May be I’ll start writing, today.  
The story of Zen Zero.

I realized that all good things come to an end.  The tears, the affairs, and even the faintest revelation about my relationship to the Emperor of Japan.  I’ll need help and... well, the truth can be tolled.  It can be that the faintest belief, that we as free people are subject to the king, our God.
A king stands in truth as our kin.  The love that has existed for a thousand years, about justice, permanence, and legend are here.
It all started 7 years ago.  According to the book of John, the 3rd book.  The face of his majesty does have an Imperial Guardian.  In any colour, red, black, blue, white, and even green.  Each color resembles the color of trust.  
I started training in the Emperor's garden at the age of negative 6.  Before my mother can conceive her unborn child in a marriage.  Like the burning of Shin Cho' Palace.  
"Oh, how they forget so quickly, the truth?" says my mother.
They forget so quickly the majesty and power of the Emperor's memory of Mother Japan.  In his Majesty's eyes, how many lovers stir the colors of benevolence.  Where and when does it exist and stop for us as an American patriot sold to slavery for spy’s.  All of his subjects do will and listen to the cry of patience in his family’s quarters.  
My father at the time of his marriage did not know the Emperor's name, I had asked my mother in her heart if she knew the king.  They are no longer married.  They had tried to burn down the Emperor's Palace with a marriage.  But I had already existed, in the love of my family at a wedding joining men and women.  I remember some singing, all though in my mother’s ears, really bad singing. In her head or mine at the wedding, whichever is greater.  Maybe the song was worthless or was the singer already lifting her fingers to strike matches on the bamboo fortress of the young emperor.  
They have had many statesmen destroy the dream that Japan has.  Through lies, corruption, and *******.  Each of the last three I had to conquer to be his Majesty's Justice.  I did not earn the right to judge any such subject or people, it was given freely at that time to children.  I had learned to love the Emperor, even in my own desire to please him and her.  
The lies were towering revelations about the coming of man in God's kingdom, and how the will of imperial veils never existed for the properties of mankind.  The corruption was the setting of dowers or dowries for the subject of lost families, in the forbearance of lucher escaped only by the luck of liars.  And then the dreams of revelry, owned by the ungodly and chaste men of the burning palace, whether sediscious, or whether the fables absolving time in the palace to a judgment had already met the Emperor.  
All of the priests (pre-ests) had to pray; for the remaining time of eternity, for the true judgment of his Majesty's subjects. It was to be taken from the subject of srys to the Emperor's Knight.  
To many were lost in the munitions of war.  Laws that govern and sanction truths were not available to those of absolute corruption.  Stalwarts, stonewallers, and stoners were becoming of the anti-gentry.  The laws were never to be discouraged by zeal, or by trial.  The laws had to represent the ability of love to change time even if the object of factions destroyed the old way.  They had taken the truth to prepare Neoteny for where the first Imperial Guard had placed his head.  The first Imperial Guard, that I became before birth had taken his own head with a weapon made by treason.  
My mother’s dress was made out of spider silk.  A giant spider played Chinese checkers with the Imperial Guard for my head also.  Never the less, the palace, this time was not burned.  The dress was made out of falling stars and spiders silk.  She had found the Emperor's tailor and traded my soul for the wedding.  The pictures that were retrieved from the wedding of my mother and father have ruminated in antiquity since the time until by birth my life.  The seers and srys wanted my head to take up the Emperor's chalice.  His cup, filled with my blood, Simian blood.  
I did not want to go through with it, birth and death before becoming subject to royalty.  Seeing the world before consummation, as I had was never thought of, it was seen as impossible unless by treason we had chided a woman of royalty.  
I have seen the last major asteroid go through our galaxy before it had ever had been a present particle of mutiny.   It proved to the child (myself) in gestation, between man woman at the wedding that time will pass just as quickly before my mind’s eye as it had at the day of Pentecost.   More than 500 billon people were to be saved by God rather than by a humble dismantling of a defense lawyer.
I had seen how flowers are made by tiny Zen Zero bumble bees going to and leaving from daisies and roses, and orchids.  How each seed takes roots and as do the munitions for treason and tears; how each man whom chooses to change their name because of treason begins to understand change when his wife chooses his name.  (The reference is to Zero attacks, suicide attacks.)  How the time and life and essence of life begins in literacy as a language of love.  Every old man on earth can help me write the scripts, but can the country of old men help me change the prophet?
As long as there is war in the palace there will be treason?
The spirit of the samurai was trying the youth in the palace.  From the first born male to the last lady in quixic geisha.  All uniques were to be placed before the Lord for appointment.  Any dreams of or visions of truth were a breach of solemnity lost by the virginity of the family.  The parents of each state were subjects to the Emperor's people, and to the chosen for freedom and slavery.  How many shining knights were to remain in the Emperor's house?  The uniqueness was subject only to the reason of the generation of the age.  Not many of my men had anything left after the life of the quill or pen of the Knight Meteyi had begun to take its place with the heads of loyalists.  His sword remains in the hand of the Majesty of Japan.  No knowledge, no lore, no president, no kin, or liars can stop his reign.  As if the last days of our youth were spent dismantling the bombs we had made during the last few battles over crude extravagance.  Oil, crops, metals, space, as space became a way to admire men in statehood was the example of treason to the following.  Democrats and Republicans began to try as is a trail of laws to and from changes for the people without a loyal subject to observe in service to a Nation.  Freed men became a bureau of Federally Bureaucratic Investigative subjections.  Whether the phone would sense its use and had no service.  Men tried by srys had needed no way to communicate, they were objects, objections, and objective to democracies.  Any and all of the western knowledge of good or evil was not earned in monasteries, it was as it were seen in-between a marriage of a man and a woman and the consummation of the first born to be the king in his own mind. Centrally, intelligence and agency became a lost paradox.  The palace could be burned through neoteny, the truly lost man or woman had to be part of the worm.  The earthworm had to dig up the lost and the prophet from its own humanly death.  

Chapter 2
The dress as simple as it was, was taken off and laid in a box for saving.  It was to travel through time in the Emperor's Palace to serve has a mold, a pattern for quilting lovers of the family tree through the history of love.  After the child was conceived in love, the dress is worn and then placed back into the box for time travel. From a generation of mothers to another generation of lovers. No man was to wear the dress as an idea, thought or wisdom.  The reproach, the dress, and the marriage is virtue encoded into a structure of life   The wisest man let the Emperor dream life into the belly of prophets through the dress.  The smartest scientist understood the impeccable reason of lust and gave all to his bride for the grave that the earthworm had trusted.  The publican had the dress made as a dowry to the tribe of Roman man.  And the Emperor breathed life into the woman with a few breaths at the wedding.  The subjects, the publicans had tried the Emperor for their bride, by making the flowers lean toward their lovers.  They had tried to tell the knight of the Emperor's Palace that the sun had also retired due to mutiny in the ranks and castes of statesmen.  The son will bend light into the palace of wisdom, and the subjects do grieve the stories from prophets.  
At exactly 10:03 central eastern standard time, the states men forgave themselves of suicide and left to burn the palace.  
Each dressed as royalists.  The burning of Chinju Palace is the last thing I remember before giving up to the sound of a 3 or 4 year old woman singing.  The next thing I remember is being dropped on the floor in the delivery room to a rattle and brattle of childish whims.  Like, the sound of laughter, but only as a fury of deceit, the singer was hurt when I had asked her to join the wedding ceremony.  She excused herself of the ceremony as was or were not subjects to the birth of the kings men in harmony.  

She tried, and wanted to steal the dress.  

Chapter 3
There was mostly nothing in the womb. Except Dogma.  My father, as dogma.  He would whisper to her in bed and they would giggle about never understanding anything ever again.  I excepted NAME for my name.  They didn’t know if a boy or a girl were to be born.  I could know the difference at the time of their conversation.  I then realized that the 3 years prior to conception were perfect.  And I, the Emperor's Knight, was tolled.  Tolled the way bells sound and the way people love to hear the news.  The way light has no existence in the womb, I was tolled the way Sandalphon treaded upon the tribe of Israel.  
Lying was not invented yet, well,... while in the womb, but I had heard some whispers in the darkness.  The camera couldn't fit in, I called and tolled the camera from the womb, in between to friends.  I called the camera, Dragon.  The dragon is the trust moving in-between true and time.  The Dragon, Meteyi had told me that we were going to write everything.  From the believe that martial arts were stronger than prayer, and to the reason that it was not true.  Factually, there was nothing but prayer and no martial artist had a sword bigger than the lie of the Emperor's dragon.  The dragon said, to my father,..."The world is to die for, and not enough."  The dragon also said to my mother,..."The purpose is in your belly as a rainbow in disgust."  He, the dragon almost couldn’t believe that I had mentioned to hymn that there was no way out of this without a dream so relax and let me fit in.  The doctor had to have heard of the loyalist dream of a birth right.  Basically, I didn’t want him to slap me for the first breath.  I hurt bad, like out of a sarcastic Scotlandish parody.  Many, many, many, men quit trying to go through the sry after that.  My mother creeped up to me after my kin had asked the doctor to pick me up off of the floor.  She smiled and handed the birth certificate to the nurse and read my social security number to my father on the phone, he was on duty at the Air Force Base.  My ears were still clogged with seminal fluid, but I could feel her dream a name into my soul.  She can know the Emperor's knight.  After a few moments, my cry as chide by the Emperor, into being a whisper of life.  From that moment on in my life, I could not cry ever, as a child cries.  Otherwise I could be a whisper.

Chapter 4
Every chance at change that had gotten to us was used by running from the dragon.  He liked Batman and hated Robin but new to fathers, knew that hatred kept something’s safe from the palace. The palace could never get filled by whispers.  The whispers only object to democracy and help the camera.  The daguerreotype was possibly the only thing that couldn’t lie.  It was considered lye to gossip worshipers.  Gossip may have started the war on bugs.  Like bugs in ceaseless noise are prayer or whispers, like gossip.  When bugs stop whispering, some seemingly are bad with superstition and others are horrible with bugs.  
The next few years, were also perfect.  I had no idea who else, I could be.  Absolutely perfect, the Emperor subjected us to love.  I could **** all day, eat as much as I wanted and was warned when they thought, like a whisper.  When it was time to eat, when it was time to bath and when it was time to be quiet and sleep were similar to whispers.  Diapers were not invented yet, I had to invent them.  My mother used to get sick from the pain of laundry and sleeping with me.  When the diapers were *****, she wash them and place them back on my ****.  Like a good, palace guardian, I used them up.  The new diapers had an air of mutiny to them, the disposable ones.  We never kept trash in the house.  The signs that we have had a king for dinner were never to be seen, but everyone had the right to change pants.  
Many of the ideas in life shared before birth were not existent after birth.  It was not until my family had meet the Emperor that... we needed to love God by learning to pray.  

Chapter 5
When we met the Emperor, it was easy to say that no whispers were used.  Other things were.  A memory, not a book was here.  There was no time, the palace he made for me was from God and a lot of people wanted in.  The Royal subject was the Emperor's first knight, my father's.  I had to memorize time, which in turn was not mine.  The actual Emperor thought, that I, am a poet of sorts.  We spelled the word memory in the sky together without words, whispers, or gossip.  The next few years were spent dyeing as tap or a drill bit would being to make a hole for fastening life to the surface of my families.  Called a tap and die, the whole of life must be treaded through time without a spry attempt to vacancy.  After the Emperor, my mother and father did not know that meeting the pope was bad.   The Emperor is good.  

Chapter 6
Mainly my ability to learn, had started to fail.  There was not need to have ability.  But walking was hard.  When I stood, I was pushed through, walking.  Like a battle of balance and superstition.  Crawling had no sense, being picked up made things silly.  When wanting to be here, and not knowing how to get there through crawling, here I was a a chubby fat knight.  Father used lemons on my taste buds and cracked when he knew not how I loved them.  He had to make work to pay bills and I learned that without a whisper.  So we would sh

It was early morning when she descended the steps
to the porch side, teacup in hand, dressed in her nightgown.
Steam billowed from her cup, and with a swallow
she examined her garden of weeds and unexpected peonies.
It was early for blooming peonies; frost, like glass,
still settled on the lawn, reflecting sunrise light of tangerine.

The radiant glow of tangerine
cast amber trails across steps
covered in an icy coating of glass.
Between her fingers she tucked her nightgown
and gingerly treaded the garden of peonies
that melted the frost in one great flower swallow.

The barn swallow,
perched not far from the path of tangerine,
must have also taken notice of the peonies
as he took the first steps
to nest-building. She imagined that his lady bird, also in her nightgown,
would enjoy the flowerbed of glass

that he chose for their home. Sipping her glass
of tea, she admired the familiar swallow
lover as she folded into her nightgown
bouquets of peonies that glistened in the tangerine
sunlight. She took the steps
back to the house, recalling her own swallow’s peonies:

Peonies
placed in vases of glass,
peonies lining the porch steps,
peonies presented over morning tea. With a swallow,
she carefully, methodically lined the tangerine
trail with the peonies from her nightgown.

Her nightgown,
stained with the rouge petals of peonies,
dragged along the tangerine
terrace of glass,
blood red with the memory of her swallow
lover’s peony-petaled steps.

The steps to the house creaked beneath her nightgown.
The barn swallow, quieted by the rouge of the peonies,
shut his glass eyes to the skies of tangerine.

The new day still saw the man
Whose livelihood was rubber.
He had worked really hard; earning his darkened tan,
He was the plantation's tapper.

The evening sun had long set
Leaving the plantation in a shroud of darkness.
Relying on what little light the moon would let.
He treaded carefully; sidestepping potholes and jutting buttress.

His sack slung over one shoulder,
He found his way to his trusty ride.
Nightly routine he would execute over and over
Mounted his bicycle and rode off with the moon as guide.

All day long, he had been thinking of the night before.
He had then learnt that he was the target of a ghostly trick.
As he cycled, he got worked up, more and more...
He cursed the spirit who had made him the fool so quick!

As he looked ahead, straining his eyes to discern the sandy track.
His eyes caught something that came within sight.
Standing by the side against a background of black.
There she was again...all garbed in white...

Dear human- as- possible Human,

I wonder what goes on
in your head besides the times of
when you strive to help people?
Sometimes, do you just sit there
and gaze out the window, staring at a cloud going by,
and seeing a face in the cloud,
or seeing something in an object that would
remind you of something?
Do you sometimes pour water into a glass,
just so that you could put it
in the sunlight and look through
the beautiful crystals at eye level,
and just marvel and dream?
Do you sometimes just have
a blank sheet of paper in front of you,
a pen in one hand, and a lamp on,
and do you just sit there,
unsure of which of your ideas
would be meaningful enough to place on paper,
and for the whole world to see?
If these things happen often
during your life, then you and I
are both much more alike than we thought.
And that might be a good thing.
Because sometimes, the coincidences,
the overlapping actions,
and the identical ideals of two people
finally meeting and emerging together,
is like the collision of the sun and
the moon, forming a beautiful, rare,
magnificent eclipse.
And the best part is, let there be
as many eclipses as the stars
in this universe, and no two eclipses
would ever be the same.
I hope that you will come to realize
that you are not alone in this world,
and may we meet very soon.
For as each footstep on the
lightly treaded clouds, stars,
and cement roads,
are never there for long.
They will always be fading away, like ripples in the water.
When we find ourselves
facing one another on the same path,
let’s slowly stretch our hands
out towards each other,
and intertwine your fingers
with my fingers.
That is reuniting all the lost souls in the universe.
Let me gaze into your eyes,
and fall deep into them, like a feather
somehow going against all the rules
of gravity and sense, graciously sinking
to the bottom of the sea.
That is the loneliness and aching pains sinking away
to the core of the earth.

I swirled my fingertips on the surface of the water and sent a message across with shiny, glossy ripples that grew slowly, and gracefully. He kneeled on the other side of the moonlit pond and watched as the ripples from my fingertips reached him. He cupped the ripples of the water into his palm and drank the cold water, sighing happily.
“What does it taste like?” I whispered hoarsely, as loud as I dared to be while knowing we would be reprimanded fiercely for sneaking out of the huts at this time of night.
“Love” he called back.
I burst out laughing in panting breaths and tried to stifle the noise with my fists. I heard him bellow out, and the echoes rang freely through the woods before he quickly shoved his face into the water and laughed in there, the bubbles of his laughter surfacing violently.
“You idiot” I whispered joyfully when he brought his head up from the water, his dark hair curled against his forehead, “I didn’t even write anything to do with love. I wrote how foolish of a boy you are.”
“And you still stick with me so that’s love isn’t it?” he teased me. His finger tips swirled in the water for a minute. “Your turn to taste, Masra”
I waited till the ripples hit the side of the pond and quickly dipped my tongue in and lapped the water. I pursed my lips, pretending to debate what his message was. The surface of the black water was littered with reflection of the stars. It was so beautiful that I momentarily forgot the little game we were playing and gasped, “Oh stars!”
He took a quick intake of breath and stared up at me with wide eyes. “Really?” he asked in an unbelieving tone.
“What do you mean?”
“Stars?” he asked again, sounding like a sweet little confused child.
“Yes!” I laughed. “Stars!” and I splashed the surface of the water to show him.
He shook his head. “I can’t believe you could read, I mean, taste that... That’s incredible…”
It took me a second to realize what he was talking about. I decided to play along anyways and whispered dramatically, “Yeah, but I didn’t know what you were trying to say”
“A million stones on fire with wishes
Yet the brightest star is not up there” he recited his favorite lines from an old love poem.
“You are disgustingly soppy” I got up from kneeling by the pond and treaded softly on the dry leaves so that they wouldn’t crackle so loud. Reaching him, I kneeled down beside him and ran my fingers through his curly wet locks. His dark eyelashes were still wet with water and the chestnut eyes gleamed brightly.
I curled into his lap comfortably like a cat and he rolled over with me lying on top, while his strong arms held me. I buried my face into the skin of his beautiful brown neck and inhaled the sweet, musky smell. Reab smoothed my hair before murmuring huskily, “Why do you always do that?”
“It smells like you, the old Reab smell. It makes me feel safe and warm and happy.”
“I love you.”
“Do you think we’ll always be happy like this?” I asked, speaking of my deepest fear.
“I will never stop loving you, if that’s what you mean. And if we are caught sneaking out, I’m pretty sure no one would be too surprised. They all know from the way I look at you I intend to marry you when Chief thinks you’re old enough and finally say okay.”
I laughed at the thought of Chief being able to give me away.
With my parents both gone since I was a baby, Chief had adopted me as his daughter and he loved me tremendously for all his lecturing ways. Reab laughed a little too but without any fear of Chief rejecting him. Chief loved Reab too and approved of us most of the time.
“Do you remember when he caught us making ‘sheep-eyes’ at each other as he put it and he was furious?” We chuckled at the memory of Chief turning storm on us, declaring we were too young.
“What would he say now?” he turned my face to face his and kissed me for a while, with the wind blowing the tendrils of my hair on his face. He smiled mid-way through our kiss, for the soft strands of my hair on his face always tickled him.
I didn’t want to continue with my question after that happy moment. But I had to; he was the only man who would tell me the truth. “Our tribe has enemies. We have many men, many strong men… but I know we are in a constant threat. I have seen the midnight meetings you men hold when you think we are asleep and more weapons that normal are being made nowadays.”
He looked at me with sad eyes; with so much love and desire burning in them that my own eyes began to swell up with tears. I fluttered my lids to get rid of the wetness but he reached over and caught a tear on his pinky and licked it. Then he licked all the tears off my face and I giggled as his tongue flicked over the tearstains on my cheeks.
“The tribe is in some danger. You and I are not. I will love you forever.” I shook my head and was about to interrupt with another fearful question when he continued, “You know what Chief always says. We don’t live just one life. I loved you since we were babies. You know what I think?”
“What?” I asked, his voice slightly soothing my fears.
“I think I’ve known you before. There’s no way you can know someone the way I know you in the short life time we’ve lived. This is not the first time we’ve met.”
“You’re not worried if a battle comes we won’t be together?”
“No.” he answered and kissed my forehead.
“Why?” I couldn’t get rid off the idea of such a terrible fate.
“I think…” he struggled to get the words out, “I think we’ll always be together somehow. Masra, I’m… I’m just not afraid”
We lay there for a while until I fell asleep in his arms. I was awoken a little later with him shaking me softly for us to sneak back into our own huts.
There was a little advantage in having both my parents gone. Lela, my cousin who shared the hut with me, stirred only a little as I crept back in.



“I’ve been hearing from your sister that lately you have been waking very late. I don’t approve of this laziness.” Chief said to me as I sat on the floor of his hut, admiring the new spear he had just made. I sharpened the stone a little for him and smiled up brightly. His face softened. Chief was not usually an easy person to get around, but he always said he loved me more than was good for me. “I saw Reab today. He didn’t look so alert and awake.”
My mind clicked into place as I realized Chief had his suspicions. “Reab?” I inquired with an innocent expression. “Is he ill?”
“He just looked tired.” Chief replied with raised eyebrows, his eyes were a little puzzled. I had fooled him for now.
I balanced the spear in my hand. “You hold a spear too well for a woman” he grunted. “Spending too much time with me, I suppose. You should spend more time with your sister Lela. It would have been different if your mother was still alive. She would’ve taught you some womanly manners.”
“I think I’m feminine enough.”
“Look at you, blundering around after the men of the village, killing creatures and planning your attack even better than my men.”
“I don’t plan Chief; it just comes to me”
“Making it even worst!” he cried with a hidden pride.
I burst out laughing and bade him good night. He ruffled my hair fondly. “You go to sleep now Masra. Get some good sleep. Tell Reab that too” his eyes sparkled wickedly. Perhaps I hadn’t fooled him after all.
“You tell Reab, won’t you? I won’t see him till tomorrow morning.” I replied demurely.



And here passed, long uneventful days with the occasional nights that Reab and I would sneak out of the huts to spend the cool nights together and forcing ourselves out of bed at the crack of dawn along with the villagers, exhausted but happy. I suspected Chief still had his own wary thoughts, but with a denial somewhere in his mind, he did not seek to expose the truth or confine stricter rules on me through Lela. The few months that went by, I watched as Reab grew from a boy to a man.
A man I loved more than life itself.
One night, as I was lying in his arms I poked a thumb against his forehead and breathed out happily before nestling into his chest.
“What?” he asked me, amused at my random, loving behavior.
“I like to check that you’re real.”
He had no words in reply to that but tightened his hold on me, and swiftly kissed my dark hair with a sudden passion. His fingers caressed my head, and he inhaled the flowery perfume from the brown strands clutched in his hand.
“I wish you a long and happy life.” I whispered softly, afraid of the feelings that were surging through me.
“With you.” he replied back.
“No. Not just with me… anywhere… as long as you’re happy.”
“So with you then…”
Some days after that night, when it was pouring so furiously everyone had retreated back into their huts to cozy up, gossip, and flirt while warming their hands on hot wooden mugs we snuck off and climbed a special tree.
It was special because it was a giant, and very old with gnarled branches and knobs that made it easy to grip on with our toes, but the trunk itself was as smooth as a baby’s skin. It overlooked most of the village and the canopy was so thick it protected us from the rain except for the small wet drops that would escape through.
The tree stood apart from the woods and was very difficult to get to. One had to climb several other trees to reach it, ducking in and out of the tangle of branches up in the canopy like a maze. Only Reab and I had spent enough time up there to discover the path in reaching it. We were yet to discover how to reach it without getting scratches and bleeding scabs all over our skin.
Every time the thunder roared deafeningly Reab would yell, “I love you!” and no one could hear but Reab, the heavens, our special little tree and I.
He was so beautiful; like a lithe dangerous animal and his muscles were graceful and strong as he climbed around on the branches. I wished for the rest of our days to be like this and I remembered the lines he had recited to me only a little while ago,
““A million stones on fire with wishes
Yet the brightest star is not up there”

*

A distant roar erupted. The stars had not granted my wish, they had granted my deepest fear. The sound of drums rumbled steadily over the noise of screaming villagers, over the noise of animal fear in those I loved and lived with.
It was the sign that our enemies were finally in sight. We had been waiting for there attack all year long.
Lela grabbed me by the arm. “The chief says all women must flee!” she gasped and choked. Her eyes were leaking with tears. I stubbornly shook away her hand and I could see the desperateness growing in her eyes.
“There is no time to cry Lela”, I tried saying confidently but my voice shook. “Where is Reab?”
Even in her hysterical state she did not want to answer the question I already knew the answer to. “Where is Reab?” I repeated. When she did not reply I narrowed my eyes.
In the face of danger I had never been woman-like and cowered.
Chief had raised me stare any wild beast straight into its cold, predatory eyes before slaying it. I was not unfamiliar to thrusting a jagged dagger into the heart of danger.
I would not leave a man I loved behind like the running footsteps of women carrying their babies, pushing old people along, and dragging wailing children were doing.
I would not leave and I would fight when I could.
Lela stared at me as if she’d just read my mind.  “You may not fight Masra!” she cried. I pushed her aside.
“Help the women evacuate! Grab a baby, help a village elderly; just do it Lela!” I yelled violently and ran through the women who were running towards the woods.
I shoved women aside to get to the battle. My long legs tangled with the other woman, and I fell on my knees. They were both bleeding badly when I got up. Running with my knees stinging, a huge man suddenly grabbed me and swung me to face him. For one moment, I thought he was Reab and I clutched onto him; then I saw it was Chief, and I clutched to him even tighter.
“Chief, please don’t make me go away! Please let me fight with you!” I was screeching and begging with no sanity left in me.
He smiled weakly, “I wanted you to come without little Lela, I knew you would be headed this way. I have not much time Masra, my men need me. I have something I want to give you to make sure you will be safe enough to last through this war if I die,” he spoke softly.
I shook my head and hugged him. “But- but you- you wont!”
Chief gave me a sad smile. “I don’t know that.”
His brown hands reached to his neck and tugged a simple black leather string free. He shoved it into my hands. “Remember this, Masra. Just say to it, ‘Jack, Jack, shine the light’ when you feel there is nobody left in the world for you. Be ready for what happens. Goodbye Masra…”
He touched my cheek and warmth spread though me, momentarily making me feel safe.
“Why Jack?” I asked wretchedly, in a detached curiosity and trying to prolong the moment that Chief would be safe.
Jack was a commoner’s name; no one in our tribe was called Jack. We all had strong, powerful names that spoke of destiny, truth and purity.
“Chief Traben!” a man cried from the noises of surging mob of warriors.
“Go, Masra, go!” Chief said hurriedly, and pushed me away before whipping out of sight.
Chief had been like my best friend, my big brother and … my father. I wanted to fight with him, for him. But I knew in doing that, I would go against his wishes, and that was the last thing I would ever want to do.
A sudden thought made me realize I did not have to fight. I just had to be there or I would **** somebody in my own village for leaving behind loved ones. I knotted the black leather string determinedly on my neck.
I ran to the bottom of a slippery tree and climbed up to the canopy and began to duck in and out, swinging between and onto branches in the maze-like chaos of sticks and concentrated leaves to get to the special tree Reab and I shared.
I hid among the thick tangle; so thick no arrows would be able to pierce me and no enemy would see me. Growling and cursing myself, I remembered I carried no weapons with me and hastily patted my clothing to check again.
Then I remembered it would be useless to have any weapons unless I intended to go down there, for the abundant tangle worked both ways. A spear thrown from where I was would only get stuck in the dense branches below.
I could see the battle though, and that was enough: for now. I searched vainly for Reab, scampering along the top, trying to find where Reab was. I was wild with fury for him for coming.
He was just a boy, newly turned a man. He could still run and hide without shame. When I had him back in my arms again, I was sure to hit him and berate him for choosing to fight for me instead of being safe for me.
It never occurred to me once that Reab might be dead.
It still didn’t occur to me when I saw his body lying on the dirt below, with a man from a village - someone I couldn’t recognize from this height- dragging him. I shouted out, careless of the arrows of enemies.
For the first time in my life, I was terrified of blood: the blood that was seeping out of the wound on his stomach. I didn’t think he was dead; I believed he was injured and I thought of all the herbal concoctions I knew that I could paste over the wound to clean and heal it.
It still didn’t occur to me Reab was dead when the man left him by the bottom of a tree to return and fight. The men in our village did not leave those who could be healed. They stayed and helped them heal to the best of their ability before hiding their healing bodies’ safe in a bush. They only left behind those they could do no more for.
I trembled at anger in the neglect one of our men villagers had shown Reab; the disrespect in it. I would **** him if he were not killing our enemy. Somehow, in the wild pulsing of my body, I found myself climbing down and creeping stealthily to where Reab was and pulling him to safety in a bush.
When he was safe in the bushes, I held him and whispered to him that I was here. I said hold on Reab and I would go and make sure he was safe. I was sobbing. I could not comprehend what was happening for my mind had gone numb and blank.
How could a man who I loved so much bleed so much? All I knew was Reab was not moving in my arms and he must be terribly hurt.
I pressed my fingers to the blood on his stomach. I knew no man could have survived such a wound and so much lo

Yesterday folds our vital documents
into its briefcase and steps onto a busy street.
Busses lunge on asphalt, rolling
knotted muscles and emptied pockets deeper
into roads where dogs and paper
blur the lines between news and ****.
Lovers, condos, taxis, and sidewalks
pray to scrape up rent. Tomorrow crouches, ready to spring
and ****** us back into the boxing ring.

I sit at the Earth's end,
an old, fractured, water-worn dock
cradles me and fixes the scene.
Yellow sails swimming the jetstream
hang on to the red dinghy whose wake
sets my eye upon the far shore.

     Coney isle ‘cross the murk-warped sea
     holds ancient homes like a tapestry
     holds ancient threads that you can see
     in some museum for a fee.

For the residents at Rosses Point
this is no end –
                          wit starts their children’s dreams
and holds them to life,
roots them in communal grasses
that grow and will always grow.
                                                       I didn’t know
that where the ****-stalk masses
life’s abundances overflow.

But where are their riches?

Cast in ditches by roadsides
where three hundred years of smiles,
vein-pulsing beliefs, busy thinkers,
sweet upswept streets,
all put wealth –
                           the heaping of coin
upon coin till nothing can breathe –
aside and laugh. They live,
surviving as they happen.

Inside the crumbled watchtower
I fling passion onto thought
onto nerve onto pen onto page
and then am limp,
like the carelessly treaded sage:
a child’s footprint.

     What anguish did the watchers know
     looking through the barred stone walls,
     their travelers still gone?

In the swirling, swallowing night,
that drops like the judge’s gavel,
I write images of the sundry
numb-fingered seaside –
                                          the birds call through the salt-stained air.

Fly, fly till you reach my words
that are split among a thousand minds and cities.
Fly till the grass overcomes the tread,
till the sun succumbs to lead
poisoning and dawn’s jaw drops dead.

The lighthouse, the sprinkling showers
from the clouds that shroud and mask
the would-be sky, guide
the heart that falls inside my throat –
                                                                two hundred tons of blood
beat through its bulge –
                                         I’m alive
and live on, like this unhampered ground.
The sound of ripples and the rustle
of reeds bring me back
to the time-broken dock.

I sit and remember my friends –
                                                       calmness soaks in and through my bones –
I am and will always be;
and when memory fails and fades
I will float the channel of everything,
beach upon this shore
and will be the grass and nothing more,
till history becomes the future
and the first layer becomes the core.

I heard her thoughts breathe.

said,

she needed something with Redwood patience to understand why her mind traveled with butterflies searching for Eden.

Said, she felt ants inside her dreams carrying away the dead.

wondered if there was no limits to how her heart could grow or communicate with anything.

I saw her quaking eyes search for a place to land back before the first words that God said.

She felt the masterpiece come alive at midnight it spoke beyond all languages, treaded outside of logic, flew outside of time, connected itself with everything alive and spoke to her with a simple grace.

Everything is already yours.
Your heart is the doorway home.

She took a piece of me when she left, left an ice pick for me to play with.

Her sensitive nature understood why roots dug down in a quest for warm solace.

My heart almost closed forever, I felt the final straw detour me to wasteland.

I ran emerald frontiers in her eyes,
butterflies landing on my hands
their wings stained my eyelids
I can't go to sleep without flying through her.

my heart headed to the outskirts of Eden
imagining how she is
Loving her from behind bars
Her butterflies never seeking
my garden.

It almost wilted.

Windy wrath almost destroyed it all.

I had to search the silence
Try to understand myself through a tortured past, I had to tame your tyrant that grew inside my head.

I had to bear the weight of impatient voices that I could not repeat to anybody here
but the dead already know it,
Ones that died by their own hand.

I heard her thoughts breathe

said,

our roots go past the stars
hidden in our beating blood
is the whisper and light of God.

I have gone cold turkey
On many a vice and addictions,
Wasn't nearly there,
When it came to you,
You -a newly seeded dandelion,
In my beautiful garden,
Pulled you out cleanly,
From root to tip,
Far away from flowering,
You didn't even look pretty,
Once a part of a  beauty,
Swayed fuzzy and whispy,
Got kicked and treaded over,
Scattered fragments,
Waiting to seed again,
Pretty on the outside,
Trouble for the gardener,
Didn't even use my rage,
Just calmly uprooted you,
So you wouldn't flower,
Won't scatter anymore,
Spread like a **** again,
But who knows,
Weeds are resilient,
Maybe you'll flower,
In someone else's garden,
Blossom and bloom,
Just to be kicked again,
Always loved a dandelion,
Pretty in the hands,
Prettier when scattered,
So I won't hold you again.

You promised to take me to the woods and sleep with me under the stars,
You promised me an adventure,
And by God you took me on one-

You weaved me through forest just trying to find you,
Searching for your remnants in the fallen leaves and branches scattered across the forest floor
You led me to a tall tree where I could carve our names into the wood, as selfish as that was,
And deface beautiful Mother Nature because I thought our love was also as breathtaking as she.

Our love was breathtaking-
You whisked me away and ran us to the tops of mountains.
You took me to peaks where I felt alive,
And valleys where I felt so down to earth I could've melted into the paths we paved
The same way I did every time your arms wrapped around my waist
And your head rested on my shoulder,
And you whispered in my ears about how you didn't want to be anywhere else.

I jumped rocks and cliffs with you,
Falling so hard and fast the same way I did
Any time you looked at me with those patient eyes,
Any time you found the time to hold me and love me in any way you could muster.
I fell into water and your sea eyes any time I jumped;
You made me fall so **** hard.

You took me to the edges of sunsets
That never rivaled the way your smile shined
When I told you I loved you,
Or rivaled the way your face looked when you laughed.
You had Mother Nature beat when it came to beauty.
You had me beat when I tried to find a reason to be upset you never actually took me on an adventure like you promised,

Maybe because falling in love with you was an adventure all in itself;
You left me blistered, aching and sore.
But I left you with the world in my eyes, the sea dripping from them,
The mountains weighing on my heart
And the shores soaking my soul because venturing into your world meant I had left my own,

And it took me so much **** time trying to find a path back to mine.
You took me for one hell of an adventure,
And the paths you treaded left footprints in my heart
That are blown away but aren't forgotten.

You promised to take me out to see the sights and walk the world-
Falling in love with you took me for an adventure that you didn't plan for,
And one I couldn't sustain much longer.

That's the thing about you, us, adventures-
They're thrilling and beautiful,
Breathtaking and wild.
They come to an end though,
And the adventure you took me on stained me with a sense of wanderlust you'll never come to see or know.

The stars though far apart in the sky
wink, talk to each other
such display of friendship above,
makes me shy.

Introduced by a friend,
brought together by destiny
at the instance we knew
we wouldn't want this to end.

Be it poor, be it witty
you crack jokes with so much variety
sharp brows, beaming eyes
you are a charming girl
with words so wise.

Up in the morning, we seven
treaded along the woods, in search of heaven
Ah ! so beautiful, in the nature's lap
trees, birds, the lake and us
reading each other like a fluent rap.

Things started making sense
knowing and telling each other
revealing our striking resemblance
despite words not being spoken,
so pleased we were, delightedly shaken.

Again at that friend's wedding,
we huddled, danced, got alive and kicking
watching you make people laugh till the end
so proud I am, to have such a gem of a friend

Awesomeness is stepping to the next year now
alas ! I have to finish this somehow
cherishing our moments in each way,
though being so far away,
my sweet friend, you truly made my day.

*wishing you a very very happy birthday

I told this
***
a life-long necessity
of mine
more or less.
But first I said,
before anything, maybe
it’s just a life-long exhaustion
of mine I’m
expelling needlessly, okay?
I want to make sure you
know that
so you don’t go thinking
I’m weird or nothing,
though honestly  

it all drops hard like
iron
faster than
gravity
to the same
place
anyway.

But this is what I told him:

Sometimes I wish the world
would roll up all it’s got.
Roll it all up in one unsettling
heap of heaviness it can
toss on me like stock from the
deep. O I wish to God it’d
give me the torturous insanity
and every inexplicable loss
it can conjure up—just one
catatonically tremendous
slap to my stupid little
face, flushing it with
cosmic humiliation
and fear I don’t even
notice I ****** myself.

So that, at least, it’d all be
there, you know? And I wouldn’t
have to ask where it is and
what the hell’d I do
to get spared.

I told him give me the
holocausted ashes smelling of
Zyklon B, the crawling away from
sawed off shotgun shells
catching friends hiding under
the library desk anyway, the
running over of your dad by
a drunk who lost his wife to
the cancer that took the brother of
somebody you knew whose
mother had

suicidal depression, hadn’t
smiled really in years, she’d
sat with cold coffee
for years, and around her
had been worse than
darkness, for a reason she
never ended up knowing.

I said to him give me the
harshest words a child has
ever known against him
and have them rest upon
my spine like a freezing
brain spreading electric
wild fires across
my vertebrae, give me
burning skin really
burning, and cheating wife seen
moaning, and drowning baby now
dead
and beaten wife now
collapsing, another baby now
beaten and
thirsty wino keep drinking, and
a stranger with his face
blown off red and
brown and tattered and
I don’t know how but
still hanging there like
boiling chicken fat, dripping,
but the doctors
able to keep his heart
beating and his organs
pumping too, so now
people can see him
and his whole face
as an indication there is
something in the air
that deserves pitying.

Give me it, I said,
with homicide and
double homicide, and
a side of
stabbings and
chokings and
bludgeonings
and guns and rope and
gas and asphyxiations
and love letters and
love-making giddy ***
and flowers for the
love of your life
who is cutting herself
because she can’t stop
cutting up souls after
she *****.

Give me everybody’s
******* loneliness
that is lonelier than
a thing lost before it was
born, and as it was
being born, born into
losing itself, its slow
destruction, and there was
not even anybody there because
there was never going to be
anything to help you, there is
nothing to be achieved and
nothing for which
striving is
helpful.

There just is a memory of
a hazy possibility of
happiness, that one
felt once
in a senseless dream.
A memory that is
always fading towards
non-existence or
existence that has
no place for it, because
it is already full of
something else, and you,
your “transcendence,”
are wasting time,
waiting.

What are you waiting for I
said (with just a little irony).
Give me the heaviness, don’t
hide it anymore. Show it
all bare and give it all
to me. Tell me, here, take this
and hold it for the sake of—

What?—what is this?
Is it this? Just
the universe drooling on itself? Or
is it more? Somehow less?

Well, for the sake of
whatever lies here (lies here!)
and is too ****** in eternity to
delight us with a clear
answer to the
question that all the
living creatures on this
sacrosanct dirt, in some
crevice of their being, I know,
are asking it.

And this ***, when I finished
telling him what I’ve just told you
didn’t say anything back.
His brown face was treaded terrain,
crumpled cracked ditches,
broken dry grin.

He looked elsewhere, smelling of
decades of drunken alcohol
and lice and yellow toenails and
******* alone against
brick walls at night

and also his brown hands
adjusting the dirt-drenched
cardboard bed he will surrender to
tonight, after who knows
what else.

From birth my beauty condemned me, a sacrificial lamb for slaughter.
Beauty was a curse in my land, for each and every daughter.

The monster in the castle, Dracula would be his name.
Always hungry for ****** blood, and it was his right to claim.

Stealing a moment before I go, I took a bottle of sweet red wine.
Hoping that a drunken stupor
would help me with my time.

For days he kept his food alive, who wish that they would die.
I sat at the moonlit pond, and for my fate I did cry.
I come from a family, who's wholly dreaded
Because to the church we are indebted

I took up my family's sacred weapon
A holy whip, the vampire killer, after leaving home into Transylvania I treaded

I wandered aimlessly into a forest
Seeing Draculas castle on a hill,
My blood boiled and my family's voices were urging me to go pursue the ****

I stopped in a lonely clearing and Sat down with the whip at my side,
I looked up and saw a beautiful maiden carrying a very fine wine

As I walked the path, to the castle on the hill.
I saw the man upon a rock, my heart did calm and still.

He offered me some food, I shared with him my wine.
I stopped to sup with him, dragging out the time.

If I could love, this man I would choose.
Curse the fates and Dracula, because of them I lose.

I listened to his voice, shy to reveal my name.
I just want to stay here forever, safe and far from pain.

I whisper my name, after hearing his " Nero".
My lungs all but froze, and my heart rate went to zero.

A wonderful name
for a wonderful man.
My love was growing, but not part of the plan.

The time grew late,
I soon would have to go.
But I knew I was his,
I could feel it in my soul.

His story he did tell, the aim to destroy the beast.
The very same one, who on my blood would feast.

"Aurora" so simple yet supple, it rolled of the tongue
I knew that I loved her, I knew she was my only and one,

The problem was I was facing an impossible task,
Destroying the count, I wasn't sure if I would last

I said to her if tonight is my last on this earth
That I should enjoy it, like incense and myrrh

I could not let him go, without showing him my love.
I would give him my heart, before he is taken up above.

I untied my lace,and steeped out of my dress.
Watching his beautiful eyes, as they fell upon my breast.

I gave him my strength, my body,heart and soul.
All for the only man I will ever physically know.

His hands so tender,
it made my heart cry.
Holding him tightly,praying he would not die.

I stared at this beautiful woman, now naked in the moonlight,
I was aroused already by her appearance, but this was exemplified by the darkest night,

I laid her down on the forest floor and kissed her lovely face
Somehow my armor was stripped off of me and scattered all over the place

His kiss melted my heart, his loverall than made me whole.
Broken til I meet him, the partner of my soul.

I took him in deep, tho I was sure it would not fit.
But it easily slipped inside, with his fingers working my ****.

Gasping and moaning, he truly filled me up.
My joy and my pleasure, overflowing my womanly cup.

Scratching at his,back, and arcing up my hips.
My breath mingling with his, as his name escapes my lips.

My God this woman was like heaven on earth
She was so Beautiful, like the goddess of the hearth

She was so sweet and supple like a well cut gem I knew I loved this woman, and I proved it there and then

I fell apart in his arms, my ****** blew my mind.
This was the purest love, that would stand the test of time.

His loved filled me up, the moon he did give to me.
A caged bird no longer, for my beloved had set me free.

Far to soon our time did end, the fates stepping in once more.
But for a moment in time, we were connected and we soared.

It almost brought tears to my eyes, that our time together couldn't last
We made love so passionately, our bodies had stains of grass,

I gave her my mother's Morningstar, in case I didn't return
I loved this woman so much, it was a trinket she deserved

Tears flowing from my eyes, the Morningstar clasped to my breast.
I whispered my goodbyes, with a tightening in my chest.

Fully dressed with whip in hand, oh what a sight to behold.
But the truth of the situation, had my blood now running cold.

I sat upon his rock, and watched as he walked away.
Knowing until he returned, right here I was going to stay.

I walked up the path and opened the gate to that cursed abode
I trusted my love with the Morningstar because it was my heart I trusted her to hold

I fought my way through his castle defeating everything, zombies, demons even death
Like my ancestors before me I would fight on until my last breath

Finally atop the ancient staircase stood the evil count himself,
I didn't even bother sneaking in because i grew tired of stealth,

In a battle that raged many hours as the night went on,
I choked and beheaded him with the vampire killer, and after that he disappeared into the great beyond,

Triumphant I returned to my beloved and I noticed it began to rain
It felt like my ancestors we're celebrating and their tears were of joy instead of pain

Rain washed down my cheeks, chasing the tears that fell.
My beloved topped the crest, and he was hurt, I could tell.

I ran up to greet him, my aid I lovingly did give.
Many thanks I gave to god, for letting my heart to live.

I took him to my home, and took care of his every need.
Cleaning up his angry wounds and cooking rabbit for me to feed.

Sleep overtook him, the stew I stew I left to simmer.
Holding his I hand I to slept, as the day light began to dimmer.

I walked home with my beloved and fell into a deep slumber
While I was unconscious my every need and wound she treated as if a spell she was under.

I began to stir as I smelled food, rabbit stew if I had to guess
Having known my beloved's passion, I knew it was made with love, the best

The moon rose and than it fell, I watched my lover sleep.
I saw when he began to stir and with joy I did weep.

I changed his bandages, and feed him with every kiss.
He ate the whole bowl and my heart was full of bliss.

My love would live,
my curse was now broken.
All because of a kind hello and names that were softly spoken.

My wish came to true and love I did find.
Our two souls now made one, forever intertwined.

I looked at my love and saw the passion in her eyes, I pulled her close to me, I missed her so last night,

I kissed her with all the love I could muster I stared into those deep blue eyes
I made sure that because I had come back she would never have to cry

I kissed my love, my own, he was truly my handsome hero.
I could no longer hold it in," I love you Nero."

My heart swimming in my eyes, I put my hand upon his cheek.
The love that I could see, made my bones melt and my knees weak.

Finally I could live,
my heart now had a home.
This man that is before me, I can claim as my very own.

I smiled in my beloveds face, I kissed her again and said I'll always love you
I don't know how fortunate I had to have been
But ill make sure to keep you happy, more so than you have ever been

Forever happy I shall be, with you by my side.
No longer shall I feel pain, no more will I have hide.

Shunned by the village, as the one who was chosen.
But now from the darkest pit, the sun has finally rosen.

To you my love, I give my heart.
Forever together,
never shall we part

I smiled wryly and began to gently rub her soft curvy body
I didn't think it strange at all she began acting so oddly

As we laid together in the sunrise I whispered "darling, shall we make love again?"

I raise my head to meet his eyes and knew he wanted me to.
" Are you sure my love, it won't end up hurting you."

To hurt him now, I just could never forgive.
I shall never cause him pain, as long as we both shall live.

But oh how I wanted him, my body began to ache.
I pray he was well enough, so me he would be able to take.

I said no matter how much pain I'm in I'll always make time for you
Just be gentle with me beloved, I'm healing now thanks to you

I kissed him tenderly, giving my promise and my vow.
"I shall love you tenderly, no pain will I cause u now."

I kissed my way down his neck and licked down his chest.
I leaned just a little bit so his hairs could tease my breast.

Lower I did go, my mouth hungry for more. As I reached my goal, my heart began to soar.

I placed myself between his legs, and licked my luscious lips.
I put my mouth to his shaft and my hands upon his hips.

I took him inside and his taste danced on my tongue.
If I could but sing my joy I would have sung.

As I bathed him with silken warmth, I started to ride his leg.
The feel of him inside my mouth had my core starting to beg.

I felt almost ecstatic
Making love to Aurora again
After battling my way through hell and high water
I couldn't wait to be with her again
My toes curled up in excitement my muscles still somewhat sore,
I stared into those deep blue eyes, my eyes begging for more

I teased him just a little bit, my tongue licking up and down.
I had to taste his lovely ***** so cute and bouncy round.

I slide up his body and slowly slipped him inside.
I softly rocked my hips as I began my loving ride.

I moaned deep in my throat and he filled deep within.
If this was being wanton than I bask in glorious sin.

I laid back and watch this beautiful woman transform into a goddess of desire
I could see why the night we first met was ablaze with this passionate fire,

My spine shot up and down I quivered with ecstasy
I held on to my love tightly
So I could love every inch of her body

Quivering with such delight, I placed his hands on my breast.
I left my hands ontop of his, as he fondled and caressed.

I gave him my body, I will even give him my life.
My only one true desire now, was to become his loving wife.

I looked deep into his eyes, and drowned within his soul.
My body felt on fire and my flame did dance and glow.

Pleasure overtook me, I began to scream his name.
My sheath tightened around him and my essence began to rain.

I felt her sweet love juices
Spill onto me with such extremity
I'd been traveling around for quite some time so I knew the perfect remedy
"Beloved lay down beside me I want to try something new"
I winked at her because she had no idea what I planned to do

I kissed my beloved down her body caressing from place to place
My eyes were almost drunken from her intoxicating face

I arrived at her woman cup so soft wet and warm
I began to drink deeply, taking in all of her love juices like coffee at dawn

Griping the sheets within my hand, I bite into my lips.
The shock and surprise had u rising up my hips.

I gave a womanly growl, as my hands than griped his hair.
I was so enchanted with the sight, I could do aught but stare.

Him between my legs, his tongue licking at my ****.
I knew that he could taste me, for I was extremely slick.

My essence flowed freely, and I was lost to the pleasure.
He treated me like I was his own special treasure.

I ate her like I was starving, Like her orifice contained the gift of life
I ****** and licked upon her
Desiring nothing but to make my beloved nothing less than my wife.

I drank my beloved's essence like I was mad with desire,
I got back up on my knees, and asked for what my beloved desired

My joy knew no bounds, as I could not believe my ears.
My wish was granted, I shed some happy tears.

I rose up to meet him, now we were eye to eye. I kissed him so hard and let out a contented sigh.

"Yes my love I would not want any other, my heart is in ur hands.
Were you go I go anywhere throughout the lands."

I wraped my arms around him and kissed him with all my heart.
He is my everything, right from the very start.

I kissed her beautiful lips and I slid myself back inside her again
The bed creaked and groaned as both myself and my wife moaned and I released deep inside my beloved again

I kissed my wife's rosy cheeks and kissed her lovely lips
"I love you so much aurora" her name felt soft like a willow in the wisp

I awoke to a sound of tapping, the teacher purple in the face.
This felt like a weird time and an even stranger place.

Ignoring the words, I turned my head to look and see.
And there was my dream man staring straight back at me.

I smiled a knowing smile, for I think he knew me to.
We both lived in the past and our love was not through.

I hate the dreadful hedge behind the little wood;
And its roaming souls are blotted by a red-blood heath.
I hath treaded it, my imaginary path, since my years of childhood;
But still consolation hath come not to where I'th waited.

I'th painted it with my talent, my tears, and my solemn grief;
But even a light cometh not to such moments too brief;
Prayers are done; and even months and deserts and nights of supplications;
But still heaven is nowhere to me, heaven t'at is mute-and feedest only on our admiration.

Ah, Almighty, why is Thy image the one I so wanted to ****;
And why hath thou emerged within me no goodwill?
I am unable still, to locate my peace;
But though negligent-I think I am worthy of finding my bliss.

And Thy love of me is infamous like these frail petals;
And in my miseries Thou wert never around when I called;
Ah, where is this mysterious heaven, then, as Thou oft' boastest;
Whenst lightning is the one who destructs, and bedevils, and recomposes?

And Thy forgiveness is small and even absurd;
For salvations are seas-in which sins are bathed off and cured;
Making 'eir villainous souls are pure-and never impure;
Purified by the eternal corporeal blueness; so that t'eir weights merciful and sure.
And as sure as a gentle, understanding blood,
Where wouldst then be-a real punishment so hard?
And so where is this pompous hell embodied, thereof, as Thou often mirrorest;
If forests are dark enough-and at night canst be a terror deadliest?

Ah, and whenst my soul fallest ill,
Why art Thou not within me still?
I am weary; just like t'ese dark storms about me,
But still Thou art nowhere, so t'at my poems cannot find Thee.
Even as I starest at Thy plain rainbow;
Why is it of falsehood-instead of a sane tomorrow?
I searched and journeyed for Thy fair promise;
I am exhausted now, for I hath found not-one faint stretch o' Thy kiss.
I tired myself with Thy sour learning;
But Thou wert never there; Thou sat never, by my everything!

My blood and soul Thou hath grimly toughened;
And my flowery eyes Thou tested with tears.
Still I am febrile not-unlike my brethren;
And whenever I looketh up-Thou art never here.
Even of Thee my poems hath nothing more to say;
Though I hath fought true hard; 'gainst those who're 'stray.
Are true then-Thy bitter fires of hell,
Or is it just be a misguiding spell?
And wouldst there be fountains of water in heaven-
Or wouldst they be mere pools of poison?
For I s'pose it'd be but of one fake;
Bubbling and choking to everyone who takest;
And as my lust, and pain-Thy words consoled;
Still my misery was heroic; and I was the one scolded.
Even whenst flamed quarrels boiled;
I was the one ashamed, I was the one Thou harshly soiled!
Thou remained stiff, and in any way Thou couldst not behold;
I was oft' left stranded, collapsing and shudd'ring cold.
I was ignored, I was condemned to my suffering;
Thou soothed me never, Thou stood still to my pure straining!
I was left scarred, I was left scratched;
I was an orphan that the devil wouldst not accept;
I was like my unwholesome faith today;
And still Thou stayed mute; 's'though existed not-
'Till my tears died, and gave me nothing else to pray.

And so Eden is all abuse; and its roars are lies;
And didst I perish; wouldst only be glad its perilous eyes.
Perhaps to Thee t'is all be a tantalising story;
But as Thou needst now to know-I'd never be in thy territory;
Even though t'is earth wouldst perish, all of a sudden;
Never wouldst I kneel, nor supplicate to thy cursed ******;
Nor wouldst I cross thy damp riverside bridge;
For all is stained by dirt, and dry threefold filth.
And even nature shuffled away from my soul;
Still I stand firmly-away from Thee, o fishy and foul;
For I hath my own deployment, and honest authority;
I am honest and loyally even-to the swears of my beauty!
Ah, as Thou wouldst be pleased not, thus cast me now-away once more;
And neglect me stern' like ever before;
And admit me not-into Thy boastful superiority;
Caress me not, by Thy hands of menace-and regular hypocrisy.
I am tired of thy severable security;
As Thou owneth never-such sincerity!

And see Thy book-overborne by jokes;
Over which throats canst fall out their own yokes!
Leave me, leave me, but leave me now-just all alone;
As without Thee-I am used to being everything on my own!

Almighty, Almighty, Almighty-please now just kindly Thou leaveth me,
Strike away, if Thou couldst-my violin's barren chords-
So t'at all is silent to Thee;
And Thy dissatisfied other lords.
I am not Servant to Thy pleasures;
Though I'th strived to spell my prayers;
Thou made all feeble and obscure;
Thou turned all sickly and uglier.
Thou art hideous, hideous enough;
Thou art the devil-even the hidden devil on its own!
And thy book is not one plain verse of love;
But one naked pile of sworn lies-of plain vain scorn!
Ah, and as nothing is in Thy world, and Thy feverish harmony;
So listen, when Thou art to blame me;
I'd never still be thy bride-nor Thy wife;
I'd still fairly, but proudly turn-and leave Thee,
Though I's promised, immortality;
And though I's lent, another thousand lives.

her foot never fully touched the ground,
remaining half afloat in the air--
stuck in the clouded mist of her anxious mind,
she could not grasp the full weight of reality

her dance too tentative to be considered one of grace,
she treaded carefully with each step, although,
she knew this all with a great familiarity--

a constant state of limbo and disarray,
out of touch with sight and mind,
thoughtless rumination
all gather to combine into this displacement

she leaps with hope and faith,
but unable to press her foot along the earth
she glides over the dust and ruin,
seeking to avoid rather than settle-- she survives without living

only hurt a little then,
that fractioning of interlocked ribs,
no all-consuming rapture,
i climb through windows,
whiskey and cigarettes buried
in my breastplate,
us weekend warriors
really are fighting something.
happy sometimes. and underneath
mossy water treaded,
tents pitched, long car rides
napped through,
my cheeks slowly melted.

We all pick shards of glass
worn out
of pride
of dignity
Arrogance
bruises at every broad unending road
Lined with enthralling
bright yellow mustard blooms
A minute
and you forget the path you treaded
And you take old paths
"again"
Confused ?
It doesn't make sense
Which path to take ?
Doesn't matter now, which path you take now
the path changes with the self

...strolling down through the night,
Attacking innocence with a frown,
You've treaded through plastic and savages,
Your face buried beneath a gown,
The odd man in the corner says,
You look so down,
It means,
The forest seems black,
You're packed,
We're all long-gone.

You can kick and scream all you want,
But you'll get lost in the cold,
'Cause the Brave New Pathway is so old.

So you're a Good Man with,
all your Good Looks,
You're a manufacturer of,
Pretty Protest Books,
But your abiding venom is
So full of False Love
You're not a rebel, though you think not,
But you're just too many levels above.

You can kick and scream all you want,
But you'll get lost in the cold,
'Cause the Brave New Pathway is so old.

With your mass thinking codas, oh how you talk,
When you don't fall, there's still the straight bold lines that you walk,
With your gathered myths and conductors, in maths you all speak,
You ask yourself, is everyone so unique?
But by now, you're feeling ill,
You may not understand it,
Those hands of yours are too virginal,
You're not some natural-born bandit.

See, you can kick and scream all you want,
But you'll get lost in the cold,
'Cause the Brave New Pathway is so old.

You've strung some fallen multitude,
Some blind-eyed folks from lost and found,
Don't yet quit all the servitude,
Such groups can't be strung around,
You need respect,
You must check,
That everyone else is bound.
So you've gotten Anarchic Insurance,
Through all these Marxist hooks,
But what an abhorrence,
Your still safe and sound,
Just look at this mess, all of this!

You can kick and scream all you want,
But you'll get lost in the cold,
'Cause the Brave New Pathway is so old.

So you look down,
As you have on your hands,
A few clowns from a circus,
You phony philosopher,
You've let all your new fraud,
Work on us.
There should be some law,
Against having you claw
Your masquerades,
And magic through every one of these sold cities.
And even though you say,
Your imagination's not dead,
You've still read,
And forced every Order of Dictation.

You can kick and scream all you want,
But you'll get lost in the cold,
'Cause the Brave New Pathway is so old.

So you walk along with your pen down,
Past each fancy, carved stone column,
Then a voice says 'don't let your terms down'.
It's a naked fool looking solemn.
But you're still glaring and weeping,
You say 'I simply don't understand'
Then the man says, all out and fleeting,
'It's time for rebirth, When will you give a hand?'

So you're giving up,
You can see, you will stop,
So you can feel something now, if at all.

Now you're wandering past this site,
Of a landscape of metal and rust,
You're in the middle of some walkabout,
Your face coated in dust.
Now, thinking you're some Human Poet,
You go write on how you feel,
When the King Palate comes storming,
And you say 'Is this even real?'

But it's going too fast,
Any truth cannot last,
You're a lie by its own.
But you think you'll still find
Your Glittering Gold.

So you run through into this room,
With this Artist named Rome,
And with his lover, Salo,
They go off and buy you a home,
They have murals of circles,
And Open City souls,
They paint the 120 Days of Flesh,
And all these dead patrols.
They say, as they go about in a thresh,
Only Night has its fantasies,
Before burning your house down.
You won't see any end of dusk comin' around,
You're always a ***,
Your lawyers are decades gone,
Go back to all your Christs and El Dorados.

So when you weave yourself,
Out of that forest,
Don't be paid so attention to,
Don't be bleak,
As every night
Has its unabashed
Intellectual freak.
And before you go,
Between the statues under some sheik,
Remember, this very night
That's when you come...

I didn’t mind the incongruence of our hearts
as we melted together like sticky-sweet ice cream
on a nostalgic summer day, and I wore your
fingerprints on my collarbone like a proud
working man’s necktie as our molecules collided
between our bodies in a miniature mosaic we
couldn’t see – but we could feel

Our bloodstreams were helium and our
organs were neatly-knotted balloon animals
and trumpets pounded behind our eardrums
as we tried to stay afloat in our makeshift raft
in the turbulence of Maybes and What Ifs
but you choked on reality as I tried to
breathe you a sonnet

And the piano burdened our lungs as
I tried to free the confusion from your eyes
but they hid in your lashes and fluttered
against the tip of my nose and invited a
cathartic sneeze, and I felt like a jagged
paper cut-out but you were smooth lines
and symmetry

I don’t know when the yelling started or
when it ceased but the red stains on my face
were the only recollection I needed and
I packed my things in an origami suitcase
and treaded down the spiral stairs and exited
from the top story on wilted-flower wings

I remember how that Puxatony dirt
felt between my fingers. Gritty
and cold – the earth that covers  graves.
Falling from my palm, landing at his paws,
he curled around my leg, shivering.
Against my ankle, he rested his long ears.

Polaroids of a mothers chew-toy earrings;
memories of March spent playing in *****
backyards, forests, and playgrounds. We shivered
together, in the heat of Spring, with gritty
rock-filled driveways underneath our paws.
Lives, those playful daisies sprouting from gravel,

that we ate day by day; pushing graves
down out of mind, but spilling from our ears.
The summer wrought steel cages to grip awe,
with training meant, bent to destroy dirt
kept caked on worn-out sandals. Grits
scooped off a breakfast plate to a shivering

dachshund. His collar jingled, shimmering
as it clashed against his bowl. Cold gravy
and dry cat food, with textured scents. Gritty,
furry, and harsh. Ears dipped in water bowls
finding the only bath of the month, clearing dirt
from a death in the family. Soft, unknowing paws

treaded with grace, and a parentless pause
as we crumbled. Directionless grief shivered
the big men with their shrunken hearts, *****
from a three-hour drenching sob at the grave.
But love is not measured by the size of loss -
it is made of highs and lows; rough and gritty.

Seven pounds of compassion weighs with gridded
precision on my chest. Those tiny paws,
batting at my heart. Soft, two-times-too-large ears
crying with us and pleading through shivers
to enjoy everything. Now your graves are dug
together - between you only a foot of dirt.

Gritty reality seeps in from shivering
fiction. Your paws on your own grave,
I place my ear to the dirt, and whimper.

Inspired by Emily Dickinson’s Life.

As the clock strikes
midnight in a perfect world,
they only want to know one thing:
What does your soul look like?

In the beginning, three sat together
in darkness, sweating and chewing miraa,
talking of unlikely things and dreams
while ******* down Tusker.
It was refreshing to be nobody,
soft baiting the line
and wasting time
gambling shilingi.

The sun outside set sooner than expected,
dipping well below the low buildings,
so they ventured out into the cobalt
blue evening, not thinking too much
about who might be listening,
speaking bravely as their words
and jokes slowed down beside
shadows beyond the city lights.

Laughing more, the three hopped on
a matatu at Kimkambala, smelling
the final wisps of dinner in each
passing village, watching as a purse
got pulled just paces from the road,
until they got off by Fort Jesus.

Further and further, they treaded home,
walking alongside the Indian Ocean -
Through the thick, green night, almost
fog-like, tip-toeing by an old man and
his flashlight; he slept soundly on
the steps of that corner storefront.

The three whispered their goodbyes,
and headed separate ways.

The youngest of them slid easily between the
narrow alleyways, and finally through braided
black bars. With the turn of a treasure-chest key,
he was back in the courtyard, walking past the
stripped bones of yesterday’s catch, where he
decided to make his permanent address, today.

He had dwelled where dreams are born,
but only for a day, and searched to find
sunset in the tip of a cup – when the
sunset was enough. He knew
that it was too much as he asked
a stranger to fill him up to the brim,
and told him not to worry, he would
say “when.” He had worked hard to
lay down his guilt on the altar, and not
return to gin, making this decision:

He decided that being
born to homeless winds
doesn’t mean that you
have to be homeless, and
as he climbed the broom-swept
maroon steps, up to the roof, he
breathed deeply. How pleasant
it was to look out onto the sea,
reflecting the pearly moon,
so beautifully.

His feet scorched on the burning embers, treaded,
As he sifted through the Nightmares he dreaded.
Weaving his way in and out through the debris,
Cutting himself as he raced for the ferry.
He paused, panting to catch his breath,
And let his eyes sink in the surrounding death.

And behold, what a sight he saw,
Human flesh cut, bleeding and raw.
Mountains of  bodies piled up with Sin
Naked and writhing amidst the splitting din.
And the gong of the bells from the deep chasms,
Resonating with the screams of the dyings' spasm.
Screaming and kicking they went up in flames,
Beggars and kings, lads and dames.

Stumbling he began to brave the road,
Hoping and praying he would reach the ford.
With each step his strong virility,
Started showing signs of debility.
Urging himself to reach the ford,
Where waited the ferryman on his ferry aboard.
He purged all the sinned who embarked,
The magnificent ship on the banks, parked.
Leading them on the infernal waves,
Over the lofty hills and the deepest caves.
Until they reached heavens door,
Freeing them from the sights of blood and gore.

As he ran, he saw high atop a tree
Whose branches were stripped off leaves, free.
A large bird with molten black eyes,
Gorging on both men and mice.
He saw that it was a vulture
Tearing a man and leaving his lungs rupture',
Quickening his pace he crept away from the bird,
Camouflaging himself with the dying herd.
Thinking he had passed the demonic beast,
Who was busy helping itself to its feast,
He slowed down and moved with care,
Only to be stopped by a shriek high in the air.

He looked up with great unease,
With sweaty eyes and shaky knees.
The vulture jumped up with a great swoop,
And circled the man in a closed loop.
"My, my," it cried, landing next to its target,
"Are you trying to escape my food market?"
"No, no!" He whimpered and crowed in fear.
"You will not reach the ford, my dear."
Said the vulture in a pitched cacophony,
"you will not hear the heavenly symphony,
As one draws close to one's destiny,
For the feral beast in me,
Will not allow you to let it be."
"Please," he cried. "Let me see,
What is meant for me."

The vulture roared in laughter,
Cawing and rocking faster.
So much it was immersed in mirth,
That it didn't see its prey of large girth,
Try to slip away precariously,
From the gaze of the bird which was nefariously,
Waiting for the moment to take the plunge
And drive its beak through the man with a lunge.

With a shriek, it jumped up in flight,
Spreading its demonic wings blocking the light.
Swooped down at the man and spread its wings,
Opening its beak as it sings,
The death hymn that flowed from his beak crescent
Echoing through the emptiness as it made its descent.
The man gazed in fear at the looming death,
With unblinking eyes and taut chest held with breath.
Looked up to the heavens and screamed "God!"
The vulture chuckled and reached its prey, with eyes agog.
Covered the man with its monstrous plumes,
With its beak dripping of drool, in flumes.
Drove it deep into the mans heart,
And made him part of its food mart.

the most dangerous person I know was a beautiful girl,
with a singing voice like white chalk:
when you came into contact with that voice, even momentarily
you found your fingertips lightly dusted
and the taste of chalk in your lungs
She settled on you.

This girl left pieces of herself everywhere--
anchors.
to things she knew should be
important to her, but instead she couldn't find the commitment
enough to make them important.

she could only find
fragments of a conversation
about anything
that affirmed her
self-importance
or made her feel
important.
even if only for a second.

she disregarded the pain that lumbered just beneath those
glimmering retinas,
only to step closer and see the light
was just a reflection of whatever stood before her.

so she anchored herself to humans.
she chose to connect with people
based on the "mutual" stars in
their eyes.
and how they felt important.
she anchored herself to
the expectations held aloof in
the eyes of her unattached lover.
Eyes that swam with the imaginary meetings and hopefulness
to obtain girls not her.

and so she swam.

at first, she treaded water like it the thing to do in the eyes of your
"lover"
then, the ropes she tied to herself
to make anchors began to drag her down.

the people she anchored herself to reached out as far as the cold depths would allow
but she refused to tread the last few feet and take hold
of a shoreline filled with
finite praise for not drowning herself.

The most dangerous girl I knew
made drowning the important thing.
and now she waits, sunken and waterlogged
with the weight of eyes that are not hers.

The eyes of her lover, who sparkle artificially
as the light is just a reflection of whatever stands in front of him.

supine, deeply do I ponder
of those times as if, I've
treaded upon coal ablazed
beds, of womb fetally
withdrawn; darkness embeds
itself, attempting to see
with clarity through murky
watered canvasses

I, analyze self, coping
with turmoil; glimpsing
the light at the end of
elongated tunnels, leaving
burdensome baggage
that isn't a *** of gold
at the end of a rainbow

giving way to self-awareness
as a glorified sunrise opens
to new horizons; long awaited
as if, eons have passed without
notice, finally, arriving at my
threshold of salvation by the
grace of God; sanity redeemed

If this world had a face, it’d be bound tight and beset,
If there’s good in this place, I’ve not found sight of it yet.
Past all the blood and the hurt, and ravaged sounds of regret,
There must be good in this world, but I haven’t fount it yet.

All that ought to run deep, all that ought to come through,
That which taught men of decency all that they do,
Has been lost on the masses and torn from all trace,
So the greenest of grass is now scorned and replaced.

Those I’m forced to call friend – are a tax on my time,
With each talk I pretend an’ with each laugh I could cry,
Those of blood get me down – another taunt or a test,
There must be good in this town, but it hasn’t warmed to me yet.

With un-pleaseables I talk, in that cold name of love,
By any reasonable chalk I’ve done more than too much,
With unappeasables I stride, as I toss away time,
To their agreeable pride, I have lost all of mine.

Pour elixirs in ears, with no trace of intent,
Just a duty of peer-ship and misplaced compliments,
And all they want to hear’s their re-vented hot air,
And they’ll only keep near those with plenty to serve.

If I gave you your praise, and ten pounds of my flesh,
And waved you on your way to sounds of high address,
If I bundled and bound all the scraps of my soul,
And put them in your hand with a map you could own,
If I gave you my freedom, my voice and my keep,
Would you take of your leave and leave me to my sleep?
If I gave you my will and my weakness and wants,
Could the lands lonely chill turn from bleakness to warmth?
If I covered my face – could I finally rest?
If there’s good in this place, why was I to be left?

If I gathered all grit from the dregs of this hole,
And fashioned a gift from my old beggars bowl,
If I took all the soot and the silt of my years,
And tailored a trinket with blood, spit and tears,
If I capped it and crowned it with carvings of coin,
Could I buy passage to grounds past the hard ones I toil?
Where I’m no longer a ghost in the guise of a man,
Or bare the breathless ill-boast that I’ve lied all I can,
Where I’m no more a mark to be treaded upon,
A downpour-bound spark or a silent-said song,
Where I’m long past purveyors an’ the prospecting proud,
All the tall self-surveyors that are laughably loud.
Where these meek-minded masses are ploughed-up and purged,
And all new greener grasses feel they’d never been there?

For now people are a crowd, a winter I can’t leave behind,
And the street is just a sound, a splinter in my weary mind.
Through the fixed filter of rain, I try to keep my bearings right,
And all the tints within the frame come only by steel burning lights.

They free and they halt and they warn and they tempt,
A beaming assault on the swarms we call men.
And the laughing and loathing the swarm has within,
Wraps up my home and what warmth could have been.
It rattles and ruptures and rips it apart,
And battles for blood – all the blood of my heart.
And just as the coldness draws me into sleep,
A new day unfolds and the empty heart beats.
Yes just as the coldness draws me into peace,
A new day unfolds to the dawning of beeps.

Why must this alarm come and shake what was still?
Why can’t you be calm? You the big waking world.

I have a mind who’s only friend’s a ravaged voice of sure regret,
Which chimes of kindnesses to end this savage choice of pure neglect,
Must be an unknown soul around, although they haven’t shown up  yet,
For all I know just hold and drown – and still I haven’t blown up yet,
If we could see then we could learn, our little lives need not be Hell,
If there be good within this world, why does it hide itself so well?

He awakes from deep slumber
to find his beloved missing by his side,
again.
Casting off the shroud of dark, dense clouds
He dons the black cloak of night and begins his frenzied search
for Her - the perpetually elusive one :
He scours the skies, cuts through frosty winds,
roves through the infinity of stars desperately seeking Her,
looks down :
at the lonesome road abandoned by commuters
that treaded upon her all day long
at a dingy alleyway where a girl solicits her new owner
for the night - to be used, abused, misused
at the young woman storming her way back home
distraught from a break-up with her Casanova of a lover -

- all this, while She trails behind him
in his quest for love, silently accompanying him
as he drifts over unknown lands,
hoping his agony abates, wanting to tell him
she is there, he could see her.
She, who lends meaning to his being,
his silvery, mesmerising
Moonlight.

i've noticed that, upon ushering words from the depth
of nothing, or as an interlude in Knausgaard's day-to-day
musing in vol. 6 after inviting Geir over:
this "i" or that "i" or for that matter "my" i...
however you want to frame it...
    i noticed that if i allow myself an evening of not writing...
esp. on an electric screen for someone else to see...
if for example i lay down to go to sleep...
not exactly asleep: dart out of bed and scribble something
on a piece of paper for only me to see...
i will still dream...
but if i sit down and face the electric screen:
pixels like the eyes of a fly... for someone else to see?
i don't dream...
   otherwise... having scribbled down the following
on a piece of paper:

   exploring Heidegger's dasein in another language...
my native, which i will translate into English,
basically prepositional coordination of(f) being
off not necessarily implying non-being -
perhaps merely: being-in-itself or rather the other...

tu-być : be-here
              to-bycie : this-being
ten-byt :                      ditto
although: nuance... there is a distinction...

i also scribbled down something i heard a long
time ago about how Russia, India and China are
re-orientating themselves with the slacking of the western
influence on: whatever it was that the west had
for the past three decades beside
proxy wars, collateral damages and "culture"...

i heard the term: post-ethnic-nationalism
post-ethno-state post-nation-state...
ergo: multiculturalism... which, oddly enough:
i can't come to grips with trying if not trying to
pretend to be a native of these isles -
perhaps it might be a shock for someone outside
of London - but in London it's almost
second nature to... be surrounded by people
from all around the world...
needless to say: the natives are not so disgruntled
once they're sitting all pretty-cherry on top
of some hierarchy: esp. in the journalistic
opinion sections of the Saturday / Sunday magazine...
then it's an open bonanza against
the "lower class racists" and what not...
i can't be an anti-racist: after all...
                                     anti-racists once produced
a schematic for us to learn from in primary school...
which shower the size of brains of...
a white person, a black person and a racist...
and some other brains...
the racist's brain was under-developed:
smaller...                                      ­ really?!

anyway... so Russia, India and China have opted for
what has come to be known as the:
civilization-state...
                                     given the ongoing zeitgeist
******* blowing up in the Anglophone world from
H'america... the culture-war(?!) -
i would bet fairly and say that pretty much all
former nation-states of western Europe
and beyond are currently in a state of morphing
into: buzz buzzword: being - culture-states...

but whereas a civilization-state seems an abrupt
optimal to counter and disagreement with regards
to continuity: civilisations don't merely come and go...
whereas cultures do...
   culture is somehow a totality of the little things
in life... fashion, the arts, politics, faux pas innuendos,
trends, diet...
that's culture and some...
but civilisation? to me that's like saying...
the foundation of Rome was the creation
of the aqueducts...
                  civilisation to me is like saying:
the British Empire and the steam-engine...
civilisation to me, London, exclusively is... the tube...
the underground network...

seriously... i don't need to go to a West End Play
i don't need to go and see Ed Sheeran play
to a sold out Wembley stadium of 100,000+ people
(although, i did, even though i did because
i worked a shift there doing security,
so, technically i didn't, but did)
            i don't need culture... as such...

all i need to do is first, do a shift at Craven Cottage...
hope that the Elizabeth Line won't be working
travel on the Central Line from Newbury Park all
the way to Holborn... and then blah blah...
instead of trying to look at the tired faces opposite
me admire the map of the Central Line
(it's a toss-up between the Central Line map,
or the District, Northern or Piccadilly)
and then, on some sunny day... get my bicycle
out... and bicycle for most of the route... notably...
skewing... merging at Fairlop working my way
through Barkingside, coming to Gants Hill
then less of the tube route (mind you...
between Leyton and Stratford it's pretty
much over-ground) -
   and then from Stratford - through to Mile End...
from Mile End via Whitechapel... to Aldgate...
from Aldgate to St. Paul's... Chancery Lane...
Holborn... rat beneath the ground:
like a rat needs a bicycle -
   well this rat is no hamster: hence the bicycle
and not a hamster-wheel...

what culture? movies?! i tried watching something
relevant to the 1980s today... ***** Dancing...
great soundtrack but... cringe!
that's even before Malcolm X and how inter-racial
inter-****** relations had to be the new norm:
i mean: ******* fair play...
    building the new Brazil -
    but i still think there's an under-representation
(and isn't everyone supposed to get a fair share
of representation) of white boy Romanian girl
(Roma, gypsy) or white boy Turkish girl...
   or white boy half-white half-Indian girl...

i know i will not dream tonight because someone
will see this...
my little itchy thoughts, my freed from the reins
"i" that doesn't really have these words clogging
up its mind - only until the itching of the fingers starts
and i have a blessed day...
like today...

why is it that a Saturday evening can feel like
a Sunday evening?
oh, right... i made steak for dinner tonight...
potato wedges (skins on, first boiled until
the the water started boiling, turned off, soaking
for 5 min, drained, olive oil, cajun pepper sprinkle,
into the oven)
    and some baked vegetables:
leeks, carrots, parsley root, red onions,
celeriac, swede... balsamic vinegar,
    sambal, cumin, coriander, salt, pepper,
sugar (i stopped using honey,
   it sticks to the baking tray plus the vegetables
lose their crunch, and vegetables need their crunch)...
2 steaks (456g total) shared between three people...
seasoned with sea salt and grain black pepper
(i prefer pepper grains than pepper powder,
i.e. pockets of explosion of that spice)
    3 min each side... a perfect medium-rare blush...

however the Indians might sell their spices...
chillies etc. there's still something wholesome
when it comes to eating certain types of food...
given that... i wouldn't be eating beef in India:
i wouldn't be seasoning beef with chillies!
that's why pepper is important...
that's why horseradish is important...
i let most of the Indians slip up: oooh! the Europeans
didn't have any spices...
apart from thyme, rosemary, sage, lavender,
mint... pepper, horseradish, i#m sure we
were also familiar with cumin seeds -
as well as that anise-seed that' not the star
(i forgot the name of it, it looks like
a cumin seed, but fatter, and split down
the middle - green) oh and of course:
plenty of salt...
what's all the spices in the world in the culinary world...
IF, YOU, AIN'T, GOT - SALT?!
   (if you don't have... i know i know...)

it's rather bewildering talking to certain Asians...
although, saying that...
most of Eastern Europe had plenty of interaction
with Asians, namely the Mongols
and the Turks - which the western Europeans
sort of... "forgot"... after Darwinism they
skipped over Asia and went straight back
to Africa... personally? i feel more akin to Asians
(esp. the oriental folk) than i do with anyone
from Africa... however Christianity was born...
after all: what's the definition of a white man?
Caucasian? and where's the Caucus?
Asia... Europe was always going to be
a funnel - a bottle-neck continent -
a port... a departing point...
       perhaps we shouldn't be so clingy to it...
unless of course:
   oh the parody of Jesus never came out of
Europe: "we" had to wait for it coming from
North America, but by then it was no longer
a parody of Jesus but a parody of North American
Christianity... a North American parody of Jesus
is... oddly enough... a European parody
of North American Christianity: via Jesus...

which brings me to another thing... only upon
doing a shift at Craven Cottage did i first hear
the parakeets... never before...
     i'm not going to bloat my ego this much but...
since then i've seen an article on Wikipedia that
i never saw before, the article just appeared out of
nowhere: feral parakeets of England...
subsequently... only a day ago:
you're only here for the parrots, fans chant
as birds swarm Leyton Orient pitch (Evening Standard
4 hours ago)
and bare conker trees overrun by bright green
parakeets make them seem vibrant despite leafless
branches (Daily Mail, 3 days ago, somewhere
in south London)...

today i was given the chance to walk back into my old
haunt... as much as i love cycling...
it's sometimes refreshing to walk...
the slowing of pace, the horizon almost intact...
more so... if walking into a forest...
Bower Wood... i know it is a curated wood...
it's not as feral as the pine woods of Eastern Europe...
but: if life gives you X... you make XY...
x = lemons, y = juice ergo xy = lemon juice...

i'm pretty sure i was familiar with this wood...
i was out hunting for souvenirs for my mother to dress
the table / fake deer antennas for candles to sit in...
holy, some other greenery with black berries...
i was hunting for ferns, almost near impossible
given this time of year... found some! bright blush
of childish envy... oh... and birches...
some oak barks fallen off... just me alone in the forest...
i was so thankful by myself...
but usually i heard crows, magpies and woodland
pigeons... but now?! parakeets?!
here?! now?! parrots in winter in these parts?!

i swear the world is standing-up-side-down...
it's hard not to miss an under-current of a serious
pagan revival weaving and slithering its way through
Europe: if only you care to listen...
i switched off from whatever is available in culture
these days... i know that what i'm listening to
will not gain popular traction...
i can walk into the forest and... there's the forest...
i go back home... cook dinner...
go into my bedroom, open a bottle of cider
thinking: no champagne will beat this...
put on a record akin to...
Heilung's TENET and... hey presto!

                       i was in company of a good friend:
someone already dead who...
i don't know how someone can lose themselves
in the forest... pareidolia...
   you can sometimes see paths already trodden...
unseen but somehow: you can see a "ghost"
of a foot here and there...
    you know: you just KNOW where a human foot
prior to yours once treaded...
there are patterns... better sticking with pareidolia than
the iconoclasm of celebrity...
i always thought that was better...
i like to think i'm in the company of strange
creatures: phantoms of my mind...
but hardly! how can these be phantoms of my mind?!
i didn't spontaneously conjure a face in a tree
when the ******* tree is older than me!
the tree was here before me!
what?! some sin?! some psychological sin
of non-conformity?! i don't adhere to star-gazing
in the filth of commodities and entertainment?!

i know why this feels like a Sunday evening even
though it's a Saturday night...
i was planning on going to the brothel tonight...
but... oh hey mother, hello father...
i'm going out... where? you don't have any friends...
blah blah... yeah... well... i'm kind of happy
because of that: no social-constraints of expectations...
as the conversation usually ran with the last
remaining friend i had from high-school...
- so, what have you been up to?
- nothing...
     and he knew that i was scribbling like mad...
what's there to talk about when it comes to writing?!
last time i heard: you read what is written...
you don't talk about it...
hopefully the reading of something written goes
back into thinking and is not spoken of:
since the conventionality of everyday
formality of social-speech crushes anything delicate
that is born from i-ought-not-but-regardless-i-must!
it's a compulsion!

i went to the shop about 3 hours ago to buy an extra
bottle of cider because i knew: having read a little more than
usual i had to keep the Libra of conscience in place,
"conscience": never write more than you read...
and never read less than you write - so so...
          wow... FORK in the "ROAD"...
                        this is me replaying the opening of the song
TENET - the sound of the horn...
well... i didn't have a horn in the forest...
but i had my pagan statue... a dead white tree...
i left this little stick next to it... i used to walk this wood
more times than i can remember...
sometimes i walked into it bare-chested...
blind from the darkness, but somehow illuminated
by the moon... sat on a stump of wood...
silence... then a breaking of a branch...
not the sort of breaking of a branch still attached
to a tree... something stepped on it...
i wasn't alone... i froze but then ushered in my voice
to compliment a shared bewildered amazement:
that is not a foot of a man stepping on a branch...

in the same wood i saw my first GARMR...
would i really have to go with the flow
of a Christopher J. MacCandless?!
                                       if hell is going to send its hounds
out to meet me, it doesn't matter where that might
be... i don't need to visit the northern most parts
of Norway to find what i'm seeking...
and what i'm seeking i found: since i'm dragging what
needed to be found around...
it's not surprising that at Bower Wood i was
alleviating a traffic problem when
two does and about 5 fawns were causing havoc...
"havoc" in the night implies 3 cars pulling over...
me coming down from the hill running up to
the village of Havering-atte-Bower spotting one...
not caring if there was a stag nearby running
with the fawn which subsequently ensured
the two does and the rest of the fawns
started to gallop and disappeared into the Wood...

i wish i could make this stuff up...
but then again: i'm not jealous of people
who have seen the Galapagos Islands or the Maldives
or... ah... just recently...
i took that rat-above-rat-below trip on my bicycle
into central London... i said to myself:
circle round St. Paul's cathedral... nope...
not good enough... around the Old Bailey then...
o.k. - and i "prayed": please! not another flat tire!
hey presto! on my way back... a flat tire at Aldgate!
great! well... i walked this distance before...
i can walk it again... walking back...
passed the East London Mosque and then...
Allahu Akbar! a bicycle repair shop!

walked up - leaned the bicycle against the wall,
the Chinese guy said: just 10 minutes
(while he was fixing this Deliveroo rider's
electric bicycle) - no problem -
i took some times to each some gelatin sweets
and drink some water, looking at people,
i felt like i was in some exclusive club,
only cyclists allowed - it felt like a very urban
sensation that most punks must have felt,
or goths, standing out...
i paid too much compliments to those guys
in Cycle King bicycle shop in Chadwell Heath...
i knew the front tire was worn down,
but i thought: get the professional's opinion...
they would be more than willing to change
the inner-tube for the Nth time before telling me:
oh... you need to change the actual tyre...
how many times did i change the inner tube?
**** knows! milking it... ******* were milking it!
but this Chinese guy said outright plainly...
it's ****... i'll change it for you...
inner tube, tyre and labour... £55...
done!
               he changed it to a tyre that...
well... let's face it... 2nd gear front
and 4th, 5th 6th and 7th gears in the back...
i was whizzing past home... he said:
less width... more grip... for the grit...
   but at least he was ******* honest...
that's what i mean about a European's relationship
with the Asians... i'm honest, they're honest...
they're not some SCAM MERCHANT KNIGS
of NIGERIA: CNUT-MBAPPE typos...

oh... and it's not like anyone didn't notice
that Indian girls think they're the bomb?!
oh yeah... oh no, not the Muslim girls... those girls
are whipped into always staring down...
like white girls are whipped into peering into
their smart-phone screens and envisioning:
anything outside of inter-racial relationships is:
pederasty (loose term)... whatever it might me...
bulimic antics: not done properly, mind you...
not in the Roman style of training the oesophagus
to just spew on a whim: i.e. i ate too much...
apologies... i need to... ugh! ugh! ugh!
                      get ready the trampoline!
we're going to launch half-digested fish-heads!

now i'm happy... my Trek Merlin 5 is compatible...
fun... looking at that *** trying to chase me down
working my way down toward the Old Bailey...
Asian ceramic raven haired
no helmet... and never, never... ride a bicycle
in an urban environment minding
the sticker on the inside of a large vehicle:
BLIND SPOT... well... d'uh... so use the large
vehicle like a battering ram against all the gnats
of smaller vehicles... ride on the outside of the large
vehicle... always on the outside...
what are you, cyclist... a Hebrew forced by
the **** brown-shirts to walk in the gutter rather
than on the pavement?! what am i?
just because i'm a cyclist i'm no less a hazard
to a motorcyclist?! momentum, self-generated!
i like my legs... let me know when you're dealing
wheelies and whizzes on a ******* wheelchair...
until i have my legs... i'll be skimming through
traffic... Norman Davis might have called
the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth God's Playground...
i think i'll call London my playground...
there's plenty to play with around here...

                 but for once i listened to my ego...
for some reason i didn't require a depth of the
Freudian secular trinity of the addition of superego
and id... i was just about to think about going to the brothel
but then my ego said: you're not feeling it...
and i wasn't... i still had to clean the kitchen up,
take the garbage out... i was oiling myself up...
"oiling": checking if i still had a 30 year old's hard-on
i stopped using the fake diet of ******* of
actors: disposable, unattainable...
i switched to: ROMANIAN AMATEUR ****...
well... it's what i'm going to get...
but i checked my hard-on too many times today...
checked, i.e. checked without climaxing...
checked about 4 times... the 5th time i checked
i was thinking about going to the brothel...
but then my ego (not my ego) checked me...
you're not going anywhere:

THE FICKLE MIND AND THE FIRM TRUTH
OF THE BODY...
the mind lies more times than the body cares to admit...
until, of course... the reality of body steps in
and the mind has to retreat... just as happened with
my excess drinking... i went to buy that extra bottle
of cider and waiting in the queue while a mother
with three daughters "****'s sake" the mother retorted
while the girls were undecided what else
to add to the basked i looked at the shelves
with all the spirits... no! no! no more whiskey!
no more *****! no more!
i checked my supposed "impotence" too many times
today... "impotence": more like being
insulted by the madam: beached-whale...
she just flicked it when it went limp because
i found her physically abhorrent...
flicked it... like it was a worm...
like she was 6 years old and i was 5 years old
and she was still playing with Barbie dolls
and unlike she was...
because she knew what a key was and what a keyhole
was... but she had no idea what
physical attraction was...

                        reciprocated...

well ****... it's working... guess it's not working with you...
a bit like the horse that Christopher Reeve rode
when it dropped him and recalculated Superman:
without a spine...
plus i had no excuse to leave the house...
i had plenty of excuses to read some more of Knausgaard
and write this...
tomorrow i'll have the excuse of "working late"...
going to a brothel is not like saying:
oh yeah... i'm going on a date with a girl
we're going to the cinema blah blah...
       no... dearest ******* Madam...
she's the one that chased away both Mona and Khadra...
what the **** happened?!

what am i? a Duracell bunny?! there's an ON and OFF
switch with regards to my phallus?!
if that's the case... what's the dynamic of ****?!
is ****... no... it can't be... **** is a man *******
a turned-off woman? i once had an experience
of a woman who... let's put it mildly:
her **** was as dry as the adequate metaphor
of sensation one might regret to feel from rubbing one's
hands on sandpaper!
hands... finger tips... rough skin...
ergo the ability to play guitar or rock climb...
we're talking tender skin...
so... technically: hardly a pleasure for a ****** to feel
pleasure from an unaroused ****!
ergo?! that was an aroused **** and it's all psychological:
not physical... the shame of giving it so freely
and unwillingly... whereas playing games with
those one might want to give it up to...
i can hardly **** with a LIMPY -
   but i certainly wouldn't want to **** a timber-mill worth
of toothpicks, match-sticks and left-overs...
**** is psychological it would seem...
                the shame of it... all those labyrinths of playing
games suddenly disappearing from the case of
"spontaneity"...
   you should ask her: South African... Sancha...
worked in a private school... teaching boys Mathematics...
maybe she was a *******... by now who knows?!
i do know that i wasn't terrible aroused by her
the first time we tried...
i got a limp... like i got a limp with Ilona:
a forewarning... but she was adamant and whispered
into my ear: you will not deny me...
second time i was in her teacher accommodation
i brought a copy of the Machinist with me on DVD...
she must have spiked my drink because then the horror
of cocoon *** ensued and that's when
she climbed on top of me and gave me the sawdust
sandpaper **** treatment in the dark...

it kind of follows through to the casual mode of
argumentation people have concerning the schizoid condition:
it's all in your mind...
right... so the schizoid condition is simply: so...
your i-think detaches itself from thought
and forms a i-hallucinate complex as if: spring follows winters?
well then... it's all in your mind...
**** is probably in most of women's minds...
it doesn't actually exist in reality:
in the physiology... **** is a mental construct...
it must be... since i don't recall any ******
talking about: oh ****... i had to pull out...
her **** turned into a mantis or the mouth
of a worm from the planet Dune... i just couldn't
continue!

the next day she drove me to the station and i never saw
her again...
ergo? i have a strange relationship with a limp ****...
it's not impotence: per se,
it's more a judge of character concerning a ******
partner: however brief, however informal...
it's like a wild animal freezing still...
     deer in the headlights...
                                      i should have known better
with Ilona... but she pressured to the point where it
finally started "working": i wish "he" didn't...
it would have saved me so much pointless drama...
if i were a man with a child i would tell him just as much:
it's not working for a reason...
that ***** is a mantis... you're not a robot...
this isn't a *****... you're not an extension of a *****...
it's not working for a reason...
go and check... watch the most realistic "*******":
switch to amateur stuff...
                                that's all you're going to get...
and can you, get it up? well then...
it's not you...
                                     once all the glamour is gone
and you're left with a butcher's cut of antics...
                              well... if you're aroused by that sort of stuff
in private... why can't the partner reciprocate?
maybe that's just me finalising some logistics for
tomorrow...
shift at the Ice Rink tomorrow...
me... two girls...
   one butch lesbian... she keeps rubbing off on my arms
every time the home side scores
and she's celebrating...
      one rub by chance i can understand... two rubs
and i'm thinking: this isn't homosexual conversion therapy,
is it?
the other? got me the job to begin with...
started taking dieting pills because she feels depressed
because she thinks she's fat and this is what
working with women looks like if you're not
in the business of being a plumber: in the realm of
customer service...
    
                 that's how this new girl i fancied at work
got fired... about 4 other girls ganged up on her
and she was literally bullied out of work because...
            
it's coming up to 1am... i need to get up early tomorrow...
do a cycling shift...
trim my mustache, my beard, my ***** region, my arm-pits...
finish one more bottle of cider for good luck:
or no luck...
           listen to some more pagan music...
think about Bower Wood and how i wish that if i weren't
working tomorrow
i'd buy myself a bottle of whiskey and walk
into it, right now... to howl and wake up the crows.

p.s. oh, right, that dream i had last night when
i didn't scribble any words for anyone else to see?
two night ago i was swimming with
pseudo-jelly fish on the edge of the universe
transmitting vibrations of light...
last night i was watching while some colts
were gleefully celebrating their ability to drink
shots of absinthe... until i walked up to the bar
and showed them how to drink absinthe
properly...
i took out a spoon, dipped the spoon in some
sugar... poured some absinthe onto the spoon...
lit the spoon and the sugar alight...
watched the caramel form...
then poured some water into the glass
to clue them in into the secret of drinking absinthe:
you don't drink absinthe like *****...
you need for the green-milk of wormwood
to emerge!
    sie müssen für die grünmilsch von wermut
zu auftauchen!

Last night
you breathed on me.

The grass
reminded me
of the faint color of the sun
on your skin.

I remember,
how we treaded lightly
on folded grass;
a reminder
of how we stayed behind
for each other.

"Like friends"
We would say together.

How our own weight
carried
our sentences
to each other
almost touching.

For T. S.

(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / June 8, 2011 - Parañaque)

The lady's large legs
shuddered, spreading
-becoming broader-
as tears treaded
descending down
corpulent cheeks and chins
(like a rill running from
narrow eyes undulating upward)

She laughed... Oh joy!
this wonderful woman
seated shaking on her small stool
hardly holding in
chortles of cheer
palms on her plump potbelly
erupting with euphoria
as her heavy heart hurt heaving
boiling blood battling
plaque packed into
every artery to
locate luscious lips that laughed loving life.

Mirrored thought full breach horizon
Yearning drawing bridging cry
Intimate complete attraction
Now the moment true imply
Cast aside mendacious forethought
Resolute round purpose fly
Epiphanic thought emerging
Doubts foul gibbous banish say ....
Insp’ration resolute within here
Bursting forth bright intellect
Loosing dogs full purpose forward
Encroaching far reach treaded path
Resolute’ness biting grasping
Endless boundless seeming lost
Blazing purposeful grasp grimly
Energise strong inner soul
Capa’bil’ity strong purpose
Clear thought con’quering foul
Abandon dissolute mist darkness
Intersperse directive steer
Levelling where once lay mountains
Onward pushing prancing laugh
Voices raised fair joyous chorus
Ethereal reaching hands entwine
Yearning warmth transcending distance
Over hill and Moorland track
Understand where strength in thought lay
Accomplishment find perfect peace

invigorating cold air
fumbling for keys
wet sneakers
treaded grass
dew on the windshield
orange sky fading into hopeful blue
groggy morning questions
radio talk host
sounds hopeful about the weather
wet sneakers
cold dry pavement
gas station coffee in hand
warms my hands
as the sun warms the concrete
thoughts of his hands
feeling of numbness
mistake it for happiness
gets me through the day

I'm so unique nobody could be me.
The words I say reflect what I see.
I know you; I know what you're thinking.
I see the light, but I don't know why it's shining.

Sometimes, I know, I get too upset
When wrestling with the puzzles that are in my head.
My heart could love, if not for the dread.
It's like a blade that's doing me a chining.

But I can't blame it on the rock-and roll,
It's the only thing that keeps me whole,
Lord knows, it's the only, only thing that's holy.
No you can't say I'm like the other guys,
I was living large before it was fashion wise.
You know, the angels treaded far behind me lightly.

The gossamer was endless and nestling to all it neared.
The tingling within the earth let usher forth a worthless beauty to every person of it's time; but which was to be unknowingly priceless to the lives yet to come.

And the prophet cried before the day he realized he was to die, the hour before he was to find...

Relief.

The automatic writing happens when you give it up,
And you never even know the meaning til it comes to pass.

But divination is a gift, even as the gossamer blinds your eyes.

And the fiber dissolves into the nullity.

When then spasm has become as the tapered wind, there is left but nothing.

You hate that I wear your shirts
Specifically the ones that you got from being in the marines
Its just I don't know you

I never really did
So I wear your shirts because you've worn them
And I was hoping that the fibers would tell me who you were

The woven strands would tell me about your personality
The dyes would tell me about your past
A history written in cloth

The folded crisped sleeves
Telling me about what happened in the past ten years of not talking to each other
You see I **** at talking about what I'm feeling

The only proper way I can is spilling it through the tip of a pen
Or pouring it into a keyboard
I'm slowly reminded that your shirts don't take on a condescending tone

Telling me that I'm just a kid
Part of me was hoping that
Some kind of weird information transfer would happen

Your shirt and I would swap information
So the next time you put it on
(If I hadn't taken it with me)

Everything I've been through would swap into your head and be processed
And you'd stop calling me a little kid and you'd realize that
I **** at showing emotions and that you aren't a brother to me

You're a stranger
And you left
When you did I had to grow up because you were the first to go

Ten years ago you left and I don't hold anything against you because I don't know you
And my earlier memories are always swirling eddies
A fogged shower mirror that I can never make out

You left and when you did you left a child behind
Someone who still had chimed belled laughter
Will o the wisps smiles

Someone who treaded on pearl ingrained feet
But those pearls began to sink in and cut
Only to become blood rubies

Unforgivingly beautiful
And seductively painful
I walked back into your life on those ruby kissed feet  

I stood a little taller
My shoulders a little broader
My face a bit more graced with age

Hi

I'm your slightly older younger sister
How have you faired these past ten years?

Time slipped away in the spring, in the muddy puddles and the rain, in the sweet-smelling flowers and the rain.
It rubbed circles into the small of my back,
whispered bittersweet apologies and tacked a sticky note to my corkboard.
“Remember to call.”
I forgot.

And I sit under the blooming tree
my bare feet soft against the grass

Time left me in the summer, in the sunny skies and the rain, in the sweltering heat and the rain.
It ran somewhere unknown, far, far, far away,
while I treaded chlorinated water and prayed that the fall would come sooner.
“You can call whenever.”
I didn’t.

And I sit beside the verdant tree
my bare feet ******* the pavement

Time was gone in the fall, in the whispered breeze and the rain, in the crinkling leaves and the rain.
But I had company in a glowing screen,
And as days turned to weeks turned to months I forgot about time altogether.
“Someone is calling.”
I hung up.

And I sit far from the dying tree
my bare feet resting on the couch

Time slept in the winter, in the miserable cold and the rain, in the blustery wind and the rain.
Numbers and names disavowed,
As “today” and “tomorrow” become “now” and “later”
“What is the word called?”
I don’t know.

And I cannot see the empty tree
my bare feet asleep on the carpet

Time has returned in the spring.
It looks me in the eyes,
profuse apologies pouring out from its lips.
“But you didn’t call.”
I blink. Didn’t I?

it wasn't my intention to embarrass you
perhaps i acted rashly
but knowing what he said to you
made me livid, would it have been better to have treaded bashfully
i cannot stand for my friends to be treated so nastily
myself is another matter entirely
i have a problem letting things go
maybe i need to grow

Each cold wave was starting to slap
me in the face and the grayness of morning
wasn’t lifting as the sun rose.  Goosebumps

had made my legs slim sharks, heavy and rough,
so I swam to shore spitting out icy water.  
I was thinking about coffee,

maybe crawling into my sleeping bag
and listening to loons’ far-off howls
until breakfast, and I reached the splintery dock

when I choked –
tried to struggle backward, without any splash
which might wash her in with me.  

Dock spiders swim.  Did you know?  
They fasten long ropes of silk and dive
for their prey, something big since no horsefly

sustains a spider the size of a mouse.  
This one was monstrous, motionless,
spiky black legs jointed white at her knees,

face-level to my wet bobbing head.  She gripped
an egg sac, papery and white, marble-sized.  
It held hundreds of tiny hers.  It looked heavy.  

I had come to her panting but now the water
or inertia maybe pushed my face close
to that enormous silent mother so I fought harder

to stay away, though if the lake had been still
I might have treaded at a distance, stared hard,
dared her to scuttle and disappear in the cracks

in the plywood-patched dock with its rotting ladder
and a dozen more spiders, probably,
white sacs strapped firmly to their bellies.  

I flopped like I’d hooked a lip, gasping, desperate
for rough open water where depth
would deter any diving hairy creature.  

Somehow I struggled to remoter shoreline
where I slid over boulders’ upholstery of algae,
shivering, legs frog-splayed, stringent and numb.  

I never felt it when I scratched my legs crashing
through buckthorn, the way to the cabin, though I saw
the lines later when I put on soft clothing

in a warm inside corner where spiders are smaller
and at least have the kindness
to keep out of sight.