Thrumming life-threads are weaving the day,
Myriad summer colours of an abstract view,
Curling up between and under the far away.

I’m lost in the mix, a melting *** full of play,
My own shade of Dark, a subtle blended hue,
Thrumming life-threads are weaving the day.

Beautiful retro splendour, asking me to stay,
Flower in her hair, white petals, edged blue,
Curling up between and under the far away.

Smiling, she raises my soul from feet of clay,
Dark and Stormy cocktail easing me through,
Thrumming life-threads are weaving the day.

Cuban rhythm dancers give a riotous display,
Bohemian sight and sound unleashed on cue,
Curling up between and under the far away.

We sample dreams from an enchanted tray,
Allowing hearts, minds, and spirits to renew,
Thrumming life-threads are weaving the day,
Curling up between and under the far away.

©Paul M Chafer 2015

there are so many places to hide,

in my home at 17th and South screaming death threats at my roommates laughing diabolically playing  videogames and Jeopardy cooking quinoa stretching canvas the dog going mad frothing lunging  spastic to get the monkeys or the wookies or whatever random commandments we issue forth  drunken while Schlock rampages the backdrop,

at my uncle's row house on 22nd and Wallace with my shoes off freezing skipping class to watch March  Madness unwrapping waxpaper hoagies grimacing with each sip of Cherrywine or creamsicle  soda reading chapters at my leisure,

in the stacks among fiberglass and eternal florescent lima-tiled and echo-prone red-eyed and white-faced  caked with asbestos and headphones exhuming ossified pages from layers of cosmic dust  presiding benevolent,

in University City disguised in nothing but a name infiltrating Penn club soccer getting caught after  scoring yet still invited to the pure ***** joy of hell and heaven house parties of ice luge jungle  juice kegstand coke politic networking,

at Drexel's nightlit astroturf with the Jamaicans rolling blunts on the sidelines playing soccer floating in  slo-mo through billows of purple till the early morning or basketball at Penn against goggle- eyed professors in kneepads and copious sweat,

in the shadow tunnels behind Franklin Field always late night loner overlooking rust belt rails abandoned  to an absent tempo till tomorrow never looking behind me in the fear that someone is there,

at Phillies Stadium on glorious summer Tuesdays for dollar dog night laden with algebra geometry and  physics purposely forgetting to apply ballistics to the majestic arc of a home run or in the frozen  subway steam selling F.U. T.O. t-shirts to Eagles fans gnashing when the Cowboys come to town,

at 17th and Sansom in the morning bounding from Little Pete's scrambled eggs toast and black coffee  studying in the Spring thinking All is Full of Love in my ears leaving fog pollen footprints on the  smoking cement blooming,

at the Shambhala Center with dharma lotus dripping from heels soaking rosewater insides thrumming to the  groan of meditation,

at the Art Museum Greco-fleshed and ponderous counting tourists running the Rocky steps staring into shoji screen tatame teahouses,

at the Lebanese place plunked boldly in Reading Terminal Market buying hummus bumping past the Polish  and Irish on my way to the Amish with their wheelwagons packed with pretzels and honey and  chocolate and tea,

at the motheaten thrift store on North Broad buried under sad accumulations of ramshackle clothing  clowning ridiculous in the dim squinting at coathangers through magnifying glasses and mudflat  leather hoping to salvage something insane,

in the brown catacombed warrens of gutted Subterranea trying unsuccessfully to ignore bearded medicine

men adorned with shaman shell necklaces hawking incense bootlegs and broken Zippos halting conversation to listen pensive to the displacement of air after each train hurtles by,

at 30th Street Station cathedral sitting dwarfed by columns Herculean in their ascent and golden light  thunderclap whirligig wings on high circling the luminous waiting sprawled nascent on stringwood pews,

at the Masonic Temple next to City Hall, pretending to be a tourist all the while hoping scouring for clues in the cryptic grand architect apocrypha to expose global conspiracies,

at the Trocadero Electric Factory TLA Khyber Unitarian Church dungeon breaking my neck to basso  perfecto glitch kick drums with a giant's foot stampeding breakbeat holographic mind-boggled  hole-in-the-skull intonations,

at the Medusa Lounge Tritone Bob and Barbara's Silk City et cetera with a pitcher a pounder of Pabst and a  shot of Jim Beam glowing in the dark at the foosball table disco ball bopstepping to hip hop and  jazz and accordions and piano and vinyl,

in gray Fishtown at Gino's recording rap holding pizza debates on the ethics of sampling anything by  David Axelrod rattling tambourines and smiles at the Russian shopgirl downstairs still chained to  soul record crackles of antiquity spiraling from windows above,

at Sam Doom's on 12th and Spring Garden crafting friendship in greenhouse egg crate foam closets  breaking to scrutinize cinema and celebrate Thanksgiving blessed by holy chef Kronick,

in the company of Emily all over or in Kohn's Antiques salvaging for consanguinity and quirky heirlooms  discussing mortality and cancer and celestial funk chord blues as a cosmological constant and  communism and Cuba over mango brown rice plantains baking oatmeal chocolate chip cookies,

in a Coca Cola truck riding shotgun hot as hell hungover below the raging Kensington El at 6 AM nodding soft to the teamsters' curses the snagglesouled destitute crawling forth poisoned from sheet-metal shanty cardboard box projects this is not desolate,

at the impound lot yet again accusing tow trucks of false pretext paying up sheepish swearing I'll have my  revenge,

in the afterhour streets practicing trashcan kung fu and cinder block shotput shouting sauvage operatic at  tattooed bike messenger tribesmen pitstopped at the food trucks,

in the embrace of those I don't love the names sometimes rush at me drowned and I pray to myself for  asylum,

in the ciphers I host always at least 8 emcee lyric clerics summoning elemental until every pore ruptures  and their eyes erupt furious forever the profound voice of dreadlocked Will still haunting stray  bullet shuffles six years later,

in the caldera of Center City with everyone craning our skulls skyward past the stepped skyscrapers  beaming ear-to-ear welcoming acid sun rain melting maddeningly to reconstitute as concrete  rubber steel glass glowing nymphs,

in Philadelphia where every angle is accounted for and every megawatt careers into every throbbing wall where  Art is a mirror universe for every event ever volleyed through the neurons of History,

in Philadelphia of so many places to hide I am altogether as a funnel cloud frenetic roiling imbuing every corner sanctum sanctorum with jackhammer electromagnetism quivering current realizing stupefied I have failed so utterly wonderful human for in seeking to hide I have found

in Philadelphia

Light fades and every sun ray disintegrates
Into gray scale, pays tribute
To faithless hope or a hopeless faith
And I’m losing myself
Like clouds drop rain.
Not a tear shed for the parts they throw away,
Lying all my shadows across the things they say,
Until I’m hallow,
And I feel nothing
But this soft familiar thrumming,
It’s you calling
It’s always knowing when I have no home,
When I have gone insane,
That I can live in the way you say my name.
You watch me, lift me off my toes
Learn the things nobody knows
Chose the things nobody chose
Gather all my pain in your strong arms
Whisper your happy my soul touched yours and that
I’m altogether more than this compilation of scars.
No matter how far I fall
Into dark
No matter how much life
Costs
I swear I see you.
And when I feel small under skies full of stars,
I feel found , tucked under your arm.
I feel safe under your gaze
And I can spend days in your space,
Saying everything,
Saying nothing,
At a comfortable distance,
In the thrill when we’re touching.
And your my best friend I’ve always loved
To keep loving.
Everything changes,
But this familiar thrumming

Silent crackle, tingle,
The smell of a sticky must. Floating dust in
An abandoned attic, where the rats roam and the dead skeleton of a fish
Still lies in an empty bowl of moldy rocks and plastic plants.
Yet, despite the emptiness, a girl curls up in the corner, black
Running down her face as she weeps for the things she longs for most.
She looks out the *****, broken window at the cloudy sky and imagines it
Blue. The brightest of skies with only few hints of cirrus.
A blanket on the ground and the man she loves, nothing else in sight.
The expanse of green in her head is contrasted to the rotting floorboards she lays
On, dreaming. The steady beat of Boy in Static thrumming through her headset
As she struggles not to scream and jump, finishing the job on the window
From troubled teens years before. The sound reminds her of VHS tapes,
Press rewind, take a turn and start over. But she can't, when something has changed.
The boy she knew, looking down with his hood not up, but covering his face, shielding
Himself from her. She knew he had a ***** in his head, but she just looked away. He never answered anything she asked. He was unable.
But her heart still dropped, she smiled her best. An amazing actress, fooling everyone, makeup allergy keeping her eyes dry. She just read Huck Finn as though nothing was wrong.
Now she sits in her room, writing and shaking her head. This line is not right.
Her walls were full of color and poetry, but her mind kept wandering to that attic.

She was there again. Blankly staring at her star charm anklet. A simple blue ribbon.
And the throbbing of her heartbeat through that one spot on her thumb,
That pressure point that hurts more than anything. But one thing could be worse.
Being left. Just like the broken rocking horse in the corner and the baby's cradle
Lined with blue silk that was shoved into a box. That baby is probably dead. Just like all
Of the others who lived there, burned by the fire. Goose flesh raises, prickly
Hairs on her legs from a week of no shaving. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Bleed.
Change the song. Bleed Like Me. Perfect. She draws on the peeling walls, two hundred
Years of wallpaper and lead paint, chalk barely leaving a mark. She sketches a masterpiece.
A child that she wishes she could have. Impossibly too young, but still...
A daughter she could raise better than her mother raised her. A chance to do something right.
More than the mechanic life she has lead, empty and useless.
Confused and pathetic. Like the broken grandfather clock that ticks backwards.
Three, two, one.
Ding-****, ****-ding. Grandfather never taught me anything. He was not a wise man.
He was a fool. Knew too much and too little, no room to know what was right.
She let another raindrop escape and suddenly it began to pour. Lightning crashes as a glass
Slipper collides with the picture drawn of her dream. Thunder as she releases a
Bloodcurdling scream. "Why!?"
Why her? The pain in her back is unbearable. She slouches too much, and her eyes burn.
She is not Cinderella; her ball gown does not glitter.
Piano is her least favorite instrument, but it somehow gets to her. Small hammers
Striking her heart strings, low notes reminding her of his voice and the soft, feminine
Voices radiating, remind her of when she was young... Immortal. She has aged since then.
Too quickly. Her entire life has been a masquerade ball. Unskilled idiots dancing
Around her and stepping on her toes. Shouldering her in the stomach,
Breaking her ribs. Beats of music guide her skilled toes, swerve around falling raindrops that
Her own eyes emit. And she crashes through the floor of that dismal attic. Broken free,
But she is still trapped. The walls are charred down here.

But the walls are not painted black. They were once a mint color, green and cheerful, healthy.
Until a psychopath lit a match.
"I didn't mean to do it." It was all in her head. The house.
She set it aflame.

She sits in her room, writing and shaking her head. This line is not right.
Her walls were full of color and poetry. It isn't worth it to stare. Nothing will change.
She is still just a girl in a glass box, being stared at and judged. Trapped and ridiculed because her eyes bleed and bless the onlookers with bad luck. It's amazing the things
That people don't know. Drifting deeper into a pit of endless darkness. A candle won't
Live down here. No oxygen to let it breathe. But one lit self portrait hangs in the air.
Years ago, drawn in pencil. Symbolic, it wants to be erased. To die.
And the ******* the page is wearing a mask. The girl in the parchment is me.
Medium length hair and a tear painted, permanent. A Parasite. Capitalized for its meaning.

A demon is running through me, singeing
My tissues, blisters on the insides of my bones. Swelled up, show through
My skin. Waves on a shore. But I am not a beach. A ***** maybe...
Still, I hate it. The hate killed whatever flowers I had left planted in my mind.
Tainted me with the horrible visions of a tear streaked face of paper mâché.
She was the one in the attic. Her whole persona
Wilted and ashen, grey. A silent movie might mask it; the hurt, I mean.
The grey lines on the screen hiding the bags under her eyes and the redness of her nose,
Get rid of the twinkling shards of glass frozen on her cheek from crying in the dead of winter.
Slip up once, and everything goes to hell. Well, I must have slipped years before I was born.
Few smiles are left on this dismal timeline. And I shall use them wisely. But, for now,
I think I will just weep, sleep forever and hope that you don't give up on me and pull the plug.
I am still here somewhere, just dormant. Please wake me up. Get me out of this charred cabin,
This glass box. Pull me out of my warped sense of everything, teach me again what
Love feels like. I have forgotten amidst everything that I have felt and remembered.
There is no more room for things to be learned. Only for things to be repaired.
I will give you a hammer. Come inside and fix me; that ***** in your head couldn't have taken your knowledge away. You are the only one that knows.

Use this never ending lightning and bring your bride to life.

the count starts now (tired of tired)


I read your outcry at 3:00am
posted on Facebook

you are
tired of tired
sick of sick
the only question, will it ever end...

rise this day,  start another way...

count your blessing
count against all odds
for there are more than merely one

use both hands
both hands chested to feel the heart thrusting,
for living is a wondrous blessing unique
an unbelievable to believe than so many beats,
born and borne,
by you, a strength unequaled,
you a richness possessed

count that one first.
count my hands holding your shoulders.
count that as two, one for me, one for you.

more? more.  

mirror.  find the tiny light in each eye against a yellow backdrop.

add two more. for they are a sparking confidence of confirming.

you felt the heart thrumming
go back, feel the breathing warmth breaching forth.
add another. for now known you can never ever be cold.

wash the face, wash away the caution that sleep leaves,
the coverlet of fear that fears you not to dare,
amazing that tap water plain is sacred when it
miracle breaks you out and anoints thy forehead with pure oil like the kings of yore, be a kingly human being.

go out. do not return
until one act of kind is performed and
count that as a thousand blessed, a sum recurring recounted

walk humble and the path will always appear.
walk contented for you can be both king and servant,
there is no difference - you must be both to be the other
one.

and if you still cannot raise the head,
call me.
that would be a blessing for me
and I will hear your blessings sounds mine merge,
dear friend and no more stranger,
that is the simplest definition of our learning to count to
infinity

I am a copper wire slung in the air,
Slim against the sun I make not even a clear line of shadow.
Night and day I keep singing--humming and thrumming:
It is love and war and money; it is the fighting and the
     tears, the work and want,
Death and laughter of men and women passing through
     me, carrier of your speech,
In the rain and the wet dripping, in the dawn and the
     shine drying,
               A copper wire.

All clocks have stopped their thrumming,
    The creatures slink across the threads of redness,
    Not enough violins, too much violence
    Breathing to the drum of our failing love.

    This; our dust, is not settling as it should,
    Coating the skies with the scourge of loathing,
    Placing the truth lower than the ashen claws of discourse,
    Opening the metal gate to blindness and dismay.

    Time is not needed at present; it’s ticking, deaf
    To our tally, unheard prayers radiating,
    Pouring over the shadowy oceans and seas,
    Clocks without hands... or anything worth keeping.

listen closely,
listen fully.
hear the thrumming of a beetle's wing,
hear the wind begin to sing.
listen to true beauty,
listen to the reality.
hear the story that the trees tell,
hear the history as the leaves fall.
listen to the ancient wisdom given by the sky,
listen to how well the clouds lie.
hear the grass whisper sweet compliments,
hear the flowers present.
listen to the chiming of the water ring,
listen to how well the rock recite tales so amazing.
hear the call of the animals,
hear the bugs begin to crawl.
listen to the screams of the city,
listen to the sizzling of the toxicity.
hear the pounding of footsteps and daily life,
hear the swift sound of a knife.
listen to the cries of hunger,
listen to the tapping of fingers.
hear the screams of anger,
hear the shouts of hate against others.
listen to the crushing of childhood dreams,
listen to the victims screams.
hear the sin as marriage spiral down to hell,
hear the lies that they sell.
listen to the hits of a fight,
listen to the person who turned away from the light.
hear the life slip out of a person,
hear the person within a prison.
listen to the hatred within humans,
listen to the sadness felt by every girl and man.
hear the death of the hope,
hear the imagination begin to choke.
listen to the thrumming of a poets heart,
listen to it tear apart.
hear the suicide of originality,
hear the death of personality.
listen to it all closely,
and write it all down carelessly.
listen to it all,
hear the down spiral of it all.
listen to carefully,
listen to the downfall of humanity.

Crackling criss-crossing blue in mind. It scissors down the lanes through the pipes and tubes and little dividers. Electrical mind numbing beauty. Veins-bursting in excited anticipation. Convulsions and scenic skittering routes. Into the Nexus! Here simmers what we are thinking and believing. Our mind's eye focuses and drips into the pool until completion. Psionic figures dance flicker through life existence. Pulse-width fluctuations. Tiny menagerie of our Will. Scribbling through dusted panes of time interface. All afire with ourselves once we have discovered ourselves. Nano-tech emotions. Hope fear anger mercy curiosity buzzing swarms of grey goo jibbering and bubbling in an artificial mind-****. What is all this allusion? Nothing complicated. Speculation on future times where sensual technological biological singularity is paramount. In my room where the clocks are taped over and the sun is dark and dim. Through the windows I see myself. The boxes on the floor emanate simple clickings with melodies intertwined casually. I myself appear redundant. I have done this and so have others. To discuss oneself is worthless unless you become convinced you are another entity gazing back across the room. I feel I am being watched. I become cautious as he may have noticed. Tingling weightlessness tickles in waves in both heads. The Jazz Classic appears. Old dark men and women in hazy environments. Organic supposition or cold observation? Both hold importance so let us appreciate it all. The cello quivers and hums with vibration. Fingers callused and riveted like the age-old corn field bother still strings. A child hums to just myself. What does he want? I never asked him for an audience. Yet he freely gives it to me. Now he multiplies. Or she? Children confuse and cause one to be apprehensive. Nothing and silence. Silence in movement. Cease my visual stimulation for a couple seconds each. The child is back. What does he speak? Pray inside the rubble? Heal in this place? In disgrace? I do not know. His octaves are meshing together. Whining and thrumming with strange alterations. Some madmen tweaks my ears. Maybe he knows the child? I'm not sure. Let us continue on. The flute is the child. Old cello, you have stopped? These musings mean nothing. I would look upon them in a year and think nothing of it. Yet it feels as if this time is important. Da Vinci knocks on the door. Not as if I wanted to talk to it. Wouldn't mind I suppose. He is gone. We talked but I do not remember the conversation. Perhaps we've all talked but we just don't remember our conversations. That's ridiculous though. Then anything is possible. We could have flown to the moon on scarlet weasels outfitted with the latest nano-pores that secreted pure liquid indulgence. And we did because I just imagined we might have. However, I don't remember actually doing it. Just what I thought it might have been like. How frustrating. My thoughts are the same as all others who write out their thoughts when under the influence of yourself. It always seems like some thing is scuttling near my feet or under the nightstand; just out of view. Strange. I would be afraid. No reason to fear that which doesn't bother me. No reason to fear much of anything. That's been said before. Why are we so often concerned with saying that which has been said before? Cliche? auump-ump auump-ump auump-ump little thumping noise in my ears. That vibration is calming. Every night I am awake. Every day I seem asleep. I do not like it but I do not care yet I allow it to be what it will. Vision defaults to out of focus. My eyes always cross if I cease trying to control them. People are strange. Animals are strange. Same thing I guess. Someone will find that clever. Someone will find it cliche. This someone won't care. ****** fantasy permeates day to day. More entertaining than living a fantasy though. ***. Not that entertaining. Perhaps no one knows how to do it properly anymore. Maybe we never did. Maybe some people are just disenchanted with it. When I'm by myself, I never have any ****** desire. When around others, I generally think of it out of curiosity: what would it be like to please the person in front of me? The only enjoyment I've had with *** would consist of pleasing another or observing another ****. The human body is intriguing. Definitely. I really do think so. Sometimes I look at my own. Not out of appreciation really. Just the fact that I have body allows me to investigate it and understand it more. Pain is merely a stage one can get past, so I suppose I injure myself sometimes to see how I react. It's like I need to check I'm still working properly. I can't tell when I'm tired. I feel something, but when I ask myself if I'm tired, I murmur back, "I don't know." Maybe that is why I stay up till early mornings? I wanted to add again that the human body is beautiful and unappealing all in the same space. Perhaps the unattractiveness and softness and strangeness produces attraction. A negative and a negative equals a positive. Three negatives likes to fluctuate. In my mind at least. I may ask another to remove their clothing and whatnot during those intimate moments. Eh, never quite feel like having *** though. I like the emotions and sensuality of just looking at someone. They usually want to physically play around with each other. I think I enjoy fighting more. One day I'll leave everyone except I'll reminisce on those I enjoyed meeting. Maybe come back and visit? I would like to ride something quickly through an empty desert. Find my own food and water. Create shelter. Think by myself. My room is the smallest desert I have and the biggest. I have more in my head but I only occupy one at a time. I suppose I like I do like things like all others. I mean, materials can be nice. If I impart meaning on to an object it gains importance. I see it vital to also say that if it were to be lost, then I wouldn't mind and I would obtain something else or nothing at all.The constitution. Just mentioned by some woman in my room. Or in my ears would be more correct. Constitutional Rights. I honestly don't see the need for them. I was criticized for burbling that once. We should not need a constitution. We should be able to do what we like to do without fear or concern. Unless natural fear and concern appears. Now that may confuse a bit. Right to bear arms. I shouldn't have to be told or allowed to massive bear arms if I feel the need to have them. Big hairy bear arms. Curious little mishap. Freudian slip as Johnny said once? Danger Danger. Anyway, Right to bare arms. I shouldn't have to be told, as I look back,  go back and throw in that comma after told, that I'm allowed to bare arms and defend myself. I'll just do it if the need arises. Freedom of speech. That already has many issues these days. However, there shouldn't have been a need to tell people they have freedom of speech. Speech should have been freely allowed and never oppressed in  the first place. Theme? We have erred so much in the past and I would think sometimes we ignore that and just try make little cosmetic fixes by saying it's okay. Another point. Hold that: side discomfort. I sometimes feel like a little spider or creature is crawling or skittering on my leg under the covers or I'll change the music to Galaxy 2 Galaxy 90's hi-tec jazz there we go. Done! Now back! Or I forget what I said about the spiders. Another point: what? ******, curse damnable ****. Can't recollect what it was I was connecting together. Something that tied in to deceiving people into things are okay. I could go on about consumerism and all that jazz. Instead I'm listening to some techno-jazz whatever-decided-to-call-it. Hyphenated phrases are fun when I decide they are appropriate. English and grammar in such can be cool but at the same time I want to say **** it and stay proper. Do both. Acknowledge how to write and speak "correctly," but as long as someone understands what you are trying to say, then why correct more? Someone large doesn't like the fact I make a lot of noise in the morning. I stole some speakers and subwoofer from the room next to me as I was going to say Austin.  They are on the floor and whichever large person lives below me is probably annoyed or was. I don't spend any of my actual time despising them, but I'll easily say I despise them when someone asks. Otherwise it isn't worth wasting time on. Perhaps the vibration quivers downstairs and shakes them silently. The greate beast is perturbed and sneaky vibrations cause electro-annoyance! Her pulsewidth as I understand it must be like a super-saw as I think it. Silence. Some woman said it's just a feeling. HEA not sure what why I put that sounds like a garageband song. Switched to Inspiration! That is what I did this night. Finally start writing and making things again. Even though I never did and always did. My head sometimes hurts from thinking. Never truly though. Gotta say those things to keep the conversation going. That is really the only reason I say anything. To keep the conversation going. Otherwise I'd just watch people and be just fine. Just yelled "bahh," out loud (didn't sound the comma) because I felt the need or the want. Same. Wrong keys erased. sdas=a====dddddddddd Sorry. Oh well. Oh My. How the time flies goodbye. Going nowhere. Could write more but I felt the slight flicker of wanting to stop. So I do. What an ending. Now I'm only typing to continue the conversation with myself. Just thought ******* sounds good melody. Do as I sayt way to go good job. STOPSDMFA

****** a

Guess I'll read this little conundrum I wrote up. Stop writing ******. Stop EDITING

i look at you and hot blood rushes through my veins,
making me weak,
thrumming with energy, excitement,
thrilling me to my core,
warning dangerous dangerous dangerous
the sensation envelopes my body as thoughts of you envelope my mind
you're dangerous and not good for me, but
my heart melts and I can't help but want you

December 25 - 28, 2010


Stuck in Miami, Florida, because of bad weather in NYC.
Composed after reading the poetry of Campbell McGrath, who lives in Miami.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
­
electric pinpricks of
unfamiliar red and green lights,
bedroom traffic guidance
courtesy of a stranger's
tv and cable box,
an emblematic totem tonight,
of my physical dislocation,
reminders that I'm enslaved
by weather machinations.

I lay, resting uneasy,
in a strange bed,
one night too many,
snow storming in my head
snow storming up north aplenty,
a blizzard of ruminations are
my white coverlet,
while stuck in Miami.

faraway drifts have
force fed and freed
an imprisoned restlessness,
a multipurposed, slashing.

Miami midnight incision has
let out the bad humors,
let in an unfamiliar odor -
lechón asado,
which texts my Pharisee nostrils
in Cubano,
words muy ironico,
a single waking thought,
"who ya kidding?"

Everglades rain
imported from California,
recycles on rooftops,
thrumming a heart beating,
syncopated, watery refrain,
a regifted heavenly present.

the sound waves mark
as a barely undulating wave,
inside this super soaked brain,
that transforms wine into water
and scan lines into these letters,
"who ya kidding?"

all this exponential signage
of this NYC boy grousing, are his
defrocked muses annoying,
with a serenading blizzard
of one trick pony repetitions,
coronets trumpet his unmasking,
this essay, a revelation,
a product of their
harmonious discordancy.

a single note crowns his head
as he weeps whole food
organic, non-recyclable tears,
products of his new inquistional,
a self-inflicted interogatorial,
"who ya kidding?"

compiler of an
occasional talented catch phrase,
strung'em together like
cheap pearls,
pretensions of literary acumen
once populated his Id,
articles of spilled word *****,
but Florida rain has cleansed
his Northern haughty pretensions,
with an injection of truth serum,
a pharmaceutical wonder of
a local poison labeled,
"who ya kidding?"

A day laborer, nothing more,
rise up at five, brown bagged,
a client of Mammon's *****,
soul sagged, life hagged,
a sum of cultural cliches,
a cell phoned baby boomer,
a would be millennial,
constructed of paper mache,
who on occasion,
has been known to say,
"Let's play poetry today."

the poseur chokes
on this new poison,
delivered by unhappy stance
by the arrows of his
current misfortune
for he now suffers from
the deadly disease of
"compare and contrast."

a slim book of poems
of Campbell McGrath's
(his phraseology,
a veritable theology)
shoos the blues traveler,
over to a funhouse
where an honest magic mirror
cuts him down to size.

his poetic aspirations,
a residue of self-infatuation,
are summarily dismissed by
the truly gritty, quick justice
of a master poet's
"who ya kidding?"

so watch how a would-be
poet disappears,
in a barrage of bullets marked,
nevermore,
his dignity, more than hobbled,
his cheek, gone, gobbled,
his juice, a currency unaccepted,
his holiday present,
a ceasefire of conjugation,
a cornucopia of declinations

dare I ever write again?
who indeed, am I kidding,
other than myself?
I am an addict, not a poet.

Eros
In my soul
Taking my breath
Thrumming in my heart

Eros
In your touch
The flitting-fondness of skin to skin
Sweat, beaded-trickle down
Salted flesh
Curly topped, flayed on satin

Eros
In your taste
The sweet tangle of tongue
Twisted-cheeky
Raspberried laughter

Eros
In the presence of your wit
The clever-confines of your mind
Depressed-displacement of your thought
Sophia

Eros
From one being to another
Thundering
Chaotic in my breast
Burning my throat
Scalding-stinging
Across the distance

Eros
In the silence of contentment
With arms wrapped
Smooth
Held close to the rhythm of your light
The hammering of blood

Pacing
Pitter
     Patter
        Sluggish-slowing
Lull of sleep
Eros, even in my dreams

Σε στιγμές σαν και αυτές που φέρνουν μου όλου του κόσμου για να γονατίσει
(In moments like these you bring my whole world to its knees.)

Today is Tuesday, November 19th, 2013. And I want to talk about you. I want to talk about the clenching and fizzing in my stomach right now as I imagine wrapping you up in my arms and having you close again. I want to talk about the ache in my chest when I think about how it's been ninety days since I last kissed you, since the day I saw you cry as I let you slowly drop from my arms, then hands, then fingertips, and drove away, looking out the window to see you let your head fall into your hands. It's been ninety days since I sat on the floor of the airport and felt my entire being rebelling against getting on that plane and recrossing the thousands of miles that separate us. I want to talk about how I tuck those thoughts away and instead smile as I think of giving you piggyback rides through the park, and kissing in front of churches, and diving into cold pools, and touching you softly as we lay unclothed in your bed, and laughing so hard at your jokes that I'm sure I'm making a fool of myself.

I want to talk about you. I want to talk about you and me. I want to talk about you with me. I want to talk about how you say things that stop me in my tracks and make me reevaluate the truth. I know you, but I can never quite predict your opinions or reactions. You surprise me in this really heart stopping, sometimes refreshing, sometimes eerie way.

I want to talk about how beautiful you are, god, let me please talk about this. Your mind is an intricate, thrumming place that I love to get inside and peek in its dusty corners. I'll try not to leave fingerprints, but I hope you'll forgive me if I do. I think I'm the first person to see some of these places, and I respect them with a reverence. And your heart, your heart... it's an open space that fluctuates and adjusts around me. I know it's learning how to make me fit, but considering that, I'm very comfortable here. It's not a maze, not a grand palace, but not run down either. It's warm in here, slightly musty in the back rooms but in a nice way, while the front is breezy. It's cryptic at first, it's easy to question where one is when first entering. But it has an essence so very you that it's impossible to lose your way completely. I've wandered enough to memorize some of the walls and walk around with a timid freedom. I don't think I would ever dare stride through with arrogance, but I hope to gain confidence the more I explore. Your outside is just as breathtaking. Sometimes I look at the pictures of us together and I stare at your face like it's a puzzle I can solve, because you are indeed the prettiest girl I have ever seen and it astonishes me that yes - you are real. You have this smile that I try to coax out as much as possible, and eyes that are pleasant and warm. Have I told you how much I've always loved brown eyes? It's a colour that suits your irises, that suits you. The image I get when I imagine looking into your eyes is that of wrapped up in soft blankets in a field at dusk. You have beautiful hair that you love to complain about, but I am forever adoring of how it sticks every which way and makes you look - yeah, I'm going to say it - pretty **** cool. Your body is fit and perfect and I'll tell you again, I am so, so jealous. Shadows reach around you to try and feel your shape, rain trickles across your smooth skin to try and kiss as much as it can reach. And when your body tangles with mine, it's magic. You are warm and soft and my fingertips can't help but want to trace a map over you, pressing into their favorite places and trailing across your frame as lightly as a sigh. Your voice, if I had to pick, is the thing that best represents you. Its most frequent setting is this strong, hardy tone that gets your point across with as much bluntness as the words you choose. When you're sleepy it becomes soft and drawling and muffled. When you have to act professional, it heightens and becomes cheery and sweet. When you're touched, it turns lovely and breathy and exquisitely feminine. You are embodied by these sides of you, and there's more I'm yet to hear and learn from it. All of it is beautiful in a way so uniquely you that I smile just in Knowing.

I want to talk about knowing you. I've always wanted just to know you, from the day we met. That was the prevailing thought: How to Know You. Now every day I am given glimpses into you, and every day I'll know a little more, and I couldn't be happier.

I want to talk about you. I want to talk about how much I love you. I love you the way lights love to pool on the sidewalk. I love you the way ink loves the abstract. I love you the way sand loves seashells. I love you the way trees love sunlight. I love you the way airplanes love the sky. I love you with a ferocity and a tenderness and an affection it halts the motion of the world for moments at a time. You bring words and metaphors to mind in a way no inspiration could, and the next second you stop all thought dead and leave my head buzzing pleasantly empty. I used to refuse to write of love; now my hands know of little else. You've changed me, profoundly, intensely. What did I spend my thoughts on before? Now, I just want to talk about you.

oft on bus seated next,
every one of your senses
adjusting, modulating,
to her unpredictable
solar flaring

you don't ever risk
that first missing
           misstep,
your entirety is
sun bursted
        (un)/consumed
in unhappy joy of her
consuming presence

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

you laugh
years later
re the topic of
your first shaky
foot in the mouth
a classic misstep
first bow shot,
opening one liner

and each storied retelling  
is nature!s
snow and rain
refilling
the love of your
groundwater table
welling up

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

you love her scent
the silly hats she wears,
her short skirts arouse,
that last open button
a misstep invitation,
angry it incenses,
her every solitary everything is
incense,
pervading a daily
co-riding
passenger's
oxygen? starved soul

~~~~~~~~~

her umbrella is a wet
selfie stick
accidentally opening and dousing
an un random next door
seatmate

just another unlucky misstep for
someone sitting next store,
oil on the fire of
happily ever after

two selfies are last seen as
one
un selfishly
toweling each other off and
on
with wet kisses

~~~~~~~~~~~

you eavesdrop on her
earbud music,
weep internally you do with
crazed jealously

The Temptations
are so unfairly
singing to her
"Ain't to Proud to Beg"
and neither are you

you heart is misstepping
to every beat,
your fingers
thrumming,
you idiot, not quietly enough
humming
in the next seat

the first,
will not be
the last

smile exchanged

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

poem writing on the tablet,
amidst the groaning awful
no moving
city traffic

overheated bus
combustible with
winter snow dampness,
wet dog sweat smelling people clothes

all you want to do is get home
shower off
the daily dirt

the poetry writing pastime
is the place
where you put yourself
to better to pass over
your sour surroundings

her finger rattlesnakes,
misstepping over,
noisily invading,
the invisible boundary
constructed to hold up the
eye-averting
Keep Out sign
to momentary,
too neighborly
strangers

her red painted
pointer finger
smudge prints on your tablet,
accompanied with
bespoke words
"try this"

that smudge suggestion
won't come off

insisting on crediting
a shared authorship,
you ask for her
email and cell,
so you can share
her
forever

co jointed tangled
bus and bed sheet first efforts
on writing, all about
what you play~argue
what should your entitled poem
be titled

you think

endless short love story bus poems

but she prefers,
with red fingers persuading

the first misstep is the best

both see the merit
in each other

I want to prepare food for you,
Chopping leeks and secretly dropping coriander into the pan,
I know you say you don't like it but you never notice and it really adds something,
The radio sings and fills the spaces between the smoke and steam and my thoughts,
I shout you alright, babe?,
You shout what?,
I walk over to the sofa holding a beer you chose and move towards you,
Grow towards you, lean over and press my cheek hard into your neck creases,
Your pulse thrumming through me like a train,
I close my eyes tight and think of all the times I was desperately alone,
In dark rooms in my mind,
Shall we cycle our bikes to the river tomorrow? you whisper into me,
Your breath warm and sweet,
I add salt to the dinner and you pull out a map and our days and nights are woven together by you looking at me looking at you.

What am I doing wrong?
Are my "vibes not thrumming to your cosmic song"?
Or are you blinded by the fools who surround you in throng?
And making your decisions by their ignorant opinions
like you're in a sing-along
Wait a minute here....did I miss a beat?
Are you really gonna deny there is heat?
One night of passion and then you retreat
Trading me for an empty hole that's petite
Oh baby! You've reached the height of conceit!
Meanwhile, I can't stop seeing your face
Telling my heart, "This is not a race!"
Trying to accept your rejection with grace
I never thought our scenario would reach worst-case
but I ache every night for your embrace
and get nothing but bitter-sweet aftertaste.

to a friend

No! those days are gone away
And their hours are old and gray,
And their minutes buried all
Under the down-trodden pall
Of the leaves of many years:
Many times have winter's shears,
Frozen North, and chilling East,
Sounded tempests to the feast
Of the forest's whispering fleeces,
Since men knew nor rent nor leases.

    No, the bugle sounds no more,
And the twanging bow no more;
Silent is the ivory shrill
Past the heath and up the hill;
There is no mid-forest laugh,
Where lone Echo gives the half
To some wight, amaz'd to hear
Jesting, deep in forest drear.

    On the fairest time of June
You may go, with sun or moon,
Or the seven stars to light you,
Or the polar ray to right you;
But you never may behold
Little John, or Robin bold;
Never one, of all the clan,
Thrumming on an empty can
Some old hunting ditty, while
He doth his green way beguile
To fair hostess Merriment,
Down beside the pasture Trent;
For he left the merry tale
Messenger for spicy ale.

    Gone, the merry morris din;
Gone, the song of Gamelyn;
Gone, the tough-belted outlaw
Idling in the "grenè shawe";
All are gone away and past!
And if Robin should be cast
Sudden from his turfed grave,
And if Marian should have
Once again her forest days,
She would weep, and he would craze:
He would swear, for all his oaks,
Fall'n beneath the dockyard strokes,
Have rotted on the briny seas;
She would weep that her wild bees
Sang not to her--strange! that honey
Can't be got without hard money!

    So it is: yet let us sing,
Honour to the old bow-string!
Honour to the bugle-horn!
Honour to the woods unshorn!
Honour to the Lincoln green!
Honour to the archer keen!
Honour to tight little John,
And the horse he rode upon!
Honour to bold Robin Hood,
Sleeping in the underwood!
Honour to maid Marian,
  And to all the Sherwood-clan!
Though their days have hurried by
Let us two a burden try.

A skeletal stag standing ten trees tall
Hanging moss adorning His wide antlers, patches of rocky lichen covering His driftwood bones
Large cloven hooves stepping carefully yet purposefully among the bleached remains littering the forest floor
He alone reigns here, in this place beneath ours
Even the pines fall silent as He passes
Even the stones
The air is old here
Thick with a power lost to time
Only He is left; a dimming flicker in a collective consciousness
Keeping a lonely vigil in an ancient forest a thousand miles deep and a hand's width beside us
No breath is drawn here
The soft rattling of His timber ribcage is the sole sound as He moves
Ceaselessly
Without rest
To a place always changing, never quite there
The ossuaries lay in a heavy silence
He assures the eternal slumber of all who rest here
The hollows in His skull seem to observe them, undisturbed
He moves on
His name has been forgotten for millennia
This sacred ground has become but a fleeting memory
Few old gods remain, lost to the quickening of time
He remembers, as He stands keeper of this place
Of an age before ours
When they would polish the skulls of the hunt with holy oils in His name
Dancing wildly and unburdened around towering flames
Primal sounds ripping raw from reverent lips
Now He is all but a wavering in the annals
He pauses in His endless march
Raises His great antlers to the thick canopy above
He listens
Feels the shift -- another one has faded
He will most likely be the last of His kind
A somber sentinel tasked with ensuring the dead wake not from their final sleep
Ensuring the silence is suffocating
A deep, weighted vibration
As if the place under ours was itself thrumming with power
Though none remain who once spoke His true name in fearful whispers
He will outlast
For all will eventually come to know
The one they now call death

London,
Beating heart of England,
Charismatic time-capsule thrumming to its own rhythm,
History looming, akin to massive waves splashing down,
Drenching all, the unwary, the scholar, soaking it up,
Savouring every scintillating droplet, blissful, hopeful,
Weaving through lives, changing with every moment,
Variety of race and creed, intermingling, jostling, noticing,
Sharing sight, sound, colour, scents, smiles and frowns,
Pulsing soul of people, thriving and alive, buzzing with spirit,
In Camden, easy-going, a friendly riot of textured-hazy-peace,
Artful structures of Belgravia, magnolia temples of affluence,
Lauding architectural finery while mere mortals pass through,
Mind swinging through centuries, flowing along the river artery,
Bridges carrying us home, keeping their own dark secrets,
Cranes rising high, creating modern palaces, new beginnings,
Old lives wreathed in the foggy past of legendry deeds,
Embellished beyond reality, ghosts crying out, warning,
We can never own this city, never know this city, not really,
Guardian dragon allows us entrance, pours herself upon us,
Takes our love, progresses while we observe,
All left behind, knowing, feeling, sensing,
We are but shadows in her Light,
Dust on her famous streets,
Blessed to know her,
To breathe her,
Love her,
London.

©Paul Chafer 2014

It sings to me
On the dark side of midnight.
The deep, throbbing song
Courses through my veins.

It robs me of sleep
With its hurtful music;
Woven throughout me a
Sadistic opera of pain.

Screeching aria’s fill my
Head with brain-snapping sound,
While the chorus accompanies
With low, deep down thrumming.

Once begun, this opera of horror
Will sing for hours at a time.
No breaks allowed for this
Captive audience of one.

It sings until satisfied
My body won’t be worth a ****.
Wrung limp from the awful music
Of the tortuous performance.

Sung to me from the dark side of midnight.


4/1/11   (c) Peggy Montgomery

The sleet is drawing boxes 'round
our mud-and-snow sashed towns.
We'll check 'em off
                      with crunching footsteps,
slash our gallows grins through static
weather. Nervous laughter fights off winter
while somnambulist nights
                    hold the anthill days at bay.

And each repeated conversation
coats a thrumming undercurrent
echoed by the groaning rivers
in their arthritic fatigue.

     where the ice piles up
              like car wrecks.

And, out of those disastrous angles,
     jumps up and trips back down.
          Blinking eyelids, right then left.
               Sunrises. Sunsets.
Dusks and dawns in places familiar
wading through liminal space.

Circles darkened. Footprints filled in.

The heat just circles lazily.
Our flushed and clammy brows
will **** askance
               and sweat while footsteps
melt our swaying way through boiling
sidewalks. Nervous laughter dulls the impact
of seared, rapid fire nights.
             "Ha." "Ha." Shrug off another.

And all repeated reminiscence
does is hamstring overthinking
of the closing jaws of traps
in these rusting western towns.

        where winds breathe dust
                by mouthfuls

So, into our familiar mishaps,
     ***** up and falls back down
          melting into neighborhoods
               dress down, upbraid us.
'Til our feet do not walk circles
'round these wilting Western towns.

As she hears the voice of rain, tapping the window, thrumming the roof,

the song of rain with leaves and stones and woods, 

 and as she opens the window, the fresh shower of rain touches her face.

She gets filled with joy and happiness like a little child,

holding her skirt, she jumps in the rain and opens her arms like a bird.

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

And she starts dancing, calling her little sister to come out and join the rain dance.

Come out, the rain is so fresh and nice, we will dance together,

 No, I will catch a cold. 

 Come, can you hear the song of rain, it's so soothing, we will dance,

 No, I will slip, mama will get angry. 

 Come, it will be fun, we will splash together and make the boat afterwards. 

 Ok! coming, follow my moves,  

Turn, turn around!  

As she turns, she notices an eye was watching her from behind the wall.

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

The eyes she had never seen before, that sight, she had never noticed before, she had never felt so awkward by someone's sight. 

Suddenly she finds the rain very unpleasant, 

Oh! it makes my blouse too tight, it makes my skirt wet, my hair clumsy, and she gathers her skirt and goes downstairs, 

what happened, come let's dance. 

No, let's go down, change, as we might catch a cold. 

 And from that day the rain dance stops. 

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

Did she notices that she is no more a kid,  or the sight made her realise that she can't act kid,  

Will she ever, can do a rain dance so carelessly and shamelessly.

Will she ever, be filled with so much  excitement to dance in the rain, 

Might me someday, but never be so carelessly, as she knows some creepy eyes might be watching. 

An innocence is lost and a young confused teenager is born.

            

frantic antics rewire my brain,
almost as if it were never a brain at all—
circuits and switches and copper thread,
my computerized cerebellum, my inorganic head,
as biology becomes machine.

what powers my body,
this metallic monstrosity?
there is no plug, no battery—
only the cogs and gears of a watchmaker's fever dream
and sheer, dumb luck.

because, while they stood around
and waited idly for my parts to rust,
i was killing time in a vacuum,
ignoring the earnest embraces of air and rain.

and thus, here i rest,
with the sound of my own meek ticking
thrumming against these pink asylum walls

but because i stayed awake to tell the tale,
and to rub their sordid noses in the dirt,
i suppose my isolation was worth it.

thrumming bass pumps into my body
an electric pulse, thumping through my bones,
zapping my veins and frying my nerves
creating static as the golden drops pour into my ears
hair flying around my head in a wreath of hell
the speakers sing

I'm ****** up, I'm black and blue. I'm built for all the abuse. got secrets that nobody knows. I'm good on that ***** ****. I dont want what I can get. I want someone with secrets that nobody knows. I need a gangsta, to love me better, than all the others do...

a tech hum fills my body
bodys sliding in tune with the tempo
hands run on hands run on back and thighs
the song croons with delectable bass

got me up so im barely breathing...

fingers trace my neckline and I bend with the notes
eyes closed hands clasped swirling in a mob of people,
all surging with the beat
the energy is high, and seeping in through my skin

i drink it all in

You spoke adamantly of gentle courage
     and sharing spring's flourished nectar,
the swooning rhythm of swaying trees
   and the easeful breezes that flow
     'tween endearment's sensibilities,
misty moonbows 'neath dusk's stormy skies
     lavender sunsets midst rosy horizons,
affectation surging amid life's turmoils
     wallowing in self indulgence &
the harmony of olive branch surrender
    and thrumming heart strings of patience,
it was then I comprehended, darkness doesn't
   last a lifetime when lit by love's fortitude

Humanity is tainted and now leaking everywhere
In a world where people jump out
airplanes after stacks of money
To a din of sirens blaring,
War drums thrumming
Funny you'll do nothing;
It's a racket designed to create the distraction

To the hidden monsters flying in the night sky
Ever secure, beneath a crux of watchful eyes
Masters of disguise bend your will to their lies
Subconsciously shapeshifting acquiescence in the absence of light

They operate in obscurity
Conglomerates of impunity
Urgency manifests necessity
With a propensity for depravity
Slaves lulled to a fake sense of security with false promise of luxury
Compulsively regurgitating propaganda in delusory quandary
Happy little sheep march willingly to the teeth of the Serpent machine

Ominous omniscience mixes with
Sensations of bodilessness
In a state of godlessness
Whenever my conscious surfaces in this clandestine system
I sell my soul to purchase debt and let repercussions fall upon my children
A paradigm; with no ethics the center is an idol,
and the world had forever idolized the god money, Belial

Imagine
A carnival pageant, with parades of tyrants tirading
and masquerading on the world's stage as lavish savages

With overwhelming power in hand,
I'll bring an end to it all
If you gaze for long into the abyss
It will stare back into your soul

Pay homage to barrages of sacred false knowledge/unacknowledged
It lodges to your consciousness as it takes you hostage
You think you're open-minded but suffer from mental spillage
Then brain begins hemorrhaging like a glitch in the matrix

Global massacre is imminent
Our abandonment's no accident
Caricatures of government act as the Devil's advocates

Insane It's us against them
Zionist Superfriends deciding trends
designing and framing an outline of the endgame just for sh¡ts-n-gigs
Hands reach through the tapestry pulling you in and unrelenting,
Secretly from behind the scenes

Portraits of dishonesty
Stripping you of all life and liberty
Symphonies of screams
systematize in perfect symmetry
Enslaving and slaying humankind -
They've exacted brainwashing
to the science of chemistry
And mold your mind
with the subtlest alchemy

Media blackout;
Credits tapped out
Better act now
before the stock markets
collapse down

What's your plan when **** hits the fan,
will you follow The Man or fail condemned?
Now bow at the feet of the ministry of tyranny,
Head lowered in defeat *preparing for the guillotine

My dear, my dear, my dear,
Say you are not afraid;
Say it so loud
That the doves in your body
Stop fluttering their wings,
So that you feel still
For one moment.
Sigh like a pack of wolves;
Dangerous in the right situations
But mostly more afraid of them
Than they are of you.
You worry that everyone
Reads what you are thinking
By the way your
Face colours itself
Like a sunset,
By the way the light fades
Out of you, slowly.
Close your eyes,
Steady the thrumming
In your chest
You are not afraid
You are not afraid
You are not afraid
Anymore

Her prayers are
Breathy I love you's,
Warm and pained against your skin.
Your body is her altar,
Her temple,
The cathedral surrounding her
In her heartbroken worship
As she unravels,
Crying,
Shaking,
Clinging to you with
Everything
She
Has
Left.
The shattered pieces
Of her heart are the broken winged swallows,
Flocking in fluttering storms
In your bell tower,
Nesting in your rafters
Alongside the owls you've let be
To this point,
Content to allow them to roost.
Her hands are your bibles,
The creases telling a thousand stories
Of the girl who weathers the fiercest storms,
But falls apart at the seams
For love of you.
Your laughter serves as her hymns,
Ringing through the expanse of you,
Singing in her ears.
Sometimes she tries
Laughing alongside you,
But her voice cracks
Like an untuned piano
Whenever she opens her lips
To add her laughter to
Your songbooks.
You each find a different kind of heaven
In the stained glass windows
Of the other's eyes.
Hers are the ocean,
Deep and stormy,
Only ever calm
Just before lightning shakes her frame,
Rain and froth
Pounding
Against the glass,
Breaking it's way through,
Trying to flood your halls
As the tempest carves new legends
In her outstretched hands;
New biblical stories to lose yourself in.
She finds summer nights in your gaze,
Bonfires dappling damp grass,
And a boy
Laying on the hood of a run down car,
Staring too intently at the stars
To truly register their fragility,
Their mortality,
Even as they plummet from the sky,
Bursts of white light
Reflecting gold through green glass.
The comet-light ripples,
Climbing to the rafters,
Startling the owls from their perches,
And you can feel them thrumming,
Beating their wings against the ceiling of your ribs.


k. f.

Crisp clear light of a not-quite spring
picks out the round black bin
quietly digesting the stuff of yesterday
Discreetly concealing
the thrumming, busy business of decay

The next act is approaching
in which we find
that nothing is lost or wasted
and the audience sighs with relief

Hoping
that the mulch
of lost loves, discarded wishes
and broken beliefs
will prove as fertile
as the rich brown muck within
the round black bin.

Cross-petals of daffodils sway to the cries
Of starlings – stark shrieks and minute iridescent
Wing-beats – while the willows whistle,
Tumultuous as feathers caught in the wind.
Like the fragrant taste of rain, you tell me
About mistakes made by people in love,
How temptations of her white heron-legs
And meadowlark voice stole your attention,
Like flies drawn into the range of a bullfrog’s tongue.
Your words meet heartbeats under tremolos
Of wild grasses with olive and mauve sprouts,
Lingering beneath brewing oyster clouds.
You adorned yesterday with honeybee stings
And barbed crescendos of climbing roses,
But tomorrow brings sweet-tongued
Hummingbirds and thrumming choruses
As your soft-spoken daylily promises
Dissolve silence into adoration.

I.

All I can say is that it is a hum
Reverberant, droning, consistent
Quiet thrumming along the surface
Stirs me awake and then it fills me with
Ichor and I sip, sip, and sip (until I'm drunk).

All I can say is that it is a hum,
Quiet droning, a hushed whisper,
Loud screaming inside the head,
A piercing headache, sometimes a discordant wail.

II.

You sit on the porcelain lip of the tub
Hooded eyes lowered, your fingertips
Pressed together like the steeple of a church

I think: Yes, this is what Renaissance painters modeled angels after. Your skin is like a rose-tinged alabaster, your cheeks Suffused with blood. The painter took a measured time with you.

"Do you honestly think you'll be okay on your own?" You ask.

Silence, she greets you.

III.

Hasn't my mother violently
Ejected me from the nest
I'm only a few months old, a nestling
Wings awkward and clumsy
Beak agape for masticated food
(I'm not ******* ready yet)
Ejects me
Her beak threatens to pierce my shell

This is dejà vu.
I've conversed before
Different room, different domain,
Different speaker, a sicker listener
I'm as sick, sick as **** now

Mind, she hums, crescendo
Crescendo high like a choral piece
Orchestral, and this is resplendent
Everything is gleaming
Your face encased in a soft glow
Halo of light
Your face, cherubic,
His face, Romanesque, was sculpted like a Bronze Age statue.

"Your mother didn't give you the right set of tools. My mother at least gave me–" he falters.

IV.

I remember calling the ex 28 times in the span of 2 hours.
The policeman, he counted.
Thrashing on the floor, weeping like Persephone must've in Hades, like a fallen Mortal reborn as a minor goddess
Stripped me, he did though, of my wings
Avian feathers streaked with years-old blood

My tears, why yes, they're bleeding rivulets.
My ****-brown eyes alight on the bleach
Yes, sweet death

"Stop calling me. I'm ******* another ***** right now," the ex says.

V.

Memory is so faded,
Plays like a scratched and worn cassette tape

Mind is a-humming, humming, my mind is
Orchestral choir, church choir, Pentecostal
Now, I eat ichor, ravenous, now I am Closer to God and she is a woman,  
Draped in funeral attire
She weeps, soundless, a Seer

"I don't know," I say.

"The med isn't working," you reply
Cherubic face shifts and morphs
Melts into soft glow light,
One with the halo, is the halo

Nothing makes sense, everything else does too. My mind races, cassette tapes
Whirs, skips, images flash, I weep
Weep like Sisyphus
Eyes spilling rivers of penny-tinged
Crimson, sanguine ichor

One day he'll taste it and hate me,
Loathe me, the jade-eyed serpent
Poison-fanged
I'll clutch his scales until my fingers are Cut, welts, mottled bruises, fading scars
I will be punished, am punished
The illness, the eternal Boulder on the eternal hill, it rolls and rolls, my mouth agape

I await my cyclic fate ordained by the Higher God

VI.

How many men have I lured into the chamber?
Drunk on sweet wine or mead?
Petrified into osseous
Their gazes failing to avert from my Penetrative stare?

He was an errant General, beautiful but stupid, his mind a one way road, his temper unpredictable and flighty
Oh, how I loved the duality of him
We philosophized
Theorized on the Gods
Laughed at their follies
Wondered at the mysteries of the universe, Her deep annals

Oh, how I loved the physicality of him
Tight, corded muscle, his back like a Wound spring, Bronze hand
Grasping a silver sword

Hark! His rounded shield is lifted, my hideous reflection stares back at me
My eyes, widened, the cup of manna Clatters, soundly in the chamber
Reverberates
Bounces off my throne of skulls

How many men have I–?

VII.

"Can you honestly say that you can take care of yourself?" You ask from the place atop the lip of the porcelain tub. Your hands, a steeple, a church spire
Perhaps, you are a lesser God, perhaps we are all falling Lucifers, wingless, blinded by vengefulness and betrayal
Perhaps, he too is–?

"Am I an infant to you?" I ask.
The headache splits
The pain demands, claws at the side of my skull, dances across my nerves, liquid iron on my tongue

Because when did I?

Oh, Sisyphus you weep! You, who slaughtered so many!

Oh, Medusa, you wept, you beautiful serpentine harlot, you *****, you–
The choir is a strong crescendo, Ascending, ascending, ascending
Lowers like a thrumting and heavy bellow
Deep, rich, and full, timbre

"Everyone, all your life has said you were crazy, but I don't think you are, I–"

VIII.

The tapes skip, voices garbled, muffled, Indiscernible and distorted
Mind shrieks, lower now, quieter now, Barely audible, a fading whisper, your halo Recedes, soft glow dims

Your hands separate, the steeple, no, the Spire collapses.
Held breath hitches,
Serpentine tendrils become wisps of hair, Cloudlike

We are lesser gods, not quite mortal, not quite divine

The itch demands to be felt, protests
And I, I scream endless into a dark chasm
My voice, it does not call back to me
It does not–

"I don't know."