you celebrate something you believe you couldn't possibly have in high school.
cupid's arrows, sweet sentiments and chocolate kisses (not hershey's)
all to say three words you don't believe in -  yet
I remember a massacre on this day another year
and i don't mean when al eliminated the  competition for biggest badass
i mean a year ago. 2011.
you said i love you to me but you couldn't believe it
said you mean it but how could you, see it's
a contradiction and my affliction is trying to reconcile your actions to your actions
trying to make sense of what happened
still can't. but still can't stop
i guess i'm a man addicted to what he doesn't have and hasn't got.

as the hands ever unseen,
push forward,
the tines of time,
i lie with eyes open,
but it must be said,
with a desperate desire
that they be closed.

i listen to the wind rail,
against it's perpetual,
homeless state.
fury has been it's nature,
this past long night
and has doubled
the occupancy of this old
king bed,
sprawled beside me now safely asleep,
is a tangle of blucat and small, but growing to fast, child
both resting, hard up against the lee- side of the man mountain.
all creating a purring, snuffling, snoring thing,
that has an equal measure
of comfort and annoyance, circulating within my brain.

outside the house,
something has come adrift, but not enough, to blow away and it bangs in an awkard thunking rhythm agin the side of the house.

in the bed it is warm
and slightly sweaty.
outside of the bed,
it is crisp and overcool.
outside the window,
the sky is lightening,
to a grey that portends...
a long day

i make my choice
and leave the warmth in search of, the first of,
far too many coffee's

and the unseen hands,
still move,
the tines of the
old grandfather clock.
ever onward, everforward.

My deformities decorate me
As if I were Persephone
Married to all that could incinerate me
I dance with daemons, but they do not consume me

Instead we rub up against each other, like
The good kind of scratch
Like the skins of fruits

And I delight
In the weight
Of cool scales that press my dress to my skin
And rest monster heads in the curve beneath my skin.

Great claws finding the fork tines of my fox spine, and I sing
O, Daemon Mine
O, Daemon Mine.

And they let go, and they sometimes even
Cry.

Who knows what stops the heart of a song
I take note

of tiny thud—
robin in the wheel well of my car

the limp head
of a cat’s prey

sigh of wings
defrocked by power lines

baby starling’s fledgling flight
falling short of a pond’s edge

The slate morsel unearthed
by the tines of my rake

…and the world is vacant for a moment

Grief ***** a womb of air
but how it lives— I cannot say
Upended creature of us

Stops the throbs that herald life

Behind the barn in late afternoon
Uncle Ray lifts my brother
to the seat of a harrower
abandoned now
and rusted to this field of family
tilted and monumental
plunging its tines into memory
of broken earth
behind this life of the workhorses they were
My father and my Uncle Ray—talking
Scattered conversation
in hushed tones

...as skyscraping thunderheads
slashed through their heights
by arrows of fire
light the pumpkins
between hay bundles
of time golden

The Song of Amergin: Modern English Translations

The Song of Amergin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am the sea breeze
I am the ocean wave
I am the surf's thunder
I am the stag of the seven tines
I am the cliff hawk
I am the sunlit dewdrop
I am the fairest flower
I am the rampaging boar
I am the swift-swimming salmon
I am the placid lake
I am the excellence of art
I am the vale echoing voices
I am the battle-hardened spearhead
I am the God who gave you fire
Who knows the secrets of the unhewn dolmen
Who understands the cycles of the moon
Who knows where the sunset settles ...



The Song of Amergin
an original poem by Michael R. Burch

He was our first bard
and we feel in his dim-remembered words
the moment when Time blurs . . .

and he and the Sons of Mil
heave oars as the breakers mill
till at last Ierne―green, brooding―nears,

while Some implore seas cold, fell, dark
to climb and swamp their flimsy bark
. . . and Time here also spumes, careers . . .

while the Ban Shee shriek in awed dismay
to see him still the sea, this day,
then seek the dolmen and the gloam.



The Song of Amergin II
a more imaginative translation by Michael R. Burch

after Robert Bridges

I am the stag of the seven tines;
I am the bull of the seven battles;
I am the boar of the seven bristles;

I am the wide flood cresting plains;
I am the wind sweeping deep waters;
I am the salmon swimming in the shallow pool;

I am the dewdrop lit by the sun;
I am the fairest of flowers;
I am the crystalline fountain;

I am the hawk shrieking after its prey;
I am the demon ablaze in the campfire ashes;
I am the battle-waging spearhead;

I am the vale echoing voices;
I am the sea's roar;
I am the rising sea wave;

I am the meaning of poetry;
I am the God who inspires your prayers;
I am the hope of heaven;

Who else knows the ages of the moon?
Who else knows where the sunset settles?
Who else knows the secrets of the unhewn dolmen?

Translator's Notes:

The "Song of Amergin" and its origins remain mysteries for the ages. The ancient poem, perhaps the oldest extant poem to originate from the British Isles, or perhaps not, was written by an unknown poet at an unknown time at an unknown location. The unlikely date 1268 BC was furnished by Robert Graves, who translated the "Song of Amergin" in his influential book The White Goddess (1948). Graves remarked that "English poetic education should, really, begin not with Canterbury Tales, not with the Odyssey, not even with Genesis, but with the Song of Amergin." The poem has been described as an invocation and a mystical chant.

I did not attempt to fully translate the ending of the poem. I have read several other translations and it seems none of them agree. I went with my "gut" impression of the poem, which is that the "I am" lines refer to God and his "all in all" nature, a belief which is common to the mystics of many religions. I stopped with the last line that I felt I understood and will leave the remainder of the poem to others. The poem reminds me of the Biblical god Yahweh/Jehovah revealing himself to Moses as "I am that I am" and to Job as a mystery beyond human comprehension. If that's what the author intended, I tip my hat to him, because despite all the intervening centuries and the evolution of the language, the message still comes through quite well. If I'm wrong, I have no idea what the poem is about, but I still like it.

Who wrote the poem? That's a very good question and the answers seem speculative to me. Amergin has been said to be a Milesian, or one of the sons of Mil who allegedly invaded and conquered Ireland sometime in the island's deep, dark past. The Milesians were (at least theoretically) Spanish Gaels. According to the Wikipedia page:

Amergin Glúingel ("white knees"), also spelled Amhairghin Glúngheal or Glúnmar ("big knee"), was a bard, druid and judge for the Milesians in the Irish Mythological Cycle. He was appointed Chief Ollam of Ireland by his two brothers the kings of Ireland. A number of poems attributed to Amergin are part of the Milesian mythology. One of the seven sons of Míl Espáine, he took part in the Milesian conquest of Ireland from the Tuatha Dé Danann, in revenge for their great-uncle Íth, who had been treacherously killed by the three kings of the Tuatha Dé Danann, Mac Cuill, Mac Cecht and Mac Gréine. They landed at the estuary of Inber Scéne, named after Amergin's wife Scéne, who had died at sea. The three queens of the Tuatha Dé Danann, (Banba, Ériu and Fódla), gave, in turn, permission for Amergin and his people to settle in Ireland. Each of the sisters required Amergin to name the island after each of them, which he did: Ériu is the origin of the modern name Éire, while Banba and Fódla are used as poetic names for Ireland, much as Albion is for Great Britain. The Milesians had to win the island by engaging in battle with the three kings, their druids and warriors. Amergin acted as an impartial judge for the parties, setting the rules of engagement. The Milesians agreed to leave the island and retreat a short distance back into the ocean beyond the ninth wave, a magical boundary. Upon a signal, they moved toward the beach, but the druids of the Tuatha Dé Danann raised a magical storm to keep them from reaching land. However, Amergin sang an invocation calling upon the spirit of Ireland that has come to be known as The Song of Amergin, and he was able to part the storm and bring the ship safely to land. There were heavy losses on all sides, with more than one major battle, but the Milesians carried the day. The three kings of the Tuatha Dé Danann were each killed in single combat by three of the surviving sons of Míl, Eber Finn, Érimón and Amergin.

It has been suggested that the poem may have been "adapted" by Christian copyists of the poem, perhaps monks. An analogy might be the ancient Celtic myths that were "christianized" into tales of King Arthur, Lancelot, Galahad and the Holy Grail.

Keywords/Tags: Amergin, song, translation, Ireland, Irish, Celtic, Gaelic, Gaels, Milesian, Druid, Banshee

maple-cured, smoked, rawhide hands,
tarantula hands bulldozing rice onto
tines like an icebreaker ramming through

glacial bergs, Holly
Golightly on the tv, on
mute, and oh those hips,

that figure, in that black dress,
banana hands cracking Alaskan king
crablegs and ******* the juice and eating

the meat, legs spindly and hairy
and soaked in butter, dripping,
liver cooking, roasting, sloshed on gin,

cribbage board patinaed
in dust, he eats his liver, downs
another gin, cracks another leg, crab

hair caught in his teeth, Holly talking about
getting the mean reds but he can’t
hear it, his luck run out,

his luck a prize from a box of ******* Jack,
and the snarling throb in his head,
cinderblock face, cinderblock house,

3-day-stubble, has he had enough (to drink)?
not by the stubble of his
chinny-chin-chin,

liver is gone, crab is gone,
so he eats the eyes,
dowsing his ******* Jacks

in gin, yesterday wine-in-a-box
and Cheez-****, sprayed right into his
unbrushed maw, a one-person wine-

and-cheese fête classy as it gets,
he’s Mister High Society,
Cheez-**** crust in his stubble,

and a cinderblock CRASHES to the floor and it’s
lights out, and Holly, still no one
to hear her, saying

she’ll never let anyone put her in a cage.

Grandma’s old straw hat
rides low on her brow.
When hilling potatoes,
sweat rings the brim.
Twine provides a strap.
Sometimes, when a gust
tumbles past tomatoes
and green onions,
a calloused hand
pushes the hat back
to feel deliverance
from summer rays.
The brim shades a spot
two-feet wide over
thick-skinned Half Runners,
caresses long weepy
leaves of corn when she
brushes past, edges tattered
by forty years of okra stalk
shaving flesh and straw.
Ice water renews
her will under hat and sun;
as winds feign,
wrinkled fingers hold
fast to its lip, beating
hot air cool around a weary face.
When crickets serenade,
the hat becomes a bucket
for the day’s last peppers.
Today, a ‘For Sale’ sign greets;
the gate swings wide.
In the shed a plow sits idle
while the straw companion
hangs from a nail.
A swig of gas in the tiller,
brim shading my brow,
sweet soil tumbles over tines,
my sweat mixes with hers
under the garden hat.


© 2010 C.T. Bailey

Right now
in your kitchen
on the bottom rack of the dishwasher
resides a secret;
a dark spot on your soul –
a malignant little horror
that threatens to destroy
your sense of self worth.

Maybe it’s a butter knife
with an in-congruent rust spot
on one side of the blade…
Maybe it’s a random salad fork,
the final piece remaining
from a long forgotten flatware set,
with a fossilized chunk of radicchio
lodged between the third and fourth tines.

Probably it’s the fork.

There it has sat
without being moved;
without being touched;
just existing as the metaphor that it is
for 8 straight wash cycles.
The result has never varied.
The dirt remains.

Soon will come a ninth wash cycle.
You hope that things will change.
You know that they will not.
Despite this unwavering conviction
that the fork will always be *****,
the next time you run the cycle,
open the dishwasher door,
peer through the gauzy veil
of lemon scented fog
and see the small bit of filth
you will still feel disappointed.
You will grow a little bitterer.
You will be a little more contemptuous.
The world will be a deeper shade of gray.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

You can go
right now
into the kitchen
to the bottom rack of the dishwasher and
reach down
with a trembling hand
to grasp destiny.

You are bigger than this fork.
You are bigger than this fork.

You
are bigger
than this fork.

With a sense of control firmly clasped between your fingers
take that 15 uncomfortable seconds
to scrape away the debris with your thumbnail
and then be free.

BE FREE

Deep and resounding will be
the sigh of relief;
the utter completion;
the contentment absolute
that you experience
when you place that clean salad fork
back in the drawer.

It will never match
the new silver
that your In-Laws gave you last Christmas, but
at least it will be clean and
in its home
safely ensconced
in that wire organizer.

Right now
in your kitchen
on the bottom rack of the dishwasher
is a chance for redemption.

Brewing your bitter sap
From the sour, dank sod
In which your feet
Are so comfortably shod
Silk purse made from the bile
Of good-for-nothing land

Your are on the river
In the bog early green
A smile on Spring's young face
Russet tines raking winter's putty
Bearded bonsai of icy summits
Run-maker on summer greens

Webster-woven into creels
For peats, and baskets
For logs of firewood types
Promise me a sprig of ***** Willow
Almost a tree
A match for any tree

my island is refuge
your island is refuge
for they bear the same name
ours

some call it sheltering
for surrounded by spits of land,
resting tween tines of two forks,
but storms come.  do damage.
the island recovers, inevitably as
humans and nature do a joint tented revival meeting

a project, new slip covers, fresh paint job,
we joke to ourselves

but on the heel of the isle
where our sturdy bungalow faces the
moody waters, the white capped breezes,
your chair neath the tree with the swing awaits, asking,
“when will the woodsman come,his tides flow away, away, to
why not here?

so many stories have I, poems to dictate,”
that silent observer says “his presence is required on this isle called

ours”

the currents announced as well,
an American blessing

“ready willing and Abel
to carry, to gift renew,
to the isle of refuge”

6/39/18. 8:08am

It is implied imagination lives in memory,
for I have lived immortal in his memory!

Dying sunlight painted translucent gold varnish
over tree branches, and leaves wept in cinder
as sunlight pierced their flesh  
Sentient, solemn willows swayed in wind prayers,
Deep into her mind forest pagan temples rang
as though treasures hailed immortal proclamations
upon night
  
The fine chiffon billowed, a mere lambrequin
caressing her milky thighs ── the window ajar.  
Blue and white flowers in knots strewn along vines,
appeared violated, twisted valentine creatures,
lost in belief on Lupercalia dreams, blaring
into the impending night, screaming hungry ──
blooms awaiting their opening to moon promises of
fertile love

The old clock past that sings in tick of dying time ── her
mind a bush of stinging nettles,
a reminder to pain and wet in flesh.
Once married to magical inducements to deaths promise,
Pleasures that once sang from his lips,
"The song of sunsets elixir”,
An unparalleled potency to release mortal time

‘Awake in Malarian dreaming immortal ── writhing
in fragrant silent purple hazes of love that vanishes.
She waited across violet poppies and crimson bride orchids
on mortal memories.  
“I can taste you” came from her full lips,
finely cracked with need,
In the parlour poised, dreaming ardent dreams

The moon glinted off the lake beyond,
invoking querulous images,
Swirling, roaming a prayer in black laughed,
escaping the dead air about him
A battalion of flowers hung in nights trees, opulent
reminiscent to Victorian chandeliers.
His aurelo radiated black from a jewelled crown,
mesmerized she gazed

── He blew quietus, a cold gust of emptiness & neglect,
the candles restless flickering ceased,  
his tines glinting by moon lights silver smile  
His breath bore a spice, and a mild coolness encircled her waist,
arms raised, a kiss he placed to each her wrists
Reverent, passionately he bit consuming, gorging in lust
Her mind danced in sparkled delight,    

Springs first ****** shoots sped across time and,
watercolour smears of emerald splashed
earth in communion, between life and death,
between death and life,  she took her last breath.  

She listened to his shatter, ‘into black shards
his ‘obsidian motion tore into night’
A black fire star stained across amaranthine skies,
touching, delicately bleeding into mortal dreams
in poets and writers
It is said, “Love bites but once in true love”

──Unto death shall we once again meet
immortal “In just one piece, poetry we bite”.





©ASPAR S2018(A Sol Poet Arnay Rumens)

shocked when i realize it's not fictitious i'm vicious, vindictive
not that i have a choice in this
woke up on the anniversary of a massacre
broken up but still can't stay mad at her
can't spit venom from my lips at the girl with those lips i once kissed
but i can seethe at the thought of who she replaced me with
woke up this morning it was raining on the 'tines
mind filled with bitter twisted lines
"i'll **** him if they kiss in the rain"
threw the thought away so it wouldn't show om my face
put a face on the same way i was replaced

I fell down today  and scrapped my knees, Daddy  can you kiss it please...
A cartoon bandaid, a few cookies & lemonade.

I was push today, Daddy she's  way bigger than me, she said cuz I'm black my hairs a weave,

I said I'm mixed and my hair isn't fake, she spit gum in it and pushed me into the bathroom  stall.

Can you help me, teach me how to fight  Daddy I don't want her to beat me up.


I have no where to go,

Daddy can I stay with you please, I've left him for good!

He won't be hitting me anymore,

Daddy  I need to sleep I'm pregnant & haven't had much to eat.

I got a job today and I need bus fare, can I have 4 dollars  please 2 for the bus and 2 to eat...

Daddy I'll be working after school,  at a hotel and I can even get a free room, 

I'll work in the front office and sometimes help the maids but it's ok since I'll now have my own place

I got married today,

Daddy  I know he doesn't  make much and didn't  ask for my hand but Daddy I really love this man...

He took me to the court house and we said I do, you were too sick to come and I didn't want to bother you.

I've moved away,

Daddy and I won't be coming back,

I left my husband since he has a habit of messing around, putting me down and hitting.

Daddy can you call me I need advise I'm married again 3rd time and  pregnant  for the 4th time,

I wish I could visit you maybe next year, right now I have college, work, and my 4th on the way.

I called you today but I've got no answer, we're  here now and I have a present for you Daddy, 

it's been a while and lil sis says you're not doing too well...

I tried to call you today,

I've forgot what your voice sounds like Daddy.

Forgot I can't  call you anymore, 

Daddy you're gone now.

Daddy  the realization  hits me just as hard as that girl  did when she pushed me into the bathroom  stall,

my eyes brim over with tears just like it did when I pushed out 1 of my kids...

I can't talk to you and get your advise,

can't get lemonade & cookies when I fall this time,

I miss all those years we couldn't be together cause I was in foster care, group homes and again once I moved to other  states..

Daddy I've married again have 5 girls  a few lost pregnancies and some really bad marriages,  3 times in fact.

Daddy I've had some messed up relationships along the way as well had a stalker from  New Jersey  even and what a looser he is,

I've moved  to a whoke new state 3 tines now and laat year I was super sick  and yet worse of it was not being able to share any of it Daddy ...

Not being able to call and hear your booming voice tell me how to proceed or you coming to make sure them exes and maybe even that stalker from Jersey  left me be Daddy!

It's been 14 years Daddy and every day I miss you so much,  but right now Id take the advise and tough  love.

No longer married but I'm sure it'll come...

hehehe maybe  4th times my charm,

right now I'm fine as things are I have 2 cars just got a new crappie job a new house and all your grand kids are doing good so far.

Daddy I'm a grandma  isn't thst crazy and my 1st born your  grand daughter's changed her life round, she's coming home to get her son.

Even though I don't see you I know your with me and one day I'll stand on ya feet and allow you to lead me in a finally dance,

I know someday we'll be together again , with Mommy and my grant parents

Daddy!

Always Me Ayeshah ™ ®
         K.A.C.L.N ©
     All right reserved ®
Copyright 1977 - Present

Livid, then the jogging man pushing his child with cerebral palsy glided beside me, and I felt sick with petty spite.

I ran to the building for the nearest bathroom and vomited back every saccharine word I ever breathed into your mouth.

Excuse the blood, the ulcers you left are raw today.

I haven’t eaten joy or devoured love since while putting your blouse back on, I came up behind you and kissed the back of your neck and whispered that next to your eyes, that was my favorite part of your body.

I washed the spite and ***** out of my mouth with tap water and shame, they both tasted metallic against my tongue, like biting too hard and the jolt of tines on teeth.

I bit the fork and tasted regret and chipped enamel.

Is that what his tongue tastes like for you?

When you kiss his neck, does part of you still ******* skin?

The smell of the ocean that you only ever visited once, but every day for more than a year.

Do your fingers ever expect to tangle themselves in the seaweed of my curly hair?

I've been trying to remember your scent. You smelled of running through apple orchards, the sweat and the blossoms on the air whipping between trees and seaweed curls, the ocean.

I can only remember the taste of sea salt and chipped teeth.

But when you taste his lips, do you ever taste the salt of me?

Do you ever smell the ocean in the air, the ocean on my lips?

"The one adjustment that makes a tragic thing bearable is a smile - however forced." **

You don't know.
All griefs are small griefs,
you would like to tell me,
with happiness' wind behind you.

You don't know,
I danced with those sati ladies
with my shirt off.
All griefs are insurmountable,
dangling at the end of infinite tines.
Your teeth reach out as your soul reaches.

And somewhere in the night,
somebody is using a dead man's voice
and wrapping himself in Christmas lights.

Grief for the father,
tears for the son.

The news is a lonely cube of ice
in my fevered mouth.
I swallow cold water.

you are so ****** in the head.
they say "crazy can't see crazy"
but, baby, i looked you dead in the eyes,
and man, someone stirred your brain with a fork.
cerebellum penetrated by tines.
amygdala spooned into their mouths like lukewarm soup.
sliced a knife straight through your hypothalamus.
left the rest to swirl around in that thick skull of yours.

you're used goods, they told me.
you passed your expiration date.
a little too ripe around the edges.
i could see that.
you asked people to palpate your skin,
like checking cantaloupe.
you spit out your seeds in between
inhaling smoke and ******* down liquor.

she warned me that you were a wild one.
rebellion and fierce independence.
all lions and tigers and bears,
sutured together with wolfish teeth
and hyena laughter.
forever breaking out of cages
and biting the hands that fed you.

now if only you could see it too.
or if only i'd saw it earlier.

Peg, roundly topped and
bottom squared, hops out seeking
holes to reconcile.

"Soon, very soon," she posits

then passes dear Fork
forlorn on pebbled road. His
tines are liquid droops.
His heart stabs for cheating Spoon.

Opposite, Puppet
sits to tend her knotted strings.

This path is puzzling.

I fear too much of life
Has been spent living in our
Mismatched silverware drawer.
While knives are always fine,
Never noticing much
What they might cut
Because they haven't sharp eyes;
So accustomed to close quarters,
They just lay there, as
Blind soldiers in wait of orders.
But I'm wary when they
Come out to speak,
Seeking blood, too often it seems.
Nicer when it's just
Butter must be spread
To warm toast instead.
Forks carry their own dangers.
In time, tines disentangled
From secret stainless dustups
That go on in the tray
While attention's drawn away
Can be wielded like daggers,
Impaling olives - or fingers -
That happen to fall in the way.
So painful, though rarely fatal
For those with shots up to date.
It's the others need worrying over;
Sad spoons that never nestle
As they did when they were new.
Uncomfortable now with one another,
Like wishes kissing cold lips,
Smooth hips never swaying to music
As they must have done once before,
Arranged in deranged patterns
In plastic compartments.
I'd rather take them all out,
Line them along the kitchen floor
For lessons in ballet or the samba.
I might learn to dance, again, too.
Sometimes, I wish we could eat with
The still-perfect gold set
We save for those who don't live here;
Drink fine wine every day from those
Dusty gilded glasses
Stocked in the corner cabinet.
It might feel more real then,
If they eventually get here...
We'd be prince and princess
Everyday, then, wouldn't we?

twisted tines of silken thread
turn truistic vines of dread
into total truisms that fed
on tectonic overtures

turnstiles of treacle thin
ties, that tickle skin
and whisper tactile lies
turn tiny faces to taciturn skies

Tiptoe across a threadbare rug
tiny traces kiss treads remembrance

Touching histories of true memories
Tugging threads tight in a trance

fresh tilled soil revealed phalanges of innocents
disarranged,
like chewed chicken bones, pointing or reaching
mixed with lost tree leaves that steel tines stirred in;
twigs snapped from limbs by some storm long forgotten,
skeletons left behind after picking the cotton

the Farmer sows afresh earth’s next crop rotation
seeds of winter wheat for bread we’ll be eating;
or grasses and sorghum for new cattle pasture
laid in shallow furrows with prayers for cover
a swaying anthem of living,
our losses forgiven by a harvest of summer

We’re tying our shoes-- as we think about the day's gifts
          Holding strings-- curling ribbons with latent sweat
"I’'ve heard they’ll pull us through-- we tie around each box
          eyelets, through tunnels and catacombs."-- a shimmering luster abetting
beyond the sky.

Today we mourn those drained sausage-limbs at noon-time
     --(Sallow-cheeked mistresses and fortunes abounding
        for those who have time for such things.)

With tears
     --hiding the feelings of those who have none

                  slapping the ground.
We see
           every unfurling light
combine with blots of pity
                                                 to fortify prairie grass.

And I remember an old gravel highway that separates my family and church from geologic
build-up which the wind is slowly chewing.

I can't be with them-- like the western, sandy steppes of Nebraska,
     I can't hold water, and their loving nourishment sinks through me.
     My arms won't be like ribbons, in an embrace of the
dead’s remitting tendrils.
     As I lay outstretched on the Sand Hills, shielding my belly from the desert sun;
     boring water trapped in caverns under neatly wound sweat-bows and boxes
I, one day, too, cry emaciated tears.

     Surely, we are tethered firmly to the spool, dangling with
tensity on the tines of breath, shimmering, aloft-- but also, don’t forget:

We are fastened by a knot above our leather casing
     holding the body in-piece and being manipulated at once.
     We decorate the boxes, in which we are to lie
with wet, green ribbon, pulled through rocky soil by course, chapped hands.

The distance never seemed so great
Cataclysm perfectionists
Yet, I am not your humpy dumpy,
Or your fine china ware
Bare knuckles drip sweat with anxiety
I know she wants a reaction
A pulse burst neuron pattern
She wants emotion...my fear...my jealousy
A hulk-like idiocy irrationally irrationalness
Anger does not suit dragons...it is messy
When wisdom is much more vicious
Sound becomes tines of liquid silver endings
Forcing once passionate melodic tones
Into baritone thunder claps of aggression
But strangely...the animals do not run
As patients is a commandeering trait
But the distance g  r  o  w  s greater..

i'm so tired
of wanting to become something --
grand designs
doing pirouettes in my little head --

i just
need
more time
to think things through

plastic tines
stab at forks
in the road

silly you!
trying to stop the decision-making process
like a child
with a rhyme

speaking of the devil,
for a limited time only,
**** the walking dread
that paces at the foot of your being
like a thing in need --
how? thought you'd never ask ---
i'll get to that, in due time

-- i will say this though: it's not with an ax
or bow
or some moralized TV show
nope

nothing like that

the need to be
to be --
that

is the imperative --
timeless
tasks tasked with go-forth --

we feed on it --
always pressing forward
always-already doing things,
going places, lurching concern,
consuming steps steps steps

listen

progress is
a stone alone inside my pocket
-- watch it
bloom tumultuous
into a decision to be undone ----

I am
The backward startle
Flesh made text

Know this:
All will be retraced till
All that remains is
a waiting cursor --
Blinking blinking
Blank page staring
Into your you --
The mess undressed, ****** --
Don't unfuck it --
Allow it --
Let it ******* for a time

Then go hardly softly into the night
With steps alighting
Bold events of past doings lit
Given another chance

The was made present
A specter sent
To turn the insides of your bones
Into channels --
Canals of then-time (makes sense)

Get to know the script
Then flip it
Budge its molecular structure
See its words squirm
Make its serifs recoil
And strike at your command

Crazy? Yes
Impossible? Perhaps
But your verse must be heard
The play goes on and on and on
Until you decide
To interrupt it

Behind the barn in late afternoon
Uncle Ray lifts my brother
to the seat of a harrower
abandoned now
and rusted to this field of family
tilted and monumental
plunging its tines into memory
of broken earth
behind this life of the workhorses they were
My father and my Uncle Ray—talking
Scattered conversation
in hushed tones

...as skyscraping thunderheads
slashed through their heights
by arrows of fire
light the pumpkins
between hay bundles
of time golden

Smile like you mean it, I titter
with tongue in teeth. Bite the end
and hit it across the consonant. Cry,

abuse! Beater! It’s part of it –
to do you good. Tears trip pity.
No, I know those weren’t meant;

you’re here for my rapture.
Caught between tines a *******
brands you both illicit and curious,

clings to your skin as blood
and *** is alike to smoke and fire.
I’ll teach you to be felt contented.

Take my example. Look, note here;
the slant of a lip, eyes just taut,
the jutted chin—look! Copy in delight:

‘Smile like you mean it.’

Speared on the trident tines
Of a new world order,
Wiggling, dripping,
Unable to close eyes
Staring out both sides of faces
With an astonished, unbelieving pall.
Some will be fried with rice,
Some eaten raw with *****,
Some battered with fries at Disneyland.
Out of water, gasping,
Coaxed from the shallows
With blinding light,
Baited from the depths.

As men, we respond. With sticks, in garments wet with black anthologies of life
Which whistles out of us as thorns, and sticky eyes that point that way. Exact hours.
Despite lust, from what has taken us before- to that androgynous triumph that brings
Us tears as we undo our buttons. That rakes time over our backs with the needles of small
Trumpets the teeth of ghosts, blood on the stems, awarded to brass ballerinas dancing on
Wounds each quotient inside our breaths, terrified strips the branches from the everywhereness
In front of what we can't see. Or open our eyes. Or follow our hands. The legs that we used to know.
The pallid girl I called home, dusty eyelids with energies sharpened with the sweet water and gold Threads atop a haystack I burned in pyres of all the yesterdays.

Once I was human, but not for my breaths or my volume or my sullied attitudes. Not for the denature of
My rotten mood, or the noxious smells from some evil words, or noisome meat, or grueling and expired
Thoughts. Unrolled canvases cauterized with the silks shreds in a suitcase beyond. A caption unread Intwined at the bow of her hip, or the hems that dotted her skin. Black and blue staled songs a father Sung so long ago. The hill rolled on as our bodies clung to satchels we hid, each watery step we steeped In the mud, culms fell and I didn't think, I haven't thought; everything I forgot approaches the tines of my Nose once aching thews overcame the moors I'd undone, there acarpous hues were pried into me.

Everything I've seen, is a muse that disperses my lungs.
Is the incantation of the thoughts I don't spake. Intwined in the fingers I shook, at the people that I
Wanted to hate, I am steal the weight of their steps. This urgency, penury hides. The silt hasn't moved
From the cenacle place. While cloffined the ashes stuck to my face. An eroteme I still uphold
As if this rock inside of my chest, only wanes when I lay on her breast.

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                  An Unskilled Rotor-Tiller Tiller of the Soil

Plough Monday was by-passed some weeks ago
The Virus of Many Names kept me abed
And then the snow and ice kept me inside
And then – indolence, indolence, okay?

But today, oh, today!

The morning was fresh and cool and damp and still
I wheeled the tiller into the garden patch
Fresh gasoline, then primed the little bulb
And turned the red plastic lever just so

And pulled the cord
And pulled the cord
And pulled the cord
And said bad words
And pulled the cord
And pulled the cord
And pulled the cord
And snarled bad words
And pulled the cord –

Pow!

For smoke and fire
And noise – hooray!
Then forward the tines

The tines at first bounced off the new green grass
I pulled the smoke and noise machine back, back
And held the smoke and noise machine in place
And wrestled it, pinning it to the earth until

It bit into the grass, the bright spring grass
And hurled it back, and then some earth, and more
And still more earth, sweet earth, the nourishing earth
Flung up and out and back again, and down

And there the earth must rest for a few weeks
Then to be turned again, sweet and warm
To receive the ready seeds of happy new life
And join in the miracle of Creation

And in the summer when the soft breezes blow
Zinnias and sunflowers and wild marigolds
Will lift their heads and sing hymns to the sun
And bees and hummingbirds hum the “Amen”

And in those days I will speak kind words
To them all, and study rotor-tillers no more