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In the mustardseed sun,
By full tilt river and switchback sea
  Where the cormorants scud,
In his house on stilts high among beaks
  And palavers of birds
This sandgrain day in the bent bay's grave
  He celebrates and spurns
His driftwood thirty-fifth wind turned age;
  Herons spire and spear.

  Under and round him go
Flounders, gulls, on their cold, dying trails,
  Doing what they are told,
Curlews aloud in the congered waves
  Work at their ways to death,
And the rhymer in the long tongued room,
  Who tolls his birthday bell,
Toils towards the ambush of his wounds;
  Herons, steeple stemmed, bless.

  In the thistledown fall,
He sings towards anguish; finches fly
  In the claw tracks of hawks
On a seizing sky; small fishes glide
  Through wynds and shells of drowned
Ship towns to pastures of otters. He
  In his slant, racking house
And the hewn coils of his trade perceives
  Herons walk in their shroud,

  The livelong river's robe
Of minnows wreathing around their prayer;
  And far at sea he knows,
Who slaves to his crouched, eternal end
  Under a serpent cloud,
Dolphins dive in their turnturtle dust,
  The rippled seals streak down
To **** and their own tide daubing blood
  Slides good in the sleek mouth.

  In a cavernous, swung
Wave's silence, wept white angelus knells.
  Thirty-five bells sing struck
On skull and scar where his loves lie wrecked,
  Steered by the falling stars.
And to-morrow weeps in a blind cage
  Terror will rage apart
Before chains break to a hammer flame
  And love unbolts the dark

  And freely he goes lost
In the unknown, famous light of great
  And fabulous, dear God.
Dark is a way and light is a place,
  Heaven that never was
Nor will be ever is always true,
  And, in that brambled void,
Plenty as blackberries in the woods
  The dead grow for His joy.

  There he might wander bare
With the spirits of the horseshoe bay
  Or the stars' seashore dead,
Marrow of eagles, the roots of whales
  And wishbones of wild geese,
With blessed, unborn God and His Ghost,
  And every soul His priest,
Gulled and chanter in young Heaven's fold
  Be at cloud quaking peace,

  But dark is a long way.
He, on the earth of the night, alone
  With all the living, prays,
Who knows the rocketing wind will blow
  The bones out of the hills,
And the scythed boulders bleed, and the last
  Rage shattered waters kick
Masts and fishes to the still quick starts,
  Faithlessly unto Him

  Who is the light of old
And air shaped Heaven where souls grow wild
  As horses in the foam:
Oh, let me midlife mourn by the shrined
  And druid herons' vows
The voyage to ruin I must run,
  Dawn ships clouted aground,
Yet, though I cry with tumbledown tongue,
  Count my blessings aloud:

  Four elements and five
Senses, and man a spirit in love
  Tangling through this spun slime
To his nimbus bell cool kingdom come
  And the lost, moonshine domes,
And the sea that hides his secret selves
  Deep in its black, base bones,
Lulling of spheres in the seashell flesh,
  And this last blessing most,

  That the closer I move
To death, one man through his sundered hulks,
  The louder the sun blooms
And the tusked, ramshackling sea exults;
  And every wave of the way
And gale I tackle, the whole world then,
  With more triumphant faith
That ever was since the world was said,
  Spins its morning of praise,

  I hear the bouncing hills
Grow larked and greener at berry brown
  Fall and the dew larks sing
Taller this thunderclap spring, and how
  More spanned with angles ride
The mansouled fiery islands! Oh,
  Holier then their eyes,
And my shining men no more alone
  As I sail out to die.
Sarina K Cassell Nov 2013
Velveteen and closed with slim metal clasps
Laying on the seat next to the edge of a dress.

Let me slip my hand inside to find
Nothing but a $100 bill that isn't mine.

The car comes to a lurching stop
I pay the cabbie and get out to walk.

A few coins and an aching heart
Linger with the clasp's top apart.

My silken dress swirls around my knees
At the bottom of the stairs of apartment three.

One single step leads right to the next
Velveteen catching my ragged breath.

The metal clasps held firmly closed
As I knock on the door to fill the hole.

Stolen bills and velveteen held close
And the door unbolts…

But metal clasps remain closed.
Sarina Feb 2013
Girls have beautiful legs and men have beautiful hearts,
both I love to squeeze, both I love to open
hide my gold locket inside like a ticking bomb:
I use the chain to lasso arteries and muscles for me to chew on
but the necklace unbolts for a souvenir collected inside.

It could be the curly hair of his shin, one wisp from her neck
I previously tugged on with my teeth. I performed
open-heart surgery on a man and open-leg surgery on a woman
both called me back to say a second goodbye
and I wonder, I wonder which farewell will be the final.

When will the mementos be massacred
glued to a comatose form, deceased into an emotionless resin?
I could amputate their limbs and turn off the pacemaker.
Premonition comes
Like speedy lights
In the monitor of half-closed sphere.
Clear image of you registered
Out of nowhere,
Must be a dream, an omen.

I sat for a time to dinner with the PC
Hours to buzz the alien tongue on the floor
Where each post harbors the dagger of its original
form
Praise heavens the Pacific’s enormity half shielded
us.

A thought of you is a welcomed thought to begin
Before the phoned guests blurt their rants.
A moment to play the music of the keyboard,
A minute to cast the secret codes again,
Another chance to bask in the monitor lights.

But why did the PC did not wink back to flash?
And the why the codes only I know denied?
The monitor only gave a sleepy stare
Peered and scowled to the codes,
Nullified the words two of us known.

I had to call help, the Westerners needed to come
Dialed the numerals for assistance
Then there came you are.
Clear as the apparition was.
Bless the divine,

The vision turned to be a wish
They gave flesh for me.

I offered you my throne as you tapped the keyboard
To serenade the computer who has forgotten me.
Marvelous hands are they,
The moody PC widely opened its eyes to flash its
lights
Onto you and onto me.
Now recognizing me as before and the words we
shared for months.
I thank you.

I tell you again you’re marvelous,
For knowing as well the codes
That my own lock on the chest unbolts.
But why then open it up
If in the days that came
You closed up your own eyes from me.

Mr. IT
I have to lock myself again
Thanks for reminding me.
Written January 19, 2006 for N.A. one of the most good looking IT guy we had.
Sheila Jacob Apr 2016
wind rocking the night
shakes fences
unbolts wooden gates

                                         falling rose petals
                                         pirouette
                                         across unmown grass  

morning unwraps me
rolling sleep
onto sunlit floors
My first attempts at the "lune" format of 5-3-5 syllables
Terry Collett Dec 2014
Miriam finds
that standing
on two bricks

over a pit
to ****
quite distasteful

the door
just about
bolts

voices of others
in the block
waiting their turn

unnerving
some voices foreign
shouting out

balancing
is the art
arms out stretched

but crouching
as if
about to take off

in imagined flight
the stench
of previous users

nauseating
her underwear
about her knees

her skirt
hitched up
no mention of this

in the holiday brochure
she muses
clutching her

own brought
toilet tissue
in one hand

the hot sun above
pushing down
attracting flies

she *****
them away
with her free hand

shoo shoo
she says
bouger sur

bouger sur
some one bellows
that French prat

she muses
get a move on
your ****** self

she bellows back
almost
unbalancing

her hold
she breathes out
then in

finishes
her task
performs the art

of cleansing
redresses
steps from brick

to edge
of dark grass
and unbolts

the door
and pushes through
the throng

feeling undone
sensing something
out of order

like a song
performed
wrong.
A GIRL IN MOROCCO IN 1970 ON HOLIDAY
Jimmy Kudo Dec 2019
The blue soul of a black lab
& I was once trapped in a misogynist crate
Your presence became my release
Your smile is the radiance of sunlight I haven’t felt since my capture
And your laugh is the code that unbolts my shackles
My words are my shield
As the pen that I wield
Protects me and frees me of pain
All at once they’re combined
From my heart and my mind
And they keep me from going insane
My words are my force
That unbolts the course
That restrains and prevents how I thrive
They’re weapons unleashed
From my internal beast
That remind me that I’m still alive
And when I am through
And I’ve spoken my truth
You’ll know that what I say is real
My word is my bond
From here to beyond
That cuts through hot butter like steel

— The End —