morn:
Yet as for my one thorny rose, I do not cease to love it,
  And if it is no more a flower I love it as a thorn."

Hair burned into beautiful submission
Face acrylically defined and chemically composed
Adornments meticulously chosen
Scent tested and approved
Smile practiced and performed
I am a porcelain doll
Sipping tea, at 6 am in the quiet of a sleepy-city apartment
Porcelain doll dainty wrists
Washing dishes, feeding cats
Folding linens, singing hymnals
Praying for peace and safety
Porcelain doll knitting sweaters
And folding paper cranes
Reading poems, setting tables
Wearing cardigans and pearls
Porcelain doll decorating cupcakes
Lighting scented candles
Watering potted plants and humming childhood lullabies
With my porcelain painted lipstick mouth


But lipstick can be dark
Eyes lined black as city alley ways
There is anger at injustice
The world outside the confines of a pastel doll house
It’s messy
It’s hard
It’s iron and concrete and coal
And I am too
Biking through the brick metropolis
Sunglasses and headphones
And anarchist literature
Evenings spent sprinting through the smog
Heartbeats synchronized to the crude drumming of the city
So hard to impress
I’m on the metro
Eyebrows structured and defined
And adorned with a calculated air of apathy
See me social justice march
Down highways with fervently entitled youths
See me armed against misogyny
Until my peers learn to better conceal it
See me smoking cigarillos
Drinking black coffee
Breathing the tainted air of the city that birthed me
And chanting manifestoes.

But my manifesto can be love
And love can conquer anger and fear
And hatred
Love can reconcile, it can erase timidity
And it can abolish resentment
Let it wash my face and take the need for vengeance from my spirit
Let it replace the thirst for power with thirst for truth.
I burn incense
And wear long skirts
Naked face and braless lazy days
Reading pacifism in the park
I walk far to find pure air to breathe
I sit and deconstruct my dichotomy
Under a wise and ancient tree
I trace myself backwards and forwards
I meditate on the paths I have traveled
I cry for the things I have seen
And for the things I have done
I contemplate transcendence
I drink wine and listen to folk music
On the terrace of my home
I bike barefoot to buy Indian takeout
And eat it in silence on the floor of an empty room

I think only of death
And resurrection
Of betrayal and redemption
Of opposites and compliments
And how to progress in knowing how divergent pieces of myself can learn to harmonize
I think about minimalism and materialism
Sentimentalism
And swords and pens
And how this race I run was rigged from the start
I think about blackberries
And the complexity of their literary and symbolic significance
I think about the number seven as I see it reoccurring in every possible sequence and equation
I think about God,
And TS Eliot
And If I dare disturb the universe
I think about porcelain dolls and ****** activists and ***** hippies
I think about war and peace and politics
About corruption and poverty and imperialism
About western ideals and conspiracy theories
And communism
I think about being radical,
And how both sides of this ideological war are defined by fear
And I think about love, as radical but defined by the absence of fear
The absolution of fear
And how I am fairly certain it is the answer
I think about the inevitability of art and war
how they create each other
how they destroy each other
inspire each other and annihilate each other
and how there is nothing that is innocent.
I think about pain and privilege
And stacked decks of cards
I think about dreams and nightmares
And prophesy.
I think about the darkness within me
Tendencies to lie and manipulate and steal
The darkness that I know could make me very great
But alone in the ashes of the world
I think of the curse of wealth and power
And I try to evaluate my motives
And the driving force of my ambition
But I don’t know.
I think about grace and all the things I don’t understand
And toil and fate and destiny
The shape of these things, their origins and culminations
And what this black box of secrets contains.
I think about so many things,
Until everything I was on the outside is gone.
My body is gone
My painted face and sculpted hair
My varnished nails and pierced ears
All my clothes and appendages and freckles are gone
My blood evaporated
My brain an invisible energy in the wind.
My home and street
And city
Are gone.
And even in such complete concentration
When it is only my essence and nothing else
And I transcend throughout my past and future
When I am spread thin
And stretched into the corners
When I fill the cracks and crevices
And melt into the pores of everything
And my spirit is awaked to a dimensionless reality
Even then,
Scio Nihil

I know nothing. .

Blue Nile echo from shore to shore,
"Poverty in Ethiopia is no more!"

Above all,
From a precipice
To a valley when you majestically fall,
Thunderous over
The damp dell, mountain gorge when you roll,
As usual
With green, yellow and red
Rainbow arched,
Tell Ethiopia loud-
"You children thee very much adore,
A lip service they now abhor!
‘Blue Nile has no lodging,
Yet it loafs a log hauling.' "

Blue Nile, about your deeds to talk
Breathtaking, you served well
The industry without smoke,
But now you have an extra work!
Far
   And
       Wide
Ethiopia will be electrified,
With Blue Nile,
               Gebe,
                    Tekeze... at hand!
Every nook and cranny will get light,
When efforts Ethiopians unite!

The future will be bright,
When a tamed Blue Nile ceases
Unchecked to roar past
Without a respite.

No energy source runs waste
Nor any Plant will suffer a blackout!

Lo and behold Blue Nile will be subdued
For riparian countries' good!

To contribute a brick,
Ethiopians twice you shouldn't think.
Farmers have mounted on a peaceful battle,
To cover the catchment with a green mantle,
To make terrace
On each mountain
Take every pain.
To afforest the depleted f o r e s t!
Thus washing on its sway,
Blue Nile conspires no more
To carry alluvial soil away.

Here of course it is good to recall
The message of Emperor Twedrose.
"Dear guests you are
Amidst people hospitable
Welcome, welcome
Feel at home!
Roam throughout
Abyssinia you might,
On its grandeur your eyes
You can feast.
The vast array of
Mouthwatering dish,
The country parades
You could relish.

In case you wish
For an adventure,
Still Ethiopia
Is a mosaic of culture!

Of course
It will grab your attention,
Ethiopia's being
A cradle of mankind
And ancient civilization.

You will see
To its music titillating,
Comes close nothing!
Moreover fails not
To draw your attention,
The affection
Among people hailing from
Different ethnic groups and religion.
But you can't transport a speck of dust,
Alighted or pasted on your shoe by accident!
So to get an exit,
Shake off your shoe and wash your feet!"

Giving to every dust attention
It is possible to ward off
The problem of siltation.
Besides don't you think
The forests serve a carbon sink?

Blue Nile echo from shore to shore
"Poverty in Ethiopia is no more!"

As though Abyssinia,
Africa's water tower
Is a weakling with no power,
On every news hour,
Portraying Ethiopia
A development backwater,
Also scornfully on a dictionary
Painting its people thirsty and hungry
Have no grounds any!
From a rain fed agriculture
Head on
Making a paradigm shift,
Irrigation when Ethiopia further adopt,
The vicious cycle of drought,
Which poses a threat
To its development,
Will give way to a bumper harvest,
Once more rendering Ethiopia
A cornucopia.

Ethiopians be not cool,
Be not cool
Resources to pool!

Lo and behold Blue Nile will be subdued
For riparian countries' good!

Yet, yet hanging up together
Be high on the alert
Any aggressor to deter!
Many are
Who wear a frowning face,
When development
In Ethiopia picks pace!

Keep open your eyes,
Keep open your eyes
At all time, all space
Where infrastructures
Are put in place.

To the helm of development
Ethiopia will soon catapult,
When its children
In full harness their resources put.
So cognizant of this fact,
Ethiopians allow not
The grass to grow under your feet.
Don't wait
Behind the campaign
To throw your full weight!

For work, roll up your sleeve
Ready for ‘The Renaissance Dam'
Your sweat
B
L
O
O
D
And life to give.
March out for prosperity
In Ethiopia to thrive,
What we need have
Is a bond-cohesive
A

B-O-N-Decisive.
Go all out, go all out,
Us, lucky we have to count
For seizing such a ripe moment.

Blue Nile echo from shore
"Poverty in Ethiopia is no more!"

Come-on let us not beg to differ,
Of course we could concur,
For all of us will agree,
Our pet dream is to see,
Ethiopia industrialized
Completely transformed!

Laying the foundation,
Where on takes off
The future generation,
Is what begs for
Central attention.

Why, Why and Why,
With our hands
Tucked in our pockets,
You and I
Remain standers by?
Also why
Simply watch the clouds
Glide across the sky?
Must we indeed,
Sowing a discord seed
Allow our rivers run wild,
Turning a blind eye to our need.

Wiseacres, though
You may not be on the same page,
Between stakeholders
Don't drive a wedge,
The government proves out
Out to fulfil its pledge.
In life it is not hard
To get sceptics,
Dear leaders talk your walk
Walking your talk!
Prove sceptics wrong
Letting them witness
The actualization
Of the dam agog.

Tax payers, if you have
A tax arrear
See it finds its ways to
The government's coffer.

Taxes being
A development backbone
Must be mysterious to none.

Target also rent seekers
That drive spokes
In to development wheels!

There has been enough writing of the self or of circumstances I have often found myself trapped in,I think that the time now has come,to write about people who often go unnoticed in your lives,it is like oxygen,like you are always breathing,the blood is always flowing,the blood is getting oxygenated and then de- oxygenated and it gets purified,and its in your body,and you know it,you are breathing and you know you are,but we don’t really pay close attention to the flow of breaths we inhale and exhale,and that’s what is keeping us biologically alive and we know it,but how much importance does the breathing get,how much thanks,how much attention?
As I’m writing,believe me when I say that ,I’m not pausing,I’m not making things up,I’m not even thinking rationally or sequentially,I’m simply typing onto words that describe my very beautiful,my very  epitome of sacrifice and suffering,my very solitary reaper of freshness ,love and care,my very own – Grandmother.

No,this is not her biography,this is not about describing her,this is not only about thanking her even,this is about telling you all that I am deeply moved about how she is ,I fail to realist what she is actually made up of,I mean,a woman in her 80s ,of course a woman of a different era altogether,she is supposed to be an orthodox woman in her late 80s, aware of her approaching years,and sitting in front of the television watching serials or mythological shows or the very beloved babajis on air and hardly getting out of her room and ordering her daughter –in-law to get work done and medicines presented.
This is quite ironic to how we often stereotype old ladies to be. But let me make it clear,my grandma is highly different. And just like I firmly say that I’m going to remain as the ‘ Different Misfit’ ,different from a lot many out here,in the most weirdest angles,but I got this from my granny,apart from the misfit,she is an old,weak woman,she is short,and her hair has still managed to not get older,I think her hair know well,what suits her appearance,she has good brown-orangish hair, and not to forget,her charismatic blue eyes,eyes to fall for. She keeps her hair tied in a neatly made bun and drapes herself well in decent looking saris. No lipsticks,no makeup,no perfume,no sandals. She chooses to be her natural self,in her chapals. Only accessory to her will be her purse. And with purse,I mean,not the blinging  purses,but the small pouch type of  purse,she keeps around her waistline,cutely tucked inside her sari petticoat.She is a magical figure,at least to me.
‘Granny,I’m here.Namaste.’, I said as I reached her place,while she was mopping the balcony floor.It had rained heavily.
She first didn quite seem to hear it,even though I was very loud and pitchy. I saw her mopping, the door was open. I repeated my greetings.
‘ Namaste. Here you are,my child!’, she replied with a 100volt smile pasted on her beautiful face.

I am happy that my mother was able to convince m to go visit my granny,that Sunday,because I was going to have my economics test the next day,so I refused at first,bu then she managed to take me there.I’m glad, I did.
She is in an age that you can never tell how much time one has got,and all you can do,,is live the day like its your last,I think this has kind of become the motto for my grandmother. She walks like a snail. Slow yet gracefully.She lives in Lodhi Road. She lives alone.The house is massive. There are 6 rooms in that particular floor where she lives,the ground and top floor too connected with the first.The ground floor is occupied by a family of 4,a kin to my granny.while she stays on the floor above,she is expected to be with herself only. My maternal uncle,my grandmother’s eldest son,lost his wife a few years back,he has two kids,big enough to go settle in Mumbai.My uncle has been a headache for the entire family because of becoming highly psychotic and depressed,that clearly reflects in how things have become ugly with his relationships.He moved out to Noida after the demise of my late aunt. I don’t remember the last time I saw him interacting with people of his family,let alone my granny. They are like sort of reclusive now.Although my granny wouldn’t still mind him coming to reconcile with her or talking or offering a shoulder,even after what all she has been through regarding my uncle,my uncle refuses to lock eyes with her.Well,that’s a different story altogether.

My grandmother lives alone,in such a big house ,where two families of 4 could easily accommodate themselves.the winds blowing enter the rooms that are empty and unlocked,and rap my grandmother in nostalgia ,but she stays strong.family photographs hanging on the walls,Pictures of Rhino,their late dog,finding its place on the walls,reminds her of how the family was,and always sans her.Yet,she  is stoic and sturdy and never did she complain on these little details.
My granny has had a beautiful relation with my mother and her three daughters ,they are always there for her,its like after my granny has understood,that her daughters are now mothers themselves,she has realized,that she no longer needs to be on their head anymore,so my aunts and my mom herself is paying back to her,as being the reverse mother to her.It is a beautiful relationship they share.I sigh.

She got us tea and some snacks.She prepares them herself,despite having somebody to offer to help.She sits with us and talks and narrates news that she has got from here and there.She left the room when all of a sudden,out of nowhere my uncle pops up for some paperwork urgency,we greeted him,but we didn’t exchange anymore words.He leaves after a few minutes.

I was reading ‘The wedding’ , because I was sure,I was going to get bored because there was no sibling around,My dad was busy reading India Today and mom was accompanying my granny in preparing food. They later went to the terrace to see the traffic go by and have a good talk. They love to talk, trust me.While my mom carefully instructs granny to stay strong and be alright,I notice my grandma trying to control her tears,you could just make it out from her ****** expressions,her hands,quietly folded over another,and her head bowing down,she has never been confident and assertive,I had correctly judged.I ad overheard them talking,when I was passing by the room library searching for Sidney Sheldon.And that was when my respect for my granny grew,because in an age liker hers,the very innate ability to hold on,that perseverance,the  strength ,the power of forgiveness ,I mentally touched her feet and hugged her,because I was in no mood to disturb her conversations.I passed by.
I was learning each moment. In that house,I have been a lot of times before,but this one time,that Sunday,I was feeling like home,like a school moreover,in a moral science class all night. I was done with my economics revision,and it was time for diner.She had prepared Hot chapatis and my ever favorite Paneer for the dinner.She paired paneer with yoghurt,that was a new yet crazy combination,I tried and I was enjoying it,not because it was THE combination,but I felt like it was her idea of how food tasted, like she always felt curd could fix everything,not potentially everything,but,It’d be stupid to object her.
The dinner was tasty.
She cleans up the entire house herself. Like I said,6 rooms and a balcony,is not a small thing.it is one strenuous task she agrees to take up,not occasionally.but everyday.She refuses to take a house help,despite her health conditions,because she wants to  utilize her time or pass time in some way or the other. TV is the only source of color in her life.That keep her occupied. I salute you,granny.
I offered to do the dishes that day,but she saw me doing it,she came half running,half walking to stop me from doing it,and said this doesn’t look good,the guest doing it,and I was a princess to her,she asked me to step back,and I did not revolt,I knew,she did not have anything else to do except do them and sit and watch the sky and finally sleep . I stepped back.
I was reading my book,and there’s this part,when Noah shares that he still feeds the swan because he thinks Allie is the swan and she promised him to be there with him,so she finds her way through the swan.And I saw myself crying.i rushed to the balcony.Took a few deep breaths,sobered myself up,and a few winds blew,and I felt nice.
My granny was talking with my mother while my dad was listening like a puppy.i was reading,I could barely hear what she was talking about,and I didn’t want to even know what were they talking about,because the more I knew,the more anger built up,and the more I’d get sentimental and feel sorry for my grandmother.But no,she is not the one you’d feel sorry for,she was never wrong,and she isnt,and wont be,she is just a simple figure,an epitome of sacrifice and suffering and with such patience to be jealous of.We offered her to come and spend the time with us,and  all her other daughters and her grandchildren,but she refused,she wanted to be in the house,take care f the house,she was just so emotionally attached to the building that had lost its meaning,it was just a HOUSE and nt a HOME.she wasn’t made to feel it was,she had no reason,but she still loved it there.

I still wonder,while I’m writing here about her today,she wont be able to read this gift I am giving her,giving her love back,what would she be doing? No,this isnt T V  time,maybe making tea,what after it? She cannot read or write.She cant be on the phone all the time,then what? Maybe just sitting in the balcony? But today,its hot . then what? Just sitting on the couch,watching my grandfather's portrait hanging on the wall,I think she’ll brush off the dust on the garland and the painting maybe. Or she’ll re arrange the sofa covers or curtains. I don’t know. While we have so much to do,while people forget people everyday,while people make new friends,have so many tings to look forward to,we have so much access to **** our time and pass it away,but she ? she just stays this way and she just exists.

It was time to leave. My respect level for her had gone par average. I just wanted to stare at her for hours in silence,or maybe play with her,or maybe teach her pronounce some swaggy English **** words,I do that when she is at our place.She loves it with me.

Hmmmm.

As we were walking downstairs, I tried and rush and pause and rush and slow down again and again,to whether escape the moment,of the farewell,because it’d be hard,I could bet,and slow down so that I could see more of her.i just couldn’t get enough. In that moment,I swear,I loved her like a man loves a woman.But ine,was much more passive or hidden,I have always had issues with expression,and I regret that.

She could climb downstairs,the steps were steep and endless.She stayed there,while we went down,she bid us a goodbye,waving her hands like the flag of love ,like saying ‘ IT WAS GREAT TO HAVE YOU ALL HERE,I FELT SO BEAUTIFUL.YOU JUST FILLED THIS GAP I THOUGHT I’D SUFFER THIS WEEKEND.THANK YOU SO MUCH,I LOVE YOU,AND I DON’T KNOW,IF I SEE YOU AGAIN,BUT PLEASE BE IN TOUCH,AND LOVE EVERYBODY’. BUT SHE SAID ‘ bye’ .A  LONGER,STRETCHED VERSION OF BYE ,THOUGH.

It was dark,I saw her waving,I was waving back,so was mom and dad,mom and dad rushed forward,while i was till bye-ing my granny. I thanked god that it was night time,an nobody could see the tears gushing down my face. While we leave in 3.she bids us adieu in just 1. Years ago,she’d be with 4 others,and now she is just single. Alone.By herself. Still not complaining.NEVER.

I wiped them .My tears,and was crying till I got into the car,people saw me weeping maybe.I sat down.Still sobbing. Trying not to let people or mom and dad precisely notice my tears ,and I wasn’t brave enough to tell them that I was crying because I thought it might be the last time I saw her or how a wonderful woman she is.The wind was blowing hard and cold on me,while I was listening to Dead hearts on the phone.like the universe was conspiring in making me cry my guts out . My reverence for that woman was getting higher and higher beyond measure.At the traffic signal,a little girl comes up to me,my head was leaning back into the car seat,like a drunk Peter van Houten,while she leaned against the car window glass too,I think she was the only one in the entire night,to actually see me crying,she smiled. I smiled back. She glanced at me for a few moments,I was still smiling at her,she asekd me if I had money,but I wasn’t carrying any then,so I said ‘I’m sorry’ without speaking.She understood and she smiled and left.Slowly and gradually the wind helped me in evaporating my tears,so that I didn’t have to manually wipe them off,because just in case,mom saw me doing that,I wouldn’t know how to respond.
Thankfully,I fell asleep in the car and as I reached back home,I felt a little lighter,I called up granny and informed we were home safe.[ she always wants us to inform her when we do]  And she very sweetly said good night and a bye and then I thought to myself that HOW COULD SHE BE SO GENTLE AND NORMAL? I WAS SO JEALOUS OF HER RESIGNATION.I LOVE YOU GRANNY.
With a heavy heart and a new day to follow and with less percentage worries  of the test the next day ,and more of how my granny would pass away the time and sleep with a smile on her face ,I looked at the walls,said my night prayer and rolled my eyes,and went off to sleep.

There’s no place like home... except Grandma’s .
cc

Fall and follow down the river
Walking the sacred streets in silence
How imbued with the ethereal mist of prayers are these tables
These wooden chairs I sat in and wrote the diaries of my youth
I wrote lies with causal power
Constructed the material from ideas
Spoke over the waters and found land

Eat a candy cane to cover the scent of rolled tobacco on your breath
And get on a plane
Green busses down cobblestone lanes
Follow them like purple orchids on the terrace

Fall and follow down the river
A brown bench,
Balding fog
Sit like kneeling at the altar of the saint of childhood innocence
Repeat her prayers
Chant her mantras
Sing her hymnals
Ritual tower chimes with hell’s fear behind it
Rope and brass that dare not fall or falter
Down the river
Ripples like innumerable green eels screeching through the sacred heart of our Lord and city centre

Mornings like Masala chai and sunshine
How infinite and unceasing the heartbreak of those who love too deeply
How inevitable the prolonged fall of the great
Like eighteen razor blades
Shot through the sunrise
Bitter fruit of memory merciless
No amount of sacrifice can atone for the imperfections that lie beyond the boarders of my control
But I hail Mary nonetheless

Fall and follow down the river
Mother Mary cannot hear over the pounding power of the current
So seal your lips with black clay
And do not cry
For there is nothing more to mourn
Morning comes ripping down the track like a freight train
Tarantula clouds and sunbeams scamper over the sockets of your log-laden irises
Bleeding indigo from parallel razor blade canyons
Filled with the ghosts of things you were never promised

Masala chai oversteeped like the strong scent of river memory
Tremble tell me I’m forgiven
In your white robe anointing oil
Tell me I’m the chosen one
Incense and ****** knees from kneeling at sandpaper pews
Getting drunk of Eucharist, the Holy See,
Oceans of archives, history, prophecy,
Frankincense and myrrh,
Frankenstein, the Light, the Vine and highways through the suburbs
Jump off bridges
Fall and follow down the river

An eye for an eye
And a stitch for a stitch
Mile for mile river prayers define and drown me
Thick slabs of scripture separate me from my sisters
Masala chai and sunshine
Vaseline and pale northern light clear the black river clay from your pores
Embrace the snow
Teach yourself to love the suffocating questions that burn and blind you
Retroactive sacrifice still requires fresh indigo blood
Donate freely.
Fall and follow
Down the river
To the sea
Salt water heals all razor blade wounds
Even the self-inflicted
The choices you make to be good or great are swallowed in the moon tide
Sticky tie-dye bruises erase themselves with time and prayer
Like cups of strong Masala chai.

The oyster. Her oyster,
I've been dying to see the pearl,
the moment I and she,
went to swim together,
our eyes, with intense emotions, half closed.
I'll softly touch her with my long, trembling fingers,
swiftly, when I touch,
it would open like a jewel box,
I'll peer inside at all the treasures,
exotic it would be, never forget,
through obsessive nights,
I thought and kept awake, bleary eyed,
I wanted to tell her this,
but then, froze on my tracks.

The oyster, it glows in mind,
she, too pulsates with excitement,
we'll be together, in this submarine adventure.

In that night, our hearts didn't even wink,
sauntering through the still moon lit terrace,
when, one by one stars  
fell in place and adorned the sky's coiffure,
the waves of the sea,  softened
moved in languid salaciousness,
then, at that precise moment,
we came face to face.

The rough grains of sand, under our undulating bodies,
sighed sweet, sang a ***** night gull's song,
searing feel of salty wind  mingled with blood
oozing from love bruise, bites that hurt,
enhanced the pleasure of frothing blood ,
thirsty mating tongues, twirled and twisted.

*Oyster, her oyster, I remember every moment,
tapering in to gentle whispers,
dissolve and be the light, playing with the humming waves.

Where are you poet?
You poetess?
I search and become everything:

A pen of the sun's fire
Writing on a slab of jade,
I come face to face with all poets,
The roots of their soul dividing
Themselves dissolving into words
Writing the passionate fire sitting
On pillars of clouds,
A thousand moons surrounding them
Each like some serpent god,
They write the darkness like
Guardians of the night,
A stallar vertigo into the words,
They become like flowers
Of the Resurrection and in a lightning
Flash I am on a terrace of gold
Watching over a field of flora
And the storm's of April's pains
Comes to them each as a moon
In the sorrowing takes each word
And swallows them into verses,
They are the testament of wounds.

And still even more,
All are alone in the abyss they all share,
One man stands tall and says,
"Alone with everybody!"
He smiles as each poet places themselves
In a whirlpool of time,
They find a moment invisible
And make it a mirror,
It reflects forevermore the broken
Images of their past, they piece
Themselves upon a verse of shadows,
A verse is born and a piece of them
Stays in the past.

Suddenly there are those who live,
They are reborn from the womb!
They see daylight in the sorrows
And find happiness in clusters,
A perfect memory where the man
Loved the woman, her touch is like
An immortal fire burning into the focus,
His touch is a cascade of rose petals
On her naked body......

The young poets gather,
The defeat the circular days,
Fantastically naive and flamboyant,
Their moments flare like a sun's
Lost kisses on  magnetosphere's outer
Skin,
The procession of new pain
Fills the paper as they write an ancient
Language unbeknownst to them,
Their blood to papyrus, Sanskrit's
Unified language.

I see the poet's in their middle years,
Strong flavors mixed with heavy grief,
The clandar Is splattered in blood
While their dream sails away in paper boats
Sinking in the sea of forgotten hope,
They sculpt words of deep guts
That penetrate my spirit,
Time becomes a race against their pens,
Their fire blue into the jade
And life is lived on a string of theorise,
They become enlivened in the children,
Enormous mouthfuls of hope
Arisen from soils of regret,
And the perfect words ripen
Like a midsummer's harvest,
They spontaneously eat the fruit
Of life's labors and digest words
With seeds for the planting of more.

I turn my face in my search and see
The years turn golden,
These are the poets with life full
In experience and they write like
Youth writes, but written already
With eyes of indecipherable experience,
Their wounds are closed but written
In fresh blood, I could not understand!
They burn and are not consumed,
Their words are eternal in
Endless galleries of Picasso like
Verses, the words penetrate
Leaving me hopeful and confused.
I wonder if I would ever write
The light and the darkened like
They that balance both....

I find all poets in the middle of forever,
I see their walls of frightful memory,
Their home for tomorrow's bloom,
The self knowledge turning in
On itself and becoming wisdom,
They drown themselves in clarity,
Cling to audacious hope,
Remembering the nocturnal nightmare
Of the past, they are endlessly broken,
Always fixing themselves in words.
And I wrote a poem for them in
My mind:
    
        Poets, you little gods,
        The fire of life in your pen,
        You write the existence
        Forevermore on a slab of jade;
        
       I see the souls and angels
       Reading a book of every poem,
       I see God reading to understand
       His strange and wondrous creation
       Called the poet.

Meet me out on St. John's Terrace
Where the misty rain pervades
Where the city's distant
And the sky forever shades
Your eyes are soft and cloudy
Through the periwinkle haze
But I could see them sparkle
From a dozen towns away

--------------------

With Both Feet on the Ground

Hello, dear-one.
What say you in this lowly place?

"When twilight traces the terrace,
Touch the torch-sky with the tip of your lip.
               A sweet heat
Will draw your willful mind,
But watch! The torch-sky takes:
               Heart-stems
               Drip
               Drip
               Petals shower
The firelight blaze, like my root vein,
Spills languid and warm across the sky.
               Beauty in elation
               But now breathe out!"

--------------------

Then Into Deep Water

Say, dear-one,
What's all this now?

"The blue of night is sweeping over the torch-sky,
And shadows steal swiftly as silent silhouettes,
               Come coldly dancing
Do not disdain—dreams form feather-light foam,
And fade heavily in a salt-wash, flooding fervently.
                Covered darkly
                Step
                Step
                ­Shiver forward
From terrace to sea my foot falls easily.
Then the eerie eels entwine in the brine.
                Feeling supine
                Let the deep creep
                Until next time."

--------------------

But the Canvas is Brighter Still

Stay awake, dear-one.
Is there not more to tell?

"The search for halcyon has wrought hush-flickers:
Stars  staring brightly stripping night's dark domain.
               Drifting dazedly: humorous
'Theirs is a humming neatly humbling hysterias.'
Whispers Nyx, 'Dwelling hinders what dreaming may fix.'
               Sleeps slips
               Blink
               Blink
               Morning stands
Beacon! Bright butterfly, beckon bravery!
Billow boastfully—this day will be mine!
               Keep in mind,
               It's always divine."

Very good, dear-one,
A fine farewell.

i.

mo chroí, do not dismay, we art not chained global slave's, as tis
We art ourn father God's chosen; we need to bringeth hope to those lost, wearied and broken.

ii.

mo bhanríon, these stanza's art ourn song's, ourn voices shalt carry on, as peach-faced lovebird's in the dawn;

iii.

a chuisle mo chroí, holdeth me closer, embrace mine visage, we must be Argus-eyed, in the coming soon explosional shock, for this terrace of dirt shalt shaketh as rock's, back to the sand- dusted, eleven-fifty-nine's on the clock;

iv.

We were created together, verily for this reason, to emit forgiveness and compassion, if even for one planetary season;  also we were generated distances ago, then we were soulmates as still now- though then at that time, thou didst not know. I weaved intimately in and back out of thy soul, thine past spirit memory faded, before now I was thy king and thy whole. When we were sent to earth to taketh human form, ourn affections from kingdom's ago were forgotten and mourned, though tis mine lass when I saweth thee again, I kneweth thou were me, as tis I'm thee mine sweet, mine Jane, mine best friend. So now that I haveth thee again, back Into mine reach; we'll spend eternity with the saint's, well learn together, and we shalt teach......



©Brandon Nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry
©Earl Jane Nagley ( Filipino rose ) dedication

My dear, I assure you, this was not my deed. No, my dear, I am innocent. I awoke this morning from a genius dream to darkness, as my windows were covered with grayed curtains from my mother’s gold childhood. I stepped out onto the terrace without notice of the body. Perhaps it was not there yet. However, doctors soon established the lady had been dead for more than thirteen hours. I was not aware of her presence the entire time I took eloquent drags from my cigarette, only noticing the smell of the pollen-filled wind and, now I know, mistaking the sound of her blood hitting the concrete tiles as a mild shower from the south. Had I been aware of her presence, I’d have saved her, separated the handle from the clench of her body, and called the authorities. I’d have cried if only I remembered how. I’d have made love to her while I was still alone. Let her rest in ecstasy.
          Do you understand now, my dear? Do you understand the good that lies within me? I am not a man of killing; perhaps somewhere, a man like me is, but not I, dear friend, not I. Do you believe me? My God, if only the officers believed me. Instead they tied my hands behind my back and forced my lips shut so that I can not even yell of my innocence, all while dragging me into a cellar that now I must call my home because of an action I did not commit. That I did not commit! That I would never dare to commit! Atrocious, they call me. Atrocious, I call them for engraving lies into my brain, fragile to dementia but not to crime. No, never to crime.
         My dear, please note, they say I am who I am not. Devils! They paint pictures of a filthy man unrecognizable and insist it is me. *******! I have felt my skin tingle in manners unimaginable and a sensation of a new body rise within me, a new body whose deeds I have no control over. I am not the producer of this crime. I am innocent. This was my only confession to the officers who came into my apartment due to the neighbors’ complaints of screams unlike those of ******* coming from somewhere near my establishment. Indeed, I found, along with my new workmates, a bloodied woman looking down to the floor, lipstick mouth and tired eyes, impaled. Horrific! Was written on the notepad of the chief of police. Now I am strained on electrical mattresses, obliged to believe what I never would have dared to believe, obliged to reminisce my last taste of self-government: as I stood in the doorway of my terrace along with five police officers realizing they were not prepared for this grotesque imagery, I became aware of a fragile young woman, perhaps in her early 20s, hanging upside down with a rotten handle sticking from her mouth. Indeed, around her disentangled body were the satin sheets of my bed, drenched in her brown substance that shimmered in the snug afternoon sunlight. The officers hurriedly disregarded this fact and focused on the removal of the woman’s body from the handle, only to have her legs detach and fall onto the wet concrete. An officer yelled. Another grimaced. I giggled, watched, focused, determined. Upon further distant inspection, I observed that the handle had been ferociously inserted into her soft, delicate genital, forced through her dry ******, passing along the large and small intestines, only to finally pierce her stomach and come back up through her mouth. The beauty of the crime was terrifying.
          The beauty of the crime is terrifying. It is a blissful poem written by finesse, workmanship, delicacy. There is no manner for this legendary craft to be produced by me: I am a sufferer of mediocrity and its dreadful boredom. The father of the crime was a genius, the one I have always dreamt of being. Now, my friend, since my last day of freedom, I have no beauty to witness anymore. Confined, I befriend insects whose exoskeletons allow for strength and resistance to remain a part of them. I am incompatible to these powers; I am innocent. At many times, I howl for a touch at night; I awake with cut nails and scars between my thighs. Guards insist on restraining me. They sabotage me until I see Hell. Then, I am finally able to stay calm. No more do I sporadically feel my skin tear from my bones as if it were attempting to evaporate from me as a slight sting overcomes these unfamiliar ligaments. They ask me how? They ask me why? I remain silent fore I do not recall how or why. I remain silent fore I desire to know how or why. I desire the brilliance of the unspeakable act. Unspeakable in its grandeur; unspeakable in its cruelty. The filthy man the officers paint now becomes attributed to the crime’s brilliance to me. I see him more everyday. He wanders in mirrors and speaks to me when I am not aware of time and presence.
        However, disappointed, I remain with no explanation for the officers but that sunsets are composed of separations of wavelengths that shine differently onto each ray of existence than onto any other globular star. And, as this occurs, the identical wavelengths spray themselves among the individuals who are most vulnerable to hysteria in order to reflect themselves in unsuitable manners. That is how my mother explained to me the illness her womb inflicted onto my sacred hemisphere. That is how I began to call the foul insects who dared to climb into my cellar, my sole companions.

The sun rises tentatively through the forest heights behind the palace. In the pre-dawn light Jia Li has secured water and fuel for her visitors and despite the attentions of the pack horse men, who have returned from an evening at her village the worse for drink, she settles to feed her infant child. Meng Ning enters to seek her counsel. She already guesses his intentions and answers his brief questions with confidence. She knows the route to the Red Slate Path, perhaps four li distant. The path is clear, though little used. It is not a place those of her village visit, though she has learnt that the path itself defies nature’s attempts to cover its existence.
    Zuo Fen is standing on the terrace as Meng Ning returns to the Emperor’s Hall. She has slept deeply, is refreshed after a period of meditation and, despite the cold, has been washed and massaged by her maid. She appears dressed for walking, her boots, fur cloak and hat in purposeful combination. As she surveys the lake flocks of wild geese and duck chatter and squabble as they float on the surface. There are some experimental flights, pairs of duck taking off to fly in wide arcs only to return to the same stretch of water from where they rose in tandem. Soon the geese will leave to fly across the forests and moorland for distant harvested fields where they will spend the day foraging. Meng Ning points to a distant peninsula jutting out from the northern shore of the lake. Behind it, he says, lies the cove of the Red Slate Path. Perhaps there they will be able to understand more keenly the why of this mystery.

‘At such a distance,’ says Zuo Fen, ‘the detail of a boat would be quite lost. I imagine the peninsula acting like a pointing finger to its floating form. There is already fashioning within me a possible story that might explain this mystery.’

She smiles warmly at Meng Ning who bows his head rather than stare into her jade green eyes. She moves closer to his standing posture, taking his left hand secure but tense against the balustrade of the veranda. Lowering one leg before the other she slowly kneels, removing her hat, loosening her fur cloak that now spreads itself of its own accord beside and behind her. With both hands behind her neck she lifts her long hair found to parted and tied in simple peasant fashion. Raising her hands to full-stretch her sleeping hair warm from the bare skin of her back slowly cascades forward and across each of her ******* to curl like two cats in the bowl of her robe.

‘Mei Lim is with Jia Li’, Zuo Fen says curiously and with a voice Meng Ning has not encountered before. ‘I fell to sleep dreaming of your kind presence and the joy of being touched and kissed.’ He cannot see her face as she speaks, only the quivering fall of her hair across her kneeling body. ‘I awoke feeling your breath on my cheek and so brought your limbs to entwine with my own.’ He now senses the delicate unguents of her body; they compass him about, his hand falls from the balustrade to touch her hair.

Finding her right ear his fingers describe its shape, its sculptured relief of folded forms and crevices. He is becoming faint with something outside passion that requires him to go beyond her ear and flow of hair about his fingers. He unties his cloak, letting it drop behind him. He removes his boots and outer garments. She follows his example. He moves to her side, adopts the position of the swallow resting on the wind. They face one another.  To the accompaniment of their breathing, her hands begin a dance in the space between their lower limbs as though they are birds turning and falling in flight. Unlike the courtesans he sees at court her nails are short, her fingers long. Then, it is as though her hand holds a brush forming characters and she begins to write on his body with short deft movements this way that way describing her flight of passion. Some intuition tells him to allow this, and not to seek repricocity, as it seems from her breathing that these very actions give her the greatest delight, bring her to the edge of the first coitus. Eyes closed, he moves his nose into a glancing embrace with her own, feeling there a semblance of perspiration, that tell-tale sign of a woman’s readiness for the deeper embrace. She responds to this with sighs and swift movements of rapture that envelope him, and now, as she quickly brings her limbs into a right conjunction, he places one hand beneath her, the other to recline her body gently to the floor, her cloak becoming a pillow for her head.
    He now looks directly at her, her face expressionless as though all thought and feeling has entered her body in preparation to receive his own. She does not blink. There is a moment of great stillness, a great wave of calm breaks, moves forward and pulls back – and again, again. In an instant he will enter her Jade Gate to caress and kiss and move where only his Lord has visited. He knows that once there he will seal his own fate . . .
     It is the talk of poets that women are often at their most sensitive to love’s attention in the morning hours, and that this was, for so many reasons, the most impractical of times for men. Zuo Fen herself had written fu poems that took the reader to the most intimate moments of a concubine’s experience in the morning hours, those times when alone the body gathers to itself its essential nature, and is often caressed with the woman’s own hand and thoughts. To understand such circumstance, to hold its sweetness as an abiding taste during the formalities of the day, only to release its flavour in the pleasure hours of the night, was a manly attribute, said to be treasured, indeed honoured by women.
      When Meng Ning withdrew Zuo Fen lay for some while letting the unaccustomed circumstance and its location only gradually allow a return to conscious and present thoughts. She pictured now her journey to the Red Slate Path, Jia Li, her baby on her back, striding beside Meng Ning, then herself and finally Mei Lim - who would have entreated her mistress to be allowed to accompany her. There was the glade, a small bowl in the hillside where it was just possible to see a small cave from which, glistening, the broken patterns of the slate path fell after half a li into the lake. She would investigate the cave. She would walk to the water’s edge, where the trees stepped into and reached over the lake to lay a carpet of fallen leaves. Then to see the path gradually, gradually disappear into the depths.
    Whilst Zuo Fen, with her eyes closed, projected her thoughts forward in time, with accustomed tact Mei Lim left those accouterments a woman needs after the attentions of a lover. She feared for the young man, though she knew her Lord prized too much his Lady of The Purple Chamber to effect jealousy or display anger.
    As the sun cleared away the thin cloud and approached its zenith the company broached the crest of the hill above the glade. It was, Zuo Fen had to admit, just as she had imagined lying prone and in disarray in the Emperor’s hall. In silence, and in the company of her imagination, she now paced from cave to path to water, and standing at the very edge of the lake’s bank focused her mind to envisage the events of twenty years past.
     It was as though a rhapsody was already formed. She found herself recounting the tale in her world of characters where there is only present time. She felt her hand describe them with the flow of her brush, heard the sound of its movement across the thick parchment. She was slow to notice that Meng Ning had disrobed and was entering the water. Without a word she watched him move through the carpet of floating leaves, some sticking to his nakedness, and onwards, slowly, following the submerged path until his torso then only his shoulders were visible. She then knew what he hoped to find, even after the passage of so many years.

She saw it all, suddenly. The sorcerer Yang Mo and the Emperor’s second wife descending the Red Slate Path as a cavalcade of fire and smoke, loud flashes of light, noises of brass and clashing metal enveloped the glade and the boat itself. The watching company witnessed for a moment the couple disappear under the waters only for their collective sight to be shrouded in a climaxed confusion of the sorcerer’s devices and effects.

When, finally the smoke cleared, the boat and the lovers had vanished.

Zuo Fen watched Meng Ning disappear from view. She imagined him, as the pearl fishers she had heard tell of, diving down to the depths, holding his breath to seek what might remain of the illusory boat. But time passed beyond the possibility of what she knew could be endured by human-kind. The surface of the water remained unbroken. The division of open water made by Meng Ning in breaking apart the carpet of floating leaves was already reforming itself.
   Removing her cloak and her boots, and unpinning her hair, Zuo Fen stepped into the water. A memory floated towards her of bathing in the lake near to her summer retreat. Water held no fear for her, only now the cold consumed her. Her loosed hair, and her elaborate untied robe settled on the water’s surface: to surround her like a lily pad, she the budding flower at its centre. She felt her feet still firmly on the Red Slate Path, her chin now resting on the water’s surface. Whatever had happened to Meng Ning she knew her action to be compliant. She had immersed herself with the very element that had brought him either death or, as she knew in her heart, a most honorable escape.

Isela
takes it in
the mouth.

She'd get on her knees,
positioning herself
half-in,
half-out
of focus.

Just enough for Joe,
behind the Cannon,
to capture
the whole thing.

Eric,
the producer,
was on his hands and knees
beside Joe.

'Come on Izzy
work it,
work the ****.'

'That's right,
stroke it,
make him sing.'

'I love it,
Izzy.'

Izzy wanted to bite
down.

She hated each and every ****,
she ever saw,
but she had a few things to do.

Her **** had to be new
and renewed
on the daily,
her ***** had to get wet
on command,
and her stroke had to be
so fast
they'd burn the dude
as her mouth
cooled.

After her mouth
was littered,
and her face was a mess
of spinal glitter -- You could make a man
come out of his
brain, Eric would say.

Izzy would get in her car,
wiping her arm
where'd she'd gone
to the clinic
to get pricked
and tested,
and pull a long haul of Virginia Slims
down her throat.
'
It was always the first sweet thing
she tasted.

Izzy would pull into the Terrace View apartments,
all that long black hair,
and wipe all that make-up off,
three napkins-worth,
so she could kiss her baby.

Because Rocco was in for a bid,
and not coming home anytime in
the forseeable future.

Her microbiology degree was somewhere
in her closet underneath those pink stillettos and
more fishnets than fish.

And Izzy knew
that with those double d's;
*** like a backseat,
mouth that could grease
a ****,
and her hands
Eric liked to call his own,
that she could pay the light bill
and maybe
put Romeo
into a daycare center
that wasn't full of roaches
and
angry *******.

"Someday I'll get out,
but it's illogical
to say
with all the money I'm making,
and it's just a job
when you get down to it,
I've ****** a lot of *****
and never gotten
paid."

Rocco Jr.'s cheeks were always the second
sweet thing
she tasted.

"I know a lot of girls
that got defeated by this game."

Zuo Fen meets Jia Li and her child Hui Ying. The temporary guardian of the palace speaks with the help of one of the pack-horse men who understands something of the dialect this young woman owns. Zuo Fen would rather envelope Jia Li with her eyes than communicate in three-way speech. And so when Jia Li begins haltingly to tell the same tale told to Meng Ning the previous night Zuo Fen halts her translator with a gesture until the story – and this is what it appears to be – is told.

(Here Zuo Fen assumes the persona of Jia Li as part of her rhapsody titled The Sorcerer of Eryi-lou)

Alone in this crumbling palace
I guard my father’s charge,
He has been ill since late Spring
And I have disgraced my family
With a child whose father stayed
but a week trading horses.
Hui Ying was born here
And here we hope to stay.

I have now come to recognize
Many spirits of the past.
Mostly invisible I take them by surprise
In their mortal form; meeting a lady
And her maid on the hall terrace;
Seeing two men bent over
A game of go in a lesser chamber.
Music and the sound of poetry float
Variously through the many rooms.
The aroma of food comes and goes.
The burning of incense is ever present.

For many seasons my village supported
Palace life during the Emperor’s summer visits.
We provisioned and provided animals
For food and transport. Our young men,
Our women too were propositioned
For the more elaborate practices of the court.
Twenty summers long the palace secured for us
a livelihood beyond expectation.

Over time the events of the Emperor’s
Last sojourn in the palace became
For us the stuff of legend, though we do not
Embroider its story and have remained silent
Out of respect for the Emperor’s memory.
We know his son has rarely ventured here.

Let me only tell what has come from
my father’s lips, what he as a young man
Witnessed and through his guardianship
Has protected and honoured. He was chosen
By officials of the Emperor as a trusted servant,
A man who would oversee what had been precious,
What had been valued here, and is still deemed to be.

My father has spoken to me of the disappearance
Of the Emperor’s second wife with the sorcerer Yang Mo,
A disappearance witnessed by the whole company of visitors,
By the Emperor himself, and his son. I am charged to tell
Of this only to those bearing Emperor Wu’s seal.  Know I speak
With all truth and honesty in lieu of my father’s presence.

Amongst the many guests honoured by the Emperor
The sorcerer Yang Mo arrived by invitation
To spend part of the third season at Eryi-lou.
Already well-known to the court he had come
At the express wish of second wife Xie Jiu.
It is said that he created many remarkable illusions.
Unusual objects and rare animals were summoned to appear,
Rain fell and winds blew inside the Emperor’s hall,
There were piercings of flesh and limbs seemingly severed.
One morning it is said Yang Mo caused a boat
To appear on the lake, thereby at odds with the legend
That no vessel should ever touch its surface. Forthwith,
The Emperor decreed that such sorcery should
cease. But he was discouraged by second wife Xie Jiu
Who wished to visit the boat and sail on the lake.
Yang Mo offered to escort her across the waters
And led the assembled company to a small beach where
A path of red slate had been laid.  This appeared from
within a cave in the hillside. From thence it travelled
to the water’s edge and beyond, under the water
in the direction of the magical boat. Yang Mo is said
to have brought wind and fire and smoke
To play upon the company, finally inviting Xie Jiu to step
On the Red Slate Path and accompany him across the waters.
The couple walked slowly down the path into the lake
Gradually divesting themselves of their garments
As the waters consumed them. Then, before their very eyes
The Emperor’s guests and entourage saw the boat
Enveloped in a pall of smoke and disappear from view.
Yang Mo and Xie Jui were never seen again.

The Emperor was enraged, realizing suddenly
he had been tricked and made to look a cuckold
in front of his own court. In such a remote region
He had the slenderest of means available
to search for the missing couple. He resolved
to leave Eryi-lou immediately. Neither He or
His son nor his court has ever returned.

Allowing Jia Li to tell this tale without interruption had proved a right and wise decision. No sooner had the young woman realized her story had grasped the undivided attention of this celebrated courtesan than her words of description seemed to take on a rough poetry. Zuo Fen felt herself summoning unbidden images of the sorcerer’s illusions, moments of secret and forbidden congress between Yang Mo and Xie Jiu, the appearance of the sailing vessel from the early morning mists, the lovers slowly processing down the Red Slate Path, the disbelief and then fury of the Emperor.
      When Jia Li had taken leave to comfort her infant child Zuo Fen called Mei Lim to summon Meng Ning. She was clearly troubled by how her autumn visions from the west had brought her to this place and its unforeseen legacy of magic and deceit. The illusion of the sailing vessel and the walk into the lake on the Red Slate Path, both were elaborate and well-contrived artifices. They required skilled assistants and collaborators and the most careful planning. Sitting in silence opposite one another the courtesan and the chamberlain set their minds to consider the possible and elaborate trickery that might have been brought to bear on the complicit theft of the Emperor’s second wife. It seemed clear that all official record of what had passed had been expunged, and the Emperor had decided to abandon not only his summer sojourn but also his palace - immediately and forever.
        Zuo Fen wondered at the fate of the lovers. There could be no future for them within the known territories of the Empire. Their lives would have to begin again far distant. The province of Yunnan perhaps? But she laid that thought aside.

(to be continued)

The sky has turned a bluish grey.
I hear the voices of the city -
Words, music, traffic, train,
And shrill laughter floating in the lane.
The bells have begun to ring;
An old woman
Crouching in a corner of her terrace
Blows the conch thrice.
A white cat ambling by the road
***** its head to listen,
But deeming the prayers and noise the same
Continues in its search for game.
On a fifth floor balcony, a girl watches
The silhouettes of birds flying back home.
She has her own music,
The kind that shuts you out and sets you free.
Temporarily.

A train whistles in the distance
Carrying lives afar and beyond.
The evening grows dark, the moon rises,
The wind lulls and blows;
And life goes on…

So is it the same with you?
O, I understand now…
All this life of elegance and ease
and our husbands away constantly
on business…and they remind us of duty
and religion and sanctity and honor…
and it is the same with you…there is sketchy news
of your husband seen in such a city or town
in the north or the south
past the deserts or past the mountains…
a woman in such a place
and another one that accompanies him while you are here…
and it is the same with me…
they have entertainment while they are away
and they have expectations when they come home..
as with you, so with me…
perhaps, perhaps this is the transaction of love
turned into marriage
of relationships turned into convenience
an understanding, an arrangement…
we have our ease, and they have their pleasures…

It is raining outside,
Everything wet,
Soil, tree, terrace, flower ***, gate, wall,,,,
But aridity stifles inside,
Head, heart, hand.....
Like the fruits of silk cotton tree,
Cutlery ruptures thought
Humanist is slaughters on the street.....
But slayer forget that
In extreme dryness
When fruits of dry Cotton silk tree explode
It’s diffuse
Germinate in wet soil
and grow everywhere,
Humanist will emit all over again!

The sea is the beginning of a poem. It’s color is baby-blue.

It is and certain points has a dark shade tint to it.

The forest behind
  is green, forest-green and at not light not at all light:

Baby blue: I accept happiness and color

Is not: It’s not, it is not three O clock in the afternoon evening afternoon maybe like light and day but or eleven PM shady night I am smart that is not shade. I also think love exists outside of you with so many people to meet. Instances are where for keeping you warm and safe is what I am asking for, but I will and I did thinking of blueberries before you seem to have the problem it makes me smile that the color purple you are not only very pretty, cool, good, Okay, I love you not like but Okay I love you

Hey Mr. Comma you must mean too that are you mean too much to ignore I am soo satisfied with my amounts and experiences because they’re enough

People: Me, too, baby, someday, me, too, baby. Probably no lawsuits.

Between as well, the lighted shade of green-light is not, maybe pink, blue as well our the is the day is incredible and there is the a for the ceiling.

The top: Bottom towards the top is the top of one and so among many more are money pays for this, “Woah, wait, I’m actually at  I’m at Harvard Business School? What’s equity again?” Right, today other times I’m at the University of Sydney where I actually have to do stuff because it’s not Harvard University and what I mean is you should go to Harvard University and I won’t go to Harvard University I only keep saying and writing and actually I already ‘right, today other times’

Podcast: Apply hope you continuously tree where your words continuously are continuously sometimes safe to be to me to me to me

The words were to meet and that happened years like more than eight years ago but parts to me sometimes of the portion of the a pretty, pretty portrait.

I will complete before you also because you are working on next sentences completing next sentences and finishing your third next sentences book is only a small portion or part of the whole the the whole completed product, you pretty product, productively

Please be careful and safe, queen of the definitions that you came up with and answered. I want to be careful.

Hmm, what am I thinking about that is more like fantasy maybe an E topic wait that’s a power chord for a song you will enjoy, okay it is also a song and sure a subject or a topic but certainly a subject, you too should see.

I see that wasn’t too hard.

Hi Joan Mitchell, I like very much your art.

The act of painting: 1 color canvas added on the canvas and not to the canvas there is a difference

2 colors canvas added on the canvas,

3 colors canvas added on the canvas,

4 colors canvas added on the canvas,

Where’s the finished and presented product? I bet I can show that TO someone and that wouldn’t go well ON the person I am showing the finished and presented product to inside at their place and location that should be effortfully coordinated and agreed upon and decided. What’s your favorite verb?

And: lastly guy, fifth color canvas to the canvas. You’re gonna be beautiful tomorrow too.

Here comes the counseling the the. How do I get through?

Woah, maybe where what no more like I, too, am happy, gorgeous.

I, too, can afford a life and my life, I agree it’s color being used here and there there is here and it is a difference among cities and she also did it on her own like that color was chosen in a pair and not alone.

Social anxiety ***** and does feeling like you have depression. I don’t want depression. I don’t want social anxiety.

Boy: Way unique I am I am I am enough for you enough too and you will need more than you and I both can think ahead or plan

And: You should go first, no please, the view is great anyways.

And so are you. Please do not forget about you or your brother who would like to afford more than he needs, maybe five times more than he needs, and will think better of it. What’s permanent?

My head: that bag isn’t large and it also is not big. Nor should the bag be a no so you are a no, not like it used to be like I used to be here and there and there and here and here and here but like that and was supposed to happen and you didn’t be therefore wrong wrong therefore too. I’m in my office and I might have took a good day once at home for you too.

The best thing to do is better safe and be better safe.

That: You are a safe mother and you will continue with your family as well.

You: no more gazing near inky Monet gazette mail into vacuum today and felt badly needed a friend of course more friends but never the most friends

Oh: And so I called him and not her mother as I or because I looked at the trees while I spoke to him because I am not the only one that looks into the trees that are not really there for example, not present, there are no trees present. The forest, behind her terrace also is my terrace because that is something we, she and I, agreed on together like the signed apartment contract that is stored someplace safe and locatable is going well we both received well-being and good formal humor maybe some bad manners and some sort of stuff like I said to you like I said to you that I hope you a good day as well or too I clean the house the for you so you don’t have to clean it yourself.

Yourself: once no more than twice you are perfect and I hope you paint and have a good time at least while you paint.

I’m like that I’m so sorry, I can provide, I can support, I can offer you just never told me when, what or how yet I still did not turn out bad and you too did turn out bad. Wait you’re not bad, pretty pretty pretty pretty. I love you hope sometimes. Other times I am a single sales associate that does not and that think he or she does not earn enough money and does not want to shop from the store they (he/she) works at. It’s okay, it’s time to go to bed. I will get better. I hope it gets better. Before I go, is there anything else I could do? Apple is having a Black Friday sale and I bet the phone looks pretty and comes with a adjustable phone case.

i love you.
i love you.
i love you.

you prepared me for this
and i can't decide whether
it's ok for me to feel as relieved
as I do when I am not crying

i've never felt so much instant pain
and relief all at once
so confusing-- my ****** lady
who walks like a trucker

piebald nightcaps
tree terrace
800+ hours
miles upon miles of cigarettes

dengue.
my heart.
my heart.
you brought me to Christ

you showed that God is love
you've left such a huge rainbow
in the earth's clay
i miss you
i want you

but I don't need you now
you know that
we know that
my heart.

you dreamt me and robbie
will one day meet
we will
and it won't be incredibly soon

--but it doesnt matter.

promise brothers
promise sister
Ngariy.
please hug Tithinfal for me

i'm glad you are with him now
im trying to go to Yap on Tuesday
for a week to see Ray and Celine
and the kids

to see Tingin
our spots the island wide
the tunnel behind peace corps
i inadequatley described to you

but that you can now see
and feel
with ****** yapese local music
blaring in the background

i'll be fine
you know I will
with heart on fire
I reach out to you tonight

all nights.

i'll find Zeyto
i'll hug him
those eyes

i'll sit in Gilin's kitchen and chainsmoke
i'll make you proud
i'll spread your word
i'll spread your message

i'll spread your love
i'll make it to Africa
and ill see you again
before we both know it

i love you.
and i'm good
ill learn to dance with a limp

rug baadagem ni odig, tinmad
gu baadagem.

forever
forever
forever

go rest

We have a small sculpture of Henry James on our terrace in New York City.

Nothing would surprise him.
The beast in the jungle was what he saw--
Edith Wharton's obfuscating older brother. . .

He fled the demons
of Manhattan
for fear they would devour
his inner ones
(the ones who wrote the books)
& silence the stifled screams
of his protagonists.

To Europe
like a wandering Jew--
WASP that he was--
but with the Jew's
outsider's hunger. . .

face pressed up
to the glass of ***
refusing every passion
but the passion to write
the words grew
more & more complex
& convoluted
until they utterly imprisoned him
in their fairytale brambles.

Language for me
is meant to be
a transparency,
clear water gleaming
under a covered bridge. . .
I love his spiritual sister
because she snatched clarity
from her murky history.

Tormented New Yorkers both,
but she journeyed
to the heart of light--
did he?

She took her friends on one last voyage,
through the isles of Greece
on a yacht chartered with her royalties--
a rich girl proud to be making her own money.

The light of the Middle Sea
was what she sought.
All denizens
of this demonic city caught
between pitch and black
long for the light.

But she found it
in a few of her books. . .
while Henry James
discovered
what he had probably
started with:
that beast, that jungle,
that solipsistic scream.

He did not join her
on that final cruise.
(He was on his own final cruise).
Did he want to?
I would wager yes.

I look back with love and sorrow
at them both--
dear teachers--
but she shines like Miss Liberty
to Emma Lazarus' hordes,
while he gazes within,
always, at his own
impenetrable jungle.

And, you left me all alone,
left in such a silence that
I could't even believe you are about to leave.

You left an undefined scar in my soul and
my teardrops enchanted those memories we shared together
and laughed over them hours.

You went away in such silence
that all I could do is just NOTHING
but hearing you to mourn in such dogma.

Tears just drop by my cheeks and I just
wish you to come down and tell me,
              "I am here, my darling,
               Don't you worry child....
               I can't ever leave you alone."

They said, life isn't fair, life is never trustworthy.
Now I see an feel that hard every night.
I never felt that I can't hear your voice anymore anytime sooner or later.

It all comes and goes....
what matters is the in-between time
you spend together by thick and thin holding on to each other.

You were lying on the bed when
I last saw you and there also you were fighting
to get over that period.

Remember? We laughed there too when you said
you had 26 milk pies and I strictly said,
"Get well soon Dadu. After you go home you will be having curd-rice and "Khichudi".
..... And God never wanted that to happen maybe.
After that you couldn't go back home,
you left this virtual world that very night after suffering so profusely.

You were 72 and I was 22;
but we never bothered about this algorithm.

There were healthy talks over he sunsets, over the pages of my sketchbooks.
You were my biggest inspiration and critique for every work; cause you
always questioned their existence and morality.
You always chanted honesty throughout your life and give me
strength, so that I can follow your path.

One day, you will be a proud grandfather who will be seeing my works getting recognised all around the world and then we will laugh together...

Me, from the terrace and
You, from that sky.

Come soon,
come in a disguise,
come as my soulmate,
come as my midnight friend.....
....... but come back, please.
because Payel misses your presence and laughter.

I will weep and bawl on my bed some nights,
knowing I can't see you anytime ever.

That heart-wrenching pain and undefined scar in my lotus-heart will bloom someday with your desired presence in my success and failure both....    I believe so.

I believe in you,
I believe in us.
Because, God snatched one of my biggest possession without even asking for it.
You have to come back.....
... and you will.

To those talks and platonic love,
you are being missed Dadu.

I wish, I had some digits to call you up just to ask,
if they are providing you with some spicy food or not.

LIVE FOREVER.
YOUNG HEART N SOUL.

Take me to the Rookery with its many paths
A tea house selling refreshments in pretty glass
Three striped lollies covered in chocolate beads
Biscuits and sandwich are all that we need.

The garden was set out, in brick oblong beds
Raised from the ground and divided by hedge
Many bush roses, of the older kind, smelling of
Cold cream and sweet camomile.

There was a terrace with steps leading down
To a sunken garden where the roses reclined
Hanging over arbours, pink , white and cream
And other perennials added to the scene.

This place a haven at the top of Streatham hill
Does anybody know it, it might be there still?
My daddy took me often on a Sunday afternoon
To ramble in the sunshine, and play at my will.


Love Mary x

On the third day
of the holidays
you met Janice

half way up Bath Terrace
at the entrance to the flats
where she lived with her gran

she was dressed in her red beret
yellow flowered cotton dress
white socks and brown sandals

she smiled when she saw you
and said
feared you might not show

I told you I’d be here
you said
she looked at you

and said
I know
but some people say things

but don’t show
I’m not some people
if I say I’ll be here

I’ll be here
you said
glad you’re here

she said
Gran doesn’t like me
going out alone

she says there are strange men
out there who take kids off
and do things to them

and ****** them
yes
you said

I read about that boy
they found murdered
near here

she looked concerned
don’t worry
you’re with me

my mum told me
where to kick them
if they try anything on

oh
Janice said as you both
walked up to the top

of the terrace
to Harper Road  
where’re we going?

she asked
a bombed out
butcher’s shop

you replied
isn’t that dangerous?
she asked

not if we’re careful
where we tread
you said

isn’t that breaking
and entering?
she asked

no we don’t break in
you said
we walk in

the back gate
it’s not locked
oh

she said
looking concerned
we won’t get into trouble

will we? Gran said
she’d tan my backside
if I got into trouble

would I get you into trouble?
you asked
guess not

she said softly
you crossed
Harper Road

and went round the back
of the bombed out
butcher’s shop

and opened the gate
and entered
into an empty yard

you shut the gate
after you
and she stood gaping

at the back of the shop
you showed her
the large walk in freezer

where meat had once
been kept
now empty

smelling of ****
and damp
what if you got locked in?

she said
the lock’s busted
you said

oh I see
she replied
her eyes large

and her mouth open
in wonder
you took her into

the shop now empty
apart from a large table
with a marble top

where meat
had once been cut
and chopped up

it stinks
she said
yes tramps get in

sometime and shelter
for the night
are they here now?

she asked nervously
no they go off
in the day

you said
giving her
a smile

you took her up
the creaking stairs
to the upper landing

where the sky
shone through the roof
where a bomb

had fallen in
gosh
she said

how weird
one of the rooms
had an old bed frame

pushed in a corner
and the roof
was still there

except where a few tiles
had gone
someone slept there once

she said
and now
they’re probably dead

you took her hand
and walked her
to the window

and looked out
on Harper Road
people would have looked out

of this window too
you said
sad isn’t it

she said
and you sensed
her lay

on your shoulder
her fair haired
red bereted head.

La Ratita Presumida
“... y sentia muy feliz. Pero al terminar, el gato se lanzo sobre ella para comer se la. La Ratita lorgo escaper y aprendio a no fiarse de la aparencias”

Generally speaking, the most romantic matters take place beneath the moonlight. It shone down on the city of Barcelona that night with a certain intention, a mysterious plan. She went out for a cigarette, or a “thought” as she liked to think of it, her soul already marinating in a bottle of cheap, red wine.  She let the moonlight pour its possibilities upon her skin as she exhaled into the night.

It was this recipe:
¾ bottle of red wine,
1 pack of Marlboro Lights,
a pinch of red lipstick and
a dash of moony-mist  

on the dimly lit terrace that started it all.

Just then, a tall, blondish, smart looking guy walked into the room. She felt as though she could see the weight of his brain sitting in his head. Almost visible were the synapses firing within.

He spoke so smoothly, in a comforting, southern accent.
His words cast visions of sunsets,
surrounding her
in an unfamiliar, yet soothing
warmth.
She drew closer.
His southern spark lit her cigarette and
with that flick of the match,
an immediate magic ignited between them.

They spoke of Matthew Macconaughy, death and anxiety... death by anxiety, art and music and love and lust.

lovelustlovelustlovelustlostlove

“Just come with me,” he said,  “I’m not expecting anything... we’ll get brunch!” , he said. Ooooooh that’s a mighty word there, “BRUNCH”.

“Brunch”,
A word capable of bringing this girl,
to her knees
~the birds and the bees~
she left with him.
                                                              ..­.

“You had me at ‘brunch’.”
They took a cab to his shoebox-sized flat in Gracia, “the best neighbourhood of Barcelona by far”. They linked lips, caressed, clutched each other’s flesh and faded into one as the sun began to rise.
                                                           ­   ...
The sun came beating through the dungeon –like windows of the shoebox-shaped room. The laundry hanging outside-as it must in this city- cast shadows across their naked skin. It appeared to be dancing quite joyfully, despite the intensely hung-over state of the two strangers that lay entangled amongst the sheets.
As promised, BRUNCH ensued.  They chatted, and laughed and flirted. They shared secrets that no one else knew.

“I like your brain”, he said.
                                                               ...
In the weeks to come they spent every waking moment of each weekend in each other’s company. The rest of the time was spent as the charismatic protagonist in the day dreams of the other one’s mind.  

Hospital General, Sant Cugat Del Valles, Valldoreix, La Floresta, Las Planes, Baixador de Vallvidrera, Peu del Funicular, Reina Elisenda, Sarria, Les Tres Torres,  La Bonanova, Muntaner, Sant Gervasi, Gracia, Provenca,  Passeig de Gracia, Placa Catalunya.

The Trains chugged on
And on
And just remember it’s hard to stop a train...

Gracia -the best neighbourhood in Barcelona- sang like a bird in her ear and a sore thumb pressing its weight into her aching heart.  

Take me Spanish Caravan, yes I know you can...
...I know where treasure is waiting for me
Silver and gold in the mountains in Spain
I have to see you again and again.

Take me Spanish Caravan, yes I know you can.
                                                           ­        ...
That dreaded, dreary morning, the rain beat down. The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plane -Or all over, really.

She helped him stuff his damp laundry
into his star-spangled suitcase,
himself into her...




He came,
she left, and so did he.




*I'd like to see you again
and again.

On the day I pass I believe I'll stop by -
Orly Terrace to tell my friends goodbye
Check on love notes carved in Pine trees -
and hunt for 'crawdads' one last time at my
favorite creek , walk the side roads like they
were dirt again , chase the ice cream man
down the road just one more time , feet flying , half dollar in hand* ....

Mumok Museum [24]

What am I doing in Vienna,
staring at cold sterile pop art as the whole entire world we're on burns,
in a city I never wanted to go to,
doing things that never really seemed that inspiring,

& it's not that I have an antipathetic attitude towards these pathetic fools,
in fact it's actually just the opposite of that because I'm an actual optimist,
which is why I don't feel inspired by bored cyborgs their wires or their tools,
& precisely why I'd rather gather flowers than be an actor for their power,

see I find more inspiration in a single leaf on a single tree by a river bank,
than from all the colors & lines contained within the walls of this museum,
which is why when I'm asked all the time what kind of poetry I read,
I reply I don't even read poetry see I don't find it in books I find it in seasons,

It's the same reason I don't need to go to church to pray,
because I don't need my messages from God to be translated by a human,

anyways where am I at & what am I doing?

Oh yeah Im at a museum in Vienna wondering where the inspirations gone,
& why everything seems so excruciatingly tiring,
see it seems we’re on the verge of a collective mental breakdown,
at the same time like we're on the precipice of a collective enlightening,

either way the system’s short circuiting & could do with some rewiring.

Why does every rags to riches story I know of those that've made it,
end in an overpriced designer outfit at home bored all alone & jaded?

Why is Consumerism followed like a religion,
I mean we're all made of the same DNA strands regardless of name brands,
I mean everything is just carbon hydrogen & oxygen anyways,
which may explain why materialism is immanent in every independent man,

while an apocalypse seems undeniably immanent &,
we dwell in the highest heights ever built still we don't totally understand,

we don’t worship Jesus we worship Visa,
putting good credit ahead of good morals,
don’t praise Muhammed in a daze we say our grace in front of TV Dramas,
no Buddha dreams just computers screens no real friends just PayPals,

& maybe that’s why it's easier to be blind than to see,
maybe that’s why we hide in museums behind Valentino sunglasses,
because we'd rather have expense tastes than be free,
but when you’re behind any type of four walls you’re trapped in,
whether on a Penthouse terrace with Paris in Paris,
or doing hard-time for white collar crimes with Madoff in a Federal pen,
either way we’re victims of our own additions trying to buy more time,
but running out of credit as banks are collapsing & the recession is relapsing,

so why even buy things when we know not so secretly,
that only Love will set us free from these retro restrictions & their trappings,

see,

the best things in life still are still free,
& yeah liberation is expensive & self renovations are extensive,
but freedom is priceless so live a life that's righteous,
seems that the Love Pyramid is the only pyramid that’s not a Ponzi scheme,

because we are all equal even if we’re not all treated equally,
that’s why some have no clothes while others wear designer denim jeans,
but these Diesels're 2 tight on my thighs this macabre carnival has no prize,
& I can do anything I want with my life but all I really want to do is breathe,

breathe,

breathe because this lifestyle is expensive,
but freedom is priceless,
even though they'll try to capitalize off of anything,
so they market it & try to price it,

I just,
want to find a place to relax & release,
& be free of all of this,
find true love & say “Fck off to the politicians & all their politics!”,

fck their programs fck their projects,
fck their ugly agendas dressed in artificially splendid splendor,
fck their quotas & their motives for treating human beings as objects,
fck their pre-programed consumerist culture of conmen capitalists,

fck there putting machines over human beings,
just to increase the place where their profit sits,
& I say all of this regardless of who it offends because I'm not an Apologist,
I'm more of a Lyrical Pharmacist,
who serves indiscriminate prescriptions in the form of transcriptions,
in order to assist in the additions that come from positive developments,
which will occur for sure once we switch the position we currently sit in,
& restore Divine Order once more in the name of Humankind's betterment,

in the game of life I play,
they know I'm so official that I don't even need a Letterman,

I just,
don’t know what else to say,
I don’t know why I’m at this museum in Vienna,
hiding away on the top floor writing this to you on a Sunday,

on the 5th floor got it all but I just want to give more,
I just want to gift these words then make my escape,
don't you get it I don't want to get more ****t,
if anything I just want to find a way to give more of what I have away,

just want to be alone,
but also want these words to be known so the truth can be shown,
but where do you go when you’re tired totally over it all,
& all you want to do is rest & write these poems,
but even with all you have you still don't know where to go,
because even with all these things you still don't have a home...

Hello,
could you please pick up the phone,
I’m calling because I still love you,
& I want to come back to you even though I know I’m already gone,

currently on the top floor of the Mumok museum in Vienna,
the floor is the 5th to be exact,
& yeah it’s true that I don’t know where I’m going,
but what I do know is I don’t think I’m ever coming back,

online & off track,
writing more words with more rhymes,
than any other living writer in contemporary times,
& no I'm not lying 'cause I'd never lie to you & yes those are both actual facts,

& yeah that’s a fact & yeah you can Google that,
but I’m going to follow that fact with a question,
before I forget to mention,
let me just ask you what I'm doing here in Vienna?



What am I doing in Vienna,
staring at cold sterile pop art as the whole entire world we're on burns,
in a city I never wanted to go to,
doing things that never really seemed that inspiring,

& it's not that I have an antipathetic attitude towards these pathetic fools,
in fact it's actually just the opposite of that because I'm an actual optimist,
which is why I don't feel inspired by bored cyborgs their wires or their tools,
& precisely why I'd rather gather flowers than be an actor for their power,

see I find more inspiration in a single leaf on a single tree by a river bank,
than from all the colors & lines contained within the walls of this museum,
which is why when I'm asked all the time what kind of poetry I read,
I reply I don't even read poetry see I don't find it in books I find it in seasons,

It's the same reason I don't need to go to church to pray,
because I don't need my messages from God to be translated by a human,

anyways where am I at & what am I doing?

∆ Aaron LaLux ∆

from The Holy Trilogy Vol. 2: Mandalas
available worldwide 08/08/18

the doom puke treacle of our dim sum sundays, asunderous.
the bluff of our taurus. the trim thumb, green on the terrace
of our epiphanies; wondrous.
the crease in the pleat of our borealis. the allusive chalice
of our majesty. the dead kingdoms we relinquish to the roiling unjoy.
the thunder of our feet to the heel of a shadow. our peter pan in the fire.
our kettles black.
the opposable lovelies. the lovelies that preen jewels. the extreme youth of our gods
now at the hour of our foolishness. our funny bone. and the fracture.
the actual damage to our heaven. and the near after.
the gross bloom of our anguish
and parade.

and the bells. and the comma. and the laughter.