Ticking the days off was exciting
Yet became a living nightmare
She’d had an invitation to the ball
She now worried how to get there.

It was the End of Year Fairies Ball
Where the best of the fairies went.
She’d got her gown, her fairy shoes
And had made her rose petal scent.

She had chosen pale green for her dress
And had sewn buttercups to the hem.
Little golden flowers cascaded down her
With tiny leaves still attached to the stem.

She had a buttercup upside down on her head
With golden thread under her chin
Daisies draped from her arms held tight
By a tiny golden wrist pin.

She looked adorable but so did the others
They all looked like a story from a fairytale
Nerves sometimes got the better of her
So the breathing slowed down, a slow exhale.

The buttercup fairy looked divine as she did
Always and mingled, taking her time
She ate raspberry pips and  drank blossom juice
And had her first sample of apple wine.

She sat under an acorn and arranged her wings
A robin provided a pillow for her which was nice
Before he knew it she had fallen to sleep
But was she about to pay the upmost price.

She had missed the best dressed fairy time
When all fairies were judged by the chief elf
Instead this tipsy little fairy fast asleep
And was sitting on a very expensive shelf.

She awoke with the sound of little bells
Announcing the winner of the best dress
She tutted at the robin for not waking her
She as angry because now she was in a mess.

She now wore a face as long as a fiddle
And did not care about anyone or thing
She had prepared for this day since the
Beginning of this year’s spring.

The moral of her story don’t nestle
Next to a naughty little robin with fluffed chest
Otherwise you fall to sleep all afternoon
And then end up seriously depressed.

The buttercup fairy found some comfort
In a super little bar under a mushroom
And smashed her way through too much wine
Which for now ended her doom and gloom.

Staggering her way home in the early hours
Singing over the blackbird’s morning tune
She perched herself under an oak leaf
And slept until the new light of the moon

During the night, a dreadful night, a mole dug deep
deep and around my garden that I love
This cheeky mole then had the nerve to stop burrowing
and then surface to check the damage from above.
Up came his velvety head and sniffed the fresh air
parting my newly laid lawn like a digger.
Now he appears to be smiling the cheeky scoundrel
He is making the problem a whole lot bigger.
"Look what yo have done" I shouted "made a right mess
The piles of earth are everywhere with your coming and froing"
"With all due respect madam" sniffed the mole "what do
you expect when I cannot exactly see where I am going!"
"I have no map, no satellite navigation device, just my claws
I am just a mole and all that I can do is dig, I've no appliance
No shiny *****, no mechanical device, what do you expect
Honestly madam it is not exactly rocket science.
He tutted and rushed back down the hole leaving me
speechless and trying my best not to cry.
The mole had made his way underground by now next door
but my hard work was down the drain - I wonder why!

Shrouded in deep purple fear and billowing clouds of crimson shame,
I sat on the floor, a trembling moth in still air.
I swallowed. The taste of bile remained.
My warmth flowed out of my body into the icy bathroom tiles, escaping rapidly through cracks in my split-open soul.
She sat beside me, quiet, waiting.
After an eternity, I nodded to her with a shaky breath.
She helped me gently off the floor and guided me to her bed, tucking herself behind me to become my tight cocoon.
With my head rested against her chest, I heard her blood pounding through her, but her breaths were slow, controlled.
The fibers of my muscles remained tense, straining to compensate for my spirit - raw, exposed, vulnerable.
Her small, soft fingers ran through my tangled hair,
drips of golden honey appearing as she began to hum.
Her radiant honey oozed from the smooth, full notes of her voice and dripped between sharp fragments of my shattered porcelain.
The clock tutted at us from the wall, approaching the third hour of morning, but she held my shards together tenderly and unhurried.
The fight drained from me as she sang her sweet melody.
A puddle of purple and crimson beneath me. Pieces, tenderly held.
Her pure, glimmering honey meandered through my etched cracks and between my too-prominent ribs to replace my purple and crimson.
She sang the life back to me, held me together with her sturdy grace.
She waited as the liquid gold began to solidify and I began to feel closer to whole once more.
She - who loves me laughing, who loves me dancing - loves me messy, too.

When Charlie was a young'un with a crayon and some paper
He would scribble til the paper ripped and the crayon turned to vapour
His mother would console him and she'd offer her advice
But just to drive the message home, she'd loudly sing it twice

Follow the lines, my boy, just follow the bleedin' lines
Just pick a side and stay there, always follow the lines
If you're not a fool then fake it
If you show your spine they'll break it
Follow the lines, follow the lines, follow the lines

So when Charlie went to high school, how he tried to walk in stride
But the boredom of geometry provoked his naughty side
His professor would chastise him with a ruler and a cane
And, as an aid to memory, he sang him twice again

Follow the lines, young Charlie, you follow the blasted lines
Give it a try, you'll soon see, never cross over the lines
Don't be smart or play the joker
Aim for mainly mediocre
Follow the lines, follow the lines, follow the lines

When assembling a wardrobe with his Allen key and spanner
He threw himself into his task in an overzealous manner
So when he called his father to report a broken bone
His old man tutted ruefully and sang right down the phone

Follow the lines now Charlie, just follow the ******* lines
Don't improvise or gamble, why didn't you follow the lines
Dodge unnecessary ructions
And adhere to the instructions
Follow the lines, follow the lines, follow the lines

So in time, he raised a family, the lines etched in his head
One day he heard a buzzing from his aging garden shed
As he listened at the planking, how his face was drawn and long
For between the buzz and rustle, squeaked a tiny little song

Follow the lines, buzz-buzz, just follow the buzz-ing lines
Follow the bee before you, just buzz and follow the lines
Find the flowers when it's sunny
Fetch the nectar, make the honey
Follow the lines, follow the lines, follow the lines
Buzz buzz

**

They’d found him, emaciated and tick-ridden,
Down near the docks on Smith Boulevard,
Surrounded by several fellow tabbies
Possessed of the apparent inclination to disregard any taboo
Enjoining them from enjoying one of their own as a hors d’oeuvre.
He’d weighed no more than eight pounds or so,
Closer to six if you scraped off the mats and vermin,
But he’d gotten over that in short order,
As his diet consisted of fried chicken livers
And any bits of tuna sandwich his owner might leave lying about
(Though Jerry Kiley was not a small man himself,
And philosophically opposed to the notion of leftovers as well)
So before long he became utterly Falstaffian
(As Father Maguire from Sacred Heart tut-tutted,
Why, that tom is three stone if he’s an ounce;
He gets any larger, and I’ll have to insist
You kick another two bits into the plate)
And Kiley had to fashion him a bed from a milk crate
Buttressed with sheet metal
Taken from a vat at the old Beverwyck Brewery.

He’d lived well (Better ‘n me, Jerry often lamented)
Though too well, perhaps,
And he’d fallen prey to the maladies of the leisure classes:
Gout, diabetes, a wheezing which sounded for all the world
Like distant cows lowing in a fairly stiff breeze.
The vet had given him any number of pills and potions,
But it all was no match for his appetite,
And he’d ended up taking the gas before he turned five.

It was decided, in the course of conversation and consolation
At the North Albany legion post bar,
That such a kind and devoted soul
Deserved a send off befitting a noble gent.
A collection was scraped together in short order,
And a viewing-***-wake took place at Jack’s Lunch
(Just up Broadway from Jerry’s place.)
Vittles Tuomi made a jerry-built coffin
Fashioned from the now-vacant cat bad,
And John Itzo snagged some fake flowers and a crepe-paper bird
From the brim of his wife’s old hat
(They being perched on a can of tuna soldered to the box
With the intent of nourishing him on his trip to the afterlife,
Jes’ like the pharaohs, according to Vittles.)
As the services progressed, some of the boys floated the notion
That the guest of honor should (under the cover of darkness, natch)
Be interred at St. Patricks, but Father Maguire,
Attending the do as the feline’s ex officio spiritual advisor,
Gently reminded the prospective pallbearers
That His Grace the Bishop had denied burial in consecrated ground
For lesser offenses, and it was finally decided that burial
(It was assumed that he’d been responsible
For an unknown number of progeny, and it was also rumored
That he had a brother or twelve up in Watervliet)
Would be private and at the convenience of the family.

"Are the gods angry?"
she said with a laugh
as Vesuvius rumbled
with warnings advance.

I cuffed her behind,
but gently, and laughed:
"Lady bring me more wine
for my morning repast."

I had sup'd with old Pliny
just the evening before.
Admiral of the fleet
anchored safely offshore.

My vineyards are fruitful,
a source of fine wines.
and the olives, when pressed,
make a spread that's divine.

My Villa is handsome,
and I own many slaves.
so you see I've no use
for their Jesus who saves.

The top of the mountain
disappeared in a blast
Our homes are laid siege to
with pumice and ash.

The women are screaming
I hear a child cry.
I hear prayers vainly offered
to an uncaring sky.

The air is quite thick
My lungs are oppressed.
My Villa is burning
along with the rest.

With a cloth on my mouth,
I race to the shore,
hoping, dear Pliny,
to see you once more.

I look on with horror
as burning stone blocks my path
I crouch by a wall
as my last moments pass.


* * * * *
The Archeologist tutted
"Well, who have we here?
"Clearly no slave
from this ring it appears."

" I am Lucius Flavius."
My Lemure would remind.
but I'm like a statue
and mute for all time.

I saw the germ seed of civilisation
In the metro today
Between Châtelet and St. Michel
It was stuffy
And the ones already in
Made it hard for others to get in
We formed a barricade
Made it look more stuffy
Than it was
Then tutted
Or rolled eyes when others tried to get in
There was a brotherhood
Even though all we had shared
Was the journey
Between Châtelet and St. Michel

Lydia and I
ride a train
from the Elephant & Castle
to Victoria train station

we love the smell
of the steam train
that takes us there
the white and grey smoke

passes by
the train window
what did your mum say
when you asked

about going to Victoria
with me?
I ask
Lydia says

she looked at me
as if I’d farted
then said
asked your father

so I did and he said
-being sober and in
a good mood-
don't you two go

and elope away
together at least not
until you're 16 years old
and he laughed

and Mum just raised
her eyebrows
and tut-tutted
and Dad said

mind how you go
with that Benny boy
she smiles
and I take in

her straight cut hair
and the dull green dress
and grey cardigan
that's good

I say
I like it
when she's happy
and we get out

at Victoria and walk
along to the nearest seat
and sit down
to watch the steam trains

coming and going
maybe I’ll be
a train driver
when I’m older

I say
to be able to breathe
in the smell
of steam trains

and the sound of trains
and see them
Lydia says
black ones

and blue ones
and green ones
maybe I can be
a train driver too

she adds
do you think so?
yes that'd be good
I say

we can go off
to Scotland
and see the big castle
and see men

in kilts  
she says
we watch
as the steam train

takes off
the power of the train
the puff and shush
and shush

and she takes
my hand
and it's warm
on this little date

us two kids
of 8.

Reach for the sky
Ingrid said
as you and she
swung on the swings

in Jail Park
your feet pointed skyward
your hands gripping
the metal linked rings

the wooden seat
beneath you
and the sky
was a fine

summery blue
clouds were white
as engine puffed smoke
and you said

my old man
nicked money
from my blue
money box

I never saw him
I just heard him
early this morning
with the rattling

as he used a knife
to eject the coins
Ingrid gaped at you
as she swung

beside you
how much
did you have in there?
she asked

couple of quid
I expect
you said
now it's lighter

and rattles emptier
why did he do that?
she asked
you pushed your feet higher

and bent forward
on the swing's chains
and up you went
reaching for the sun

he needed it
for a packet of cigarettes
I guess
you said

but that's thieving
she said
he'd say
it was liberating

coins for a purpose
of need
you smiled
has a way with words

if not much else
you said
you studied Ingrid
as she swung at your side

her black scuffed shoes
the grey once white socks
the sleeveless
stained flowery dress

which came to the knees
her dark hair
pinned back
with the metal grips

her thin wired spectacles
with her large eyes
staring at you
if I'm ever given money

she said
for birthday
or whatever
my dad takes it

and says I've been
too bad to have it
once he almost broke
my fingers open

to take coins
I was gripping
you tut-tutted
and looked away

as you rose higher
the trees of the park
and bushes
seemed miles

beneath you
and the other kids
on the see-saws
and ropes and sandpit

or on the tall
metal slide
seemed so small
and you remembered the time

Ingrid fell off
the ropes
and grazed her knees
and you helped her up

and helped her hobble
to the first-aid room
near the toilets
and the stern

middle aged woman
in charge there
helped her into the room  
and sat her on a chair

and you stood there staring
made a mess of these knees
ain't you deary
the woman said

best get you cleaned up
and she used cotton wool
and some purple smelly stuff  
to clean away

the stones and dirt
and blood
and as she lifted the leg
she saw a blue green bruise

on Ingrid's thigh
you have been in the wars
the woman said
with a shake

of her blonde
haired head
not wars
you thought

her old man's belt
more like
but never said
and Ingrid cried still

her face red
the woman's plump pink fingers
cleaning the knees
the blood seeping through

the cotton wool
and you
just standing there
giving it

your concerned
and boyish stare.

James Dean died that year and Mother was in the loony bin as Father termed it but he wouldn’t take you or Joey to see her because he said There’s no point kids she sits staring at walls and talking to herself or gets abusive and comes out with the most choicest of words which I wouldn’t want you to hear and besides it’s too far for you to go on a weekend and you’d only get upset especially you Lizzie you’d be in tears before they shut the **** door of the ward and all those other drooling fools there and that was it you didn’t get to see her not a peek just what he said she did or said or didn’t say or do but you wanted so much to see her and have her touch your cheek and be home again and tuck you up in bed and tell you the stories that she used to do all sat up on the end of the bed reading from some book she had or making up stories right out of her head and you remember the time she sneaked you and Joey up some supper when Father said no you’d been bad and that you had to go to bed without any supper and be careful Christ didn’t send you to Hell and damnation but Mother brought the supper anyway and listened out in case Father came up but he never did he was too busy drinking or playing cards with the Smiths from across the fields who stank of ***** and sweat and laughed too loud and swore and smoke cheap cigarettes and so Mother’d sit on the end of the bed watching you eat and having that bright eyed look about her and that small smile she had when she thought you were happy but then she became odd and out of it and talked to people who weren’t there or went for long walks and got lost and the cops had to bring her back again and again and once she sat in the bath fully clothed saying she didn’t want Christ seeing her in **** or James Dean to touch her up with his ghostly fingers and so Father took her to see some quack who examined her and talked to her as best he could until she tried to gouge out his eyes with his pen and Father had to retrain her and hold her down on the floor until some auxiliaries from down the hospital hall came bounding in and suited her up in a jacket that tied at the back and you never saw her again after that morning with her getting into Father’s car with her dark eyes staring and two of her fingers giving an up you sign to the passing neighbours who stood open mouthed and tut-tutted and you and Joey watching the car go off and over the horizon like a crazy ship going out to sea with one lone captain and a wild eyed woman as his only crew and she looking back waving her two finger in the air at Joey and you.

‘I’m tired, so tired,’ said Jonathon Black,
‘I can hardly stay awake,’
His wife just stared at the back of his head,
Went back to her currant cake.
She’d heard it all a million times
Was bored with the things he’d say,
She wished he’d pack up his things, sometimes
And quietly go away.

But Jonathon sat in his bamboo chair
And stared at the world outside,
He used to be full of energy,
But something inside him died,
He lived in the shadows of tides and scenes
That were conjured behind his eyes,
The throwaway remnants of others dreams
He’d capture in tears and sighs.

He spent the afternoon nodding off
Then woke with a startled cry,
‘You wouldn’t believe what I saw just now,
Right out of a clear blue sky.
A shadow crept from the bushes there
And it killed young Andrew Deems,’
Giselle had tutted and shook her head,
‘Just one of your stupid dreams!’

The woods, a favourite lovers spot
Stretched out from their own back door,
Giselle would go with a basket there
Looking for mushroom spore.
‘I saw you out in the woods today
But nothing is what it seems,’
She turned and snapped at her husband’s back,
‘Just keep me out of your dreams!’

‘It isn’t a question of that,’ he said,
‘I can’t control what I see,
Wherever a person’s thoughts are at
They keep on coming to me.
Even the strangers that walk on past
Have secrets they send in beams,
You’d think that they would be safe from me
But I’m the waker of dreams.

Giselle had wandered off to the woods
With her basket held on high,
While Jonathon found and loaded his gun,
Went after her with a sigh,
He found her there in a shady nook
In a huddle with Andrew Deems,
‘I thought I’d warned you, often enough,
You didn’t believe, it seems!’

He shot the lad as he tried to run
Then dropped the gun to his side,
‘All I could see in his dreams was you,
But now, that dream has died.’
‘And what will you do with me,’ said she
And bit her lip ‘til it bled,
‘I’m tired, so tired,’ said Jonathon Black
Then put the gun to his head.

David Lewis Paget

"Ouch!" said the boy as the red started flowing
From the tip of his finger that through glove was showing
His finger found mouth, which ****** out the blood
Wrapping 'round digit and cloth and cold mud
He glanced side to side to see if they saw
But the people, like streets, would come out with the thaw
The redness still flowed and it dripped in the snow
The boy didn't care; he knew just where to go
He tugged at his pants and fixed his torn hat
His jacket surrounded like skin on stray cat
The footsteps he took were with strength and conviction
Like the master of dungeons in his favorite fiction
He went toward the beacon: The trashcan on fire
His savior would be there by bright, burning, pyre
He looked 'round the checkpoint, but failed to find
The man who would always give peace to the mind
Others were there; they were kin of his kin
The men with hair matted and open-scabbed skin
But the man who would help him, the man who had cared
His father, was absent, and the boy was now scared
His finger, still bleeding, was numb with the cold
The boy looked around for the man who would hold
A man saw the boy, and gave a half-hearted shout
Boy eagerly waited for man to come out
The little crowd parted, and his father appeared
He looked a bit different, maybe it was the beard?
Before it was long, like an overgrown lawn
Today he had **** whacked, and the face-rug was gone
The man looked at boy, at finger with red
He tutted and clasped a bare hand to his head
Man reached into pocket and pulled out a band-aid
Boy peeled his glove back to receive the hand-aid
The man covered cut and pulled the boy close
This hug was his medicine; the desired dose
The man took boy's hand and led him away
From the fire in trashcan; he said they couldn't stay
The man told the boy, "Guess what I've got?
I've got us a room! And we've both got a cot!"
Son looked to Father; he'd really come through
And they walked off in the light of the love beaming true

...

I let myself exhale,

And then lifted my head
And saw you
Your face a mixture of pleasure
And Worry
All captured between
the soft glow
Of a lamp that did not belong to us
And a shadow
that belonged to the night sky.
Furrowed brows, flushed cheeks, and a smile that became unsteadied by a blossoming happiness, and dread.

I knew it all too well myself.

"Thinking about old fears?" I asked, trying to balance softness with the intensity of the conversation I was embarking. My breathing was calm and even, but I felt buzzing underneath my skin, goosebumps sprinkling across exposed flesh in waves.

Your vulnerability has often asked for mine in return.

You nodded, "Yeah," with a too perfect smile still on your face, your eyes shut tight, and your head turned to the side,
As if you were telling yourself that you were being ridiculous before I could.

How many times have you had that silent conversation with yourself?
I would have asked... but that was for another time.
Instead, I moved my head a little to the side to mimic yours, and brushed my nose against yours, pressed my lips against yours, and sighed.

I think I said I loved you.

I think I gave another "my heart belongs to you" speech,

I think the contents of my heart overflowed into yours,

But all I remembered was seeing you cry.
Your big stormy eyes welled up, and tears fell, and you gasped
And hips almost stirred again
Almost went looking for the friction we created.
I slid my thumb across your face, tutted lowly into your ear, and let my full weight rest ontop of you.
My arms wrapped around the valleys of your torso, clutching you closer as the outlines that separated our bodies began to disappear.
Until your bones became my bones,
And the wounds you were tending to became my healed scars.
We only had days to be together, but our nights were infinite.

Furthermore, began St Anne by the Sea,
And a spotty Doctor Newcastle got down on one knee.
I hear the old folk *******.
I hear ducks up the chimney.
I'm eating hymn books and confetti;
Sweating mud now.

The very nearly possible was there;
Lovely laughing Uncle April was there;
The plump thigh from your thrilling island was there also;
The Balsam Boy,
The basil canary,
The mustard customer from Rhyl

We dated a wasting blue on the old shopping hill.
You had been with the Superintendent of cream
In the back rooms of Matthew August Ltd.
In private I was brown because of my tinnitus.
My child was only half written
According to those forty enormous Liverpools,
According to those three vaginal cannonballs.

Horace Horace and his delicious old porridge was the inability setting.
Thought clumsiness was in fashion back then.
Upstairs could hear the downstairs *******.

Now mock Tudor glands have all the critical opportunity
And hands pull on my circular feet.
Glum songbirds mingle in the dissapointment larder
Of the Transport Office between Mr Kane and his ***** milk.
The tutted Beryl train accounts for neither the sad 13,
Nor the burgundy drums of Cologne.

The dark doodad brigade broke the Parisian child pipes,
So now the garnet ***** are a very dusty parcel indeed.
And Sir Billick’s magnificent bottom of forty years has beckoned.

What delicious and capable spondees!
What fruits we acquired for Captain Mary!
We remember nothing therefore.

Now we must wash our spectacles
And take sympathetic musical suggestion for our tugged Nightingale methods.

She was made of midnight's wings
black in velvet where the stars hung
as I broke ranks to asked her to stay
the armies of light shook their heads and tutted

I threw myself to her feet
I pleaded for her to stay
I told her I would go in her place
as long as she would stay

She looked at me
with *** eyes
just like that time
we bedded each other

This was not a perfect ending
to wrench my heart
from where it fell
by my loves feet

Her moment
my moment
was broken
like a forgotten mirror


By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris

Outside of time there was time
Outside of space there was space
Rolling out my scroll the other
Selecting access point
I pushing forwards, to see
The other tutted.
Inside the eye
In greyness I
Pushing inwards to know
I was ejected
To find my own way home.

And I passed people on the highway
in front of a pile of their belongings
spilled upon the shoulder
from a bloated pickup bed
At church someone told the tale
and added
that motorists honked at the owners
when they tried to walk back to where the spill began
and collect their mattress love seat
lamp shade stuffed giraffe
"like they ain't already got enough problems"
one sagely concluded

And when I walked by
no one honked at the arm leg
kidney ear patella
fourth metatarsal shattered soul
ejected at high speed
as I fell apart
parts dropped like breadcrumbs
too something to stop and pick them up
No one gaped
no one braked
I suppose no one was inconvenienced
by my disintegration

Some days I'd rather be a problem
four tires facing up
rolled over in a ditch
beyond the mangled guard rail
honking cars audience to my broadcast indignation
desperation
loneliness
regret
I'd rather be a byword some days
as kind church ladies tut-tutted over my predicament
and shushed the busy, impatient drivers
Yeah -- like I ain't already got enough problems
Right?  See?