do you know what

liminal
means?

liminal comes from latin
limen
meaning threshold

a place of entering or
of beginning

a fine line between the was
and will

a place of transition
waiting
unknowing

and i suppose you could say
this is liminal

this poem

this life

this concept of eternal
that we seem to attribute
to our (sadly impermanent) art

this body of mine
is so very liminal

this voice that i roll around on my tongue
is liminal

this world itself,
a blink compared to infinity
can only be said to be
a threshhold
to somewhere else

h.f.m.

Labor with what zeal we will,
Something still remains undone,
Something uncompleted still
Waits the rising of the sun.

By the bedside, on the stair,
At the threshhold, near the gates,
With its menace or its prayer,
Like a medicant it waits;

Waits, and will not go away;
Waits, and will not be gainsaid;
By the cares of yesterday
Each to-day is heavier made;

Till at length the burden seems
Greater than our strength can bear,
Heavy as the weight of dreams
Pressing on us everywhere.

And we stand from day to day,
Like the dwarfs of times gone by,
Who, as Northern legends say,
On their shoulders held the sky.

Caught on the threshold
             Of freedom and fire
                        Holding to the hinges
                                Of not yet fallen plans
                                      Please don’t let the sea wash away
                                             Everything I have left to say
                                                   Looking for the sun
                                                        On a moonless night
                                                           ­  Seeing the stars
                                                           ­     And knowing mine’s there
                                                           ­        Separated by the fear
                                                            ­          That morning won’t come
                                                            ­       Balancing on broken ground
                                                          ­      Glancing back without a sound
                                                           ­  It’s a little hazy up the way
                                                        But sand and stone don’t stop
                                                  My unfolding, unwinding starlit path
                                             The steps back are easier than forward
                                      Steely heart and day-made dreams
                                  Of gold and tarnished silver
                              Help to hope my star like step-stones
                                   Will give me the first stride
                                                                                                                                        Beyond the celestial doorway

I'm standing in the crosshairs
Of a future not yet broken
From the chain linked anchor
Sinking
Into the deepening depths
Of inspiration
Yet I'm as blank as tomorrow's paper
Before time presses in the letters

I am buried deep
Beneath the crossroads
Cursed to stand apart
From those with direction
Tasked to confuse
The faltering straggler
By adding doubts to their
Already overflowing collection

I am weary of this curse
I wear ...
Of overlapping cross-purposes
Where I feel my way
In total darkness
Along the walls
Of an ever narrowing tunnel
Squeezing me
Into a panic state....
Attempting
To force me to confess

That I crossed the line
Once upon a time
Long before
The first second did exist
So my passing by
Had no measure
Had no limits
Had no value
Placed by limitàtions
Needed...
For the formation
Of any creation

So in a sense I am
THE CROSSING GUARD
Disallowing
Any and all who seek
A way of crossing
By standing fast
Between
The future and the past

I am hollow to the core
Those
Who have tried
And failed
To break me down
Grow weary ..as I do
Eventually go away
And I stay
Forever more the door
Locked
Not to ever be opened

Stage One begins the fun;
First sips reveal the bitter
Blast of hops and alcohol.
BAC is point oh-three, which reads as
"Confident & Daring."
Attention Span and
Flesh are flushed
In dual ways,
(Please catch my drift.
Euphoric people, still
May have a need for shrift.)
Sometimes such things are said or done
That later are not wished.

Judgment begins to slide
On entry of Stage Two.
A numbness in the tongue,
A blurring of the eyes,
Which do not yet see two.
Sometimes as low as point oh-nine BAC,
"Excitement" names the awkward teetering
Between slow thought and sleepiness.
Stumbled response takes coordination,
But the drinker cannot see his weaviness.

Stage Three arrives at point one-eight
And takes the name "Confusion."
Staggered is the walk, and one can sit
And feel the moving of the world.
The maudlin lover here appears,
Replaced by jealous hate that burns
Or bursts in untoward rage that disappears
In an instant's instant, only to return.

Stage Four is Cousin Stupor,
Threshhold BAC is point two-five.
The drinker turns into a Turtle,
Unmoving, Unaware, but still alive,
He cannot stand nor walk,
May drown upon his *****,
And if he lies, should do so on his side,
Though he cannot without assistance
From a brother or a bride.

Stage Five, Fra Coma, may start at point three-five,
Cool skin, slow breath, heart beat, (just barely),
Asleep he may appear, or dead,
As Death stands near.

Stage Six occurs at BAC point five,
Bar Tender Death moves on
To find someone Alive.

1

I look at
my shredded fingertips,
turning gray from Ernie Ball string,
from obsession playing the instrument.
I look at
             the only evidence
of any of that
ecstatic crucible
into my hands,
                      the technicolor
of each pile
                 of felt-tip paintings,
the endless rows
                         of recording
that I can
             only navigate
by seconds, and by minute,
and I am
             deflated.
not a single
                work
was finished.
again,
nothing
could be used.

         2
I look at
the hours flaying me
on my acoustic guitar, and the days
trapped in each sheet of sketches
spent sleep deprived and starving,
alone, not bathing
or speaking; just
drawing. drawing until
the pain reached
too high a threshhold
to be able
to endure,
but i did again and again this
in between those great periods
of being an invalid,
                                 in the hope of something
to be proud of.

I decide I'll go for a walk
to the 7/11.
I buy a 40 dollar bottle
of my favorite Whiskey,
of Jameson and
I get a pack,
                   not the usual kind, not my favorite--
Marlboro Red One-Hundreds,
                                                   but I get a pack
of Parliament Light One-Hundreds
this time.
              I go home, and I drink.
half the bottle. light a cigarette, play
one of my favorites--
those songs
                  from the 1990's.
I sit down
on the floor of my bedroom and
I cut open
my arms
with a pencil.

I'd like to begin
by pointing out the color of the walls;
the pink under the plaster,
and the tubes,
red and blue,
that keep my shower water warm.

This is my home,
that some call a temple,
with two brightly lit halves of an attic,
and no trouble keeping them full.

Its windows are always open,
except when the lights go out
and the shutters are pulled closed
and all that's left breathing is the fireplace
and the attic.

the fire place is a grand face
of grout and proud brick
cradling the humblest coals
under his black, stuffy nose
clogged with no longer solid logs.
His breath keeps the attic warm,
with the help of the coals,
who ask for no thanks.

I'd invite you in
if it wasn't for the moss on the threshhold.
That emerald green.
Those gems that seem,
with dew, to gleem  
a blue and gold sheen
of umpteen citrines.
The sun's careen is seen by these
green finger leaves.

When I turn out the lights
and retreat to the attic,
I hear the moss sigh
like some sort of static.
Her breath reaches the crest
of my gentle home's breast.
The ceiling beam shudder
with a reeling like no other;
A sound that makes me cry,
while my cluttered attic comforts me,
and I speak no word but why.

The moss,
she makes me cry.

I'd like to end
by pointing out the color of the windowpanes,
and the gray of the drywall.
The tubes,
red and blue,
still keep my shower water warm.

This is my home,
that some call a temple,
with two brightly lit halves of an attic,
and no trouble keeping them full.

Its windows are rarely open,
except when the lights go out
and the shutters flutter open
and all that's left breathing is the fireplace
and the attic,
and the colors.

Incessant writhing, restiveness and pain
Deep inside at the core of my heart, these do flourish & breed
Their successive & demonely endeavours
To get freedom from unbreakable clutches of delicate emotions
Do never ever succeed.

At the threshhold of my maleable heart
A silent entry of hitherto unfelt emotions
Busy in gleaning the shattered memories of my dormant past
Dovetailing them hard & giving these a golden cast.

The same old, aeonic & profound pain
Rises slowly but, it pinches again
My innocent heart gets fiercely swayed
It succumbs even when the issues are unnoticed to motley crowd and appear to be wierdly trite
Because the only language it understands best is of "intense love"
& not of any petty fight.

The journey of life was boorish & deadly boring,
My wading heart had very long to wait
But Himalayan thanks to the caring & ubiquitous god
Now my baby- smile is back
As I have got one pretty- pretty SOUL- MATE.

Mukesh kataria

My fathers love ended up in a box, in a large cold room.
Strange you might think,
That the confectionaries in this dissapointing wooden container
Would be a relic of love to a small boy.
But there it was...
In that large cold room, in that large cold house,
In that large cold school,
Was this box.
And in this box was all sorts of sweets, crisps and so on
And that was what I had of my father.
The box was mysteriously called a "tuck box".
There were other boxes like it, lining the outside of this large room.
But this one was mine.

Each box had a small lock, some had stickers.
Mine had a sticker, neatly aligned in the rear left corner.
The room rarely had any visitors and aside from the boxes, it had a solitary ping-pong table.
There were no batts or *****, just a green table with a net sitting awkwardly in the centre of the echoey room.
If it could speak it would say "What the **** am I doing here"
and I think thats how we all felt... all us boys.
I had no wish to play table tennis.

I did wish for my fathers love though.
Before term he would take me to the shops.
I would be able to buy whatever sweets I liked, but I felt bad, like it must be costing him a lot of money... all those sweets that is...
Not the boarding school or plane journey away from home.

So armed with these sweets packed away in my bag,
I would get on a plane and go to that cold place,
Where this box of treats would remind me that my father wasn't there.
I would rarely share or trade my sweets with other boys.
It felt somehow disloyal to my father.
Like i was trading away his love for some small favour.
But really these trophies were too precious for me to give away.

So years later, I think my fathers love may somehow still be in that box.
In that cold lonely room.
The box is now in my parents attic, full of photos and other memories.
The tie my 'friends' signed on the day I left that school, almost 9 years later.
But I wonder how to reclaim the love locked in that box.
Or reclaim the heart of the lonely, sad boy who only had those sweets to reassure him.
That his father still loved him... wanted him... that even though he was a plane ride away from home...
He still had a home...
Which was...
Where did he live?
Where was his home?
Because it felt like he lived in that cold school,
Filled with the shouts of angry men and wild boys...
While his home was somewhere he no longer lived...
It was somewhere he went to for "holidays"!
In that far away country
Which was safe, and warm but somehow
No longer... home.


And all these years later the gap between me and my father remains
Questions hang in the air like icicles
Ready to fall...
Where were you,
For all those years?
Why didn't you come and get me?
How did you think i would survive without your presence as I grew up, without your love, your advice, your guidance
The safety of being at home...

Let me tell you I managed
I packed my pain away in that box.
And I survived.
I endured the passing of the years,
the bullying, fear, neglect, shame and embarrassment
I didn't so much find a way through. I found a way out.
to a place the world couldn't hurt me.
A place within where i can say **** the world. **** this place and
******* all.
And in that place i felt relatively safe
It was tolerably intolerably

But now as a man.
As i approach my fiftieth year
I can count the cost of this 'safety'
A cost in joy, a cost in love, a cost in family, a cost in life!
Because the part of me hidden in that box isn't living.
It's existing.
And life has needed more from me than I've had to give.
I have needed the colours locked away safely in that box.
I've needed the range of emotion only they could afford
I've needed the courage in there
The joy, the willingness to meet life
And I've not had these things to hand.
They have been locked away... safe
But unused.
As the years toiled on
And life has ebbed away.
I have survived
But not really lived

So here i am at this threshhold of my life
No longer satisfied with the half life of limited pallette.

and I choose life
Choose Colour
Choose expression
Choose Presence
Choose love
Choose pain
Choose tears
Choose loss
l Choose heartbreak.
And i want to let this messy path carry me forward
To a place I do not recognise
And to a life where I can find an experience which
Feel warm enough, safe enough, fun enough, alive enough, where I feel loved enough, where I love enough to dare to dance enough with life to dare to belong enough to call that place
home.

And let me tell you brothers and sisters I wish you to meet me there With your colour, with your joy, your heartbreak, your life and the wisdom trawled from the depths of your despair .
(let us share what we're learned  in a place
where we can join hands and find union in each others souls.
find home in each other
find belonging in each others arms , in each others hearts.
lets rise together, lets heal together, lets **** together and lets love together, walk together, cry together, dance together, marry together , win lose and, die together
we can walk together towards the dawn of our next life  as we part this one full
full of Love of lifes experience, with laughter lines etched across our faces as we tell the stories of our ancestors to our children children.
lets us dance live love and die in glorious presence together with life.
let us be , let us learn , let us live lets live lets draw on the ******* walls and wear our pants on our heads. Let's call ******* on ******* just live our glourds bueauitful lives together in messy harmony.
lets belong together lets home together
lets world together lets joy together
lets  sit together in a puddle of our own tears
and call that place home
where we love our life enough to be broken by its despair
as our blood and tears mix together and we become the earth beneath us.
become the air around us
the fire in our hearts
the love in our bones.