Welcome to the land of golden trout

Where black bears roam and hawks still shout

In the eastern Sierras, hills of the west

Tales of the Adventurers and their first test.

Forming an alliance in Santa Cruz

They left together, unwilling to lose.

Packing up and heading down the trail

They knew as a team they would never fail.

Without a moment’s hesitation nor shred of doubt

The crew took their Tools of Tenacity out

And in less than three months flat

The Adventurers finished, exclaiming “that’s that!”


But who composes this mysterious crew?

Wait just one moment, I promise I’ll tell you.

First, there’s Nico the Noble, the leader so fearless

Who also frightens many when he’s not beardless;

Followed by Ben the Benevolent with his hearty laugh

And never without his Capitals hat;

Kahn the Courageous has his wild antics

Telling stories with Buckeye semantics;

Jamie the Just and her vegan ways

Had to eat lentils for most of her days;

See Jen the Jubilant with camera-in-hand

Shaving logs for as long as she can;

The team’s newest member, Maggie the Merciful,

Has now experienced the wilderness in full;

Tim the Wise lacks alliteration, unlike the others

But has chased many cows, some scraping their udders;

And at last there’s me, the Notable Narrator,

So our crew’s legacy can live forever.


In our quest the crew has changed slightly.

Those unable to handle the tasks lightly

Had left- like Mary, Bobby, and Stary the Skeptical

All well-admired, and mostly respectable.


Now let’s shift our story to the work completed

In the struggling meadow, its health near-depleted.

Using fallen trees that have long-since passed

We found a clearing with their numbers quite vast.

Cutting the deceased into sixteen-foot longs

And lugging them over thickets and bogs

Our team stacked them perpendicular

To the stream, or creek, in particular

And in a magician’s “ta-da!” moment

Water rose up to our new component,

Flowing over the freshly-made dam

Then briefly meeting with dirt and sand

At the bottom. Multiplied by thirty

And that was work: rigorous and *****.

But why were the Adventurers sent there,

To build check-dams and do repairs?

It was, in part, human consumption

That led to the meadow’s near-destruction:

America’s insatiable need for beef

Will not, for a long time, see any relief,

So Industry has pushed forward, sending cows to the fields

Grazing and growing to become our future meals.

But little did Industry know how devastating

Hundreds of cattle leave an ecosystem suffocating.

Trampling grass and dispersing banks underhoof

The bovine are easily guilty, there’s so much proof.

Stupid, noxious, and obnoxious creatures

Recognized by these, easily their best features.

Incessantly screaming day and night

They are more like demons by every right.

Yet the Forest Service lets ranchers send

Hundreds of cattle, seemingly without end.

And while the Golden Trout crew fixed things,

It’s not enough to ease the strain the cows will bring.


So what can we do, if anything at all

If we go veggie will Industry stall?

Can the end of beef save the earth

Is society only worried when we gain in girth?

That’s not for me to say right now

It’s up to you to answer the “how?”


But I digress, I must end the story

Of the Adventurers and their summer glories.

In the end they saved the meadow, saved the day

Held the bovine rampage at bay,

Raised water levels, erosion erased,

Then was the time to leave that place.

So the Adventurers hopped in their van,

Eight warriors mean, lean, and tan,

And took off down the mountainside

To Santa Cruz and the oceanside.

Each followed one’s own path

But only after taking many baths.

The Golden Trout legacy will live forever,

Only made possible by the best crew ever.

The man to my right was more than eight feet away. I was going to have to move closer to him to catch my limit of four trout. I halved the distance between the two of us and noted the sideways glance he shot me. I apologized immediately and asked if I was crowding him.
     “No, you fine,” he replied within a thick Serbian accent.
     “You’re with them?” I asked, pointing to the crowd of people on the bridge some 30 feet upstream from us. I had heard the crowd of eastern Europeans talking earlier, and their accents were unmistakable to me. He nodded and we continued fishing.
     With my new angle I was better able to pick my fish in the water, so that’s what I did. I spied one and tossed my jig toward him. It took five casts but eventually, he took the bait. As I netted it in the swift, ice-cold spring water the man beside me congratulated me on the catch. I thanked him and added it to my stringer. This made three, and I only needed one more.
     “What’s your name?” I asked him.
     “Ivan”.
     “Have you been in the states long?” I asked, after the pause following his short reply seemed to invite more questions.
     “Since ‘96, my family live here. It is good.”
     “You like living here?” I wondered aloud.
     “Yes, the fishing is good. It is like back home in Serbia, or in Germany. We have this fishing there.”
     “You mean trout?”
     “Yes, trout...and some other fish like these, in water like this, but I can’t go home now.” He looked away momentarily. His lips pursed, and his brow furrowed. I pulled my line in, wanting to ask him more and not wanting to be distracted.
     “Were you in the war?”
     “Yes, I was in the Serbian police force.” My heart pounded. “When I was in the Serbian police force, we did what you see on the news. We went into villages and we killed them. We killed them all.”
     I cast my line back into the water, spying another trout. Ivan shrugged and cast his own line. I couldn’t tell what he was using but it looked like cheese of some kind. “I was drafted in Serb police when I was 15. I had no choice. If I refuse, they **** me. I did what I had to do.” I nodded, and ****** my line, missing a fish. “Before the war, I fished. After the war, there were not so many people, so fishing was very good.”
     The air around me was alive. The trees were greener, the water was colder and clearer, the sun was brighter, and the sky was bluer.
     “I’ve been fishing for a long time as well,” I responded. My father used to bring me here as a child. He nodded and continued.
     “After the war, all the fish come back, no one fished during the war, so there were many of them. You just had to be careful of the mines.” He grunted and gazed skyward.
     “The mines?”
     “Yes, during the war they mined the water.”
     I watched trout number four take my jig and I carefully reeled him in. Ivan congratulated me a second time, and I thanked him in return.
“You’re a good fisherman,” he said turning back to his own pursuit of the four-trout limit, as I left the water to clean my catch.

There were gnomes within
The abyss
Crying because they had
No way home
Cowering below water
Trout wipes
Spawning the souring eggs
They laid
Sun-shower clouds spawn
On and on and on

Crying beyond the fathom
Of the Heavens
Armadillo shrimp sunbathe
The bubbling sea bath
Trout wipes' infectious wrath
Drift off current
Tremble off the beat
Induce a treasuring smile
Recover from the bipolar company
Trout wipes

Half a mile downstream from the crumbling bridge,
The river began to break up too,
Into washouts and rock-bound pools.

Aged promontories, sandy shores, from
Primeval rivers, compressed by time
From granite, stood sentinel over the rush.
Against these broke hurtling, grey-green waves,
Spitting high in defiance at the rocks’ impasse,
Slowing but briefly, swirling angrily
On their way back to the waiting sea.

Upon a high outcrop, I took up my post
Rod in hand, watching the helpless worm
On his way to death, by whatever claimed him first.
I had not put him there, being squeamish,
“Mindless flesh,” a poet friend had dubbed them.
Still, my companions rigged him on the hook,
In exchange for keeping their joints burning.
Not smoking, I thought, but taking puff after puff,
As my bait was laid on the rack for sacrifice.

We scattered after all our poles were baited,
Claiming ancient pools and all inside them as our own.
I stood highest, near the fiercest waters that shook the rock,
Braced in the March air against the icy spray.
I was there, I told myself, because two men
Needed to catch a fish and prove themselves.
Yet they faded like ghosts into the gloam of evenfall,
As absorption overtook me, and I began to care.
Cast after cast into the roiling waters
Just where the waterfall fumed and broke.

Soon, it was only my goal, and nothing else,
To wage an age-old war against a artful foe.
Each strike brought me hope and each loss determination
Not anger but resolve to outwit them at a game
Invented eons ago by humankind,
And learned by trout to save themselves.
What happened after was of no concern to me,
But let me catch them for the sake of having it be.
The contest alone was all to me, it seemed,
Yet winning the only outcome I could see.

I had pulled three young trout from the churning water,
Energized despite their mediocre size,
When there came a tug just beneath my perch that taunted,
Promising the battle I craved.
So I cast the remnants of my sacrificial bait
Upstream, where currents swept it beneath my feet,
And there he was! No doubt the oldest trout in the hills,
Lingering below me to tease my newfound lust.
I set the hook well, so I thought, and reeled him high,
Fifteen inches long and heavy as he twisted in mid-air.
He thrashed like a madman above the rock,
Just beyond my reach,
--Then was gone…

When all was over, I had three fingerlings, not much,
While my helpful companions had none for all their work.
I told them not to fret, that it was merely luck,
But I knew better. When they asked me what I did
To catch the few, wee fish who now sizzled in the pan,
I answered haltingly, already memories fading of my quest,
Finally telling my rivals that I knew not why
Capturing a fish meant so much on that day.
“I do,” said one with a laugh.” I asked “Why?”
“It’s easy to explain,” he said…”you were high!”

?
Sharon Talbot

I am standing in front of another creative writing class, and from my mouth, the mouth of all English teachers, comes, “Write what you know,” and the carefully tied fly whips itself out onto the surface of the classroom and lies there, waiting for a nibble or a strike. My students, fresh from fields and country roads and long hours alone on the prairies, stare back like ancient trout, converged at this bend in the river. No one moves a pencil; no one rises to even tap the bait. Silence is broken by the sound of the motorized General Electric clock over my head as it marks the flow of time and water and life.

Whoever put a 15 inch clock on the wall above and behind the teacher, knew something about multi-dimensional sadism. Students mark their breathing in second hand sweeps, while I wait for that first hand to rise like a fish, foolishly deciding to catch one last fly for the evening…my fly, tied carefully to “invisible, mono-thread nylon leader” guaranteed to withstand the assault of five pound monster brown trout. Patiently, I stand by the edge of the stream, my feet just barely touching the water line.

“Mr. Simms? What if I don’t have anything to write about?” a querulous voice trembles. Shimmers of water-light ripple through the pond-room. I see the other trout-children moving ever so slightly, turning in the water thick air toward the question-tap.

“Patience,” I think…and clear my throat. “Good question,” I say. “What do you know that you would want to write about? What stories do you have to tell that others would like to hear?” I let the current move the fly a little deeper over the waiting trout.

And there I miss the first strike of the day.

“Nothing. I got nothing,” grumbles Charlie. “I don’t go nowhere. I don’t do nuthin’ but work and stay at home.”

“Yah. Pretty much says it all right there,” chimes in his best friend Tad. The other fish start to turn away from the prompt/bait. I can see they are thinking of going into deeper water.

Quickly, I change tactics. I turn and grab a broken piece of chalk…not much, but enough. I scratch out two words: ‘episodic memory.’ Turning to the class, I say quickly, “What do you remember about 9/11? Take a minute and think about 9/11. Where were you? What were you doing? Who was with you? What time of day was it? What did you feel?”

The class is interested in the bait change up. I can see their trout bodies, speckled with brown dots, turning toward my new presentation. Gills are fanning in and out a little quicker than before.

A hand shoots up. Mary says, “I was on my way to school, and the bus driver yelled at us all to be quiet because something was going on with World Trade Center.”
A couple of her friends nod their heads, eyes looking up and back, into the past. Images were coming into focus.

Jose blurts out, “My mom was on the way to New York that morning. She was waiting at the airport. We were all worried about her.”

Now we’re getting somewhere, I tell myself. “So, Jose, can you remember exactly what you were doing when you first found out about the planes hitting the building? Where were you? What were you doing?”

“I had just eaten…Cheerios…yeah, it was Cheerios!” he says. “I was making sure my books were in my backpack, and the news came on over the Good Morning Show. I remember I stopped and just stood there like I was frozen. It was a couple of hours before we knew she was okay, but her plane was grounded so she couldn’t go to New York.”

The rest of the class murmurs. The beautiful fish begin to move as one toward the bait.

I nudge. “What did you see? What did you hear? What did you feel? What did you smell? Who were you with? Take a minute and write that down.”

Pencils scratch on cheap paper. The sound of the clock hum recedes. Time slows as currents of thought push the humming motor down. The stream slows and the water surface becomes glassy.

Two minutes pass. No one says anything.

I break the silence. “This is episodic memory. When huge events take place in our lives…events that mean something very important to us, or that are swift and exciting, sometimes too wonderful or too terrible to understand or to survive…at that instant…those events are stored in our minds almost like living, high definition videos. We can remember these episodes with all five senses. We remember what we were doing, what we were eating, who was with us, where we were, sights, sounds, smells, feelings…they’re all there in our episodic memories.”

I have their attention. The hook is set. Some pencils even scratch “episodic memory” on paper. I push on.

“We all have collective episodic memory. 9/11 is a good example. You all have some collective memory of that day when terrorists flew two airplanes into the twin towers in New York City.”

I take a breath. “Now comes the reason for my teaching you about episodic memory. We all have personal events stored in episodic memory as well. Each of us has his or her personal memories, forever burned into the hard drives of our minds. When we pull up these memories, they are there in true color, full sound, and clear vision. We can see, taste, touch, hear and smell those memories clearly. That’s what I mean when I say, ‘write what you know.’

It’s illegal to fly fish with multiple baits on one line in Montana, not that I am coordinated enough to keep 15 grey wolf flies separate and in the air on the end of 30 feet of fly line anyway. In my mind, I imagine those flies stinging the water and 15 fish leaping to snag them. The class is moving mentally toward episodic events.

The fly fisherman lives for that leaping catch, when the world explodes with the splashing surge of trout beauty and fierce battle. The teacher lives and breathes the exhalations of “AHA!” as students capture concepts and come to life.

Fifteen memories, brilliant as shattering crystal catching sunlight, explode in fifteen minds…and then the trouble comes. I have been here before, and move quickly to head off a possible flight to deep waters.

“Class! I need you to hold your thoughts for just a minute.”

“Some of us in this room just experienced memories of wonderful events: winning shots at ball games, good news of brothers or sisters coming home from war, first kisses … and some of us are experiencing terrible events, reliving them over right here in this room. I know that happens. It happens to me. The problem is…not all episodic memories should be shared with everyone.”

The class is silent. A couple of eyes are red and I can see where tears are beginning to form. Someone is recalling a fumbled tackle and the agony of sounding jeers. Another is re-living the scratchy beard and beer-sour breath of a father as he crosses all lines of decency and honor with a child. I can almost hear the sounds of skidding tires and feel exploding airbags as three minds simultaneously re-experience crashes…. The silent sounds of slaps and screams, of joyous and sarcastic laughter, of shouts of tearful farewells and exuberant reunions fill the air, bubbles releasing in the moving water of the classroom.

And then, the bell rings. “Take your ideas with you and write about what you know! I’ll see you Wednesday,” I yell.

Fifty minutes. The fishing is good. I reel in the fly, check the hook, and wait for the next fish to come upstream.

An evening all aglow with summer light
And autumn colour—fairest of the year.

The wheat-fields, crowned with shocks of tawny gold,
All interspersed with rough sowthistle roots,
And interlaced with white convolvulus,
Lay, flecked with purple shadows, in the sun.
The shouts of little children, gleaning there
The scattered ears and wild blue-bottle flowers—
Mixed with the corn-crake's crying, and the song
Of lone wood birds whose mother-cares were o'er,
And with the whispering rustle of red leaves—
Scarce stirred the stillness. And the gossamer sheen
Was spread on upland meadows, silver bright
In low red sunshine and soft kissing wind—
Showing where angels in the night had trailed
Their garments on the turf. Tall arrow-heads,
With flag and rush and fringing grasses, dropped
Their seeds and blossoms in the sleepy pool.
The water-lily lay on her green leaf,
White, fair, and stately; while an amorous branch
Of silver willow, drooping in the stream,
Sent soft, low-babbling ripples towards her:
And oh, the woods!—erst haunted with the song
Of nightingales and tender coo of doves—
They stood all flushed and kindling 'neath the touch
Of death—kind death!—fair, fond, reluctant death!—
A dappled mass of glory!
Harvest-time;
With russet wood-fruit thick upon the ground,
'Mid crumpled ferns and delicate blue harebells.
The orchard-apples rolled in seedy grass—
Apples of gold, and violet-velvet plums;
And all the tangled hedgerows bore a crop
Of scarlet hips, blue sloes, and blackberries,
And orange clusters of the mountain ash.
The crimson fungus and soft mosses clung
To old decaying trunks; the summer bine
Drooped, shivering, in the glossy ivy's grasp.
By day the blue air bore upon its wings
Wide-wandering seeds, pale drifts of thistle-down;
By night the fog crept low upon the earth,
All white and cool, and calmed its feverishness,
And veiled it over with a veil of tears.

The curlew and the plover were come back
To still, bleak shores; the little summer birds
Were gone—to Persian gardens, and the groves
Of Greece and Italy, and the palmy lands.

A Norman tower, with moss and lichen clothed,
Wherein old bells, on old worm-eaten frames
And rusty wheels, had swung for centuries,
Chiming the same soft chime—the lullaby
Of cradled rooks and blinking bats and owls;
Setting the same sweet tune, from year to year,
For generations of true hearts to sing.
A wide churchyard, with grassy slopes and nooks,
And shady corners and meandering paths;
With glimpses of dim windows and grey walls
Just caught at here and there amongst the green
Of flowering shrubs and sweet lime-avenues.
An old house standing near—a parsonage-house—
With broad thatched roof and overhanging eaves,
O'errun with banksia roses,—a low house,
With ivied windows and a latticed porch,
Shut in a tiny Paradise, all sweet
With hum of bees and scent of mignonette.

We lay our lazy length upon the grass
In that same Paradise, my friend and I.
And, as we lay, we talked of college days—
Wild, racing, hunting, steeple-chasing days;
Of river reaches, fishing-grounds, and weirs,
Bats, gloves, debates, and in-humanities:
And then of boon-companions of those days,
How lost and scattered, married, changed, and dead;
Until he flung his arm across his face,
And feigned to slumber.
He was changed, my friend;
Not like the man—the leader of his set—
The favourite of the college—that I knew.
And more than time had changed him. He had been
“A little wild,” the Lady Alice said;
“A little gay, as all young men will be
At first, before they settle down to life—
While they have money, health, and no restraint,
Nor any work to do,” Ah, yes! But this
Was mystery unexplained—that he was sad
And still and thoughtful, like an aged man;
And scarcely thirty. With a winsome flash,
The old bright heart would shine out here and there;
But aye to be o'ershadowed and hushed down,

As he had hushed it now.
His dog lay near,
With long, sharp muzzle resting on his paws,
And wistful eyes, half shut,—but watching him;
A deerhound of illustrious race, all grey
And grizzled, with soft, wrinkled, velvet ears;
A gaunt, gigantic, wolfish-looking brute,
And worth his weight in gold.
“There, there,” said he,
And raised him on his elbow, “you have looked
Enough at me; now look at some one else.”

“You could not see him, surely, with your arm
Across your face?”
“No, but I felt his eyes;
They are such sharp, wise eyes—persistent eyes—
Perpetually reproachful. Look at them;
Had ever dog such eyes?”
“Oh yes,” I thought;
But, wondering, turned my talk upon his breed.
And was he of the famed Glengarry stock?
And in what season was he entered? Where,
Pray, did he pick him up?
He moved himself
At that last question, with a little writhe
Of sudden pain or restlessness; and sighed.
And then he slowly rose, pushed back the hair
From his broad brows; and, whistling softly, said,
“Come here, old dog, and we will tell him. Come.”

“On such a day, and such a time, as this,
Old Tom and I were stalking on the hills,
Near seven years ago. Bad luck was ours;
For we had searched up corrie, glen, and burn,
From earliest daybreak—wading to the waist
Peat-rift and purple heather—all in vain!
We struck a track nigh every hour, to lose
A noble quarry by ignoble chance—
The crowing of a grouse-****, or the flight
Of startled mallards from a reedy pool,
Or subtle, hair's breadth veering of the wind.
And now 'twas waning sunset—rosy soft

On far grey peaks, and the green valley spread
Beneath us. We had climbed a ridge, and lay
Debating in low whispers of our plans
For night and morning. Golden eagles sailed
Above our heads; the wild ducks swam about

Amid the reeds and rushes of the pools;
A lonely heron stood on one long leg
In shallow water, watching for a meal;
And there, to windward, couching in the grass
That fringed the blue edge of a sleeping loch—
Waiting for dusk to feed and drink—there lay
A herd of deer.
“And as we looked and planned,
A mountain storm of sweeping mist and rain
Came down upon us. It passed by, and left
The burnies swollen that we had to cross;
And left us barely light enough to see
The broad, black, branching antlers, clustering still
Amid the long grass in the valley.

“‘Sir,’
Said Tom, ‘there is a shealing down below,
To leeward. We might bivouac there to-night,
And come again at dawn.’
“And so we crept
Adown the glen, and stumbled in the dark
Against the doorway of the keeper's home,
And over two big deerhounds—ancestors
Of this our old companion. There was light
And warmth, a welcome and a heather bed,
At Colin's cottage; with a meal of eggs
And fresh trout, broiled by dainty little hands,
And sweetest milk and oatcake. There were songs
And Gaelic legends, and long talk of deer—
Mixt with a sweet, low laughter, and the whir
Of spinning-wheel.
“The dogs lay at her feet—
The feet of Colin's daughter—with their soft
Dark velvet ears pricked up for every sound
And movement that she made. Right royal brutes,
Whereon I gazed with envy.
“ ‘What,’ I asked,
‘Would Colin take for these?’
“ ‘Eh, sir,’ said he,
And shook his head, ‘I cannot sell the dogs.
They're priceless, they, and—Jeanie's favourites.
But there's a litter in the shed—five pups,
As like as peas to this one. You may choose
Amongst them, sir—take any that you like.
Get us the lantern, Jeanie. You shall show
The gentleman.’
“Ah, she was fair, that girl!

Not like the other lassies—cottage folk;
For there was subtle trace of gentle blood
Through all her beauty and in all her ways.
(The mother's race was ‘poor and proud,’ they said).
Ay, she was fair, my darling! with her shy,
Brown, innocent face and delicate-shapen limbs.
She had the tenderest mouth you ever saw,
And grey, dark eyes, and broad, straight-pencill'd brows;
Dark hair, sun-dappled with a sheeny gold;
Dark chestnut braids that knotted up the light,
As soft as satin. You could scarcely hear
Her step, or hear the rustling of her gown,
Or the soft hovering motion of her hands
At household work. She seemed to bring a spell
Of tender calm and silence where she came.
You felt her presence—and not by its stir,
But by its restfulness. She was a sight
To be remembered—standing in the straw;
A sleepy pup soft-cradled in her arms
Like any Christian baby; standing still,
The while I handled his ungainly limbs.
And Colin blustered of the sport—of hounds,
Roe, ptarmigan, and trout, and ducal deer—
Ne'er lifting up that sweet, unconscious face,
To see why I was silent. Oh, I would
You could have seen her then. She was so fair,
And oh, so young!—scarce seventeen at most—
So ignorant and so young!
“Tell them, my friend—
Your flock—the restless-hearted—they who scorn
The ordered fashion fitted to our race,
And scoff at laws they may not understand—
Tell them that they are fools. They cannot mate
With other than their kind, but woe will come
In some shape—mostly shame, but always grief
And disappointment. Ah, my love! my love!
But she was different from the common sort;
A peasant, ignorant, simple, undefiled;
The child of rugged peasant-parents, taught
In all their thoughts and ways; yet with that touch
Of tender grace about her, softening all
The rougher evidence of her lowly state—
That undefined, unconscious dignity—
That delicate instinct for the reading right
The riddles of less simple minds than hers—
That sharper, finer, subtler sense of life—
That something which does not possess a name,

Which made her beauty beautiful to me—
The long-lost legacy of forgotten knights.

“I chose amongst the five fat creeping things
This rare old dog. And Jeanie promised kind
And gentle nurture for its infant days;
And promised she would keep it till I came
Another year. And so we went to rest.
And in the morning, ere the sun was up,
We left our rifles, and went out to run
The browsing red-deer with old Colin's hounds.
Through glen and bog, through brawling mountain streams,
Grey, lichened boulders, furze, and juniper,
And purple wilderness of moor, we toiled,
Ere yet the distant snow-peak was alight.
We chased a hart to water; saw him stand
At bay, with sweeping antlers, in the burn.
His large, wild, wistful eyes despairingly
Turned to the deeper eddies; and we saw
The choking struggle and the bitter end,
And cut his gallant throat upon the grass,
And left him. Then we followed a fresh track—
A dozen tracks—and hunted till the noon;
Shot cormorants and wild cats in the cliffs,
And snipe and blackcock on the ferny hills;
And set our floating night-lines at the loch;—
And then came back to Jeanie.
“Well, you know
What follows such commencement:—how I found
The woods and corries round about her home
Fruitful of roe and red-deer; how I found
The grouse lay thickest on adjacent moors;
Discovered ptarmigan on rocky peaks,
And rare small game on birch-besprinkled hills,
O'ershadowing that rude shealing; how the pools
Were full of wild-fowl, and the loch of trout;
How vermin harboured in the underwood,
And rocks, and reedy marshes; how I found
The sport aye best in this charmed neighbourhood.
And then I e'en must wander to the door,
To leave a bird for Colin, or to ask
A lodging for some stormy night, or see
How fared my infant deerhound.
“And I saw
The creeping dawn unfolding; saw the doubt,
And faith, and longing swaying her sweet heart;
And every flow just distancing the ebb.

I saw her try to bar the golden gates
Whence love demanded egress,—calm her eyes,
And still the tender, sensitive, tell-tale lips,
And steal away to corners; saw her face
Grow graver and more wistful, day by day;
And felt the gradual strengthening of my hold.
I did not stay to think of it—to ask
What I was doing!
“In the early time,
She used to slip away to household work
When I was there, and would not talk to me;
But when I came not, she would climb the glen
In secret, and look out, with shaded brow,
Across the valley. Ay, I caught her once—
Like some young helpless doe, amongst the fern—
I caught her, and I kissed her mouth and eyes;
And with those kisses signed and sealed our fate
For evermore. Then came our happy days—
The bright, brief, shining days without a cloud!
In ferny hollows and deep, rustling woods,
That shut us in and shut out all the world—
The far, forgotten world—we met, and kissed,
And parted, silent, in the balmy dusk.
We haunted still roe-coverts, hand in hand,
And murmured, under our breath, of love and faith,
And swore great oaths for one of us to keep.
We sat for hours, with sealèd lips, and heard
The crossbill chattering in the larches—heard
The sweet wind whispering as it passed us by—
And heard our own hearts' music in the hush.
Ah, blessed days! ah, happy, innocent days!—
I would I had them back.
“Then came the Duke,
And Lady Alice, with her worldly grace
And artificial beauty—with the gleam
Of jewels, and the dainty shine of silk,
And perfumed softness of white lace and lawn;
With all the glamour of her courtly ways,
Her talk of art and fashion, and the world
We both belonged to. Ah, she hardened me!
I lost the sweetness of the heathery moors
And hills and quiet woodlands, in that scent
Of London clubs and royal drawing-rooms;
I lost the tender chivalry of my love,
The keen sense of its sacredness, the clear
Perception of mine honour, by degrees,
Brought face to face with customs of my kind.

I was no more a “man;” nor she, my love,
A delicate lily of womanhood—ah, no!
I was the heir of an illustrious house,
And she a simple, homespun cottage-girl.

“And now I stole at rarer intervals
To those dim trysting woods; and when I came
I brought my cunning worldly wisdom—talked
Of empty forms and marriages in heaven—
To stain that simple soul, God pardon me!
And she would shiver in the stillness, scared
And shocked, with her pathetic eyes—aye proof
Against the fatal, false philosophy.
But my will was the strongest, and my love
The weakest; and she knew it.
“Well, well, well,
I need not talk of that. There came the day
Of our last parting in the ferny glen—
A bitter parting, parting from my life,
Its light and peace for ever! And I turned
To ***** and billiards, politics and wine;
Was wooed by Lady Alice, and half won;
And passed a feverous winter in the world.
Ah, do not frown! You do not understand.
You never knew that hopeless thirst for peace—
That gnawing hunger, gnawing at your life;
The passion, born too late! I tell you, friend,
The ruth, and love, and longing for my child,
It broke my heart at last.
“In the hot days
Of August, I went back; I went alone.
And on old garrulous Margery—relict she
Of some departed seneschal—I rained
My eager questions. ‘Had the poaching been
As ruinous and as audacious as of old?
Were the dogs well? and had she felt the heat?
And—I supposed the keeper, Colin, still
Was somewhere on the place?’
“ ‘Nay, sir,’; said she,
‘But he has left the neighbourhood. He ne'er
Has held his head up since he lost his child,
Poor soul, a month ago.’
“I heard—I heard!
His child—he had but one—my little one,
Whom I had meant to marry in a week!

“ ‘Ah, sir, she turned out badly after all,
The girl we thought a pattern for all girls.
We know not how it happened, for she named
No names. And, sir, it preyed upon her mind,
And weakened it; and she forgot us all,
And seemed as one aye walking in her sleep
She noticed no one—no one but the dog,
A young deerhound that followed her about;
Though him she hugged and kissed in a strange way
When none was by. And Colin, he was hard
Upon the girl; and when she sat so still,
And pale and passive, while he raved and stormed,
Looking beyond him, as it were, he grew
The harder and more harsh. He did not know
That she was not herself. Men are so blind!
But when he saw her floating in the loch,
The moonlight on her face, and her long hair
All tangled in the rushes; saw the hound
Whining and crying, tugging at her plaid—
Ah, sir, it was a death-stroke!’
“This was all.
This was the end of her sweet life—the end
Of all worth having of mine own! At night
I crept across the moors to find her grave,
And kiss the wet earth covering it—and found
The deerhound lying there asleep. Ay me!
It was the bitterest darkness,—nevermore
To break out into dawn and day again!

“And Lady Alice shakes her dainty head,
Lifts her arch eyebrows, smiles, and whispers, “Once
He was a little wild!’ ”
With that he laughed;
Then suddenly flung his face upon the grass,
Crying, “Leave me for a little—let me be!”
And in the dusky stillness hugged his woe,
And wept away his pas

Write What You Know

I am standing in front of another creative writing class, and from my mouth, the mouth of all English teachers, comes, “Write what you know,” and the carefully tied fly whips itself out onto the surface of the classroom and lies there, waiting for a nibble or a strike. My students, fresh from fields and country roads and long hours alone on the prairies, stare back like ancient trout, converged at this bend in the river. No one moves a pencil; no one rises to even tap the bait. Silence is broken by the sound of the motorized General Electric clock over my head as it marks the flow of time and water and life.

Whoever put a 15 inch clock on the wall above and behind the teacher, knew something about sadism. Students mark their breathing in second hand sweeps, while I wait for that first hand to rise like a fish, foolishly deciding to catch one last fly for the evening…my fly, tied carefully to “invisible, mono-thread nylon leader” guaranteed to withstand the assault of five pound monster brown trout. Patiently, I stand by the edge of the stream, my feet just barely touching the water line.

“Mr. Bouchard? What if I don’t have anything to write about?” a querulous voice trembles. Shimmers of water-light ripple through the pond-room. I see the other trout-children moving ever so slightly, turning in the water thick air toward the question-tap.

“Patience,” I think…and clear my throat. “Good question,” I say. “What do you know that you would want to write about? What stories do you have to tell that others would like to hear?” I let the current move the fly a little deeper over the waiting trout.

And there I miss the first strike of the day.

“Nothing. I got nothing,” grumbles Charlie. “I don’t go nowhere. I don’t do nuthin’ but work and stay at home.”

“Yah. Pretty much says it all right there,” chimes in his best friend Tad. The other fish start to turn away from the prompt/bait. I can see they are thinking of going into deeper water.

Quickly, I change tactics. I turn and grab a broken piece of chalk…not much, but enough. I scratch out two words: ‘episodic memory.’ Turning to the class, I say quickly, “What do you remember about 9/11? Take a minute and think about 9/11. Where were you? What were you doing? Who was with you? What time of day was it? What did you feel?”

The class is interested in the bait change up. I can see their trout bodies, speckled with brown dots, turning toward my new presentation. Gills are fanning in and out a little quicker than before.

A hand shoots up. Mary says, “I was on my way to school, and the bus driver yelled at us all to be quiet because something was going on with World Trade Center.”
A couple of her friends nod their heads, eyes looking up and back, into the past. Images were coming into focus.

Jose blurts out, “My mom was on the way to New York that morning. She was waiting at the airport. We were all worried about her.”

Now we’re getting somewhere, I tell myself. “So, Jose, can you remember exactly what you were doing when you first found out about the planes hitting the building? Where were you? What were you doing?”

“I had just eaten…Cheerios…yeah, it was Cheerios!” he says. “I was making sure my books were in my backpack, and the news came on over the Good Morning Show. I remember I stopped and just stood there like I was frozen. It was a couple of hours before we knew she was okay, but her plane was grounded so she couldn’t go to New York.”

The rest of the class murmurs. The beautiful fish begin to move as one toward the bait.

I nudge. “What did you see? What did you hear? What did you feel? What did you smell? Who were you with? Take a minute and write that down.”

Pencils scratch on cheap paper. The sound of the clock hum recedes. Time slows as currents of thought push the humming motor down. The stream slows and the water surface becomes glassy.

Two minutes pass. No one says anything.

I break the silence. “This is episodic memory. When huge events take place in our lives…events that mean something very important to us, or that are swift and exciting, sometimes too wonderful or too terrible to understand or to survive…at that instant…those events are stored in our minds almost like living, high definition videos. We can remember these episodes with all five senses. We remember what we were doing, what we were eating, who was with us, where we were, sights, sounds, smells, feelings…they’re all there in our episodic memories.”

I have their attention. The hook is set. Some pencils even scratch “episodic memory” on paper. I push on.

“We all have collective episodic memory. 9/11 is a good example. You all have some collective memory of that day when terrorists flew two airplanes into the twin towers in New York City.”

I take a breath. “Now comes the reason for my teaching you about episodic memory. We all have personal events stored in episodic memory as well. Each of us has his or her personal memories, forever burned into the hard drives of our minds. When we pull up these memories, they are there in true color, full sound, and clear vision. We can see, taste, touch, hear and smell those memories clearly. That’s what I mean when I say, ‘write what you know.’

It’s illegal to fly fish with multiple baits on one line in Montana, not that I am coordinated enough to keep 15 grey wolf flies separate and in the air on the end of 30 feet of fly line anyway. In my mind, I imagine those flies stinging the water and 15 fish leaping to snag them. The class is moving mentally toward episodic events.

The fly fisherman lives for that leaping catch, when the world explodes with the splashing surge of trout beauty and fierce battle. The teacher lives and breathes the exhalations of “AHA!” as students capture concepts and come to life.

Fifteen memories, brilliant as shattering crystal catching sunlight, explode in fifteen minds…and then the trouble comes. I have been here before, and move quickly to head off a possible flight to deep waters.

“Class! I need you to hold your thoughts for just a minute.”

“Some of us in this room just experienced memories of wonderful events: winning shots at ball games, good news of brothers or sisters coming home from war, first kisses … and some of us are experiencing terrible events, reliving them over right here in this room. I know that happens. It happens to me. The problem is…not all episodic memories should be shared with everyone.”

The class is silent. A couple of eyes are red and I can see where tears are beginning to form. Someone is recalling a fumbled tackle and the agony of sounding jeers. Another is re-living the scratchy beard and beer-sour breath of a father as he crosses all lines of decency and honor with a child. I can almost hear the sounds of skidding tires and feel exploding airbags as three minds simultaneously re-experience crashes…. The silent sounds of slaps and screams, of joyous and sarcastic laughter, of shouts of tearful farewells and exuberant reunions fill the air, bubbles releasing in the moving water of the classroom.

And then, the bell rings. “Take your ideas with you and write about what you know! I’ll see you Wednesday,” I yell.

Fifty minutes. The fishing is good. I reel in the fly, check the hook, and wait for next fish to come downstream.

Salty rancher spackle is to Earthy diva smackers as Swinging hotel number is to?
Rippling cling bread is to Three lizard chariots as Indigo lime tangent is to?
Nighttime reunion planet is to Nettle lane scuffle as Soaking spider *** is to?
Fancy trance logs are to Sticky fudge lather as Vivacious gator college is to?
Cheerful blossom face is to Secret tractor rocket as Canned gremlin emblems are to?
Jealous pitchfork generals are to Heartbreaking patchwork veranda as Folding robot noise is to?
Pretty rhino rash is to Lost locket vengeance as Back pocket weather is to?
Frosted candy sidewalk is to Sneaky kook code as Shiny waffle smoke is to?
Sapphire cloud romance is to Magnetic comet lava as Blue triangle envy is to?
Vanishing honey melody is to Thermal elf pajamas as Whistling iceboat shampoo is to?
Peach mint politics is to Frozen doll pennies as Rusty anchor catapult is to?
Swollen pony fever Throbbing sword kazoo as Silent turbine science is to?
Obese germ thunder is to Stacked lemon towers as Corrupt moon jockey is to?
Demented insect whistle is to Glass trophy cleanup as Purple geode bubble is to?
Nighttime razor slime is to Lacquered dragon maps as Tint paper mittens are to?
**** camel drops are to Velvet ****** shoes as Slippery red muffins are to?
Flying hot drool is to Pale chocolate telescope as Tin trumpet ballet is to?
Expensive puppy speed is to Flowered duck mirror as Cosmic needle factory is to?
Fractured laser doodles are to Cracked butter gravel as Rubber holster straps are to?
Majestic panther fortress is to Jeweled cork target as Iron swan taxi is to?
Poisonous pepper bouillon is to ****** goat soap as Chrome feather pirates are to?
Digital gorilla scriptures are to Timid hunter stench as Frozen domino video is to?
Eccentric troll opera is to Transparent wax village as Spoiled coral agony is to?
Bizarre green metal is to Pillow eating hamster as Leather cavern ***** are to?
Eternal hurricane evidence is to Powdered rainbow perfume as Smoking yellow prune is to?
Liquid wish cleanser is to Exploding meadow ladders as Brittle rose hammer is to?
Caged foam filter is to Cherry balloon string as Ivory cactus spider is to?
Carbon puppet watch is to Sad kings compass as Elastic lace whiskers are to?
Nitrogen trolley dust is to Lazy elephant toffee as Orange toad choir is to?
Dark pole zodiac is to Blue finger blanket as Illegal bug nozzle is to?
Stinky towel cookies are to White jade caskets as Sticky snail tea is to?
Converting stellated caramels is to Mythic aerosol socks as Rubber raspberry jokes are to?
Flying clock carousel is to Whisky nut worms as Plastic fish platforms are to?
Queasy Vaseline queens are to Moody pigeon pills as Aqua mice fur is to?
Spotted bowl shadow is to Idiotic radiance lotion as Bungalow toad hearse is to?
Gushing chimney fungus is to Funky lamb acrobat as Utopian **** sprinkler is to?
Twinkling bungalow tablet is to Botanical duck rope as Bug hat ram is to?
Broken clock fossil is to Black ginger confetti as Parisian cobra meatloaf is to?
Silly Xerox ribbon is to Obedient raccoon carny as Traditional cat linguini is to?
Last astral advisor is to Elastic badger riddles as Broken circle rifles are to?
Bagged squire channel is to Temporary mosaic cake as Ancient bacon thread is to?
Wireless math army is to Moronic neon money as Pearl razor radar is to?
Rubber buzzard blizzard is to Troubled bubble wizard as Crushed hash ******* is to?
Purple birdy cure is to Tangled frost blossoms as Silken bridal saddle is to?
Unisex owl accordion is to Sugar bottomed boat as Optical nougat treasure is to?
Flavored saline rain is to Black arrow clan as Transistorized clam guitar is to?
Sharpened twig scar is to Mutant beet sonar as Baked troll mask is to?
Boxed noodle secrets are to Traditional guru buttons as Glossy marshmallow strategy is to?
Vibrating melted jelly is to Silver furniture dream as Spewing collated seats is to?
Burnt mountain pickles are to Baby preacher shoes as Sympathetic pilot pain is to?
Narrow portal treaty is to Monkey warehouse vacancy as Painted tornado trap is to?
Porch penny sulfur is to Glowing pony fat as Patched mattress bait is to?
Frigid waitress fallacy is to Graphic shrimp salute as Misted sneezing window is to?
Moist apple moss is to Daddy’s zoom seed as Downtown Pope cart is to?
Tired felon trickle is to Holographic squirrel candle as Wild ray hay is to?
Deadly zero chalk is to Folding wilderness chart as Curved ******* vacuum is to?
Hollow porcelain pellets are to Strawberry rain stencils as Microwave taxi nomads are to?
Wasted machete balcony is to Crumpled creature confessions as Fridge fuzzed fruit is to?
Sloppy demon damage is to Squeaky puppet chuckle as Mental arcade combat is to?
Monster trout stories are to Lewd pirate cocktail as Locked mammal grommet is to?
Rotting rope network is to Tragic toy goat as Cotton submarine shoes are to?
Complex pepper dance is to ****** cloud cushion as Marching taxi holiday is to?
Mental petal collectors are to Spooned barn putty as Dork factory fiction is to?
Hot spotted tops are to Timed stepping pests as Yogurt notching tartar is to?
Crazy dog comics are to Ambitious cartoon sphinx as Pavlov’s zinc ballet is to?
Soiled spinster wedding is to Padded razor wound as Floating fish map is to?
Slippery leopard pants are to Perfumed nut button as Dart wizard party is to?
Needy alien elephants are to Barking garden gnats as Quasar focused paper is to?
Slanted heart **** is to Bronzed cliff sandals are to Cunning jockey jokes are to?
***** thumbprint massage is to Holistic princess memory as Sliding dental sword is to?
Drifting wood whistle is to Fluorescent carpet powder as Foam dragon whistle is to?
Chopped web shadow is to Immortal vermin soup as Collapsing porch conspiracy is to?
Stolen thunder chant is to Haunted comet heart as Swollen throat portrait is to?
Fragrant frost parfait is to Grumpy caveman *** as Random stingray solo is to?
Squeaky polar turbine is to Silent lava fever as Oversized lunar fulcrum is to?
Synthetic dew droppers are to Pocket poster paste as Hypnotic screen dog is to?
Symbolic whirlpool nausea is to Dreaming tree phantom as Log badge bracket is to?
Camp hippo map is to Horseradish seizure insurance as Distant insect mirror is to?
German lady sherbet is to Stuntman laundry wax as Hungry butterfly ghost is to?
Fly smudged foil is to Amped maze coil as Shifting optic terror is to?
Automatic sheep floss is to Panoramic tanker anchor as Throbbing bone pillow is to?
Mutant clown village is to Nightmare translation treasure as Spotted spectral chakra is to?
Blind roach tweat is to Hermit worm tiara as Divine logo ritual is to?
Glueless gun stamp is to Malicious spam pump as Floral toffee pods are to?
Dudgeon mist removal is to Menacing bolt smacker as Boating duke shadow is to?
Costly metal plungers are to Creaky buzzing gushers as Glowing star cushions are to?
Raked barge sludge is to Crusted cream glitter as Zircon gutter babble is to?
Fake gold scholar is to Amish ******* mogul as Faithful ***** choir is to?
Sacred limo prayers are to Fried mice café as Splintered ****** thimble is to?
Dealing rabbit decals is to Pelican bongo festival as Patched equator rot is to?
Freedom gourd gasoline is to Cobblers studying acorns as Desecrated dice crater is to?
Tattered tapestry rod is to Busted particle scanner as Bogus piffle catalogue is to?
Trifle truffle raffle is to Last lamb laminate as Segmented cake goggles are to?
Domestic tackle tactic is to Ticking tic talk as Cordial corps coordinates is to?
Tucked duck caftan is to Sunken ramp ruckus as Wretched ranch rhetoric is to?
Clearly incomprehensible directions are to Useful archaic nonsense as Antiquated skeletal outline is to?
Bewildered beasts feasting are to Lazy busybodies resting as Vaccinating brave volunteers are to?
Lucky wagon dragons are to Famous gargoyle gargle as Formal postman funding is to?
Furrowed shroud chowder is to Borrowed tartan pajamas as Martini mixed algebra is to?
Cowgirl balloon helium is to Chewy glucose habitat as Stationary monument movement is to?
Diamond powered powder is to Diagonal diameter diagram as Purposely condensed expansion is to?
Organic iodine capsule is to Gleaming beach probe as Dominant dome static is to?
Shaving wrinkled targets is to Petting sensible monsters as Selling invisible whiskey is to?
Frozen piano architecture is to Note dotted clouds as Screaming Korean worms are to?
Sonic plant website is to Telepathic climbing clam as Bored protein exercise is to?
Gourmet mollusk cone is to Numb poodle caravan as Asian raven radar is to?

by John Greenleaf Whittier  (1807 – 1892)

“As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so Good Spirits which be Angels of Light are augmented not only by the Divine Light of the Sun, but also by our common Wood fire: and as the celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of Wood doth the same.”

        COR. AGRIPPA,
           Occult Philosophy, Book I. chap. v.

“Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow; and, driving o’er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight; the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.”

                                       EMERSON

The sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming less than threat,
It sank from sight before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told.
The wind blew east; we heard the roar
Of Ocean on his wintry shore,
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there
Beat with low rhythm our inland air.

Meanwhile we did our nightly chores, —
Brought in the wood from out of doors,
Littered the stalls, and from the mows
Raked down the herd’s-grass for the cows;
Heard the horse whinnying for his corn;
And, sharply clashing horn on horn,
Impatient down the stanchion rows
The cattle shake their walnut bows;
While, peering from his early perch
Upon the scaffold’s pole of birch,
The **** his crested helmet bent
And down his querulous challenge sent.

Unwarmed by any sunset light
The gray day darkened into night,
A night made hoary with the swarm
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,
As zigzag, wavering to and fro,
Crossed and recrossed the wingàd snow:
And ere the early bedtime came
The white drift piled the window-frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.

So all night long the storm roared on:
The morning broke without a sun;
In tiny spherule traced with lines
Of Nature’s geometric signs,
And, when the second morning shone,
We looked upon a world unknown,
On nothing we could call our own.
Around the glistening wonder bent
The blue walls of the firmament,
No cloud above, no earth below, —
A universe of sky and snow!
The old familiar sights of ours
Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and towers
Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood,
Or garden-wall, or belt of wood;
A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed,
A fenceless drift what once was road;
The bridle-post an old man sat
With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat;
The well-curb had a Chinese roof;
And even the long sweep, high aloof,
In its slant spendor, seemed to tell
Of Pisa’s leaning miracle.

A prompt, decisive man, no breath
Our father wasted: “Boys, a path!”
Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy
Count such a summons less than joy?)
Our buskins on our feet we drew;
With mittened hands, and caps drawn low,
To guard our necks and ears from snow,
We cut the solid whiteness through.
And, where the drift was deepest, made
A tunnel walled and overlaid
With dazzling crystal: we had read
Of rare Aladdin’s wondrous cave,
And to our own his name we gave,
With many a wish the luck were ours
To test his lamp’s supernal powers.
We reached the barn with merry din,
And roused the prisoned brutes within.
The old horse ****** his long head out,
And grave with wonder gazed about;
The **** his ***** greeting said,
And forth his speckled harem led;
The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked,
And mild reproach of hunger looked;
The hornëd patriarch of the sheep,
Like Egypt’s Amun roused from sleep,
Shook his sage head with gesture mute,
And emphasized with stamp of foot.

All day the gusty north-wind bore
The loosening drift its breath before;
Low circling round its southern zone,
The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone.
No church-bell lent its Christian tone
To the savage air, no social smoke
Curled over woods of snow-hung oak.
A solitude made more intense
By dreary-voicëd elements,
The shrieking of the mindless wind,
The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind,
And on the glass the unmeaning beat
Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet.
Beyond the circle of our hearth
No welcome sound of toil or mirth
Unbound the spell, and testified
Of human life and thought outside.
We minded that the sharpest ear
The buried brooklet could not hear,
The music of whose liquid lip
Had been to us companionship,
And, in our lonely life, had grown
To have an almost human tone.

As night drew on, and, from the crest
Of wooded knolls that ridged the west,
The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank
From sight beneath the smothering bank,
We piled, with care, our nightly stack
Of wood against the chimney-back, —
The oaken log, green, huge, and thick,
And on its top the stout back-stick;
The knotty forestick laid apart,
And filled between with curious art

The ragged brush; then, hovering near,
We watched the first red blaze appear,
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam,
Until the old, rude-furnished room
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom;
While radiant with a mimic flame
Outside the sparkling drift became,
And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree
Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free.
The crane and pendent trammels showed,
The Turks’ heads on the andirons glowed;
While childish fancy, prompt to tell
The meaning of the miracle,
Whispered the old rhyme: “Under the tree,
When fire outdoors burns merrily,
There the witches are making tea.”

The moon above the eastern wood
Shone at its full; the hill-range stood
Transfigured in the silver flood,
Its blown snows flashing cold and keen,
Dead white, save where some sharp ravine
Took shadow, or the sombre green
Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black
Against the whiteness at their back.
For such a world and such a night
Most fitting that unwarming light,
Which only seemed where’er it fell
To make the coldness visible.

Shut in from all the world without,
We sat the clean-winged hearth about,
Content to let the north-wind roar
In baffled rage at pane and door,
While the red logs before us beat
The frost-line back with tropic heat;
And ever, when a louder blast
Shook beam and rafter as it passed,
The merrier up its roaring draught
The great throat of the chimney laughed;
The house-dog on his paws outspread
Laid to the fire his drowsy head,
The cat’s dark silhouette on the wall
A couchant tiger’s seemed to fall;
And, for the winter fireside meet,
Between the andirons’ straddling feet,
The mug of cider simmered slow,
The apples sputtered in a row,
And, close at hand, the basket stood
With nuts from brown October’s wood.

What matter how the night behaved?
What matter how the north-wind raved?
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow
Could quench our hearth-fire’s ruddy glow.
O Time and Change! — with hair as gray
As was my sire’s that winter day,
How strange it seems, with so much gone
Of life and love, to still live on!
Ah, brother! only I and thou
Are left of all that circle now, —
The dear home faces whereupon
That fitful firelight paled and shone.
Henceforward, listen as we will,
The voices of that hearth are still;
Look where we may, the wide earth o’er,
Those lighted faces smile no more.

We tread the paths their feet have worn,
We sit beneath their orchard trees,
We hear, like them, the hum of bees
And rustle of the bladed corn;
We turn the pages that they read,
Their written words we linger o’er,
But in the sun they cast no shade,
No voice is heard, no sign is made,
No step is on the conscious floor!
Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust,
(Since He who knows our need is just,)
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must.
Alas for him who never sees
The stars shine through his cypress-trees!
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away,
Nor looks to see the breaking day
Across the mournful marbles play!
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith,
The truth to flesh and sense unknown,
That Life is ever lord of Death,
And Love can never lose its own!

We sped the time with stories old,
Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told,
Or stammered from our school-book lore
“The Chief of Gambia’s golden shore.”
How often since, when all the land
Was clay in Slavery’s shaping hand,
As if a far-blown trumpet stirred
Dame Mercy Warren’s rousing word:
“Does not the voice of reason cry,
Claim the first right which Nature gave,
From the red scourge of ******* to fly,
Nor deign to live a burdened slave!”
Our father rode again his ride
On Memphremagog’s wooded side;
Sat down again to moose and samp
In trapper’s hut and Indian camp;
Lived o’er the old idyllic ease
Beneath St. François’ hemlock-trees;
Again for him the moonlight shone
On Norman cap and bodiced zone;
Again he heard the violin play
Which led the village dance away.
And mingled in its merry whirl
The grandam and the laughing girl.
Or, nearer home, our steps he led
Where Salisbury’s level marshes spread
Mile-wide as flies the laden bee;
Where merry mowers, hale and strong,
Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along
The low green prairies of the sea.
We shared the fishing off Boar’s Head,
And round the rocky Isles of Shoals
The hake-broil on the drift-wood coals;
The chowder on the sand-beach made,
Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot,
With spoons of clam-shell from the ***.
We heard the tales of witchcraft old,
And dream and sign and marvel told
To sleepy listeners as they lay
Stretched idly on the salted hay,
Adrift along the winding shores,
When favoring breezes deigned to blow
The square sail of the gundelow
And idle lay the useless oars.

Our mother, while she turned her wheel
Or run the new-knit stocking-heel,
Told how the Indian hordes came down
At midnight on Concheco town,
And how her own great-uncle bore
His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore.
Recalling, in her fitting phrase,
So rich and picturesque and free
(The common unrhymed poetry
Of simple life and country ways,)
The story of her early days, —
She made us welcome to her home;
Old hearths grew wide to give us room;
We stole with her a frightened look
At the gray wizard’s conjuring-book,
The fame whereof went far and wide
Through all the simple country side;
We heard the hawks at twilight play,
The boat-horn on Piscataqua,
The loon’s weird laughter far away;
We fished her little trout-brook, knew
What flowers in wood and meadow grew,
What sunny hillsides autumn-brown
She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down,
Saw where in sheltered cove and bay,
The ducks’ black squadron anchored lay,
And heard the wild-geese calling loud
Beneath the gray November cloud.
Then, haply, with a look more grave,
And soberer tone, some tale she gave
From painful Sewel’s ancient tome,
Beloved in every Quaker home,
Of faith fire-winged by martyrdom,
Or Chalkley’s Journal, old and quaint, —
Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint! —
Who, when the dreary calms prevailed,
And water-**** and bread-cask failed,
And cruel, hungry eyes pursued
His portly presence mad for food,
With dark hints muttered under breath
Of casting lots for life or death,

Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies,
To be himself the sacrifice.
Then, suddenly, as if to save
The good man from his living grave,
A ripple on the water grew,
A school of porpoise flashed in view.
“Take, eat,” he said, “and be content;
These fishes in my stead are sent
By Him who gave the tangled ram
To spare the child of Abraham.”
Our uncle, innocent of books,
Was rich in lore of fields and brooks,
The ancient teachers never dumb
Of Nature’s unhoused lyceum.
In moons and tides and weather wise,
He read the clouds as prophecies,
And foul or fair could well divine,
By many an occult hint and sign,
Holding the cunning-warded keys
To all the woodcraft mysteries;
Himself to Nature’s heart so near
v That all her voices in his ear
Of beast or bird had meanings clear,
Like Apollonius of old,
Who knew the tales the sparrows told,
Or Hermes, who interpreted
What the sage cranes of Nilus said;
A simple, guileless, childlike man,
Content to live where life began;
Strong only on his native grounds,
The little world of sights and sounds
Whose girdle was the parish bounds,
Whereof his fondly partial pride
The common features magnified,
As Surrey hills to mountains grew
In White of Selborne’s loving view, —
He told how teal and loon he shot,
And how the eagle’s eggs he got,
The feats on pond and river done,
The prodigies of rod and gun;
Till, warming with the tales he told,
Forgotten was the outside cold,
The bitter wind unheeded blew,
From ripening corn the pigeons flew,
The partridge drummed i’ the wood, the mink
Went fishing down the river-brink.
In fields with bean or clover gay,
The woodchuck, like a hermit gray,
Peered from the doorway of his cell;
The muskrat plied the mason’s trade,
And tier by tier his mud-walls laid;
And from the shagbark overhead
The grizzled squirrel dropped his shell.

Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer
And voice in dreams I see and hear, —
The sweetest woman ever Fate
Perverse denied a household mate,
Who, lonely, homeless, not the less
Found peace in love’s unselfishness,
And welcome wheresoe’er she went,
A calm and gracious element,
Whose presence seemed the sweet income
And womanly atmosphere of home, —
Called up her girlhood memories,
The huskings and the apple-bees,
The sleigh-rides and the summer sails,
Weaving through all the poor details
And homespun warp of circumstance
A golden woof-thread of romance.
For well she kept her genial mood
And simple faith of maidenhood;
Before her still a cloud-land lay,
The mirage loomed across her way;
The morning dew, that dries so soon
With others, glistened at her noon;
Through years of toil and soil and care,
From glossy tress to thin gray hair,
All unprofaned she held apart
The ****** fancies of the heart.
Be shame to him of woman born
Who hath for such but thought of scorn.
There, too, our elder sister plied
Her evening task the stand beside;
A full, rich nature, free to trust,
Truthful and almost sternly just,
Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act,
And make her generous thought a fact,
Keeping with many a light disguise
The secret of self-sacrifice.

O heart sore-tried! thou hast the best
That Heaven itself could give thee, — rest,
Rest from all bitter thoughts and things!
How many a poor one’s blessing went
With thee beneath the low green tent
Whose curtain never outward swings!

As one who held herself a part
Of all she saw, and let her heart
Against the household ***** lean,
Upon the motley-braided mat
Our youngest and our dearest sat,
Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes,
Now bathed in the unfading green
And holy peace of Paradise.
Oh, looking from some heavenly hill,
Or from the shade of saintly palms,
Or silver reach of river calms,
Do those large eyes behold me still?
With me one little year ago: —
The chill weight of the winter snow
For months upon her grave has lain;
And now, when summer south-winds blow
And brier and harebell bloom again,
I tread the pleasant paths we trod,
I see the violet-sprinkled sod
Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak
The hillside flowers she loved to seek,
Yet following me where’er I went
With dark eyes full of love’s content.
The birds are glad; the brier-rose fills
The air with sweetness; all the hills
Stretch green to June’s unclouded sky;
But still I wait with ear and eye
For something gone which should be nigh,
A loss in all familiar things,
In flower that blooms, and bird that sings.
And yet, dear heart! remembering thee,
Am I not richer than of old?
Safe in thy immortality,
What change can reach the wealth I hold?
What chance can mar the pearl and gold
Thy love hath left in trust with me?
And while in life’s late afternoon,
Where cool and long the shadows grow,
I walk to meet the night that soon
Shall shape and shadow overflow,
I cannot feel that thou art far,
Since near at need the angels are;
And when the sunset gates unbar,
Shall I not see thee waiting stand,
And, white against the evening star,
The welcome of thy beckoning hand?

Brisk wielder of the birch and rule,
The master of the district school
Held at the fire his favored place,
Its warm glow lit a laughing face
Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared
The uncertain prophecy of beard.
He teased the mitten-blinded cat,
Played cross-pins on my uncle’s hat,
Sang songs, and told us what befalls
In classic Dartmouth’s college halls.
Born the wild Northern hills among,
From whence his yeoman father wrung
By patient toil subsistence scant,
Not competence and yet not want,
He early gained the power to pay
His cheerful, self-reliant way;
Could doff at ease his scholar’s gown
To peddle wares from town to town;
Or through the long vacation’s reach
In lonely lowland districts teach,
Where all the droll experience found
At stranger hearths in boarding round,
The moonlit skater’s keen delight,
The sleigh-drive through the frosty night,
The rustic party, with its rough
Accompaniment of blind-man’s-buff,
And whirling-plate, and forfeits paid,
His winter task a pastime made.
Happy the snow-locked homes wherein
He tuned his merry violin,

Or played the athlete in the barn,
Or held the good dame’s winding-yarn,
Or mirth-provoking versions told
Of classic legends rare and old,
Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome
Had all the commonplace of home,
And little seemed at best the odds
‘Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods;
Where Pindus-born Arachthus took
The guise of any grist-mill brook,
And dread Olympus at his will
Became a huckleberry hill.

A careless boy that night he seemed;
But at his desk he had the look
And air of one who wisely schemed,
And hostage from the future took
In trainëd thought and lore of book.
Large-brained, clear-eyed, of such as he
Shall Freedom’s young apostles be,
Who, following in War’s ****** trail,
Shall every lingering wrong assail;
All chains from limb and spirit strike,
Uplift the black and white alike;
Scatter before their swift advance
The darkness and the ignorance,
The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth,
Which nurtured Treason’s monstrous growth,
Made ****** pastime, and the hell
Of prison-torture possible;
The cruel lie of caste refute,
Old forms remould, and substitute
For Slavery’s lash the freeman’s will,
For blind routine, wise-handed skill;
A school-house plant on every hill,
Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence
The quick wires of intelligence;
Till North and South together brought
Shall own the same electric thought,
In peace a common flag salute,
And, side by side in labor’s free
And unresentful rivalry,
Harvest the fields wherein they fought.

Another guest that winter night
Flashed back from lustrous eyes the light.
Unmarked by time, and yet not young,
The honeyed music of her tongue
And words of meekness scarcely told
A nature passionate and bold,

Strong, self-concentred, spurning guide,
Its milder features dwarfed beside
Her unbent will’s majestic pride.
She sat among us, at the best,
A not unfeared, half-welcome guest,
Rebuking with her cultured phrase
Our homeliness of words and ways.
A certain pard-like, treacherous grace
Swayed the lithe limbs and drooped the lash,
Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash;
And under low brows, black with night,
Rayed out at times a dangerous light;
The sharp heat-lightnings of her face
Presaging ill to him whom Fate
Condemned to share her love or hate.
A woman tropical, intense
In thought and act, in soul and sense,
She blended in a like degree
The ***** and the devotee,
Revealing with each freak or feint
The temper of Petruchio’s Kate,
The raptures of Siena’s saint.
Her tapering hand and rounded wrist
Had facile power to form a fist;
The warm, dark languish of her eyes
Was never safe from wrath’s surprise.
Brows saintly calm and lips devout
Knew every change of scowl and pout;
And the sweet voice had notes more high
And shrill for social battle-cry.

Since then what old cathedral town
Has missed her pilgrim staff and gown,
What convent-gate has held its lock
Against the challenge of her knock!
Through Smyrna’s plague-hushed thoroughfares,
Up sea-set Malta’s rocky stairs,
Gray olive slopes of hills that hem
Thy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem,
Or startling on her desert throne
The crazy Queen of Lebanon
With claims fantastic as her own,
Her tireless feet have held their way;
And still, unrestful, bowed, and gray,
She watches under Eastern skies,
With hope each day renewed and fresh,
The Lord’s quick coming in the flesh,
Whereof she dreams and prophesies!
Where’er her troubled path may be,
The Lord’s sweet pity with her go!
The outward wayward life we see,
The hidden springs we may not know.
Nor is it given us to discern
What threads the fatal sisters spun,
Through what ancestral years has run
The sorrow with the woman born,
What forged her cruel chain of moods,
What set her feet in solitudes,
And held the love within her mute,
What mingled madness in the blood,
A life-long discord and annoy,
Water of tears with oil of joy,
And hid within the folded bud
Perversities of flower and fruit.
It is not ours to separate
The tangled skein of will and fate,
To show what metes and bounds should stand
Upon the soul’s debatable land,
And between choice and Providence
Divide the circle of events;
But He who knows our frame is just,
Merciful and compassionate,
And full of sweet assurances
And hope for all the language is,
That He remembereth we are dust!

At last the great logs, crumbling low,
Sent out a dull and duller glow,
The bull’s-eye watch that hung in view,
Ticking its weary circuit through,
Pointed with mutely warning sign
Its black hand to the hour of nine.
That sign the pleasant circle broke:
My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke,
Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray,
And laid it tenderly away;
Then roused himself to safely cover
The dull red brands with ashes over.
And while, with care, our mother laid
The work aside, her steps she stayed
One moment, seeking to express
Her grateful sense of happiness
For food and shelter, warmth and health,
And love’s contentment more than wealth,
With simple wishes (not the weak,
Vain prayers which no fulfilment seek,
But such as warm the generous heart,
O’er-prompt to do with Heaven its part)
That none might lack, that bitter night,
For bread and clothing, warmth and light.

Within our beds awhile we heard
The wind that round the gables roared,
With now and then a ruder shock,
Which made our very bedsteads rock.
We heard the loosened clapboards tost,
The board-nails snapping in the frost;
And on us, through the unplastered wall,
Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall.
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do
When hearts are light and life is new;
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew,
Till in the summer-land of dreams
They softened to the sound of streams,
Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars,
And lapsing waves on quiet shores.
Of merry voices high and clear;
And saw the teamsters drawing near
To break the drifted highways out.
Down the long hillside treading slow
We saw the half-buried oxen go,
Shaking the snow from heads uptost,
Their straining nostrils white with frost.
Before our door the straggling train
Drew up, an added team to gain.
The elders threshed their hands a-cold,
Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokes
From lip to lip; the younger folks
Down the loose snow-banks, wrestling, rolled,
Then toiled again the cavalcade
O’er windy hill, through clogged ravine,
And woodland paths that wound between
Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed.
From every barn a team afoot,
At every house a new recruit,
Where, drawn by Nature’s subtlest law,
Haply the watchful young men saw
Sweet doorway pictures of the curls
And curious eyes of merry girls,
Lifting their hands in mock defence
Against the snow-ball’s compliments,
And reading in each missive tost
The charm with Eden never lost.
We heard once more the sleigh-bells’ sound;
And, following where the teamsters led,
The wise old Doctor went his round,
Just pausing at our door to say,
In the brief autocratic way
Of one who, prompt at Duty’s call,
Was free to urge her claim on all,
That some poor neighbor sick abed
At night our mother’s aid would need.
For, one in generous thought and deed,
What mattered in the sufferer’s sight
The Quaker matron’s inward light,
The Doctor’s mail of Calvin’s creed?
All hearts confess the saints elect
Who, twain in faith, in love agree,
And melt not in an acid sect
The Christian pearl of charity!

So days went on: a week had passed
Since the great world was heard from last.
The Almanac we studied o’er,
Read and reread our little store
Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score;
One harmless novel, mostly hid
From younger eyes, a book forbid,
And poetry, (or good or bad,
A single book was all we had,)
Where Ellwood’s meek, drab-skirted Muse,
A stranger to the heathen Nine,
Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine,
The wars of David and the Jews.
At last the floundering carrier bore
The village paper to our door.
Lo! broadening outward as we read,
To warmer zones the horizon spread
In panoramic length unrolled
We saw the marvels that it told.
Before us passed the painted Creeks,
A   nd daft McGregor on his raids
In Costa Rica’s everglades.
And up Taygetos winding slow
Rode Ypsilanti’s Mainote Greeks,
A Turk’s head at each saddle-bow!
Welcome to us its week-old news,
Its corner for the rustic Muse,
Its monthly gauge of snow and rain,
Its record, mingling in a breath
The wedding bell and dirge of death:
Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale,
The latest culprit sent to jail;
Its hue and cry of stolen and lost,
Its vendue sales and goods at cost,
And traffic calling loud for gain.
We felt the stir of hall and street,
The pulse of life that round us beat;
The chill embargo of the snow
Was melted in the genial glow;
Wide swung again our ice-locked door,
And all the world was ours once more!

Clasp, Angel of the backword look
And folded wings of ashen gray
And voice of echoes far away,
The brazen covers of thy book;
The weird palimpsest old and vast,
Wherein thou hid’st the spectral past;
Where, closely mingling, pale and glow
The characters of joy and woe;
The monographs of outlived years,
Or smile-illumed or dim with tears,
Green hills of life that ***** to death,
And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees
Shade off to mournful cypresses
With the white amaranths underneath.
Even while I look, I can but heed
The restless sands’ incessant fall,
Importunate hours that hours succeed,
Each clamorous with its own sharp need,
And duty keeping pace with all.
Shut down and clasp with heavy lids;
I hear again the voice that bids
The dreamer leave his dream midway
For larger hopes and graver fears:
Life greatens in these later years,
The century’s aloe flowers to-day!

Yet, haply, in some lull of life,
Some Truce of God which breaks its strife,
The worldling’s eyes shall gather dew,
Dreaming in throngful city ways
Of winter joys his boyhood knew;
And dear and early friends — the few
Who yet remain — shall pause to view
These Flemish pictures of old days;
Sit with me by the homestead hearth,
And stretch the hands of memory forth
To warm them at the wood-fire’s blaze!
And thanks untraced to lips unknown
Shall greet me like the odors blown
From unseen meadows newly mown,
Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond;
The traveller owns the grateful sense
Of sweetness near, he knows not whence,
And, pausing, takes with forehead bare
The benediction of the air.

Written in  1865

Its in these waters, when I was merely a Parr
Or as you might refer to me as a fry,
This wise but young Brook Trout cruised the slow water with my kinfolk fry.

Moving to and fro hiding among the biome vegetation
The sunlight supported my living space and warmed my growth rings.
I dart in and out of the oxygenated seams which help me flourish.

Some days, I had to use stealth to outwit the pine marten and warblers,
I shadowed the cattail and watched them fill their bellies with those around me.
But I felt fate had a purpose for me to be something special.

And When the time was right, I'd propel myself above the water into the night air.
The large circle of orange light filled my eyes and the night sky was filled with luminary.
I imagined what it must be like to live outside this riffle domain.

This morning, through my refractory vision I spot some floating objects,
And through an inherited sensory recall I can see these are hatching green Drakes.
I immediately shoot to the surface and fill my stomach, then swim back to the undercut for cover.

As the years pass by and maturity abounds,  I find my self settling in behind a large boulder
Right at the tail out of the back eddy, providing me with an ample food supply.
And it's here I prefer to live my life in the slow current, content and peaceful.

And one day as I swam into the current seam, I spotted what appeared to be,
A different looking bug with yellow belly,  so I make my move.
He's not moving much so I decide to raise my head above the water line and sip.

As I grab the hopper I start to slide back behind the boulder,
When I feel a pinch, as if someone try's to pull me towards the surface
I fight with all my might but this force proves to be stronger than I.

It's now I realize a human reels me towards the shore line, and I'm fearful.
This one called a human, grabs my tail and places his hand on my under belly.
Pulling me from my home, he dislodges the hook from my mouth. I gasp for oxygen.

He looks me over from nose to tail, smiles and says how beautiful I am.
He looks me in the eye And says " This was a wonderful fight my friend, enjoy the rest of your life,
He places me back in water, gently reviving me and finally lets me swim away.

I dare to turn and look back at him for a moment and as he continues to watch me,
I hear him say " I fish, knowing everyday on this stream is a gift."

Melting snow creates a stream
running down the mountainside
like a vivid night of dreams
ending in the foaming tide

Valley lake full of trout
top of water, insects float
on the edges cattails sprout
not sufficiently deep  for a boat

Cold clear water in I wade
casting my fly to the shore
I spy motion in the shade
stripping back cast once more

The fly hits the cattails base
a swirl and a flash below
moving fly, trout gives chase
incoming, stripping slow

Trout is caught and in my creel
wade back to the lakes edge
in the truck behind the wheel
driving home on mountains edge

The rain ****** through a darkening sky.

The man's eyes grow bright and he smiles. Softly, he whispers, " Man, you're the biggest, whitest, what hell are you anyway?"

The pup sits up and Jack Delleto caresses her neck, but much to the mutt's chagrin the man stands up and walks away.

Jack has his hand on the door about to go into the bar. The pup issues an interrogatory, "Woof?"

The rain turns to snow.

The man's eyes grow bright and he smiles, "My grandma used to say that when it snows the angels are sweeping heaven. I'll be back for you, Snowflake."

Jack shivers. His smile fading, the night jumps back into his eyes.

Snowflake chuffs once, twice.

The man is gone.



The room would have been a cold, dark place except the bodies who sit on the barstools or stand on the ***** linoleum floor produce heat. The cigarette smoke burns his eyes. Jack Delleto looks down the length of the bar to the boarded shut fire place and although the faces are shadows, he knows them all.

The old man who always sits at the second barstool from the dart board is sitting at the second bar stool. His fist clenched tightly around the beer mug, he stares at his own reflection in the mirror.

The aging barmaid, who often weeps from her apartment window on a hot summer night or a cold winter evening, is coming on to a man half her age. She is going to slip her arm around his bicep at any moment.

"Yeah," Jack smiles, "there she goes."

Jack Delleto knows where the regulars sit night after night clutching the bar with desperation, the wood rail is worn smooth.

In the mirror that runs the length of the bar Jack Delleto sees himself with clarity. Brown hair and brown eyes. Just an ordinary 29 year old man.

"Old Fred is right," he thinks to himself, "If you stare at shadows long enough, they stare back." Jack smiles and the red head returns his smile crossing her long legs that protrude beneath a too short skirt.

The bartender recognizes the man smiling at the redhead.

"Well,  Jack Delleto, Dell, I heard you were dead. " The six foot, two hundred pound bartender tells him as Dell is walking over to the bar.

"Who told you that?"

"Crazy George, while he was swinging from the wagon wheel lamp." Bob O'Malley says as he points to the wagon wheel lamp hanging from the ceiling.

"George, I heard, HE was dead."

The bartender reaches over the bar resting the palms of his big hands on the edge of the bar and flashes a smile of white, uneven teeth. Bob extends his hand. "Where the hell have you been?"

They shake hands.

Dell looks up at the Irishman. "I ve been at Harry's Bar in Venice drinking ****** Marys with Elvis and Ernest."

Bob O'Malley grins, puts two shot glasses on the bar, and reaches under the bar to grab a bottle of bourbon. After filling the glasses with Wild Turkey, he hands one glass to Dell. They touch glasses and throw down the shots.

"Gobble, gobble," O Malley smiles.


The front door of the bar swings open and a cold wind drifts through the bar. Paul Keater takes off his Giants baseball cap and with the back of his hand wipes the snow off of his face.

"Keater," Bob O'Malley calls to the Blackman standing in the doorway.

Keater freezes, his eyes moving side to side in short, quick movements. He points a long slim finger at O'Malley, "I don't owe you any money," Paul Keater shouts.

The people sitting the barstools do not turn to look.

"You're always pulling that **** on me." Keater rushes to the bar, "I PPPAID YOU."

As Delleto watches Keater arguing with O'Malley, the anger grows into the loathing Dell feels for Keater. The suave, sophisticated Paul Keater living in a room above the bar. The man is disgusting. His belly hangs pregnant over his belt. His jeans have fallen exposing the crack of his ***, and Keater just doesn't give a ****. And that ragged, faded, baseball cap, ****, he never takes it off.

When Keater glances down, he realizes he is standing next to Jack Delleto. Usually, Paul Keater would have at least considered punching Delleto in his face. "The **** wasn't any good," Paul feining anger tells O'Malley. "Everybody said it was, ****."

The bartender finishes rinsing a glass in the soapy sink water and then places it on a towel. "*******."

Keater slides the Giant baseball cap back and forth across his flat forehead. "**** it," he turns and storms out of the bar.

"Can I get a beer?" Dell asks but O"Malley is already reaching into the beer box. Twisting the cap off, he puts it on the bar. "It's not that Keater owes me a few bucks, "he tells Dell, "if I didn't cut him off he'd do the stuff until he died." Bob grabs a towel and dries his hands.

"But the smartest rats always get out of the maze first," Jack tells Bob.


Cigarette butts, candy wrappers, and losing lottery tickets litter the linoleum floor. Jack Delleto grabs the bottle of beer off the bar and crosses the specter of unfulfilled wishes.

In the adjacent room he sits at a table next to the pinball machine to watch a disfigured man with an anorexic women shoot pool. Sometimes he listens to them talk, whisper, laugh. Sometimes he just stares at the wall.

"We have a winner, "the pinball machine announces, "come ride the Ferris wheel."



"I'm part Indian. "

Jack looks up from his beer. The Indian has straight black hair that hangs a few inches above her shoulders, a thin face, a cigarette dangling from her too red lips.

"My Mom was one third Souix, " the drunken women tells Jack Delleto.

The Indian exhales smoke from her petite nose waiting for a come on from the man with the sad face. And he just stares, stares at the wall.

Her bushy eyebrows come together forming a delicate frown.

Jack turns to watch a brunette shoot pool. The woman leans over the pool table about to shoot the nine ball into the side pocket. It is an easy shot.

The brunette looks across the pool table at Jack Delleto, "What the **** are you starin at?" She jams the pool stick and miscues. The cue ball runs along the rail and taps the eight ball into the corner pocket. "AH ****," she says.

And Jack smiles.

The Indian thinks Jack is smiling at her, so she sits down.

"In the shadows I couldn't see your eyes," he tells her, "but when you leaned forward to light that cigarette, you have the prettiest green eyes."

She smiles.

" I'm Kathleen," her eyes sparkling like broken glass in an alley.

Delleto tries to speak.

"I don't want to know your name," she tells Jack Delleto, the smile disappearing from her face. "I just want to talk for a few minutes like we're friends," she takes a drag off the cigarette, exhales the smoke across the room.

Jack recognizes the look on her face. Bad dreams.

"I'll be your friend," he tells her.

"We're not going to have ***." The Indian slowly grinds out the cigarette into the ashtray, looks up at the man with the sad face.

"Do you have family?"

"Family?" Delleto gives her a sad smile.

She didn't want an answer and then she gets right into it.

"I met my older sister in Baltimore yesterday." She tells the man with sad eyes.' Hadn't seen her since I was nine, since Mom died. I wanted to know why Dad put me in foster homes. Why?

"She called me Little Sister. I felt nothin. I had so many questions and you know what? I didn't ask one."

Jack is finishing his beer.

"If you knew the reasons, now, what would it matter, anyway."

The man with the black eye just doesn't get it. She lived with them long enough. Long enough to love them.

She stands up, stares at Jack Delleto.

And walks away.


It's the fat blondes turn to shoot pool. She leans her great body ever so gently across the green felt of the pool table, shoots and misses. When she tries to raise herself up off the pool table, the tip of the pool cue hits the Miller Lite sign above the pool table sending the lamb rocking violently back and forth. In flashes of light like the frames from and old Chaplin movie the sad and grotesque appear and disappear.

"What the **** are you starin at?" The skinny brunette asks.

Jack pretends to think for a moment. "An unhappy childhood."

Suddenly, she stands up, looking like death wearing a Harley Davidson T-shirt.

"Dove sta amore?" Jack Delleto wonders.

Death is angry, steps closer.

"Must be that time of the month, huh," Jack grins.

With her two tiny fists clenched tightly at her side, the brunette stares down into Delleto's eyes. Suddenly, she punches Jack in the eye.

Jack stands up bringing his forearm up to protect his face. At the same time Death steps closer. His forearm catches her under the chin. The bony ***** goes down.

Women rush from the shadows. They pull Jack to the ***** floor, punch and kick him.

In the blinking of the Miller Light Jack Delleto exclaims," I'm being smother by fat lesbians in soft satin pants."  But then someone is pulling the women off of him.

The Miller Lite gently rocks and then it stops.

Jack stands up, shakes his head and smiles.

"Nice punch, Dell," Bob O' Malley says, "I saw from the bar."

Jack hits the dust off of his pants, grabs the beer bottle off of the table, takes a swallow. Smiling, he says, "I box a little."

"I can tell by your black eye." O'Malley puts his hand on his friends shoulder. "Come on I'll buy you a shot. What caused this spontaneous expression of love?"

"They thought I was a ******."


2 a.m.

Jack Delleto walks out the door of the bar into the wind swept gloom. The gray desolation of boarded shut downtown is gone.

The rain has finally turn to snow.

His eyes follow the blue rope from the parking meter pole to its frayed end buried in the plowed hill of snow at the corner of Cookman Avenue.

The dog, Snowflake, dead, Jack thinks.


The snow covers everything. It covers the abandon cars and the abandon buildings, the sidewalk and its cracks. The city, Delleto imagines, is an adjectiveless word, a book of white pages. He steps off the curb into the gutter and the street is empty for as far as he can see. He starts walking.

Jack disappears into empty pages.


Chapter 2


Paul Keater has a room above Wagon Wheel Bar where the loud rock music shakes the rats in the walls til 2a.m. The vibrations travel through the concrete floor, up the bed posts, and into the matress.

Slowly Paul's eyes open. Who the hell is he fooling. Even without the loud music, he would not be able to sleep, anyway.

Soft red neon from the Wagon Wheel Bar sign blinks into his room.

Paul Keater sits up, sighs, resigns himself to another sleepless night, swings his legs off the bed. His x-wife. He thinks about her frequently. He went to a phycologist because he loved her.

Dump the *****, the doctor said.

"I paid him eighty bucks and all he had to say was dump the *****." He laughs, shakes his head.

Paul thinks about *******, looks around the tiny room, and spots a clear plastic case containing the baseball cards he had collected when he was a boy.

He walks to the dresser and puts on his Giant's baseball cap. Paul sits down on the wooden chair by the sink. Turns on the lamp. The card on top is ***** Mays. Holding it in his hand, it is perfect. The edges are not worn like the other cards.

It was his tenth birthday and his dad had taken him to his first baseball game and his father had bought the card from a dealer.

Oblivious to the loud rock music filtering into his room, he stares at the card.

Fondly, he remembers.

Dad.


                                     *     

It arrives unobtrusively. His heart begins to race faster.
Jack Delleto rolls away from the cracked wall. He sits up and drops his legs off the bed.

Jack Delleto thinks about mountains.

When he cannot sleep he thinks about climbing up through the fog that makes the day obscure, passing where the stunted spruce and fir tees are twisted by the wind, into cold brilliant light. Once as he climbed through the fog he saw his shadow stretching a half a mile across a cloud and the world was small. Far down to the east laid cliffs and gullies, glaciated mountains and to the west were the plains and cities of everyday life.

The army coat is draped over the back of the chair. In the pocket is his notebook. Jack stands and takes the notebook from the pocket. When he sits in the wooden chair he opens the book and slides the pen from the binder.

When he finishes his story he makes the end into the beginning.



                                           Chapter 3


"I want a captain in a truck." The 10 year old boy with the brown hair tells his mom. "I want it NOW."

His blonde haired mom wearing the gold diamond bracelet nods her head at Jack Delleto. Jack looks up at the clock on the wall. It is only 9a.m. After four years of college Jack has a part time job at K.B. Toy store. "We're all out of them," he tells her for the second time.

"Honey," Blondie tells her boy, "they're all out of them."

"YOU PROMISED."

"How about a sargeant in a jeep?

"OK, but I want a missile firing truck , too."

Delleto turns to the display case behind the counter. Briefly, he studies his black eye in the display case mirror and then begins searching the four shelves and twenty rows of 3 inch plastic toys. He finds the truck. His head is aching. He finds the truck and puts it on the counter in front of the boy.

"Sorry, we're all out of the sargeant," Jack tells the pretty lady. The aching in his head just won't go away.

"Mommy, mommy, I want an ATTACK HELIOCOPTER, MOMMMEEE, I WANTAH TTTAAANNNK..."

Jack Delleto leans over the counter resting his elbows on the glass top. The boy is staring at the man with the black eye, at his bruised, unshaven face.

"Well, we haven't got any, GODDAMED TANKS. How about a , KICKINTHE ***."

Finally the boy and his mother are quiet.

"My husband will have you fired."

She grabs the boy by the hand. Turns to rush out of the store.

Jack mutters something.

"MMOOOMEEE,  what does..."

"Oh, shut the hell up," the pretty lady tells her son


                                    

The assistant manager takes a deep drag on her cigarette, exhales, and crosses her arms to hold the cigarette in front of her. Susan looks down at Jack sitting on the stool behind the counter. He stands up. "Did you tell some lady to blow you?" She crushes the cigarette out in the ashtray on the shelf below the counter. "Maybe you don't need this job but I do."

"Sue, there's no smoking in the mall."

"Jack, you look tired," the cubby teenager tells him, "and your eye. Another black eye."

"I was attacked by five women."

'Oh, I see, in your dreams maybe. I see, it's one of those male fantasies I'm always reading about in Cosmo. You're not boxing again, are you Dell?" Sue likes to call him Dell.

"I go down to the gym to work out. Felix says I've got something."

"Yeah, a black eye." Susan laughs, opens the big vanilla envelope, and hands Jack his check.

She turns and takes a pair of sunglasses from the display stand. "You 're scaring the children, Dell ." Susan steps closer looks into Dell's brown eyes and the slips the sunglasses on his face. "Why don't you go to lunch."

                                              

It's noon and the mall is crowded at the food court area. Jack gets a 20oz cup of coffee, finds a table and sits down.

"Go over and talk to him. " Susan says. Jack turns his head , looks back, sees the Indian walking towards his table.

"Hello, Kathrine," says Jack Delleto.

"My names not Kathrine, it's Kathleen."

Jack pulls the chair away from the table, "Have a seat Kate."

Her eyebrows form that delicate frown. "My names Kathleen." As soon as she sits down she takes a cigarette from the pack sticking out of her pocketbook. "I had to leave. I told the baby sitter I'd only be gone an hour. Anyway you weren't much help."

"So why did you come over to talk to me?"

"You were alone, the bar full of people and you're alone. Why?"

"I like it that way. You've seen me there before?"

"Yeah, sitting by the pin ball machine staring at the wall, and sometimes, you'd take out your blue note pad and write in it.
What do you write about?  Are you goin to write about me..."

"Maybe. How many kids do you have?"

"Just one. A boy, and believe me one is enough. He'll be four in June," Kathleen smiles but then she remembers and abruptly the smile disappears from her face. "Sometimes I see Anthony's father in the mall and I ask him if he'd like to meet his son, but he doesn't.

Kathleen draws the cigarette smoke deep into her lungs, tilts her head back, and blows the smoke towards the skylight. Suddenly caught in the sunlight the smoke becomes a gray cloud. " I didn't want to marry him anyway, I don't know why he thought that."

She hears the scars as Delleto talks, something sad about the man, something like old newspapers blowing across a deserted street. She hears the scars and knows never, never ask where the scars came from.


                                    

As Jack walks towards the bank to cash his check, he glances out the front entrance to the mall. It is a bright, cold day and the snowplows are finishing up the parking lot plowing the snow into big white hills. That is the fate of the big white pup plowed to the corner of Cookman and Main buried deep in ***** snow. At that street corner when the school is over the children will play on the hill never realizing what lay beneath there feet.

The snow must melt; spring is inevitable.

His pup will be back.



                                           Chapter 4


The 19 year old light heavyweight leans his muscular body forward to rest his gloved hands on the tope rope of the ring. He bows his head waiting to regain his breath as his lungs fight to force air deep into his chest. Bill Wain has finished boxing 4 rounds with Red.

Harry the trainer, gently pulls the untied boxing gloves from Red's hands. "Good fight, he says, patting Red on the back as the fighter climbs through the ropes and heads to the showers. Harry hands the sweat soaked gloves to Felix who puts one glove under his arm while he loosens the laces on the other 12ounce glove. He makes the sleeve wider.

"Do you want the head gear?" Felix asks.

Jack Delleto shakes his head and pushes his taped hand deep into the glove.

The old man takes the other glove from under his arm, pulls the laces out, and holds it open. Without turning his head to look at him, Felix tells Harry, "Make sure Bill doesn't cool down. Tell him to shadow box. Harry walks over to Bill and Bill starts shadow boxing.

Jack pushes his hand into the glove. "Make a fist." Jack does. Felix pulls the laces and ties it into a bow.

Felix looks intently into Delleto's eyes. "How does that feel?"

"About right."

"You look tired."

"I am a little."

"Are you sick or is it a woman."

"I'm not sick."

A big smile forms across the face of the former welterweight champion of Nevada. The face of the 68 year old Blackman is lined and cracked like the old boxing gloves that Jack is wearing but his tall body is youthful and athletic in appearance. Above Felix's eyebrows Jack sees the effect of 20 years as a professional fighter. He sees the thick scar tissue and the thin white lines where the old man's skin has been stitched and re-stitched many times. As he gives instructions to Jack, Felix's brown eyes seem to be staring at something distant and Jack wonders if Felix has chased around the ring one time too often his dream.

"And get off first. Don't stop punching until he goes down. You've got it kid and not every fighter does."

Jack and Felix start walking over to the ring.

"What is it I've got?" Jack Deletto wonders.

Felix puts his foot on the fourth strand of the rings rope and with his hand pulls up the top strand and as Jack steps into the ring, "You've got, HEART."

In the opposite corner Bill Wain waits.

"Will he be alright?" Harry asks.

"Bill's tired, " Felix replies, then he tries to explain. "It's not about money. I'm almost 70 and I want to go out a winner." Felix pauses and the offers, he can hit hard with either hand."

"Yeah, but at best he's a small middleweight and he only moves in one direction, straight ahead."

"Harry, I love the guy," Felix puts his hand on Harry's shoulder, he's like Tyson at the end of his career. He'd fight you to the death but he's not fighting to win anymore."

Harry puts his hands in his pocket and stares at the floor. "Do you want me to tell him to go easy." Harry looks up at Felix waiting for an answer.

"I'm tired of sweeping dirt from behind the boxes of wax beans and tuna fish. I'm sick of collecting shopping carts in the rain. A half way decent white heavyweight can make a lot of money. It's stupid for a fighter to practice holding back. Bill's a winner. Jack'll be alright."

Felix hands the pocket watch to Harry so he can time the rounds.

Bill Wain comes out of his corner circling left.

Jack rushes straight ahead.

Felix winks at Jack Delleto and whispers, "The Jack of hearts."



                                           Chapter 5


The front door of the Wagon Wheel bar explodes open to Ziggy Pop's, "YOU'VE GOT A LUST FOR LIFE." Jack Delleto steps over the curb and vanishes into the dark doorway.

"HEY, JACK, JACK DELLETO," The lanky bartender shouts over the din.

Delleto makes his way through the crowd over to bar. How the hell have you been Snake?" Jack asks.

"Just great," says Snake. "You're lookin pretty ****** good for a dead man."

"Who told you that? Crazy George?"

The bartender points across the room to where a man in a pin stripe suit is swinging to and fro from a wagon wheel lamp attached to the ceiling.

"Yeah, I thought so. Haven't seen Crazy George in a year and he's been telling everyone I'm dead. I'm gonna have to have a long talk with that man."

Snake hands Jack a shot of tequila. The men touch glasses and throw down the shots.

How's the other George? Dell asks.

"AA."

"How's Tommy? You see him anymore?"

"Rehab."

"What about Robbie?"

Snake refills the glasses. "He's livin in a nudist colony in Florida, he has two wives and 6 children."


Jack looks across the room and sees Bob O'Malley trying to adjust the rose in the lapel of his tuxedo. Satisfied it won't fall out O'Malley looks up at the man swinging from the lamp. "Quick, name man's three greatest inventions."

"Alcohol, tobacco, and the wheel," Crazy George shoots back.

O'Malley smiles and then jumps up on the top of the bar and although he is over six feet and weighs two hundred pounds, he has the dexterity and grace of a ballerina as he pirouttes around and jumps over the shot glasses and beer bottles that litter the bar.

Wedding guests lean back in their chairs as strangers fearful of his gyrations ****** their drinks off the bar. Bob fakes a slip as he prances along but he is always in control and never falters. Forty three year old Bob O'Malley is Jim Brown who dodges danger to score the winning touch down.

When Bob reaches the end of the bar he jumps to the floor, pulls two aluminum lids from the beer box, and with one in each hand he smacks them together like cymbals.

Some guests clap. The bemused just stare.

In the back of the room sitting at the wedding table the father of the bride leans over, whispers into the ear of his crying wife, "If I had a gun I'd shoot Bob."

The bride raises a glass of champagne into the smoke filled air and Bob takes a bow but then heads towards the kitchen at the other end of the room.

" Hey, Bob," Jack Delleto shouts to the groom.

O'Malley stops under the wagon wheel lamp and turns as Delleto steps into the  circle of light cast onto the floor.

"Congratulations, I know Theresa and you are goin to be happy. I mean that." Delleto offers his hand and they shake hands.

"Thanks, Mr. Cool."

Jack takes off the sunglasses.

"TWO black eyes. Your nose is bleeding. What happened?"

Dell takes the handkerchief from his back pocket, wipes the blood dripping down his face. "It's broken."

"What happened?" O'Malley asks again.

"Bill Wain."

"He turned pro."

"Yeah, but he's nothing special. Hell, he couldn't even knock me down."

O'Malley shakes his head. "Dell, why do you do it? You always lose."

"If you don't fight you've already lost."

"Put the sunglasses back on, you look like a friggin raccoon."

Dell smiles. The blood running down his lips."Thersa's beautiful, Bob, you're a lucky guy."

"Thanks Dell." O'Malley puts his hand on Dell's shoulder and squeezes affectionately. Bob looks across the room at Theresa. "Yeah, she is beautiful." Theresa's mother has stopped crying. Her father drinks whiskey and stares at the wall.

O'Malley looks away from his bride and passed the archway that divides the poolroom from the bar and into the corner. With the lamp light above his head gleaming in his eyes Bob seems to see a ghost fleeting in the far distant, dark corner. Slowly, a peculiar half smile forms uneven, white, tombstone teeth.  A pensive smile.

Curious, Dell turns his head to look into the darkness of the poolroom, too.

At night in July the moths were everywhere. When Dell was a boy he would sit on his porch and try to count them. The moths appeared as faint splashes of whiteness scattered throughout the nighttime sky, odd circles of white that moved haphazardly, forward and then sideways, sometimes up and then down.

Sometimes the patches of moths flew higher and higher and Dell imagined the lights those creatures were seeking were the stars themselves; Orion, the Big Dipper, and even the milky hue of the Milkyway.

One night as the moths pursued starlight he saw shadows dropping one by one from the branches at the tops of the trees. The swallows were soundless and when he caught a glimpse of sudden darkness, blacker than the night, he knew the shadows had erased the dreamer and its dream.

His imagination gave definition to form. There was a sound to the shadows of the swallows in his thoughts, the melody and the song played over and over. Wings of shadow furled and unfurled. Perhaps he saw his reflection in the night. Perhaps there are shadows where nothing exists to cast them.

"Do you hear them, Bob?"

"Hear what?" Bob asks.

"All of them."

"All of what?"

"Shadows," Delleto candidly tells his friend, then, "Ah, Nothin."

O'Malley doesn't understand but it does not matter. The two men have shared the same corner of darkness.

Bob calls to Paul Keater. Keater smiles broadly, slides the brim of his Giant baseball cap to the side of his forehead. The two men disappear through the swinging kitchen door.


                                          Chapter 6


"Hello Kate." Jack Delleto says and sits down. She has a blue bow in her hair and make up on.

"My names Kathleen."

She fondles the whiskey glass in her slim fingers. "Hello, Dell, Sue thinks Dell is such a **** name. Kathleen takes a last drag on her cigarette, rubs it out in the ashtray, looks up at him, "What should I call you?"

"How about, Darlin?"

"Hello, Jack, DARLIN," her soft, deep voice whispers. Kathleen crosses her legs and the black dress rides up to the middle of her thigh.

Jack glances at the milky white flesh between the blue ***** hose and the hem of her dress. Kate is drunk and Dell does not care. He leans closer, "Do you wanna dance?"

"But no one else is dancing."

"Well, we can go down to the beach, take a walk along the sand."

"It's twenty degrees out there."

"I'll keep you warm."

"All right, lets dance."

Jack stands up takes her by the hand. As Kathleen rises Jack draws her close to him. Her ******* flatten against his chest. He feels her heart thumping.

The Elvis impersonator that almost played Las Vegas; the hairdresser that wanted to be a race car driver; the insurance salesman with a Porche and a wife.  Her men talked about what they owned or what they could do well.

And Kathleen was impressed.

But Dell wasn't like them. Dell never talked about himself. Did he have a dream? Was there something he wanted more than anything?

Kathleen had never meant anyone quite like Dell.

She rests her head on his shoulder. "What do you what more than anything? What do you dream about at night?"

"Nothing."

"Come on," she says," what do you want more than anything? Tell me your dreams."

Jack smiles, "Just to make it through another day."  He smiles that sad smile that she saw the first time they met. "Tell me what you want."

Kate lifts her head off of his shoulder and looks into his eyes. "I don't want to be on welfare the rest of my life and I want to be able to send my son to college." She rests her cheek against his, "I've lived in foster homes all my life and every time I knew that one day I'd have to leave, what I want most is a home. Do you know the difference between a house and a home?"

"No. not at all"

Her voice is a roaring whisper in his ear, "LOVE."

The song comes to an end and they leave the circle of light and sit down. Kate takes a cigarette from the pack.

Dell strikes a match. The flame flickering in her eyes. "Maybe someday you'll have your home."

"Do you want me to?"

"Yeah."

Kate blows out the match.


                                        


"Can you take me home?" Kate asks slurring her words.

Kathleen and Jack walk over to where the bride and groom are standing near the big glass refrigerator door with Paul Keater. When Paul realizes he is standing next to Jack Delleto he rocks back and forth on the heals of his worn shoes, slides his Giants baseball cap back and forth across his forehead and walks away.

O'Malley bends down and kisses Kathleen on the cheek and turns to shake hands with Dell. "Good luck," says Dell. Kathleen embraces the bride.

Outside the bar the sun is setting behind the boarded shut Delleto store.

"That was my Dad's store, " Jack tells Kate and then Jack whispers to to himself as he reads the graffiti spray painted on the front wall.
"TELL YOUR DREAMS TO ME, TELL ME YOU LOVE ME, IF YOU LOVE ME, TELL ALL YOUR DREAMS TO ME."


                                         Chapter 7


An old man comes shuffling down the street, "Hello Mr. Martin, " Jack says, "How are you?"

"I'm an old man Jack, how could I be," and then he smiles, "ah, I can't complain. How are you?"

"Still alive and well."

"Who is this pretty young lady?"

"This is Kate."

Joesph Martin takes Kathleen by the arm and gently squeezes, "Hello Kate, such a pretty women, ah, if I was only sixty," and the old man smiles.

Kathleen forces a smile.

The thick eyeglasses that Mr. Martin wears magnifies his eyes as he looks from Kathleen to Jack, "Have fun now, because when you're dead, you're going to be dead a long, long time." And Martin smiles.

"How long?  Delleto inquires.

The old man smirks and waves as he continues up the street to the door leading to the rooms above the bar. He turns to face the door. The small window is broken and the shards of glass catch the twilight.

Joesph Martin turns back looking at the man and young woman who are about to get into the car. He is not certain what he wants to say to them. Perhaps he wants to tell them that it ***** being an old man and the upstairs hallway always smells of ****.

Joesph Martin wants to tell someone that although Anna died seven years ago his love endures and he misses her everyday. Joesph recalls that Plato in Tamaeus believed that the soul is a stranger to the Earth and has fallen into matter because of sin.

A faint smile appears on the wrinkled face of the old man as he heeds the resignation he hears in his own thoughts.

Jack waves to Mr. Martin.  Joesph waves back. The mustang drives off.

Earth, O island Earth.


                                               Chapter 8


Joseph pushes open the door and goes into the hallway. The fragments of glass scattered across the foyer crunch and clink under his shoes. The cold wind blowing through the broken window touches his warm neck. He shivers and walks up the stairs. There is only enough light to see the wall and his own warm breathing. There is just enough light like when he has awaken from a  bad dream, enough to remember who he is and to separate the horror of what is real from the horror of what is dreamt.

The old man continues climbing the stairs following the familiar shadow of the wall cast onto the stairs. If he crosses the vague line of shadow and light he will disappear like a brown trout in the deepest hole in a creek.

By the time he reaches the second floor he is out of breath. Joseph pauses and with the handkerchief he has taken from his back pocket he wipes the fog from the lenses of his eyeglasses and the sweat from his forehead.

A couple of doors are standing open and the old man looks cautiously into each room as he hurries passed. One forty watt bulb hangs from a frayed wire in the center of the hallway. The wiring is old and the bulb in the white porcelain socket flickers like the blinking of an eye or the fearful beating of the heart of an old man.

When he opens the door to his room it sags on ruined hinges.

Joesph searches with his hand for the light switch.  Several seconds linger. Can't find it.

Finds it and quickly pushes the door shut. He sits down on the bed, doesn't take his coat off, reaches for the radio. It is gone.

Joseph looks around the room. A small dresser, the sink with a mirror above it. He takes off his coat and above the mirror hangs the coat on the nail he has put there.

Hard soled boots echo hollowly off the hallway walls. The echoes are overlapping and he cannot determine if the footsteps are leaving or approaching.

The crowbar is under his pillow.

He grabs it. Holds it until there is silence.

He lays back on the bed. Another night without sleep. Joseph rolls onto his side and faces the wall.

Earth, O island Earth.



                                           Chapter 9


Tangled in the tree tops a rising moon hangs above the roofs of identical Cape Cod houses.

Jack pulls the red mustang behind a station wagon. Kathleen is looking at Dell. His face is a faint shadow on the other side of the car. "Do you want to come up?" she asks.

Kathleen steps out of the car, breathes the cold air deep into her lungs. It is fresh and sweet. Jack comes around the side of the car just as she knew he would. He takes her into his arms. She can feel his lips on hers and his warm breath as the kiss ends.

They walk beneath the old oak tree and the roots have raised and crack the sidewalk and in the spring tiny blue flowers will bloom. The flowers remind Jack of the columbines that bloom in high mountain meadows above tree line heralding a brief season of sun and warmth.

"Did you win?" Kathleen asks as she fits the key into the upstairs apartment door. The door swings open into the brightly lit kitchen.

Dell, leaning in the doorway, two black eyes, looking like the Jack of Hearts. "It doesn't matter."

"You lost?"

"Yeah."

Crossing the room she takes off her coat and places it on the back of the kitchen chair. When Kate leans across the kitchen table to turn on the radio the mini dress rides up her thigh, tugs tightly around her buttocks.

The radio plays softly.

Jack stands and as Kathleen turns he slips his arms around her waist and she is staring into his eyes like a cat into a fire. His body gently presses against the table and when he lifts her onto the table her legs wrap around his waist.

Kathleen sighs.

Jack kisses her. Her lips are cold like the rain. His hand reaches. There is a faint click. The room slips into darkness. It is Eddie Money on the radio, now, with Ronnie Specter singing the back up vocals. Eddie belts out, "TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT, I WON"T LET YOU LEAVE TIL..."

When Jack withdraws from the kiss her eyes are shining like diamonds in moonlight.

The buttons of her dress are unfastened.  Her arms circle his neck and pull him to her *******. "Don't Jack. You mustn't. I just want a friend."

His hands slide up her thighs. "I'll be your friend, " says Jack.

Her voice is a roaring whisper in his ear. "*** always ruins everything," He pulls her to the edge of the table as Ronnie sings, "O DARLIN, O MY DARLIN, WON'T YOU BE MY LITTLE BAABBBY NOOWWW."


They are sitting on a couch in the room that at one time had been a sun porch.

Now that they have gotten *** out of the way, maybe they can talk. Sliding her hands around his face she pulls him closer.

"Jack, what do you dream about? You know what I mean, tell your dreams to me."

"How did you get those round scars on your arm?" Dell wonders.

"Don't ask. I don't talk about it. Do you have family?"

"Yeah. A brother. Tell me about those scars."

My ****** foster dad. He burned me with his cigarette. That's how I got these ****** scars.

And when I knew he was coming home, I'd get sick to my stomach, and when I heard his key in the door, I'd *** myself. And I got a beating.

But that wasn't the worst of it.

When they didn't beat me or burn me, they ignored me, like I didn't exist, like I wasn't even there. And you know what, I didn't hate him. I hated my father who put in all those foster homes."



                                             Chapter 10



Spring. All the windows in the apartment are open. The cool breeze flows through her brown hair. "You're getting too serious, Jack, and I don't want to need you."

"That's because I care for you."

The rain pounds the roof.

Jack Delleto sits down on the bed, caresses her shoulder. "I hate the rain. Come on, give me a smile. "Kathleen pulls away and faces the wall.

"Well, I don't need anyone."

"People need people."

"Yeah, but I don't need you." There is silence, then, "I only care about my son and Father Anthony."

"What is it with you and the priest?" You named your son Anthony is that because he's the father."

"You're an *******. Get out of here. I don't love you." And then, "I've been hurt by people and you'll get over it."

Then silence. Jack gets up from the bed, stares at her dark form facing the wall. "Isn't this how it always ends for you?"

The room is quiet and grows hot. When the silence numbs his racing heart, he goes into the kitchen, opens the front door and walks down the steps into the cold rain.


"Anthony," Kathleen calls to her son to come to her from the other bedroom and he climbs into the bed, and she holds him close. The ghost of relationships past haunt her and although they are all sad, she clings to them.


On the sidewalk below the apartment window Jack stops. He thinks he hears his name being called but whatever he has heard is carried off by the wind. He continues up the dark street to his Harley.

High in reach less branches of the old oak tree a mockingbird is singing. The leaves twist in the wind and the singing goes on and on.



                                                  



The ringing phone. The clock on the dresser says 5 a.m.

"Who the hell is this?"

"Jack, I'm scared."

"Kate? Is that you?"

"Someone broke into my apartment."

"Is he still there?"

"No, he ran out the door when I screamed. It was hot and I had the window open. He slit the screen."

"I'll be right over."



                                         Chapter11


"How hot is it?" Kathleen asks.

The bar is empty except for O'Malley, Keater, a man and a woman.

"98.6," says Jack. The sweat rolls down his cheeks.

"Let's go to the boardwalk."

"When it's hot like this, it's hot all over."

"We could go on the rides."

"I've got the next pool game, then we'll go."

"It's my birthday."

"I bought you flowers."

"Yeah, carnations."

Laughing, Paul Keater slides the brim of his baseball cap back and forth across his forehead.

Jack eyes narrow. He starts for Keater, Katheen steps in front of Jack, puts her hands on his shoulders. She looks into his eyes.

"Who are you Jack Delletto? What is it with you two? But as always you'll say nothing, nothing." As Jack tries to speak she walks over to the bar and sits on the barstool.

"It's my birthday," she tells O'Malley.

When Bob turns from the horse races on the T.V., he notices her long legs and the short skirt. "Hey, happy birthday, Kate, Jack Daniels?"

"Fine."

Filling the glasses O'Malley hands one to Kathleen, "You look great," he tells her.

"Jack doesn't think so. Thanks, at least someone thinks so."

"Hope Jack won't mind," and he leans over the bar and kisses her.

Kathleen looks over her shoulder at Delleto. Jack is playing pool with a woman wearing a black tight halter top. The woman comes over to Jack, stands too close, smiles, and Jack smiles back.

The boyfriend stares angrily at Jack.

When Kathleen turns back O'Malley is filling her shot glass.

Jack wins that game, too.



                                                 Chapter 12



"Daddy," the little girl with her hands folded in her lap is looking up at her father. "When will the ride stop? I want to go on."

"Soon, Darling, "her father assures her.

"I don't think it will ever stop."

"The ride always stops, Sweetie." Daddy takes her by the hand, gently squeezes.


When the carousel begins to slow down but has not quite stopped Kathleen steps onto the platform, grabs the brass support pole. The momentum of the machine grabs her with a **** onto the ride, into a white horse with big blue eyes. Dropping her cigarette she takes hold of the pole that goes through the center of the horse. She struggles to put her foot in the stirrup, finds it, and throws her leg over the horse. The carousel music begins to play. With a tremble and a jolt, the ride starts.

Sitting on the pony has made her skirt ride well up her legs. The ticket man is staring at her but she is too drunk to care. She hands him the ticket, gives him the finger.

The ticket man goes over to the little girl and her father who are sitting in a golden chariot pulled by to black horses.

"Ooooh, Daddy, I love this."

"So do I," The father smiles and strokes his daughter's hair.

The heat makes the dizziness grow and as the ride picks up speed she sees two of everything. There are two rows of pin ball machines, eight flashing signs, six prize machines. All the red, blue and green lights from the ride blend together like when a car drives at night down a rain-soaked street.

Kathleen feels the impulse to *****.

"Can we go on again?" The little girl asks.

"But the ride isn't over, yet."


Kathleen concentrates on the rain-soaked street and the dizziness and nausea lessens. She perceives the images as a montage like the elements that make up a painting or a life. She has become accustom to the machine and its movement. The circling ride creates a cooling breeze that becomes a tranquil, flowing waterfall.

The ponies in front are always becoming the ponies in the back and the ponies in back are becoming the ponies in the front. Around and around. All the ponies galloping. Settling back into the saddle she rides the pony into the ever-present receding waterfall.

You can lose all sense of the clock staring into the waterfall of blue, red and green. Kathleen leans forward to embrace the ride for a long as it lasts.

Just as suddenly as it started, the ride is slowly stopping, the music stops playing.

Coming down off the pony she does not wait for the ride to stop, stumbles off the platform and out the Casino amusement park door. "****, *******," she yells careening into the railing almost falling into Wesley Lake.

She staggers a few steps, sits down on the grass by the curb, hears the carousel music playing and knows the ride is beginning again, and all of her dreams crawls into her like a dying animal from its hidden hole.

And it all comes up from her throat taking her breath away. A distant yet familiar wind so she lies down on the grass facing the street of broken buildings filled with broken people. From the emptying lot of scattering thoughts the mockingbird is singing and the images shoot off into a darkening landscape, exploding, illuminating for a brief moment, only to grow dimmer, light and warmth fading into cold and darkness.




                                            

"Your girlfriend is flirting with me," Jack Delleto tells the man. "It's my game."

The man stands up, takes a pool stick from the rack, as he comes towards Jack Delleto the man turns the pool stick around holding the heavy part with two hands.

There is an explosion of light inside his head, Delleto sees two spinning lizards playing trumpets, 3 dwarfs with purple hair running to and fro, intuitively he knows he has to get up off the floor, and when he does he catches the bigger man with a left hook, throws the overhand right. The man stumbles back.

His girlfriend in the tight black halter top is jumping up and down, screaming at, screaming at Jack Delleto to stop, but Jack, does not. Stepping forward, a left hook to the midsection, hook to the head, spins right, throws the overhand right.

The man goes down. Jack looks at him.

"You lose, I win," and Delleto's smile is a sad, knowing one.



                                                  CHAPTER­ 13

"It's too much," and Jack looks up from the two lines of white powder at Bob O'Malley. "I'll never be able to fall asleep and I hate not being able to sleep."

" Here," Bob takes a big white pill from his shirt pocket.

Jack drops the pill into his shirt pocket and says, "No more." He hands the rolled-up dollar bill to Bob who bends over the powder.

"Tom sold the house so you're upstairs? O Malley asks, and like a magician the two lines of white powder disappear.

"Till i find another place," Jack whispers.

Straightening up, O'Malley looks at Dell, "I know you 're hurting Dell, I'm sorry, I'm sad about Kate, too."

"Kate had a kid. A boy, four years old."

Jack becomes quiet, walks through the darkened room over to the bar. Leaning over the bar he grabs two shot glasses and a bottle of Wild Turkey, walks back into the poolroom. He puts the shot glasses on top of the pin ball machine. "We have a winner, " the pin ball machine announces. Dell fills the glasses.

"Felix came in the other day, he's taken it hard," Bob tells him.
Bill Wain knock down four times in the sixth round, he lost consciousness in the dressing room, and died at the hospital."

"I heard. What's the longest you went without sleep? Jack asks.

"Oooohhh, five, six days, who knows, after awhile you lose all track of time."

They take the shots and throw them down.

"I wonder if animals dream," Jack wants to know. "I wonder if dogs dream."

"Sure, they do, " O'Malley assures him, nodding his head up and down, "dogs, cats, squirrels, birds."

"Probably not insects."

"Why not? June bugs, fleas, even moths, it's all biochemical, dreams are biochemical, mix the right combination of certain chemicals, electric impulses, and you'll produce love and dreams."

                                                

Jack Delleto goes into his room above the bar, studies it. The light from the unshaded lamp on the nightstand casts a huge shadow of him onto the adjacent wall. Not much to the room, a sink with a mirror above it next to a dresser, a bed against the wall, a wooden chair in front of a narrow window.

The rain pounds the roof.

The apprehension grows. The panic turns into anger. Jack rushes the white wall, meets his shadow, explodes with a left hook. He throws the right uppercut, the overhand right, three left hooks. He punches the wall and his knuckles bleed. He punches and kicks the blood-stained wall.

At last exhausted, he collapses into the chair in front of the open window. Fist sized holes in the plaster revel the bones of the building. The room has been punched and kicked without mercy.

The austere room has won.

The yellow note pad, he needs the yellow note pad, finds it, takes the pencil from the binder but no words will come so he writes, "insomnia, the absence of dream." He reaches for the lamp on the nightstand, finds it, and turns off the light. Red and blue, blue and red, the neon from the Wagon Wheel Bar sign blinks soft neon into his room. The sign seems to pulsate to the cadence of the rock music coming from the bar.

Taking the big white pill from his shirt pocket, he swallows it, leans back into the chair watching the shadows of rain bleed down the wall. The darkness intensifies. Jack slides into the night.



                                           Chapter 14


The rain turns to snow.

With each step he takes the pain throbs in his arm and shoulder socket. His raw throat aches from the drafts of cold air he is ******* through his gaping mouth and although his legs ache he does not turn to look back. Jack must keep punching holes with his ice axe, probing the snow to avoid a fall into an abyss.

The pole of the ice axe falls effortlessly into the snow, "**** it, another one."

Moonlight coats the glacier in an irridecent glow and the mountain looms over him. It is four in the mourning and Jack knows he needs to be high on the mountain before the mourning sun softens the snow. He moves carefully, quietly, humbly to avoid a fall into a crevasse. When he reaches the top of the couloir the wind begins to howl.

"DA DA DUN, DA DA DUN, HEY PURPLE HAZE ALL AROUND MY BRAIN..."

Jack thinks the song is in his head but the electric guitar notes float down through the huge blocks of ice that litter the glacier and there standing on the arête is Jimi, his long dexterous fingers flying over the guitar strings at 741 mph.

"Wait a minute, " Jack wonders, stopping dead in his tracks. The sun is hitting the distant, wind-blown peaks. "Ah, what the hell," and Jack jumps in strumming his ice axe like an air guitar, singing, shouting, "LATELY THINGS DON'T SEEM THE SAME, IS THIS A DREAM, WHATEVER IT IS THAT GIRL PUT A SPELL ON MEEEE, PURRPPLLE HAZZEEE."


                                             


Slowly the door moans open.

"Jack, are you awake?" her voice startles him.

"Yeah, I'm awake."

"What's the matter, can't sleep?"

Jack sifts position on the chair. "Oh, I can sleep all right." He recognizes the voice of the shadow. "I want to climb to a high mountain through ice and snow and never be found."

"A heart that's empty hurts, I miss you, Jack Delleto."

"I'm glad someone does, I miss you, too, Kate."

There is silence for several minutes and the voice comes out of the darkness again.

"Jack, you forgot something that night."

"What?" The dark shape moves towards him. When it is in front of him, Jack stands, slips his arms around her waist.

"You didn't kiss me goodbye."

Her lips are soft and warm. Her arms tighten around his neck and the warmth of her body comes to him through the cold night.

"Jack, what's the matter?" She raises her head to look at him, "Why, you're crying."

"Yeah, I'm crying."

"Don't cry Darlin," her lips are soft against his ear. "I can't bear to see you unhappy, if you love me, tell me you love me."

"I love you, I do," he whispers softly.

"Hold me, Jack, hold me tighter."

"I'll never let you go." He tries to hug the shadow.


                                                *


The dread grows into an explosion of consciousness. Suddenly, he sits up ******* in the cold drafts of air coming into the room from the open window. Jack Delleto gets up off the chair and walks over to the sink. He turns on the cold water and bending forward splashes water onto his face. Water dripping, he leans against the sink, staring into the mirror, into his eyes that lately seem alien to him.



                                            Chapter 15


Someone approaches, Jacks turns, looks out the open door, sees Joesph Martin go shuffling by wearing a faded bathrobe and one red slipper. Jack hears Martin 's door slam shut and for thirty seconds the old man screams, "AAHHH, AAAHHH, AAAHH."
Then the building is silent and Jack listens to his own labored breathing.

A glance at the clock. It is a few minutes to 7 a.m. Jack hurries from his room into the hallway.  They pass each other on the stairs. The big man is coming up the stairs and Jack is going down to see O'Malley.

Jack has committed a trespass.

When the big man reaches the top of the stairs, the red exit light flickers like a votive candle above his head. The man slides the brim of his Giants baseball cap back and forth across his forehead, he turns and looks down, "Hello, Jack, brother. Dad loved you, too, you know." An instant later the sound of a door closing echoes down the hallway steps.


Jack Delleto is standing in the doorway at the bottom of the steps looking out onto the wet, bright street.

"Hey, Jack, man it's good to see you, glad to see you're still alive."

Jack turns, looks over his shoulder, "Felix, how the hell are you?"
The two men shake hands, then embrace momentarily.

"Ah, things don't get any better and they don't get any worse," shrugs the old man and then he smiles but his brown eyes are dull, and Jack can smell the cheap wine on the breath of the old boxer. "When are comin back? Man, you've got something, Kid, and we're going places."

"Yeah, Felix, I'll be coming back."  Jack extends his hand. The old fighter smiles and they shake hands. Suddenly, Felix takes off down Main Street towards Foodtown as if he has some important place to go.

Jack is curious. He sees the rope when he starts walking towards the Wagon Wheel Bar. One end of the rope is tied around the parking meter pole. The rest of the rope extends across the sidewalk disappearing into the entrance to the bar. The rattling of a chain catches his attention and when the huge white head of the dog pops out of the doorway Jack is startled. He stops dead in his tracks and as he spins around to run, he slips falling to the wet pavement.

The big, white mutt is curious, growls, woofs once and comes charging down the sidewalk at him. The rope is quickly growing shorter, stretches till it meets it end, tightens, and then snaps. Now, unimpeded by the tension of the rope the mutt comes charging down the sidewalk at Delleto. Jack's body grows tense anticipating the attack. He tries to stand up, makes it to his knees just as the dog bowls into him knocking him to the cement. The huge mutt has him pinned down, goes for his face.

And begins licking him.

Jack Delleto struggles to his knees, hugs her tightly to him. Looking over her shoulder, across Main Street to the graffiti painted on the boarded shut Delleto Market...

                               FANTASY WILL SET YOU FREE

                                                 The End

To Tommy, Crazy George and Snake, we all enjoyed a little madness for a while.


"Conversations With a Dead Dog..."

Write What You Know

I am standing in front of another writing class From my mouth, the mouth of all English teachers, comes, “Write what you know,” and the carefully tied fly whips itself out onto the surface of the classroom and lies there, waiting for a nibble or a strike. My students, fresh from fields and country roads and long hours alone on the prairies, stare back like ancient trout, converged at this bend in the river. No one moves a pencil; no one rises to even tap the bait. Silence is broken by the sound of the General Electric clock over my head marking the flow of time and water and life.

Whoever put a 15 inch clock on the wall above and behind the teacher knew something about sadism. Students mark their breathing in second hand sweeps, while I wait for that first hand to rise like a fish, foolishly deciding to catch one last fly for the evening…my bait, tied carefully to invisible nylon leader guaranteed to withstand the assault of five pound monster brown trout. Patiently I stand by the edge of the stream, my feet just barely touching the water line.

“Mr. Bouchard? What if I don’t have anything to write about?” a querulous voice trembles. Shimmers of water-light ripple through the pond-room. I see the other trout-children move ever so slightly, turning in the water thick air toward the question-tap.

“Patience,” I think…and clear my throat. “Good question,” I say. “What do you know that you would want to write about? What stories do you have to tell that others would like to hear?” I let the current move the fly a little deeper over the waiting trout.

And there I miss the first strike of the day.

“Nothing. I got nothing,” grumbles Charlie. “I don’t go nowhere. I don’t do nuthin’ but work and stay at home.”

“Yah. Pretty much says it all right there,” chimes in his best friend Tad. The other fish start to turn away from the prompt/bait. I can see they are thinking of going into deeper water.

Quickly changing tactics, I turn and grab a broken piece of chalk…not much, but enough. I scratch out two words: ‘episodic memory.’ Turning to the class, I say quickly, “What do you remember about 9/11? Take a minute and think about 9/11. Where were you? What were you doing? Who was with you? What time of day was it? What did you feel?”

The class is interested in the bait change up. I can see their trout bodies, speckled with brown dots, turning toward my new presentation. Gills are fanning in and out a little quicker than before.

A hand shoots up. Mary says, “I was on my way to school, and the bus driver yelled at us all to be quiet because something was going on with World Trade Center.” A couple of her friends nod their heads, eyes looking up and back, into the past. Images were coming into focus.

Jose blurts out, “My mom was on the way to New York that morning. She was waiting at the airport. We were all worried about her.”

Now we’re getting somewhere, I tell myself. “So, Jose, can you remember exactly what you were doing when you first found out about the planes hitting the building? Where were you? What were you doing?”

“I had just eaten…Cheerios…yeah, it was Cheerios!” he says. “I was making sure my books were in my backpack, and the news came on over the Morning Show. I remember I stopped and just stood there like I was frozen. It was a couple of hours before we knew she was okay, but her plane was grounded so she couldn’t go to New York.”

The rest of the class murmurs. The beautiful fish begin to move as one toward the bait.

I nudge. “What did you see? What did you hear? What did you feel? What did you smell? Who was there with you? Take a minute and write that down.”

Pencils scratch on cheap paper. The sound of the clock hum recedes. Time slows as currents of thought push the humming motor down. The stream slows and the water surface becomes glassy.

Two minutes pass. No one says anything.

I break the silence. “This is episodic memory. When huge events take place in our lives…events that mean something very important to us, or that are swift and exciting, sometimes too wonderful or too terrible to understand or to survive…at that instant…those events are stored in our minds almost like living, high definition videos. We can remember these episodes with all five senses. We remember what we were doing, what we were eating, who was with us, where we were, sights, sounds, smells, feelings…they’re all there in our episodic memories.”

I have their attention. The hook is set. Some pencils even scratch “episodic memory” on paper. I push on.

“We all have collective episodic memory. 9/11 is a good example. You all have some collective memory of that day when terrorists flew two airplanes into the twin towers in New York City.”

I take a breath. “Now comes the reason for my teaching you about episodic memory. We all have personal events stored in episodic memory as well. Each of us has his or her personal memories, forever burned into the hard drives of our minds. When we pull up these memories, they are there in true color, full sound, and clear vision. We can see, taste, touch, hear and smell those memories clearly. That’s what I mean when I say, ‘write what you know.’

It’s illegal to fly fish with multiple baits on one line in Montana, not that I am coordinated enough to keep 15 grey wolf flies separate and in the air on the end of 30 feet of fly line anyway. In my mind, I imagine those flies stinging the water and 15 fish leaping to snag them. The class is moving mentally toward episodic events.

The fly fisherman lives for that leaping catch, when the world explodes with the splashing surge of trout beauty and fierce battle. The teacher lives and breathes the exhalations of “AHA!” as students capture concepts and come to life.

Fifteen memories, brilliant as shattering crystal catching sunlight, explode in fifteen minds…and then the trouble comes. I have been here before and move quickly to head off a possible flight to deep waters.

“Class! I need you to hold your thoughts for just a minute.”

“Some of us in this room just experienced memories of wonderful events: winning shots at ball games, good news of brothers or sisters coming home from war, first kisses … and some of us are experiencing terrible events, reliving them over right here in this room. I know that happens. It happens to me. The problem is…not all episodic memories should be shared with everyone.”

The class is silent. A couple of eyes are red and I can see where tears are beginning to form. Someone is recalling a fumbled tackle and the agony of sounding jeers. Another is re-living the scratchy beard and sour breath of a father as he crosses all lines of decency and honor with a child. I can almost hear skidding tires and feel exploding airbags as three minds simultaneously re-experience crashes…. The silent sounds of slaps and screams, of joyous and sarcastic laughter, of tearful farewells and exuberant reunions fill the air, bubbles releasing in the moving water of the classroom.

And then, the bell rings. “Take your ideas with you and write about what you know! I’ll see you Wednesday,” I yell.

Fifty minutes. The fishing is good. I reel in the fly, check the hook, and wait for next fish to come downstream.

There are dry worms, all lying dead
    By dry a solemn brook
And there I hooked onto a thread
    A worm stabbed with a hook

I threw it in the stream’s dry jaw
    And caught a silver fish
And severed it and ate it raw
    And made a sullen wish

And then I placed the small trout, dead
    Into the earth below
And suddenly I heard ahead
    A warm yet chill wind blow

And called my name a maiden fair
    To come beckoning me
And disappeared mid the bright air
    And left pure destiny:

A golden ship with silver beam
    I set my sailing out
Thanks to the barren, dried-out stream
    Thanks to this silver trout

Thanks to the maiden who appeared
    When I ate the fish, bright
And to my fate, my wish adhered
    I rose to once--impossible height

"Now, that Missy...
...is a Trout Possum kiss"
"Welll...I admit...I'd been Alabama'd!"

"You're kissing me
like you're my husband!"
"Well, I'm gonna be...ain't I!"

"Well, I guess!
Give us a taste of that
kiss again!"

"That's the trouble with Troy
one kiss always leads to another!"
"Couldn't wait to say: "I DO!"

"It's been nothing but
50 years of kisses!
Hot **** those Trout Possums!"

"The best kiss?
Is the one that hasn't happened yet
but is just...about to!"

The creatures of Greenlee were happy.
Why not?
Their sun was yellow
And their grass was not.

It was a good time to be out,
A good time to dance,
And maybe greet the flowers
If you got the chance.

A good time to keep friends,
Which is as nice as making friends.
A good time to forget who you are,
And follow the river bend.

Everyone was so happy,
No one cared to stop,
To notice for months the clouds moved on,
Without offering a drop.

At first just the river,
Then a few trees,
And a little while later,
There was no more green
in Greenlee.

The sun blazed yellow,
And the grass did too.
And Trout’s shrinking pond,
Was the only thing blue.

The animals gathered round --
Squirrel, Hare, Dove, and Bear --
To watch as dear Trout
Swam around in despair.

Deer and Butterfly, Caterpillar and Fly,
And all creatures below and above our eyes,
Came over to Trout’s pond
To say their goodbyes.

The morning Trout died,
The pond was just dirt.
The animals all smiled,
And then collapsed with thirst.

I am the raven,
I eat the dead,
I am the raven,
I remember all things,
I am the raven,
I build all,
I am the raven,
I know all things.

I am the otter,
In rivers and creeks I swim,
I am the otter,
I eat and I play,
I am the otter,
On slopes I slide,
Joy is mine,
In the mountain streams,
I own the rivers,
I feed on their fish.

I am the snake,
The serpent I am,
Between and through move I,
On belly I crawl,
Gold are my scales,
Glacier blue and silver,
All colours they change,
First one then the other,
I taste the air with my tongue,
Through my belly,
I listen to all,
Far craftier than all,
The beast of the field am I.

I am the fox,
The vixon am I,
Crafty and wise,
And hard to catch,
In the ground I live,
Cross the fields I race,
Quick and fast,
I take what I want,
Nothing is safe,
If it I desire,
A vixon am I,
Fleet foot and large tail,
Back and forth it moves,
Grace and escasy,
All come to me,
All I desire.

I am hawk,
I soar and I fly,
Above the plains,
All things I see,
None see what I see,
From up above,
Down I soar,
To **** and eat,
Still on a wire,
Or on a fence,
I know when to wait,
I know when it's time,
When prey is in sight,
Not a second to lose.

I am the vole,
Who lives in the field,
Down in the earth,
I burrow and dig,
Across the field,
All seeds are mine,
To eat and enjoy,
From dusk until dawn,
Timid and cautious,
I look to the sky,
I cannot fight,
I'm weak and I'm small,
But many am I,
And many more come,
And still we will be,
When all you are gone.

I am the owl,
Silent and still,
You know not I passed,
Only my wind,
Silent end deadly,
Queen of the night,
I will consume,
Whatever I catch.

I am the horse,
Across the plains do I run,
Swifter than all,
The one none can catch,
I run like the wind,
For we are one kind,
My mane and my tail,
Like banners and flags,
Nothing can stop us,
Nothing can try,
For we're always moving,
The fast wind and I.

I am the trout,
See how my scales glisten,
I am the trout,
At home in the water,
I swim and I breathe,
What causes others to drown,
I listen to the water,
The rivers, the creeks, the lakes,
The secrets I know,
No others can know.

I am the eagle,
High, high I soar,
Queen of the high places,
All others beneath,
What is not prey,
I care not at all,
I and I only,
See what I see.

But above all tonight,
The fox and vixon am I,
****** and sensual,
Grace and desire,
In the land where the sun sets,
This land that is dusk,
I am all ***,
The kiss of the dead,
The dusk sets like dust,
It powders my fur,
In the night do I hunt,
In the night do I *****,
My fur is desire,
My tail moves and calls,
I walk here as ***,
All come to my call.

~I Am the Fox by Lorekeeper, June 7, 2014

Autumn flares out, its flame burst clouds
strewn about misted cliff sides, loam whites

of winter taking their place. A stiff willow breeze,
ten thousand things withdrawn to burrows and immortal

pine heights. First snows stream down, duckweed carpets
of August fade, jade peeking through white. I embark

on the seasons final sail in hardening ice waters.
Til spring my sails will be folded, my raft in idleness.

~~~

Rafting on moon drenched river, avoiding cascades and crash of
rapids and falls. Silvered driftwood a warning. Silent glide of

mulberry oar through dark azure, another crafts sail in silhouette.
From the deck a black spectre dives below, stillness follows

splash,  re-emergence, beak wrapped around a dazzling rainbow.
From my raft dangling lantern sways, trout swiping at

gathered moths – scatter and return, some from a far off realm.
Some trout in the net, others not. Luck or the way – who can tell?

~~~

Dusk colour gorge sheathed in
emerald blankets, rising into sheer

cliffs of auburn cinnabar, all
underpinned by the fathomless

flow of azure clarity. Snowy Egrets
nest in pine top heights clear of dust.

On white sand shores gibbons howl
towards squawking beach gulls, squabble

over landlocked trout – debate without end.
Peach blossom petals swirl on spring breeze

over carpets of jade inter cut by king
fisher blue zipping over duckweed. Oriole

song weaves in and out of mulberry branches.
In these vast and vague waters -

coves, creeks and streams all one,
a river dragon lives an undetermined

existence. Mud stirs below, merely a
catfish airing grievances.

Red tail flares in dirt,
my mulberry oar rows me back home.

2 Mother's Days
Came & went away
2 Mother's Days
I cried the day away

© From A Mother's 💔
5/12/20

Stress is a b*tch
It steals your joy
It makes u itch

© From A Poet's ♥️
5/11/20


Co-vid
Inspired by Jolene by Dolly Parton

Co-vid! Co-vid!
Co-vid! Co-vid!
We're beggin' of you please don't take our health!
Co-vid! Co-vid!
Co-vid! Co-vid!
We're beggin' of you please don't take our wealth!

Your symptoms come n a disguise
The media spreading all your lies
W/ scare tactics & fear mongering
Your gift to us makes us all cuss
We can't b who we were once
And we cannot compete with u
Co-vid

We dream about u n nightmares
U r on the news, u're everywhere
There's no escaping u @ all
Co-vid

But we can't easily understand
How you can take women & men
But u don't know what they mean 2 us
Co-vid

Co-vid! Co-vid!
Co-vid! Co-vid!
We're beggin' of you please don't take our health!
Co-vid! Co-vid!
Co-vid! Co-vid!
We're beggin' of you please don't take our wealth!

U could have your choice of homes
But we can't just go out & roam
Home's the only place 4 us
Co-vid

I had to write this song to u
Our very lives depend on u
And whatever u sent our way next
Co-vid

Co-vid! Co-vid!
Co-vid! Co-vid!
We're beggin' of you please don't take our health!
Co-vid! Co-vid!
Co-vid! Co-vid!
We're beggin' of you please don't take our wealth!

Co-vid! Co-vid!

© From A Quarantined Poet's ♥️
4/19/20

Covid-19
U r obscene
We once were free
But we couldn't see

U stole that
From us
Til we
Wanna cuss

We can't see
Our fam
And u don't
Give a ****

We can't see
Our friends
Will this
Pandemic end?

Some can't go
To work
U're just a
Big ****

Kids can't
Go to school
Now parents
Have to enforce rules

© From A Quarantined Poet's ♥️
4/8/20

Quarantine
Day 33!
***!
Woe is me!

Quarantine
Day 33!
Who r u &
Who is she?

Quarantine
Day 33!
Washing hands
To meet demands

Quarantine
Day 33!
Only go to work
Don't get perks

Quarantine
Day 33
I work full-time
But not he

Quarantine
Day 33
Shopping carts
6 feet apart

6 feet apart
And no hugs
6 feet apart
Don't share cootie bugs

© From A Working Quarantined Poet's ♥️
4/11/20

N response to another poet's poem

We too are essential
And get paid small
For the work we do
For travelers and all

To find place of rest
At our hotel
We're practically the only ones open
As u can tell

I'm also a caregiver
Keeping people healthy
Although with covid-19
Not many r wealthy

We're all n this 2gether
All over the world
Hopefully future changes come
Soon to the weather

Don't matter the color of skin
Black, white or brown
We're all stuck in
All over every town

© From A Poet's ♥️
4/11/20

The 12 Months Of Lockdown

On the first month of lockdown all over my small town,
Jobs laid off, people stayed home!

On the second month of lockdown all over my small town,
People got bored
Jobs laid off, people stayed home!

On the third month of lockdown all over my small town,
Online jobs,
People got bored
Jobs laid off, people stayed home!

On the fourth month of lockdown all over my small town,
Video chats
Online jobs,
People got bored
Jobs laid off, people stayed home!

On the fifth month of lockdown all over my small town,
Homeschooling!
Video chats
Online jobs,
People got bored
Jobs laid off, people got sent home!

On the sixth month of lockdown all over my small town,
Honey-do projects!
Homeschooling!
Video chats
Online jobs,
People got bored
Jobs laid off, people got sent home!

On the seventh month of lockdown all over my small town,
Toilet paper hoarding!
Honey-do projects!
Homeschooling!
Video chats
Online jobs,
People got bored
Jobs laid off, people got sent home!

On the eighth month of lockdown all over my small town,
Pay your bills online!
Toilet paper hoarding!
Honey-do projects!
Homeschooling!
Video chats
Online jobs,
People got bored
Jobs laid off, people got sent home!

On the ninth month of lockdown all over my small town,
People went crazy!
Pay your bills online!
Toilet paper hoarding!
Honey-do projects!
Homeschooling!
Video chats
Online jobs,
People got bored
Jobs laid off, people got sent home!

On the 10th month of lockdown all over my small town,
Hosting watch parties!
People went crazy!
Pay your bills online!
Toilet paper hoarding!
Honey-do projects!
Homeschooling!
Video chats
Online jobs,
People got bored
Jobs laid off, people got sent home!

On the 11th month of lockdown all over my small town,
Virtual church attendance
Hosting watch parties!
People went crazy!
Pay your bills online!
Toilet paper hoarding!
Honey-do projects!
Homeschooling!
Video chats
Online jobs,
People got bored
Jobs laid off, people got sent home!

On the 12th month of lockdown all over my small town,
Wear face masks & gloves
Virtual church attendance
Hosting watch parties!
People went crazy!
Pay your bills online!
Toilet paper hoarding!
Honey-do projects!
Homeschooling!
Video chats
Online jobs,
People got bored
Jobs laid off, people got sent home!

© From A Quarantined Poet's ♥️
4/11/20

We're 'spose 2 b locked down
But it don't look like it
But all over my town
Ppl r pitching fits

They cannot go c
Their own family
They cannot go do
What they intended to

They r stuck inside
W/ family they hate
W/ rules 2 abide
They can't go out on dates

They will get over it
(Not b4 they pitch a fit!)
Or they'll get a ticket
(And they can't afford it!)

© From A Quarantined Poet's ♥️
4/12/20

People wear frowns
And they wear gowns
People wear face masks While doing tasks

Pretty soon they'll wear
Coverings for their shoes
Just like doctors
And surgeons do

People wear gloves
Afraid they'll get sick
Like God up above
Couldn't heal them that quick

© From A Poet's ♥️
4/12/20

Easter n quarantine
This is obscene!
Easter n quarantine
Covid-19, u r really mean!

© From A Quarantined Poet's ♥️
4/12/20

I can't c my kids
He still says they r his
He teaches them hate
Now that Morgan is 8

Roy's following too
And I don't know what to do

© From A Mother's 💔
4/14/20

He found another way
For DSS to say
That I cannot c
Not even #3

He's using the system
To benefit him
To brainwash them
Against me & William

© From A Mother's 💔
4/14/20

Happy birthday
To u all
Sorry that I
Couldn't call

© From A Poet's ♥️
4/20/20

"Boredom"
Inspired by: "Jolene" by Dolly Parton

https://youtu.be/Ixrje2rXLMA

Boredom! Boredom!
Boredom! Boredom!
Please give everyone something else to do!
Boredom! Boredom!
Boredom! Boredom!
Please before we go insane inside!

Your torture is beyond compare
U drive us to the brink w/ dares
W/ nothing left to do but stare around
Your smile is like evil disguised
Your voice telling all kinds of lies
And we've run out of things to do,
Boredom!

They talk about u on the news
You're streaming w/ the largest views
There's nowhere we can escape u
Boredom!

And I could easily understand
How you have need to recruit us
But you don't know what sanity is
Boredom!

Boredom! Boredom!
Boredom! Boredom!
Please give everyone something else to do!
Boredom! Boredom!
Boredom! Boredom!
Please before we go insane inside!

U could choose other planets
But u have chosen planet Earth
Seems we're the one for the job
Boredom!

I had 2 get this off my chest
So we can actually get some rest
I hope there is not another test
Boredom!

Boredom! Boredom!
Boredom! Boredom!
Please give everyone something else to do!
Boredom! Boredom!
Boredom! Boredom!
Please before we go insane inside!

Boredom! Boredom!

© From A Poet's ❤️
4/21/20

If I cuss like a sailor
And dress like a tailor
Then my mouth would b *****
Even passed the age of 30.

© From A Poet's ♥️
4/22/20

If it smells like a trout
And u can't stay out
B sure to use protection
So u won't get an infection

© From A Poet's ♥️
4/22/20

From the cabin near the stream I'll witness the atom bomb fall.
I'll wave a hand: "goodbye, trout neighbors." Flip off the bears.
The Cubs are **** and so is deep dish pizza but the trouts,
the neighbors, they've never hurt me, and now we'll flop on
the mushroom cloud grill, and so why shouldn't we say so long?

Trudy the Trout
Having been spawned one sunny day
Sparkles rainbow colors
As she frolics in the lake

Spends time in school with friends
Learning to survive
What parts are safe to nibble
When the man throws out his fishing line

When Trudy's not in school
How that sweet fishy loves to play
Swimming among the hidden treasures
At the bottom of the lake

One day she swam up to the top
Curious to have a look
Grabbed by a hawk with her last thought of
This here can't be good

Here the waves rise high and fall on the icy
seas and white caps chew the driftwood logs of
hemlock and toss them wildly upon sandy beaches.
The steep mountains rise straight from the sea
floor as the December sun shines through the dark
clouds that hang heavy with snow near the top peaks.
Blue icebergs drift slowly down the narrow channel.
This volcanic island is one of many that are scattered
along the coast of Southeastern Alaska.
On the South end of the island is another
tiny island and on it stands an old lighthouse,
a shambles. It has a curving staircase and an
old broken lamp that used to beckon to ships at
sea. Wild grasses and goosetongue cover the ground
and close by Sitka blacktail feed and gray gulls
circle. There is a mountain stream nearby and
in the fall the salmon spawn at its mouth. The
black bear and grizzly scoop them up with great
sweeps of their paws, their sharp claws gaffing
the silver bodies.
Walking North along the deer trail from the
South end of the island are remnants of the Treadwell
Mine. It was the largest gold mine in the world.
In the early 1900's the tunnel they were digging
underneath Gastineau Channel caved in and the sea
claimed her gold. The foundry still stands a rusty
red.
The dining halls are vacant, broken white
dishes are strewn inside. The tennis court that
was built for the employees is overgrown with hops
that have climbed over the high fence and grown
up between cracks in the cement floor. The flume
still carries water rushing in it half-hidden in
the rain-forest which is slowly reclaiming the
land. The beach here by the ocean is fine white
sand, full of mica, gold and pieces of white dishes.
Potsherds for future archeologists, washed clean,
smooth and round by the circular waves of this
deep, dark green water.
Down past the old gold mine is Cahill's house,
yellow and once magnificent. They managed the mine. The long staircase is boarded up and so
are the large windows. The gardens are wild, irises
bud in the spring at the end of the lawn, and in
the summer a huge rose path, full of dark crimson
blooms frames the edge of the sea; strawberries
grow nearby dark pink and succulent. Red raspberries
grow further down the path in a tangle of profusion;
close by is a pale pink rose path, full of those
small wild roses that smell fragrant. An iron-
barred swing stands tall on the edge of the beach.
I swing there and at high tide I can jump in the
ocean from high up in the air. There is an old
tetter-totter too. And, it is like finding the
emperor's palace abandoned.
There is a knoll behind the old house called
Grassy Hill. It is covered with a blanket of hard
crisp snow. In the spring it is covered with sweet
white clover and soft grasses. It is easy to find
four leaf clovers there, walking below the hill
toward the beach is a dell. It is a small clearing
in between the raspberry patch and tall cottonwood
trees. It is a good place for a picnic. It is
a short walk again to the beach and off to the
right is a small pond, Grassy Pond. It is frozen
solid and I skate on it. In the summer I swim
here because it is warmer than the ocean. In the
spring I wade out, stand very still and catch baby
flounders and bullheads with my hands; I am fast
and quick and have good eyes. Flounders are bottom
fish that look like sand.
Walking North again over a rise I come to
a field filled with snow; in the spring it is a
blaze of magenta fireweed. Often I will sit in
it surrounded by bright petals and sketch the mountains
beyond. Nearby are salmonberry bushes which have
cerise blossoms in early spring; by the end of
summer, golden-orange berries hang on their green
branches. The bears love to eat them and so do
I. But the wild strawberries are my first love,
then the tangy raspberries. I don't like the high-
bush cranberries, huckleberries, currants or the
sour gooseberries that grow in my mother's garden
and the blueberries are only good for pies, jams
and jellies. I like the little ligonberries that
grow close to the earth in the meadow, but they
are hard to find.
Looking across this island I see Mt. Jumbo,
the mountain that towers above the thick Tongass forest of pine, hemlock and spruce. It was a volcano
and is rugged and snow-covered. I hike up the
trail leading to the base of the mountain. The
trail starts out behind a patch of blueberry bushes
and winds lazily upwards crossing a stream where
I can stop and fish for trout and eat lunch; on
top is a meadow. Spring is my favorite season
here. The yellow water lilies bud on top of large
muskeg holes. The dark pink blueberry bushes form
a ring around the meadow with their delicate pink
blossoms. The purple and yellow violets are in
bloom and bright yellow skunk cabbage abounds, the
devil's club are turning green again and fields
of beige Alaskan cotton fan the air, slender stalks
that grow in the wet marshy places. Here and there
a wild columbine blooms. It is here in these meadows
that I find the lime-green bull pine, whose limbs
grow up instead of down. Walking along the trail
beside the meadow I soon come to an old wooden
cabin. It is owned by the mine and consists of
two rooms, a medium-sized kitchen with an eating
area and wood table and a large bedroom with four
World War II army cots and a cream colored dresser.
Nobody lives here anymore, but hikers, deer hunters,
and an occasional bear use the place. Next door
to the cabin is the well house which feeds the
flume. The flume flows from here down the mountain
side to the old mine and power plant. An old man
still takes care of the power plant. He lives
in a big dark green house with his family and the
power plant is all blue-gray metal. I can stand
outside and listen to the whirl of the generators.
I like to walk in the forest on top of the old
flume and listen to the sound of the water rushing
past under my bare feet.
In the winter the meadow is different: all
silent, still and snow-covered. The trees are
heavy with weighty branches and icicles dangle
off their limbs, long, elegant, shining. All the
birds are gone but the little brown snowbirds and
the white ptarmigan. The meadow is a field of
white and I can ski softly down towards the sea.
The trout stream is frozen and the waterfall quiet,
an ice palace behind crystal caves. The hard smooth-
ness of the ice feels good to my touch, this frozen
water, this winter.
Down below at the edge of the sea is yet another
type of ice. Salt water is treacherous; it doesn'tfreeze solid, it is unreliable and will break under
my weight. Here are the beached icebergs that
the high tide has left. Blue white treasures,
gigantic crystals tossed adrift by glaciers. Glisten-
ing, wet, gleaming in the winter sun, some still
half-buried in the sea, drifting slowly out again.
And it is noisy here, the gray gulls call to each
other, circling overhead. The ravens and crows
are walking, squawking along the beach. The Taku
wind is blowing down the channel, swirling, chill,
singing in my ear. Far out across the channel
humpback whales slap their tails against the water.
On the beach kelp whips are caught in wet clumps
of seaweed as the winter tide rises higher and
higher. The smell of salty spray permeates everything
and the dark clouds roll in from behind the steep
mountains.
Suddenly it snows. Soft, furry, thick flakes,
in front of me, behind, to the sides, holding me
in a blizzard of whiteness, light: snow.

Stop resenting me
For the way I shop
The things I do
To make sure
My  food is fresh

I confess I feel blueberries
In my fingers
To make sure they are firm
Not too ripe

I confess I shake
Cans of spaghetti and ravioli
So that I know
The sauce is not
Congealed

I confess I pull  frozen waffles
From the back of the freezer
Less likely that they thawed
And refroze into
Oddball shapes

I confess I smell trout
Before I buy it
Placing it against my nose
In the most unabashed
Way

Spare me your hate
About my consumer habits
When I know it has nothing to do with
Food

As long as I bring you warm release
In the darkness of your desires
Pull your tangled hair the way
You like
Bite your darting tongue
In mad hunger
Deep appetite

As long as I reawaken the
Woman
Primal animal hidden
Within
Turn your heat into a river
For a long passionate
Swim

As long as I attend quickly to your
Every ***** command
The craving of your ******
Insatiable
Demand

Then  I can squeeze french bread
In quiet and peace
I can sniff cantaloupes
Without suffering ire
Or grief

I’ll take you tonight
In that filthy way
You like

Until then

Leave me alone

I’m shopping.

Floating above the rifts of apperception I glaze over the gaudy faucets of imagined vector thrusts in hibernation by the lucubration of space-time materialized crystal in the somber beats of fetched farrago of choice slices in delicate hums of hemmed balance rantipole only in ethereal importance but otherwise supersolid above the sprauncy vagrancy of dilettantism. We shout a clarion virtuosity so that the conclamation of neovitalism conjures upon a spell of lapse and regress a motive for further crystallization of epidemiology into harmony with syndicated admonition sleek in design and parceled into renown by feats of completion rather than slugabed gregarious fountains of wasted ingenuity bleeding from the vacuum of an empty hearth in a hospitable dwelling otherwise cleared of imperfection. Right now, I levitate with transcendence with an approximated eidetic memory that is the surgical vibrancy of renewal rather than the chameleons of hidden talents buried by the walls of Jericho sounding tocsins of alarm that the anointed favor of choice destruction is only an encircled rapture of rhapsodies of confluence found in axiomatic truths ribbed with the futtocks of seaworthy but cauponate recidivism into the donnybrooks of apocryphal revelation preceding the whimsical fall of cascading permanence just as gravity so ordained it. We breathe the life of the ethereal numinous spirit of isangelous repute because we navigate the exquisite cobweb of reconciliation to surpass all understanding in peace what would be a miscegenated carcass of war otherwise apart from the incidental apartheid of the drones of causality ignoring the antecedent reality too much to register fathomed streaks of preventive endeavor because of the scars of a scrappy schlep of the rampicks of ecbolic servitude to moth-eaten star-crossed lovers of the mean menagerie of gutless succor renowned only in tepid rejections of harbingers bequeathed in succession but ignored because of the procession of “Billie Jean” politics.

   The citadel aflame with controversy buttresses carnality by witless contaminants of hidebound scaldabancos of ineffable destitution so craven in eisoptrophobia for their hypostasized indolent fatuousness of capitulation that they are but a minor punctuation in the largesse of centuries to favor audacity in candor over the prevarications of catastrophe to dented human pride against humane dictates of theodicy in fatalism that predestination experimented with its own vaulted verve to find permanent solutions engraved in the agrapha of time to solidify the redintegrated truth of God’s divine stewardship above the quisquilous deism of former regnant centuries of blench and blandishment. We revolt at the specter of rot only when the effluvia of disgust elevates the visceral reality above the utilitarianism of recycled prim nuisances of noisome lineage that yet balk because they are bereft of attention but not a vacant talent and therefore should the subsidies of man surpass the ignorance of appearances he will shrug of the demur of the scrimshank and sharpen his scrivello in the service of redemption found through cultivated prowess of gardens beneath where rivers flow above a cubic centurion of embattled visages of the heavens becoming the rampart for the vestigial clarity of Secret Masters to foresee the bypass that heals decadence and rebukes the formalism of puritan endeavor to sweat with exhaustive patience over the gossamer intertesselations of a ripe reality rather than a groveled fragmentary world shattered too much by exigent metanoia to mount the crenellated catchpole of vigilant enmity towards the stew of listlessness found in epigone and farce more than in organic fortunes. We flip the upheaval of society to squander our proportionate degrees of wealth on the necessity created by dire quandary which enamors by interrogations of pulchritude the verisimilitude of participle ivory dalliance of etched canvasses of simultagnosia for the librations of the liberated rings of betrothed liberation despite profound lurches of the mistetches of ignorance presiding dismally over the hulked disdain of glamborge rather than resselenque.

     The winter is a poor porcine glut of ciconine swelters because the prickly obtuse recoil of the delopes of caution find their permeable balance with a sort of photographic photosynthesis that braves the dearth of reprieve for the reprisal of nostalgic deeds found in the docimasy of riveted reflections because the preordination of God is the superlative champion of the witeless grandeval protectorate of infinite concepts guarded from the parvanimity even of the most strident minds squabbling over the braseros and battues of history as though those funereal stains of lachrymose regret outweigh the traditions of vaunted human progress because they are finicky about importunate pleas of subsidiary injustice rather than fulminations of the modern rebuttal to the disclaimers of an uneven history that shepherds the doubts of nihilism into ripe fruition at the expense of very expensive moral rot for the codlings of urbacity and mendaciloquence used to foment that tribalism of totemic justice. We see in Penuel the wrestling match of specters and heroic giants documented on the ageless pages and we notice the ironic twinges of struggle that kneaded the propriety of gentilian privilege that ultimately fostered an insurrection against chosen bravado among those that sear with zeal beyond the yordim afflictions of yobbery because the Jewish heart is stronger than any calamity even if it departs from the reverence of the colporteurs of the integrated syncretism of the attempted monolith that beseeches polyphiloprogenitive growth in mindset rather than in testy abeyance of forbearance because of known scrutinies into the tropology of wilted facts remanded by curious historicity that crumples without disdain when we memorialize the erasure of scepsis by modern standards of thaumaturgy.

    The minauderies of growth are a repositioned tacit allegiance to the untold fanfare and hearsay immunized against the broach of facetious levity to buoy discordant hearts above fumatoriums of relentless ignorance because coherent masterwork can be cobbled without such lapidary toil and toll on sincere affectations of wizened brevity. The seismic precautions for the forefathers of incidental convergences between expectancy and crystallized history are an ironic intortion of priorities because the heralds and tribunes matched the peerless foresight with the gerrymandered figments of apartheid between the imaginary and the real so that the delicate synchrony of events could unfurl a riveting carapace from the shells of protection even in amiable squalor for its impenitent attrition on the volleys of sensible rumor becoming fashioned in covert bedazzled errors in judgment leading to the triumph of the eventual civilization over the futtocks of the burial of the former trekleador of zenkidu belonging to provincial cadasters found so tucked in the hedges that discernment of frikmag would be an indelible scourge on the biognosy of the diagnosed endeavors that elapsed into remediated circumstances that brave the depths of deontological violation for the breadth of apportioned loaves and two swanky fish earning a place among the miracles of transcendent liberation from articles of decree imperious by sardonic disdain becoming nullified by the histrionics of a delicately staged orchestra that cements human achievement.

       We relish the frescades of a ruffled autumnal reminder of flourish above pothers of the screed of admonition swamped by nostalgic backtracks in the séance with ultimatum of design and the impregnated and carnal lusts of a world pitched in darkness with guarded lambent lights fomenting a perjury against tact for the deliverance of freedom in tacit agreement with owleries that every bonanza be tithed in their favor regardless of hibernation of spoilsports or their subsidiary remarks on indelible quills of invented manufactured realities we crave with desperation rather than cower from in requited nescience urging us to depart from affairs and stagnate the loyalty of fealty above the limber of utility mobilized above levities for solemn remarks and rejoinders. Promulgated above the robotic rubble of staffage haywire in wiredrawn contemplative resonance of tremulous subterfuge vestigial but immediate to the yardsticks of reprehensible malarkey, is the barnstorm for erratic dimples sauntered by the saunas of shelter above the chaos of ruined ginnels for the gimcracks of auxiliary duty to service, is the glorification of the sultry intimations of legions of remonstrance in guarded decorum about sunken atrocities lapsed in memorial to the incumbent brunt of sockdolagers of justice returning revenants from the bridewell of historical internment. The symphily of orchestras to cineaste symposiasts of surquedry in impudence beyond the brays of betrayal is the aborning mythos of regimented perceptions of a world that when magnified by minutiae appears starkly contrast to the gapped gubbertushed reality of the average patron of the arts to such an extreme gulf of receptive understanding that the qualia are dovetailed only in the swink of careful kisswonks to certify certitude itself when all the fragments coalesce into subjoined harmony to the substructures of inherent conscientiousness. The miracles at work that are vesicles and vessels for the swage of imprint above the loyalty of the imprinted tribunes of the fluminous is how hidden protrusions can emerge so victorious over popularized glazes on the pastures of a farmed culture itching for timmynoggies of innovation but only finding the etched remarks of pristine imagos of heroism dwindling in motivation to surpass the imaginative leaps accustomed to a newfangled laziness that bedazzles the guzzle of crowds but not the discrimination of the crowded morass of incompletion found in mosaics missing enigmatic philters of intoxicated love for the profound. So to be intermediary as a custodian for artistry we must cozen the wheedled imaginations not of the relic but the archaeologist that discovered the embedded prisms of attentive scrutiny for glinting sunshine inherent in troves of surpassed excellence beyond parochial sympatric blandishment of donnism rather than a resselenque that floats above demeanor to usher the cosseted age of treasure above the glib brocards and florews of past success.

      Immanent to the provisions of God as decreed from a syncretic reconnaissance of the pitiable gulfs that separate boundless divine love from the clavigerous potential for scrappy sympatric affiliation to **** through the barnstorms of internal comestions of conflated priorities we are ourselves prismatic in the indulgence of a tasty life sprinkled with zest rather than tempered with the vengeance of retorted animosity that we knead the pottery of ironclad resistance to a metallic conduit of pruned fulminations of unguided intuition so that the natural accord supersedes the goad of materialism for the sustenance of antiquity beyond its heyday for vital gains against the tauricide of panic and frenzy. The linchpin of all realistic attempts at the sympatric symphily of civilization is a guided remorse through the torment of affliction that sizzles without anteric barbs as it measures through engrenage how to pilot the vehicles of prosperity through the minefields of contingency that invisibly bequeath new hurdles and inestimable obstacles that collude surreptitiously to fulminate measured controversy against the backbites of restrained equipoise created by polities of the macadamized fabric of a welded smithy of a universe that with ubiquity proclaims above the senseless the harvest of conjugal repartee in sensible pride against militant bastions of incidental prejudice for a careen against the flyndresques of danger and the flyndrigs of glaikery alike for a humane spurt of enlightenment to tower peerlessly in supervision of entelechy created by esemplastic unity in apolaustic purpose. We cannot be puritans engaged in a pilgrimage to a palimpsest of priggishness because the daring elements of adventurism are necessary ingredients to catalyze the supply-chain of the innate gluttony of ego-seeking endless balance with a natural sustained biognosy that prizes biocentric harmony above bibliognost scepsis so that the enthused can flock with liberty divorced from libertinism. The ultimatum is a war between hedonism wed with donnism against eumoirety and self-restraint and this battle will be waged on the indolence of a future of cordslave tethers to interrogation of privy conceptualism hamshackled by the gradgrinds into the neat nexility of precise conformity that blacklists the samizdat because the genizah profoundly twists the already jumbled jengadangle and provides a junediggle of procession and ceremony rather than pomp without substantial grit embedded in the showmanship of a reality in need of a fourth-wall.

        It is ironic how we bewrayed our stewardship of the planet as a plenipotentiary sentience waged against the vesicles of instinct but more fundamental to this tattered but pregnant psalm is that the stronghold of our future is the tenacity of filial duty to enthrone the household with husbandry and restraint as an emolument to divine justice that sparkles opalescent in its own redacted notions of gravity imperfect in the taradiddles of science but refined by the eclat of the combustible syncopation of a reiterative trope of realism combined with surrealist caprice to henpeck affectionate violation above inviolable screeds of blood sport rather than conjugal affections afforded to the brood and the feast of the flocks that rein supreme over all things but exert inclement justice over the cattle and chattel of civilization itself. The minkumpf against the sacrilege of a prioritized kosher is to abhor the suffering rather than embrace the penitence of perceived but specious sacrifice which is an ornery thorn on the stained conscience of the yobbery of both the apikoros and the obedient because to attenuate all suffering even of instinctual beings we anneal our hearts to a glorified compassion that supersedes the relegated relics of pushful genuflection by succedaneum of sacrifice waged against the docile whangams of otiose theodicy. The filibusters against the regnant complexity of regalia that is a sprauncy poivrade with terpsichorean flairs to transmute the intimations of hibernated perfidy into finicky transmissions for the riometers that accord orbific merit in a lackluster time enchant the rollicking audience of this auditorium of the prevenance of the conquered universe bracing for the camorra of the insipid entreaty of defalcated casuistry—the prominent exchequer in hoodwinked political agitprop that forges ironclad allegiances to flimsy facades of the verisimilitude of dignity with recalcitrant but incondite bruits of venom militant against secular apostasy—that the fitful arrivistes that swim in dire dearth will be welcomed into the reconciliation of all time with a tempered lurid glint of revelation bounded by sunken albatross of hype unbounded with a peace insurmountable in prestige rewarded only with the highest reservations.


    On 3-1-2020 when I penned my philosophy—even at a slowpoke margin of crafty precision above rapid empirical faucets of folly—I was entirely selfsame with the autotelic engravings of the smoldering aboriginal talents within that many can swing through by tenacity for enormous plaudit but a flagrant majority will apprehend with flippant scollardical tenets of rebuke and remain honest in their appraisal only in meek resignation of parvanimity.
Consider the postulates of rarefaction whittled into a vehement zeal against the prostitution of our species to the anteric cycles of residual molds of dingy spectacle mired by the tyrannical towers of supercilious squirms of revamped novelty rather than enhanced by the freebooters of dirigisme that borrow from time the behest of philandered flairs divorced from the cadges of secular instinct and enthroned by the qualms of engineered virtuosity that is stark, barren but peerless in its outstretched clamor for luxuriant sprees against the silentium of grandeval asylum incurred by the flippant filigrees of recalcitrant modernism endangered by the irredentism of the future upon the whimsy of the present-minded momentary glare of rapture.  This impending architecture of nimble but subservient endeavor is a pinprick rejoinder against the wernaggles of prepossessed fountains of configured animosity against the stapled heed of a modality of trayned invictive invectives against the plodding course of fustilugianation that swerves in apathy of autopilot junediggle to emanate the surrender of epigone to the raktendure of the synaesthesis of the attuned perception of all superimposed minutiae delegated by calculated design into a synclastic focus on veiled caprice that is vaulted above the choppy and sketchy verdure of remiss perception to stellar continuities rather than mundane knickpoints of stodged blurs that magnify syncretic qualia into baseline congruity rather than staid torpefied resignation of the visage of thunder without the pangs of the widely vituperated lightning that bequeaths all certain notions but flouts the tortious saboteurs of the prim trucage of brittle fundamentalism.

     As the flawed paragon of a picaresque youth punctuated by vibrant plumage of self-wrought tropophilous usucaption of remote groomed frontiers of desolate luxury but buoyant morale into the ballasts of a nimble usufruct that hikkles yet still against still-framed thilloire--fatuous in endearment only to the polity of the waterdrip of craven but gravid disingenuous flickers of lambent cloaks of perfidy—that earned its birthright by meditative fruition rather than prodigal tallespin of indolent frapplanks of a vicarious personage rather than an autotelic haecceity showcases the folly of heterodyne inclinations meeting an impasse of accidental dislodgement. The interregnum between the spurts and sprees of luxuriance is a staid pause between continuities of afforded parlance becoming stapled demographic solidarity affixed to a strident gallop of effortful pushes against the tenacity of the slumberous wicked hibernation of vetust magpiety without hieratical internment because youthful industry beats hackneyed bludgeons of wiseacres of a stilted manufacture of steamy nostalgia for lickerish moments that dignify but undermine moral virtues but splash anointed and sometimes disjointed favor upon the congeners to a rabid escapade of a heedless love frowning on the girdles of the prim balderdash of heralded jolts dim on levity and puffed with elusive contextualized control of libidinous serrated defilement because the crotaline **** outmantles the sweedled limber of exploitable folly. The cosseted reality of wheedled gourmands of continuous perception rather than the Gaussian blur of the protean invention of stitches in time that obscure rather than magnify the supernal levity inherent to most artistry is a linchpin of lenient gravitas that levies the lavaderos of ripe perception into annealment.
Excuse the bravado of the gait of winnowed forks in a bronteum for heralds of megaloscopy fastened to the macroscian reality of indelible filigrees of countermanded controversy becoming its best behest in the sempiternal flowering of burgeoned demonstration rather than illustrious overhang of drab slabs of manufacture rather than organism that should be interposed between the constellated concepts of both apperception and the aggrieved counselors to obtuse obsessions that are an improper tutelary for a designated reprisal of the once profane now immediately gratified by ramshackle tenets of a guarded sublimation of the tenets of post-modernism into a sustained force of the internalized tabernacle of haecceity shepherded into exuberance by the manumission of spirit from the ******* of purblind scalds of defamation that incurs the penalty of flippant privation. The refuge the Lord provides is not contingent upon the vagaries of deliberation nor the calculus of oversight but the remontant amaranthine glower of a listed deed becoming an eternal reminder that a dismantled and disjointed world fathoming only remorse rather than the trudge of gentility against the headwinds of brunt asperity will always flout the successor rather than atone for the failure of the imponent condition that constellates around rudimentary drivel grubbing the momentary out of avarice for allotted merchandise rather than glommed magnets to amoeba sentiments for the kisswonk of ulterior motive beyond dungeons of desperation that lurk ghoulishly with spectral frights at the disfigurement of morale created by errors askew rather than a contagion of righteous valor.

   Ask the heedful servant if the captaincy of reneged commitment owes homage to dutiful instruction or whether it is a balking corpse of necrosis accorded to the omphalism of brutish carnal repose in times of sedentary silt siphoned in spelunked rijuice for preordination is a predominant specter for a world scared scurrilous and skittish in a diatribe against the very notion of tribal screeds embedded in the sedimentary heft of traditionalism above the pother of vacillation commended to the apikoros but counterfeit fiat system of a ruddy governance without a supreme magistrate. Now lets venture into the territory of visagists as we envision the swanky subversion of impoverished and nebbich visions of oligochrome that fixates on belabored but dead notions of rigid propriety and levitate above those concerns with a querulous transcendence that never wernaggles about the profaned irrelevance of burlesque tropes of sidereal friction but instead memorializes the thermolysis of permeable endeavor above staid countenances of imposture that lurk in the shadowy penumbra of the connivance of persona above the archetype of the tutelary guardian spirit that through windlass and sometimes deliberation affixes nobility to even the pedestrian in order to assize its proper proportions to granular ironies expounded into megalography transformative by the very rivets of its supersensible existence and cohabitation with histrinkage among human taboos.

   The handiwork of a permeable race prone to exacerbated proclamations of prerogatives bulldozed by the rapid percolation of insoluble quandaries to the gripes of the feast of foofaraw sometimes shelters our otherwise regnant concern about the plenipotentiary God that observes all latent affairs without the paramours that conflate vivid carnality with appeased luxury and superimposes a crafty system of seismic shifts in rantipole dances with numinous flux rather than dissipated militant suppression of the fracklings of dissolute pollution which swirk in their dastardly desperado endeavors to corral the entire monoliths that guard each province into a winnowed rumble of rubble by tarnish of Tyre rather than by the upstart rejoinders of Canaan. Every creature which has the capacity to perceive language is afforded benedictions by the overhailing force of the hypaethral heights of superlative ingenuity founded in the bolted speculation of the endearment of all to tropological seesaws embattled against the hearsay of nyejays that contaminates the telmatology of the ecosystem of revivalism rather than buries the leaden debts of the disjointed revenants of past prominence into recycled irrelevance for posterity rather than for anything but a machination of a clockwork apple rigged for a rotten worm to swindle the sweet delicate tempests of unforeseen disaster to perjuries against financial solidarity.

The spinsters of sardonic drollery underscore the imminence of an incondite cutthroat collapse blackguarded by the hucksters of incontinence grubbing every fetched noisome notion and congealing a bonnyclabber of desiccated mildew that proves vestigial when the victors of time earn their joyous serenade to the pinnacle of the totem of jaundice slits in wavy endeavors for the participles of sejungible syntax of the ephorized furor to outlast the draksteng of droned dereliction manned by half-baked spies of ulterior recitals for imprinted vicissitude in supremacy in synquest for frizzlounges rather than the pedestrian circulatory system of careworn polity. We vaporize the petty hatred of sympatric regelation that neuters the virulence of motivated impediments to the draconian surge of asperity that sinks temporal haplessness as a regaled blasphemy that crowns only the ringed betrothal to spumid serrated halts in slick superstition that is a buggery to the idea of insectivores devouring the erratic chantage of germane germs that pauperize rather than even blind the deafened to be a crutch to vehicular homicide. Melismatic sennet is a dirigible of immense herculean sinew without the traces of vestibulary retches of kisswonked grisly tepid intimidations of eccedentesiasts by the radioglare of wizened corrugations in thanatism that exhort the avatars of narquiddity over the natural departure of revenant souls back to their temporary hostility to crass lifeless decarnate immediacy that slinks with foibles magnified by vertiginous heights of scollardical reputes rigged by the rijuice of the plackiques of meaningless spoils for swashbuckler bonanza borrowed from serrated vengeance exacted in prominence to provide false avenues of extenuation to malefaction that is confidant to the panopticon of exemplary dimples meager in the largesse of the composite realism of a sizable imprint on megalography that outlasts impertinent excuses for dangerous trout swimming against the mobilized selachostomous frizz of sharks gathering to avenge disclosure with insolence and gravid atrocity of incisive surgical evisceration of attempted depositions that falter by innumerable facets of countenance that belie ultimate realism and the perdurable construction of a sturdy hive of bibliognost revelry.

     Even with the blaring sennet of majesty inundating my piecemeal perception with the marstions of flarium that is an efficacy in a flaccid world of otiose pretenses limpid only in folly but contraplex in ironic skewbald skerries of grubbed destination that is the terminus of karezza despite the maledictions of vehement guarded betrayals that conjure up lurid noisome virility against the gamines and gallywows that populate interstellar fictions of virtu rather than mundane pragmatica that astound with the resselenque of contaminated skeumorphs of latent fracture belonging to a skeletonized ossified reification of farce above historicity in seemly seamless countenance with overwrought princely stature deserving integrity to ripples through sparkling opalescence. The vapid insularity of the self-contained mythos of appeased groundlings is based on the rhizic and rhizogenic fracklings destitute in predicative flares to swelter above stratospheres of the illimitable into the dwelling of the highest serenity inherent to the pacification of truth to neglect its egregious errors of mistetches of a ripened pachyderm of bravery in times of austerity and now a reclaimed notion of sempiternal charades swimming above the punitive draksteng of dranger that is enlarged by acclimated attempts at foiled raltention hikkling against its own superior forces of galvanized preterition to elide over screwball insanity of derangement in this virtual paradise of inhabited souls belonging to former times congregating on the pasture of the evanescence of now for all eternity having the optative condition of incarnation above the ferules of the stagnant brevity of oversight in heavenly realms by postulate but not confirmed by regal logic.

     The troponder of the flickered lambent niceties of polity is a countenance that piggybacks on simpered jostles of negligent engrenage to appease sworn enmities among beatific havens for certitude swarmed by the fisticuffs of darbied bridewells of desiccated drainage traversing the distant disdain for the gravel of cemented slits of stilted pragmatica that is a gavel of atrocious estoppel mediated by heroic heresiarchs against pitiable betrayal for forceful remedies in acclimated servitude to the groans and groaks of a life of remorse and dearth rather than the glut of luxuriance in forbearance to its own intorted mirrored ironies that etch infinity with every scrawled rejoinder to austere ploys of checkered rumbles of threat and exigency posed by the clairvoyant hypocrites who benefit greatly by the design of the omphalism above the frays and brays of corporate dogmatism slowly outmoded by vibrant plumages of heteronormative originality beyond petty chantage. A hesitation overcomes the bluster of bravado as the restive earnest concerns of tribulation beset the minauderies of divine affection to reaffirm the teachings of the Gospel so that future generations genuflect beneath the altar of the ultimate stroke of sociogenesis and the blood ransom of suffering that promoted the human latitude and liberty against incarcerated throngs of virtue over caesaraproprism accorded to genuflection beneath denarii rather than absolution by tether to the eternal vine of sensation of the supersensible entelechy of all valiant insurrections against defective polities and renewed policies.

     We thus seek a transdimensional bridge between the morphean virtu of rudimentary alchemy of propitiation divulged by leverage and the teeming rambunctiousness of fiduciary tribes to the ultimate duty of man to consummate the future of eternity even in slowpoke mannerisms that sidle through rigors of entelechy and assize the masterwork of tutelage above the circumforaneous entrenchment of glut above the mastery of the subtle subaudition that beleaguers an adept conflagration of harnessed human ignorance staid in the incarceration of exotic virtues of freewheeling sapience never vulnerary to hospitable concerns that entrenches the verisimilitude of a refracted justice to reign over the stultification of a primitivism inherent to man and not man alone.

even teddy said i got the sickest tricks brah.
like my abilities source from some kinda legendary liquid
                                                                ­                      / praise the lord /
monster energy should sponsor me.
a kickflip over the king’s *** hole
& a halfcab for the looky-loos.
i feel so tall when i climb that heap of asphalt trimmings
& see clear from the water tower to the bluffs.
gimme a good day, any day at the bluffs,
bottlerockets & girly birds.

her body brings a swarm of worms.
decomp,
said the f.b.i. men one by one with tweezers.
not quite the homecoming queen, still
wrapped in plastic.

look up.
see that great mess of wires, nest of powerlines and owl bones?
it crackles and croons its electro-spectral purr
all night and day.

new neck tat &
cody spends his paycheck on a crossbow.
we target practice on a bull skull.
wet cigarettes and turpentine-soaked socks for a good huff
in the dry of the roofline as it dumps.

there’s that little boy in a ghost mask again, tap-dancing
in puddles below the streetlamp,
& oversized shoes.
his grandmoms always be watchin’ from the window.
[whispers] she’s teaching him magic.

lucky unit 19: where our young dead damsel once dolled
herself up, you see
men and headlights would roll thru thrice nightly,
maybe more.
& i remember her punch red lips &
big whicker hat; while she weeded and watered her garden of begonias.

the sheriff’s deputy, hart? hicks? hogan? well he loved her a bunch.
stole her clothes in the middle of the night,
& sat beside the river sobbing into clumped fists
of bra and blouse.
i bought ******* from that guy once or twice.
harold? howard?

guess who showed his face today?
josiah, from unit 08.
since the incident with molly’s beagle, he’s been rarely seen.
took a bee line straight for the mailbox.
a package. a prize. a decoder ring/secret map sweepstakes
to be seen and deciphered.

I really want
To c my dad
But he only
Makes me mad

© From A Poet's 💔
3/22/20

Photo inspiration

Kissing in the rain
Washes away the pain
Even if it's in the shower
That takes over an hour
The hot water will run out
Then cold water comes out the spout
And then kills the mood
So we move to the room
Things r heating up now
There's no turning back now
Let's keep the momentum going
Now that our juices r flowing

© From A Poet's ♥️
5/12/20

2 Mother's Days
Came & went away
2 Mother's Days
I cried the day away

© From A Mother's 💔
5/12/20

Stress is a b*tch
It steals your joy
It makes u itch

© From A Poet's ♥️
5/11/20


Co-vid
Inspired by Jolene by Dolly Parton

Co-vid! Co-vid!
Co-vid! Co-vid!
We're beggin' of you please don't take our health!
Co-vid! Co-vid!
Co-vid! Co-vid!
We're beggin' of you please don't take our wealth!

Your symptoms come n a disguise
The media spreading all your lies
W/ scare tactics & fear mongering
Your gift to us makes us all cuss
We can't b who we were once
And we cannot compete with u
Co-vid

We dream about u n nightmares
U r on the news, u're everywhere
There's no escaping u @ all
Co-vid

But we can't easily understand
How you can take women & men
But u don't know what they mean 2 us
Co-vid

Co-vid! Co-vid!
Co-vid! Co-vid!
We're beggin' of you please don't take our health!
Co-vid! Co-vid!
Co-vid! Co-vid!
We're beggin' of you please don't take our wealth!

U could have your choice of homes
But we can't just go out & roam
Home's the only place 4 us
Co-vid

I had to write this song to u
Our very lives depend on u
And whatever u sent our way next
Co-vid

Co-vid! Co-vid!
Co-vid! Co-vid!
We're beggin' of you please don't take our health!
Co-vid! Co-vid!
Co-vid! Co-vid!
We're beggin' of you please don't take our wealth!

Co-vid! Co-vid!

© From A Quarantined Poet's ♥️
4/19/20

Covid-19
U r obscene
We once were free
But we couldn't see

U stole that
From us
Til we
Wanna cuss

We can't see
Our fam
And u don't
Give a ****

We can't see
Our friends
Will this
Pandemic end?

Some can't go
To work
U're just a
Big ****

Kids can't
Go to school
Now parents
Have to enforce rules

© From A Quarantined Poet's ♥️
4/8/20

Quarantine
Day 33!
***!
Woe is me!

Quarantine
Day 33!
Who r u &
Who is she?

Quarantine
Day 33!
Washing hands
To meet demands

Quarantine
Day 33!
Only go to work
Don't get perks

Quarantine
Day 33
I work full-time
But not he

Quarantine
Day 33
Shopping carts
6 feet apart

6 feet apart
And no hugs
6 feet apart
Don't share cootie bugs

© From A Working Quarantined Poet's ♥️
4/11/20

N response to another poet's poem

We too are essential
And get paid small
For the work we do
For travelers and all

To find place of rest
At our hotel
We're practically the only ones open
As u can tell

I'm also a caregiver
Keeping people healthy
Although with covid-19
Not many r wealthy

We're all n this 2gether
All over the world
Hopefully future changes come
Soon to the weather

Don't matter the color of skin
Black, white or brown
We're all stuck in
All over every town

© From A Poet's ♥️
4/11/20

The 12 Months Of Lockdown

On the first month of lockdown all over my small town,
Jobs laid off, people stayed home!

On the second month of lockdown all over my small town,
People got bored
Jobs laid off, people stayed home!

On the third month of lockdown all over my small town,
Online jobs,
People got bored
Jobs laid off, people stayed home!

On the fourth month of lockdown all over my small town,
Video chats
Online jobs,
People got bored
Jobs laid off, people stayed home!

On the fifth month of lockdown all over my small town,
Homeschooling!
Video chats
Online jobs,
People got bored
Jobs laid off, people got sent home!

On the sixth month of lockdown all over my small town,
Honey-do projects!
Homeschooling!
Video chats
Online jobs,
People got bored
Jobs laid off, people got sent home!

On the seventh month of lockdown all over my small town,
Toilet paper hoarding!
Honey-do projects!
Homeschooling!
Video chats
Online jobs,
People got bored
Jobs laid off, people got sent home!

On the eighth month of lockdown all over my small town,
Pay your bills online!
Toilet paper hoarding!
Honey-do projects!
Homeschooling!
Video chats
Online jobs,
People got bored
Jobs laid off, people got sent home!

On the ninth month of lockdown all over my small town,
People went crazy!
Pay your bills online!
Toilet paper hoarding!
Honey-do projects!
Homeschooling!
Video chats
Online jobs,
People got bored
Jobs laid off, people got sent home!

On the 10th month of lockdown all over my small town,
Hosting watch parties!
People went crazy!
Pay your bills online!
Toilet paper hoarding!
Honey-do projects!
Homeschooling!
Video chats
Online jobs,
People got bored
Jobs laid off, people got sent home!

On the 11th month of lockdown all over my small town,
Virtual church attendance
Hosting watch parties!
People went crazy!
Pay your bills online!
Toilet paper hoarding!
Honey-do projects!
Homeschooling!
Video chats
Online jobs,
People got bored
Jobs laid off, people got sent home!

On the 12th month of lockdown all over my small town,
Wear face masks & gloves
Virtual church attendance
Hosting watch parties!
People went crazy!
Pay your bills online!
Toilet paper hoarding!
Honey-do projects!
Homeschooling!
Video chats
Online jobs,
People got bored
Jobs laid off, people got sent home!

© From A Quarantined Poet's ♥️
4/11/20

We're 'spose 2 b locked down
But it don't look like it
But all over my town
Ppl r pitching fits

They cannot go c
Their own family
They cannot go do
What they intended to

They r stuck inside
W/ family they hate
W/ rules 2 abide
They can't go out on dates

They will get over it
(Not b4 they pitch a fit!)
Or they'll get a ticket
(And they can't afford it!)

© From A Quarantined Poet's ♥️
4/12/20

People wear frowns
And they wear gowns
People wear face masks While doing tasks

Pretty soon they'll wear
Coverings for their shoes
Just like doctors
And surgeons do

People wear gloves
Afraid they'll get sick
Like God up above
Couldn't heal them that quick

© From A Poet's ♥️
4/12/20

Easter n quarantine
This is obscene!
Easter n quarantine
Covid-19, u r really mean!

© From A Quarantined Poet's ♥️
4/12/20

I can't c my kids
He still says they r his
He teaches them hate
Now that Morgan is 8

Roy's following too
And I don't know what to do

© From A Mother's 💔
4/14/20

He found another way
For DSS to say
That I cannot c
Not even #3

He's using the system
To benefit him
To brainwash them
Against me & William

© From A Mother's 💔
4/14/20

Happy birthday
To u all
Sorry that I
Couldn't call

© From A Poet's ♥️
4/20/20

"Boredom"
Inspired by: "Jolene" by Dolly Parton

https://youtu.be/Ixrje2rXLMA

Boredom! Boredom!
Boredom! Boredom!
Please give everyone something else to do!
Boredom! Boredom!
Boredom! Boredom!
Please before we go insane inside!

Your torture is beyond compare
U drive us to the brink w/ dares
W/ nothing left to do but stare around
Your smile is like evil disguised
Your voice telling all kinds of lies
And we've run out of things to do,
Boredom!

They talk about u on the news
You're streaming w/ the largest views
There's nowhere we can escape u
Boredom!

And I could easily understand
How you have need to recruit us
But you don't know what sanity is
Boredom!

Boredom! Boredom!
Boredom! Boredom!
Please give everyone something else to do!
Boredom! Boredom!
Boredom! Boredom!
Please before we go insane inside!

U could choose other planets
But u have chosen planet Earth
Seems we're the one for the job
Boredom!

I had 2 get this off my chest
So we can actually get some rest
I hope there is not another test
Boredom!

Boredom! Boredom!
Boredom! Boredom!
Please give everyone something else to do!
Boredom! Boredom!
Boredom! Boredom!
Please before we go insane inside!

Boredom! Boredom!

© From A Poet's ❤️
4/21/20

If I cuss like a sailor
And dress like a tailor
Then my mouth would b *****
Even passed the age of 30.

© From A Poet's ♥️
4/22/20

If it smells like a trout
And u can't stay out
B sure to use protection
So u won't get an infection

© From A Poet's ♥️
4/22/20

We pay rent
And don't c a cent
Of it in air
And she doesn't care

© From A Poet's ♥️
5/3/20

Photo challenge

I caught Tinker Bell!
The devilish little sprite!
She has been causing hell!
When she is out of sight!

© From A Poet's ♥️
5/3/20

.i left an excess of a B somewhere in here... within the confines of a word giblet... i probably thought: bigger... bouncier... gibblet looked better... and so very far removed from goblet... i'm not going to look for it.

i haven't done much today -
and i don't suppose i will finish this day of
with some grand poo'em...
but one can almost be proud
to have perfected a chicken breast roulade...
the rest of the chicken missing
the butterfly? well... bound to a very
decent soup... clear and not atypical
western cream-soup...
but the roulade! the roulade!
no... you don't beat the butterfly *******
like you might turn to: "sadistically"
for a schnitzel...
you do beat the meat,
but you more or less... press down the mallet
onto the meat, until you reach
the right equilibrium of pressure and
there's that squish-sound / feel of the *******
expanding...

if it was a whole roast chicken:
of course i'd stuff the space between
the skin and the ******* with some thyme
infused butter... to capture the richness...
but this is a roulade...
the stuffing? goats cheese... toasted almonds...
fesh dates... thyme...
i might have just over-balanced
the equation with the dates...
but as i explained to the fussy-eater:
what are you implying that we do not
serve poultry with a sweet attache?
cranberry sauce and turkey?
and as i've learned...

it's best buying potatoes from a turkish
outlet by the 25kg bulk...
from a warehouse where the buyers
walk with bundles of money and do not
use debit card "finger" prints...
the free passing of money is still retained
in some tiers of society...
but the idea, regarding the potatoes is
to poach them from a bath of cold water...
once they start boiling leave them for
five minutes, then turn the heat off
and wait for the bubbling water to stop...
drain them... then leave them on
the already turned-off stove to get rid
of any excess water...
drizzle some chilly infused olive oil
onto the baking tray, place each potato individually...
then drizzle some olive oil onto them...
shove them in the oven when the roulade
is finished...
my first most pristine roulade...
of course you have to pan-fry it to get some
colour... the filling is kept intact given that:
goats' cheese is no mozarella...

it doesn't melt and subsequently ooze out...
and the whole lot should be be done within
the hour... the roulade can be pressured
to go for 25 minutes...
depending on the colour of the tatties...
i still had to take it out and "glitter" it with
a 1:1 ratio of honey and lemon juice...
the remains of this juice i designated on al dente
cooked greens... there was no need
for a dressing...
left-over red cabbage coleslaw...
that helps... sweet chilli sauce with some mayo
and crem fraiche...
it even looks the prettier picture:
leftover but it still works...
***** of a ******* butterfly *******!
of course it was going to spit oil back at me,
i was frying the skin... the fat from the skin
was melting the skin was getting crisp
and mingling with the olive oil fat...
also... it's a myth that the temp. should
read: 165°F... that's really just a circa...
mine read 156°F... and given the time i let
it rest...

oh right... this is not a food blog...
perhaps the moon is just too beautiful tonight
to have to attach words to it?
perhaps my love is better left alone and unused
and it doesn't demand sleeper idealism
for it to be celebrated?
it's cooking food... it's not a hip-replacement
surgery...
when cooking was married to chemistry:
i sometimes miss the laboratory
and the cooking up of esters...
my new found calling is in cooking...
and something i... wouldn't exactly want to earn
money for...

and what is surgery if not elevated butcher's ******>antics? oh no, it's needed...
but the meat is supposed to be raw
from beginning to end...
and if i was only given the chance to recycle
a recipe for a stake tartar...
or sushi... well... it wouldn't be much...
esp. when i come into my own
and cook an indian **** of spices...
but then again... the indians butcher their meat
in their curries...
i've come to some serious realisation...
the indians butcher the meat with their curry sauce...
it comes down to baking the meat...
in order for the meat to still retain its
original juices...
i quiet enjoy that little detail of cook...
in that: i don't remember the last time i was
in a restaurant...

i can't imagine eating while having to talk...
conversation over food is no better
than sitting in field of grazing cows
and their leech clouds of flies all bothersome...
with regards to the quality of the meat....
there is always some excess of meat from
the butterfly ******* before you start moulding
them into a shape that will satisfy it being
rolled...
it's a supreme joy working with a whole
chicken... i sometimes wish i was also the man
who could see the whole procedure of:
and be involved in the slaughterhouse...

oh god... the brute village beheading is
rather uncompromising... one chicken is caught
and beheaded on a stump of wood...
the head still moves with its last remaining
short-circuit tongue extending out of the beak
and the eyes roll... and then all the other chickens
congregate and perform a Kuru ritual of pecking
the blood... sipping it...
that's how killing a chicken in a village
looks like... i can't imagine an industrial scale
precision... but i would't mind...

every time i hear of veganism: the ethical argument
i start conjuring up an antithesis of
cannibalism... which is not exactly edgy given
my catholic background (i haven't been
confirmed, personal choice):
this is my body, this is my blood...
i hear a vegan talk i make a fetish of
imagining cannibalism...
believe me... these limbs look akward...
to begin with... where can you find a *******
drumstick of poultry on it?!
nowhere!

only a few days shy off today i made a most
delightful broth of chicken hearts...
i can't explain how the sight of washing...
oh... around 30 pultry hearts feels like...
given that they're hearts and not the entire chicken...
but as ever... the internal organs are a delight...
pork or poultry liver...
poultry hearts...
poultry stomachs...
cow intestines...

come to think of it... you never really cook meat...
you... curate it... it become a fine art specialist...
for those who turn to veganism or the vegetarian
"alternative": perhaps they never curated meat,
perhaps they simply butchered it?
the chicken roulade of butterfly poultry *******
always came out dry-*****?

after all, wasn't ol' Adoolph the one to say:
'hello mr. carrot, hellooo jew no. 1269230 of
auschwitz'... that's the puberty of my distrust
for vegans... they were never able to
cook meat properly... they probably ate
a decent piece of it served in a restaurant...
but when it came to cooking it themselves...
they would have probably butchered
a pasta and never reached the quality: al dente...
either...
and i'm worried that they can't cook
vegetables al dente either...
so it's back to the gulag of roots overcooked
and turned into mush...

oh i believe that meat is butchered...
but it's from the actual butchery...
it's from a lack of respect in how it's finally
"cooked"... well... curated...
are vegans the sort of people that never
ate a stake tartar... or found the most
arisotractic flavours in the giblet?
oh my god... if you can eat a drumstick
of chicken clean to the bone...
and, like me... sometimes bite off
the budding pulp of the bone for the marrow
gnash?
perhaps that's why i own cats...
delicate courtesans of the table...
a dog would go hungry at this table...
sharpnel of bones and some lurking marrow
in the "shins"... and that's about it...

you can never truly be a vegan...
not unless you repudiate the fact you've only
tasted muscle tissue...
what about the giblets and the cartilege?

every time i would perform oral ***
on a woman i could only conjure up one distate...
this is not a steak done rare...
this is not an oyster...
this is not a steak tartar...
there are "things" pulverising this meat...
there's an unexpected pocket of heat
in this... "thing"...
this is a sensation that lends itself
to the pastry section of my diet...
a warm apple pie... a custard drizzle
over some chocolate sponge...
oh qui qui... the marvels of a bilingual mouth...

if the meat is of good quality....
as the chicken roulade i made today...
and there were leftover snippets...
which i fed to the cats...
and the meat was eaten... in totality...
i was eating good chicken...
cats regarding meat are like...
those ancient jobs equivalent to...
Halotus...
god! give me a chance to own a cat!
i'll name him: Halotus!
he'll be my meat taster...
he'll tell me if i'm eating bad meat...
i'm not a Claudius but...
this cat could very well be the next Halotus!
dogs eat leftovers...

beside this one instance of catching
a female mosquito by the leg
and feeding it to a cat...
the most pleasure i ever received was
when i was preparing a rainbow trout
for grilling...
the head couldn't be used since:
i wasn't planning to cook a base fish stock...
so i plucked those pearly eyes from the head...
and my... what a delight they were...
not me... the cat...
i'm guessing that's the equivalent
of me gulping down an oyster...

female maine **** fascination with dairy
products...
any cream will do... even cheap-oh cheese...
dairylee spreadable...
but all manner of cream whipped...
i've heard of cats being fond of red wine...
i once owned one that was fond
of... olive brine...

again: what's with this need for people to cook
your food? what sort of decency of conversation
can one have when presented with food?
i don't like restaurants simply because:
well i can't exactly cook roadkill...
and shooting at birds is not my kind of thing...
so if i can't catch it and **** it...
i can at least: cook it...
i distrust what i eat that i haven't prepared
myself... notably the hygiene dilemma...

it really is on my head whether i'll catch
salmonella when i sometimes drink a coffee
with a guilty pleasure of mine:
whisked egg-yoke and sugar... on top of the coffee...
that's my problem...
but eating is never a synonym with conversation...
and it's never necessary to loiter and wait
for someone to shove pretenses above
the food in the first instance of: the waiting staff...

i blame the rise in veganism surrounding
the people who never allowed themselves to appreciate
the animal: in total...
there's no fun just sticking to ingesting muscle
protein... first you have to cook it properly...
this chicken roulade didn't have to reach
the internal temp. of 165°F - that's a circa proposition...
at 156°F and allowed to rest is just as good...
because it's an art-form to cook meat...
then again: what's cooking and what's about
to be curated?

the people who turn to veganism are also the people
who never bothered with gibblets...
the liver, the heart, the stomach,
in some cases the intestines...
hence my critique of Islams critique of ol' porky Bella...
this most unique animal...
which you can eat in total...
tenga deep fried pigs ears...
again: the cartilege...
ethics my *** if all you know about a pig is a bore
chop or a **** or... you never get into
the knitty-gritty details of the interior of
an animal... lamb is a stinking meat...
it's hell-rot when the male is slaughtered...

oh right! right! how could i forget the star
pinnacle... poached giblet supreme...
the neck... if you know how to eat a drumstick
down to the bone...
poached poultry neck...
the teeth and tongue wandering around
the crevices of this elongated spine...
i can imagine monkey's extended coccyx
tastes as tender... but only among
the macaques...
otherwise: when what's about to be eaten...
can be elevated to a status of ****** fetishes...
gimps in leather...
when rummaging among so many
boyscouts & aenemic vegans...

i'm yet to taste this, one specific, delicacy...
flaki (flački) is not new to me...
i need to marry a girl from ******* Masovia...
somewhere in the vicinity of Płock...
for i can eat some černina...
duck blood and clear broth soup...
as long as most of the animal is used...
the dogs can have the rest
and so can the vegan ethics society...

but of course this is no an anathema...
or some curated vendetta...
all the roots in the vicinity...
even the fungus... can vegans eat fungus?
are you sure?
what about those "thinking" magic mushrooms
that... if you looked into 1960s:
quick-n-easy philosophy courses...
the fungus is the botanical hitchhiker
that strapped itself to the humanoid brain
and... broadened our horizons and what not...
can you eat the godhead 'shroom?
it might just very well be...
that i'm picking a half-brain half-mushroom
entity in some alcohol to allow myself
to ease a tongue out from
its standard formality of the mollusk...
and waggle waggle waggle brute...

but yes... one is most certainly butchering
a piece of meat when one cooks
a broth... or a curry... unless its a gibblet
of sorts...
to "curate" muscular meat in a broth of a curry...
poaching it to death and worse than death:
dry...
it's about allowing the meat to retain its
natural juices...
how else to enjoy a poultry butterfly breast
roulade - with the natural juices still intact?

- i stopped paying attention to these *******
moralists...
if you have ever figured your way around
cutting off the butterfly of ******* for a roulade...
and you know what it feels like
when you stuff the space between
the meat and the skin of them
with some butter and fresh thyme...
and you're still not circumcised...
well... that's what skin feels like...

how else to reiterate? Ava Lauren is probably
the best example of a brothel beauty...
mandible beauty... something that contorts
and appeals to a perspective of cubism...
wretched beauty of the squashed square
into a pseudo-rhombus contort...
at least doing it from time to time leaves me
without a single buoyancy of thought regarding:
am i having enough, am i not having enough:
and if i'm not having enough -
what are the chances of me contracting some
s.t.d.?

bad beef...
again... juxtaposing a reiteration...
there's something worse than visit a brothel...
there's the... visiting a resturant..
i can't stop thinking about alien,
unwashed hands, preparing my food...
it's already one kick-in-the-***** not having
hunted the food... but to be left ******-over
twice by not having cooked it?!

at least if you know what flesh feels like
between the two crucibles of
death's kiss and man's tongue tease...
you will know when...
you will at least know when...
death comes with its kiss...
and its breath... the meat will turn all
yucky... as if a mollusk decided to prance
upon it in an imitation zigzag...

hence? i have no respect for islam because
islam has no respect for Miss Porky Bella!
seeing how most of the lamb -
except for the kidney in a steak pie
is not wasted...
the pig could feed two african villages...
if done properly...
while a lamb would only serve a pittance
for a poor man of yemen harem...

again: the pig is the enemy...
while not making crab meat a haram is not?
vulture meat... scavenger meat...
that's a: o.k. but the sophisticated nature
of the pig: sophisticated in that:
almost all of it can be eaten...
that so much of it can be you would probably
burp out an oink...
done properly...
the giblets in tow...
pity that such a desert god would never
appreciate the pig becoming a dog on
its truffle hog days...

beside all the arguments...
imagine how the "one true god" goes down
on a platter of those ignorant Beijing folk...
Warsaw testing! Warsaw testing!

pristine my *** when all they ever do
is eat the muscles and never appreciate the detials...
no wonder they become aenemic vegans!
at least butchering a vegetable is less of a concern...
you can almost get away with butchering a root...
it is... oh most certainly it is a shame...
when you can't cook meat properly...

but at least i never feel ever as bad going to a brothel
seeing the sort of people who venture into
restaurants...
i don't like being cooked for, i don't like being
"waited" for...
i don't like this modern orthodoxy affair
of a restaurant... i wish these people
learned something about how meat is: never cooked...
and how... it's always most certainly most necessarily:
curated...

pedantic? perhaps... you should have seen
me in that athenian strip-club with two-clingy *******
either side of me... starwberries in their *****
and we are all fine and giggling...
stealing kisses from prostitutes is: truffle hog
"learning" parabolla...

a date and a "promise" of *** is always
a limp **** affair...
i always want to know whether what i'll be eating
still entertain the existence of salt...
or whether i'll have to find alternatives
of: extracting the juices and finding the right
bites...
because love is long over-due and i'm not going
to butcher it further with whimsical hopes...
my love is a dead love is no ideal...
my love is donning a ball and chain of memory:
i have left the better parts of myself
in the wrong sort of people...
they're hardly coming back...
the people or the pieces of me...

but at least i can attest that:
oral *** and the cool crisp gulp of an oyster
passing the Charon of my tongue...
oysters are only fascinating to eat...
because you always want to concentrate
on the fact that: you're eating something that's still
alive... not even a steak tartar or a sushi slice
gives you that hope and thrill...
unless... you're hoping for some tapeworm
embryo being lodged in the flesh...
which how man can almost arrive
at the conception of foetus and womanhood...
i can't be impregnated: exclusively...
i can't be... pregnant: exclusively...
but i can allow a parasitical tapeworm
to become my new-born-*******-out-abortion...

inclusively... how else?!
i'm also tired of being left immoral by the act
of *******...
not unless you know what not being circumcised
feels like... and what chicken skin feels like...
the people at the restaurants...
a palette disgruntled by minor changes of heat...
and... there's always a very precise detail
when it comes to the temp. of a piece of meat
being cooked... and when it's allowed to epilogue
when resting to ****** with all its juices
left intact...

over-sexed society, are we?
at least doing the one-eyed-bandit's favor
doesn't allow me to ferment...
to pickle such repressive thinking...
itself pitched against: in itself...
and these this Radeztsky March forward...
over-sexed also can imply:
not exactly culinarily-savvy...
these are always twins walking side by side...
and they are always siamese problems...
over-sexed implies...
not cuninarily-savvy...
the better part of this critique is already wide open...
why all these cooking channels,
all these cooking programs?
and all this ****?

can't **** can't cook? broomstick! and to sabbath
with you!
i can't no better comparison...
over-sexed and also: terrible at *******...
******* is terrible to begin with...
you can't exactly quip yourself with
having done some lessons in tango or salsa...
the chances are that the *** turns out to
be a laughable take on tango and
you're going to step on a day-dreaming
dancing partner...
it's exactly what's it's supposed to be:
a gamble at best...
but when you throw in bad cooking?
recipe for disaster... bad dates that begin
in a restaurant and arrive at a black-out
bedroom with cockoon *** under
the bedsheets with you gasping for air!

'god let me out! let me out!'

Wildflower
I found you in the desert
And in the murky gulch
Through the trees
And in between
The mountains' ivory clutch

Wildflower
I've put you in my home
And my faucet is the draught
With which you drink
Like river stream
And early morning trout

Wildflower
I have made a mistake
You grow on hills
Where we don't stay
But in my house
What saves now kills

Wildflower
I let you go

i stand in the shallows
of my memory
casting a spiderweb line
back into
the earlier years,
the murky depth
of the old brain pond
looking for that
elusive memory
of when......when.......when


life was simple,
somehow, more complete
with days of sunshine
and butterfly grace
that flew on by,

when grass smelt greener
skies were blue and
there was always much to do

the future was out there, past the horizon
a thing that was too far away to ponder on

they were the days,
the beautiful days
I know I  dream of.

to recapture my youth.....

but all I can now do,
is cast about in memories
and hope to find myself
an elusive rainbow trout....

Lone leatherback cruises up from the deep, pausing on the fragile reef

to feast ancient eyes upon the show, a bright parade laid out below

butterfly couples paired for life, graceful angels in black and white stripe

brilliant clowns and their toxic lovers, a plodding gang of giant groupers

puffers bob like comic balloons, humble gobies on every menu

beaked parrotfish grinding the coral down, in the ears a constant sound

cowfish blowing puckered kisses, sea stars catching fishy wishes

white-tipped, hammerhead, tiger sharks, triggerfish mean bite worse than their bark

untamed unicorns too wild to ride, dogfish snapping, biting alongside

coral trout color-shifting fools, attracting ladies in dull-hued schools

**** headed wrasse rumbling through, thick lips mumbling go get a room

sea horses nod in labyrinth caves, razor-toothed eels lying in wait

if tentacled embrace should be your fate, nudibranchs will light the way

to a place of bliss, none of this can exist, without the builders

coral and algae bewildered, the ways of man egotistical

rising ocean temperatures, carbon emissions, and el Niño

victim of abundant greed, say goodbye to the Great Barrier Reef

so massive is this magical place, one can see it from outer space

astronauts witness its demise, ninety-percent barren, bleached bone white.

You are the fisherman and I am the trout
You cast out sweet compliments as bait
I swim around as temptation grows stronger
I take the bait and it's wonderful for a short time

Soon to find out you were just leading me on
Then stab me, when I thought you were being kind
The pain grows stronger as I try to swim away from you

You reel in my soul and collect another heart
In the end, you were the player who won the game.

**** had me torn, **** had me scorned; I'm one of the few people who knows how it feels to have on a crown of thorns. Scars on my hands, scars on my feet, had so many plans but they all are now obsolete. Beaten outwardly and inwardly, never had the liberty to be anything more, just a lamb in a world full of carnivores. I am not a God; I am just a man that constantly gets beaten by a rod. The rod of guilt, the rod of shame, I'm starting to wilt, and I got no one left to blame. Faking smiles while dealing with depression, dead on the inside, and barren outside by all the oppression. Just a frame for the bigger picture, maybe instead of focusing on fame, I should've focused on the scriptures. No I don't want to hear your lecture, not here to be a fisher of men, my structure is fine enough dear sir.

Now in conjunction let’s us say amen, let’s us stop with the pretend, this is our time to amend our past mayhem. Bruises on my skin, bruises on my bones, trying not to tailspin, trying to control my hormones. You don't need Sherlock Holmes to figure this **** out, there is no need to doubt, that it is not fun being treated like an expired trout. Can't you see these scars? Oh yeah that's right you to busy looking at the stars! Scars opened up by unlocking the wrong doors, scars piling up from all the years of being treated like a *****. Scars won by wars, scars from running through the fire, scars from peer pressure, and scars from all the held back tears.

So many scars, feels like I’m not even human, yeah I swear I'm an alien from mars. 'Hey, people have it worse than you', well that may be true, it's all relative until it happens to you! Do you know what I've been through? Do you know what it's like being in an environment of lions, when you're a caribou? That's right you have no clue, the worst thing some of yawl ever faced has been the flu. Where-as there is me, who no one takes the time of day to hear or see. Where-as there is me, the one everyone tried to treat because they thought I was a disease. Where-as there is me, and only me, nothing more than one of those 'natives' or in this case 'Cree'. Can't you see my scars? Were you not listening to these bars? Do I have to drop down on all fours for some exposure? Cause when you need help I am one of the first ones to be your boulder.

They say pain won't last, they say that I can get over it in other ways other than constantly getting smashed. Some say that the forecast will clear, that there is nothing to truly fear except for fear. Some scars don't heal, some leave you with Ptsd and if something sets you off you can relive that pain wheel. I wear my scars like they a badge, not prepared to throw it in the trash. My scars make me who I am, it's just another thing in my program. My scars help me relate with others with the same scars, it helps me realize that I'm not the only one dealing with these scars.