Dark clouds continue to thicken above
as man hovers on the brink of war.
No more sparodic and endless tribal conflicts
simmering just under the surface.
Corruption and super power *******
inevitable will draw in every nation.

Over sixty years since the last world war
though never a time of total peace.
Power oil dictatorships and simple pure hate
engulfs the news twenty four seven.
From clubs and axes to weapons of destruction
millions killed and boundless reconstruction.

There are countries with vast deadly arsenals
who would take the risk to attack.
Other countries they felt were aggessors
making uncertainty of fututre actions.
Always feeling the aggrieved and ready to fight
a powder keg it would take little to ignite.


The plot could well thicken very soon I sense
tension  constantly on high alert.
These leaders not shy to use their lethat potency
with the underlying resentment boiling.
The consequences to us not in their equation.
if they wanted a solution an invasion.

A delicate balance hangs over civilisation
as countries develop the nuclear card.
Thinking this is the way to boost their ranking
with others who have these lethal devises.
Making the future a more precarious place
possibly annihilation a more likely case!

Will the building pressure erupt soon or not?
  
The Foureyed Poet.

Come queen of months in company
Wi all thy merry minstrelsy
The restless cuckoo absent long
And twittering swallows chimney song
And hedge row crickets notes that run
From every bank that fronts the sun
And swathy bees about the grass
That stops wi every bloom they pass
And every minute every hour
Keep teazing weeds that wear a flower
And toil and childhoods humming joys
For there is music in the noise
The village childern mad for sport
In school times leisure ever short
That crick and catch the bouncing ball
And run along the church yard wall
Capt wi rude figured slabs whose claims
In times bad memory hath no names
Oft racing round the nookey church
Or calling ecchos in the porch
And jilting oer the weather ****
Viewing wi jealous eyes the clock
Oft leaping grave stones leaning hights
Uncheckt wi mellancholy sights
The green grass swelld in many a heap
Where kin and friends and parents sleep
Unthinking in their jovial cry
That time shall come when they shall lye
As lowly and as still as they
While other boys above them play
Heedless as they do now to know
The unconcious dust that lies below
The shepherd goes wi happy stride
Wi moms long shadow by his side
Down the dryd lanes neath blooming may
That once was over shoes in clay
While martins twitter neath his eves
Which he at early morning leaves
The driving boy beside his team
Will oer the may month beauty dream
And **** his hat and turn his eye
On flower and tree and deepning skye
And oft bursts loud in fits of song
And whistles as he reels along
Cracking his whip in starts of joy
A happy ***** driving boy
The youth who leaves his corner stool
Betimes for neighbouring village school
While as a mark to urge him right
The church spires all the way in sight
Wi cheerings from his parents given
Starts neath the joyous smiles of heaven
And sawns wi many an idle stand
Wi bookbag swinging in his hand
And gazes as he passes bye
On every thing that meets his eye
Young lambs seem tempting him to play
Dancing and bleating in his way
Wi trembling tails and pointed ears
They follow him and loose their fears
He smiles upon their sunny faces
And feign woud join their happy races
The birds that sing on bush and tree
Seem chirping for his company
And all in fancys idle whim
Seem keeping holiday but him
He lolls upon each resting stile
To see the fields so sweetly smile
To see the wheat grow green and long
And list the weeders toiling song
Or short note of the changing thrush
Above him in the white thorn bush
That oer the leaning stile bends low
Loaded wi mockery of snow
Mozzld wi many a lushing thread
Of crab tree blossoms delicate red
He often bends wi many a wish
Oer the brig rail to view the fish
Go sturting by in sunny gleams
And chucks in the eye dazzld streams
Crumbs from his pocket oft to watch
The swarming struttle come to catch
Them where they to the bottom sile
Sighing in fancys joy the while
Hes cautiond not to stand so nigh
By rosey milkmaid tripping bye
Where he admires wi fond delight
And longs to be there mute till night
He often ventures thro the day
At truant now and then to play
Rambling about the field and plain
Seeking larks nests in the grain
And picking flowers and boughs of may
To hurd awhile and throw away
Lurking neath bushes from the sight
Of tell tale eyes till schools noon night
Listing each hour for church clocks hum
To know the hour to wander home
That parents may not think him long
Nor dream of his rude doing wrong
Dreading thro the night wi dreaming pain
To meet his masters wand again
Each hedge is loaded thick wi green
And where the hedger late hath been
Tender shoots begin to grow
From the mossy stumps below
While sheep and cow that teaze the grain
will nip them to the root again
They lay their bill and mittens bye
And on to other labours hie
While wood men still on spring intrudes
And thins the shadow solitudes
Wi sharpend axes felling down
The oak trees budding into brown
Where as they crash upon the ground
A crowd of labourers gather round
And mix among the shadows dark
To rip the crackling staining bark
From off the tree and lay when done
The rolls in lares to meet the sun
Depriving yearly where they come
The green wood pecker of its home
That early in the spring began
Far from the sight of troubling man
And bord their round holes in each tree
In fancys sweet security
Till startld wi the woodmans noise
It wakes from all its dreaming joys
The blue bells too that thickly bloom
Where man was never feared to come
And smell smocks that from view retires
**** rustling leaves and bowing briars
And stooping lilys of the valley
That comes wi shades and dews to dally
White beady drops on slender threads
Wi broad hood leaves above their heads
Like white robd maids in summer hours
Neath umberellas shunning showers
These neath the barkmens crushing treads
Oft perish in their blooming beds
Thus stript of boughs and bark in white
Their trunks shine in the mellow light
Beneath the green surviving trees
That wave above them in the breeze
And waking whispers slowly bends
As if they mournd their fallen friends
Each morning now the weeders meet
To cut the thistle from the wheat
And ruin in the sunny hours
Full many wild weeds of their flowers
Corn poppys that in crimson dwell
Calld ‘head achs’ from their sickly smell
And carlock yellow as the sun
That oer the may fields thickly run
And ‘iron ****’ content to share
The meanest spot that spring can spare
Een roads where danger hourly comes
Is not wi out its purple blooms
And leaves wi points like thistles round
Thickset that have no strength to wound
That shrink to childhoods eager hold
Like hair—and with its eye of gold
And scarlet starry points of flowers
Pimpernel dreading nights and showers
Oft calld ‘the shepherds weather glass’
That sleep till suns have dyd the grass
Then wakes and spreads its creeping bloom
Till clouds or threatning shadows come
Then close it shuts to sleep again
Which weeders see and talk of rain
And boys that mark them shut so soon
will call them ‘John go bed at noon
And fumitory too a name
That superstition holds to fame
Whose red and purple mottled flowers
Are cropt by maids in weeding hours
To boil in water milk and way1
For washes on an holiday
To make their beauty fair and sleak
And scour the tan from summers cheek
And simple small forget me not
Eyd wi a pinshead yellow spot
I’th’ middle of its tender blue
That gains from poets notice due
These flowers the toil by crowds destroys
And robs them of their lowly joys
That met the may wi hopes as sweet
As those her suns in gardens meet
And oft the dame will feel inclind
As childhoods memory comes to mind
To turn her hook away and spare
The blooms it lovd to gather there
My wild field catalogue of flowers
Grows in my ryhmes as thick as showers
Tedious and long as they may be
To some, they never weary me
The wood and mead and field of grain
I coud hunt oer and oer again
And talk to every blossom wild
Fond as a parent to a child
And cull them in my childish joy
By swarms and swarms and never cloy
When their lank shades oer morning pearls
Shrink from their lengths to little girls
And like the clock hand pointing one
Is turnd and tells the morning gone
They leave their toils for dinners hour
Beneath some hedges bramble bower
And season sweet their savory meals
Wi joke and tale and merry peals
Of ancient tunes from happy tongues
While linnets join their fitful songs
Perchd oer their heads in frolic play
Among the tufts of motling may
The young girls whisper things of love
And from the old dames hearing move
Oft making ‘love knotts’ in the shade
Of blue green oat or wheaten blade
And trying simple charms and spells
That rural superstition tells
They pull the little blossom threads
From out the knapweeds button heads
And put the husk wi many a smile
In their white bosoms for awhile
Who if they guess aright the swain
That loves sweet fancys trys to gain
Tis said that ere its lain an hour
Twill blossom wi a second flower
And from her white ******* hankerchief
Bloom as they ne’er had lost a leaf
When signs appear that token wet
As they are neath the bushes met
The girls are glad wi hopes of play
And harping of the holiday
A hugh blue bird will often swim
Along the wheat when skys grow dim
Wi clouds—slow as the gales of spring
In motion wi dark shadowd wing
Beneath the coming storm it sails
And lonly chirps the wheat hid quails
That came to live wi spring again
And start when summer browns the grain
They start the young girls joys afloat
Wi ‘wet my foot’ its yearly note
So fancy doth the sound explain
And proves it oft a sign of rain
About the moor ‘**** sheep and cow
The boy or old man wanders now
Hunting all day wi hopful pace
Each thick sown rushy thistly place
For plover eggs while oer them flye
The fearful birds wi teazing cry
Trying to lead their steps astray
And coying him another way
And be the weather chill or warm
Wi brown hats truckd beneath his arm
Holding each prize their search has won
They plod bare headed to the sun
Now dames oft bustle from their wheels
Wi childern scampering at their heels
To watch the bees that hang and swive
In clumps about each thronging hive
And flit and thicken in the light
While the old dame enjoys the sight
And raps the while their warming pans
A spell that superstition plans
To coax them in the garden bounds
As if they lovd the tinkling sounds
And oft one hears the dinning noise
Which dames believe each swarm decoys
Around each village day by day
Mingling in the warmth of may
Sweet scented herbs her skill contrives
To rub the bramble platted hives
Fennels thread leaves and crimpld balm
To scent the new house of the swarm
The thresher dull as winter days
And lost to all that spring displays
Still mid his barn dust forcd to stand
Swings his frail round wi weary hand
While oer his head shades thickly creep
And hides the blinking owl asleep
And bats in cobweb corners bred
Sharing till night their murky bed
The sunshine trickles on the floor
Thro every crevice of the door
And makes his barn where shadows dwell
As irksome as a prisoners cell
And as he seeks his daily meal
As schoolboys from their tasks will steal
ile often stands in fond delay
To see the daisy in his way
And wild weeds flowering on the wall
That will his childish sports recall
Of all the joys that came wi spring
The twirling top the marble ring
The gingling halfpence hussld up
At pitch and toss the eager stoop
To pick up heads, the smuggeld plays
Neath hovels upon sabbath days
When parson he is safe from view
And clerk sings amen in his pew
The sitting down when school was oer
Upon the threshold by his door
Picking from mallows sport to please
Each crumpld seed he calld a cheese
And hunting from the stackyard sod
The stinking hen banes belted pod
By youths vain fancys sweetly fed
Christning them his loaves of bread
He sees while rocking down the street
Wi weary hands and crimpling feet
Young childern at the self same games
And hears the self same simple names
Still floating on each happy tongue
Touchd wi the simple scene so strong
Tears almost start and many a sigh
Regrets the happiness gone bye
And in sweet natures holiday
His heart is sad while all is gay
How lovly now are lanes and balks
For toils and lovers sunday walks
The daisey and the buttercup
For which the laughing childern stoop
A hundred times throughout the day
In their rude ramping summer play
So thickly now the pasture crowds
In gold and silver sheeted clouds
As if the drops in april showers
Had woo’d the sun and swoond to flowers
The brook resumes its summer dresses
Purling neath grass and water cresses
And mint and flag leaf swording high
Their blooms to the unheeding eye
And taper bowbent hanging rushes
And horse tail childerns bottle brushes
And summer tracks about its brink
Is fresh again where cattle drink
And on its sunny bank the swain
Stretches his idle length again
Soon as the sun forgets the day
The moon looks down on the lovly may
And the little star his friend and guide
Travelling together side by side
And the seven stars and charleses wain
Hangs smiling oer green woods agen
The heaven rekindles all alive
Wi light the may bees round the hive
Swarm not so thick in mornings eye
As stars do in the evening skye
All all are nestling in their joys
The flowers and birds and pasture boys
The firetail, long a stranger, comes
To his last summer haunts and homes
To hollow tree and crevisd wall
And in the grass the rails odd call
That featherd spirit stops the swain
To listen to his note again
And school boy still in vain retraces
The secrets of his hiding places
In the black thorns crowded copse
Thro its varied turns and stops
The nightingale its ditty weaves
Hid in a multitude of leaves
The boy stops short to hear the strain
And ’sweet jug jug’ he mocks again
The yellow hammer builds its nest
By banks where sun beams earliest rest
That drys the dews from off the grass
Shading it from all that pass
Save the rude boy wi ferret gaze
That hunts thro evry secret maze
He finds its pencild eggs agen
All streakd wi lines as if a pen
By natures freakish hand was took
To scrawl them over like a book
And from these many mozzling marks
The school boy names them ‘writing larks’
*** barrels twit on bush and tree
Scarse bigger then a bumble bee
And in a white thorns leafy rest
It builds its curious pudding-nest
Wi hole beside as if a mouse
Had built the little barrel house
Toiling full many a lining feather
And bits of grey tree moss together
Amid the noisey rooky park
Beneath the firdales branches dark
The little golden crested wren
Hangs up his glowing nest agen
And sticks it to the furry leaves
As martins theirs beneath the eaves
The old hens leave the roost betimes
And oer the garden pailing climbs
To scrat the gardens fresh turnd soil
And if unwatchd his crops to spoil
Oft cackling from the prison yard
To peck about the houseclose sward
Catching at butterflys and things
Ere they have time to try their wings
The cattle feels the breath of may
And kick and toss their heads in play
The *** beneath his bags of sand
Oft jerks the string from leaders hand
And on the road will eager stoop
To pick the sprouting thistle up
Oft answering on his weary way
Some distant neighbours sobbing bray
Dining the ears of driving boy
As if he felt a fit of joy
Wi in its pinfold circle left
Of all its company bereft
Starvd stock no longer noising round
Lone in the nooks of foddering ground
Each skeleton of lingering stack
By winters tempests beaten black
Nodds upon props or bolt upright
Stands swarthy in the summer light
And oer the green grass seems to lower
Like stump of old time wasted tower
All that in winter lookd for hay
Spread from their batterd haunts away
To pick the grass or lye at lare
Beneath the mild hedge shadows there
Sweet month that gives a welcome call
To toil and nature and to all
Yet one day mid thy many joys
Is dead to all its sport and noise
Old may day where’s thy glorys gone
All fled and left thee every one
Thou comst to thy old haunts and homes
Unnoticd as a stranger comes
No flowers are pluckt to hail the now
Nor cotter seeks a single bough
The maids no more on thy sweet morn
Awake their thresholds to adorn
Wi dewey flowers—May locks new come
And princifeathers cluttering bloom
And blue bells from the woodland moss
And cowslip cucking ***** to toss
Above the garlands swinging hight
Hang in the soft eves sober light
These maid and child did yearly pull
By many a folded apron full
But all is past the merry song
Of maidens hurrying along
To crown at eve the earliest cow
Is gone and dead and silent now
The laugh raisd at the mocking thorn
Tyd to the cows tail last that morn
The kerchief at arms length displayd
Held up by pairs of swain and maid
While others bolted underneath
Bawling loud wi panting breath
‘Duck under water’ as they ran
Alls ended as they ne’er began
While the new thing that took thy place
Wears faded smiles upon its face
And where enclosure has its birth
It spreads a mildew oer her mirth
The herd no longer one by one
Goes plodding on her morning way
And garlands lost and sports nigh gone
Leaves her like thee a common day
Yet summer smiles upon thee still
Wi natures sweet unalterd will
And at thy births unworshipd hours
Fills her green lap wi swarms of flowers
To crown thee still as thou hast been
Of spring and summer months the queen

Advice from Freuchen , the explorer

When Arctic blizzards blow
in Northern Greenland
and your supplies are low
and dwindling
the best advice is build an igloo
and wait out the storm.

And when you hear the wolves
howling with hunger
and prowling on your igloo roof
it’s best to go outside
and sing - only occasionally
though you will fight to be heard
above the judder of the wind.

Inside the igloo will be problematic
the walls seem to close in
as claustrophobic days proceed
it’s not an illusion
but a fact
each breath freezes moisture in the walls
and breath by breath they thicken
spaces close around your body
breathing yourself in a coffin of ice.

There’s no instrument of death
devised by man to so terrify
as being locked in space and time
each breath reminding you
of that closeness to that final loss
of breath and an icy Arctic death.

It's a year almost that I have not seen her:
Oh, last summer green things were greener,
Brambles fewer, the blue sky bluer.

It's surely summer, for there's a swallow:
Come one swallow, his mate will follow,
The bird race quicken and wheel and thicken.

Oh happy swallow whose mate will follow
O'er height, o'er hollow! I'd be a swallow,
To build this weather one nest together.

Snow Mountain

I walk alone these darkened hills,
can see my breath and getting chills.
My party left me long ago,
they didn't like my altered ego.
Snow blowing in my face,
they said they needed space.
Feet and hands becoming numb,
never have I felt so **** dumb.
Found a cave and there they were,
me freezing, them wearing fur.
Never has a fire felt so good,
not sure where they got the wood.
Then I noticed a very distinct odor,
they were burning our guide, Schroeder.
On the cave wall, I see four more dead,
eating the brains from their very head.
I yelled, What the **** are you doing,
couldn't believe what I was viewing.
They said, Shut up or you're next,
I got on my knees and paid my last respects.
Spinning the body just like a pig roast,
I'd be happy with just a bite of toast.
As I watched them eat the bodies,
if I had a camera, I'd make copies.
Days went by and I got hungry,
the human body tastes so chunky.
Finally something that didn't taste like chicken,
my body was getting stronger and beginning to thicken.
We never did get discovered,
ended up in hell, getting eaten by an evil buzzard.

The times here, mind clear
removed fear, mind fully-aware
they can’t calculate my circumference
they try-angle-hate to encompass
i’m too persistent
consistently consistent
my philosophy brilliant
they’re mindfully malignant
plots thicken and spots pigment
perfect gentlemen, acting indecent
handed them knowledge, didn't keep it
then peep game, telling secrets
I’m sure they’re getting seasick
its been written, still going off the top
the deep-end, the stuck on the plot

What’s up with this fool this a battle my dude
Your in my domain so you play by my rule
You battling a beast that’s more evil than you
Anything you do, I can do better than you
I’m bred from a breed that would eat you for their food
We watch and read about your type on the daily news
They only found your wind pipe no other parts of you
Thats what happened when you come across a beast,
That feeds off the hearts of its lower counter parts
Rap underworld boss, much bigger than you for starts
I make you and your crew look like they ****** Doo
Me controlling the elements that's hell for you
nothing you can do, my metaphors got meaning
You are a hoax just teething,
Imma full blown demon
you barely steaming
you've bean bitten its good ridden
my odds against you for so many reasons
I been hot, who you think changed the seasons
My HANS solo helped the pharaohs off spring
Made Alienware out of theses underground kings
Beating my chest in the middle of the ring
Raising vikings train'em to win
With my pen alone I could **** you with writtin
Imagine what a battle axe would do to your chin
I'll hulk smash, push your shin bone through your chin
Fresh off of my second wind, fresh off of a wind
I been doing this, before you exist,
And will run this when you stop breathing
You are in the path of a psychopath
You do the math then face my wrath
I **** guys blood ties then take a bath and laugh
You should just stop
We are not even
I revive your life
**** you twice
Just so the plot thicken
You was easy pick, from slim Pickens
I swallow whole chickens and baby pigeons
Livin under bridges trying to change my image
Fightin trolls and warriors my daily scrimmage
killing you, then train your brethren and break bread with
Your best friend, I'll be home by seven to have some words with the reverent
My crazy flow I’ll spit you a Rembrandt
My skill running rampant
About to get a little uncanned
I got a ***** in the Hampton
And she thinks I’m top ten
Plus I’m tall dark and I’m handsome
I’ll take you for ransom
But your not worth a grand-son
You couldn’t out rap me
If you were Santa grandson
Your evil family
Will Die ironically
every villain dies gory
In every story featuring me

Early Sunday morning.
Brisk wind, no jacket.
Waiting for a taxi,
shivers in my bones.
Shameful looks from my mother -
she thinks I stopped out last night.

Monday afternoon.
The whole school knows.
Taunts, laughter, names
as I walk through the corridors -
isn't school supposed to be safe?
I see the boys
- I hate them, I hate them, I hate them -
feel ***** rise through my throat
and the blood in my brain thicken.
Hear words that cut like knives:
"****", "*****",
"I can't believe she had a foursome".
I cannot walk into the canteen,
it's full of piercing lion eyes
searching for their prey;
me.
I am called into the head of years office,
heavy footsteps echoing with sorrow
as I enter.
Concerned eyes break through my skin
creating bullet holes in my fragility.
The words I couldn't face
finally enter the wind.
"Was it consensual?"
No, no, no, no.
Cheeks wet with cascading tears.
The truth finally said,
spoken aloud like an oracle.
I wait for fifty minutes.
Fluorescent police uniforms march the halls.
And my mother.
She's crying, she knows,
she hugs me.
Tells me she's sorry.
In the small back office
surrounded by teachers and police and my mum,
words are exchanged.
I see moving lips but cannot hear the words.
My senses are drowned by the event leading up to this.
They gave me a name
in the bedroom that night.
"It", like an object.
Unhuman, unfeeling.

The same Monday evening.
Next thing I know I'm at home.
Brought back to consciousness
with an assertive knock at the front door.
More uniforms, more police.
Mum explains that they have to take my statement.
I panic, cry -
I've done a lot of that today.
I hide some things from them;
I'm too ashamed.
They have cameras on their vests,
tiny eyes watching me,
recording the moment I recall my trauma.
My body hurts,
but my brain and my heart are in agony.
They ask me to take my clothes off.
How can they ask me that?
Explanations are given to my mother,
her face conveys the emotions that I'm too numb to feel.
It's protocol,
they need evidence of any injuries, they say.
Choked sobs escape my mother's mouth
as I take my clothes off.
Shades of black and blue litter my body.
*******, thighs, stomach, *** -
my skin edited by violent hands.
My most intimate areas a part of a police file forever.
They take my ****** jeans, underwear, top all into evidence.
They leave.

Tuesday morning.
I am told not to go into school
by the head of year.
The boys are still allowed.
Motionless body lying in bed,
I stare at the wall for hours.
All of my energy put towards breathing.
Mum skipped work,
sitting outside my bedroom door
like a prison guard -
terrified I would hurt myself.
I can't speak.
How do you tell the woman who raised you
that you don't want to be alive anymore?

About a week later.
I still haven't been to school.
I've barely moved from my bed.
The physical marks have almost vanished,
but the sadness cripples me still.
I have to go to a police station today,
a forty minute trip.
My best friend comes.
I'm numb, I cannot feel the car moving.
I have been numb for over a week.
Isolation caves in on me -
I'm in an interview room with a policewoman and man.
They say three's a crowd,
but I still feel completely alone.
Just over six hours.
Recounting the event took over six hours.
The walls of the interview room painted grey,
or maybe that's just the only colour I can see now.
I didn't cry.
I haven't cried since the Monday that everything became real.
Fragments of the night flash through my mind,
it's becoming difficult to close my eyes.
I went into the interview room while it was light outside,
I leave and it's pitch black.
When I check the time on my phone before I hand it in as evidence,
it's almost 11pm.

Another week passes.
I'm still not allowed into school.
Most of my friends have given up on me.
They don't want to be associated with the girl who cried **** because she was embarrassed of her foursome.
But no-one knows what happened behind that door.
The horrors that occurred,
the venom in the insults they spat at me,
using my body as a human rag doll.
The police call, the detective assigned to my case.
My heart drops
as my mum tells me what he says.
"They're treating two of the boys as witnesses,
only one as a suspect."
I go to my bedroom as I feel my heart strings sever.
Try to sleep,
but I cannot close my eyes.
I see the room,
the darkness,
their eyes.
I smell sweat and shame.
I hear them calling me "it" -
a worthless victim.
I feel the poison on their fingertips.
Dead the second they touched me.

Months pass.
Less contact with the police.
I go back to school.
Adjust to life as 'that girl'.
Learn to sleep again.
Deal with the nightmares and flashbacks.
Stop panicking every time someone touches me.
Open up about the pain I feel every day.

It's February.
Ten months later.
I haven't heard from the police since December.
When I ring
they tell me my case has been dropped.
They say there's a lack of evidence.
What they really mean is that no-one in court will believe
my story against the three of there's.
I expected this.
The blood on my underwear
does not count.
The pictures of my body painted with bruises
do not count.
The six hour recording where I describe every soul breaking ******
does not count.
The countless therapy sessions trying to fix the flashbacks and panic attacks
do not count.
The nights I planned how to die
do not count.
I used to be a person.
Now I'm just another **** case,
unsolved,
at the bottom of the pile.

extensions to an emotion
grown like branches on a tree,
blooming towards beauty,
further reaching the sky,
touching the blue
with the tip of the flowers.
life, bursting out,
in one way or another.
endurance, the key
a way of living, so to speak
surviving the storm, or adapting to it.
giving the branches strength,
strength to withstand the worst,
only to be given another day
another day to bloom,
another day to grow,
to branch out, thicken and, burst out
into something unexplainable,
rather observable,
reaching out to hights
and depths, simultaneously.

On the 15th of May
In the French Laund-er-y
There was a small man,
The Chef De Partie

He was mixing and stirring
And stirring his sauce,
But his sauce wouldn’t thicken
He was at a loss

So he needed to think
and ponder awhile
Until on his face
Was a bright white smile.

“I have it!” He said.
“I know what to do
All  that I need
Is a nice thick roux.”

No reductions or tomatoes
Or even puree
He needed the roux
It was the only way

So what he did next
was truly “the ****”
He melted some butter
And dumped flour in it.

This mixture was gloppy
And looked like wet sand
The roux was ‘a cooking
But looked awfully bland

Morton must think
How to flavor this glob
Chef Tomas Keller said
“Morton its your job”

He thought and he thought
“Oh what can I do?
Bechamel or Veloute?
What to do with this roux.”

“Veloute I think
Sounds good for today.
I’ll make some of that.
Chef might exclaim, “yay!”

So he added some stock
Of Gertrude McFuzz
It was the best bird
It certainly was
Fond Blanc De McFuzz
Was clear and not milky
Morton’s Veloute
Ought to be silky

He cooked it awhile
Maybe for one half an hour
And when it began to bubble
The roux showed its power.

It thickened and coated
The back of a spoon
This stuff’s almost ready
It should be done soon

He strained it
removing the floury bits
It needed to be clean
No clumpys or grits

It was almost over
It was just about ready
It still needed some tweaking
“Can’t we eat it already?!”

“No” said chef Teller
as he took a lick
Was it good? Was it bad?
Was the sauce too thick

“You did a great job!
Trust me, you did.”
Said Teller to Morton
“You did good kid”

“One thing I will say
That you forgot to put in
It’s the most vital ingredient
In the entire kitchen”

“Its something that most chefs
Don’t use a lot of
It comes from within
The spice of true love”

Morton thought a bit
Like he often does
And then he said
“Chef! That’s what it was”

“It didn’t taste right
It was missing its pop
Its pep in its step
Its fizzle. Its hop”
He learned something there
From Chef Thomas Teller
Food needs more love
It needs to be stellar

After all that
And in the end
Morton threw it away
And started again.

I cried upon my hawaiian departure
not tears of sorrow but tears of former and future joy
my tears trailed down my cheek like the Paheehee stream
before landing upon the ground like a soft hawaiian rain in spring
when my tears evaporated they formed a long flat cloud
in the shape of surfboard voyaging westward bound.
the cloud upon reaching the sea,
shape-shifted into a large volcano, vengful and menacing  
with the torential downpour a sign of the volcanoe's erupting    
The storm began to thicken The volcano spinning around it's core
like that of a fire dancers stick, scattering the tears evermore  
when the storm cleared eight tears washed upon each hawaiian shore
wiating for me to surf upon my tears

i.

my writing is truly one thing, my life another - not
that's a statement clouded in excuses and guilt:
just the claustrophobic macabre -
and so it happens, that every few days i reach
the limit with wrestling the Minotaur -
the time comes when the liver k.o.s the brain
and the brain then starts punching the liver -
it usually stars in the afternoon, e.g. yesterday,
at 3 in the afternoon, a burrowed sense of guilt
comes over, cigarettes are rolled and chain-smoked...
a promise of not painting the front of
the house is the overpowering weight on the heart -
as is an ably bodied father: who, i might
as the source of my writing capacity: the silence -
but the day flows through... the excess nicotine
adds to the shakes, the detox period begins
with a big meal: chinese pork belly in five spice
and other additives, peppers, spring onions
until a thick goo sauce is cooked slowly to thicken...
served with 'it's called egg fly lice, you plick!'
(Uncle Benny, lethal weapon 4) -
the meal is ate as if a ****** ****** - this is
really the point of critically approaching the
concentrated detox - binge of television,
drinking orange squash and smoking -
playing some stupid video game between watching
an even worse movie - before the saga of
x files begins... at 5 a.m. with the most annoying
feline opera by the most annoying ginger cat
begins... the shades are drawn and the hours between
5 a.m. are spent in a quasi somatic state -
the pain in the brain is too strong to allow you
a kipper without the sedative being dragged from
the body: taking sleeping is avoided -
the blinds in the room don't have blackout plastic,
by 6 a.m. a t-shirt is rolled up and put against
the eyes, the eyes adjust to the light until 7 a.m.,
the body gets up and goes downstairs for more
orange squash, but this time breakfast is stomached,
yesterday's leftover rice, fresh eggs scrambled
and mixed with spring onion -
                                                     cigarette, and a daytime
news channel - Victoria Derbyshire -
the main topic of concerns? only 12% of Paraolympic
Rio tickets have been sold, a charity having raised
about £25,000 wants to sponsor Rio's children
to join in the fun... housing shortages in England,
Redbridge council buying social housing in
Canterbury (once a military base) - 7 people living
in one room (the Romanian standard is
14... you have to remember night shifts) -
oh i seen houses like that, i remember one Jew renting
out his house to 20 / 30 Poles before the Union
expanded... paid of his mortgage... no new reality
here for me... the major misdiagnosis of heart attacks
in women on the N.H.S.: a woman ate a curry,
thought it was only a heartburn... boom, two days
later drops in agony... in between the real
results of the detox... sitting...
not ******* out whiskey yellow ***** when there
are barely any toxins in the body... diarrhoea...
up to about 8 times on the toilet - more orange squash,
more cigarettes... then onto the piece the resistance...
the x files... which last up to about the twilight zone
hour of having reached the 24 hour mark of being
awake... one last **** and then shower, and
then doing the laundry (on a sunny day like this,
it would be a shame not to)...
                                                   at noon
tinned mackerel in sunflower oil... brown bread,
all the oil drank... but by the twilight zone hour
a realisation: ****! my headphones are broken!
i've been walking around these streets with those
very depressing sounds of vrroom vrroom...
i know how the old complain about the youth
and their headphones... yes, but you probably
grew with about 10 cars per hour passing your
house back in the day... and too the birds could
be beautiful, and the sound of children's games
and golden laughter... but all the other sounds...
so off to the shop for a very respectable £1.50 pair...
and then the moment when all the sights
on the streets are no longer synchronised with
what i'm hearing, my eyes sharpen and i dance
past the cars and people never bothering to press
the crossing lights on streets: ease the traffic,
ease the traffic... then into the supermarket and
the detox ends... i can go back to sleeping a decent
night... a bottle of Stella... the only thing sexier
on a hot summer's day on the street... good old,
good cold Stella Artois...
then up to another shop for two more beers and
tobacco...
                        after that? magic...
as the title suggests: on a park bench with Ernie -
something more grand than Beckett's waiting
for Godot... i.e. something resembling a scene from
Patriarch's Ponds, an encounter with
Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz (editor of a highbrow
literary magazine, abbreviated MASSOLIT)
and a young poet Ivan Nikolayich Poniryov -
a few clues to the less knowledgeable parties:
Behemoth ***** and chess, a book that makes
sense of the world interrupted by Herr Woland's
wonderful delights (among many), such
as the notable pandemonium at Ivan Savelyevich
Varenukha's Variety Theatre -
yes very much akin to Hector B.'s:
symphonie fantastique: dream of a witches' sabbath.

ii.

sincerest apologies... the sedative hasn't been bought
yet, and a patient father's invoice for work
done on the construction must be written in tangible
English - in ref. to the uttermost sincerity -
Polski nadal w mej duszy dudni,
                            taki ogrom organów i
                                         bębnów twki -
           że strach pomyślec - czy to wir zamkniętej
historii ludu: czy poczatek gorszych prwad o świecie?
   bo co o zamkniętej historii (skrawku) ludu?
      to przeciez moj dziad'ek w Partii uslugi dawal!
      a kraj podziekowal - i co Prawda to Walesa
   na Florydzie z lwa w zlota rybke sie zamienil.   (comp. diacritic
                                                       ­                                 pending)

iii.

as i knew, i should have finished this poem on
the principle of ensō - all in one piece -
thus i would have staged what happened on the bench
with Ernest -
                        but after walking to the supermarket
minding my own business and the jokes ensued
about how no one notices, how they know my name
as it's their mascot -
                                   after walking into a world
i found chaos; indeed if i wrote the poem on principle
of ensō, i would have included the phantasmagorical
details of something so simple you could almost cry at it...
the simplicity of it, the fluidity of almost 2 hours
spent in conversation... about what? i'm not telling,
and how was it spoken? i'm not telling either -
let's just they laughed at Ernest's bike, because
it was proper oldie...
                                     i mean, i won't mention the odd
details, but the essence? forget it man!
after writing my father's invoice, and how cut money
on the construction site, blame it Romanians but only
have themselves to blame with their model
of profiteering and that ****** fetish they have
Che's socialism of guerrilla warfare...
                            and the comments in the supermarket,
it just stuck with me about Ernie's bike,
nothing in comparison to the Tour de France's racers
doing up to 50kmh...
                                      it just made me happy to make
a clean bed... and prevent 36 hours awake threshold
glitches of abstraction: black strings and random
square objects popping out of nothing with me in a
variation of nervous startles... Ernest's bike?
an antique, a 1950s Raleigh...
- hard leather seat beneath that modern overcoat?
- yes; no one would even take it if i left it
  outside a shop, they'd probably sell it for parts.
- well, unless someone is smart enough to notice
  a vintage, and tries to restore it,
  buy the vintage green paint and cover the rusty bits.
oh **** it, i can't keep my own company to suit
being happy by saying: ooh, doesn't know a joke,
the happiest he felt after walking out with a stone heart
was making a bed... but to be honest?
psst... i haven't made it in over a month... last night i
was getting cold-heat shivers in the idea of it being *****
enough though i shower everyday... ok, every other day
sometimes, my socks have holes in them, and my
shoes are ripped.
but there's more to this... the bicycle is a pun
of a Heidegger maxim: man is born as many men...
but dies as a single man... imagine how many
influences are entombed in us, the education reformers
to begin with, motherhood tips, cot deaths...
but we die as individual men... so when Ernest said
about the bicycle being only worth spare parts,
i said what Heidegger meant: but i'd take the whole thing
as one.
- how many gears?
- three at the back, one at the front; you see this thing?
- the long tube beneath the seat?
- yeah, when charged it would power up the front
   and back lights.
- oh, i'm used to seeing that thingy-madgit that you'd
   press against the front tire and the principle would be
   the same.
- a dynamo.
- yeah, a dynamo, forgot the name of it.
it started so innocently, i just sat on the bench with my
earphones and two beers and started rolling a cigarette.
- may i invade the bench?
                                               (earphones out of the ears)
- sure.
                and we just sat there, i asking if he minded me
smoking.
- i used to, loved it, esp. after dinner, gave it up 15 years ago.
  then conversations about dogs, family,
                                         and children's games,
          i said
- i'm finding it hard to find people of my generation with
even friendly dynamic of the body: eye contact is gone!
- it's all the fidgeting on those ****** tablets and phones,
when we were kids we used to play marbles,
conkers, hopscotch, so many...
- and we used to draw a racing maze, fill bottle caps
with plasticine and flick them through the maze
(i can't remember if we threw dice to see how many
moves we could make).
  by the time we started talking about the dogs we liked,
and compared them to the dog walkers passing us
   we already forgot who died today: it was Gene Wilder...
the world is mourning him, and we sat there
and the best i could come up with was Richard Pryor.
- dumb animal luck...
- you know how i managed to train my dog to run
  around the park, but come back to me? i used a whistle
  to get the dog to come back and i'd give it a treat.
  until it got the hang of it, i sometimes wouldn't give it
  a treat... other times i would, the point being was
  to teach it both obedience when nothing was given
  and double obedience when something was.
- ever heard of Pavlov? he basically did the same thing,
  but your experiment had coordinates, it was three-dimensional,
  Pavlov's was just two-dimensional, instead of a whistle
  he used a bell... just to stimulate two senses
  as coordinated, the sound of a bell created saliva
  in the dog's mouth, poor dog received treats
  but in the end Pavlov put him in a car with closed
  windows in the middle of summer outside
  of Parliament square; obviously the dog died.
- German shepherd though... i had a friend, naturally
  obedient.
- could walk a German shepherd through Manhattan
  without a leash.
- exactly, not even half a metre away, and when the
  master stops, the dog stops.
(i started thinking, what a great way to invert theology,
in this way from dogs to gods.)
well... i guess there was more, but if i write more
about it, when i'll reflect upon this chance meeting of
complete strangers as more insightful than it
already was...
                         he managed to climb back on his bike
with a slight problem after his hip-replacement
operation... at 74 such things break... and he rode off
and i sat there trying to think about what the hell
i was thinking after watching the x files to find
something insightful...
                                        well, i got one thing,
i mentioned it before... i could never have believed
that adults created the most nightmarish version
of hide (negate) & seek (doubt) -
                   i thought it was just as bad as
  truth & dare with religion - with that motto:
          the Koran: this is the truth, and the only truth...
so truth or dare? i dare you to deny it!
                    can i just doubt it? you know, not be
a definite unbeliever, but an indefinite quasi-believer?
well doubt in the stated quasi-believer is wavering,
isn't it? the two of the most beautiful games of
innocence, morphed into these gargantuan abominations.

Illusions of skydiving in a kimono
are not nightmares that awaken her
in a sweat each night

Fantasies of floating like a drone
creep into morning daydreams

Unprepared for make-believe
no kimono hangs in her closet

Each day she stands in front
of her full-length mirror
stares at perceived imperfections
as they thicken before her eyes

Friends don’t notice
each misplaced mole
or cellulite pleading
to hide from any
audience

Co-workers notice her
post-it-note headline

“Intelligent Perfect Women
Skydives in Kimono”

affixed to the cubicle wall

Today results of
her search for kimonos
of various colors
is carefully placed in
a folder entitled skydiving

I am a miner. The light burns blue.
Waxy stalactites
Drip and thicken, tears

The earthen womb

Exudes from its dead boredom.
Black bat airs

Wrap me, raggy shawls,
Cold homicides.
They weld to me like plums.

Old cave of calcium
Icicles, old echoer.
Even the newts are white,

Those holy Joes.
And the fish, the fish----
Christ! They are panes of ice,

A vice of knives,
A piranha
Religion, drinking

Its first communion out of my live toes.
The candle
Gulps and recovers its small altitude,

Its yellows hearten.
O love, how did you get here?
O embryo

Remembering, even in sleep,
Your crossed position.
The blood blooms clean

In you, ruby.
The pain
You wake to is not yours.

Love, love,
I have hung our cave with roses.
With soft rugs----

The last of Victoriana.
Let the stars
Plummet to their dark address,

Let the mercuric
Atoms that ******* drip
Into the terrible well,

You are the one
Solid the spaces lean on, envious.
You are the baby in the barn.

If I stayed any longer,
Who knows?
I might have gone insane too.

He told me his name.
I never asked him why he was there,
Why everyone else avoided him.  

I regret it now
But now is not the time,
There is no time left.  

He said he could get out
Whenever he wanted.
He just had no reason to go.  
He told me if I would come with him,
Stay with him forever, we’d leave.  

Can you imagine that?
He even said he loved me.  
The weirdest part is, I think I loved him to.
I would keep trying to remember
Where this love was taking place,
In this asylum but, I always forgot.

All we had to do was walk out.  
Nobody touched us.  
When we were out, we ran, and ran, and ran.  
In the middle of the forest,
There was no way they could find us,
We still wanted to be safe.

We found a cave in which we could stay,
Until we had enough strength to explore.
There was plenty of apples and firewood around.  
That first night, I just ate, and ate, and ate.  

I noted the big willow tree
and boulder next to the exit.
Natural, and calm.
This was a place of my refuge,
Where I would be happy.

We set out to explore,
The cave must have been close to the surface,
There were cracks in the ceiling that lit our way.
The cave was filled with tunnel after tunnel.  
Sometimes the tunnel would split into five or six
And we would have to choose one.
Giving the false sense of direction
As we wandered, aimless.
  
When I got scared,
He would assure me it would all be fine.
That must have been the worst lie,
Anyone has ever told me.

I finally worked up the courage
To ask him why he was in the asylum.  
He told me he could fool the mind.
Fool it into believing its body was in pain,
He said his looks could ****.

I scoffed.  

He stared at me,
Completely bewildered.  
I clearly thought him insane.  
He let that slide.  

He never kissed me fully, passionately.  
They were always short and sweet.  
He only brushed my face
When he wanted me to calm down,
Making jokes whenever
I was having second thoughts.
  
He was using me.  
I was a shield, nothing more.  
I would have to be disposed of.

Back to staring,
I realized that his back
Is not made of duck feathers.
My scoff doesn't slide.

I ran faster I’d ever run before.
All this flew through my mind
As I scrambled up from the cave floor for the third time.
The exit was just around the corner.
It just had to be.  

As I stumbled back
Onto the cold hard rock
The exit came into view.
I saw the light shimmering on the broken rock.
The shadow of a willow tree.
Ironically I was so happy I could cry.  
I’d hide in the trees
I’d never have to see this murderer again.  
Tripped for the fourth time.

I looked up,
Still sprawled out on the cave floor.  
There was a hole in the ceiling,
Sending shattered shafts of light to where I was lying.  
I watched the dust fall in lazy spirals.

I jumped off the floor.
Back to my peril,  
I heard his sluggish footsteps.
Turned around for one last look.
He stood in those shattered beams of light
Glaring at me.

Now on my feet, I stood
In the dark half of the spacious hall of rock
As if that would help my situation.  
If only I could fade into the shadows.  
I was trapped.
With no escape but the cave's tunnels behind me,
Or the death awaiting me.  

Just a few more steps back.  

He’s eyes snapped to my feet,
"You don’t want to do that.”
Back to my face.
His smile was only evident in his voice.
He was right.  
I didn’t want to die in that moment.  

The room’s light darkened
As if someone had put out the sun.
I knew it was coming.

I loved him.
He may not love me now.
He may never have.
But I don’t care.  
If I never loved him,
I may not be in this situation,
I might not be about to die.  
But I think just maybe,
It was worth it.  

Those smiles,
Stolen kisses and touches,
Just the sound of his voice.
Running in the middle of the forest
Away from the asylum.
It was all worth the pain I was about to feel.  

We stood staring at each other,
Waiting for the other to make the first move.  
The tension mounted.
Hatred started coming off him in waves,  
Hitting me over and over
Threatening to pull me under.  
I could feel his anger.

The air seemed to thicken,
Weighing down on me,
Forcing from me my last breath.
Draining me of what little strength
I had left to remain standing.

I began to gasp for air,
Unable to feel my lungs expand.
Feel the relief of oxygen in my blood.  
My eyes were locked in his
Begging to turn away,
To save my life.  

I was mesmerized.
Like prey waiting for the snake to strike  
I watched helplessly as his face,
Distorted with anger, began to twitch.  

I could see the words that would end this,
Begin to form on his lips.
Waiting to be released.
***** off his spit stained *****.  
After the agony of anticipation seemed to reach its peak.  
They dropped like acid into the open air.

I lost the fight against the pressure.
Finally crumbling under the strain,
I rested on my knees.
Holding my head in my hands
Preparing to resist the attack.

It hit me full force
Like a subway train at full speed.
I did all I could not to cry out,
To give in to this miserable existence,
To give him the satisfaction of my death.  

I broke out in a cold sweat
As my muscles continued to fight,
Melting with the strain.  
Adrenaline pumped through my veins
As the true attack began.  

The pain started at the tips of my fingers and toes.  
Slowly crawling, burning,
It continued to eat away at my flesh.  

Much to my dismay
I remained intact
But paralyzed by the pain
Unable to run away,
To escape it.

I was unaware of the storm of tears
Falling from my cheeks.  
Oblivious that he continued to circle closer,
Waiting for his moment to strike.  

The pain began to worsen,
Shifting from fire to lava,
Lava to lightning.  
It was unimaginable, indescribable.

Then I lost control.
This body– it was no longer mine.
It began to betray me.  
It shuddered, then shook spasmodically.  

Its back arched knowing what was to come next,
Preparing as the bubble of air was pushed slowly
Up its tongue, against its lips.
Its blood curdling,
Gut wrenching shriek
Lasted mere hundredths of a second.

He comes into view for a brief moment.
My eyes roll back into my head,
And I lose myself in the blackness.  

He was the child with the magnifying glass that lingered
in the exhalation of the heavens. Always holding it on
those of weaker statue than himself. Insects were his
starting point, as they were barbecued under the influence
of what was focused between light and glass and what
lived became inanimate just a blackened smear that he
smothered words into the dirt
        
                           I'LL BURN THE WORLD,

His parents saw this and in jest laughed it off as the
Immaturity of a child's frustration. That all was but a
a boy finding his place within the many echoes of manhood.
A child was maturing, and they assumed that he was not
ready for the collision of what was in-between the moments
of childhood and adulthood.

One cold and sodden night where the only things that were dry.
Were submerged in the cover of roofs and foliage.
But even the penetrating raindrops gathered in haste to soak
the earth beneath the leaves protection. All drowned within
nights flourish of immersed air. Where it felt that breath was only
in-between the flurry of h20's deluge.

Within the house, within the rooms crept a silence.
            It wasn't alone, for it wept unseen streams between the  
crisp white borderlines,  were doused in clear liquids,
Draping the curtains in non received  heavy remorse,
the only things that were burdensome were the drapes as the weight of the liquid pulled at the seams holding them aloft.

Remorse was neither felt or given. just a feeling of accomplishment.  
Felt it in the moments that succeeded between this
gathering of dead lights as a flame was lit.
But not a whisper was echoed this flame was lifeless
in the eyes of its beneficiary.
But it lept upon the walls like a ballerina, gentle,
and dancing within the confides of its given dance.

He stood in the hallway the flashback was unexpected,
but he still stood there gazing and the beauty of something
given with such frailty that a breath could extinguish
its potential. His parents had no idea, they were slumbering
within the confines of blankets that entombed the warmth.
Clasping hand even in sleep love was a subconscious yearning.
The thing with these old houses some had decretive metal over
the wind bars in beauty crafted to keep things out.


But this was his plan, what cant get in cant get out.
He'd gone in there room and stole the key.
He took a last glance, and said,
             "I Love You
,Before sealing them within. The flames were silent like
a stalker watching waiting, till the inevitable conclusion.

As things started to burn more passionately, caressing every
thing it was touching. So the smoke started to thicken like
A heavy smog it got into places the fire had not reached.
Moans could be heard, then screams at the realisation of
what was happening. He Could hear them, he could see them.
For even though a teenager he was intuitively cunning,
tinkering with everything and anything.

And small cameras were dotted around the house,
looking listening to everything that was seen and spoken.
It had come to fruition due to one such thing he had heard
being discussed by his parents.

"I saw him in the woods,

                 "Doing what darling?

"He didn't see me but the neighbours cat,
                                  "you know soot,

"What did he do, nothing bad!

                "He tied it up,
"Then threw what I thought was water on it,
                  I thought it was nasty but then!!!  

"Then what, your scaring me,

"He lit a cigarette, I didn't even know he smoked,
  "Then he discarded the match,

       "The cat, oh my god the cat,

"But he recorded its screams, he recorded it dying,

"I couldn't move I was so angry, so humiliated,
        "I wanted to throttle him there and then,

"But ill phone the police tomorrow,
                  "He's not right, who would do that,

How dare they think that I can just be fobbed off,
         discarded.

                                             I was making music,
the screams were a delicate symphony,
            acoustics that's couldn't be reproduced.
It had to be from the source.

That laid, the plans for what now enveloped that house,
recording every noise, every scream. But what he needed
was for them to burn, to release the music he needed to
hear to complete his work. And they like parents gave it
there all, he had goose bumps as he heard there terror.
his eyes welled up, not in regret but the beauty that his
parent last words were given to him, so personal was this
moment that he'd never forget it.
                                                        
                                                                ­          "Thank Mum & Dad,

After this he released a mix tape, that could be only
conceived from an artist, in the womb of excellence.
That's the reviews he had, it brought shudders to your
heart and mind. It was if your humanity was crying out to it.

As so forth and more were sewn in the adulation of his work.

Now he needed to make more music, but he needed more
screams to make his next piece two were not enough..

So he wandered the night, dressed in unclean wear
so not to be confused with who, or what he was..
He hung around the homeless parts of town,
plastic sheeting for roofs.. and combustible bedding.
It was as if he'd planned himself. but he had to be smart.
for this was if ill planned he would have a needle in his
arm within the year. But he took his time tiny cameras
recording visually and sound.

He had gathered the combustible elements needed to
make this a orchestra of his needing, not a duet like before.
He didn't down play his past offering, but this would make
an album of despair and monument to the flame.

It had been raining, but only lightly as he needed some
dampness in the air on there sheets cardboard mattresses.
So not to raise suspicion on the dampness of there homes.

As they moved away from the embers of barrel fires,
yes he'd thought about that. Not every home was a
crematorium a cardboard and plastic coffin of there
choosing. He waited clasping his hands together breathing
on them as it was cold night. He liked to watch, a voguer
of sort, but his wasn't the fantasy of death it was to hear the
music that was about to be sung with smoke filled lungs.

He'd set up a unique but rudimentary way to light the fire,
a small gas hob with liquid within. it needed to be a certain
temperature ignite, he had tried it before in a field out west.
Deserted he'd made a mock up of this humble place.
And he wasn't mistaken it was fascinating, the flame spread
like the wind enveloping everything but, it was a dull for even
though the flames wept of everything, its tears turning all to
ash..

It was silent, deafening, he cried for a while, there should never
be censorship of the flame, for what is a log fire without the cracking of its inner self being consumed. This was just smoke
and regret. But he now looked down at the camp, his watch
counting down the precious moments.
                                                             He whispered.
                                              

                                                  "Thankyou,
­
And then like a super nova the darkness was ingulfed in
the aurora of flame, gliding over the ground as if a stream
of conscious reckoning. Those near by the civilians that were
                        across the street were transfixed.
As screams embellished the flames, this was my orchestra
of light and noise. Those across the street were either screaming
or videoing the scene.
I looked at them and wondered where there humanity
had gone to, as to film this moment rather than to rush in
and save the few that they could.

I watched as the engines came, extinguishing my masterpiece
choosing the night was always preferable to the day as flames
dance better when there is less light to contaminate there beauty.

My music, I had become quite the remixer, of vocal and rhythmic
sounds.
                               Within a week I had mad nine new songs.

I named them each as deserved, making them in memory of
those who perished that dreadful night.
            It was well received, a few thought it was a haunting
melody of humanity's struggle, while a few thought it was
over ambitious, and lacked the passion of my first piece.

All together it went down well, and the adulation of the
flame was kept, to honour that which gives as much as
takes the breath of life away.
A year had past and the door rang, it was an officer.

                 "Could you come to the station please,

Had I become the victim of my own success, had someone
broke down the acoustics of my music and realised what
they were?? So many thoughts went through the calm
exterior of my persona. But inside the flame dimmed,
had I lit the last candle. I was taken in to a room,
and questioned evasive not to the point but gathering
speed to the answer, where were you on the
                                                             ­       30th April 2019.

Alabi's were a fantastic thing to plan ahead, I had laced
my date with sleeping tablets to leave her in perpetual
slumber. And got back before she awoke, we made love
we were the flame and the wick.. and our sweat was the wax dripping from our form. The next week I dumped her.

They asked if I recognised a picture, blurry and ill framed
but I could make out the figure was me. No sir I don't why.
This person of interest is wearing your jacket, your logo!
I smiled and was truthful to a degree.
                                                             Planning is everything.

I threw maybe fifty into the crowd when I did a concert
in the city, when we drove past some homeless persons.
We donated what was left to them, do you realise how
cold these streets are, who am I to steal warmth away.
I don't wear my own merchandise what do you think I
am egotistical, no I wanted to help those who I could
have been if not for my music. I lost my parents I know
what its like to be alone.

I think the show went well, as I was released before
reporters even got a sniff. But I knew that my time
was a wick trying to keep the flame lit but dying out
anyway. I had made preparations for this time.

I had brought a club only for gigs, cheesy as hell but
had that 80's disco vibe the entire floor was light up.
But I had brought  the ingredients for thermite,
amazing what you learn in school and the internet.
But I never used mine different libraries in different
cities so not raise suspicion. I  invited the music critics
and others which I had personally disproved of.
its was going to be free drinks and themed 80's night.

Who can not want free drinks, well I wasn't going to be
disappointed 90% came, how lucky the few.
Phones were confiscated, no video, but more
importantly no phone calls to the outside world.
I told them at the end of the night that I was realising
a new song, they were like vultures to flesh.
As the night progressed some wanted to leave,
but we offered them the VIP section also lit flooring.

Now was the time, I had put heating elements under the floor
to ignite the thermite. A supernova of heat even though brief
would ignite the choir of harmony needed. I asked them,
                                                           ­ "Are you ready,

And then silence, I put on my welding glasses,
                                                        ­         I wasn't stupid.
Never look into the heart of the flame unless you want
to be blinded by its beauty.
I pressed a button and it was magnificent, it was like a tide of sunlight, they tried to scramble but all exits were locked.
It was like the wizard of Oz, and the witch I'm meltinggggg..
But this wasn't a fairy tale.. The adulation I had for these
chosen few. What excitement the others had missed.

I'd made my booth flame and smoke proof, I had my own
walkway but I knew that this was the last time I could pay
homage to the flame. As the screams died down.
The wicks smouldered and the floor looked more like a battle
field of  WWII. I began I knew I didn't have a lot of time.
But this was just a single I'd already got the backing music
ready. And as I worked away, I could hear the banging on
the reinforced doors. They gave me a breather to get my
work fulfilled.

I heard the doors start to give way but no matter
I'd only needed this time to tweak the music.
Given I'd started this over an hour ago, it was good
on my part for this not to be broadcast till I saw fit.
As the police burst through, gazing at the flaming
effigies that lied before them, some threw up, gross..

While others saw me smiling I pressed the button and
my new song was word wide.. its was called the critics
tried to burn me down. The response was gratifying.
Likes reached the hundreds of thousands in mere minutes.
Well it was only three minutes twenty five seconds long.
As they shoot at the booth I wiggled my finger at them.
I do like to plan ahead but dam was that loud against the
glass. Got to be said some had wicked aim, made me flinch
a few times.

But alas all things come to an end, I uploaded my videos
of what I had done. I was proud of my contribution to
my legacy and empowering others with my music.
As I looked down at the puddle, I tap danced in it for
a moment and then lit the lighter, I looked a them
and once again waved, I was like a funeral pyre.
A crematorium of silence and then I was gone.
                                                I didn't scream,
I was in her embrace and had done her proud.

7:05, it's late September
     and mid-continent can't decide
     on a season
     if it's Summer, Winter
     or some patchwork in between
     but I've
Decided
   Falling on confusion's
not the same as hitting Springy grass
because I've seen

   How hard December
   clamps its jaws
on those Midwest city streets
   --With famished eyes
      and with breath howling
      tries to find ways into me

So, clothed in shivers, one might stumble
   Between bars, snowflakes, and friends

And cloudy skies and clouded glasses
  tell you, "you'll never be young again!"

11:30, Minneapolis--
     you're sure your ride is late.
Trudge through snow, and mud and asphalt
while skies thicken purple-grey.

And things are much the same in Bismarck
And much the
      same in Winnipeg.
Thrusting frigid hands in pockets
   restore some blood to aching legs.

"And it's another Midwest winter."
  What more is there to say?

Respond to yourself and keep walking
Still miles away from home
Still a decade until morning
Another New Year's spent alone
    --and growing old--

Now you remember last September--
It was still 80 degrees!
Now you're caught in Midwest winters--
Release a breath and watch thoughts freeze.

So just wait until next Summer
Your floor heater warms your toes
And it's wait until the next drink
to thraw your throat out: so it goes.

So it goes...

And goes and goes.

But you'll never be young again.

growing up to choruses of revelation and redemption,
i always heard them say that this world is approaching
hell or heaven.

now that years have passed and i have found my own voice,
i say -with scars of experience- there's not much difference between
an abundance of wildflowers or an abundance of wildfires.
life continues to blossom fearlessly forward;
lovers continue to burn just as brightly.

so, dear friend, i beg of you,

spread me like your wildflowers.
hiding beneath the weight of loam
bodies curled tight in the shell of youth
clinging tight to the gentle flame
that burns within us all.

spread me like your wildfires.
ever expanding heat and humidity
swelling and growing faster, faster
collecting sparks like goosebumps
and awaiting the ignition of touch.

spread me like wildflowers.
roots like fingers tunneling
their way through the damp
fertility of adolescent life stumbling
through hallways headfirst into the light.

spread me like wildfires.
bellowing smoke like clouds dances
from lips never kissed
now singed to a gentle crisp
from the intimacy of a catalyst.

spread me like wildflowers.
stems burst forth from the dark
with the kinesthetic rage
of a child no longer content
to crawl upon hands and knees.

spread me like wildfires.
gasping, wheezing, aching,
spreading further, higher to find
new sources to burn like blood in veins
in the heartbeats following a first touch.

spread me like wildflowers.
bodies now rising strong against the tide of winds
lifting the burden of petals upon shoulders capable
like butterflies crouching upon fingertips raised,
poised to fly.

spread me like wildfires.
flames stretching like arms across
the skin of a now familiar lover
embracing in the hot throes of passion
and the brilliant burn of innocence's remorse.

spread me like wildflowers.
buds burdened with dew
heavy with expectation to begin anew
straining against the drowsiness of flesh
until finally bursting forth with brilliant zeal.

spread me like wildfires.
the overwhelming euphoria
of feet finding steady ground
and of thoughts no longer filled
with concerns of mere survival.

spread me like wildflowers.
growing past fearful worries of tomorrow
content to stretch limbs and petals wide
seeding the earth with children
and blessing a new generation with beauty.

spread me like wildfires.
drowning the overwhelming clamor
of a forest in the midst of song
replaced only with the lonely blaze,
the roaring glow in that crackling ******.

spread me like wildflowers.
the seasons of youth long passed
leaving trunks and bodies to thicken and knot
scarring deeper with every lingering reminder
and memory of the light left dimming.

spread me like wildfires.
always hungry, wisps of flame
lick at the heels of the forest
stealing the air of life and lungs
and leaving the body breathless.

spread me like wildflowers.
the brisk, impersonal wind of winter
chills the rooted beauty of Nature's eye
gently wilting the aging passion
under a soft crown of frost.

spread me like wildfires.
never content to rest in one place
or shy away from raging against
the gall of day to ever end at all
and lower the shades on former lovers.

spread me like wildflowers.
gently resting like bodies
no longer warm to the touch
sleeping deeper than corpses
in the morgue of your memory.

spread me like wildfires.
ash swirls in the flurry of
flame's last breath, whirling
in the charred remains of intimacy
no longer returned, no longer found.

so lover, i beg now of you,

bury me like your wildflowers.
drown me like your wildfires.

HER *****
dedicated to Tamara

Her *****...so swollen....so full

Bulging beneath her blouse

Straining against her huge nursing bra

I long to suckle her deeply, till the end of time itself

Her ******* thicken....becoming so *****

She sighs deeply....her let-down gently washes over her

She smiles...guiding my hands as we unbutton her blouse

Her ***** takes my breath away

Her bulging cleavage qiuvers at my touch

Engorged.....veined

I bury my face....my lust.... in her *****

Savoring her womanhood

She unhooks a cup....her huge ****** weeping

Longing for my hunger

I suckle her deeply....lovingly....wantonly

Her warm milk, life's sweet nectar

Flows...flows......flows...flows

Feeding my desire...feeding my love for her

My love for the warmth of her *****

i hope, i try to hope
--to believe--
believe me, i try
to trust in trust i think i feel, or think or know
there isn't any code that satisfies
though maybe there's an uber-uber-ultra-meta code beyond what even codes can mean?
meh.
i enjoy the hypothetical,
Paris in a bottle, fairness for all sentient beings, faith in nothing comprehensible,
an English teapot circles Jove from afar
or all that's uncontrollable, for some all-purpose good to decorate the brackish, ocean truth.
and uncertain science is another case,
mistrusting all, testing daring thoughts with razor sight,
to sharpen speech and challenge all
to flex the truth into a fitness ground on which to stand, objective stern
and method doubt to peer and scan the detail bare, denude minutiae
into ever smaller parts, expanse of raw and empty space attuned,
to vibrant nothingness rebound
muons, gluons, tauons, quarks and bosons --Higgs the boon for popular appeal,
to bridge or monumentalize the science-mystic gap
appall the ghosts that Galileo keeps for company
i enjoy the fantasy,
dragons in a flask, perfect love for all, dancing in the dark in joy regardless of the shutter thicken dust

The Lung.

The broken bone branches hang heavy off knuckled tree. As cold and uninviting as wrapped meat in cellophane prison cells and those sweating milk bottles left on doorsteps. Women cry with the blackbirds as day breaks, rousing their reluctant nests.
As the shadows trawl in from chicken farms and slaughterhouses, across the squalid estates and past a debt collectors party. A ***** drinks his soot like coffee and waits for another years tide to retreat. Holding pith less ambitions and unmentionable qualifications, stewardess pass, uniformed thoughts and averting faces..
The rusty playgrounds sink into the fermenting wood chips, and a plastic bag runs through the scene; only to commit suicide in the oil ribbon canal. The chemical clouds thicken into a duvet of sky whilst  arrows of a natural sun run home with tears of fear on their hot faces.
Down here the street lights flicker, and the patched uniforms drape off children sick with the flu that hit the school like a plague. Herding like cattle into the classrooms, to learn about the natural world
that is most unearthly to there reason.
Lunch bells ring from factories and the sky has drained to a sick -off white. The chip shop sells butties with no sauce nor bun, which machine like men guzzle and slurp.
The car parks lay stagnant in the distance and pigeons too fat to fly lay droppings on the bronze statue of a crying hero. As the roaring stops from the factories and high visibility coats are hung,  the sky bruises and the men fill the pubs, until wives with children hung on washing lines drag there sweat soaked frames to the table, only to indulge them in a row.
Night creeps in, bringing with it the hooded figures that flutter along the streets. Music plays from a vacant building and seems to brighten the night.
A silhouette is seen standing on the edge, watching the busses bellow run like migrating snails, filled with the elderly and too young.
Cigarettes infest the streets creating a carpet of ash and litter. The city survives, remaining grey, never blinking, never heard.

The message is simple, the delivery hard,
even as his eyes cut holes for it to enter.
White rims that flash, like beasts that spar
Natural strobes flicker, to thicken the black center.
When intent is replied with padded knuckle intent
Ungraceful, his neck turns past comforts vector.
I turn away to close a window from the storm.

Thought pathways like drunken footprints stepped
but a spark in the cloud of numbness replies.
My clenched thumb releases his bicep
And the arthritic cogs inside us violently un-subside.
Those muscle strings in my handwriting
to the letter the red bull replies,
but rain breaks my gaze to the window.

Knuckles like bruised alps in formation;
the boy’s got blood lightning in his eyes,
And so have I. ***** in the sockets I’m pushing on,
to revel in colors of my ****** mind’s sky.
I hurt myself to try telling that one ****** idea.
Tasting the punch, spitting iron, my Boxer I despise.
The classic writer’s hand ache makes me relinquish my pen.

Those axons, which lead to nothing,
they have now reached it.
Flayed to the winds.
The eye’s blinds closed completely.
In darkness, rasping breath resounding
and the lungs like strained gluttons for life
are clearly mocking the hearts desperate beating.

I put the pen horizontal to the desk.
It possesses all the use of a dead man’s organs.

But the sway, rains sweat from hair down to skin,
Then to polish the padded domes of pain.
When flesh rolls like thunder, bones crack like lightning.
His legs, my pen and both our minds are jarred from this refrain.
And upon the strike,
I’ll polish words and pad their meaning,
Punch the reader,
And enjoy the force that they contain.

A feeling, an ocean and a dream to describe:
It’s another mid afternoon morning and the sunlight billows through the windows and pierces my eyes; they fight for consciousness and after some struggle with my two-ton eyelids, I managed to pick myself up and stagger off to the shower. Twenty minutes later, cleaned and clothed, I make my way downstairs to see what faces still linger in the house from the night before. With each step from under my feet comes a cold shrill scream; the nails, with a century of twisting and turning wiggled themselves free. With the slightest exchange of pressure, the nails give way and plunge back into the body of the stair from which they had escaped.  
It’s quiet downstairs. There’s not a sound; no voices of laughter echoing from the floors and off of the ceilings, not a sound of friends or strangers’ feet as they scramble to rustle up their clothes and belongings from the night prior. I had grown accustomed to hearing this in the morning and in all honestly, I’ve grown quite fond of the array of faces that had made camp here for the night. Usually this means front row seats to a race track where they all spin and run into one another to get started on their endless lists of routines and obligations. For the lucky few who get to vacation rather than push papers on the weekend, this meant a new companion and hopefully a day of company. Unfortunately, today the house is hallow, so empty it could make someone dream.
After pacing the house for a bit, the stillness starts to settle in; the leaking faucet growing unbearably ever more predominate with a slow crescendo of slurred reminders, drip no one’s home, drip you’re alone, drip what are you going to do? Drip, drip and the deafening silence like a parasite is crawling its way up and under my skin. My feet and hands get restless so I grab my acoustic guitar and head for the door.
On the porch, I take refuge on the cool concrete and light a cigarette; as the cherry churns the paper burns slowly, mimicking the melody of minors strummed ever so softly. My mind starts to wander, slipping into its self, lofting away like the ribbon of smoke from the cigarette. How funny it is that the greatest of men and minds have achieved the unbelievable; they unraveled the wheel, the moon met man from a tin can, empires leveled by the push of a button and as a tired heart’s tick softens, a surgeon’s scalpel cuts open and easily replaces it. With all the trophies brightly polished placed on the mantle of man there is not a space for the trophy that is truly worth parading; a cure for emotions. Irony, like a well aged whiskey, drunken my humor and ferments my appreciation. As a disease loneliness infests like a tumor, endlessly growing. The thoughts that once retreated so easily at the first hint of war are now back, glowing with vengeance tailored with armies; and they’ve got me cornered, it begins.
I start sinking, farther and farther down, unable to swim in this brackish abyss; any attempt to kick my legs, swing my arms has become a day dream, perhaps its only momentary paralysis caused from my leap of faith from my raft of hope that in my mind I had been previously enjoying the warm weather and smooth sailing; until the vessel caught a flame and was swallowed by the ocean of despair.
The light that once danced all alone up on the surface has retreated from fear. My lungs now burning as they cling to my last breath, they swell with anger, splitting at the seams from the pressure of the ocean’s hand gasping my poor lungs, tension alone compressing my entire chest I can feel the sharp pains as they are growing nearer and nearer to exploding, I clench my already squinted eyes from the burn of ocean’s salt. In some last attempt for survival with my eyes firmly tightened, just as the water starts to creep its way down my throat into my lungs I can feel the water begin to thicken.
No longer sinking into the great void of salted rift tides but resting gently on a mattress of sand. With my back exposed, the sun quickly heats my sopping wet T-shirt, my bones fill once again with life. Have I, by some lottery of luck, washed up on the beach? Scrapping the sand from my eyes in pursuit to unravel this mystery, the sand has magnetized itself to pruned skin and drenched clothing. I clear my eyes to the best of my ability, I can still feel the sand gritting in the folds of my eye lids and after a few fresh breaths of air which fill my sore lungs with relief, I roll over to sit up and dig my feet deep into the sand. I look out shielding my eyes from the blinding sun with my hand. I look to the left and then the right and quickly darting back and forth from each position, there is no ocean in view. What was my inevitable aquatic ending has now vanished; no longer sinking but standing. I am alone in what has become an ocean of sand; a desert of wandering and mystery.
With the blistering sun and vultures circling over head as constant reminder that this is in fact real; I began to stumble about for shelter. After what seemed like hours of hurdles the moon flies high while the sun sleeps in the southern sky, I find myself under a cliff of overhanging rocks; sitting down the rocks are warm and almost caressing. This bit of refuge reminds me of my mother; as a child I remember straying from her in a department store. Unknowing then that she had not been tailing me like a blood hound, until I turned around and as far as I knew she had vanished from the earth. After sprinting and retracing my steps like map I see her, the site of her from across the store fills me with joy, still sprinting I run to her, eyes like a fountain they poured into her arms as she held me there in her arms; they were warm and safe.
A faint smile crawls its way onto my face and the same tears of relief rain from my eyes and floods the ground; the sand now flooded starts to move vigorously from side to another. Out of the mist of their rumbling out gets pushed a blade of grass, and then another and another one by one pull their way out of the sand  to the surface; as the flowers start to blossom the slumbered sun awakes to a lush field of flowers filled with life. Within the field I move freely about, running in circles of familiar joy; the large sunflowers sway in the breeze of my arms as I run past them. The garden is beautiful with explosions of color all around held by peddles of flowers, and a small pond in the very center; a garden this perfect had to have been birthed by a gardener with the most beautiful of hands; Hands much like my grandfather.
Kneeling down beside the pond I splash some water with my hands on to my face to clear the filth from my pores. A gleam catches my eye from the mirror of the water, and I’m staring myself in the eyes. The pond isn’t reflecting what’s circled around me, but it’s reflecting me as a child, a bit older than the child crying for his mother; my face in the reflection, so precious and young just beaming full of life.
As if the pond were a movie screen the memory that had started to fade with age in my memory is playing crystal clear. I can see that little boy surrounded by familiar trees and flowers with the fields running farther than my eyes can see. That little boy is laying on the equally little wooden bridge that stretches over the little pond, my father laying beside him on the bridge with their heads and hands poking playfully over the edge of the bridge. Through the eyes of that little boy I can see a stick in hand trying to catch the nonexistent fish just as his father had showed him. My father looks down at me with a smile flooding his face as he says to me, “you know, Chad; I’m very lucky to have you, you’re all I could have ever asked for in this world. You’re a beautiful boy, a perfect son and I love you very much”. I remember watching a tear roll down the side of his face and watching it fall and disrupt the surface of the pond. Back on the other side of the glass; as his tear hits the pond the ripple breaks up the memory and just like the garden, the pond with the little bridge, my father and his sweet child; they all disappeared just as they had throughout my life. This time things felt different, not the cold touch of my bitter friend loneliness, but seeing that memory polished, shining new brings peace to my heavy heart.
A sharp sting burns my lips, the cigarette now burnt to the filter rips me back into body leaving the army, that ocean, the desert and the garden all behind. From footsteps behind me “I hoped I’d find you here”; I turn around and there she is, standing silhouetted by the sun, my angel. Charcoaled hair and island sky eyes, she had come to rescue me. “Hey you, I was hoping we could spend the day together; are you alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” I smile and nod my head. “Aright then come on.” and with that no longer in the vantage point window watching, but through a door and living.

For ShirleyB*


Feel your heartbeat quicken
For these pasta-salad days:
I am bringing chicken.

Bulging bellies thicken
Laden with crab hollandaise.
Feel your heartbeat quicken.

Sweet Siobhan seems stricken
By the puddings and soufflés.
(I am bringing chicken.)

Insert thy toothpick in
Anastasia’s canapés:
Feel your heartbeat quicken.

Beatrice (she’s Wiccan)
Brought a heap of warm beignets;
I am bringing chicken.

Jealousy shall sicken
Those who brought their best entrées--
Feel your heartbeat quicken:
I am bringing chicken!

Crap-tastic manufacturers thicken molasses,
While the turkey workers burn by the boss shoppers.
Consumers pay your bills and spit out your will,
After they chew up the crews and disrespect the efforts turned black.
Good intentions don't exist and content is what they expect.
So take pride that your worth dies when your work is defined by the consumers ability to think they're always right.
And remember that reason takes a slumber when consumers choose the seasons of the year they want to see.

I am depressed.
It happens once in a while.
I can see it coming.
Like dark clouds reaching my piece of the sky.
They roll and thicken and cover the entire sky.
Distant thunders and pale lightnings peep through them.
I suffocate and long for a rain.
Oh how I wish the rain just splash out of it.
And wash away all the anguish with it.
I  love that rain!
Rain of my own tears.
And the relief after the rain.
Like meek sunrays slowly spreading in.

Some tell me to fight it off.
Some tell me to pray it off.
Some tell me to work it off.
Some tell me to sleep it off.
Some tell me to write it off.
Oh! but the ecstacy is to cry it off!
For little they all know about my anguish.
I have tried in vain to explain and sealed it in.
Like the drop of rain in the oyster of my heart.
One day it was destined to turn into a pearl.
Behold! My beautiful pearl!
My Anguish!
Finally versified!

One: Sleepy
When your spine takes cat-like curves into the recesses of blankets
And crickets and thunder and howling wind all sound like peace
And puzzle pieces fitting splendidly against each other
You’re sleepy when your eyelashes are weakly magnetized
And pull gently towards one another in soft but stuttered motions
When white noise and static fill your ears the way that water can sometimes fill a glass a little bit past the top without spilling
And you look forward to the lure of dreams or of dreamless nights
Because you know you’re sleepy when the only reason to be awake in the moment
Is so that you can appreciate the split second of falling
When you finally lose consciousness

Two: Bored
When you switch from counting ceiling tiles to counting the colors that you can find when you close your eyes with varying degrees of tension
And you’ve become so bored with distracting yourself that sleep seems like the only genuine option
Even if you’ve only just woken up
Even if you’re not feeling comforted by darkness and silence yet
Even if distractions are abundant
Because they just aren’t distracting enough
Sometimes boredom summons misery just to occupy your mind
And you’re bored when you remember you were supposed to be in bed an hour before
And you actually listen to yourself and go

Three: Drowsy
When you wish you had longer limbs just so you could properly drape them from the edges of your mattress and stretch at better angles
Suspecting that maybe the odd crooks in your bedframe are the crooks that have been thieving in bits of the night and stealing the ends of dreams and the beginnings of alarms
You’re drowsy when you can feel the burn of smoke sloping against the walls of your lungs
Even when you’ve been breathing clean air all day
And the dizzy spin of the room is more of a waltz that’s moving just a little bit slower than expected
Until you turn the music off

Four: Fed Up
When stress is snapping at your synapses and igniting fizzling fireworks at the back of your throat
But the forward corners of your eyes pull together to shut out the world
Because ignoring is a temporary retreat into forgetting
And permanence isn’t something you’re in the mood to believe in any way
You’re fed up with the world, and with existing
Or maybe just being awake
When you know there are better things that you could and should be doing
But shutting down is all you can manage right now

Five:  Faint
When the world appears not only blurry, but verging on translucent
And there’s a steady hum lacing the edges of reality
With sporadic jolts of memory forcing twitching sensations down your back
You’re feeling faint when you’re hopelessly holding onto consciousness
Because you’re a little bit afraid of falling
But you would never admit it
Because there are too many blank spaces in your vision to allow for any vagueness in your thoughts
But sometimes the body can’t keep up with the mind
And you collapse all the same

Six: Weary
When time seems to thicken and stick to your skin
Weighing down your movements like steel beads of sweat
And pressing palms to your eyes almost seems to drown out sound as well
You’re weary when the grass feels a few inches too long and the ground seems a few inches too close
And the ends of your limbs feel as though they have been reaching for something a little bit too far away
And you have only just given up
So you grab handfuls of the clothes you have on and pull them tighter against yourself
Forming an artificial blanket
And imitation slumber

Seven: Exhausted
When you can feel static buzzing through your veins
Stretching capillaries into threads to keep yourself sewn together
Knowing that consciousness could spill from the cracks in your skin all too easily if given the chance
And your eyelids hold together like the grand doors of a cathedral
Opening only with a struggle that everyone tries to make seem effortless
You’re exhausted when you’ve been writing this poem for days trying to find the words
To properly describe different degrees of fatigue
And you’re sure that you’ve probably recycled a metaphor or two but you don’t bother to double check
So you keep trudging along
Until nothing makes sense anymore
And the seams that encase your consciousness begin to strain
And snap

Eight: Hyperactive
When despite all reason dictating that you should be experiencing the drag of being awake for too long
You see clearly and think in double time
With energy flickering behind your irises
Foreshadowing the dread of sunrise
You’re hyperactive when you’re knitting your voice with your friends’ voices in a collage of laughs
Each indistinguishable from the last
And you start counting the stars with flashlights until
Like sugar and smiles
And fast cars on icy roads
You inevitably
Crash

Nine: Emotionally Drained
When you’re worn to the point that mental distress manifests itself physically
And you can feel the chains of your own thoughts around your wrists
Almost wishing they were tighter so there would at least be proof of their damage
You’re emotionally drained when you can scream without making any sound
And you've perfected the syncopated rhythm of a nervous twitch
You realize that you've been grinding your teeth for the last two hours
So you switch to biting your tongue
And you don’t rest
You don’t rest until there are tears mimicking a Jackson ******* on your pillowcase
You don’t rest until the clock is judging you for testing it
You don’t rest until you feel empty
You cannot rest when you feel empty
No matter how desperately you wish you could just fade
And drift away
You do not
Rest

Ten: Tired
Just…tired

Everyone’s a mutt in this paradise
adding to the Gumbo: America.
Anglo pure blood and breed will not suffice
To thicken spicy stew’s- Hysteria.
Strength, which each American is made of-
From the poor origins like Plymouth Rock
to indentured servants-it’s not enough.
Like bitter tyranny of slavery’s stock,
And exotic railroad builders toil…
Sweaty brows and every acrid tear dropped
pierced this soil, made this land boil
with every dreamers dream heavy hearts stopped.
We overflow into the salty seas
with ancient roots long as sequoia trees.

A breeze of cold air
Greeted me as I went outside
I see thick snows covering
The empty streets where I live

On my way to school
I saw little children
Throwing snowballs at each other
Giggling as the ball of snow hits them

I shove my hands in my pockets
As the wintry climate
Starts to thicken around me
Right before my eyes

Snow started falling from above
I reach out my hand
To catch a crystal of snow
And waited until they piled up

December is nice
Despite the frosty ice
Cold, yet heartwarming
This is the season of felicity

It was not really thee
bards of the ages
who inspired me
but of your wages
I shall purloin lithe lines
to add to the meager confines
of my tailored tale

nineteen
green
inside and out
not knowing when I would be ripe
cramming all the ammo clips I could find
into my fresh jungle fatigues
he
the sage of 2nd platoon
told me of the frightful night
when
in the midst of a hellish firefight
he reached for more clips
and found only the remnants of chips
tasty morsels when first consumed
but then a sign he was doomed
“NO MORE AMMO—****”
he sunk even lower into the carpet of night
but to his ironic delight
“the **** that was shooting at me ran out of ammo too”
after exchanging an infinite stare
both fled into the ebony air
the moral of his twice told fable
grab all the ammo clips you are able

and the sage from 1st platoon said,
one night when our brains were brimming with beer
that a full bladder was also something to fear
for being distracted by the urge to ****
could perhaps be the reason we would miss
“some **** slithering through the black grass,
and that, my friends, could mean your ***”

so their caveats did not fall on deaf ears
although
they were filtered by my too few reckless years
yet, I snatched all the clips I could carry
on my 140 pounds of nineteen
and took not one sip from my canteen

others words bounced around my crowded skull
some were from rapier wit and others were dull
but the ones to which I would listen
were the ones that gave me hope for
another day of light
after the perpetual blind night
in the land of the ******

I had learned to walk without sound
all on my own
and find a place to crouch
where not even the dead
could see me, I would briefly imagine
but they were there
permeating the dank air
with silent dirges to their demise
and me waiting with cracked open eyes
for one to come alive
and yank my young *** into some dark hole

we have always seen things in the dark
while hiding from the devil our sisters said would come
under our blankets with one eye closed and the other agape
he was coming, she would say, to get you
for being….born
sometimes, the chosen, the blessed souls,
would forget he was there
and breath calm air
and walk into the life of nineteen
with a full canteen but
not worried about a full bladder
and missing Jacob’s ladder

but those of us who came to this wicked place
could not blithely put our demons to rest
and they continued their animated fest
in the darkness our eyes could not penetrate
and our spirits could not relegate
to the silent land of the past

there could have been a dozen, live ones,
snaking their way through the grass
close enough to smell my sweat
or perhaps only one
crouched in his own woeful world
miles away through the ****** jungle
but it did not matter
for in my wordless chatter
they were all around
maybe the same ones in my childhood room
coming to thicken the gloom
with another tormented soul
who at nineteen
was afraid to drink from his canteen

I would stop seeing them
at some point
but only for a shallow breath or two
then they would be there again
and I would hear nothing
except the other sages
from those ancient pages
where my eyes followed my fingers in curious delight
far from this lethal foaming night

"Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me
the carriage held just ourselves and immortality"
"Death be not proud, though some have called thee so"
“I looked in vain for another path for my feet
but they were all too small
except the one labeled ‘Death Street’”

and other less ominous verse would take the chance
to make its way into my riddled trance,
“Nature’s first green is gold,
her hardest hue to hold
her early leaf’s a flower,
but only so an hour
then leaf subsides to leaf
so Eden sank to grief
so dawn goes down to day
nothing gold can stay”

nothing gold, nor green I would recall
and when I would lose the light lull of the verse
I would again begin to traverse
into the blind black depths in front of my eyes
and the devils would tauntingly reappear
and I would again hear
the nothingness we all share
there
in the land of the ******
with a full canteen
and an M-16
at nineteen

The days grow longer when you're alone,
Daggers sharpen, still stuck in your back.
The blood has drained you're left with bone,
And a heart that's vigorously turning black.

The headstones are plenty, plots they thicken,
Life grows sadder as people disappear.
The selfish coyote claims the chicken,
Before taking a glance in the mirror.

Love grows stronger for those who stay,
Remaining there forever by your side.
But forever is a word with play,
Tears come quicker having tried.

Laughing is seldom when you abolish the smile,
The more you think the less you do.
There is no cure, you'll find no vial,
Losing self respect amidst the truth.

The time you invest, do so with care,
Don't let the past hinder you with resistance.
Excuses are easy, hard work is the dare,
The challenge of your existence.

It happens with all the holes and wounds: they grow their own face, mend their gaps, heal their rifts — those new skills of yours are but entities that emerge: to grant shelter, to stand guard, replace the old, thicken the crust, weather this human storm — through and through.

But will the skin ever return to its soil? It linger on forevermore. How tight its grip? How hardened its sappy brooks? When will it nourish those delicate roots anew?

These thoughts arise as doubt breaks free. It pours and flows as I gaze down and lower still. Shadows seep and leak as the wheel spins and drills the soul evermore hollow. Anonymous is our tree of life, but it keeps faces in store.

For it happens with all the holes and wounds: they bleed, they mend, they heal — and what don't they do as I stand here, as I bend, as I kneel — as I carve these seats in shapes of departure. Those skills thicken under my feet like growling tremors.

My past was but a dream — and I'm ready to slide like a crumbling leaf. My weariness is universal. My knowledge heavy. There cannot be a conclusion. I am growing thin.

Let me feed those roots anew.
Through and through.

Reckless thoughts pour over paper
Memories thicken, swell and taper
Each stroke left unreconciled
Pure white sheets with ink defiled

Take a simple packet of minced beef
Add a drop of water to the pan
Finely diced an onion and 3 chopped garlic cloves
Oh! Don't forget the fine cut celery
Now cook gently with a touch of love
Until the mince is brown
This now is the time to add just a pinch of dry mixed herbs
A liberal splash of soya sauce followed by a gentle stir
Important now please don't forget
A large pinch of marsala spice
For this will be the beating heart before you add the rice
RICE! Did I say rice?
For the amount of minced now in the ***
Cook an equal amount of rice until soft
Of course in another pan
Now just before the rice is done add mixed veg to the mince
In the other pan, frozen veg will do
Now strain the mince but save the sauce
Worth its weight in gold
Now, yes now's the time to strain the pan and add the rice
To the mince so savoury and brown
Mix the rice and mince with love until well combined
Place into a baking dish and set the oven high(160)
20 minutes will be enough so now the dish is done

Thicken the sauce you strained from the mince and bring to a gentle boil
Serve the mince/rice with new boiled potatoes and the sauce

1

Late afternoon
leaving the city
the bus route intersects
the terraced houses,
row upon row:
right to the valley floor,
left to wooded heights.

In a bay-windowed room
a child sits at a table
beachcombing the net.
Tea is past
and there is gentle talk of
volcanoes , the Verungas,
and gorillas in the midst.
Outside, and a floor below,
a garden nestles into the dusk,
a blackbird settles itself with song.

Later, at the same table.
there is a silent grace.
A shy five year old
in scary pyjamas
comes to say goodnight.
For supper: a goat’s cheese flan,
a simple salad,
pink wine,
strong coffee.

On the mantelpiece:
the familiar jumble of cards and photos,
a collage of family faces distant shores.
On the walls:
grandmother’s woven rug,
her grand-daughter’s textiled strata,
an embroidered geology.

2

The next day,
so bright and clear,
the garden bench is warm by ten.
We sit surrounded
by the evidence
of this growing season:
emergent plants, the possibility of fruit,
even declarations of vegetables.

As ideas flow
across cake and coffee
so the shadows move,
shaping depths, enriching tones
on greys, within greens.

In the midday sun,
the garden becomes
a wild tracery of lines
as perspectives
distort, corrupt, thicken . . .
and space opens everywhere:
foliage as yet transparent
no shelter to stalk and stem.
Their very arteries revealed,
plants bask in the fragile heat
of ‘just’ Spring.