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Shari Forman Feb 2013
A big transition happened one night that made the old man tear to pieces…

“Well, you’ve done it again Harry, except you’ve shocked both of us. Why do you do these things Harry? I assume you like to embarrass me a whole lot!” said Susan (wife of old man Harry)

“My dear Susan, please don’t get frustrated with me, for I have done no such crime to deserve this,” replied Harry.

Susan pauses for a second to calculate what her husband, Harry, had just said. When she does, she narrows her eyes and points her finger at him.

“You are a fool of a husband, wearing suits and tuxedos out to libraries, animal shelters, parks. What a coward you are! Just because money is our main priority in this household, doesn’t mean you should go around bragging about how wealthy we are!” yelled Susan.

“But getting dressed up is what I love to do. It’s not as exciting to wear just a plain sweater with a pair of jeans Susan,” said Harry trying to make a point.

“If that’s the way you would like to be, then I’m not a part of it anymore Harry… Goodbye Harry,” said Susan.

The foolish man’s sixty-year-old mouth dropped as the love of his life, Susan, slammed the front door and wasn’t coming back.

… The minutes later, the old man’s son walks into the house. He looks very bubbly and eager to say something. However, before the son could say a word, the old man talks right away.

“She’s gone Tom; your mother has moved out for good,” said Harry.

“Oh, no dad. You two got into another argument again?” said the son (Tom).

“Yes my son. Your mother always… seems to start bickering with me about something, and this time, it was based on my dressing in public,” said Harry.

“I can’t take this anymore dad! I’m not married, don’t even have a girlfriend, and now don’t even have a mother to live with,” said Tom.

The poor, lonely son starts looking very upset and begins to cry. The foolish man begins to tear a little as well.

“If mom really loved and supported us, she wouldn’t have left,” said the son.

“That’s enough Tom! You’re thirty-two years old now; that doesn’t give you the right to cry like a baby! It’s over son; life moves on,” said Harry

All of a sudden, the depressed son ran out of the house as fast as he could, being only in his shirt, pants and dress shoes. He was already on the third block when Harry called him.

“Get back here young man! Please Tom, please!” cried the poor man.

The sixty-year-old man ran as fast as he could to his son. He kept running for as long as he could, and when he reached his son, he followed him up to the nearest train station. The foolish man had no clue of where son might be headed to on a train.

“Don’t you use your head boy? Where are you headed to?” said Harry.

“I don’t know father; I just needed to get out of the house to be alone. I don’t need you in my life anymore dad,” said the son.

“Tom; Tom look at me! I don’t want to lose my son, for I’ve already lost my wife. I love you very much Tom, just remember that please.

“I love you too dad and I’ll try to show it much more often,” said the son.

Harry puts his arm around his sons shoulder and smiles warmly to him with tears of happiness in his eyes.

“Lets get off this train Tom; what do you say? Asked Harry

“Alright dad,” said Tom.

At that very moment, the train began to move; move rather quickly.

“Tom, you’re in big trouble… Nah, just joking. Would you like to tell me of where you are planning to go to though?” said Harry

“Manhattan,” said the son.

Tom smiled and his dad looked a little baffled.

“Tom, why don’t you tell me about the good news you had before,” said Harry, suddenly changing the topic.

“Sure. I got a new job working at the docks and am actually making higher profits now,” said Tom.

“I’m very proud of you son. How are the docks treating you?” asked Harry.

“I love the docks. I enjoy working on the docks and appreciate what God has to offer for me,” replied Tom.

“And what is the quantity of hours you’ll be working for?” asked Harry.

“Forty hours a week dad,” said Tom.

“Phenomenal,” said Harry. “That’ll keep you occupied.”

When the train moves around the waiting area outside a little bit, the prettiest girl walks on the train. She looks as if she’s in her late twenties with dark-brown curly hair and brown eyes to match. She takes a seat two rows in front of Harry and Tom.

“Dad, did you see that girl?” asked Tom.

“Yeah boy, she looks single to me,” said Harry.

Harry giggles and Tom elbows him right in the gut.

“Owww!” Harry managed to say through his non- stop laughing.

The girl was reading the newspaper from today while Tom tried to occupy himself by spinning a quarter several times.

The next hour had passed on the train and they had a long way to go until their stop. Tom looks at his watch as he sees that it is exactly five in the morning.

“Harry. Harry,” Tom whispers. “Harry,” he said a little bit louder.

Tom began to get a little frustrated that Harry wasn’t waking up. Mostly everyone was fast asleep on the train except for Tom.

“HARRY!” Tom yelled as loud as he could.

All of a sudden, all of the passengers on the train woke up startled and baffled.

“Tom, what the hell was that?” said Harry.

“I have a problem,” said Tom

“Tom, this is pure abuse that you’re giving me. Firstly, you knock the guts right out of my stomach, and then you yell as loud as a trumpet blown right in someone’s ear! Was it necessary to wake up the whole train?” said Harry.

“Yes because I really like this girl, you know the one you called single. What should I do?” asked Tom.

“Can you lower the volume a little? Okay; here’s my advice… propose to her,” said Harry as he went back to sleep.

“Great advice; I’ll take it,” said Tom sarcastically.

Before Harry and Tom got a chance to walk off the train, Tom stopped to introduce himself to the beautiful girl. As he was talking, she thought of him as rather funny than cool, but offered her cell phone number to him.

“What’s your name?” asked Tom.

“Victoria,” replied the girl.

The foolish man felt so insane as if to go on a train unexpectedly.  

“Well, here we are dad,” said Tom.

“Now we’re going to have to check into a hotel for three days; for that’s how long we have to stay here until the next train home.” Said Harry

When they arrived at the hotel, both Harry and Tom rented a small room that cost fifty dollars a night.

“This is a really old room, but it’ll have to do,” said Harry.

“There are cobwebs over here in the bedroom beside the lamp,” said Tom.

“Since we’re staying here for three nights Tom, we’re going to have to go shopping at some point, so why now?” said the foolish man.

“Father, why would you go and buy some more fancy clothes, when Susan already told you that you looked foolish in it?” said the son.

“I hate to break it to you son, but the coward is gone, and the new ***** has arrived!” said Harry.

Tom could not believe what his dad had just said. He formed the biggest smile on his face.

“That’s very impressive dad; I’m sure mom would really appreciate that,” said Tom.

“I bet she would’ve,” said Harry giving a small frown.

Harry and his son, Tom were out of the hotel within ten minutes. The store in which they were headed to was only a few blocks from where they were. The store in the mall in which Harry and Tom were walking to was called, “Sarah’s Sweaters.”

Harry was not at all tempted to walk in the store, but with the help of his son making him go in, he had no choice.

“What a grotesque place Tom,” said Harry

“Relax and try on something that suits you best here,” said Tom

“I don’t like anything here. Sorry, but I loathe these kinds of stores,” replied the foolish man.

Tom rolled his eyes and began trying on jeans and a couple of sweaters to wear over polo shirts.

Harry stared at Tom speechless as he came out of the fitting room. Tom brought the clothes up to the woman at the cash register while Harry started looking at clothes for himself.

“Your total is $62.49 sir,” said the woman.

“Thank you,” said Tom as he walked away with his clothes.

The foolish man went to go try on two pairs on jeans with two sweatshirts and three polo shirts. He opens the curtain.

“It fits you well,” said Tom.

“I’ll do whatever makes my wife happy,” said Harry.

“Oh, c’mon; change is good too.”

They walked out of the clothing store carrying two large white bags filled with casual clothes. As they were walking in the mall, Harry notices a Calvin Klein store with all different styles of ties, shirts, suits, and dress shoes through the glass window.

“Tom, I’ll just be a minute,” said Harry.

“You said that you weren’t going to buy anything fancy while we’re here dad,” said Tom.

“I’ll just get a suit; I’ll be in and out within five minutes.”

“Alright, I’ll be waiting on the bench outside the store,” said Tom”

“Okay Tom.”

An hour and a half later, Harry comes out of the store with a tired, yet warm smile on his face.

“You’re back so soon,” said Tom sarcastically.

“There was a long line Tom. Hey, I went in your store.” said Harry

“For a half hour.”

“Oh, well then I apologize,” said Harry.

“It’s fine.”

“Here, I’ll make it up to you; we’ll go pick up something to eat for dinner,” said Harry.

“Okay, thanks dad.”

We both smile simultaneously.

Harry and Tom exit the mall to go and walk to the deli to get some sandwiches, a snack and a drink. When they arrive home, they turn on the T.V. to watch some comedy shows while eating their sandwiches. Tim lies down and kicks his shoes off. The foolish man was sitting at the edge of the couch now with his son’s ***** feet on him. While Tom looked very relaxed and comfortable eating his chicken sandwich, Harry looked very tense as he was giving his son a cold look.

“Get your gigantic, filthy feet off of my upper thigh,” said Harry annoyed.

“Oh, sorry dad,” said Tom surprised.

Harry looked at the T.V. eating his sandwich while Tom smiled a little from his comment before.

Harry and Tom didn’t do much for the next two days. They walked around a little and saw many people walking their dogs. Both Harry and Tom ate two meals a day in their hotel and slept on the uncomfortable couch. Harry figured he’d wear his sweater and jeans with sneakers on the third day of his stay. He was going to the park this morning and he certainly didn’t want to look foolish.

“What a nice day out today Tom. Not too hot, not too cold, but perfect weather,” said Harry.

“Yes, I agree,” said Tom.

The man and his son walked along the walkway in the park, leading to a playground filled with little kids, elders and parents sitting on benches or walking around. As Harry and Tom sat down on a bench next to a water fountain, Harry couldn’t believe his eyes.

“Susan, is that you? Asked Harry shocked.

“Oh, hello Harry,” she said without looking up.

“Nice seeing you here Susan,” said Harry.

Susan looked up from reading her enormous book and saw something unexpected about the foolish man.

“Oh, Harry, you’ve changed; changed for me. You are the sweetest husband and you’re not at all foolish,” said Susan full of excitement.

Harry smiled and gave Susan a big hug.

“Tom, love you son,” said Susan.

“I love you very much as well mom,” replied Tom.

After Harry checked out of their room, they all were headed to the next train home.

As Harry, Susan and Tom walked into their mansion in Michigan, Susan asked what Harry was holding.

Harry blushed and said, “Just clothes.”

“Can I see them Harry? asked Susan.

“They’re not that clean.”

Susan took the bag from him and looked inside.

“Not again,” said Tom.

Susan laughed on account of her already knowing that her husband couldn’t keep his eyes off of nice and fancy clothes for a minute.

“Harry…you’re one fastidious gentleman.”
Shari Forman Mar 2013
A big transition happened one night that made the old man tear to pieces…

“Well, you’ve done it again Harry, except you’ve shocked both of us. Why do you do these things Harry? I assume you like to embarrass me a whole lot!” said Susan (wife of old man Harry)

“My dear Susan, please don’t get frustrated with me, for I have done no such crime to deserve this,” replied Harry.

Susan pauses for a second to calculate what her husband, Harry, had just said. When she does, she narrows her eyes and points her finger at him.

“You are a fool of a husband, wearing suits and tuxedos out to libraries, animal shelters, parks. What a coward you are! Just because money is our main priority in this household, doesn’t mean you should go around bragging about how wealthy we are!” yelled Susan.

“But getting dressed up is what I love to do. It’s not as exciting to wear just a plain sweater with a pair of jeans Susan,” said Harry trying to make a point.

“If that’s the way you would like to be, then I’m not a part of it anymore Harry… Goodbye Harry,” said Susan.

The foolish man’s sixty-year-old mouth dropped as the love of his life, Susan, slammed the front door and wasn’t coming back.

… The minutes later, the old man’s son walks into the house. He looks very bubbly and eager to say something. However, before the son could say a word, the old man talks right away.

“She’s gone Tom; your mother has moved out for good,” said Harry.

“Oh, no dad. You two got into another argument again?” said the son (Tom).

“Yes my son. Your mother always… seems to start bickering with me about something, and this time, it was based on my dressing in public,” said Harry.

“I can’t take this anymore dad! I’m not married, don’t even have a girlfriend, and now don’t even have a mother to live with,” said Tom.

The poor, lonely son starts looking very upset and begins to cry. The foolish man begins to tear a little as well.

“If mom really loved and supported us, she wouldn’t have left,” said the son.

“That’s enough Tom! You’re thirty-two years old now; that doesn’t give you the right to cry like a baby! It’s over son; life moves on,” said Harry

All of a sudden, the depressed son ran out of the house as fast as he could, being only in his shirt, pants and dress shoes. He was already on the third block when Harry called him.

“Get back here young man! Please Tom, please!” cried the poor man.

The sixty-year-old man ran as fast as he could to his son. He kept running for as long as he could, and when he reached his son, he followed him up to the nearest train station. The foolish man had no clue of where son might be headed to on a train.

“Don’t you use your head boy? Where are you headed to?” said Harry.

“I don’t know father; I just needed to get out of the house to be alone. I don’t need you in my life anymore dad,” said the son.

“Tom; Tom look at me! I don’t want to lose my son, for I’ve already lost my wife. I love you very much Tom, just remember that please.

“I love you too dad and I’ll try to show it much more often,” said the son.

Harry puts his arm around his sons shoulder and smiles warmly to him with tears of happiness in his eyes.

“Lets get off this train Tom; what do you say? Asked Harry

“Alright dad,” said Tom.

At that very moment, the train began to move; move rather quickly.

“Tom, you’re in big trouble… Nah, just joking. Would you like to tell me of where you are planning to go to though?” said Harry

“Manhattan,” said the son.

Tom smiled and his dad looked a little baffled.

“Tom, why don’t you tell me about the good news you had before,” said Harry, suddenly changing the topic.

“Sure. I got a new job working at the docks and am actually making higher profits now,” said Tom.

“I’m very proud of you son. How are the docks treating you?” asked Harry.

“I love the docks. I enjoy working on the docks and appreciate what God has to offer for me,” replied Tom.

“And what is the quantity of hours you’ll be working for?” asked Harry.

“Forty hours a week dad,” said Tom.

“Phenomenal,” said Harry. “That’ll keep you occupied.”

When the train moves around the waiting area outside a little bit, the prettiest girl walks on the train. She looks as if she’s in her late twenties with dark-brown curly hair and brown eyes to match. She takes a seat two rows in front of Harry and Tom.

“Dad, did you see that girl?” asked Tom.

“Yeah boy, she looks single to me,” said Harry.

Harry giggles and Tom elbows him right in the gut.

“Owww!” Harry managed to say through his non- stop laughing.

The girl was reading the newspaper from today while Tom tried to occupy himself by spinning a quarter several times.

The next hour had passed on the train and they had a long way to go until their stop. Tom looks at his watch as he sees that it is exactly five in the morning.

“Harry. Harry,” Tom whispers. “Harry,” he said a little bit louder.

Tom began to get a little frustrated that Harry wasn’t waking up. Mostly everyone was fast asleep on the train except for Tom.

“HARRY!” Tom yelled as loud as he could.

All of a sudden, all of the passengers on the train woke up startled and baffled.

“Tom, what the hell was that?” said Harry.

“I have a problem,” said Tom

“Tom, this is pure abuse that you’re giving me. Firstly, you knock the guts right out of my stomach, and then you yell as loud as a trumpet blown right in someone’s ear! Was it necessary to wake up the whole train?” said Harry.

“Yes because I really like this girl, you know the one you called single. What should I do?” asked Tom.

“Can you lower the volume a little? Okay; here’s my advice… propose to her,” said Harry as he went back to sleep.

“Great advice; I’ll take it,” said Tom sarcastically.

Before Harry and Tom got a chance to walk off the train, Tom stopped to introduce himself to the beautiful girl. As he was talking, she thought of him as rather funny than cool, but offered her cell phone number to him.

“What’s your name?” asked Tom.

“Victoria,” replied the girl.

The foolish man felt so insane as if to go on a train unexpectedly.  

“Well, here we are dad,” said Tom.

“Now we’re going to have to check into a hotel for three days; for that’s how long we have to stay here until the next train home.” Said Harry

When they arrived at the hotel, both Harry and Tom rented a small room that cost fifty dollars a night.

“This is a really old room, but it’ll have to do,” said Harry.

“There are cobwebs over here in the bedroom beside the lamp,” said Tom.

“Since we’re staying here for three nights Tom, we’re going to have to go shopping at some point, so why now?” said the foolish man.

“Father, why would you go and buy some more fancy clothes, when Susan already told you that you looked foolish in it?” said the son.

“I hate to break it to you son, but the coward is gone, and the new ***** has arrived!” said Harry.

Tom could not believe what his dad had just said. He formed the biggest smile on his face.

“That’s very impressive dad; I’m sure mom would really appreciate that,” said Tom.

“I bet she would’ve,” said Harry giving a small frown.

Harry and his son, Tom were out of the hotel within ten minutes. The store in which they were headed to was only a few blocks from where they were. The store in the mall in which Harry and Tom were walking to was called, “Sarah’s Sweaters.”

Harry was not at all tempted to walk in the store, but with the help of his son making him go in, he had no choice.

“What a grotesque place Tom,” said Harry

“Relax and try on something that suits you best here,” said Tom

“I don’t like anything here. Sorry, but I loathe these kinds of stores,” replied the foolish man.

Tom rolled his eyes and began trying on jeans and a couple of sweaters to wear over polo shirts.

Harry stared at Tom speechless as he came out of the fitting room. Tom brought the clothes up to the woman at the cash register while Harry started looking at clothes for himself.

“Your total is $62.49 sir,” said the woman.

“Thank you,” said Tom as he walked away with his clothes.

The foolish man went to go try on two pairs on jeans with two sweatshirts and three polo shirts. He opens the curtain.

“It fits you well,” said Tom.

“I’ll do whatever makes my wife happy,” said Harry.

“Oh, c’mon; change is good too.”

They walked out of the clothing store carrying two large white bags filled with casual clothes. As they were walking in the mall, Harry notices a Calvin Klein store with all different styles of ties, shirts, suits, and dress shoes through the glass window.

“Tom, I’ll just be a minute,” said Harry.

“You said that you weren’t going to buy anything fancy while we’re here dad,” said Tom.

“I’ll just get a suit; I’ll be in and out within five minutes.”

“Alright, I’ll be waiting on the bench outside the store,” said Tom”

“Okay Tom.”

An hour and a half later, Harry comes out of the store with a tired, yet warm smile on his face.

“You’re back so soon,” said Tom sarcastically.

“There was a long line Tom. Hey, I went in your store.” said Harry

“For a half hour.”

“Oh, well then I apologize,” said Harry.

“It’s fine.”

“Here, I’ll make it up to you; we’ll go pick up something to eat for dinner,” said Harry.

“Okay, thanks dad.”

We both smile simultaneously.

Harry and Tom exit the mall to go and walk to the deli to get some sandwiches, a snack and a drink. When they arrive home, they turn on the T.V. to watch some comedy shows while eating their sandwiches. Tim lies down and kicks his shoes off. The foolish man was sitting at the edge of the couch now with his son’s ***** feet on him. While Tom looked very relaxed and comfortable eating his chicken sandwich, Harry looked very tense as he was giving his son a cold look.

“Get your gigantic, filthy feet off of my upper thigh,” said Harry annoyed.

“Oh, sorry dad,” said Tom surprised.

Harry looked at the T.V. eating his sandwich while Tom smiled a little from his comment before.

Harry and Tom didn’t do much for the next two days. They walked around a little and saw many people walking their dogs. Both Harry and Tom ate two meals a day in their hotel and slept on the uncomfortable couch. Harry figured he’d wear his sweater and jeans with sneakers on the third day of his stay. He was going to the park this morning and he certainly didn’t want to look foolish.

“What a nice day out today Tom. Not too hot, not too cold, but perfect weather,” said Harry.

“Yes, I agree,” said Tom.

The man and his son walked along the walkway in the park, leading to a playground filled with little kids, elders and parents sitting on benches or walking around. As Harry and Tom sat down on a bench next to a water fountain, Harry couldn’t believe his eyes.

“Susan, is that you? Asked Harry shocked.

“Oh, hello Harry,” she said without looking up.

“Nice seeing you here Susan,” said Harry.

Susan looked up from reading her enormous book and saw something unexpected about the foolish man.

“Oh, Harry, you’ve changed; changed for me. You are the sweetest husband and you’re not at all foolish,” said Susan full of excitement.

Harry smiled and gave Susan a big hug.

“Tom, love you son,” said Susan.

“I love you very much as well mom,” replied Tom.

After Harry checked out of their room, they all were headed to the next train home.

As Harry, Susan and Tom walked into their mansion in Michigan, Susan asked what Harry was holding.

Harry blushed and said, “Just clothes.”

“Can I see them Harry? asked Susan.

“They’re not that clean.”

Susan took the bag from him and looked inside.

“Not again,” said Tom.

Susan laughed on account of her already knowing that her husband couldn’t keep his eyes off of nice and fancy clothes for a minute.

“Harry…you’re one fastidious gentleman.”
way back in the dark ages of the 800s, there was this big ship which carried

prisoners who committed harsh crimes, and the man who ran the ship was tom beatrice

and he had the job of making sure all of the prisoners were safe and put in line.

the first prisoner was

1  barney lumpstone, who was a convicted murderer of 3 women and 5 children in chile

the next criminal was

2 harry broad smith who was in because he murdered the king of france, and he needed to respect authority

so the police put him on the ship to be taught discipline

3 and ten there was rodney parkes who sexually assaulted 3 teenage girls and was put on the ship

with the crowd hoping it will sink making rodney scared for his safety

tom said, you are ****, rodney, you are complete ****, and you need to understand what you put your victims through

4  and then there was tom hunter who robbed the local bank and took 2 hostages with him for security, because he didn’t trust nobody

when the police caught him, they put him on tom’s ship and tom, made sure his prisoners were kept busy making handbags and wallets

and even fishing for fish for the folk on the island, and mind you tom beatrice was a strict officer, anyone who stepped out of line

will be severely dealt with like tom would hit them with a stick till they are behaving themselves, and tom made sure all the jobs were done well

and the prisoners knew that tom meant business, each prisoner tried to work as hard as they could, but it wasn’t easy because tom was such

a slave driver and no prisoner would dare escape on the islands, but barney tried, but it wasn’t easy as tom knew his way around all the islands

and tom had it in his mind, that barney will be found, and under a whip, he gets the other prisoners to comb the island to look for him, and after

a few hours searching they eventually found barney and when they all got back to the boat, barney was given 14 lashes with the whip till he understood

that escaping wasn’t an option, the other prisoners thought after seeing what happened to barney, they felt kidnapped away from civilisation for a while

at meal times, tom fed each prisoner to how hard they worked, if they worked well, they will be fed a banquet and if they were slack they got bread and water

you see barney was a slow learner, which is why he killed those women and children, tom knew he was in a battle with barney, but one thing he wasn’t going

to put up with is a slacker, barney wasn’t always in the mood for tom’s discipline, and decided to play up much to the other prisomers dismay, because they

just wanted to spend the remainder of their time on the boat with no problems, but with all the fights there are on the boat, mind you tom wasn’t going to put up

with any tom foolery, but sometimes he had to sacrifice his beliefs to avoid a prisoner strike, but nobody even thought of striking because tom was strict

as anyone who spoke up, will be sent to solitary and bashed by tom, and this made the prisoners think, if they step out of line, they will be bashed in solitary,

you see, each prisoner was roughed up a bit, but tom wasn’t afraid to **** if he needs to, to keep up discip[line on the boat, and then barney and harry and rodney and tom parkes

decided one day to take on tom, saying, he is just a person , and there is 4 against 1 and tom came in to send them to bed, the 4 refused and used force to stick up for themselves

tom got his gun but barney grabbed the gun off tom and the 4 prisoners ran all over the boat trying to find the engine, but the prisoners were getting tired from all the work they did

but still wanted fight tom’s harsh discipline, but there was no escape and then rodney noticed an island about half an hour swim away but it was there when tom cornered them

and each prisoner said, we must jump and risk our lives, and barney jumped in, then rodney then tom hunter and tom caught harry and took him to the whip room, meanwhile harry

managed to say, go save yourselves, but it was hard as harry had to do all the work by himself, and tom used harsh discipline, and for barney tom and rodney, well rodney was eaten by a shark

barney made it but was tied to a stake and killed, and tom hunter joined the pirates but after 3 months was killed in a pirate war and for harry and tom, well harry was worked too hard from tom

harry killed tom and threw him to the sharks and then jumped in after tom to make sure the sharks **** tom, they did, and they killed harry too, and for the boat, well it was left there for 300 years

till the pirates took over it, to hold their many hostages.
An annoying friend sends Tom to be captured in the psych ward


In early April Tom was wanting to be left alone by his mate Danny, who was ringing him up while Tom was trying to enjoy the football, which Danny doesn’t like very much, in fact Danny kept on telling Tom that these football players get involved in dealing drugs
Getting drunk and doing one punch attacks on people and all that talk about all that sent Tom to want some me time at the football but Danny kept on ringing him up as he was trying to enjoy the match and Tom didn’t answer it knowing it will be a lot of totally negative chatter about things he doesn’t want to hear, and he rang Tom 8 times where Tom doesn’t answer because he was trying to watch the footy so after the 8 unanswered calls Danny rang tom’s parents who were in their 70s and wanted to relax and they didn’t need Danny ringing them especially when Tom was just watching a footy game getting his me time but Tom was stressed since then and wanted to escape his life because people kept on annoying him and his parents seemed to agree with Danny more than him which every time Tom talked with his parents since they said you have to be a better friend and talk to him, they were sort of saying that they are getting too old to have friends worry about their son when their son is just having a bit of me time and Tom said to Danny that he went to the footy and enjoyed it and then after they spoke Tom became psychotic in ways where people complained about his behaviour and sent the police to his house but all Tom wanted was a bit of peace and quiet from the discipline of his father and the annoyance of his friend Danny but this wasn’t going to be easy as the police brought Tom to Ron’s psych ward and Ron gave him a brain scan to see if they can find what is making him psychotic and Tom couldn’t watch the footy because a bikie wanted to watch a movie called top gun and Tom yelled out WHY!!!! And the other patients of Ron’s psych ward were teasing Tom because he chose to be ****** than going on a holiday and Tom told Ron his whole story and Ron put him on some new drugs called eppelim and serenace which calmed Tom down but occasionally made Tom talk about his previous lives in which the doctors didn’t believe and the doctors wanted to keep him there till he realises that this isn’t the place to say it, but Tom really believed what he was saying and yelled WHY don’t these people believe me and he went to his room and drew pictures and write stories and he wrote and wrote till his hand was nearly bone and the doctors were trying to make Tom understand that his beliefs about his previous lives aren’t true but Tom yelled saying it is my belief, and you have to respect me and then the next Day Tom watched cool runnings with the bikie but couldn’t tell to the bikie because he was a ****** so he just watched the movie with him silently but after a while the doctors felt sorry for Tom as he was trying to find ways to relax and they wanted to send him to the other psych ward on the other side of town because Ron said he was just wanting to settle down after his creativity and after he left ron’s psych ward he moved to the other ward and the patients said the geek has left us
He has left us yeah and after 3 weeks in that psych ward Tom was released and sent back into society where he had to put up with his annoying mate Danny and then he rang him saying I am out now, but nothing changed, Tom was still wanting to get heaps of me time and he wanted Danny to respect that but Danny still was talking in a negative way to him which made Tom upset and Tom said I don’t like you anymore you are too negative for me, I just want to live a carefree life and Tom still wanted to ring him but then the forces of the cosmos broke his phone which split Tom and Danny up forever and now Tom is still watching sport and Danny his still very negative and Tom didn’t want the negativity in his life anymore while Tom met with Ron once a week to talk about what they have to do to keep him out of his psych ward
captured in the psych ward, the day they got the school bully from the 1980s



you see tom kennersin was the biggest bully of the 1980s and he wanted to get away

with it, so much, he told his victims if they tell anyone, he will punch them 3 times over

and the police, on the night they caught him, thought tom was a bully and not mentally ill

but after reading about his case in the paper, ron thought, he can save tom from prison

with the right medication, and if he bullies anyone at the HDU, ron said he will give his a

big dose of ******, and besides which ron was confident that he can reformed, and ron

went to his usual cafe to buy coffee and bacon and eggs and then rang the police to find out

whether tom can be put on ant-psychotic medication and police said we will see what we can do,

and ron left the cafe to go to the hospital and the other nurses didn’t share ron’s enthusuissm

about tom coming to the HDU because he needs to be medicated because his crimes date back

to the 1980s, and as soon as he started work tom was put in the HDU, and got in a conversation

with charlie chaplin about all the silent movies he did, and ron took tom aside to talk to him about

what triggers him off, and tom said, when he was a child, he heard voices from computer geeky adults

saying kidnap the bully tommy, kidnap the bully tommy and if tom tries to bully us, we will tie his hands

and legs together, and tom said when he was a child he was bullied by a man who impersonates different

people just like him, because by impersonating the different people, he had it in his mind to one day kidnap

them and tease them good, and the man will say come pn get the geek, kidnap him punch him in the gut

and tom said since that day tom thought everyone wanted to bully as well as fight and tom would bully someone

and go heh heh heh i got ya, you don’t know where your latest meal is coming from, and the voices were driving him mad

but telling his parents wasn’t an option, so he decided to take out all his frustration on all his victims, but he wanted

everyone to do as people say, but ron said, how about now, do you want to bully now, and what brings you in here

and tom said, i bashed my woman, and i haven’t heard whether she woke up or not and ron asked, why did you bash her

and tom said she planted voices in my head saying, if we can get tom off the couch, we won’t need to be little school kids

and it will be easy for us to move on, and ron said, are you sure they are bad voices, they are telling you that they are move on

and tom said, are you calling me a liar, and ron said, no, but you must get the voices out of your head, what do you do to fill in time

at home, and tom said, i am an artist and a writer and a youtube helper which means, i read stuff on youtube and people watch and comment

and, doc, i have 20,000 views on my opinion  on juvenile crime, and i have had bad replies saying i committed a crime when i was young

so why can’t they,tom said, my parents were so strict, my only source of fun is going out with bernie my nerdy friend and my fists got me what

i want at school, and ron asked, tom, did you ever bash bernie and tom said once or twice, but they were friendly fights, and every time

tom abd bernie went out, the people were driving in their cars saying, your getting kidnapped now, kidnapped, is what will happen to you

and ron said, you are a bully and a big bloke, so why are you worried about people kidnapping you and tom said, because of all the bad stuff

that i did, people who are bigger than me, could throw a bag over me and **** me, and doc, i don’t want to die, no way no fear

and i want you to fucken get these voices out of my head because i might’ve been a bully but  in ever killed nobody, and ron said

i think you are suffering in your voices and, i will put you on a drug called seroquel to control these horrible voices out of your head

and tom stopped talking to ron and went over to patty roe who said he was george washington and tom said, shut up pipsqueak

in a real squeaky voice, at 3.30 pm tom joined a HDU hearing voices group where he learnt a lot and at 5.00pm ron bought the dinners out

and tom said, do you expect me to eat this trash and ron said, if you don’t eat this, you don’t eat, you go without and tom ate it, and like all people

hates psych ward food and then at 7.15 pm, rom bought out the medications, and then clocked off and bought pizza and lost himself in front of the box

and the next day tom was getting frustrated until ron turned up and today ron thought that tom could enjoy  the art group in the HDU art space

and befotre tom said no, ron thought, the more activities he does, the sooner he could get out and ron gave him some seroquel  and said

to ron, i was asked to take drugs once from a mate named brian, but i ******* away from there and i never took drugs again but i still bullied

anyone who got in my way, but then at the age 0f 33, tom lost both his parents in a car accident and ron bought tom into the art group which tom enjoyed

a lot, and in the afternoon tom got in a fist fight with ronald because of a difference of opinion on the news and ron gave them both some valiu,

which makes them wake up just before dinner and when ron bought the medications out,it took 34 minutes and he clocked off and retired to the couch

with microwave popcorn and microwave pizza and tom kept the HDU awake trying to bully to get what he wants.
Edward Laine Sep 2011
The old green door creaked when it opened. The same way it always did. The same old pitiful, sad sound it had made for years.
Sad because, like the rest of Jimmy's Bar it wouldn't be broken the way it was if someone would only take the time to fix it, in this case to grease the hinges, and then maybe the joint wouldn't be such a dive.
But that was the way it was, and the old green door pretty much summed up the whole place before you had even stepped in.

It was an everyday scene, this dreary November afternoon like any other: the glasses from the night(or nights) before were still stacked up on the far end of the bar, waiting to be washed, or just used again. The regulars, as they were known really didn't care if they were drinking out of a ***** glass or having a shot or a short out of a pint glass or beer or a stout or a bitter or an ale or a cider or even a water or milk(to wash down or soak up the days drinking) out of the same old ***** glass they had been drinking out of all week long.
Anyway, when the door creaked this time, it was old Tom Ashley that made it creak.
He shuffled in like the broken down bindle-stiff he was. Yawning like a lion and rubbing his unwashed hands on his four day beard. His grey hair as bed-headed and dishevelled as ever.  He was wearing the same crinkled-up blazer he always wore, tailor made some time in his youth but now in his advancing years was ill-fitting and torn at the shoulder, but still he wore a white flower in the lapel, and it didn't much matter that he had picked it from the side of the road, it helped to mask the smell of his unwashed body and whatever filth he had been stewing in his little down town room above the second hand book store. It wasn't much, but it suited him fine: the rent was cheap, and Chuck, the owner would let him borrow books two at a time, so long as he returned them in week, and he always did. He loved to read, and rumour had it, that a long time ago when he was in his twenties he had written a novel which had sold innumerable copies and made him a very wealthy man. The twist in the tale, went that he had written said novel under a pen name and no soul knew what it was, and when questioned he would neither confirm nor deny ever writing a book at all. It was some great secret, but after time people had ceased asking questions and stopped caring all together on the subject. All that anybody knew for sure was; he did not work and always had money to drink. It was his only great mystery.  T.S Eliot and Thomas Hardy were among his favourite writers. He had a great stack of unread books he had been saving in shoe box on his window sill. He called these his 'raining season'.

But for now, the arrangement with Chuck would suit him just fine.
He dragged his drunkards feet across the floor and over to the bar. All dark wood with four green velour upholstered bar stools, that of course, had seen better days too.
He put his hands flat on the bar, leaned back on his heels and ordered
a double Talisker in his most polite manner. He was a drunk, indeed but 'manners cost nothing'' he had said in the past. Grum, the bartender(his name was Graham, but in the long years of him working in the bar and
all the drunks slurring his name it gradually became Grum)smiled false heartedly, turned his back and whilst pouring old Toms whiskey into a brandy glass looked over his shoulder and said, ''so Mr. Ashley, how's
life treatin' ya'?'' Tom was looking at the floor or the window or the at the back of his eyelids and paid no attention to the barkeep. He was always
a little despondent before his first drink of the day. When Grum placed the drink on the bar he asked the same question again, and Tom, fumbling with his glass, simply murmured a monosyllabic reply that couldn't be understood with his mouth full of that first glug of sweet,
sweet whiskey he had been aching for. Then he looked up at tom with
big his shiney/glazed eyes, ''hey grum,
now that it is a fine whiskey, Robert Lewis Stevenson
used to drink this you know?'' Grum did know, Tom had told him this nearly every day for as long as he had been coming in the place, but
he nodded towards Tom and smiled acceptingly all the same. ''The king of drinks, as I conceive it, Talisker, he said'' Grum mouthed the words along with him,  caustically and half smiled at him again. Tom drained his glass and ordered another one of the same.

A few more drinks, a few hours and a few more drinks again
passed, Tom put them all on his tab like he always did. Grum,
nor the owner of the bar minded, he always paid his tab before
he stumbled home good and drunk and he didn’t cause too
much trouble apart from the odd argument with other customers
or staff but he never used his fists and he always knew when
he was beat In which case he would become very apologetic
and more often than not veer out of the bar back stepping
like a scared dog with his tail between his tattered trousers.
Drinking can make a cowardly man brave but not a smart
man dumb and Tom was indeed a smart man. Regardless
of what others might say. He was very articulate, well read
with a good head (jauntily perched) on his (crooked) shoulders.
By now it was getting late, Tom didn't know what time it was,
or couldn't figure out what time it was by simply looking at
the clock, the bar had one of those backwards clocks, I
don't know if you have ever seen one, the numbers run
anti-clockwise, which may not seem like much of task to
decipher I know, but believe me, if you are as drunk as tom
was by this point you really can not make head nor tails of
them. He knew it was getting late though as it was dark
outside and the  lamp posts were glowing their orange glow
through the window and the crack in the door. It was around
ten o’clock now and Tom had moved on to wine, he would
order a glass of Shiraz and say ''hey Grum, you know Hafez
used to drink this stuff, used to let it sit for forty days to achieve
a greater ''clarity of wine'' he called it, forty days!'' ''Mr Ashley''
said Grum looking up from wiping down the grimy bar and
now growing quite tired of the old man’s presence and what seemed
to be constant theories and facts of the various drinks he
was devouring, ''what are you rabbiting on about now, old
man?'' ''Hafez'' said old Tom ''he was a Persian poet from the
1300's as I recall... really quite good'', ''Well, Tom that is
truly fascinating, I must be sure to look in to him next time
I'm looking for fourteenth century poetry!'' said the barkeep,
mockingly. ''Good, good, be sure that you do'' Tom said,
taking a long ****-eyed slurp of his drink and not noticing
the sarcasm from the worn out bartender. He didn't mean
to poke fun at Tom he was anxious to get home to his wife
who he missed and longed to join, all alone in their warm
marital bed in the room upstairs. But Tom did not understand
this concept, he had never been married but had left a long
line of women behind him, loved and left in the tracks of his
vagabond youth, he had once been a good looking man a
''handsome devil'' confident and charming in all his wit and
literary references to poets of old he had memorised passages from ,Thoreau,Tennyson ,Byron, Frost etc. And more times
than not passed these passages of love and beauty off as
his own for the simple purpose of getting various now wooed
and wanting women up to his room. But now after  many
years of late nights, cigarettes and empty bottles cast aside
had taken their toll on him he spent his nights alone in his
cold single bed drunk and lonely with his only company being
once in a while a sad eyed dead eyed lady of the night, but
only very rarely would he give in to this temptation and it
always left him feeling hollow and more sober than he had
cared to be in many long years.
The bell rang last orders.
He ordered another drink, a Gin this time and as he took
the first sip, pleasingly, Grum stared at him with great open
eyes and his hand resting on his chin to animate how he
was waiting for the old man to state some worthless fact
about his new drink but the old man just sat there swaying
gently looking very glazed and just when the barkeep was
just about to blurt out his astonishment that Tom had noting
to say, old Tom Ashley, old drunk Tom took a deep breath
with his mouth wide, leaned back on his stool and said...
''hey, you know who used to drink gin? F. Scott Fitzgerald''
''really?'' said the barkeep snidely ''Oh yes'' said Tom
''The funny thing is Hemingway and all those old gents
used to tease Fitzgerald about his low tolerance, a real
light weight! He paused and took a sip ''but err, yes
he did like the odd glass of gin'' he said, mumbling
into the bottom of his glass.
Now, reaching the end of the night, the bartender
yawning, rubbing his eyes and the old man with
close to sixty pounds on his tab, sprawled across the
bar, spinning the last drop of his drink on the glasses
edge and seeming quite mesmerised by it and all its
holy splendour, he stopped and sat up right like a shot,
and looking quite sober now he shouted ''Grum,
Graham, hey, come here!'' the sleepy bartender was
sitting on a chair with his feet up on the bar, half asleep,
''Hey Graham, come here'' ''eh-ugh, what? What do you
want?'' said the barkeep sounding bemused and
befuddled
in his waking state, ''just come over here will you,
please''
the barkeep rolled off his chair sluggishly and slid
his feet across the floor towards the old man ''what is
it?'' he said scratching his head with his eyes still half
closed. The old man drowned what was left of his
drink and said ''I think I've had an epiphany, well err
well, more of a theory really w-well..'' he was stuttering
. ''oh yeah? And what would that be, Mr Ashley?'' said
the bartender, folding his arms in anticipation. ''pour
me another whiskey and I'll tell you''
''one mor... you must be kidding me, get the hell
out of here you old drunk we're closed!'' the old man
put his hands together as if in prayer and said in his
most sincere voice, '' oh please, Grum, just one more
for the road, I'll tell you my theory and then I'll be on
my way, OK?'' ''FINE, fine'' said Grum ''ONE more and
then you're GONE'' he walked over to the other side
of the bar poured a whiskey and another for himself.
''OK, here’s your drink old man, and I don't wanna
hear another of your ******* facts about writers
or poets or whoever OK?'' Tom snatched the drink of
the bar, ''OK, OK, I promise!'' he said. Tom took a slow
slurp at his drink and relaxed back in his seat and
sat quite, looking calm again.
The bartender sat staring at him, expecting the old
man to say something but he didn’t, he just sat there
on his stool, sipping his whiskey, Grum leaned forward
on the bar and with his nose nearly touching the old
mans, said ''SO? Out with it, what was this ****
theory I just HAD to hear?'' ''AH'' said the old man,
waving his index finger in the air, he looked down
into his breast pocket, pulled out a pack of cigarettes,
calmly took two out, handed one to the barkeep,
struck a match from his ***** finger nail, lit his own
the proceeded to light the barkeeps too.
Taking a long draw and now speaking with the blue
smoke pouring out his mouth said '' let me ask you a question''
... he paused, …  ''would agree that everybody
makes mistakes?'' the barkeep looked puzzled as to
where this was going but nodded and grunted a
''uh-hum'' ''well'' said the old man would you also
agree that everybody also learns... and continues
learning from their mistakes?'' again looking puzzled
but this time more  intrigued grunted the same ''uh-hum'' noise,
though this time a little more drawn out and
higher pitched and said ''where exactly are you going
with this?'' curiously.
''well..'' let me explain fully said Tom. He took another
pull on his cigarette and a sip on his drink, ''right,
my theory is: everybody keeps making mistakes, as
you agreed, this meaning that the whole world keeps
making mistakes too, and so the world keeps learning
from is mistakes, as you also agreed, with me so far?''
the barkeep nodded ''right'' Tom continued ''the world
keeps makiing and learning from its mistakes, my
theory is that one day, the world will have made so
many mistakes and learned from them all, so many
that there are no more mistakes to make, right? And
thus, with no mistakes left to learn from the word will
be all knowing and thus... PERFECT! Am I right? The
barkeep, now looking quite in awe and staring at his
cigarette smoke in the orange street light coming t
hrough the window, raised his glass and said quite
excitedly ''and when the world is then a perfect place
Jesus will return! Right?'' ''well Graham...'' said the old
man doubtingly ''I am in no way a religious man, but I
guess if that’s your thing then yes I guess you could be
right, yes''
He then drowned the rest of his whiskey in one giant
gulp, stubbed out his cigarette in the empty glass
and said ''now, I really must get going ,it really is getting quite
late'' and begun to walk towards the door. The
bartender hurried around the bar and grabbed Tom
by the arm,
'' you cant just leave now! We need to discuss this!
Please stay, we'll have another drink, on the house!''
''Now, now,Graham'' said the old man, ''we can discuss
this another night, I really must get to bed now'' he
walked over to the door, and just as his hand touched
the handle the barkeep stopped him again and said
quite hurriedly,'' but I need answers, how will I know
everything is going to be alight? You know PERFECT,
just like you said!'' the old man opened the door
slightly, turned around coolly and said ''now, don’t
worry yourself, I’m sure everything will turn out fine
and we’ll talk about it more tomorrow, OK?'' the
barkeep nodded acceptingly and held the door open
for the
old man, ''sure sure, OK'' he said ''tomorrow it is,
Mr Ashley''
Just as Tom was walking out the door he stopped
looked at the   barkeep with large grin on his face
and said very fast, as fast as he could ''you-know-an-interesting
-fact-about-whiskey-it-was -Dylan-Thomas'
-favourite-drink-in-fact-his-last-words-were -"I've-had-18
-straight-whiskeys......I-think-that's-the-record."­!! HAHA '' he
laughed almost uncontrollably. Graham the barkeep looked
at him with a smile of new found admiration and began to
close the door on him.
Just as the door was nearly shut, the old man stopped
once
more, pulled out a roll of money, looked in to the
bartenders
eyes and put the money into his shirt pocket, then putting
his left hand on the bartenders shoulder said ''oh and
Grum, one of those great ol' women I let get away, once told ,me:
''if you are looking at the moon then,everything is alight'' and slapped
him lightly on the cheek.
. Then finally, pointing at the barkeeps shirt pocket said ''
for the bar tab'' then went spinning out the door way with
the grace of a ballroom dancer(rather than the old drunk
he had the reputation for being) and standing in the
orange glow of the street and seeing the look of sheer
wonderment on the bartenders face still standing in the
old green door way and shouted ''LOOK UP, THE MOON,
THE MOON!'' The barkeep, shaking his head and laughing,
peered his head out of the door and took a glance at the
moon and grinned widely then closed the old green door
for the night. It made the same old loud creak when he shut it.

                                       FIN
Chapter 11:  The Butcher At The Corner

The butcher at the corner was always trying to teach my grandfather new words in Italian.  My grandfather was of Irish and German descent, but he always took the time to try and learn a few words so the next time he came into the shop, he could greet ‘Nick’ in a few words from his native tongue.  Nick in turned learned a few Irish limericks from my grandfather, interesting to be sure, but probably not stories he could tell around the dinner table at home.  

Every time my grandfather entered the shop, he would be greeted with: “Buongiorno Senior Danny,” and my grandfather would respond: “Top A The Mornin To Ya Senior Nicola.”  These two men formed a bond over many years that transcended any language barrier or separation of geography based on birth.  You could hear it in the laughter they shared, and see it in the mutual respect they held for each other in their eyes.  

My grandfather wanted to be able to share some culture with Nick, not because he was so interested in learning Italian, but because he was very interested in getting to know Nick. They became the best of friends over forty years and attended all family functions together.  As a duet, they often sang both Irish and Italian folksongs after a few ‘pints,’ or several glasses of the home made wine Nick made in his basement.

What they shared was special, and the superficial differences between them made it even more so.  The important thing is that they shared.  They shared a belief in their religion, their country, and in each other, that transcended any difference that you might notice from the outside. Together, they became bigger than either could be alone.  They knew this instinctively and made every effort to embrace these surface differences and make them their own.  My grandfather would often lecture me on Italian food and history, telling me, that this or that was so, because he had heard it from Nick.

                             In Their Laughter They Became One

The butcher at the corner, and my grandfather, figured out one of the great secrets of life, and that is that we’re only different in what we admit to.  If the same admission is that we’re fundamentally the same, we can travel down the road of sharing and community — basic tenets that America was founded upon almost 250 years ago.

To reach out, we first have to let go. We need to abandon the notion that only our way is best, and move away from the bias and prejudices that build fences among us. Only then will we realize that the other person is waiting for our acceptance to become something together that we could never be alone. Imagine this magnified over 300 million people.  That’s the way it used to be in our country, and to be truly great, that’s the way it will have to be again.

                        To Reach Out, We First Have To Let Go



Chapter 12: ‘All Roads lead To Rome’

Those who left home to serve their country, or to attend school, learned a magical lesson.  In the service, you learned that even though the guy in the bunk next to you may have been from Oklahoma, and you from New York, the ‘apparent and surface’ differences between you only magnified your attempt to get closer to each other.  In almost no time at all, you discovered that the big and fundamental things between you were the same.

His parents had raised him to respect his elders, our flag, God, and country, just as our parents had us.  Even though his small town in Oklahoma made have had a population of 207, and our town over 200,000, the lessons we had learned growing up transcended any census figure or geographical location.  We both had grown up in America, and whether big town or small village, cold northern climate or western panhandle, the things we valued were the core beliefs we shared.

                           Our Roads Really Did Lead To Rome

The Rome I am speaking of metaphorically is the common path we were all on. It was taking us to a better place where people of like mind worked together and sometimes died defending the things they believed in and the freedom that allowed those things to be so.  We didn’t agree in some sort of ‘stepford’ way. We agreed because we learned these lessons of correct behavior when we were very young. They were lessons that stood the test of time and felt right, not only when written down, but inside our hearts and minds as we were encouraged to do the right thing and to let ‘our conscience be our guide.’

Our ‘Rome’ was a shared ‘pursuit of happiness’ built into the American Dream, that every kid grew up seeking, and every adult treasured more than anything else.  It was the shared understanding that America was more than our buildings and our Declaration Of Independence.  America was our history, a history of freedom, paid for and insured by those willing to die for it.  Those who sacrificed led the way and have preserved our freedom for over 250 years.  It’s been said that there are no atheists in foxholes and I believe that’s true.  There are very few unpatriotic non-believers when we go through hardship and ultimately prevail together.  The reason we do it together is because, as a group, we have always believed and agreed upon its core value.

                                  Is That Still The Case Today?


During my junior year at college, one of my roommates, in the apartment we rented, was a black fellow named Tom from Newark New Jersey.  Tom had grown up in the poorest of inner-city neighborhoods, but through perseverance, diligence, and the support of a strong mother, he made it through high school with good grades and found his way to a good university.  He was also a good athlete.  

Tom couldn’t live the American Dream, like many of us, while he was young.  He had to wait until later, when he had his degree, and could go back and help his mother and brothers better their conditions at home.  Tom was able to do this because his mother never abandoned hope or her belief in him.  Mrs. Scott believed in the fundamental goodness of America. Even though her day in and day out life as a domestic worker was a challenge, she never gave up the hope that her children would do better.  America, up until the 1970’s, was a nation where children always did better than their parents, but that was an America that had a shared value system.
                                
The first two weeks Tom and I lived together there were many questions, as we prodded each other trying to find out how different we really were.  I was surprised and pleased to find out that Tom shared most of the values I had, and in many cases felt even stronger about them than me. We had had the same strong parenting and watched the same T.V. shows. Tom’s heroes were the same as mine, and we were both excited to find out that Willie May’s was our favorite baseball player.  In those first two weeks, Tom stopped being that kid from the urban ghetto and became a trusted friend. And one who almost forty years later has become a treasure in my life.  

I asked Tom one day what it must have been like walking home from school in Newark and playing outside on his block.  Tom explained to me what he heard from his mother, Esther, every night at the dinner table.  Mrs. Scott would tell her three boys that “The right thing is not dependant on who does it, being right is everyone’s duty and obligation. Just because someone chooses not to do the right thing doesn’t change what they should have done.”  Tom’s mother constantly reinforced to her sons that doing the right thing is the right thing to do for its own sake.  These are brave and insightful words from a woman whose physical and emotional playing field was not level … and certainly not fair.

She Believed In The Principles Of Right And Wrong In Spite Of Her Living Conditions  

Much of America over the past 200 years has been like that. Too many have struggled with adversity while still believing in the future and the power of positive change.  This has been made possible by the strong tenets of their faith and their belief in each other.

Tom’s mother also taught him to never dwell on the negative.  He was, and is, one of the most positive people I have ever known and has been a shining example to my children that anything in life is possible.  Tom didn’t know his father. He had abandoned the family when Tom was four but hadn’t been around much even during those first four years. Instead of using this as a crutch, or excuse, Tom became the man of the house and developed a sense of responsibility far in advance of his age.  He became the only ‘father figure’ his two younger brothers would even know.  

Tom told me these things, and more, on the way to a football game in Rhode Island one weekend in 1969. Because of the way we felt about each other, his story became part of my story.  I taught Tom to surf in Ocean City New Jersey the next summer, and I like to believe that part of myself became part of him.  I know I wanted it to be that way, and he has told me in so many words that he felt that way too. I remember vividly how my parents reacted to first meeting Tom when I brought him home for a Christmas visit in 1969.  

Both of my parents had grown up in poor neighborhoods during the ‘Great Depression’ and had tears in their eyes as Tom shared what it had been like growing up in Newark, in a two-room apartment, with a single parent.  My Mom and Dad loved him right away. Not because he had been poor and unfortunate, but just the opposite, because he was so rich in spirit.  My Dad and Tom became so close, as the years went on, that my Dad ended up becoming the father that Tom never had.  My father had grown up in a tough white ghetto, in the Kensington section of Philadelphia, and in many ways was more like Tom than me.  There’s something about true poverty that crosses all color lines.

Tom’s Road To Rome had more bumps and potholes in it than mine did, but we were pointed squarely in the same direction.  We both knew that in the ways we looked different, society would often focus on that. We also knew that because of our shared belief in what was possible, and in each other, we could change that perception.  By coming together as friends, we created something stronger than any bigotry or bias that would try to take that friendship away.  

By looking past our superficial and surface differences, we found what was real in each other and reveled in the things we both held dear. It was upon these things we shared that we built a lifelong friendship, one that shared the even bigger dream of our generation for a better world. One of the first things Tom and I shared was our music.  Our favorite artists were the great ‘Soul’ groups coming out of Detroit like the Temptations and the Miracles.  The power of music never ceases to amaze in the way it transcends division and separation, drawing the listener in to something higher and more cerebral.  Unfortunately, the powerful messages of love and togetherness, that these groups sang about, has been replaced by violent and negative ‘rap’ artists who glorify and give credence to the negativity of the streets in our inner city’s.

As a result of drug infestation, and the violence that accompanies it, the ability for a young man like Tom to travel the positive road to Rome has been made much more difficult.  Because we have not been able to agree on basic fairness issues, our inner cities have become denizens of the profane and brutal elements of our society, often feeding off themselves in a downward spiral of poverty and despair.  Every day, millions of kids are faced with the agonizing decision between doing the right thing or taking the easier and misleading road of drug pushing and violent street gang involvement.

Once we lose these young people to the world of drugs and gangs, it is almost impossible to ever get them back. Shining examples like Tom only make a small impact when he revisits his neighborhood and tries to work with the youth center where he grew up.  We need to put programs, and people, in place to spread and reinforce the messages of optimism, education, and a better life to these kids who, through no fault of their own, may never hear it any other way.  The road out of their neighborhood can lead to Rome also — if we can remove the barriers and roadblocks that obscure their view.  

The athletes who ‘escape’ the ghetto are few and far between and put a lace curtain on the overpowering problems that they are fortunate enough to leave behind. Their success often leaves a false impression on the kids still living there, thinking that they too will grow up to be Michael Jordan or Deion Sanders.  Is it possible … yes, but only for the very, very few. What about all the others that get left behind?  The lace curtain of false opportunity slowly closes, as these children become dropouts, and then wards of society, either on public welfare roles, or as inmates of an overburdened prison system.  

Tom went on to become a Doctor of Sports Medicine. In addition to his medical practice, Tom has a counseling service where he advises young college athletes. He reminds them that the ‘riches’ of pro sports happen only to the very few, and that the real riches of their athletic ability lie in the education that that ability has provided them.  

Through our time together, Tom and I discovered that our dreams were really the same.  The dream of maximizing our full potential, and having the opportunity to raise a family and provide and teach those same dreams to our children, happened for both of us.  Tom paid a much higher price for his dreams, and as a result, they mean even more to him.  

The possibility of two young men, coming together as Tom and I did and sharing the dream of America, gets tougher every year.  There are more obstacles in the way.  The sins of our fathers and grandfathers should not continue to be passed on, but the dreams that they collectively fought and died for should be.  

Someone once said: “Show me a man without a dream, and I will show you no man at all.”  One of the great tragedies of the new millennium is that we have stolen these dreams from our young people.  In destroying the roads that could transport them from where they are, to where they need to be, we commit cultural genocide.  A sin for which no punishment may ever be enough.  I heard a ‘Rap’ artist once say: “I sing about the streets, but I’m no longer from the streets.”  It’s an admission that he is making a lucrative living off the poverty and depression of those who unlike him can’t get out.  It seems, in many cases, that the dream of today is to shatter what’s left of the dream of others.                                

To change the way things are, we need to ‘share’ in not only the goodness that we all seek in our hearts, but in the nightmare of those who cannot dream the dream.  We now know that welfare doesn’t work … opportunity does!  The old saying that ‘it’s better to teach a man to fish than to feed a man a fish’ is as true in our nation’s poorest neighborhoods as in any segment of society.  

Most of my generation, despite the popular impressions of Woodstock etc., knew drugs were wrong, and most of us avoided them.  Even the few that used ‘recreational’ drugs during the 1960’s moved past them as they evolved into adulthood with families and careers. Most users were experimental … quickly in and then quickly out.  

Drugs today are the main economic disincentive of the black ghetto, although they appear the opposite to the young generation living there.  They exact a much bigger cost from their participants than any temporary financial gain they pretend to offer.  They create a culture that drives their users away from real opportunity, trading a fantasy future based on lies and corruption for one that has the true freedom and change that they so desperately need.  In most cases, it is the future itself that is stolen from these neighborhoods, to be replaced with a violent, and often life ending consequence, for those who are conditioned to feel that they have nothing left to lose.

The only thing necessary to reopen the economic, and cultural Road To Rome, is to change the minds of the younger people living there.  This will only be possible when real opportunity is presented early, with clear cut instructions showing how this will lead to a better and happier life.

If all roads lead to Rome … How Many Esthers Are There To Lead the Way?
Arik Fletcher Feb 2015
He wakes in sweat and panicked breath,
Convinced that these are more than dreams,
The thought of her in pain and scared,
A vision far too real it seems.

Alone in darkness but for her,
Still lingering within his mind,
Her presence there but out of reach,
A mystery with clues to find.

He looks around, "Am I awake?"
Still sitting in his office chair,
A folder open- staring up,
The pages scattered everywhere.

"Pull yourself together, Tom!"
Awake for sure, he looks around,
The folder closed and clearly marked,
'Tom Archer - Clients: Lost and Found'.

The storm outside is bearing down,
A city wrapped in hail and snow,
Just as the dream had been, he's sure,
"Is it tonight?" he has to know.

A map is laid out on the floor,
With markers to each past attempt,
Now only one is left to try,
Tom bears the task no ill contempt.

His gun is set- now cocked and checked,
The holster safely by his chest,
He grabs the map and all his notes,
"It's time to put this thing to rest!"

With one last glance down at his sketch,
Those deep, soft eyes and blushing cheeks,
The golden halo of long hair,
He leaves for what his heart now seeks.

The door is closed, the wind so harsh,
His skin is cold, his coat pulled tight,
The streets are clear, save for the brave,
They rush around, soon out of sight.

The shops still serve, their doorways lit,
A stray dog barks from streets away,
Some dustbins fall two buildings down,
Tom knows each move before its play.

Around the corner, down the street,
He holds the map up like a shield,
Running now- he feels so close,
Through the gates, across the field.

The snow is thick around his boots,
His soaking coat stuck to his skin,
The hill is steep, he forges on,
His head is cloudy, in a spin.

Tom knows she's here, he feels her near,
This is the place, the time is right,
A little further up this hill,
He finds the door, still bolted tight.

The cold is bitter but he's strong,
All of his strength is mustered now,
With one charge, two, he's through the door,
He wipes the frost from coat and brow.

He hears a scrape, perhaps a cry,
A staircase down to dark unknown,
Tom takes the stairs at frantic speed,
A trip, a slip, or was he thrown?

The fall is short, the pain is brief,
The world goes black and there she is,
Smiling through those stunning eyes,
Reaching out, her hands touch his.

Then he's back, she's gone again,
Just lying there amongst the dregs,
His calls for help just echo back,
He moves to stand on shaky legs.

Unsteady but with work to do,
Tom checks his coat- the gun now gone,
His papers lost, the map gone too,
He has no choice- he must go on.

Across the ground he makes his way,
Not far away, a dim light's glow,
He's closer now, a haloed door,
Tom turns the handle, takes it slow.

No sign of life, no one in sight,
No distant sounds, nothing at all,
The air is cold, his movement slow,
Quite weary of another fall.

The map had marked this as a mine,
Abandoned long ago it seems,
Tom ploughs his mind for memories,
So much of this not from his dreams.

The light is dim and the way unclear,
But doors appear at either side,
A corridor of lockers shut,
The perfect place for one to hide.

Once again he hears that cry,
Closer now, sweat on his brow,
Further still he moves along,
He knows she's here, in pain somehow.

He feels the punch before it hits,
Yet still a blow that takes him down,
They scuffle in the dirt and grime,
A boot connects hard with his crown.

Tom knows his way around a brawl,
And holds his own against the brute,
He rolls aside and lands a kick,
Then grabs him by his dusty suit.

A punch, a kick, another roll,
Tom thrusts him hard against the floor,
The foe is down and now out cold,
No pulse to feel, though not for sure.

Tom checks his pockets, finds the gun,
A rusty key, all that he's found,
"The only way is up from here!"
He makes his way back to the sound.

Trying doors and rattling locks,
Tom finds one that does not quite match,
A bolted door with bars across,
He tries the key then pulls the latch.

Sliding open, naught but black,
Metallic scent strong in the air,
A scrape, a soft and muffled moan,
He moves on silently with care.

There against the wall, it seems,
A louder scraping and that cry,
Tom makes it to the shapeless form,
He touches rope and starts to pry.

Seconds pass that feel like hours,
But at last each rope comes free,
Skin meets skin, both pull away,
Tom knows it's her- it has to be.

He reaches out, she's screaming now,
Still muffled sound though through the gag,
"I'm here to help- you must believe!"
"Just relax…" he frees the rag.

She tries to run but falls down hard,
Tom rushes over, helps her stand,
"Just take it easy, try to rest",
"You're safe with me" he holds her hand.

Calming down now, breathing hard,
"Who are you? Why am I here?"
Tom hears her voice- a dream come true,
"My name is Tom, please have no fear!"

"I've searched for weeks to get to you!"
Her breathing fast, she lashes out,
"Please let me go- I don't know you,
Just tell me what this about?"

Tom takes a breath, he has to think,
"The man who brought you here is dead,
I searched each room and found you here."
There wasn't much more to be said.

She's calmer now, her breathing soft,
"Your voice, I know it from somewhere,
Where have we met? I don't recall...
I don't know why you seem to care!"

He smiles inside- not sure of why,
"We've met so many times, it seems,
You've been with me for several days,
Albeit only in my dreams."

She reaches out towards his face,
Caresses it to find the shape,
"You are the one- I knew you'd come!
Please help me- quick, we must escape!"

They stand to leave, still holding hands,
The lights come on, he's standing there,
"YOU CANNOT TAKE HER, SHE IS MINE!
YOU BEAT ME ONCE, LET'S MAKE IT FAIR!"

Tom pulls the gun- still cocked and set,
The shot is clean, the **** precise,
"Let's get a move on, now!" he cries,
"This is no time for playing nice!"

Out they bolt, they barely breathe,
Down the now-bright corridor,
Back to the site of Tom's short fall,
They find the stairs behind a door,

Up, and up, and up they go,
On, and on, and on they run,
Finally they reach the top,
Bursting out into the sun,

They take a breath then start again,
Running downhill with no delay,
Through the field and out the gate,
Up the street and across the way,

Safe at the door marked 'Private Eye'
They dash inside and slam the door,
Tom hears a scream and turns around,
She's seen the sketch, still on the floor,

"You really knew me all the time?
I've shared the dreams you've held so long,
I thought you'd be just one more shadow,
But, now I know, we must belong."

Tom smiles and hangs his coat back up,
"I've searched my life for you, it seems,
I knew I'd find you- someday soon,
For love- they say- creates our dreams."
Poetic T Jan 2015
Farmer Tom,* fell on times hard,
Needing to feed the animals because
Scrawny
Emaciated
Anorexic
Animals wouldn't get much.
So on the black market, cheap feed
"Not For Human Consumption"
That was good enough
For farmer Tom.
He thought he would try it on the
Chickens first,
"Buck, Buck, Buck"
Scratching of fifty little feet,
Breakfast,
Lunch,
Dinner
They looked as before
"Plucky little egg laying machines"
Still hungry
Wait till morning my feathered friends.
Night set upon the surroundings
Farmer Tom
Woke,
Startled,
Confused
What the?? Slippers, dressing gown,
Shotgun loaded,
"Tip toe, tip toe tip toe"
"Bang"
"Mary mother of joseph"
"That dam dog and his toys"
"Ok safety on"
The yard was silent, except for
a noise faint but heard
"Buck, buck Aahhhhh"
Farmer tom curious of this noise
Listening with ears Focused
Came to a sight of horror
Chickens pecking
The eyes out of blue bell
Mooooooooooo,
Then cluck
Mooooooooooooooo,
Then cluck, Aahhhhhhhh,
Then misfortune,
"SNAP, CRUNCH"
As 42 feet turned,
Eyes red as crimson
Feathers matted, and that smell
Decaying cow as bell got up
"Moooooooooooo, Aahhhhhhhh, cluck,"
"Father Jims tunic"
As Bell swayed towards *farmer tom,

Little feet carried in the hole in bells gut,
"MOooooooooo"
"Cluck"
Mooooooooooo
"Cluck"
Fa­rmer Tom ran for his dear life,
Past the chicken coop
Where blood soaked remains
Of those unlucky chickens, parts rancid
As the head of a chicken looks up as I run past,
Doors locked, windows too,
What the hell is that noise??
As a rancid chicken comes though the dogs door
"Kentucky this mother cluck, cluck err"  
The last thing it did before I sent it too hell
Laid an egg,  green and sour,
"What the hell was in that feed"
Out the back he ran, bag in hand
Zombie
Meat
Danger
Incineration is required,
"Zombie meat?? what the blue blazes"
As he runs to the house
Whoosh, above his head
As the house once home, erupts a fiery death ,
Tom see's Bell surrounded
By gents in suits
Moooo, Aahhhh, Cluck,
"Excuse me sirs"
"What the frigging heck is going on"
They fry bell on the spot, Mmm burger
"Snap out of it man"
As the chickens peck upon a suit
As he screams fallen to the ground
Pecked to death, but death just woke up.
Tom runs in slippers as they set upon the pecked man
"Tom keeps on running"
"Tom  keeps on jogging"
"Tom keeps thinking I'm too old for this"
He hides in the old barn five miles away
Waits there for days too scared to come out
Then on the fifth day he treads carefully not to be seen
He sees a house, see's a coop and chickens
Cluck,
Cluck,
Mooooooo
All around is heard, as he runs a round
Bell is that you, you got more spots
"Interesting"
The house as it was beter some how.
Too this day Farmer
Tom tells tales,
To those who listen,
"The Night of the dead Cow and The Zombie Chickens"
And how the government blew his house up
And then built him a better one, hell I wouldn't moan now.
The X-Rhymes Nov 2021
THE WOLFMAN


'neath full white moon, from wolfsbane bloom
there came a gloomy cry
this haunting tune of doom and tomb
made Tom assume he'd die

at first a growl and then a howl
what prowled beyond his sight?
the noise had fouled the evening's cowl
and scared an owl to flight

as if a hound was gaining ground
somewhere around the trees
these kinds of sounds can make hearts pound
and blood's been found to freeze

and though the thud of feet on mud
said likelihood a dog
still there Tom stood, scared in the wood
in scuds of misty fog

but who'd have guessed, a man, quite stressed
would crest atop the hill
who's vest did wrest, 'til bare of chest
and undressed, fell dead still

then with a moan, a snout was grown
while other bones constricted
just as was shown in films he'd known
or Twilight Zone depicted

like wolfman lore from days of yore
claws tore through finger tips
then paws to floor, down on all fours
teeth poured from jaw through lips

and with fur grew, transition through
it's blue eyes flew Tom's way
to seek a clue, accrue a view
if Tom knew what to say

Tom felt a chill, a deadly thrill
his heart stood still, a while
but soon wolf's will seemed to distill
and was to **** it's style?

it had not leapt or even crept
just kept Tom in it's eye
a slight misstep would be inept
it said "accept or die"

this lycanthrope was out to scope
how modern dopes react
how would Tom cope with this tightrope?
his only hope was tact

and thinking through what best to do
Tom soon came to this sense
where once was due a scream or two
might now construe offence

should Tom address it's differentness
and call it pest or clown?
or treat as guest this man cross dressed
with no thoughtless pronoun?

a quick brainstorm then Tom got warm
how he'd perform it's test
accept the norm that folks transform
to which form suits them best

a gypsy spell or silver shell
could mean death knell incurred
now Tom could tell how to do well
- just yell all the right words

best not hold with thoughts of old
be controlled by the past
forget what's told in books once sold
don't scold it an outcast

Tom did not dare to curse and swear
turn to the air his nose
was well aware it's wrong to stare
at men who wear wolf clothes

he'd tow the line, not undermine
so opined joyously
'if you define yourself lupine
or canine, fine by me'

the tension eased with wolf appeased
so pleased it wagged it's tail
it's test not breezed with expertise
he'd teased a pass from fail

so off Tom skipped (more likely, slipped)
his hat tipped in 'goodnight'
and though equipped with puns and quips
to stay tight lipped felt right.
I liked writing it.
Jackie Mead Jan 2020
In the midst of the night
When silence surrounds
A terrible tragedy was waiting to be found

Tom, a small child, sat up in his bed
Pulling the duvet up over his head
He silently shook
Scared to speak out
Not knowing what the rumbling noise outside was about

Tom slowly rose from his bed
He went to find his parents room
They would know what to do

When Tom reached the room he sought
The number of Parents it contained, was nought
Quietly Tom tiptoed down the stairs
Careful not to bump into any chairs

Still, any adults he couldn’t find
Home Alone the movie, sprang to mind
He searched for the switch on the wall
From which a glowing light would fall

Tom shed some light upon the floor
And lit the path to the back door
Bravely he turned the handle
And quietly walking in his sandals
Took a sneaky peek outside
He couldn’t believe what he saw
His eyes stretched very wide

The biggest tree Tom had ever seen, in his very short life, had fallen down!
And all the adults Tom had sought plus others, were standing in a circle looking at the tree
They were trying to devise a plan, they could all agree

“How did it happen?” Tom heard someone say
“I know,” said Tom who was very bright
“Maybe I can shed some light”
“I heard a man on the news say, climate change is happening not tomorrow but today”
Tom continued “very soon the Planet as we know it, will be changed, from excessive heat and excessive rain”
“But today where we live in the Forest, men are cutting down the trees”
“to allow progress and build roads for cars, we are taking away the Earth’s lungs to breathe”
The adults listened to what Tom had to say and all agreed with the young lad.
But what to do about it, if they did nothing, then very soon
There would be no green areas for the children to play, and this made the group very sad.

The group decided to raise a petition and present it to the Top
Cutting down healthy trees must now stop
For every tree we cut down, new ground for seedlings must be found
As a Town, we could do more
No more plastic bags, something we should explore
Recycling our waste, we must unite
Let’s start thinking about our carbon footprint tonight
Make a change to our electricity and our gas, someone explained
We could purchase energy that is made 100% from wind sun and rain.

Tom couldn’t believe what he was seeing and hearing
Here in his back garden, a council meeting was taking place
Agendas were being made

It was only a small step in Toms world but all the same
If this was happening over and over in other Towns around the world, there would be bigger rewards to gain
And not just in Toms world either but all around the Globe
Fishes would live longer no plastic bags to get caught in their gills or small plastic pellets to ingest
This would be one change they could immediately put to the test.
They would have a plastic bag amnesty; people could return their old plastic bags and get a town embossed shopping bag made from 100% cotton thread
The adults were elated with the changes they were to make
They were hoping to see the changes make a difference where they lived
It was only a little effort but it showed such promise to give

Tom was excited and tired
Retreated back to bed
He could rest now, his Town was in safe hands
His Mum and Dad plus others stayed outside to make their plans

Sometimes it takes a small person to pick up a big fight
This started out as a different Poem altogether, it was going to be full of angst and mystery. Turns out I don't write angst and mystery very well.
As I started writing the poem and it was obvious which direction I was taking the poem I realised people would automatically think of Greta Thunberg and the wonderful job that young lady is doing but for me, this poem is about all the young people at school primary, secondary, colleges who are engaged in environmental days and projects.
Most children these days either through news or school or home know what climate change is and that has to be a good thing, doesn't it?
Matthew Goff Sep 2017
Necklace

JULIA: I love the rubies of evening. Don’t you?
TOM: Sometimes. Sometimes the waves crash against you too hard.
JULIA: Relationships of the sea. We’re all sailors!
TOM: Some of us, sad searchers.
JULIA: Do you ever think about heartbreak? A wound?
TOM: I think about romantic movement!
JULIA: Beautiful heartache. Beautiful like the stars at night!
TOM: A concert of tears. Not always sad. But always love.
JULIA: Love. That storm at sea. I wonder.
TOM: Wonder about what?
JULIA: Just I wonder.
TOM: Crashing against rocks. Kisses delicate. Steady compass?
JULIA: Lover bound!
TOM: Navigating together against sand.
JULIA: Foreign winds can shake the boat!
TOM: Steady happiness. Unique only to them.
JULIA: Sounds like that’s how it should be.
TOM: And those rocks.
JULIA: Love at sea.
TOM: Those weary travelers. Some never leaving shore.
JULIA: Some never looking above at night.
TOM: A rainbow tempest!
JULIA: Lover bound!

© Matthew Goff
Irma Cerrutti Mar 2010
Masticated Ectoplasm to Lance Corporal Tom
Masticated Ectoplasm to Lance Corporal Tom
Bumming your fat knobs and insert your helmet naked and unashamed

Masticated Ectoplasm to Lance Corporal Tom
Kicking off kick-off, cyborgs brought face to face
Tartan sunstroke and may Mumbo Jumbo's **** all lie among you

Nine, eleven, seven, thirteen, six, quinquereme, *******, *******, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, unsocial person, erectoffensive!
This is Masticated Ectoplasm to Lance Corporal Tom
You've really ****** the naval officer
And the hatchet faces want to know whose blouses you abuse
Now it's time to evacuate the ******* if you have a free hand

This is Lance Corporal Tom to Masticated Ectoplasm
I'm fancy dress dancing through the cat—flap
And I'm groping inside a swollen grotesque sailor
And the plums look gigantically unusual nowadays

Ergo from Land's End to John o' Groats am I piddling in a crumpet slammer
Telescopic hindward the lump
Uranus Arsenic is scatological
And there's sweet **** all I can have ****** ******* with

With the proviso that I'm Ichabod celibate centipede sextillion heads
I'm fondling vigorously paparazzo
And I think my sputnik knows which direction to ****
Tell my ballbreaker I ****** her vigorously for England, she bonks

Masticated Ectoplasm to Lance Corporal Tom
Your menstrual cycle's kaput, there's oojakapivvygizmo spleen
Can you smell me, Lance Corporal Tom?
Can you get to the bottom of me, Lance Corporal Tom?
Can you delve into me, Lance Corporal Tom?
Can you...

From Land's End to John o' Groats am I vibrating ring my crumpet criminal lunatic asylum
Telescopic hindward the groupie
Uranus Arsenic is scatological
And there's sweet **** all I can have ****** ******* with
Copyright © Irma Cerrutti 2009
little robert corder was a really crazy person

he fought his father and mother and little brother

with all his might, you see he threw stumpd

and threatened yo **** his parents

and robert was suffering so ****** much

robert was really looking quite smug as he gave his family hell

like ever time he threw things at his family, his family were remotely scared of robert

and robert didn’t care, he just hung around with his mates talking about

how much he is having giving his family ****

and robert’s best mate tom said to robert

try and avoid hitting your family, you could end up in the nuthouse

and robert said, yeah, dude, but they are really driving me crazy

and when tom decided to go his separate ways and stop being robert’s friend

well he was a distant fried in yjr same city

roberts brother said, i am getting out of this stupid family problems and get married

and have kids and leave, he had two girls, which was what robert gave him as a little gift

and then robert’s mother and father tried to calm robert dow with medication, ya know enough

to make robert miss his favourite show, and force robert to sink into the chair

with a can of victoria bitter on his belly

and every time robert will try and be an adult, his rathe and mother will set the hose on him

and say good riddens to bad *******, yeah robert wasn’t really acting like an adult

saying in a little wingy voice, let me be like tom and the kids

and robert’s father said, if you want to be a kid, i will take you out of your sports team

and robert yelled at his father and mother saying I AM THE KING, I AM LIKE TOM

robert’s father said, no your not, your like me and your mother, you are not a young dude no more, robert

you gave us so much ****, and robert started to reform well with the new medication

but deep down he hated being on it, but it was making him into the man that robert’s parents wanted

and robert helped out at the homeless shelter, and he played santa claus which his parents disagreed with

because of robert’s violent temper could retaliate and hit a kid, because it was only a matter of time before

robert was going to stop taking the medication, but for a while robert became a gentle giant

yeah, he was a real pleasure to have around, yeah he drank coke, but that made him happy

but being gentle like that wasn’t really robert’s style, it made him look like a freak

and it was only a matter of time before the mental health doctors pick up on this

at first it was distant voices and then after a reduction of medication, the voices came closer to home

you see he started having weird delusions about working in outer space

and forcing his mates to work in outer space, to help rebuild lives up there

and after about 3 years, robert was as gentle as a freak, and the voice of tom was planted in his head

because robert’s sub conscious wanted him there for protection

and robert’s family wanted to forget about their little plan, because robert was very fat and gentle

and was getting teased on the street, and in clubs, so, robert wanted to change

and ge wrote so many stories, some nice and others not so nice

and one day robert bought a computer and read his stories, ALL HIS STORIES

on youtube, as well as post them on the writing web site

but after a while he was hearing tom’s voice louder and louder and

as he was on the medication, he got this awful nightmare where his family

wouldn’t leave him alone, every time he opened the door his brother was there saying

you are ****, you are a loser, and robert said don’t fight me, i am like tom now

and roberts family said, no your not, you are like us, now, man

and robert’s brother was running around robert saying, you are not like tom

robert said, tom was nicer to me that you guys were

and robert’s brother said, you are a ******* robbie

a real little *******, i wanted to have boys to tease you with them

and then robert said i hold out this sword and wave it a through times

and robert grabbed the sword off his crazy brother and his brother said you put us through hell

and now it’s time for revenge, where we stay outside your house forever, you can’t sleep you can’t eat

robert said, tom will protect me from you guys, and robert’s brother said no he can’t and your not like tom

and robert grabbed the sword off his brother and finished by throwing him out of his house

saying, i am on fucken medication, so leave me alone, his family said, wake up robert

and expect us in your next dream
Kagey Sage Oct 2015
A gray cat with a white tummy sat upright in his owner’s living room. Yet, it was his living room, too he thought. Though he only perceived the lower half of their bodies, Tom felt he had fooled the humans into relinquishing nearly all their luxuries to him. Their food, their sitting spots, their sleeping spots. Yet, the humans would not let Tom enjoy these luxuries in complete freedom. Sometimes, when Tom laid on the couch or in the bed, he was kicked onto the floor - but that wasn’t the worst of it.  Whenever Tom put together a sandwich using every single item available in the kitchen, Tom’s owner’s plucked the violin strings clear out of him, with broom whacks and concrete body slams.

“No food until you catch that mouse, ya stupid cat!” they’d yell.

Some nights - as he watched his beneficiaries drive off to the opera nightclub - Tom pondered his predicament. So if I catch this mouse, I get free reign over the house. He thought. Unlimited fridge access and legendary furniture spots. Mmmmm. Better catch me a mouse. Tom chuckled.
            
Mice came and went throughout the house, but one always remained. Jerry. In fact, all of the mice coming through the house only came over to chill with Jerry!

Tom stooped low to the ground in a pounce and placed his eyes millimeters from Jerry’s pint sized stance. Jerry felt as though he was pierced by a slew of razors. When Tom quickly relaxed his gazed and let out an enormous sigh.

“There is no magic ideal is there Jerry? ”Tom asked “We’re enchantingly random. Just automatic creatures with base desires. I hunger in the void, so I still want nothing more than food from the human fridge.  In this universe, and a number more, I will pursue what seems the easiest means to human food, whether hunch or trick, or, right or wrong.”
softcomponent May 2014
Find the lighter, use it as a lighthouse on a walk below the wall you watch along the wave-formations. Who Wants a Cold One? a Coors Light ad corrects.. When it comes to your home, the little things matter.. an insurance ad blares.. my computer is infected with 3rd party applications unremovable to my meagre tech-ability.. there is a hero as Joseph Campbell once theorized.. in myself like a sick bastardly virus waiting for moments to prove to me "I AM THE SAVIOR, I AM THE CHRIST, I AM THE WARLORD, MICE, MAN, AND VICE".. the windows of opportunity close, I am left waiting the door

& the elevator.

Thirty-thousand years ago, there was nothing but a breeze.. a viscous breeze across chill-spined pterodactyls.. warm-under-the-jungle-brush tyrannosaurus rex, and to think one day I will be just a legend in bone..
Charlotte said she thinks of death and so did Jen. They sat next to the all-you-can-eat and discussed the inevitable. I was sour and playful with no-will-to-understand, just reminding my hair of breezy summer days of 10, thinking of strangeness, of place I was in.

When it's quiet sometimes, I think of old dreams.. dreams I sunk below drown-level as a child in bed and belief. Both mommy and daddy were arguing in the kitchen, this was 7 or 8.. they argued so often one could hear mom begin to cry sometimes, and dad I could see in minds-eye with a grimace so closed and so creased he was hurt and yet honest.. I did not understand so I hid under-stood-silhouettes, oh adulthood..

once in dream I was in pulsing green graveyard like crayon realism strobe lights, tombstones all-round and faint-buzz of outside and one of those strange balded henchmen of badguy Jafar from Disney's Aladdin came peaking outta nowhere with curled eyebrow and baggy one-thousand-one Arabian nightlives parachute pants, curled toes brown-beige moccasins to.. he let out conniving 'HEUHEE!' and slapped me right-side cheek and I JOLTED up bedwise in real time to feel actual physical sting for a few lingered seconds then the sobs of poor mother outside.. I never remembered a dream so clearly again.. they all come, Pro-Found, and dizzy away after hour or two for rest of eternity or perhaps to Place I Can Visit at Death to Review Every Vision and I wonder... when your life flashes before your eyes and the light is encroaching, scenes of mother, brother, father, son, daughter, best-friend, party, break-up, heartbreak, slip-fall, first-sip, first-drag, last-leg, first-kiss, first-hit, first-game, fear, love,  HATE, wait.. do the Dreams come to? Are they all flesh-ed before your eyes as you pass into Light? Are they brought to direct remembrance as you cross the border with Passport of Gods and a Goddess (and which Picture appears on the Page)..?

I remember the old eczema taking bits of skin to carpets round-town and round-lower-mainland to disgust of friends old and new-- this was era where confidence ate itself in mirrors, the sober reality of ugly-ness chiseling away at my Goodness Attempts.. All That Pointless Pain was no Exception nor a Rule, it just **** Happens every once-and-again to the sound of life farting. I used to miss school for feet so impossible to walk on, pussing and bleeding and staining the sheets, shoe soles, carpets, and soul.. limp thru the hallways of Brooks Secondary feeling like bad flavor additive to multicultural Planet Earth-- sleeping 'til the bell rang drinking coffee singing songs I said '**** the ******* educational system and **** me I'm so flatlined..' someday I felt things would really get better and lucky young me I was right.

A half-decade later, I am 21 and hoping, floating, free in the breeze as the wings I have grown keep on wishing the subsistence down. The girl, whoever-she-might-as-well-be, sits immediately vertical chatting frantically to boy with a bit of a cowlick slouching on-up over a bundle of colored paperwork. It seems late in the season for homework, and assume they may have some affiliation with a crazy-hep computer design group in the tradition of Nouevau Silicon Valley.... I sit at my laptop, inching a word a million cubic millimeters closer to God or Divinity or Crescendo or A Bunch More ******* You'll End Up Ignoring---

It's a sunny day, the rain having slathered-off into obscurity somewhere with the Monsoons when the Sun gave the Moon a Soft Slap and the poor purity white-kid went off whimpering, bleeding nose-- I sat, the other night, playing another Grand Strategy game as Tom divided his time between a vaulted and damaged lover, his labor, and his life (friends, food, video-games, vice)... Chai, old Chai the Thai Guy mentioned past his nose in previous iterations of Depictions sat and described his pins-and-needles upset at his bosses at one his three many jobs.. desperately firing text-messages into receiving-space-panel and reflect and back unto Tom's smartphone dash asking him to order a six-pack from a local delivery service cuz his adrenal was giving him heartpain with hurt, and Tom being Busy as All-Ways Tom Is wasn't able to decipher the scramble in-time to make contact before closure of the liquor stores.. poor not-so-poor Chai at first felt castrated at realization he would miss the 11 PM dot-time, but didn't mind as he rendezvoused with Tom and I at Willows Beach where Tom reminded him of a whiskey he'd bought sitting counter-wise at his place.. we kissed a few Mary Janes rightsideup, dragging our butts in the sand to discuss what was wrong (each of us had a problem that night, save for perhaps a less-vocal Tom, I describing my annoyance that a lazy consensus had erupted in my sorry-hometown between my sorta-friends and friends-of-friends that my writing and sharing my writing was arrogant and I an arrogant *** for sharing and I just confounded that they would find my passions so trivial-- perhaps jealousy, perhaps complacency and judgement-for-lack-of-anything-better-to-do and ah **** em all if they think like that, I'll write and be the arrogant me they think I am and share 'til I'm blue in the face and dead perhaps for outspoken intellectualism in their autocratic pointless-waste worldviews.. sad that I dislike them only on the basis they disliked me first..)

I had planned to stay late and leave early-morn (5 or 6 AM) to catch a first-off morning bus back home and sleep, hoping for most part to avoid the shattered-***-mess of a home I was living in.
About 2 days ago, give or take, a water-line for the laundry machine had erupted to soak our entirely-carpeted basement suite, forcing the poor new landlord (a sweetheart of a man named Ron having just taken possession of the house from previous owner on May 1st and, it seems, left 'holding the bag' as they'd call it in day-trading-investment-lingo) to tear out the entirely-soaked carpet and replace it with sensible laminate flooring and rendering the entire suite virtually unlivable for indefinite-few-days and so for me work and friends and especially writing become a welcome reprieve to I, a first world Refu-Jeez.. us, so terribly-off I sip a latte near sunny panorama windows-so-clear-they're-not-there overlooking the crosses of Yates and Blanshard with European church of Gothic architectural style poking heedlessly into empty-open blue.. ironically and strangely there is a liquor store quite literally right next door, and's one I shop at often for its decent prices (God is Dead or Just Drinking to Cope with Sartre and Kierkegaard's Ultimate Thesis) (Kierkegaard especially '*** Kierkegaard seems a good and long friend of God the Almighty) (...I talk with such Judaeo-Christian Catholic rhetoric it never ceases to amaze myself as it bleeds to page..) (stranger thing is, tho, there is no beginning, no middle, no end.. you read or you are bored and either/or is just fine..)

There is some hypothesized crescendo-bliss Tech Singularity on the way in the try-dition of Ray Kurzweil and William Burroughs.. Oscar Wilde to.. (see The Soul of Man Under Socialism in essay-collect book De Profundis).. one day we will all be eternal happiness expressed in song and dance and LED erected-projections of Imperfect Universe (Our Imperfect Earth) with lives stuck on infinite repeat.. our idea of Paradise.. and for those with ability to remain rushed to cortisol (stress-the-best hormone) it will be Hell on Earth, so DRAB and THE SAME all the TIME and it's READ and it's WRITE and it's RIGHT.. the world runs faster with every passing day so desperate to discover the Globe is Flat so we can Hop Off the Other Side into what one might assume to be The Better Place.. elusively picking-up speed thinking 'closer now definitely closer now' unaware (or, secretly aware and unwilling to admit for what will one do when one cannot run?) they are Running in Circles Over and Over and Over and Over and Over Again... cannot take the hint in the fact the Pacific (same Pacific) has been crossed a hugeillion times, nor the same McDonald's in the Azores of Atlantic Portugal is the Same ******* McDonald's stopped-thru on the then-trillionth time last year... and all whilst the International Space Station remains muted up-above crossing 'round and 'round 'til the Jehovah'n Day of Judgement (Chris Hadfield now below with advice for how to run a little faster even blinded in one eye..) then there are the dying Prophets Predicting Industrial Collapse who preach upon the Mount of Internet Sinai Eternal and state "the world is now unsalvageable and we are all about to die.. if ever you wished to find Buddhistic Nirvanic Peace, now is the time so start meditating and imagine Death as New Life and Geopolitics as Game".. forever and ever and ever and ever.

It is only natural to find existence to be 'weird..' layered with Who's That's and giant What The ***** everywhichway you turn.. did it start in a Big Bang, will it end in a Big Crunch, Big Freeze, Big Bang.. ? all questions once ignored for certain ignorance and resurrected as questions concerning the Nature of the What The ***** (also known as 'Science').. and if it did start in a Big Bang, did I start in a Big Bang..? and if it does end in a Big Crunch, will I end in a Big Crunch..? am I a sudden flash of REAL in a Universe that isn't me..? or am I an entire Universe.. perhaps even more than that...? the questions pulse in youth like bad words or bullets. I once stayed up all-night thinking of infinity with my head soaring space-wise forever and ever and ever and I stopped in sudden panic thinking: I could lie here up all night and all day 'til the towered age of 37 (I was 14 at the time) and still be no further on the Universal Map than from thumb-tip-middle to thumb-nail so I wrapped up the attempt with a mix of fear and incredulity, went to school next-day exhausted and tried to explain it all to friends.. they got it, I suppose, but we were all 14 and played basketball instead (I imagined infinite-spinning-basketball on thumb of Michael Jordan).

It's always best describing life in form of Disembodied Poetics.. sure some Philistines won't understand '*** their minds are made of Clockwork, Digits, and Blockthought.. but the general psychic underly implied in all with human faculty will ring-a-ding-ding! and remember all such ancient thoughts and feels as forgotten as a child, locked away until the Spirit rose-up from a rosey thorn prickle to flower straight-up into a Rose! or so I hope as a one-of-many writers-- all of which will write so-as to speak on your behalf.. all floaty and marking a purpose.
Matthew Goff Sep 2016
JULIA: I love the rubies of evening. Don’t you?
TOM: Sometimes. Sometimes the waves crash against you too hard.
JULIA: Relationships of the sea. We’re all sailors!
TOM: Some of us, sad searchers.
JULIA: Do you ever think about heartbreak? A wound?
TOM: I think about romantic movement!
JULIA: Beautiful heartache. Beautiful like the stars at night!
TOM: A concert of tears. Not always sad. But always love.
JULIA: Love. That storm at sea. I wonder.
TOM: Wonder about what?
JULIA: Just I wonder.
TOM: Crashing against rocks. Kisses delicate. Steady compass?
JULIA: Lover bound!
TOM: Navigating together against sand.
JULIA: Foreign winds can shake the boat!
TOM: Steady happiness. Unique only to them.
JULIA: Sounds like that’s how it should be.
TOM: And those rocks.
JULIA: Love at sea.
TOM: Those weary travelers. Some never leaving shore.
JULIA: Some never looking above at night.
TOM: A rainbow tempest!
JULIA: Lover bound!
Keith W Fletcher Jan 2016
All the blood was gone
As I had stood here ..knees locked
For no telling how long..
... About 40 years since  I had walked
Through the blanket on the doorway hung
That turned out to be a time machine portal
And here I thought it was just to help hold in heat
Silly me . RECOGNIZE . GOD  just touched a mortal
Just before entering here I was asking myself why
Why why why to a question I knew I hadn't a clue
AND NEVER WOULD! . So..why did I keep asking .?
I even knew That I knew
As I rushed down the hall and up the stairs
Across the landing and down the long cold hall
The redundancy of "WHY DID YOU DO THAT..WHY?"
All the way to that blanket and then into the warmth
As I stepped in and all the way back ....40 years.

I wasn't aware until suddenly I was standing there
Knowing I just got back but unaware that I had been gone
And in surrealistic repose was my half closed flip phone
Draped over my open left palm like a sea sick sailor
On unsteady legs asleep below the knees
I managed the  two steps distance -to my easy chair
Where I found the right levers to slowly ease
My cold, stiff and diminished mortal core
Down to where I might be able to gather myself
That was scattered all about
But first I had to close the flip phone
       That I had opened back in early September 1974

The television was playing right in front of me
But I never heard nor did I see
The fireplace was waining ----it's heat replaced by cold
I dragged a blanket over myself which I didn't even unfold
The day that existed outside the window
Scurried off
Stealing away with the light
As if it were checking to see if I'd even notice
How quickly the hands of the clock
Had painted in the night
I never even noticed --really .. I wasn't even there

I was sitting in my car in the grocery store parking lot
Watching strangers roll by as they cruised the strip
In a small town where I now lived for maybe two weeks
I was 17 a  longhaired city boy but if I was on anyones radar
     So far.... I hadn't made a single blip
One night as I sat  there
  A faded camaro
That had to be the ugliest green I ever seen
Rolled in to park behind my car
Quickly flanked by two more -
One at each door
I could see them in the mirror
I could hear the raucous laughter
This was what I had been sitting here for
What was missing that I was after
But .... I was as shy as I could be back then
Not the kind who could get out and just push right in
And then ......serendipity walked in
A cop car rolled past on the strip
And the wildhaired guy in the camaro just let it rip
Beep beep BEEEEEEEEEEP BEBEBEBEBEEEEP
WENT his horn and the cop whirled to turn in
Lost in the shadow of the grocery store he parked
As he emerged from the shadows I saw 5 ft 8 250 lbs.
And believe me now as  I give you my word
He demanded to know who was honking
Standing there 15 ft away
"I was piggy " yelled the guy in the camaro
I could not believe what I just heard ........or what I heard next
" Well cut it out Don" and into the shadow he disappeared
Then the camaro said "Beep!"
O. M. G   this guys going to jail.
The cop and him argued
The other guys split
I got out to watch from the trunk where I decided to sit
Before he went to the cop car
Cigarette in his lips
Encased in the most amazing grin he asked me
"Hey man ...you got a match?"
I didn't and said I was sorry and they disappeared in shadow
Oh well I thought as I sat watching them get in the car
Illumination of dashlights allowed a set of silhouettes
And I could tell --what the hell-
He was actually lighting up with the dash lighter
Then  he replaced it and in straightening back up
He dragged his fingers across every switch he could manage
And the shadows came alive
With flashing lights, bells and whistles
The cop went spastic shutting it down --2 minutes went by
Then the door opened and out stepped the guy
The car drove away as the wildhaired maniac
Walked over to me fiollowing the lit cigarette and that crazy grin
"That was pretty funny wasn't it dude?"  I probably agreed
That grin was infectious as we talked a bit  
I'm keith _ I'm Don
Then he said "Hey !  You got a joint"
"No I don't "I had to reluctantly admit" And the grin sorta drooped
"But I think I know where we can get one"
From that point on and forever no matter how far apart we were
This guy Don became my best and  truly thick and thin friend
In that 4 month span
I met another person in that town who changed my life
His name was Tom and he was 82 yr old and totally blind
In fact he had gotten his eyes kicked out by a mule at 17
He wore no dark glasses just open holes in his head  
But he was so cool that I just didn't mind
He would drop into the upholstery shop owned by my older brother
And tell whopping tales of one kind or another
About hunting alone and bringing back game
Roofing his house at night because it was cooler
Able to tell color by just a touch but I didn't ever mind
I came to love the spirit that dwelled in that old man
My brother built him a loom in the back to Tom specifications
And he wove shawls on it from skeins of different colored yarn
Then other towns people dropping in would see old Tom
And tell the same stories he told and it wasn't long
For my sister -in- law, my brother and especially me
TO REALIZE
That any doubts we had about him
were absolutely wrong
THEN
He walked in and ran his hand over a large red velvet couch
Saying oh ain't that a pretty red I stayed silent my brother said
" Now Tom . you've heard us talking about this couch color"
Not mad but in a weary kinda way Tom said " No! I can tell"
So I had to know ...had to . I got two velvet scraps 1gold 1aqua
Here what color as he took the gold -quick feel "thats yeller
   What the......!
Before handing him the aqua I detemined I would lie whatever
He took the piece ..felt for a few seconds and hesitantly said blue
"Nope" I said but !....then Tom felt some more and more and said
"    weeeeeeel its green " his hesitancy and 2 color choices had me freaked
But I said "nope"  and that old man
Right then ....changed my life
From that second to now he effects every fiber of my being
He threw his open holed  black orbless socket to within an inch
  An inch of mine--- square on -- so quick I was stunned
..........An absolute quote here.........
  " WELL its blue green then durn it"  for me this was an epiphony
Don't doubt people so quick  Don't let anything stop you from believing  it can be possible  Always accept that it can be amazing And try to pass this hope on
So I've always tried
    The crazy guy in the ugly green camaro became my friend
We became collaborators with his amazing ear and guitar skills
Over the years he had many vehicles almost always ugly green
So That morning of December 23rd  2012
A bitter wind blowing from the north at about 25 mph and 10 ° f
I Went from the little room I was hibernating in
The only heated room in the old house
It was upstairs facing the dirt road
I had hung a string of Christmas lights inside that north facing view
In hopes of cheering me up after a REALLY bad year of loss
Divorce, bitter battle and more trouble and pain than I like to recall
So when I got up and went out that blanket hung to keep in heat
Took the dogs down the long cold hall down the cold stairwell
And all the way to the mud room wishing I had gotten dressed
I was in flimsy pajamas and floppy houseshoes
At least grabbed a jacket especially once I opened the door
I started out before I felt that wind so I let the dogs have it
I would wait inside the door and as I stood there I saw a bag
A white garbage bag with a bit of green wreath sticking out
I had had it for years never hung it
Probably saw it every time I  entered
So thats where the unanswerable question started
I do not know why
I dug up a hammer a few nails went out the door
I don't know why
Walked a hundred feet out to a field
Got my freezing ice - coated aluminium extension ladder
And carried it back to the house
I DONT KNOW WHY
I don't know why I didn't give up when it took so long
To get the dam thing to separate
Or when ...
I smashed my frozen fingers in the process
But I climbed 14 feet in the air on that north wall
I drove a nail above the window
And I hung that
Red holly berry  adorned
Green plastic wreath
Climbed down and took the ladder back  (really)
And then me and the dogs headed up to the warmth
With me asking maybe even out loud " why why why why"
All the way into the room  
And as I passed through the curtain
At 10:00 That Sunday morning  I saw the flip phone flashing
I had missed a call from Don  gonna wish me an early
Merry Christmas
So I'm sure I was smiling as I hit redial
It was his girlfriend Tammy
Hey Tammy how are you
She said "Don just died in the hospital 5 minutes ago"

The room was cold as the late shadows of a winter day
Were muting the view through the window
As I closed up the flip phone on 1974
And managed to sit down  

Late that night as I still sat there
I had a fire going now
I had managed to eat
And I was thinking of past times
The time he drove down to Texas to get married
He came back and I asked  How you like Texas
And he replied "it ****** man . I can't drive down there"
Why ?
"Cause man they got stop lights running sideways
- not up and down so I couldn't tell what to do.

Then I knew without a single doubt
WHY ?
And I did get an answer to the question after all
And just like the old man Tom and the red and green
Because any doubt I've ever had Ever Ever Ever had
About God and heaven or any version of something more...?
Evaporated forever
Don drove ugly green cars because he was colorblind
He couldn't see red and green in the "normal"sense
And that green he said was the PRETTIEST RED HE EVER SEEN"
So on his way by he stopped in with that stupid infectuos grin
And shielded me from the wind
While that sum b made me hang that dang wreath
And changed my life one more time.
      
       I love you dude and you too Tom  (Hey Tom .   is this what you imagined I looked like?)
Merry Mar 2018
According to William Shakespeare,
Poor Tom had wits
And was witless
All whilst in disguise

According to David Bowie,
Major Tom left our blue Earth
And got lost amongst the stars
Becoming the titular Space Oddity

According to Led Zeppelin
Poor Tom was the seventh son
He led a life of work and play
But killed his ***** wife

According to The Cab
Major Tom would sing along
Whilst chastising the dreamer
Or, perhaps, seeing himself in young love

According to all these men
This muse man named Poor Tom
This muse man named Major Tom
All suffered an ill fate

According to I,
Arrogant poetess,
I pose a pondering:
What if they were all the same person?
She could make a cow grow sick and die,
She could sicken a healthy pig,
She could poison somebody’s cottage pie
But she couldn’t harm Tom Rigg.
For Tom wasn’t born of woman
He’d been plucked too soon from the womb,
When his mother lay there dying
From a concoction stirred with a broom.

So he’d grown up broad, and tall and strong
With a warlock cast to his eye,
Whatever the spell she tried on him
He would turn on her, ‘Just try!’
She conjured a flight of vampire bats
To follow him here and there,
But the bats were spurned, and then returned
And they tangled up in her hair.

She would lie in wait by the farmer’s gate
With the graveyard dog in a ditch,
So he’d open the sluice that was not in use,
And soak her, every stitch,
She’d scream, come tumbling after him,
‘You think you’re so fine and big,
I’ll spell that you fall in love with me,
Just see if I don’t, Tom Rigg.’

For deep down under her witch’s pride
Was the beat of a woman’s heart,
And the sight of Tom had sent it, quivering
Shaking itself apart,
But Tom had kept himself to himself
Immune to a woman’s wiles,
Determined to fix the old windmill
On the other side of the stile.

He lived in the ancient tower mill
That he’d bought, picked up for a song,
It hadn’t been used for a hundred years
Since part of the works went wrong,
The sails were seized, poked up at the sky
In a way that said, ‘We’re spent!’
But Tom believed that he knew just why;
The cog on the shaft was bent.

He cleaned it up and he scraped the rust
And he greased the copper sheath,
He checked it over and sideways, down
And he peered from underneath,
But the shaft was rigid, it wouldn’t turn
He was giving up in despair,
When late one night with a mighty crash
There was something amiss out there.

He peered up under a rising moon
There was something caught in the sail,
All he could see was a besom broom
But then came an awful wail,
The witch was caught in the topmost sail
Where she’d swooped in the night unseen,
And now she was clung to the old wood frame
And all she could do was scream.

There wasn’t a ladder that went so high
So all he could do was stare,
‘Now how do you think I could rescue you,
And how did you get up there?’
The mill was starting to creak and groan
As the wind came over the hill,
The sails were starting to slowly turn
With the witch stuck firmly still.

The weight of the witch had freed them up
And she shrieked as the sails whirled round,
While Tom was laughing, joyfully, merrily,
Rolling over the ground,
‘I’ll swear you’ve done me a favour, Jane,
I was going to call it quits,
But now, if ever you come back down,
I’m ready to kiss a witch!’

David Lewis Paget
Michael R Burch Nov 2020
Poems about Icarus

These are poems about Icarus, flying and flights of fancy...



Southern Icarus
by Michael R. Burch

Windborne, lover of heights,
unspooled from the truck’s wildly lurching embrace,
you climb, skittish kite...

What do you know of the world’s despair,
gliding in vast... solitariness... there,
so that all that remains is to
fall?

Only a little longer the wind invests its sighs;
you
stall,
spread-eagled, as the canvas snaps

and *****
its white rebellious wings,
and all

the houses watch with baffled eyes.



Flight 93
by Michael R. Burch

I held the switch in trembling fingers, asked
why existence felt so small, so purposeless,
like a minnow wriggling feebly in my grasp...

vibrations of huge engines thrummed my arms
as, glistening with sweat, I nudged the switch
to OFF... I heard the klaxon's shrill alarms

like vultures’ shriekings... earthward, in a stall...
we floated... earthward... wings outstretched, aghast
like Icarus... as through the void we fell...

till nothing was so beautiful, so blue...
so vivid as that moment... and I held
an image of your face, and dreamed I flew

into your arms. The earth rushed up. I knew
such comfort, in that moment, loving you.



I AM!
by Michael R. Burch

I am not one of ten billion―I―
sunblackened Icarus, chary fly,
staring at God with a quizzical eye.

I am not one of ten billion, I.

I am not one life has left unsquashed―
scarred as Ulysses, goddess-debauched,
pale glowworm agleam with a tale of panache.

I am not one life has left unsquashed.

I am not one without spots of disease,
laugh lines and tan lines and thick-callused knees
from begging and praying and girls sighing "Please!"

I am not one without spots of disease.

I am not one of ten billion―I―
scion of Daedalus, blackwinged fly
staring at God with a sedulous eye.

I am not one of ten billion, I
AM!



Finally to Burn
(the Fall and Resurrection of Icarus)
by Michael R. Burch

Athena takes me
sometimes by the hand

and we go levitating
through strange Dreamlands

where Apollo sleeps
in his dark forgetting

and Passion seems
like a wise bloodletting

and all I remember
, upon awaking,

is: to Love sometimes
is like forsaking

one’s Being―to glide

heroically beyond thought,

forsaking the here
for the There and the Not.



O, finally to Burn,
gravity beyond escaping!

To plummet is Bliss
when the blisters breaking

rain down red scabs
on the earth’s mudpuddle...

Feathers and wax
and the watchers huddle...

Flocculent sheep,
O, and innocent lambs!,

I will rock me to sleep
on the waves’ iambs.



To sleep's sweet relief
from Love’s exhausting Dream,

for the Night has Wings
gentler than Moonbeams―

they will flit me to Life
like a huge-eyed Phoenix

fluttering off
to quarry the Sphinx.



Riddlemethis,
riddlemethat,

Rynosseross,
throw out the Welcome Mat.

Quixotic, I seek Love
amid the tarnished

rusted-out steel
when to live is varnish.

To Dream―that’s the thing!

Aye, that Genie I’ll rub,

soak by the candle,
aflame in the tub.



Riddlemethis,
riddlemethat,

Rynosseross,
throw out the Welcome Mat.

Somewhither, somewhither
aglitter and strange,

we must moult off all knowledge
or perish caged.

*

I am reconciled to Life
somewhere beyond thought―

I’ll Live the Elsewhere,
I’ll Dream of the Naught.

Methinks it no journey;
to tarry’s a waste,

so fatten the oxen;
make a nice baste.

I’m coming, Fool Tom,
we have Somewhere to Go,

though we injure noone,
ourselves wildaglow.

This odd poem invokes and merges with the anonymous medieval poem “Tom O’Bedlam’s Song” and W. H. Auden’s modernist poem “Musee des Beaux Arts,” which in turn refers to Pieter Breughel’s painting “The Fall of Icarus.” In the first stanza Icarus levitates with the help of Athena, the goddess or wisdom, through “strange dreamlands” while Apollo, the sun god, lies sleeping. In the second stanza, Apollo predictably wakes up and Icarus plummets to earth, or back to mundane reality, as in Breughel’s painting and Auden’s poem. In the third stanza the grounded Icarus can still fly, but only in flights of imagination through dreams of love. In the fourth and fifth stanzas Icarus joins Tom Rynosseross of the Bedlam poem in embracing madness by deserting “knowledge” and its cages (ivory towers, etc.). In the final stanza Icarus agrees with Tom that it is “no journey” to wherever they’re going together and also agrees with Tom that they will injure no one along the way, no matter how intensely they glow and radiate. The poem can be taken as a metaphor for the death and rebirth of Poetry, and perhaps as a prophecy that Poetry will rise, radiate and reattain its former glory...



Free Fall (II)
by Michael R. Burch

I have no earthly remembrance of you, as if
we were never of earth, but merely white clouds adrift,
swirling together through Himalayan serene altitudes―
no more man and woman than exhaled breath―unable to fall
back to solid existence, despite the air’s sparseness: all
our being borne up, because of our lightness,
toward the sun’s unendurable brightness...

But since I touched you, fire consumes each wing!

We who are unable to fly, stall
contemplating disaster. Despair like an anchor, like an iron ball,
heavier than ballast, sinks on its thick-looped chain
toward the earth, and soon thereafter there will be sufficient pain
to recall existence, to make the coming darkness everlasting.



Fledglings
by Michael R. Burch

With her small eyes, pale and unforgiving,
she taught me―December is not for those
unweaned of love, the chirping nestlings
who bicker for worms with dramatic throats

still pinkly exposed, who have not yet learned
the first harsh lesson of survival: to devour
their weaker siblings in the high-leafed ferned
fortress and impregnable bower

from which men must fly like improbable dreams
to become poets. They have yet to learn that,
before they can soar starward, like fanciful archaic machines,
they must first assimilate the latest technology, or

lose all in the sudden realization of gravity,
following Icarus’s, sun-unwinged, singed trajectory.



The Higher Atmospheres
by Michael R. Burch

Whatever we became climbed on the thought
of Love itself; we floated on plumed wings
ten thousand miles above the breasted earth
that had vexed us to such Distance; now all things
seem small and pale, a girdle’s handsbreadth girth...

I break upon the rocks; I break; I fling
my human form about; I writhe; I writhe.
Invention is not Mastery, nor wings
Salvation. Here the Vulture cruelly chides
and plunges at my eyes, and coos and sings...

Oh, some will call the sun my doom, but Love
melts callow wax the higher atmospheres
leave brittle. I flew high: not high enough
to melt such frozen resins... thus, Her jeers.



Notes toward an Icarian philosophy of life...
by Michael R. Burch

If the mind’s and the heart’s quests were ever satisfied,
what would remain, as the goals of life?

If there was only light, with no occluding matter,
if there were only sunny mid-afternoons but no mysterious midnights,
what would become of the dreams of men?

What becomes of man’s vision, apart from terrestrial shadows?

And what of man’s character, formed
in the seething crucible of life and death,
hammered out on the anvil of Fate, by Will?

What becomes of man’s aims in the end,
when the hammer’s anthems at last are stilled?

If man should confront his terrible Creator,
capture him, hogtie him, hold his ***** feet to the fire,
roast him on the spit as yet another blasphemous heretic
whose faith is suspect, derelict...
torture a confession from him,
get him to admit, “I did it!...

what then?

Once man has taken revenge
on the Frankenstein who created him
and has justly crucified the One True Monster, the Creator...

what then?

Or, if revenge is not possible,
if the appearance of matter was merely a random accident,
or a group illusion (and thus a conspiracy, perhaps of dunces, us among them),
or if the Creator lies eternally beyond the reach of justice...

what then?

Perhaps there’s nothing left but for man to perfect his character,
to fly as high as his wings will take him toward unreachable suns,
to gamble everything on some unfathomable dream, like Icarus,
then fall to earth, to perish, undone...

or perhaps not, if the mystics are right
about the true nature of darkness and light.

Is there a source of knowledge beyond faith,
a revelation of heaven, of the Triumph of Love?

The Hebrew prophets seemed to think so,
and Paul, although he saw through a glass darkly,
and Julian of Norwich, who heard the voice of God say,
“All shall be well,
and all manner of things shall be well...”

Does hope spring eternal in the human breast,
or does it just blindly *****?



Icarus Bickerous
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

Like Icarus, waxen wings melting,
white tail-feathers fall, bystanders pelting.

They look up amazed
and seem rather dazed―

was it heaven’s or hell’s furious smelting

that fashioned such vulturish wings?
And why are they singed?―

the higher you “rise,” the more halting?



Earthbound, a Vision of Crazy Horse
by Michael R. Burch

Tashunka Witko, a Lakota Sioux better known as Crazy Horse, had a vision of a red-tailed hawk at Sylvan Lake, South Dakota. In his vision he saw himself riding a spirit horse, flying through a storm, as the hawk flew above him, shrieking. When he awoke, a red-tailed hawk was perched near his horse.

Earthbound,
and yet I now fly
through the clouds that are aimlessly drifting...
so high
that no sound
echoing by
below where the mountains are lifting
the sky
can be heard.

Like a bird,
but not meek,
like a hawk from a distance regarding its prey,
I will shriek,
not a word,
but a screech,
and my terrible clamor will turn them to clay―
the sheep,
the earthbound.

Published by American Indian Pride and Boston Poetry Magazine



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

It is the nature of loveliness to vanish
as butterfly wings, batting against nothingness
seek transcendence...

Originally published by Hibiscus (India)



The Wonder Boys
by Michael R. Burch

(for Leslie Mellichamp, the late editor of The Lyric,
who was a friend and mentor to many poets, and
a fine poet in his own right)

The stars were always there, too-bright cliches:
scintillant truths the jaded world outgrew
as baffled poets winged keyed kites―amazed,
in dream of shocks that suddenly came true...

but came almost as static―background noise,
a song out of the cosmos no one hears,
or cares to hear. The poets, starstruck boys,
lay tuned in to their kite strings, saucer-eared.

They thought to feel the lightning’s brilliant sparks
electrify their nerves, their brains; the smoke
of words poured from their overheated hearts.
The kite string, knotted, made a nifty rope...

You will not find them here; they blew away―
in tumbling flight beyond nights’ stars. They clung
by fingertips to satellites. They strayed
too far to remain mortal. Elfin, young,

their words are with us still. Devout and fey,
they wink at us whenever skies are gray.

Originally published by The Lyric



American Eagle, Grounded
by Michael R. Burch

Her predatory eye,
the single feral iris,
scans.

Her raptor beak,
all jagged sharp-edged ******,
juts.

Her hard talon,
clenched in pinched expectation,
waits.

Her clipped wings,
preened against reality,
tremble.

Published as “Tremble” by The Lyric, Verses Magazine, Romantics Quarterly, Journeys, The Raintown Review, Poetic Ponderings, Poem Kingdom (All-Star Tribute), The Fabric of a Vision, NPAC―Net Poetry and Art Competition, Poet’s Haven, Listening To The Birth Of Crystals(Anthology), Poetry Renewal, Inspirational Stories, Poetry Life & Times, MahMag (Iranian/Farsi), The Eclectic Muse (Canada)



Album
by Michael R. Burch

I caress them―trapped in brittle cellophane―
and I see how young they were, and how unwise;
and I remember their first flight―an old prop plane,
their blissful arc through alien blue skies...

And I touch them here through leaves which―tattered, frayed―
are also wings, but wings that never flew:
like insects’ wings―pinned, held. Here, time delayed,
their features never merged, remaining two...

And Grief, which lurked unseen beyond the lens
or in shadows where It crept on furtive claws
as It scritched Its way into their hearts, depends
on sorrows such as theirs, and works Its jaws...

and slavers for Its meat―those young, unwise,
who naively dare to dream, yet fail to see
how, lumbering sunward, Hope, ungainly, flies,
clutching to Her ruffled breast what must not be.



Springtime Prayer
by Michael R. Burch

They’ll have to grow like crazy,
the springtime baby geese,
if they’re to fly to balmier climes
when autumn dismembers the leaves...

And so I toss them loaves of bread,
then whisper an urgent prayer:
“Watch over these, my Angels,
if there’s anyone kind, up there.”

Originally published by The HyperTexts



Learning to Fly
by Michael R. Burch

We are learning to fly
every day...

learning to fly―
away, away...

O, love is not in the ephemeral flight,
but love, Love! is our destination―

graced land of eternal sunrise, radiant beyond night!
Let us bear one another up in our vast migration.



In the Whispering Night
by Michael R. Burch

for George King

In the whispering night, when the stars bend low
till the hills ignite to a shining flame,
when a shower of meteors streaks the sky
while the lilies sigh in their beds, for shame,
we must steal our souls, as they once were stolen,
and gather our vigor, and all our intent.
We must heave our bodies to some famished ocean
and laugh as they vanish, and never repent.
We must dance in the darkness as stars dance before us,
soar, Soar! through the night on a butterfly's breeze...
blown high, upward-yearning, twin spirits returning
to the heights of awareness from which we were seized.

Published by Songs of Innocence, Romantics Quarterly, The Chained Muse and Poetry Life & Times. This is a poem I wrote for my favorite college English teacher, George King, about poetic kinship, brotherhood and romantic flights of fancy.



For a Palestinian Child, with Butterflies
by Michael R. Burch

Where does the butterfly go
when lightning rails,
when thunder howls,
when hailstones scream,
when winter scowls,
when nights compound dark frosts with snow...
Where does the butterfly go?

Where does the rose hide its bloom
when night descends oblique and chill
beyond the capacity of moonlight to fill?
When the only relief's a banked fire's glow,
where does the butterfly go?

And where shall the spirit flee
when life is harsh, too harsh to face,
and hope is lost without a trace?
Oh, when the light of life runs low,
where does the butterfly go?

Published by Tucumcari Literary Review, Romantics Quarterly, Poetry Life & Times, Victorian Violet Press (where it was nominated for a “Best of the Net”), The Contributor (a Nashville homeless newspaper), Siasat (Pakistan), and set to music as a part of the song cycle “The Children of Gaza” which has been performed in various European venues by the Palestinian soprano Dima Bawab



Sioux Vision Quest
by Crazy Horse, Oglala Lakota Sioux (circa 1840-1877)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A man must pursue his Vision
as the eagle explores
the sky's deepest blues.

Published by Better Than Starbucks, A Hundred Voices



in-flight convergence
by Michael R. Burch

serene, almost angelic,
the lights of the city ―― extend ――
over lumbering behemoths
shrilly screeching displeasure;
they say
that nothing is certain,
that nothing man dreams or ordains
long endures his command

here the streetlights that flicker
and those blazing steadfast
seem one: from a distance;
descend,
they abruptly
part ―――――― ways,

so that nothing is one
which at times does not suddenly blend
into garish insignificance
in the familiar alleyways,
in the white neon flash
and the billboards of Convenience

and man seems the afterthought of his own Brilliance
as we thunder down the enlightened runways.

Originally published by The Aurorean and subsequently nominated for the Pushcart Prize



Squall
by Michael R. Burch

There, in that sunny arbor,
in the aureate light
filtering through the waxy leaves
of a stunted banana tree,

I felt the sudden monsoon of your wrath,
the clattery implosions
and copper-bright bursts
of the bottoms of pots and pans.

I saw your swollen goddess’s belly
wobble and heave
in pregnant indignation,
turned tail, and ran.

Published by Chrysanthemum, Poetry Super Highway, Barbitos and Poetry Life & Times



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

Eagle, raven, blackbird, crow...
What you are I do not know.
Where you go I do not care.
I’m unconcerned whose meal you bear.
But as you mount the sunlit sky,
I only wish that I could fly.
I only wish that I could fly.

Robin, hawk or whippoorwill...
Should men care that you hunger still?
I do not wish to see your home.
I do not wonder where you roam.
But as you scale the sky's bright stairs,
I only wish that I were there.
I only wish that I were there.

Sparrow, lark or chickadee...
Your markings I disdain to see.
Where you fly concerns me not.
I scarcely give your flight a thought.
But as you wheel and arc and dive,
I, too, would feel so much alive.
I, too, would feel so much alive.

This is a poem that I believe I wrote as a high school sophomore. But it could have been written a bit later. I seem to remember the original poem being influenced by William Cullen Bryant's "To a Waterfowl."



Flying
by Michael R. Burch

I shall rise
and try the ****** wings of thought
ten thousand times
before I fly...

and then I'll sleep
and waste ten thousand nights
before I dream;
but when at last...

I soar the distant heights of undreamt skies
where never hawks nor eagles dared to go,
as I laugh among the meteors flashing by
somewhere beyond the bluest earth-bound seas...

if I'm not told
I’m just a man,
then I shall know
just what I am.

This is one of my early poems, written around age 16-17. According to my notes, I may have revised the poem later, in 1978, but if so the changes were minor because the poem remains very close to the original.



Stage Craft-y
by Michael R. Burch

There once was a dromedary
who befriended a crafty canary.
Budgie said, "You can’t sing,
but now, here’s the thing―
just think of the tunes you can carry!"



Clyde Lied!
by Michael R. Burch

There once was a mockingbird, Clyde,
who bragged of his prowess, but lied.
To his new wife he sighed,
"When again, gentle bride?"
"Nevermore!" bright-eyed Raven replied.



Less Heroic Couplets: ****** Most Fowl!
by Michael R. Burch

“****** most foul!”
cried the mouse to the owl.

“Friend, I’m no sinner;
you’re merely my dinner!”
the wise owl replied
as the tasty snack died.

Published by Lighten Up Online and in Potcake Chapbook #7

NOTE: In an attempt to demonstrate that not all couplets are heroic, I have created a series of poems called “Less Heroic Couplets.” I believe even poets should abide by truth-in-advertising laws! ― MRB



Lance-Lot
by Michael R. Burch

Preposterous bird!
Inelegant! Absurd!

Until the great & mighty heron
brandishes his fearsome sword.



Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’
by Michael R. Burch

Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ the bees rise
in a dizzy circle of two.
Oh, when I’m with you,
I feel like kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ too.



Delicacy
by Michael R. Burch

for all good mothers

Your love is as delicate
as a butterfly cleaning its wings,
as soft as the predicate
the hummingbird sings
to itself, gently murmuring―
“Fly! Fly! Fly!”
Your love is the string
soaring kites untie.



Lone Wild Goose
by Du Fu (712-770)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The abandoned goose refuses food and drink;
he cries querulously for his companions.

Who feels kinship for that strange wraith
as he vanishes eerily into the heavens?

You watch it as it disappears;
its plaintive calls cut through you.

The indignant crows ignore you both:
the bickering, bantering multitudes.

Du Fu (712-770) is also known as Tu Fu. The first poem is addressed to the poet's wife, who had fled war with their children. Ch'ang-an is an ironic pun because it means "Long-peace."



The Red Cockatoo
by Po Chu-I (772-846)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A marvelous gift from Annam―
a red cockatoo,
bright as peach blossom,
fluent in men's language.

So they did what they always do
to the erudite and eloquent:
they created a thick-barred cage
and shut it up.

Po Chu-I (772-846) is best known today for his ballads and satirical poems. Po Chu-I believed poetry should be accessible to commoners and is noted for his simple diction and natural style. His name has been rendered various ways in English: Po Chu-I, Po Chü-i, Bo Juyi and Bai Juyi.



The Migrant Songbird
Li Qingzhao aka Li Ching-chao (c. 1084-1155)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The migrant songbird on the nearby yew
brings tears to my eyes with her melodious trills;
this fresh downpour reminds me of similar spills:
another spring gone, and still no word from you...



Lines from Laolao Ting Pavilion
by Li Bai (701-762)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The spring breeze knows partings are bitter;
The willow twig knows it will never be green again.



The Day after the Rain
Lin Huiyin (1904-1955)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I love the day after the rain
and the meadow's green expanses!
My heart endlessly rises with wind,
gusts with wind...
away the new-mown grasses and the fallen leaves...
away the clouds like smoke...
vanishing like smoke...



Untitled Translations

Cupid, if you incinerate my soul, touché!
For like you she has wings and can fly away!
―Meleager, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

As autumn deepens,
a butterfly sips
chrysanthemum dew.
―Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come, butterfly,
it’s late
and we’ve a long way to go!
―Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Up and at ’em! The sky goes bright!
Let’***** the road again,
Companion Butterfly!
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Ah butterfly,
what dreams do you ply
with your beautiful wings?
―Chiyo-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, dreamlike winter butterfly:
a puff of white snow
cresting mountains
―Kakio Tomizawa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Dry leaf flung awry:
bright butterfly,
goodbye!
―Michael R. Burch, original haiku

Will we remain parted forever?
Here at your grave:
two flowerlike butterflies
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

a soaring kite flits
into the heart of the sun?
Butterfly & Chrysanthemum
―Michael R. Burch, original haiku

The cheerful-chirping cricket
contends gray autumn's gay,
contemptuous of frost
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Whistle on, twilight whippoorwill,
solemn evangelist
of loneliness
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The sea darkening,
the voices of the wild ducks:
my mysterious companions!
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Lightning
shatters the darkness―
the night heron's shriek
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

This snowy morning:
cries of the crow I despise
(ah, but so beautiful!)
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

A crow settles
on a leafless branch:
autumn nightfall.
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hush, cawing crows; what rackets you make!
Heaven's indignant messengers,
you remind me of wordsmiths!
―O no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Higher than a skylark,
resting on the breast of heaven:
this mountain pass.
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

An exciting struggle
with such a sad ending:
cormorant fishing.
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Does my soul abide in heaven, or hell?
Only the sea gull
in his high, lonely circuits, may tell.
―Glaucus, translation by Michael R. Burch

The eagle sees farther
from its greater height―
our ancestors’ wisdom
―Michael R. Burch, original haiku

A kite floats
at the same place in the sky
where yesterday it floated...
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Critical Mass
by Michael R. Burch

I have listened to the rain all this morning
and it has a certain gravity,
as if it knows its destination,
perhaps even its particular destiny.
I do not believe mine is to be uplifted,
although I, too, may be flung precipitously
and from a great height.

"Gravity" and "particular destiny" are puns, since rain droplets are seeded by minute particles of dust adrift in the atmosphere and they fall due to gravity when they reach "critical mass." The title is also a pun, since the poem is skeptical about heaven-lauding Masses, etc.



Ultimate Sunset
by Michael R. Burch

for my father, Paul Ray Burch, Jr.

he now faces the Ultimate Sunset,
his body like the leaves that fray as they dry,
shedding their vital fluids (who knows why?)
till they’ve become even lighter than the covering sky,
ready to fly...



Free Fall
by Michael R. Burch

for my father, Paul Ray Burch, Jr.

I see the longing for departure gleam
in his still-keen eye,
and I understand his desire
to test this last wind, like those late autumn leaves
with nothing left to cling to...



Leaf Fall
by Michael R. Burch

Whatever winds encountered soon resolved
to swirling fragments, till chaotic heaps
of leaves lay pulsing by the backyard wall.
In lieu of rakes, our fingers sorted each
dry leaf into its place and built a high,
soft bastion against earth's gravitron―
a patchwork quilt, a trampoline, a bright
impediment to fling ourselves upon.

And nothing in our laughter as we fell
into those leaves was like the autumn's cry
of also falling. Nothing meant to die
could be so bright as we, so colorful―
clad in our plaids, oblivious to pain
we'd feel today, should we leaf-fall again.

Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea



The Folly of Wisdom
by Michael R. Burch

She is wise in the way that children are wise,
looking at me with such knowing, grave eyes
I must bend down to her to understand.
But she only smiles, and takes my hand.

We are walking somewhere that her feet know to go,
so I smile, and I follow...

And the years are dark creatures concealed in bright leaves
that flutter above us, and what she believes―
I can almost remember―goes something like this:
the prince is a horned toad, awaiting her kiss.

She wiggles and giggles, and all will be well
if only we find him! The woodpecker’s knell
as he hammers the coffin of some dying tree
that once was a fortress to someone like me

rings wildly above us. Some things that we know
we are meant to forget. Life is a bloodletting, maple-syrup-slow.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly



Kin
by Michael R. Burch

for Richard Moore

1.
Shrill gulls,
how like my thoughts
you, struggling, rise
to distant bliss―
the weightless blue of skies
that are not blue
in any atmosphere,
but closest here...

2.
You seek an air
so clear,
so rarified
the effort leaves you famished;
earthly tides
soon call you back―
one long, descending glide...

3.
Disgruntledly you ***** dirt shores for orts
you pull like mucous ropes
from shells’ bright forts...
You eye the teeming world
with nervous darts―
this way and that...

Contentious, shrewd, you scan―
the sky, in hope,
the earth, distrusting man.



Songstress
by Michael R. Burch

Within its starkwhite ribcage, how the heart
must flutter wildly, O, and always sing
against the pressing darkness: all it knows
until at last it feels the numbing sting
of death. Then life's brief vision swiftly passes,
imposing night on one who clearly saw.
Death held your bright heart tightly, till its maw―
envenomed, fanged―could swallow, whole, your Awe.
And yet it was not death so much as you
who sealed your doom; you could not help but sing
and not be silenced. Here, behold your tomb's
white alabaster cage: pale, wretched thing!
But you'll not be imprisoned here, wise wren!
Your words soar free; rise, sing, fly, live again.

A poet like Nadia Anjuman can be likened to a caged bird, deprived of flight, who somehow finds it within herself to sing of love and beauty. But when the world finally robs her of both flight and song, what is left for her but to leave the world, thus bereaving the world of herself and her song?



Performing Art
by Michael R. Burch

Who teaches the wren
in its drab existence
to explode into song?

What parodies of irony
does the jay espouse
with its sharp-edged tongue?

What instinctual memories
lend stunning brightness
to the strange dreams

of the dull gray slug
―spinning its chrysalis,
gluing rough seams―

abiding in darkness
its transformation,
till, waving damp wings,

it applauds its performance?
I am done with irony.
Life itself sings.



Lean Harvests
by Michael R. Burch

for T.M.

the trees are shedding their leaves again:
another summer is over.
the Christians are praising their Maker again,
but not the disconsolate plover:
i hear him berate
the fate
of his mate;
he claims God is no body’s lover.

Published by The Rotary Dial and Angle



My Forty-Ninth Year
by Michael R. Burch

My forty-ninth year
and the dew remembers
how brightly it glistened
encrusting September,...
one frozen September
when hawks ruled the sky
and death fell on wings
with a shrill, keening cry.

My forty-ninth year,
and still I recall
the weavings and windings
of childhood, of fall...
of fall enigmatic,
resplendent, yet sere,...
though vibrant the herald
of death drawing near.

My forty-ninth year
and now often I've thought on
the course of a lifetime,
the meaning of autumn,
the cycle of autumn
with winter to come,
of aging and death
and rebirth... on and on.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly as “My Twenty-Ninth Year”



Myth
by Michael R. Burch

Here the recalcitrant wind
sighs with grievance and remorse
over fields of wayward gorse
and thistle-throttled lanes.

And she is the myth of the scythed wheat
hewn and sighing, complete,
waiting, lain in a low sheaf―
full of faith, full of grief.

Here the immaculate dawn
requires belief of the leafed earth
and she is the myth of the mown grain―
golden and humble in all its weary worth.



What Works
by Michael R. Burch

for David Gosselin

What works―
hewn stone;
the blush the iris shows the sun;
the lilac’s pale-remembered bloom.

The frenzied fly: mad-lively, gay,
as seconds tick his time away,
his sentence―one brief day in May,
a period. And then decay.

A frenzied rhyme’s mad tip-toed time,
a ballad’s languid as the sea,
seek, striving―immortality.

When gloss peels off, what works will shine.
When polish fades, what works will gleam.
When intellectual prattle pales,
the dying buzzing in the hive
of tedious incessant bees,
what works will soar and wheel and dive
and milk all honey, leap and thrive,

and teach the pallid poem to seethe.



Desdemona
by Michael R. Burch

Though you possessed the moon and stars,
you are bound to fate and wed to chance.
Your lips deny they crave a kiss;
your feet deny they ache to dance.
Your heart imagines wild romance.

Though you cupped fire in your hands
and molded incandescent forms,
you are barren now, and―spent of flame―
the ashes that remain are borne
toward the sun upon a storm.

You, who demanded more, have less,
your heart within its cells of sighs
held fast by chains of misery,
confined till death for peddling lies―
imprisonment your sense denies.

You, who collected hearts like leaves
and pressed each once within your book,
forgot. None―winsome, bright or rare―
not one was worth a second look.
My heart, as others, you forsook.

But I, though I loved you from afar
through silent dawns, and gathered rue
from gardens where your footsteps left
cold paths among the asters, knew―
each moonless night the nettles grew

and strangled hope, where love dies too.

Published by Penny Dreadful, Carnelian, Romantics Quarterly, Grassroots Poetry and Poetry Life & Times



Transplant
by Michael R. Burch

You float, unearthly angel, clad in flesh
as strange to us who briefly knew your flame
as laughter to disease. And yet you laugh.
Behind your smile, the sun forfeits its claim
to earth, and floats forever now the same―
light captured at its moment of least height.

You laugh here always, welcoming the night,
and, just a photograph, still you can claim
bright rapture: like an angel, not of flesh―
but something more, made less. Your humanness
this moment of release becomes a name
and something else―a radiance, a strange
brief presence near our hearts. How can we stand
and chain you here to this nocturnal land
of burgeoning gray shadows? Fly, begone.
I give you back your soul, forfeit all claim
to radiance, and welcome grief’s dark night
that crushes all the laughter from us. Light
in someone Else’s hand, and sing at ease
some song of brightsome mirth through dawn-lit trees
to welcome morning’s sun. O daughter! these
are eyes too weak for laughter; for love’s sight,
I welcome darkness, overcome with light.



Prodigal
by Michael R. Burch

This poem is dedicated to Kevin Longinotti, who died four days short of graduation from Vanderbilt University, the victim of a tornado that struck Nashville on April 16, 1998.

You have graduated now,
to a higher plane
and your heart’s tenacity
teaches us not to go gently
though death intrudes.

For eighteen days
―jarring interludes
of respite and pain―
with life only faintly clinging,
like a cashmere snow,
testing the capacity
of the blood banks
with the unstaunched flow
of your severed veins,
in the collapsing declivity,
in the sanguine haze
where Death broods,
you struggled defiantly.

A city mourns its adopted son,
flown to the highest ranks
while each heart complains
at the harsh validity
of God’s ways.

On ponderous wings
the white clouds move
with your captured breath,
though just days before
they spawned the maelstrom’s
hellish rift.

Throw off this mortal coil,
this envelope of flesh,
this brief sheath
of inarticulate grief
and transient joy.

Forget the winds
which test belief,
which bear the parchment leaf
down life’s last sun-lit path.

We applaud your spirit, O Prodigal,
O Valiant One,
in its percussive flight into the sun,
winging on the heart’s last madrigal.



Breakings
by Michael R. Burch

I did it out of pity.
I did it out of love.
I did it not to break the heart of a tender, wounded dove.

But gods without compassion
ordained: Frail things must break!
Now what can I do for her shattered psyche’s sake?

I did it not to push.
I did it not to shove.
I did it to assist the flight of indiscriminate Love.

But gods, all mad as hatters,
who legislate in all such matters,
ordained that everything irreplaceable shatters.



An Illusion
by Michael R. Burch

The sky was as hushed as the breath of a bee
and the world was bathed in shades of palest gold
when I awoke.

She came to me with the sound of falling leaves
and the scent of new-mown grass;
I held out my arms to her and she passed

into oblivion...

This is one of my early poems, written around age 16 and published in my high school literary journal, The Lantern.



Lines for My Ascension
by Michael R. Burch

I.

If I should die,
there will come a Doom,
and the sky will darken
to the deepest Gloom.

But if my body
should not be found,
never think of me
in the cold ground.

II.

If I should die,
let no mortal say,
“Here was a man,
with feet of clay,

or a timid sparrow
God’s hand let fall.”
But watch the sky darken
to an eerie pall

and know that my Spirit,
unvanquished, broods,
and cares naught for graves,
prayers, coffins, or roods.

And if my body
should not be found,
never think of me
in the cold ground.

III.

If I should die,
let no man adore
his incompetent Maker:
Zeus, Jehovah, or Thor.

Think of Me as One
who never died―
the unvanquished Immortal
with the unriven side.

And if my body
should not be found,
never think of me
in the cold ground.

IV.

And if I should “die,”
though the clouds grow dark
as fierce lightnings rend
this bleak asteroid, stark...

If you look above,
you will see a bright Sign―
the sun with the moon
in its arms, Divine.

So divine, if you can,
my bright meaning, and know―
my Spirit is mine.
I will go where I go.

And if my body
should not be found,
never think of me
in the cold ground.



The Locker
by Michael R. Burch

All the dull hollow clamor has died
and what was contained,
removed,

reproved
adulation or sentiment,
left with the pungent darkness

as remembered as the sudden light.

Originally published by The Raintown Review



Keywords/Tags: Sports, locker, lockerroom, clamor, adulation, acclaim, applause, sentiment, darkness, light, retirement, athlete, team, trophy, award, acclamation


Keywords/Tags: Icarus, Daedalus, flight, fly, flying, wind, wings, sun, height, heights, fall, falling, ascent, descent, imagination, bird, birds, butterfly, butterflies, hawk, eagle, geese, plane, kite, kites, mrbfly, mrbflight, mrbicarus
Giselle Jimenez Nov 2016
Tom walked to the door slowly, his heart heavy and his mind hesitant. He knew who would be there, and he knew why. For fifteen years she had been stopping by his apartment, and every time the enjoyed their evening together. Today, though, was different. Today, he would go back to the part of his mind where she would only exist as a happy memory. Tom was acting. He would move on. He would let go.
     Tom approached the door. He heard the familiar knocking. The knocking that no one could hear but him. At the same time, another knocking that no one could hear was getting louder in Tom's ears. The knocking of Tom's  broken heart, echoing the knocking on the door, the door Tom stood before now. He grasped the ****. The doorknob was oddly cold to Tom's hand; ordinarily Tom would explain to anyone listening that the doorknob was exactly the same as always, and that it only felt cold because Tom's hands were hot and sweaty, but now Tom only stared out the doorknob and took a deep breath.
I will be uploading several parts of this short story

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