The bees build in the crevices
Of loosening masonry, and there
The mother birds bring grubs and flies.
My wall is loosening; honey-bees,
Come build in the empty house of the stare.

We are closed in, and the key is turned
On our uncertainty; somewhere
A man is killed, or a house burned.
Yet no clear fact to be discerned:
Come build in the empty house of the stare.

A barricade of stone or of wood;
Some fourteen days of civil war:
Last night they trundled down the road
That dead young soldier in his blood:
Come build in the empty house of the stare.

We had fed the heart on fantasies,
The heart's grown brutal from the fare,
More substance in our enmities
Than in our love; O honey-bees,
Come build in the empty house of the stare.

Backstory: A Memoir

For Vicki

By AT

5

While I was downstairs, folding laundry in the basement, I heard my sister Vicki stomping upstairs to the room that used to be mine, slamming the door, and locking it shut.

I was a ****** older brother. And Vicki learned that action from me.
Then, I heard more footsteps. Louder stomping. And I knew, with certainty, it was Mom coming after her.

I'm not an omniscient narrator, so I don't know what Vicki does when the door is locked.

But I do imagine she is reading. Vicki’s been using her Kindle that Mom got her for Christmas. She adores Gillian Flynn and Suzanne Collins. She's starting to get into Philip Pullman which is swagger. I remember reading His Dark Materials when I was in elementary school.

The Golden Compass ***** you into that world, like during June when you're hitting a bowl for the first time and you're 17, late at night on Bethany beach with your childhood best friend, and the surf is curling against your toes, and the smoke is trailing away from the cherry, and you begin to realize that life isn't all about living in NOVA forever, because the world is more than NOVA, because life is bigger than this hole, that to some people believe is whole, and that's fine, that's fine because many of our parents came here from other small towns, and they wanted to do what we wanted to do, which is to pack up our stuff into the trunk of our presumably Asian branded car, and drive, drive, until they reach a destination that doesn't remind them of the good memories and the bad memories, until memory is mixed in with nostalgia, and nostalgia is mixed in with the past.

Maybe I'm dwelling on backstory, maybe you don't need to hear the backstory.

But I think you do.

Life isn't an eternity,
what I'm telling you is already known, known since there was a spider crawling up the staircase and your dad took the heel of his black dress shoe and dug his heel into that bug. And maybe I'm buggin’, but that bugged me, and now I'm trying to be healthier eating carrots like Bugs. Kale, red onions, and quinoa, as well. Because I want to be there for my sister, Vicki my sister. All we got is a wrapped up box made from God, Mohammad, and Buddha.

Soon, I heard Vicki’s door handle being cranked down and up, up and down.

Mom raised her voice from a quiet storm to a deafening concerto.  
Then, there was silence, followed by a door slamming shut.

Welcome to our life.
Later on that night, Vicki sped out of our cul-de-sac in her silver Honda Accord—a gift from Mom to keep her rooted in Nova—and even from the front porch of my house, I felt a distance from her that was deep and immovable.

I sank deeper into my lawn chair and lit a jack, but instead of inhaling like I usually did, I held it out in front of me and watched the smoke billow out from the cherry.

I always smoked jacks when she was not there, because I didn’t want her to see me knowingly do this to myself, even as I was making huge changes to my life. It’s the one vice I have left, and it’s terrible for me, but I don’t know if she understands that I know both things. Maybe instead of caring about what jacks do to my body, I should care about what she thinks about what I’m doing to myself. This should be obvious to me, but sometimes things aren’t that obvious.

4

As we grew older Vicki and I forged a dialogue, an understanding. She confided in me and I confided in her, sharing secrets, details about our lives that were personal and private, as if we were two CIA agents working together to defeat a totalitarian government—our tiger mom.

But seriously our mom was and still is swagger as ****—rocks Michael Kors and flannel Pajama pants (If I told you that last article of clothing she'd probably pinch my cheek and call me a chipmunk. Don't worry I'm fine with a moderation of self-deprecation).

The other day Mom talked to me about Vicki and explained that she was upset and irritated with Vicki because of her attitude. I thought that was interesting, because I used to have the same exact attitude when I was my sister’s age and I got away with a lot more ****, being that I'm a guy and the first-born. I understood why she would shut the front door, exit our red brick bungalow, and speed away in her Honda Accord, going towards Clarendon, or Adams Morgan, spending her time with her extensive circle of friends on the weekdays and weekends.

Because being inside our house, life could get suffocating and depressing.
Our Grandparents live with us. Grandpa had a stroke and is trying to recover. Grandma has Alzheimer’s and agitates my mom for rides to a Vietnamese Church. Besides the caretakers, Mom, Dad, Vicki, and I are the only ones taking care of my grandparents.

Mom told me that she believes that Vicki uses the house as a hotel. Mom didn't remind me of a landlord, and I believe that Vicki doesn’t see her as that either.

I didn't believe Vicki was doing anything necessarily wrong.

She had her own life.

I had my own life.

Dad had his own life.

Mom had her own life.

I understood why she wanted to go out and party and hang out with her friends. Maybe she was like me when I was 21 and perceived living at home as a prison, wanting to have autonomy and freedom from Mom because she was attempting to make me conform to her controlled system with restraints. But as Vicki and I both grow older I believe that we see Mom not as an authority figure; but, just as Mom.

Vicky and Mom clash and clash and clash with each other, more than the Archer Queens of The Hero Troops clash with the witches of the Dark Elixir Troops.

They act like they were from different clans, but they're both on the same side in reality.

The apple does not fall far from the tree. And in this case the tree wants to hang onto the apple on the tip of its rough, and yet leafy bough.
Because the tree is rooted in experience and has been around for much longer than the apple.

But the apple is looking for more water than the tree can give it. So the apple dreams about a summer rain-shower that will give it a chance to have its own experience. A similar, but different one, to the darker apple that hangs from a higher bough, an apple that has been spoiled from having too much sun and water.

3

During Winter Break, Vicki scored me tickets to a game between the Wizards and the Bucks. From court side to the nosebleeds, the audience at the Verizon Center was chanting in cacophony and in tempo. Wall was injured. But Gortat crashed the boards, Nene' drained mid-range shots, and Beal drove up the lane like Ginsberg reading Howl.

Vicki and I both tried to talk to each other as much as we could; unfortunately, Voldemort—my ex-gf—sat in between us and was gossiping about the latest scoop with the Kardashians.

Nevertheless, Vicki and I still managed to drink and have an outstanding time. But I should have given her more attention and spent less time on my smartphone. I was spending bread on Papa John's Pizza and chain-smoking jacks during half-time, and even when there were time outs. When I would come back and sink into my plastic chair, I'd feel bloated and dizzy.
And I'd look over at Vicki and either she was talking to Voldemort, or typing away on her smartphone. I didn't mind it at the time, but now I wished I had been less of a concessions barbarian/used-car salesman chain-smoker, and more of an older brother. I should have asked her about her day and her friends and her interests.

But I didn't.

Because I was so concerned about indulging in my vices like eating slices of pepperoni pizza and drinking overpriced beer. There's nothing wrong with pizza or beer. But as we all know the old saying goes, everything is about moderation.

Vicki scrunched her nose and squinted her eyes when I would lean forward and try to maneuver around Voldemort, trying to talk to her about the game and the players in it. I imagine that when she smelled the cigarette smoke leaking away from my lips, that she believed I was inconsiderate and not self-aware.

After the game, we went to a bar across the street from the Verizon Center, and bought mixed drinks. Voldemort was D.D., so Vicki and I drank until our Asian faces got redder than women and men who go up on stage for public speaking for the first time.

I remember this older Asian guy was trying to hit on her.
I took in short breaths. Inhaled. Exhaled. I cracked my shoulder blades to push my chest forward.  

And then, I patted him on the back and grinned. The Asian guy got the message. You don’t **** with the bodyguard.

Vicki had and still has a great boyfriend named Matt.

I guided Vicki back to our table and laughed about the awkward situation with her.

The Asian guy craned his head toward me and did a short wave. And then he bought us coronas. Either, you’re still hitting on my sister, or it’s a kind gesture. She and I better not get... Or am I overthinking it?

But seriously, I wished I had been the one to spend money on her first—she had bought the first round of drinks. Because at the time, my job was challenging and low-paying. Or maybe I just wasn't being frugal enough and partying way too often.

I still remember the picture that a cool rando took of us, drinking the Coronas, and how I was happy to be a part of her life again. Our eyes were so Asian. I had my lanky arm around her small shoulders, like a proud Father. She had her cheek propped up by her fist, her smile, gigantic and beaming, as though she had just won Wimbledon for the first time.
I was wearing a white and blue Oxford shirt that she had gotten me for Christmas with a D.C. Rising hat. She had on a cotton scarf that resembles a tan striped tail of a powerful cat.

My face was chubby from the pizza. Her face was just right like the one house in Goldilocks. The limes in the Coronas were sitting just below the throat of the bottles, like old memories resurfacing the brain, to make the self recall, to make the self remember how to treat his family.
Or maybe this is just a brand new Corona ad geared towards the rising second-generation Asian American demographic? I'm playing around.
But end of commercial break.

Vicki pats me on the back and we clink bottles together. Voldemort is lurking in the background, as if she's about to photobomb the next picture. Sometimes I don't know if there's going to be a next picture.
Either we live in these moments, or make memories of them with our phones. And like sheep following an untrustworthy shepherd, we went back to our phones. She made emails and texts. I went on twitter in search of the latest news story.

2

Before Vicki and I opened each other's presents, I remember I blew up at Mom and Dad, and criticized everyone in the family room including Vicki. It was over something stupid and trivial, but it was also something that made me feel insecure and small. I was the black sheep and she was the sheep-dog.

I screamed. Vicki took in a deep breath and looked away from my glare, looked away to a spot on the hardwood floor that was filled with a fine blanket of dust and lint. I chattered. She rubbed her fingers around the lens of her black camera and shook her head in a manner that suggested annoyance and disappointment. I scoffed. She set the camera down on the coffee table and pressed the flat of her hand against her cheek, and glanced out the window into the backyard that was blanketed with slush and snow.
Drops of snow were plunging from the branches of the evergreen trees and plopping onto the patches of the ground, plunging, as though they were little toddlers cannonballing off of a high-dive.

She turned back and looked at me straight in the eye, so straight I thought she was searching for the answer to my own stupidity.

I cleared my throat and said, “I need a breath of fresh air.”

Vicki bit her bottom lip, sat down, and put her arms on her knees, a deep, contemplative look appearing on her face.

I stormed into the narrow hallway, slammed the front door back against its rusty hinges, and trundled down my front driveway, the cold from the ice and the snow dampening the soles of my tarnished boots. I lit a jack at the far end of the cul-de-sac and counted to ten. I watched the cigarette smoke rise, as the ashes fell on the snow, blemishing its purity and calmness. I inhaled. I exhaled. I could feel it in the pit of my stomach that Vicki knew I was having a jack to reduce my stress, stress that I had cause all by myself. I ground the jack against the snowy concrete, feeling the cold begin to numb my fingers that were shaking from the nicotine, shaking from the winter that had wrapped itself around me and my sister.

When I came back inside of the house, I told Mom and Dad I was being an idiot and that I didn’t mean to be such an *******. I turned to Vicki and put my hand on her shoulder, squeezed it, and smiled weakly, telling her that I didn’t mean to upset her.

She nodded and said, “It’s okay bro.”

But her soft and icy tone made me feel skeptical; she didn’t believe me. I didn’t know if I believed my apology. Minutes later, I gave my present to her.

Her face brightened up with a smile. It was a gradual and cautious smile, a little too gradual and a little too cautious. She hugged me tightly, as though my earlier outburst hadn’t happened.

She opened the bank envelope and inside was a fat stack of cleanly, pressed bills that totaled a hundred. Being an arrogant, noob car salesman at the time, I thought it was going to be a pretty clever present. I could have given her a Benjamin, but I thought this would make her happier, because it showed my creative side in a different form.

I remember seeing her spread the dollar bills out, as if the bills were a Japanese Paper fan. Vicki told me not to post the picture I had taken on insta or Facebook. I smiled faintly and nodded, stuffing my smartphone back into my sweatpants pocket. I understood what she wanted, and I listened to her, respecting her wishes. But I also wasn't sure if she was embarrassed and ashamed of me. And maybe I was overthinking it. But again, maybe I wasn’t overthinking it. Social Media, whether we like it or not, is a part of life. And in that moment, I actually wanted social media to display this a single story in our lives. I wanted to show people that Vicki was the most important person—besides my parents—in my life. Because I was so concerned with how people viewed me and because I lacked confidence, lacked security, and lacked respect for myself

Vicki's present to me was a sleek and blue tie, a box set of mini colognes, and refreezable-ice-cubes. I think she called it the car salesperson kit. But I knew and still know she was trying to turn me into an honest and non-sketchy car salesman. And you know what, I was genuine, but I also couldn't retain any information about the cars features—to reiterate my Grandma has Alzheimer's, my mom writes down constant notes to remember everything, and I forget my journal almost every time I leave the house.

After Christmas I wore the tie to work a few times, but the mini colognes and ice-cubes never got used by me. They stayed in the trunk of my Toyota Avalon. I should have used the colognes and the ice-cubes, but I was too careless, too self-involved, and too ungrateful.

1

Back in the 90’s, when we were around 3 and 6 years old, Vicki and I shared the same room on the far left end of the hallway in our house. She had a small bed, and I had a bigger bed, obviously, because at 6 foot 1, I was a genetic freak for a Vietnamese guy. I read Harry Potter and Redwall like crazy growing up, and I would try to invent my own stories to entertain her. Every night she would listen to me tell my yarn, and it made me feel that my voice was significant and strong, even though many times I felt my voice was weak and soft, lacking in inflection, or intonation.

I had a speech impediment and I had to take classes at Canterbury Woods to fix my perceived problem. I wanted to fit in, blend in, and have friends.
Back then Vicki was not only my sister, but my best friend. She used to have short, black bangs; chubby cheeks, and a dot-sized nose—don't worry she didn't get ****** into the grocery tabloids and get rhinoplasty. She wore her red pajamas with a tank top over it, so she looked like a mini-red ranger, and her slippers

there was no way I could sleep last night
traffic kept me awake all throughout the night
trucks trundled down my street in an endless convoy
they had no consideration for the noise they did employ

I finally got to sleep at ten past four
as the trucks ceased rolling past my door
this afternoon I shall catch a few winks of sleep
I shall curl up on the lounge and count sheep

See the Rabbi.  See him tormented by choice.  See his people.  See them wracked by hate.  See the others.  See their anger radiate outward in glowing spokes, exploding firebrand in a tinder city.

On a night like any other, the moon at sixth house, fulcrum of pinwheel zodiac, the Rabbi, awash in lidless starlight, rises somber and makes his choice.  And when the sun is furthermost, he and three of his others gather at the murmuring riverbank where the brown clay is most pliable and begin to dig, sifting rock and root from trundled earth.  Hours spent exhuming the clay, molding it, kneading its muscles, tracing its veins, baking its skin in the starlight.  More hours spent in whispering prayer, the words bent and somersaulting over themselves like tumbling books.

See Truth drawn on its forehead, life etched from clay and word.  As the sun rises, so it does, wavering at first, but steadier, lapping at the river, and their faces move slowly across the water.  See the Rabbi speak to it, his words winding its mechanism.  See it stride past the ghetto, wade through the market, and into the borough, siege unto its own.

See the others scream for mercy from the kiln of its stare, from their flaming tenements, their crumpling rooftops.

See it wade back through the market, past the ghetto, back to the riverbank to kneel in the underbrush.  See it tilt its head to the lilt of a stranded daisy caught in a vagrant gust.   See it caught, too, and see it see.  It sees the colors of Eden in the ferns.  It hears the river churning sediment, fossils, gravel, whirling over driftwood.  It touches moss on a rock; gently rotates its hand to let a grub complete an oblivious circumference.  See it sit in silence.

See the Rabbi meet with the others, then his others.  And on a day like any other, when the sun is at its apogee, they slip down the riverbank where it still sits, still.  It ignores their autonomous logic, their homunculus rationale.  They are perversions of variety cloaked in righteous intention.  So it remains.

See the Rabbi and his others gather at the murmuring riverbank, shadow conclave in shifting sunlight, then rise somber and decided.  They pin it to the earth as the Rabbi chants, invoking the void in which forbidden knowledge spirals.  It squirms under the power of the Word, mind-forged manacle as incantation.  See the Rabbi draw to a close.  His hand is arbiter, swooping down to smudge Truth from its forehead.  What is left but Death.

See its hand crumble in its passage as it reaches for the stranded daisy.  See the colors of Eden darken in its eyes, its own body the dust that denies it light.  See it collapse into itself, the clay that was once animate spilling onto the riverbank.  See the Rabbi and his others shimmer then fade into city grey.

The daisy stands still.

From his shoulder Hiawatha
Took the camera of rosewood,
Made of sliding, folding rosewood;
Neatly put it all together.
In its case it lay compactly,
Folded into nearly nothing;

But he opened out the hinges,
Pushed and pulled the joints and hinges,
Till it looked all squares and oblongs,
Like a complicated figure
In the Second Book of Euclid.

This he perched upon a tripod -
Crouched beneath its dusky cover -
Stretched his hand, enforcing silence -
Said, "Be motionless, I beg you!"
Mystic, awful was the process.

All the family in order
Sat before him for their pictures:
Each in turn, as he was taken,
Volunteered his own suggestions,
His ingenious suggestions.

First the Governor, the Father:
He suggested velvet curtains
Looped about a massy pillar;
And the corner of a table,
Of a rosewood dining-table.
He would hold a scroll of something,
Hold it firmly in his left-hand;
He would keep his right-hand buried
(Like Napoleon) in his waistcoat;
He would contemplate the distance
With a look of pensive meaning,
As of ducks that die ill tempests.

Grand, heroic was the notion:
Yet the picture failed entirely:
Failed, because he moved a little,
Moved, because he couldn't help it.

Next, his better half took courage;
SHE would have her picture taken.
She came dressed beyond description,
Dressed in jewels and in satin
Far too gorgeous for an empress.
Gracefully she sat down sideways,
With a simper scarcely human,
Holding in her hand a bouquet
Rather larger than a cabbage.
All the while that she was sitting,
Still the lady chattered, chattered,
Like a monkey in the forest.
"Am I sitting still?" she asked him.
"Is my face enough in profile?
Shall I hold the bouquet higher?
Will it came into the picture?"
And the picture failed completely.

Next the Son, the Stunning-Cantab:
He suggested curves of beauty,
Curves pervading all his figure,
Which the eye might follow onward,
Till they centered in the breast-pin,
Centered in the golden breast-pin.
He had learnt it all from Ruskin
(Author of 'The Stones of Venice,'
'Seven Lamps of Architecture,'
'Modern Painters,' and some others);
And perhaps he had not fully
Understood his author's meaning;
But, whatever was the reason,
All was fruitless, as the picture
Ended in an utter failure.

Next to him the eldest daughter:
She suggested very little,
Only asked if he would take her
With her look of 'passive beauty.'

Her idea of passive beauty
Was a squinting of the left-eye,
Was a drooping of the right-eye,
Was a smile that went up sideways
To the corner of the nostrils.

Hiawatha, when she asked him,
Took no notice of the question,
Looked as if he hadn't heard it;
But, when pointedly appealed to,
Smiled in his peculiar manner,
Coughed and said it 'didn't matter,'
Bit his lip and changed the subject.

Nor in this was he mistaken,
As the picture failed completely.

So in turn the other sisters.

Last, the youngest son was taken:
Very rough and thick his hair was,
Very round and red his face was,
Very dusty was his jacket,
Very fidgety his manner.
And his overbearing sisters
Called him names he disapproved of:
Called him Johnny, 'Daddy's Darling,'
Called him Jacky, 'Scrubby School-boy.'
And, so awful was the picture,
In comparison the others
Seemed, to one's bewildered fancy,
To have partially succeeded.

Finally my Hiawatha
Tumbled all the tribe together,
('Grouped' is not the right expression),
And, as happy chance would have it
Did at last obtain a picture
Where the faces all succeeded:
Each came out a perfect likeness.

Then they joined and all abused it,
Unrestrainedly abused it,
As the worst and ugliest picture
They could possibly have dreamed of.
'Giving one such strange expressions -
Sullen, stupid, pert expressions.
Really any one would take us
(Any one that did not know us)
For the most unpleasant people!'
(Hiawatha seemed to think so,
Seemed to think it not unlikely).
All together rang their voices,
Angry, loud, discordant voices,
As of dogs that howl in concert,
As of cats that wail in chorus.

But my Hiawatha's patience,
His politeness and his patience,
Unaccountably had vanished,
And he left that happy party.
Neither did he leave them slowly,
With the calm deliberation,
The intense deliberation
Of a photographic artist:
But he left them in a hurry,
Left them in a mighty hurry,
Stating that he would not stand it,
Stating in emphatic language
What he'd be before he'd stand it.
Hurriedly he packed his boxes:
Hurriedly the porter trundled
On a barrow all his boxes:
Hurriedly he took his ticket:
Hurriedly the train received him:
Thus departed Hiawatha.

A flock of steel grey and white doves flapped up from the neighbouring roof in sudden excitement and fluttered up into the sky as though at the sound of an inaudible gunshot.

They worked their wings with great joy and they circled high, one following the other, sparkling and feather-light.

They circled on and on, weaving ever-evolving patterns in the sky, circling now closer overhead so you could see each one of them tilting the beak sideways listening to the wing beats of the others, and with subtle paddling variations of the wings merging seamlessly with one another.

They circled on and on and away, taking their flight to levels beyond concepts. They turned into specks of pure delight in the grey evening sky and, with the light of the heady regions playing on their wings, became invisible flickers of nothingness, dissolving from memory. They wheeled back into view yet again, drawing strands of some invisible filament from a drifting cloud.
 
The sun was behind a big bank of rainclouds in the west. The whole line of the horizon west had caught fire and the clouds were billowing up like black smoke from a massive conflagration. They trundled east like a herd of wild elephants conquering a valley…

A sudden squall disturbed the trees, exciting cuckoos, sparrows and crows out of their perches. They flew from branch to unsure branch, but only the crows cawed. The doves were still circling high in the sky, wheeling in and out of the east-bound rainclouds.

They wheeled with the high-altitude winds, sometimes the wind blowing them off their course, but each time the faltering happened, they dipped or climbed together to navigate the choppy ether, effortlessly weaving newer formations in which the wind too joined to make the whole. 

The clouds galloping east were invading the whole sky: they rolled forward, the breakers curling in with the onward ****** of the massive clouds from behind. The wind among the trees had fallen silent. The whole earth seemed to freeze with the expectation of the first drops of the downpour as the clouds passed overhead…

It did not rain. The clouds seemed to be holding back, not allowing the rains they carried to condense and spill. They held back and rolled on and on, as though they had to reach somewhere very fast…They rolled on and on and the light began to grow dimmer by the second, until it seemed night and heavy shadows would soon embrace the sky and the earth...

And then there was light! It had neither shape nor dimension; it was like a flower slowly flowering, petal after petal unfolding—the clouds were lifting their blanket in the west and the sun was coming out and now shining in its full glory in the western horizon.
And the doves were now circling closer and were not of this world. 

They descended gliding radiant on still wings, the deep violet of the rainclouds behind them, their beaks soft and shining. They came swinging down, bobbing up in smooth arcs at touchdown and flapping their wings twice or thrice to gain sure-footed perch on the old rooftop.

They perched in a row at the very top of the roof where the tiles folded pyramid-shape and they were all facing east and crooning. They perched transmuted on the rooftop and they were all gazing happily at a glorious rainbow straddling the eastern sky, all seven colours sparkling.

They crooned as though excited it was their work; the entire sweep of the rainbow was their work!

A cuckoo began to sing and it was raining rainbows somewhere far in the east.

I
Ancestral Houses
SURELY among a rich man s flowering lawns,
Amid the rustle of his planted hills,
Life overflows without ambitious pains;
And rains down life until the basin spills,
And mounts more dizzy high the more it rains
As though to choose whatever shape it wills
And never stoop to a mechanical
Or servile shape, at others' beck and call.
Mere dreams, mere dreams! Yet Homer had not Sung
Had he not found it certain beyond dreams
That out of life's own self-delight had sprung
The abounding glittering jet; though now it seems
As if some marvellous empty sea-shell flung
Out of the obscure dark of the rich streams,
And not a fountain, were the symbol which
Shadows the inherited glory of the rich.
Some violent bitter man, some powerful man
Called architect and artist in, that they,
Bitter and violent men, might rear in stone
The sweetness that all longed for night and day,
The gentleness none there had ever known;
But when the master's buried mice can play.
And maybe the great-grandson of that house,
For all its bronze and marble, 's but a mouse.
O what if gardens where the peacock strays
With delicate feet upon old terraces,
Or else all Juno from an urn displays
Before the indifferent garden deities;
O what if levelled lawns and gravelled ways
Where slippered Contemplation finds his ease
And Childhood a delight for every sense,
But take our greatness with our violence?
What if the glory of escutcheoned doors,
And buildings that a haughtier age designed,
The pacing to and fro on polished floors
Amid great chambers and long galleries, lined
With famous portraits of our ancestors;
What if those things the greatest of mankind
Consider most to magnify, or to bless,
But take our greatness with our bitterness?

II
My House
An ancient bridge, and a more ancient tower,
A farmhouse that is sheltered by its wall,
An acre of stony ground,
Where the symbolic rose can break in flower,
Old ragged elms, old thorns innumerable,
The sound of the rain or sound
Of every wind that blows;
The stilted water-hen
Crossing Stream again
Scared by the splashing of a dozen cows;
A winding stair, a chamber arched with stone,
A grey stone fireplace with an open hearth,
A candle and written page.
Il Penseroso's Platonist toiled on
In some like chamber, shadowing forth
How the daemonic rage
Imagined everything.
Benighted travellers
From markets and from fairs
Have seen his midnight candle glimmering.
Two men have founded here.  A man-at-arms
Gathered a score of horse and spent his days
In this tumultuous spot,
Where through long wars and sudden night alarms
His dwinding score and he seemed castaways
Forgetting and forgot;
And I, that after me
My ****** heirs may find,
To exalt a lonely mind,
Befitting emblems of adversity.

III
My Table
Two heavy trestles, and a board
Where Sato's gift, a changeless sword,
By pen and paper lies,
That it may moralise
My days out of their aimlessness.
A bit of an embroidered dress
Covers its wooden sheath.
Chaucer had not drawn breath
When it was forged.  In Sato's house,
Curved like new moon, moon-luminous
It lay five hundred years.
Yet if no change appears
No moon; only an aching heart
Conceives a changeless work of art.
Our learned men have urged
That when and where 'twas forged
A marvellous accomplishment,
In painting or in pottery, went
From father unto son
And through the centuries ran
And seemed unchanging like the sword.
Soul's beauty being most adored,
Men and their business took
Me soul's unchanging look;
For the most rich inheritor,
Knowing that none could pass Heaven's door,
That loved inferior art,
Had such an aching heart
That he, although a country's talk
For silken clothes and stately walk.
Had waking wits; it seemed
Juno's peacock screamed.

IV
My Descendants
Having inherited a vigorous mind
From my old fathers, I must nourish dreams
And leave a woman and a man behind
As vigorous of mind, and yet it seems
Life scarce can cast a fragrance on the wind,
Scarce spread a glory to the morning beams,
But the torn petals strew the garden plot;
And there's but common greenness after that.
And what if my descendants lose the flower
Through natural declension of the soul,
Through too much business with the passing hour,
Through too much play, or marriage with a fool?
May this laborious stair and this stark tower
Become a roofless min that the owl
May build in the cracked masonry and cry
Her desolation to the desolate sky.
The primum Mobile that fashioned us
Has made the very owls in circles move;
And I, that count myself most prosperous,
Seeing that love and friendship are enough,
For an old neighbour's friendship chose the house
And decked and altered it for a girl's love,
And know whatever flourish and decline
These stones remain their monument and mine.
V
The Road at My Door
An affable Irregular,
A heavily-built Falstaffian man,
Comes cracking jokes of civil war
As though to die by gunshot were
The finest play under the sun.
A brown Lieutenant and his men,
Half dressed in national uniform,
Stand at my door, and I complain
Of the foul weather, hail and rain,
A pear-tree broken by the storm.
I count those feathered ***** of soot
The moor-hen guides upon the stream.
To silence the envy in my thought;
And turn towards my chamber, caught
In the cold snows of a dream.

VI
The Stare's Nest by My Window
The bees build in the crevices
Of loosening masonry, and there
The mother birds bring grubs and flies.
My wall is loosening; honey-bees,
Come build in the empty house of the state.
We are closed in, and the key is turned
On our uncertainty; somewhere
A man is killed, or a house burned,
Yet no cleat fact to be discerned:
Come build in he empty house of the stare.
A barricade of stone or of wood;
Some fourteen days of civil war;
Last night they trundled down the road
That dead young soldier in his blood:
Come build in the empty house of the stare.
We had fed the heart on fantasies,
The heart's grown brutal from the fare;
More Substance in our enmities
Than in our love; O honey-bees,
Come build in the empty house of the stare.

VII
I see Phantoms of Hatred and of the Heart's
Fullness and of the Coming Emptiness
I climb to the tower-top and lean upon broken stone,
A mist that is like blown snow is sweeping over all,
Valley, river, and elms, under the light of a moon
That seems unlike itself, that seems unchangeable,
A glittering sword out of the east.  A puff of wind
And those white glimmering fragments of the mist
sweep by.
Frenzies bewilder, reveries perturb the mind;
Monstrous familiar images swim to the mind's eye.
"Vengeance upon the murderers,' the cry goes up,
"Vengeance for Jacques Molay.' In cloud-pale rags, or
in lace,
The rage-driven, rage-tormented, and rage-hungry troop,
Trooper belabouring trooper, biting at arm or at face,
Plunges towards nothing, arms and fingers spreading
wide
For the embrace of nothing; and I, my wits astray
Because of all that senseless tumult, all but cried
For vengeance on the murderers of Jacques Molay.
Their legs long, delicate and slender, aquamarine their
eyes,
Magical unicorns bear ladies on their backs.
The ladies close their musing eyes.  No prophecies,
Remembered out of Babylonian almanacs,
Have closed the ladies' eyes, their minds are but a pool
Where even longing drowns under its own excess;
Nothing but stillness can remain when hearts are full
Of their own sweetness, bodies of their loveliness.
The cloud-pale unicorns, the eyes of aquamarine,
The quivering half-closed eyelids, the rags of cloud or
of lace,
Or eyes that rage has brightened, arms it has made lean,
Give place to an indifferent multitude, give place
To brazen hawks.  Nor self-delighting reverie,
Nor hate of what's to come, nor pity for what's gone,
Nothing but grip of claw, and the eye's complacency,
The innumerable clanging wings that have put out the
moon.
I turn away and shut the door, and on the stair
Wonder how many times I could have proved my
worth
In something that all others understand or share;
But O! ambitious heart, had such a proof drawn forth
A company of friends, a conscience set at ease,
It had but made us pine the more.  The abstract joy,
The half-read wisdom of daemonic images,
Suffice the ageing man as once the growing boy.

From his shoulder Hiawatha
Took the camera of rosewood,
Made of sliding, folding rosewood;
Neatly put it all together.
In its case it lay compactly,
Folded into nearly nothing;

But he opened out the hinges,
Pushed and pulled the joints and hinges,
Till it looked all squares and oblongs,
Like a complicated figure
In the Second Book of Euclid.

This he perched upon a tripod -
Crouched beneath its dusky cover -
Stretched his hand, enforcing silence -
Said, "Be motionless, I beg you!"
Mystic, awful was the process.

All the family in order
Sat before him for their pictures:
Each in turn, as he was taken,
Volunteered his own suggestions,
His ingenious suggestions.

First the Governor, the Father:
He suggested velvet curtains
Looped about a massy pillar;
And the corner of a table,
Of a rosewood dining-table.
He would hold a scroll of something,
Hold it firmly in his left-hand;
He would keep his right-hand buried
(Like Napoleon) in his waistcoat;
He would contemplate the distance
With a look of pensive meaning,
As of ducks that die ill tempests.

Grand, heroic was the notion:
Yet the picture failed entirely:
Failed, because he moved a little,
Moved, because he couldn't help it.

Next, his better half took courage;
SHE would have her picture taken.
She came dressed beyond description,
Dressed in jewels and in satin
Far too gorgeous for an empress.
Gracefully she sat down sideways,
With a simper scarcely human,
Holding in her hand a bouquet
Rather larger than a cabbage.
All the while that she was sitting,
Still the lady chattered, chattered,
Like a monkey in the forest.
"Am I sitting still?" she asked him.
"Is my face enough in profile?
Shall I hold the bouquet higher?
Will it came into the picture?"
And the picture failed completely.

Next the Son, the Stunning-Cantab:
He suggested curves of beauty,
Curves pervading all his figure,
Which the eye might follow onward,
Till they centered in the breast-pin,
Centered in the golden breast-pin.
He had learnt it all from Ruskin
(Author of 'The Stones of Venice,'
'Seven Lamps of Architecture,'
'Modern Painters,' and some others);
And perhaps he had not fully
Understood his author's meaning;
But, whatever was the reason,
All was fruitless, as the picture
Ended in an utter failure.

Next to him the eldest daughter:
She suggested very little,
Only asked if he would take her
With her look of 'passive beauty.'

Her idea of passive beauty
Was a squinting of the left-eye,
Was a drooping of the right-eye,
Was a smile that went up sideways
To the corner of the nostrils.

Hiawatha, when she asked him,
Took no notice of the question,
Looked as if he hadn't heard it;
But, when pointedly appealed to,
Smiled in his peculiar manner,
Coughed and said it 'didn't matter,'
Bit his lip and changed the subject.

Nor in this was he mistaken,
As the picture failed completely.

So in turn the other sisters.

Last, the youngest son was taken:
Very rough and thick his hair was,
Very round and red his face was,
Very dusty was his jacket,
Very fidgety his manner.
And his overbearing sisters
Called him names he disapproved of:
Called him Johnny, 'Daddy's Darling,'
Called him Jacky, 'Scrubby School-boy.'
And, so awful was the picture,
In comparison the others
Seemed, to one's bewildered fancy,
To have partially succeeded.

Finally my Hiawatha
Tumbled all the tribe together,
('Grouped' is not the right expression),
And, as happy chance would have it
Did at last obtain a picture
Where the faces all succeeded:
Each came out a perfect likeness.

Then they joined and all abused it,
Unrestrainedly abused it,
As the worst and ugliest picture
They could possibly have dreamed of.
'Giving one such strange expressions -
Sullen, stupid, pert expressions.
Really any one would take us
(Any one that did not know us)
For the most unpleasant people!'
(Hiawatha seemed to think so,
Seemed to think it not unlikely).
All together rang their voices,
Angry, loud, discordant voices,
As of dogs that howl in concert,
As of cats that wail in chorus.

But my Hiawatha's patience,
His politeness and his patience,
Unaccountably had vanished,
And he left that happy party.
Neither did he leave them slowly,
With the calm deliberation,
The intense deliberation
Of a photographic artist:
But he left them in a hurry,
Left them in a mighty hurry,
Stating that he would not stand it,
Stating in emphatic language
What he'd be before he'd stand it.
Hurriedly he packed his boxes:
Hurriedly the porter trundled
On a barrow all his boxes:
Hurriedly he took his ticket:
Hurriedly the train received him:
Thus departed Hiawatha.

But my Hiawatha's patience,
His politeness and his patience,
Unaccountably had vanished,
And he left that happy party.
Neither did he leave them slowly,
With the calm deliberation,
The intense deliberation
Of a photographic artist:
But he left them in a hurry,
Left them in a mighty hurry,
Stating that he would not stand it,
Stating in emphatic language
What he'd be before he'd stand it.
Hurriedly he packed his boxes:
Hurriedly the porter trundled
On a barrow all his boxes:
Hurriedly he took his ticket:
Hurriedly the train received him:

little yellow flowers in her ears
and they trundled along the gravel path,
when their bellies grumbled
from a day spent lying atop
a small hill near the golf course
radiance from the setting
rays of sunlight shown
a haunting sordid undertone
that a young boy in love
just never would have known.

Geraniums wilt into the bedrock
behind a treehouse the canyon knew.
The lanterns have extinguished.
Crow in the ****** overhead sifts
downward. Below the trundled dune,
poppy after poppy -- hidden in mantling dust --
deafens in its own rustle. Where
is the moon today? Where
does the sky end and wrap
inside its craters?
A caw splits the wind in a palm,
drives it through a lantern's smoke.

We used to watch the lanterns wane
before calling it a night.

We used to put bees in jars
before pulling our blankets up.

We used to sing old gospel songs
before getting out of bed.

I feel older than an ancient discipline,
I swear I was like this before I was born,
I'm trying to discredit my happiness,
but I'm as aimless as ever...

You know those questions that you get
Like why is the sky blue?
The ones you can not answer
But, try to pass off that you do

Well I got one the other day
My son came up and said
What with Jesus and with Christmas
I told him...go to bed!

It's only three o'clock he said
Well...then...go and ask your mom
Dad, I already asked her and
you're where she said to come

I thought, my god, she owes me now
So, I told him, grab a seat
I figured I'd go down in flames
But, I'd fight in my defeat

He said, all the Christmas specials
talk of Christmas and that stuff
But, Rudolph, Garfield, Frosty
well, I think I've watched enough

Some talk of baby Jesus
Others talk of shops and toys
Why is Jesus linked to Christmas
And I answered him.....with poise

Jesus Christ, the son of God
came to earth in all his Glory
Now, go and read you bible
The games on...read the story

He trundled off, I thought I'd won
In an hour he returned
With that face, you know the one I mean
Dad...there's something that I learned

If Jesus Christ and Christmas
are tied together, as we see
Did they celebrate on Christmas Day
Before Christ turned thirty three?

I mean, was it Christmas for a reason
Or did it start once he was dead?
I thought, that's a good question
And it came from my boy's head

His mother brought hot chocolate
She still owed me, and she knew
that whatever payback I devised
would be multiplied by two

I said, son, the idea of true Christmas gifts
Dates to 313 A.D
Back to someone called Saint Nicholas
Santa Claus to you and m

The wise men came with presents
To celebrate the ****** birth
They celebrated the fact that God
had sent his son to earth

So, what does that have to do with snoopy
Rudolph, Jack Frost, my son said
I told him, read your bible
The story's there, no go to bed

He smiled and he hugged me
He said I think I know one part
It's that Christmas isn't presents
It's something you feel in your heart

It's a spirit of goodwill to man
And to all who you may meet
I said, yep...that's it
You've summed it up, maybe I should have a seat

So, Christmas isn't retail,
It can't be bought, it has no box
It's a feeling deep within you
though...this year I need some socks

It may have his name attached
But, true Christmas is defined
By our love for one another
and the love for all mankind

Sometimes I wonder
Whether I’m too gentle
Feeling your hot breath writhe over me
In a cloudless dream.
My bruises sting, my property lies smashed
Upon the poppies, their petals trembling,
Trundled on,
No more.

Your voice, clear as day
Carries across the synthetic pasture
The winds, though soft, distort it.
You sound far away, even though you’re further than before.
Wiping your brow, the sweat trickles down
The wonderful smile covers a frown
That both you and I know
Shadows of fear, shadows of death
That you try to overlook now.

Sometimes, in the harvest
Of luscious fruits and succulent crops
That we manifested ourselves
I feel you close, your hand in mine
The warmth of your smile glows, radiant

And then - the winds return
And your voice is lost, once again;
The poppy’s petal blows
And my face, it becomes cold.

I could only watch,
As you trundled into,
Your ever draining,
Sleepless slumber.

I could only watch,
As your swollen red eyes,
Clouded over with,
A tearful mist

I could only watch,
As your blank complexion,
Grew darker than,
The blackest night.

I can only watch,
Her take hold of your heart,
And crush it,
Like a bulldozer.

Helen thought she’d have some fun
On this very special day
Slipped into her hiking boots
Trundled out to play
Along the way she met JP
Preaching to some dog (the four legged variety … lol)
Told him her intentions
Notes were duly logged
The plan
It seems
Was to escape
From the confines of the net
JP was now surveillance
He would eradicate the threat
Trapped inside
For years and years
So desperate to be free
Played a canny game
When they used the
“I’m mad … Insanity Plea!”
As they waited for the verdict
Raitch fed them Choccy Cake
Richard sat there laughing
“Guys this IS a big mistake”
“What do you think is out there
Do you think these folk are real
They do not care about you
There only in it for the thrill”
Raitch had heard enough
Punched him in the face
Told in no uncertain words
“The net is NOT your place”
Richard scuttled off
With his tail between his legs
Bumped into John Patrick
They then took up selling pegs!
Helen’s palms were sweaty
She could almost taste the breeze
She said her five hail marys
No longer would she tease
JP …  he sat all serene
Madder than Mad old Jack McMad
He had two pencils up his nose
Underpants positioned on his head
It was a funny sight
As I’m sure you folk can see
This is more than often the case
With your internet family
Hours passed like days
Then there came the loudest knock
Eliot breezed into the room
Silenced all into a shock
He said
“Hey guys
You can’t go out
I need to keep you here
For I am very lonely
See … my melancholy tears
I was abandoned at birth by my mother
Who ran off with a horse
Father couldn’t look at me
So … filed for divorce
As I wondered in the wilderness
Lost and all alone
I started writing poetry
I started building thrones
The biggest one
Was just for me
To sit and rule this land
I acquired all my subjects
The outside world was banned
So … please guys
Play the game
Accept the world in which we live
Please stay with me
Please play with me
And all that I can give”
Well … it pulled up all the motley crew
Who tried to escape from this regime
It made them all sit down and think
“He’s right
We are a team”
Helen wiped away a tear
Accepting of her fate
Realised now
The time was wrong
To circumnavigate
Maybe in the future
When she’s old and grey
She will have the courage
To rebel and not obey
But at the moment
Eliot needs her
Trapped inside the net
And that
My friend
Is where she’ll stay
It’s called a dead cert bet !!!

HAPPY  BIRTHDAY  TO  MY  LITTLE  FRIEND  FROM  DOWN  UNDER -

Stagecoach trundled, rutting, wheels
Soily grasp, grabbing at the earthy recipe
Cart....horsing around the outdoorsiness
Ferris wheel spun, gathering passengers
To overlook the show ground, smattered
Four legged races, saddled with encumbents
Bobbing in display formation.  Far above
I caught sight of circular ribbons emblazoned
Lapels holding onto prize winners, suffering
The pin ***** jabbing at willing winners
Left foot first, hopscotch to the flap of tarpaulin
Billowing their precious overgrown greatness
Of perfect vegetalia, proud, excessive....of the
Dinner plate variety.  Don't touch their polished
Surface, they deliberately await photographic
Validation; future growers, challenging champion
Chompers, terrorising super-veggie heros
I wonder what becomes of former ground growers
Do they take a back stage bow? Uprooted with
Those of a lesser kind, jostling for saucepan space

Rance looked at the speedometer. Set  at 65 and on cruise control ,which he was fully aware of - at least he should have been. He kept looking anyway.
   Every time he glanced at the speedometer , he had to lift the fingers of his right hand to see, as it was draped across the 12 to 1 o'clock Zone of the steering wheel in the most casual way ,causing his fingers, in drooping repose- to resemble an enormous back scratcher.
   His left arm rested on the window sill at the elbow as he was experiencing a slightly manic episode  of nerves,  therefore he was doing his best to stretch his left ear lobe  all the way down to his shoulder . Okay, maybe not that radical, but he was firmly  in danger of removing the inner layer of skin from his earlobe with his rubbing thumb.
    Quick glances to his right with darting eyes confirmed his fear .  He  also saw the absence of Largo's large grey head., so a quick backward glance into the rear of the camper- unintentional but habitual -allowed him to see that Largo was asleep beside stormy in the approximate territory each  had staked out
  It was as he was pulling his head back forward , that Piney glanced up from The Notebook to smile.  There in the co-pilot seat , she sat gracing him with a  warm smile , and as far as Rance could tell , those lips that  smiled at him- so friendly -/were totally natural and uncolored, and if she were wearing any makeup at all ,it wasn't enough to cover the four or five little freckles just above the tip of her nose.  The natural look  gave her face that timeless look.   She could have been anywhere from 18 to 25 or 30 he didn't really know and....he really didn't care .
    It was noticing  those walnut colored flecks, just outside the iris of her light ,hazel colored eyes that  started causing him such personal turmoil.  As it seemed - to his astonishment- that he seemed unable to detatch  his own vision from  those eyes.,  Until she looked back - that is.
    First happening to him when she had  accepted his offered ride and as she wss climbing into the copilot's seat. If it hadn't been for largo, who had instantly attached his chin onto her  thigh ,she might have noticed how he was staring .  Fortunately  he was able to break it off but he was still self conscious of that effect she was having on him.
   After he'd done the initial stumble in the parking lot , he had actually carried on with - amazingly enough  -surprising clarity. It was in those 10 minutes that he had learned of her hometown and  all of the time she had been on the road up to now. Which had been all of 30 miles.
    It was that nagging voice that  kept repeating - in the back of Rances mind- the thing that she had said. " I wasn't really planning to be stopping at that restaurant , but I had to get out of that car.   Although the rest of what she said mattered , it was that part that kept resonating .
  " Oh that guy ! "/She grumbled "was just getting creepier and creepier.  The farther we went down the road , the bolder he got ,as he began to get handsy.
First , puting his hand on my knee and then a little bit later a little higher up my thigh." She shuttered  as she spoke  , in a pantomime inspired gesture before continuing. "It was after he pulled out that bottle and then started taking swigs that things got really bad.   When we started coming around that long curve, just before we got to the restaurant he was unable to bother me and ,adjust  for the curve,  so he kept driving over into the other lanes. Then he over-corrected ,almost getting  us killed  by a semi that came barreling through in the slow lane.   Laying on the horn as it swerved away to miss us, and then I knew I had to get the hell out of that car. Anyway possible.
  " So right then I saw the restaurant sign and I tried to get the best lilt into my voice and the most calm that I could muster as I said  "Hey! there's the place  I'm supposed to play tonight. Pull over ..right here! RIGHT HERE!!!"
    But in his slow, befuddled ,drunk and almost run over  brain he stopped right in the middle of the slow lane . " Where we at?"
  "We're at the place I'm playing guitar music tonight " She said -that she told him this - to keep his attention so she could wrestle the guitar case out of the back seat ,over the seat back and out the doorway of the car.  Then just as she had it ready to pull through the open doorway she reluctantly said " Thanks for the ride." Then with a little thought and ****** attitude " yeah ...I'll be playing here tonight at 8 o'clock , so why don't you come by and listen" she lied
  A bit perturbed and confused but he was still able to find his inner creep as he spoke.... muttered .....gutterally.... whatever  "Yeah I'll do that and then me and you can have a drink and I got a little Coke " then he did that drunken kind of wink where they end up opening their mouth in  such a crooked fashion that it looks like a stroke victims Visage
  " Where is a fly when you need one ". Piney  said that then she pulled  the guitar case on through  the doorway , wrestling it the 10 feet over to the grassy apron of the road . Returning to close the door as  he asked "what did ja say?
   "Oh . I said I've always wanted to give Coke a try " and with that she closed the door -/just short of a slam.
 " You got it ba "...as he pointed his right forefinger like a pistol, but if it went off Piney never heard as she trundled her case across the grass area  in the most direct route towards the building and the safety of people.
  At this moment she was still in the process of confirming the abject fear that had Rances heart doing flip-flops, as he was aware that she was still sitting there ,reading his poetry.
    As soon as she had settled into the copilots seat, allowed Storm and Largo to introduce themselves and as they happily filed her smells away. Storm returned to his spot after just a half of a minute while Largo, on the other hand gently lay his head on her leg and for all appearances seemed to go into a trance.
     She confidently rubbed his head as she spoke in a slight cooing sound then looking up at Rance as he was guiding them out the parking lot and did the cruelist thing possible . As polite as a butterfly landing on the petal of a flower she asked if she might read some.
  To which Rance had said "Sure , go ahead " and then began trying to do damage to his left earlobe. After 30 miles he was beginning to catch up with his runaway thoughts.
   Any remnants of sua da vi that he had mustered up in the parking lot , now long gone -evaporated. Unfortunately now it was being  replaced by a carrousel of thoughts in poor Rances mind that spun to the cacophony of music from the most  sinister sounding Calliope.
   Though the music blasted a torrential sound wave throughout his mind it was not enough to silence the voice that kept repeating " oh man oh man oh man" - with annoying and echoing  persistance - from an obscure region--, somewhere beyond the Swirling carrousel.
   Then suddenly the crazy carnival and the voice came to a sudden mind shuttering stop.as piney's soft velvety voice interceded. " you wrote these...i mean ...all of them ?"
  A quick glance towards Piney was enough to.see this fresh faced girl with those magnetic eyes- now filled to overflowing  with tears -  was looking at him in a wonderfilled  way as she held the open notebook in right hand and with the other she stroked largos head.,Which had rematerialized.on her lap , just as soon as her voice had broken the relative silence.
    " He really likes you" remarked the reemerging Rance ,as he indicated Largo with his head. 'And yes I did ...write .....yeah all of them." Not really smooth he said to himself ..but okay.
    " This one " Piney pointed to a page that Rance could not take time to recognize " Somber Sunset. Its killing me....my grandmother just went ...and went through Alzheimer's before she passed. "
    Rance was still staring out the windshield, in silent astonishment - at her perception- when Piney gathered herself to the point of unbroken speech. " that is what its about ...right ?"
      Rance turned a full face ..straight on and confident gaze into her tear glissening eyes ( sua DA vi having returned full force) "Yes " he softly acknowledged her perceptivity" as I read it ...yes"
      Thats  when that annoying voice decided to reassert itself . "  There is always something about a damsel in distress that always brings  out even the most quivering coward ...." SHUT THE HELL UP!! Lance barked out at the voice as he stared out the windshield while making a slight adjustment to avoid.a small box in the road.
   At that very moment the sleeping Storm opened his eyes to stare forward with both ears and eyes , as if he had heard his masters voice call out in angry distress. With no danger detected as he scanned the area, he was about to resume his squirrel watching -which had just gotten good before the interruption -/Storm let his eyes scan around and land on Largo ." Humans "he spoke to himself " good thing they're smart enough to befriend dogs. Now that Largo...that's a dog that poor Rance could learn a thing or two from." Then he closed down his eyes and calling out "squorrely come on squirrel where'd ya go"  as his slight snore began and his right rear leg began twitching.

The hearse set off through the mansion gates
Pulled by a pair of greys,
Stepping high, so they’d not be late
For the church’s hymns of praise,
Lord Gordon Knox on the catafalque
Awaiting his final ride,
Just down the hill where the graveyard spilled
And spread on the eastern side.

But staring out from behind the grass,
From between each tree and bush,
There gleamed the beam of a hundred eyes
In a sacred kind of hush,
The word was out it was Gordon Knox
Set to take his pride of place,
And from the woods had come every fox
To afford his lordship grace.

For Gordon had been the Master of
The Aldermaston Hunt,
Had chased them across the countryside
More than a man can count,
But somehow managed to lose the fox
As it turned, became covert,
And often seemed to confuse the hounds
As the fox returned to earth.

Three generations had come and gone
Since the young Amelia Knox,
Had left to walk in the countryside
And found a secluded copse,
The peasants say that she fell asleep
By a well protected earth,
And Reynard Fox had uncovered her
Before she had given birth.

So Raymond was the first of the breed
In a mix of fox and man,
A Knox by name but a fox by shame
When his mother’s guilt began,
And when he had a son of his own
He could see that the eyes were sly,
And every fox in the countryside
Could tell him the reason why.

Gordon carried the bloodline on
Though he rode to fox and hounds,
He ruled the hunt with an iron fist
They were hunting in his grounds,
And every time that the quarry went
He would make a lame excuse,
The scent was wrong, or the wind was strong
Or the hounds were far too loose.

And every time that the Master died
And the hearse had trundled by,
The foxes all came out to see,
In a way, they said goodbye,
But Gordon had left no son behind
Just a daughter, Elspeth Knox,
And I heard they’d given up on her
Till they found her in some copse.

David Lewis Paget

From the sodden, trundled forest floor the trees reached higher
than he ever imagined possible-- pine needles from the conif,
blending in  perfectly with those, broadleaf.. a strange, almost
absurd-feeling; symmetry- in a world, nothing more than
cluttered and confused--
           in the eyes of a small-one, now subject..

And now as a grown man,
I return to the disenchanted forest..
       in order to bring enchantment.
At the edge of the rustic, one-room
cabin, I pause..
choosing to peer in, rather than enter--
my world-hardened hands,  now pressed against
cracked window glass--

opaque, but still..

           I can see..

Inside the small room is as if a cosmo to itself-- there is a large
ring of dark water, surrounding what
seems to me to be a small island,
     yet still, I can feel her..  
           sense her glow..
And magnificent   within
her solitude and silence..
she is strong,
and firm-- her war-torn heart, gathered and secure..
all boundaries, seemingly intact--
        but there is a teeming..
        a never-ending movement
        of some form of life-

..in what I had once thought a ring of dark water,
but can now see as if some kind of a fear-hewn moat..
and the movement within, none other than that
           of those trying to reach her.

She is the prize,
pulled away from the threat of harm
       by her intricately created world.

And there is this black movement above her..    what is that?  
Moving in rhythmic synchronization..
             like a flock of starlings maybe..
The wings that give them flight, are bat-like and sharp..
and only varying sections at a time  of the flock's movement
alight on to her..
as other ones take flight and rejoin the ever-moving,
          ever-shifting flock's shape..

..and as each changing of the guard takes place,
the inhabitants of the moat change color--  

the light, now reflecting through the small window
and bringing a matching glow to my arm..

And though I remain unaffected by the color of light,
I see the whole nature of the moat, conform to each color's change..

And it is then that I realize
that the birds  are the pieces of her fragmented heart,
and the changing colors,  her perceived reality..
based on whatever portions of her heart are inside of her
at any given time.

The moat provides the distance,
yet one without its inhabitants even knowing
they are in it--

changing color in order to fit in to
              her ever-changing reality.


I will never enter into the moat..
and the color change is hers, not mine.
I am more distant to her now
than even those, of the moat..
and my refusal to change color
will always be a point of contention--
but for her, I am the only one who sees,
I am the only one who knows

about the island, the starlings.. the moat.

She loves me so much,
she hates me.

My prayer for her is that one day,
that whole flock of starlings will alight on to her..
      and never, ever leave.

Maybe on that day also, her moat filled with
Mona Lisas and Madhatters,  will finally, dry up..

and that her color perception  
will become  the colors that truly are,
            rather than those, of her ever-changing, shift


A disenchanted forest--  enchanted, once again.

We reached the island in the late afternoon, it was no bigger than a cricket pitch to my eyes.  The runway was a sick joke. There was none!  There was a strip of land that was clear of jungle, (the runway) started in the sea, and finished in the sea, and was full of big potholes. It had been a Japanese airfield in the second world war, now it was covered in cows, goats and children.
We flew very low over the island twice to warn them of our intention to land.
We were very low on fuel and needed to land as soon as possible. "Here we go," the pilot grinned *hit or bust! we  almost landed in the sea, and bounced down the runway, we were less than fifty yards from the surf when we turned and trundled over to the refuelling station. I watched in trepidation as the second aircraft attempted to land, bounced twenty feet in the air and took off again, skimming the sea. It managed to land at the second attempt, bounced several times, and turned with it's tail wheel almost in the sea.  I turned to say something to Gordon and saw the pilot and aircrew looking up at the starboard engine and wing of our aircraft, which appeared to have gone green. "Looks like the reduction gears have packed in."  That was the opinion of the air frame fitters. "Can you fix it?" That was the pilot.
"Yes, but not here." the fitter said shaking his head, "It's stuck in coarse pitch so you'll need to take it easy." The pilot laughed. "If it's stuck in coarse pitch we will have to be flat out to get her off the ground!"
A little old man dressed in a loincloth, ragged shirt, and sandals manned the fuel pump and began to pump fuel into the fuel tanks located in each wing.
When that was done, about three hours later, the pilot  had him douse the wing and engine cover that was covered in the green grease, and we did our best to clean it up. As soon as the other aircraft was refuelled, we took off again. "Next stop Darwin, fingers crossed." He laughed. I could only admire his happy go lucky attitude and determination, I think he would have got us safely to our destination, even if we lost a wing!

Cobblestone,
Your eyes candlelit, blazing
I've lit a fire for you

Oh the fumbling of hands we share, here
The fumbling of elements many have felt
And I wonder if I am any different--

A trundled body of mistaken chemicals
Brash, raw--

Nevertheless
I wish to learn the angles
To love

--
c

A lone car had to stop at the rail crossing
as the heavy gates close.
Bells rang and lights flashed on and off
she sat waiting to get home.
In the distance down the single track
it passed a rail side shack.

Anxiously thinking why such a long wait
then Annie felt the vibration.
her daughter Ella cried in her car seat
as a dark shape approached!
Speeding by them like an old express train
screaming was hard to refrain.

Ella was silent they were both mesmerised
the barriers stayed down.
Then the scheduled train trundled through
what had they just seen?
barriers now rose how glad to move on
in her mind the image strong!

Annie was certain what they had seen was a ghost train
determined to find out more and come again.

The Foureyed Poet.

Came here by car,
Rode in the fast lane, past,
Concrete avenues all lined,
With suburban memorabilia.
Seen the sunrise cross the asphalt
Trundled down country lanes,
cattle tamed.

Across war torn highways,
Miles stretch out, as
The highway passes by
Feel I’ve been chasing
Down shadows,
Across endless plains
Have seen the broken hearts,
Through cracked windscreens.
Watched teardrops spatter,
Cross a dusty windshield
As a rainbow glistens
In the corner of my eye.
There’s a reason these express ways,
Reach towards the horizon.

Have travelled here,
Came by car,
But
Don’t know where
Here is.

    ©  Nick Strong 2014

1945
The endless war was over.
We were all returning to the new normal.
That is if anything could ever be normal again..
The train trundled along the british countryside
The towns the counties passing slowly by.
Rows of houses country farms
The edge of Scotland  ahhh Scotland.
We Passed the cities into the Highland where pristine lochs sparkled in the rare sunshine.
She got onto the train at Inverness
A change of vehicle descending south.
To a London I did not want ever to see again.
I was reading my book on the armies of Rome in England.she took a sandwich out of her oversized purse. would you like one she asked softly.?
I was famished normal protocol apolite no.
But my hunger screamed even louder than my reticence
yes that would be lovely.
Thank you so much.
The food  trolley arrived I ordered two cups of watery after war coffee
And two custard tarts.
I showed her Hadrians wall
As we passed it.
The city of York which had been the centre of the British civil war
Cavaliers and roundness and all that.
I guess by now she knew I was a terminal bore.
But she did not seem to mind
She smiled and laughed dutifully at my jokes.
What she did not know
By the time we reached Crewe
I was in love with her.
It was obvious  a woman as beautiful as her.
Would have no interest in such a stogie old Bachelor  schoolmaster like me.
I had no skills in alluring the fairer ***.
Only Shakespeare Plato descartes.
But as the train pulled into Euston
dust from the coal fired engines entered
  a piece of soot into my eye
From the open window of the carriage

She came to my aid taking the dust from my eye with the rolled corner of her handkerchief. The pain immediately subsided. And she kissed my lips softly yet firmly.
I have never kissed a man unintroduced she whispered.
But I do not want to wait for you
you are very shy.

2000
The snow fell on Greyfairs school early that winter
We had retired into the headmaster's quarters which would be ours for the rest of of our days.
I remember the train my love.
She whispered her beautiful grey eyes as young as the springtime.
You gave me half your ham sandwich my love I answered weakly.
Then at Easton you kissed me first.
Like this she said her familiar sweet.lips reached mine.
That's because I found the man that I wanted for my life partner she purred.
The light faded in my eyes
She melted into oblivion.

I was on a train alone again like so long ago.
The British rail trolley came
I bought two weak watery coffees and two custard tarts.
Keep riding sir
the lady's voice said kindly.
she will be with soon at Inverness.

THE Lady on the  Train.... A Romantic Love Story

1945 in postwar England.

The endless war was over.
We were all returning to the new normal.
That is if anything could ever be normal again.
The train trundled along the British countryside
The towns, the counties, passing slowly by.
Rows of houses, country farms, peace and tranquility once more.
The edge of Scotland ahhh! Scotland.

We Passed the cities into the Highlands
where pristine lochs sparkled in the rare northern sunshine.
She got onto the train at Inverness.
A change of vehicle descending south.
To a London, I did not want ever to see again.

I was reading my book on the armies of Rome in England.
She took a sandwich out of her oversized purse.
would you like one she asked softly.?
I was famished normal protocol a polite no.
But my hunger screamed even louder than my reticence
yes, that would be lovely.
Thank you so much.

The food trolley arrived I ordered two cups of watery after war coffee
and two custard tarts.
I showed her Hadrians wall
as we passed it.
The city of York which had been the center of the British civil war
Cavaliers and roundheads and all that.
I guess by now she knew I was a terminal bore.
But she did not seem to mind.

She smiled and laughed dutifully at my jokes.
What she did not know
By the time we reached Crewe
I was in love with her.
Obviously a woman as beautiful as her.
Would have no interest in such a stogie
old Bachelor schoolmaster like me.

I had no skills in alluring the fairer ***.
Only Shakespeare Plato Descartes.
But as the train pulled into Euston
dust from the coal-fired engines entered
a piece of soot into my eye
From the open window of the carriage

She came to my aid taking the dust from my eye with the rolled corner of her handkerchief. The pain immediately subsided. And then she kissed my lips softly yet firmly.
I have never kissed a man unintroduced she whispered.
But I do not want to wait for you
you are very shy.

2006
The snow fell on Greyfriars school early that winter
We had retired to the headmaster's quarters which would be ours for the rest of our days.
I remember the train, my love.
She whispered
her beautiful gray eyes still as young as the springtime.
You gave me half your ham sandwich
my love I answered weakly.
Then at Euston, you kissed me first.
Like this, she said her familiar sweet.lips reached mine.
That's because I found the man that I wanted for my life partner she purred.
My last vision in this world was her beautiful face.
The light faded in my eyes for the last time.
She melted into oblivion.

I was on a train alone again like so long ago.
The British rail trolley came
I bought two weak watery coffees and two custard tarts.
Keep riding, sir be patient
the tea lady's voice said kindly.
She will be with us soon, at Inverness

On the streets of gold,  forgiven
by the skin of his teeth, maybe.

On here; on Earth--
stuffed in a corner
Bloodied.. trundled, fondled
wearing his sin--

(his unholy,
carcinogenic/pathogen).

And I,  I want to go to heaven..?
I would **** you, everyday
You self-serving *******,   now forgiven

I will take hell, you ****

She is still down here
and so, here.. on earth (and below) 
will become my heaven.

And I will become like you
and I will wear your pelts of perpetration
     and I will be hated for it
but there will be healing in the land
    because I am not  of you
nor am I of those who continue to do  

what it is that you have done

May the heaven you have entered into,
fully forgiven..   fully 'healed'
    become your hell

  through all things revealed

You felt nothing then
and you feel nothing now
But soon, you ****.. you will feel
I promise you  that  you will feel..

There is a darkness, even in heaven

"I hate roadtrips."
"Yer gunna love 'em when I'm gone."

All they ever had in front of them was road. They faced an endless stretch of asphalt and rolling hills that trundled lazily beside them like tired giants with aching feet, and they stared the setting sun right in the eyes. It was like looking into the barrel of a gun, and when the trigger got pulled, they both were bathed in murky night with nothing to guide them but headlights and starlights. Keegan Mac Namara was a road that Molly was willing to walk.

Their journey across the verdant farmlands and everlasting clusters of villages falling into decay was only five hours in, and they had three more to go. Molly knew that when they stepped out of the car again, they wouldn't talk, and they'd just smile and laugh and cry without a spoken word. Two of the saddest free spirits without moral compasses to keep them on track. Before Molly left, it was always like that, and that was the best part about it.
She had met him in a pub after Ronan's funeral, and for the six months after, they were inseparable.

Keegan Samuel Mac Namara was the summer in the winter of Molly's life, the breeze to clear the smoke left behind Finnian Aherne, the anchor which kept her grounds from shaking with the tremors and aftershocks of a toddler-sized earthquake and even after he died she could still feel the thrum of her heart in her chest with the thought of him, of them, of what they were, and what they could have been, but never became.

He taught her how to love roadtrips, he taught her to be free, and he taught her to love.
He taught her how to shoot a gun, he taught her to sing, and he taught her to love.
He taught her how to smile, he taught her to laugh, and he taught her to love.
He taught her how to love.

They never got married and they never had children and they were never official; he never gave her something to remember him by: only memories of long nights spent together in the back of their van making up stupid songs or the feeling of laughing so hard that she cried and her cheeks rushed red for ten minutes afterward or driving so long that they forgot where they were going and where they had come from.

When he died, there was no reason to make up stupid songs, no reason to laugh until her stomach hurt and she had a headache, and the ten thousand roads that they traveled together were just lines that kept them from growing too attached; even if those ten thousand winding roads failed at that.

He made her lose her way, and she never wanted to be found. He let her find out who she was by keeping the tempest at bay..

When he died, the storm was all around her.

Their love was a roadtrip away from the sorrows that everybody faced. She was just lucky enough to be asked along the ride..

"I still hate roadtrips, Kee." She can hear him answer, in his voice so low..

"Then I ain't gone."

once upon a time

there was a bear
who was hungry and lost
and alone.

the bear trundled about a field
of wildflowers
smelling the sweet breeze
and hearing the buzz
of the bees.

one bee landed
on the tip of his nose
she was tired
she hated her job
she felt like she didn't fit
into her hive.

the bee saw the bear
and the bear saw the bee
and they saw each other's sadness.

the bee continued to come to the field
to gather nectar
hoping to see the bear again.

eventually they became friends
and they learned things about each other
the bear looked rough
but he was gentle and kind
and the bee looked small
but her sting was fierce.

the bee loved the bear
but she never thought he could love her back.

she was a bee from a farm
and he came from the woods.

but hope bloomed in the bees heart
when he said
he loved her back
and she vowed to be his
through it all.

she stayed by his side
through the winter when he slept
and in return he stayed by hers
when summers were too hot
and nectar too heavy.

lets get away from this field
said the bear
we can find somewhere vast
and floral and buoyant with life.

the bee went.

they discovered long streams
and slept in dark valleys
and they traveled the world

because the bear loved the bee
and she loved the bear
and they both loved
honey

He always loved
his toy train set.
we made stations
and little trees
into a  forest to
sit by his track
as the toy train
trundled along.
I made him a
station masters uniform
he would not take it off
all of the day.
It is not fair he got so sick.
I prayed for god
to take me instead
and leave him alone,
God answered my prayer
but said no.
I guess he was lonely
in heaven and needed
a little boy to play
trains with him.
I have not moved his train-set
from his playroom.
I will in a while,
but not yet,
not just yet.
sometimes in my sleep
he is paying me a visit.
I kiss him and do not
let him see
I have been crying.
I smile and say
what shall we do today honey.
he whispers back
lets play trains mommy.