this small lake where only the breeze is present on
the water’s surface where only the ducks and moorhens
chatter about us silent hills and the shadows of clouds
passing  passing dark shapes passing over the snow streaks

horses suddenly four dark cobs sturdy travellers’ beasts
grazing a golf course gentle souls quietly padding
moving close by inspecting us for food I touch a coat
black as black as short as the sheep-clipped grass

distance everywhere spreading out into a haze of a lowering
sun fold upon fold of field and pasture walled tree-lined
disturbed by dwellings grey stone white-walled even
red-roofed disappearing into trees nestled next to barns

flow of the hill the hills flow long stretches of stunted grass
upwards to nearly snowlines where fissures of white fingers
reach down towards the sheeped grass a few tops nearly
mountains brilliant white

suddenly finding troubled thoughts are nowhere gone away
left somewhere perhaps on the train journey north passing
out of the windowed view and now just the present present
resting in the cool to breathe cool air

strange that so many images now mind-snapshots conjure
past-thoughts sharp memories your blue figure almost
motionless sketching with charcoal and finger ends
kneeding texture into the paper so still still

the track beyond this farm is an unrolled pattern towards
the higher hills across the meadows winter has almost
drained of colour to disappear the once green becoming
nearly neutral but going further before a surprise in store

a valley revealed after reaching the hill’s brow there a
river’s part-song flows across a tree-accompanied edgeland
before a sleight village there’s a road one vehicle
passing in the half hour you sit and draw

there is colour here autumnal shades though nearly spring
the earth sandstone-red bracken fit to be burnt and there
very distant a line of smoke following a crease in  the
southern hills rising and spreading horizon-ward

every time birds crows starlings gulls lift from a field
a wood a hillside my heart lifts with them to glide with
unexpected joy that this should be so that such movement
should make this landscape sing

walking westward sunward into the sun’s setting haze
distant Lakeland distant Ullswater somewhere in the
gathering purple corrugated sheets of rising hills in the
almost empty sky promising a cold night

and later in the warmth of resting as the sky reddens
and dusk falls the snowdrop rich woodland from our
window captures the westward light and birds roost
as we roost on our bed we might not sleep in tonight

but we are to stay and later walking the night-dark road
leaving the small town behind the stars bend down to the
very edge of nearer horizons the cusp of close fields so
sharply bright bold alarums of once-worlds everywhere

to see you sew is to witness peace I often imagine dream
of close my eyes to see those quiet fingers press and touch
and move so later I bring my own fingers into a play of  
unclothing to stroke and press and bring close

and morning there is frost fielded to a curve of a pasture
edged with what seem to be trees but are distance-belied
falsely distant felt too close extraordinary I pull the curtain
just a little to gaze that I see it so

my darling there is more and it is more than I know how
to place on the page my notes now run to not-quite sense
but I discern to be full of walking’s pleasure to grasp a
freedom paced together to tread to be under the soft sky still

We are a people living in shells and moving
Crablike; reticent, awkward, deeply suspicious;
Watching the world from a corner of half-closed eyelids,
Afraid lest someone show that he hates or loves us,
Afraid lest someone weep in the railway train.

We are coiled and clenched like a foetus clad in armour.
We hold our hearts for fear they fly like eagles.
We grasp our tongues for fear they cry like trumpets.
We listen to our own footsteps. We look both ways
Before we cross the silent empty road.

We are a people easily made uneasy,
Especially wary of praise, of passion, of scarlet
Cloaks, of gesturing hands, of the smiling stranger
In the alien hat who talks to all or the other
In the unfamiliar coat who talks to none.

We are afraid of too-cold thought or too-hot
Blood, of the opening of long-shut shafts or cupboards,
Of light in caves, of X-rays, probes, unclothing
Of emotion, intolerable revelation
Of lust in the light, of love in the palm of the hand.

We are afraid of, one day on a sunny morning,
Meeting ourselves or another without the usual
Outer sheath, the comfortable conversation,
And saying all, all, all we did not mean to,
All, all, all we did not know we meant.

Kiss
Beginning
Awkward
Adapting
Adjusting
Slow
Searching
Surrende­ring
Lingering
Long
Wet
Arousing
Touching
Intimate
******
Breathl­ess
Need
Hunger
Desire
Now.
Now.
Now.
Unfolding
Unclothing
Skin
E­xposing
Vulnerable
Hunger
Now.
Now.
Now.
Tracing
Feverish
Flushin­g
Opening
Bending
Grabbing
Penetrating
Gasping
Moaning
Filling
Si­gh
Kiss
Kiss me again....

There is insincerity in my electric praise,
regardless of response I drip cool pools of soft cloth on floor
and utter abstruse succulent phrases.
Even with all this, I am insipid in lending lip service to ***.
I absently inhale acrid smoke because
I never pretended to be a hermetic socialite-
because it is a socially acceptable
form of self hatred.

Obsessive animality has become
disinterested sexuality,
I have done anything
ever asking "what then?" and
everything done:
has me **** in the eyes of men.
Gleaming ideals of ******* girl,
feverish licking,
slick sweat dripping and all this
boredom:
the initiated
subjects of whoredom
come undone with the gripping of slippery moans
and now lay soiled in sheets
where hearts beat fast,
striving hard,
deep in keeping the motions of man.
We are stripping off flakes of soft humanity,
which we feed each other to watch it melt on the tongue.

So very unlike writing,
*** is hard wired,
it needn't be learned-
only practiced with intent for perfection
and when the edges bleed together within the edacious mind,
all is bared
unclothing only sloven swine.
The truth is:
I only deal with shadows and
align them in a malignant play of poetic puppetry.
I outline a silver coated tongue
seen to deliver elaborate loquacious lies,
I **** deep at cultural control
and I huff full lungs of the social soul.

If earth is a mother
We are mother *******,
I swear it's not an ugly name
It is a name
we have earned after awesome ashamedly acts.

We are not simply satisfied with unclothing earth
We love to drill deep inside her womb
And love to ***** huge minarets of her own meat and bones
On her emptied-self;

Earth is a symbol of our unending desires:
Our need are not in our little stomach
They reside in our devilish mind
We are ******* pampered children
We have learnt to live on her depleting signs.

Ignorance is our times' global religion
Lured easily by biblical stories
Told by our corporate priests
My stomach is a warehouse of fast-food chains
My mind is advertisements' gutterhole
Every night I wait to be slaughtered like a hog;
May be now days we are not born with brains
We are jungles of moving men
With umbilical cords gone.

We are dead suckers
We are mother *******.

A fire beneath flesh this night,
in the half-sleep you wander through.
Drums from your dreams still
beating, throbbing in those veins.
A strange experience indeed,
to open eyes with your hand
between very wet legs.
Ah but the vision that had
born this surprise had very
primal beginnings.
Hands barely able to touch,
eyes that daren't linger on *******,
a ***** almost afraid to rise.
The very act of unclothing
become a ritual, a rite of passage.
Tentative fingertips in soft places,
a brush of lips against bare flesh.
Somewhere there is a guitar,
strumming soft sounds.
Needing something solid,
something tangible,
you reach out.
To be filled up,
to be consumed by something,
to be taken in a ring of burning.
Your whole body feverish,
sounds escaping your mouth,
movement never felt before.
This....can be more
than just a dream.

oUtsiD
            E
              
    I bet its coldly octobering
shoting of the pale glazed soil stiff brown ******
unclothing
                   steadily but
inside i
           t
          '
        s
under crumpled polyester clumps
       a static heat
                 you
an arm
              overandunder    a the
        shrine
                       of
                                    your
          fleshed
                         casual habitat

she annihilates me
within somber streams
of her eyes,
unclothing my resolve
layer after layer
laying bare my
want to taste
the flesh
of all life's sorrow;
licking the wounds
of her heart
as her elixir'd
brine drips, whetting
my penchant;
to suckle her
pain from
weary limbs,
collapsing
at her feet
as life forces
drain my essence;
awakening
slumbered state
of mind, I lean
into her silence
behind enshrouded
eyes; awaiting
in naked liberation,
unleashing imbibed
shyness that existed
within; as she gazes
upon me, acknowledging
my very existence
in her realm; to whisper
against me without
verbalizing her thoughts;
watching her evolution,
I sigh, gasping inwardly,
as if, she is newborn
from wombed
catacomb; a new day
emerging from
cocooned silence,
erupting into wanton
unabashed passion
as cognizant open-mouth
gazes unleash
untithered moans
of release;
no longer mourning
sorrow's, fore, new
tomorrow's has arisen

This purple silk is the colour of love, but a symbol of love I am not.
It is not love they see as I stroll along the street,
My waist cinched and gilded with poor man’s gold
(God forbid a woman should have anything to herself).
They think the shadows of their top hats hide their gaze
But I can feel their perverse eyes skimming my form. Hypocrites.  

We’re forever forced to dress in a way that is pleasing
And overtly obvious to their unclothing, naked eyes;
Liberating, perhaps, if we were granted the freedom to act in accordance
With how the silk makes us feel as it caresses our skin
With how the stiffness feels against the flesh of our chests
With how the weight of our skirts make us long for a tender touch.

I have to wonder if Harriet Mill sits equally adorned and ogled
As she writes of our enfranchisement, if John watches her work
In the dresses he bought to intensify her shape,
Before asking her precisely where she wants to be touched
Because he knows she deserves to demonstrate what she is capable of.
They claim that might is their right,
But they know nothing of the strength it takes to resist these carnal pleasures.
Observe my corseted form, but let me assure you,
This was not the kind of bone I wanted digging into me tonight.

gallery: all these options exploding before me, but none appealing enough to the man in charge of unclothing the corneas of my eyes. the portraits upon these walls scream at me, "choose I!" however, I've always been indecisive, and not favoritism friendly.
echoes: voices retreating to the corners of the cave in my brain, redundancy being its only capability. I've heard this before; I understand where you're coming from; but do you even acknowledge my perspective? being trapped inside this darkness, with your words shoveling themselves into my ears-- I'm bleeding; but the stream of red running from my lobes isn't visible, we only see black here.
yoyo: this string only goes up or down, and its in constant motion to maintain function. doesn't it get tired? sure, you might be entertained, but have you stopped to think what the ware you're tearing will do to it? persistent in unraveling me with no intention of fraying my thin string, but consequences result-- and its no one's fault, everything breaks eventually.

my moat wet eyes
focus free
   with the manner of a poisoned animal
those feedy gemini apertures
    fidget inward
      upon an open wounded view
       unclothing a filmy slick
      so very faithful to the dead


      ripples cross my bed of sails
    i set pale
   in my atrophy
  each signal blunted
i am greatly wilted
sat planted
lazily hazed
a vehicle scuppered

riddles prate at my bed of veils
i set sail
in atrophy
each signal bloated
  fully unloaded
   a barrow at your feet
    i truly wither
     what power may you beam my form ?

      i'm frail in heart
atrophy
     between stars and the sea
   a failed flicker of no pity curses
a matrimony
   all signals mar
and spar out blotting

  a missile
misguided ?
         ; it preys on my trail
misdeeds played a trophy
   a lit penalty
i am most deletable

piteous
        i pray for the guff
to raise my head
filled to the tax of my atrophy
dissipated
oh mother of pigment
      lovingly wigged murderer of woes
  why can't we abstain from human directive ?
        forever foaming something criminal
    flunked corrective of the species rudder
               idle by into an atrophy
      a perishing menace
pungent

                              - fade out

Those sheets
of insecurity
and shame
slipped off me
while you lay
starry eyed
at my naked chest
and as your hands
slip under the
covers
i later find
that there were
other art pieces
you gazed at
when i wasn't around

I fought my inhibitions
but nature pulled through

Breaking barriers of what if's
unclothing all those hidden thoughts

Naked and free, I bashfully
bathed in my liberty
succumbing to all things "now"

For I have found beauty
in the "momentary"
and the naturally
inevitable

In the end you'll question your beliefs
In the end you'll realize that your faith in god was actually the fear of hell
Everything you did - you did in vain
It was not god behind the rain
I'll be all ears when you walk back into your life
I'll forgive you before you apologize
I'll hit you with all the good you failed to see
But before i begin, I'll walk you to the corners where the sun never reached
The crowd ready to stone the woman accused of adultery
The pyre set for the woman accused of sorcery
Devils inside schizophrenics
A rabbi unclothing a girl to check if she's a ******
Nuns and monks thinking of a world behind silver lines
How many of you have noticed that its golden sometimes??
Babas and Gurus telling tales of their encounter with god
Pastors making up stories to blind the herd
Glue sniffers in every street of this country
Billions spent on religious groups and nothing for the hungry
Its funny how I got blackballed when I said that the way we cremate is wrong
And that's religion polluting this world
European Islamists are not even worth talking about
Sadly we live in the world where Robert Mugabe walks proud
Believe me when i say there's no god for those 6 million non-Zanus
The world has moved on so lets not be talking about Tutsis and Hutus
How many of you have read about the latest genocide?
Buddhists beheading Muslims and children left to die
Need I write more????

Do I know you?
Do I owe you?
We look at each other.
Not in the eyes, but in nothingness.
We are together bound, all year round.

Do I know you?
We look at each other.
Do I owe you?
He does not bother.
We look at each other.
Not in the eyes, but in shyness.
His wealth mutually consumed.
Poor us so greedy at our presence both.

And my addicted admiration,
since I love all subjects,
who are full of the honest knowledge of certain things,
mostly the own learned object,
that made their living
and together with that OUR living
in wealth and luxury,

this is not concerning materialism,
but another ISM like ego-ism.

Since I know wealth, richdom from kidhood constantly.
And his old-fashioned love to the brim,

we are together tied,
all the time a bit horrified, it’s not one-sided,
visa versa all years round bound

These last years, the Lord gave us greatest bless,
we look at each other, the greatest impulse, but our eyes  
unclothing languidly,
which is known less.

I can assure you,
not as mean as the rest of mankind,
but there’s a true kind

like in war’s strategy:
untrained soldiers sent to war
and before they know
no much sorrow of their sudden death
don’t you know how that felt?
Their death?

As if you’re bereaved,
and before you’ll know
you’ll get a wreath,
without much sorrow,
on your doormat

it isn’t that bad….

BUT the most important subject
of these all DO I….
is LOVE that matters, yes!

All these death soldiers
or untrained men on war-paths
had been loved by their wives and kids,
these looked like tiny-bits,

that’s bulsh-t,
but in reality, it’s a POST-IT!

Now all that matters here,
is only that I have ever loved you

I have known so many, but I still know
that YOU are the most loved by me

and still, I do....cherish you
that you must know….


© Sylvia Frances Chan
Copyright Protected

We poets calmly expound ideas and theories
filling them with rhyme and reason
expecting enlightenment 
to beam across the world 
like gods revealing the temple of our minds 
to all
unclothing hidden thoughts 
gleaned from the
coffers of ideas

lifting the lids of treasured phrases that inspire 
dramatic waves of foam from poets 
before carrying on across the sands of time 
into supposed infinity

Many end up in dusty books unread 
or in the loft among forgotten dreams 
and untidy experiences
the drawings on the wallpaper 
of other's lives 
now covered with new fashions of papering
obsolete and sadly ignored

each individual person has their own philosophy
their own unique vision of reality
each utterance describes us 
in more potent ways than pictures
our sense of feeling alive
expressed in neat patterns of symbols
forever changing meaning as time passes. 

Margaret Ann Waddicor September 1st 2014.

tiredness yearning

circling running

coming

to. hounding happiness cutting.

finding you is being a smoking gun.

it’s

smiling stopping beginning

the show. cancel clear. all of it.

oh your hand in mine.

oh removing it.

vanishing. walking away.

heavy hand, a slight of mine.

and look, i am walking out. and look,

you are just beautiful like this.

look, when i saw you there.

look!

i am going into my magic trick now

see how i am

hanging electrocuting executing it

perfect. yeah, it was good that time.

yeah, how are you feeling tonight?

you’re laughing and it’s all in your body.

your ******* and you’re all in his body.

i have a book of named things.

tell what is your favorite of mine.

i absolutely love this business of

feeling doing being alive

performing joking around

jerking driving crashing my cars.

it is causing me. i yank it out.

it is affecting me. i soak my skin in the red tub.

staying. waiting it out.

leech the poem

leech lover, leech sister, leech the color,

leech the razor, the less fortunate,

i leech the sight of

you, you, you and the place we are in. please, i’m begging, please-

absolve the praying and praying and eating and breaking and smiling, thinking. tapping the windowpane for dust but it’s the view

that i’ve been wanting and i found it and

i am leaving for it and i am a running wound or joke and i am

blotting the bed with bleeding and i am

sewing myself in place.

i have tried to walk and i am afraid, still,

i might become an unclothing of a human animal amassing

body to be shot at.

i look and i am prey.

i look and it’s



you again. bed head.

love

risen like a tree, armed to the teeth.

your smile,

in my presence one more time

is a wholly new and wondrous

thing.

if i was no mute thing beside you, it would not go unsaid that

these are the losses i can abide by. that for your happiness, beloved,

my friend,

i would huddle all my wounds

into a constellation

and darken the leaves to show you.

You're someone who doesn't see the point
in unclothing the universe
or in thinking too hard about examining things
or in crying or in poetry or in love.
You're someone who doesn't love me
and doesn't work well with me
and has a beautiful voice but doesn't use it.
You're someone who doesn't value the same
things as me- you're unlike anyone I've ever met,
and I'm fighting my feelings every day
and trying to give up and lay down my heart,
but no matter how hard I look away,
every single face looks like you.

Pages rippling,
Quickly pushing through the years
My mind is a casino shuffling machine
Rapid fire, every card is
Every face bleeding through
Anchored memories, subsurface stillness
Reality is the crooked blade--

I now realize
I was always looking for
Everything that wasn't them
Different hair, different eyes
Why are they all blurring together

Old slides on a movie screen
Staring back at me.
Vindictive, hostile, blaming.
I was scrambling for the ideal of novel,
New and transposed.

Enough to break me down into molecules,
Toss me into atoms
Throw my essence against the starstuff and dark spaces between--

But there is no ripple effect.

No unseen unclothing me.

The faces keep bleeding through
I keep wading, riffling, sifting through the sands of time

It falls;
Between and all
around me.

I loved to play,
Football in the day,
Till they see Gray,
That guy with big pay.

you could see learns ,
beat them not once
On and off the banks,
Hailed by the fans
All clapping their hands.

There came a season,
Season of doom was born,
A rough moment for the son
Overhaul beckoning like a bad loan
All in a bid to  demolish the "clown"

I stopped being a player,
When they took me for a lier,
After exposing this layer
Of secrets to them betrayers,
Who crucified me up higher.

one mess and the crowd is booing
Allies showcase competing,
Unclothing our dark chats laughing,
Me taken for a virus in room dressing,
No one cares ideals that Built whispering.

perfect player always rearing to go,
Escaping by all means the upheaval,
When he laughs with them in the table,
Fooling them to come to his level,
And destroy 'em like God does to devil