In frames as large as rooms that face all ways
And block the ends of streets with giant loaves,
Screen graves with custard, cover slums with praise
Of motor-oil and cuts of salmon, shine
Perpetually these sharply-pictured groves
Of how life should be. High above the gutter
A silver knife sinks into golden butter,
A glass of milk stands in a meadow, and
Well-balanced families, in fine
Midsummer weather, owe their smiles, their cars,
Even their youth, to that small cube each hand
Stretches towards. These, and the deep armchairs
Aligned to cups at bedtime, radiant bars
(Gas or electric), quarter-profile cats
By slippers on warm mats,
Reflect none of the rained-on streets and squares

They dominate outdoors. Rather, they rise
Serenely to proclaim pure crust, pure foam,
Pure coldness to our live imperfect eyes
That stare beyond this world, where nothing's made
As new or washed quite clean, seeking the home
All such inhabit. There, dark raftered pubs
Are filled with white-clothed ones from tennis-clubs,
And the boy puking his heart out in the Gents
Just missed them, as the pensioner paid
A halfpenny more for Granny Graveclothes' Tea
To taste old age, and dying smokers sense
Walking towards them through some dappled park
As if on water that unfocused she
No match lit up, nor drag ever brought near,
Who now stands newly clear,
Smiling, and recognising, and going dark.

you cant defeat me
you wont
Ill cooperate
Ill act scattered
Ill be unfocused
Ill be motivated to motivate this terrible distraction in my mind
The answer is simple
College and AdHd dont mix
they collide
my brain is a dj playing dubstep
24 hours a day
non stop full volume
crank it up
because there is no stoping.

When I am in statistics I cannot focus
because the world around me is ending in my mind
slowly fading into something without meaning
until I cannot breathe and I have to leave
to go cry in the bathroom.

When I am in my statistics class I cannot focus
because there is a boy there who looks like my favorite **** star
I know what his ***** looks like
     or might look like
     Schrödinger's **** in a box.

I cannot help but stare at him and
picture him in gym shorts and no boxers
or cargo pants and no boxers
or just in boxers
or.

It's an uncomfortable feeling of morbid intrigue that
makes me tap my toes too fast.

I want to know him.

I want to tell him that
I love the way he smiles
and laughs and communicate s
and makes sure everyone is safe and happy.

I can only watch **** that has behind-the-scenes features.
It's comforting to know that
everyone is happy and
everything is consensual and
everyone is having fun.
I get too invested in these people, too attached -

One time I had to give up
and take a moment to breath
because I was just so overwhelmed with pride
Like a parent watching their kid graduate after all their hard work.

And that feeling is not okay.

And seeing that boy in my class is not okay,

Because I feel so proud of all he's accomplished
So when he answers a question right in class all I can think about is
When he ****** a **** on camera for the first time
And the first time he licked whipped cream off another man's *******
And it's very distracting.

When I am in statistics I cannot focus
because I start to worry that I will fail this class
and then I start to worry that I will hate my future
and then I worry about having a future in the first place,
bunching up into an unfocused, panicking, asthmatic mess.

The **** star boy is a distraction.

It's because of him that I'm passing this class.



( and in a way, a stupid, silly way,
it's because of him that I'm alive. )

PROLOGUE

Umpteen billion years
Big Bang, supernova, gas
Brief eclipse of time

Gases swirling, fall
Sun and planets, water, goo
Brief eclipse of time

Another billion
life, amoeba, fishes swim
Brief eclipse of time

Movement, change and flux
slither, crawl, climb, walk and talk
Brief eclipse of time

Ra, Sol, Helios,
Mithra and the Mighty Eye
Brief eclipse of time

Life begins and ends
birth, joy, laugh, cry, death, and dust
Brief eclipse of time

Waves cleave seas, shores, skies
forever folding, pulsing
Brief eclipse of time


            CHRONICLE

The Mighty Eye begins to slip and slowly sink,
(unfocused, stained, diffuse)
while frizzled waves imbibe her searing tears,
with salted languid lips.

The Mighty Eye, now weary, thin,
is gazing through the frozen cracks,
as sundry straying clouds,
bloated,
sidle feebly by
and wax their billowed tracks
upon the heated sky,
and cool the rush of rolling waves
beneath the blotted sky.

The waves
(impaled on time and space inside me),
gently tumbling aging pebbles
and lifeless shells across the shifting sands,
seem unaware
as they once again arise
to greet the Mighty Eye,
to close the Mighty Eye,
to ***** the Mighty Eye.

But then again,
perhaps the waves are well aware indeed,
yet simply unconcerned
and feel no need to care.

For, as the frazzled froth is rushing forward
madly towards the sandy shores beyond,
before retreating slowly,
then careening brashly forth ahead again,
eternally,
it matters little if the Mighty Eye will cast
her blazing glance from high above,
or else retire for the night,
kissed sweetly by the liquid lips
of distant faithless waves
in a brief eclipse of time.

The trees, they hang in time and space around me –
trees, which in time before had swayed,
so gently tugged by ocean breezes,
trees, which in time before were lightly lit
with emerald tinted leaves,
trees, which in time before had reached to space above
with twisted tangled fingers,
grasping fingers,
fingers drenched with golden tears
shed by the Mighty Eye.

The trees, they hang in space and time,
benumbed and frozen motionless around me
chilled with rooted premonitions of the void,
their branches clutching darkness  
and their leaves foreboding doom.

The muted winds begin to whisper tales
of many frightened things,
which, with mournful apprehension
have hunkered down behind the haze
and ceased their joyful play.

And all the while dank shadows gaily dance
a dismal dance,
for their time is soon to come.

The fitful shore lies suddenly still.

Unfeeling stones and hollow shells,
are paused a little,
stalled,
and dropped haphazardly,
midst their mindless random journey,
now abandoned by the sea,

for fickle waves have slipped away
to greet a falling prey.

And as the Mighty Eye droops lower,
laminated molten lips
are pursed and pucker higher,
******* in the sky.

Within a trice the Mighty Eye
submits and squints, distended red,
perhaps tormented by fantastic thoughts
of imminent demise,
or else of being lashed beneath a lid
of distant faithless waves.

And as her dying flash dissolves,
two lurid lips arise,
three ***** lips -
a thousand parted limpid lips
which asudden,
though with little haste,
consume the Mighty Eye.

                   EPILOGUE**

The trees are now but lurking shades
amongst the murky shadows.

Relentless fog slips slowly by -
her floating tongues drip silence
as they slink like snakes in stealth nearby.

The lacerated faithless lips have once again returned
to kiss the vacant vapid shores
in a brief eclipse of time.

i am so imprecise a silhouette
that i waver in the midst
of swirling seas

i am so detached a soul
so unfocused and blinding
(a galaxy, loosened)
that i cloud and distort the senses,
stand between a body
and its needs

the garish outline of my necessity
grinds landscapes to a neat
unforgivable dust

The drug
The high
The confusion
The craving
The withdrawal

The brain feels overwhelmed
The noise creates chaos in my mind
The silence I seek
The alone time I need

The anxiety kicks in
Struggling to breathe...
Overthinking creates an addiction, to the things that cause mind suppression.

My mind is noisy, with thoughts of occurrences that have happened, and some not.
I try not to depress myself, but mistakenly think too far in the future, then get disappointed because expectations have not been reached.
Busy, distracted, chaotic, and unfocused.

I reach no end to where my mind goes...
A path of little thoughts that creates an explosion and downfall.

I crave the drugs to give my mind a rest.
To give it a sense of peacefulness...
I have failed lifes tests.

Tense, tight, my mind implodes.
Burn my thoughts and bury them in ashed coal.

Cannot sleep
Cannot close my eyes
Always in a state of overthinking...
Like my brain is constantly blinking

The fatigue flows through me
As if it has invaded the marrow of my bones
Leaking out into the flesh
Rendering me paralyzed in an unfocused state
I sleep to live and wish only to end the dulled mind set
It’s crushing to find that shard of thought
Urging me to get up
Do not sleep, it whispers
There is too much to do, the insidious trails of ideas speak
The words taken down seek to undo the restlessness
The blurred vision of the time slipping past in red numbers
Sleep, my body cries
Wait a minute more, my mind calls back
Sleep deprived with burning eyes
A single tear breaks the tie
I cannot go on
Sleep calls me back
Pulling me down to the place I cannot ignore anymore
Sleep, my body whispers
Sleep, my mind sighs

cc111911

a tear drops from her eyes
and it brings no cause
though it quivers with emotion

and the stars do not shine brighter
when polished with her briny tears
but dim their glow and listen
listen!
to her sobbing
but wait
her capillaries will burst!
stop it!
stop it!

its translucence
its opaqueness
the inherent contradictions it produces
and the images it emanates

so while her eyes may open
they are unfocused
and gone
and the click of their judgements is obscene
because her soul has escaped

where has it gone?
she swears she saw it just a moment ago
just a moment
just a moment
just a moment

****
you
for
not
knowing
me
For
not
understanding
For
not
caring
For
breaking
me
down
****
you
f­­or
nothing
For
not
believing
For
not
seeing
For
nothing
****
you­
****
you
****
you
****
you
****
you
and
****
me

O trees of life, oh, what when winter comes?
We are not of one mind. Are not like birds
in unison migrating. And overtaken,
overdue, we ****** ourselves into the wind
and fall to earth into indifferent ponds.
Blossoming and withering we comprehend as one.
And somewhere lions roam, quite unaware,
in their magnificence, of any weaknesss.

But we, while wholly concentrating on one thing,
already feel the pressure of another.
Hatred is our first response. And lovers,
are they not forever invading one another's
boundaries? -although they promised space,
hunting and homeland. Then, for a sketch
drawn at a moment's impulse, a ground of contrast
is prepared, painfully, so that we may see.
For they are most exact with us. We do not know
the contours of our feelings. We only know
what shapes them from the outside.

Who has not sat, afraid, before his own heart's
curtain? It lifted and displayed the scenery
of departure. Easy to understand. The well-known
garden swaying just a little. Then came the dancer.
Not he! Enough! However lightly he pretends to move:
he is just disguised, costumed, an ordinary man
who enters through the kitchen when coming home.
I will not have these half-filled human masks;
better the puppet. It at least is full.
I will endure this well-stuffed doll, the wire,
the face that is nothing but appearance. Here out front
I wait. Even if the lights go down and I am told:
"There's nothing more to come," -even if
the grayish drafts of emptiness come drifting down
from the deserted stage -even if not one
of my now silent forebears sist beside me
any longer, not a woman, not even a boy-
he with the brown and squinting eyes-:
I'll still remain. For one can always watch.

Am I not right? You, to whom life would taste
so bitter, Father, after you - for my sake -
slipped of mine, that first muddy infusion
of my necessity. You kept on tasting, Father,
as I kept on growing, troubled by the aftertaste
of my so strange a future as you kept searching
my unfocused gaze -you who, so often since
you died, have been afraid for my well-being,
within my deepest hope, relinquishing that calmness,
the realms of equanimity such as the dead possess
for my so small fate -Am I not right?

And you, my parents, am I not right? You who loved me
for that small beginning of my love for you
from which I always shyly turned away, because
the distance in your features grew, changed,
even while I loved it, into cosmic space
where you no longer were...: and when I feel
inclined to wait before the puppet stage, no,
rather to stare at is so intensely that in the end
to counter-balance my searching gaze, an angel
has to come as an actor, and begin manipulating
the lifeless bodies of the puppets to perform.
Angel and puppet! Now at last there is a play!
Then what we seperate can come together by our
very presence. And only then the entire cycle
of our own life-seasons is revealed and set in motion.
Above, beyond us, the angel plays. Look:
must not the dying notice how unreal, how full
of pretense is all that we accomplish here, where
nothing is to be itself. O hours of childhood,
when behind each shape more that the past lay hidden,
when that which lay before us was not the future.

We grew, of course, and sometimes were impatient
in growing up, half for the sake of pleasing those
with nothing left but their own grown-upness.
Yet, when alone, we entertained ourselves
with what alone endures, we would stand there
in the infinite space that spans the world and toys,
upon a place, which from the first beginnniing
had been prepared to serve a pure event.

Who shows a child just as it stands? Who places him
within his constellation, with the measuring-rod
of distance in his hand. Who makes his death
from gray bread that grows hard, -or leaves
it there inside his rounded mouth, jagged as the core
of a sweet apple?.......The minds of murderers
are easily comprehended. But this: to contain death,
the whole of death, even before life has begun,
to hold it all so gently within oneself,
and not be angry: that is indescribable.
___


Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming

I'm in a class,
We sit in chairs.
The teacher talks,
They listen and stare.

And I'm unfocused.

My pen is scratching,
My mind is clear,
The class is there,
And I am here.

And I should focus.

Oh, ****.
It's quiet.
Have I been caught?
This is something that I should not
Be doing
But I can't help it,
I'm trying to get it,
But my mind is flying,
And I'm sick of trying and
My brain is crying for
More than I'm offered and
**** IT!

I just can't focus.

Intro: You know, I don’t care what you’re saying about me.
For I’m not an insecure ***** like you but I do got to thank thee.
For if it weren’t for thy vile venom spitting I wouldn’t have a reason to enact my lyrical terrorism!
So, you only have yourself to blame for this ****, so don’t say I didn’t warn ya.

Verse 1
Uh, yeah let’s talk about it!
Can’t contemplate, the vicious state that contrary to popular belief I’m not a basket case!
Can’t misuse the time I got so here I go to vanquish these fraudulent thots!
Started an unfocused freight train that charged towards the lucid dream because I couldn’t assimilate!
In that time, I was so focused on changing everyone’s snot ridden hypocrisy about reality being Camelot.
I know I’ve also ****** up a lot but that’s something I had to face!
It’s not any of your business so stop ripping off my skin then rubbing in the salt!
I still have a goal in mind to destroy discrimination that incriminates my people,
by putting em on the hot seat.
So now that every one is up in arms I got my chance to aim at the sweet spot!
Everyone is hungry to be the fittest but not everyone has time to think how to be the smartest.
To strike will the fire’s hot or wait for the embers to spark and settle is the true test for an artist.
Who cares about the lines when it was never rightfully drawn in the first place?
Who cares about what spot or space is for you when it’s all been delegated to the privilege of a certain race?
I can only undergo so much disgrace So, sorry but I’m not willing to have my people’s history erased!
Free speech is going to be a ***** for some and a tool for others, I guess it all depends on that person’s poker face.
Inequality is frequent not just in Canada or The United States but every country, province, and common place.

Verse 2
You want the real, raw, unfiltered Classy J well here you go!
Uh, Tell Trudeau to kiss my *** and stop ******* Trump’s ****!
While you’re at it can you tell your father that he’s a ******* stupid *****!
Also, totally forgot but can you tell Kim Jon un when he’s shafting you that he’s a ******* Buffoon!
But’s that’s enough about ******* politics let’s talk about ******* rap artist’s who think they’re hot but really, they so tacky and obsolete like the Zune.
To mister bi-racial we get it you’re into being superficial but’s honestly with you being so focused on being a ****** your delivery showcases the truth that you’re really a cringy ******.
Just face the fact dude that people will only see ya as a juggaloed Dolph Ziggler.
Uh, Now on to the next!
Dear mister Young moolah imma be front, you look like diseased uvula with the lyrical skill comparative to that of an elementary grade schooler.
Now to address the biggest flacky ***** in the game the not so slim shady.  
Here’s the matter Mr. Mather’s you look like a hobo who ***** guys off around the corner,
maybe that’s why you always diss homos.
Because youse a **** trapped in your mommas’ closet,
and if wasn’t for Dre’s hand up so far up your *** you wouldn’t be as popular of a puppet.
Oh ****, Shady you so focused on Doctor Dre and acclaim to fame that you forgot about Hallie.
****, and speaking of Hallie, I feel for you girl because just like you I also didn’t have a dad there for me.
I’m a man of war so every rapper got to get their **** together and better be prepared to me seriously.
For Imma slit their throats and turn em inside out rigorously, and I make sure those tardy cats will rule the day they ever had curiosity.

Verse 3
Just remember my people were here before you, and will be here after you!
And I’ll be here to destroy any of you who dare to pursue native issues!
Or if I’m just bored and feeling like killing you!
However, if I forget about dealing with you, I’m just to busy to properly give a **** about you!
It’s not just revenge, I see it as using justice by retorting with my wordplay to cleanse ya like shampoo!
But I’ve spent enough time dissing freeloaders, for it gives their ego’s too must **** exposure!
I won’t coaster to these composers, for a chauffeur can’t gain an advantage over a soldier!
I wont lower myself to these grouchy Oscar’s, who hunt for Grammy’s;
or as I refer to these events as pedantic half ***’d statements for excepting grandiose toasters.
Why bother, for it’s so annoyingly stupid that I would rather waste my time watching a movie featuring Adam *******.
So, **** this glass ceiling that defines and dictates what makes up a talented rapper.
I may not be a ******* goat but at least I’m confident enough to go out in my birthday suit and retain my composure for being dapper.
That’s the synopsis of my classy brain, and though it may be insane I’m willing to ride this hurricane!
To make sure you know my name, but yet not let myself get engulfed in the flames.

Dear Mom,
Hey! How’re things?
So, LA is weird. It’s all sticks and stones and billion dollar homes. Last week on the Metro I forgot my headphones, but it all worked out because there was a homeless man who was naked from the waist down except for a pair of Spiderman underwear with the tag still attached who was singing “Sweet Caroline” at the top of his lungs.
Everyone here is someone important. They live the philosophy of Descartes like scripture.
I think therefore I am... exhausted. I haven’t been sleeping because my mind has taken up running, which means it’s acclimating to the culture here quicker than my body because everyone in this town ******’ loves running almost as much as they love vintage shoes and car horns.
It’s strange though, I can’t shake this feeling that I’ve lost something.
Anyway, I love you.

Dear Mom,
Thank you for the eyes.
Last afternoon a stranger told me they were beautiful, and on a day where every mirror seemed to be of the funhouse variety, it was a welcome compliment.
I’m sorry I haven’t called in a few weeks, please don’t think it’s because I don’t miss you.
It’s just, lately, I’ve been feeling a bit like a marionette whose had his strings clipped.
Slumped and crumpled.
Small.
Collapsed and sprawled cracked in some forgotten corner--the hollow knock of wood bouncing across the walls of this mezzanine dressed in finer things than me that have been fostered by
Father Time and his Mistress Stillness.
And I know how you worry.
You worry ‘til bones bruise and still your skeleton aches to shoulder my melancholy yourself, so I can’t bear to bridge this distance with crestfallen phone calls where the past year locks fully loaded on six-shooter lips--the way heels cling to cliffs edge--before finally, reluctantly, free falling; firing off each round.
Six words aimed with eyes closed as if it were up to God to decide where they’d hit:
“I wish I could come home...”
Then your silent, empty-cartridge, catacomb sigh would just teach this telephone how cavernously a mother’s heart aches for her children.


Dear Dad,
I know it goes without saying, but thank you for the check and the note attached to it.
It’s hard to describe how much home I find in the deft curves of your surgeon’s cursive.
I hope you’re doing well. Last time I saw you, you seemed a bit like a lit cigarette filter tip watching the singe approach.
Maybe it was just the embers of your eyes glazed over by one too many heavy handed nightcaps.
And this isn’t to say the Superman who stayed up late nights holding me through fits of anxiety has up and flown away, this is just to say you seem to be flickering.
This is just to say I hope you still laugh at bad movies with the thunderous bass of July fourth fireworks.
This is just to say I’ve been staying up late nights holding on to yesterday.

Dear Mom,
The care package was unnecessary.
I now have more Skittles than any one human should ever consider consuming in a lifetime. So thanks. I know I told you, at some point, years ago, that they were my favorite… but *******.
Really though, waking up to that box on my doorstep choked me up quicker than a swift kick to the nuts. You have a way of weaving through this heartland like a Middle-American interstate and I love you so much for that. It’s just next time, maybe try something that doesn’t have the nutritional value of flash-fried butter sticks.
But not too healthy. Maybe fruit leathers?
P.S. Keep the homemade fudge coming.

Dear Dad,
Forgive the handwriting of an earthquake.
My hands are shaking again like when I was young. I’ve been finding stillness, though, in between sips of five dollar coffee and midnight cigarette drags beneath and incandescent moon that seems to use breeze hands to play cat’s cradle with strings of smoke.
Life is fast here. It’s all gas pedal and touch-and-go breaks.
P.S. If you see mom, don’t mention the cigarettes.

Dear Mom,
I got your e-mail about smoking and the ensuing health issues it leads to. Graphic stuff. That was super informative and totally unprompted. Thanks for that.

Dear Dad,
...

Dear Mom,
Stop worrying so much, you’re making my bones ache.

Dear Dad,
In my dreams I am a lighthouse with an unfocused beam. I’m searching for something, I just don’t know what.
At least I’m sleeping right?

Dear Mom,
These days blur together with the fading speed of a half-life hardly lived to its fullest.
Was it different for you when you were my age? I shift between a drifting stick stuck in a current and desert stone.

Dear Dad,
In my dreams I’m a lighthouse.
There’s a fog horn distant.
I’m still searching for I don’t know what I’m searching for something and there’s a fog horn far off like it’s from someone elses dream but at least I’m sleeping.

Dear Mom,
Do you believe that streams take sticks where they need to be?

Dear Dad,
Have you dreamt of fog horns lately?
I am a lighthouse looking for a nameless something in fog so thick I should be choking.
But I’m not.
At my feet there are rocks and they’re jagged but I’m not anxious because they stay up late nights holding me.
And in the distance there’s a fog horn that seems to be saying “All is not lost.”

Dear Mom,
Do you think that desert stones are waiting for something?

Dear Dad,
In my dreams a lighthouse is built upon jagged rocks that are shaped like your hands. I’m searching for something and even though my lamplit electric torch eyes can’t touch the sky through this ******* fog, I keep them burning because I should be choking but I’m not, I’m finding stillness in the way breeze plays with smoke strings and far off there’s a fog horn distant promising “All is not lost.”

Dear Mom,
This town is all sticks and stones and broken home drifters.

Dear Dad,
All is not lost.

so sometimes I'm just right,
cold, calculating and perceptive.
and sometimes I can't make it through the night,
policing my thoughts and perspective.

But tonight is a night of freedom and purity,
closing the doors to opression,
spilling inpure and conformist thoughts,
and avoiding resurrection.

smoking and snorting and popping and coughing,
breathing, decieving, and barely talking,
focused now.
never later.
still breathing this atmosphere of pure hatred.

can't see past my hands in this tomb,
alone i lay and quietly consume,
every last one of them.
I've let them all go.
the part time, doin time, ebb and flow of cold.

growing old.

when I finally outgrow this taste in my mouth,
i'll be able to breathe.
when she finally outgrows me maybe she'll leave.
never looking back, always forward,
never late.
she quietly escapes the debate of our fate.
never look back kid,
cause your soul might turn blue,
tied tight with saran wrap wrappers,
duct tape and glue.

He was the warrior king.
He was known for being strong.
He was Mogar.

Shallow breaths passed through his lips.
Hot tears rolled down his cheeks.

Arms wrapped tightly around him.
Knees pulled close to his chest.

He tried to hold himself together.

How did he get here?

Unable to laugh or smile.
Unmotivated and unfocused.
Unable to sleep or eat.

An empty shell.

Devoid of all emotion but one:

Shame

He was ashamed.
Ashamed he couldn't push through.
Ashamed he wasn’t strong enough.
Ashamed that he was broken

He was the warrior king.

.               "Peter Look at me." Lexi whispers moving closer to him, The hot spray from the shower head scalding her back. Peter had his back flushed against the back of the shower, his eyes, the red of an Alpha wolf, wild with pure animistic rage. He's lost his humanity, she thinks, I have to bring it back, Peter Snarls and lunges for her. Lexi just holds out her palm and water tentacles from the streaming water behind her snake out and wrap themselves around his wrists and ankles, locking him in places, vicious snarls escaping him, his eyes burning red. Anger wells up in her chest making her own eyes Flash violet, her powers rising inside her. She closes her palms and the water restraints tighten cruelly against him, a small whimper coming from him. She looks him in the eyes and steps even closer, leaving the comfort of the water. "Peter please, come back to me my love." She whispers moving closer still until she was standing right in front of him, his breathing echoing off the shower tiles. She stretches her hand out and touches the hard muscles of his stomach, making him flinch violently, struggling against his restraints as he tries to move away. Lexi thinks back to the time when he would have done anything just to feel her touch, now with his humanity lost,  and the wherewolf taking hold he couldn't bare it. She splays her hand across his abs, tracing the hard muscles, trying not to wince as sounds of pure distress came from him. Looking back up into his eyes she searches for the Peter she had fallen in love with, imprinted with, and found nothing but a cruel cold hearted Animal staring back at her. She takes her hands away and sees the distress turn quickly back into a murderous glare as he pulls against the restraints trying grab her, his claws glistening with spray from the water. With a flick of her wrist the tentacles pull at his arms until they are spread out, far from touching her, another viscous growl, more tugging against them. "Peter I know you can hear me,try to fight this I know you can." She says pleading to any shred of humanity that might still be lurking within his soul. For a split second his eyes lose some of the bloodlust as her words penetrate the wolf that was rising, his face twists in concentration

               "Lexi- I can't Save yourself" He gasps through clenched teeth, His eyes begging her to run before he closes them. She steps near, her heart soaring with hope that she might be able to save him. When he opens his eyes again though all hope she just had shatters as the cruel animal returns. With renewed strength He lets out a harsh howl and yanks his arms, the water tentacles turning to puddles, slipping down the drain with the rest of the water, in the small space of the shower he lunges toward her. Fear ripples through her but she quickly shakes it off and once again lifts her palm stronger tentacles obeying her command wrap themselves around him just in time, as his sharpened fangs came three inches from her face. His body is slammed back against the shower wall, his head bouncing painfully off the tiles. As he trashes and pulls at the restraints Lexi moves back close to him, shutting her eyes in concentration. "His ego cuffs concatenata bestiam, relaxare scintillis humanitas seen, With these cuffs I chain the beast, only loosen with sparks of Humanity seen." The Latin words falling easily from her lips as she casts her spell on the water, knowing they would hold and only lessen their grip when the Peter she knew and loved came back. Her strength leaves her as the spell takes hold and she sags against the other wall, seeking its help to keep her upright. She leans her forehead onto the water slicked tiles and breaths in the steamy air, her eyes drift close. Knowing she was safe from anymore escape tempts she turns her back toward the beast that wore Peters face and steps back into the scalding water of the shower, letting the heat seep into her cold riddled body, and washing away any remaining fear as she lifts her face to the spray. Anger toward herself bubbles up inside her, how can she be afraid of the man she loves? whimpers fro behind her make her sigh and step out of the comforting spray. Turning around, she opens her eyes which were flashing Violet with her rejuvenated powers, she once again faces the love of her life. Hope once against swells inside her as she faces her task of Being Back Peter's humanity.

               "Peter I know you are still in there, I'm going to touch you now." She says with confidence as she steps closer once more. Hot spittle flies from his mouth as a deadly snarl comes from deep within, his fangs fully elongated, his claws at full length, clawing wilding at the air trying to tear her apart. She ignores the snarls and the beast and focuses souly on her task, She reaches out and touches his chest, right above his pounding heart. Moving her hand upward she runs her hands up his muscled well toned arms and with her left hand she places it carefully on his cheek, keeping away from his deadly venom coated fangs, knowing that one bite would have her transforming into a werewolf like him. The terrified whimpers he made makes her heart squeeze, knowing that the touch of a human in his wolf fill brain was torture for him. She looks in his eyes and silently pleads for this to work, knowing that with each touch the Peter she loved would have a fighting chance to break through and once again take hold of his body. She steps closer and kicking his feet apart she presses flush against him, the roughness of his soaked jeans rubbing against her naked body, his shirtless upper half smooth against her own chest. A strangled growl leaves him as he tries to shrink away from the closeness. She takes her hands and places them on either side of his face yanking it back to look at her. "Peter come on love FIGHT THIS!" She hisses pressing herself closer to him. The blood lust fades slightly, his arms sagging slightly as the restrains register a spark of his humanity. Her eyes shine with joy when she realizes it was working. She takes her hands away from his face and wraps them around his neck, stretching up on her toes to reach his mouth with hers. She kisses his mouth, not afraid of the snapping teeth, and feels the growls dissipating in his throat, as his arms continue to sag with the loosing cuffs. She watches as his eyes close and feels his lips returning the pressure to hers. A small gasps escapes her as she feels his arms finally wrapping around her body crushing her to him.

               "Lexi Stop, I can't fight this for long," he pleads against her lips, and on Que his arms are softly yanked from around her as the restraints sense the animal rising again. Going against her intuition she lifts her hand and the spell is broken letting his arms sag fully to his sides, giving him full use of them. He growls "That was a mistake, Lexi AH" He chokes out shutting his eyes and shrinking away from her half turning his body, trying to keep himself from slipping away. She moves, easily deflecting his feeble attempts to push her away, she takes hold of his arm and turns him to face her again and softly pushes him up against the wall which they had started to stray from, pressing herself firmly against him.

               "You can fight this Peter," She whispers in his ear before claiming his mouth again. It was her mistake. He kisses her with desperation trying to fight back the Wolf that was clawing it way through him. IN a split second He looses control and the beast takes hold. Giving off a murderous howl he sinks his claws deep within her back, Her scream tears through her, echoing off the tiles. She sags against his claws, making them sink in deeper as whimpers of agony spill from her kiss swollen lips.  With a grunt he rips his claws out and watches as she crumples to the ground, her strength deserting her. She splashes in the water built up in the tub , barely noticing the sting as her knees and hands hit the porcelain. Her arms wobble as she tries to keep herself up, her eyes cast down as she stares at his bare feet, the hem of his jeans dark with the water sloshing around him. "Pe-Peter Fight, pl-please" she mumbles as a fog starts to creep into her mind. Her arms fail her and she splashes face first into the ***** water. The water was tinged red and tasted like cooper with her life's blood as it oozed out of the ten claw marks on her back. Her breath quickens as it become shallow, the fog creeper faster, her vision starting to unfocused. Tears spill down her face and mix with the ****** water as she realizes she was going to die, and without saving Peter.

               "I failed you Peter, I'm sorry, Forgive me," She whispers unable to lift her head to look at the beast that claimed him. " I- I love You" She manages to sputter out before the fog took hold of her, rendering her unconscious.

               Those three words reached the beast, traveling down to Peter who was growing weaker by the minute LEXI! he screams mentally and pushes past the beast. He throws his head back, letting out a tortuous howl, as his eyes go from blood red to the Ice blue some Beta wherewolves posses, his original state. The beast retreats, never fully gone, just hibernating until the next best moment to strike. Peter looks down at the naked girl at his feet, and he drops to his knees in the red waters.

               "Lexi My love" He whispers his voice full of agony. He lifts her limp body out of the water and cradles her in his arms, He wipes away the hair that was plastered to her face and rests his hand against her cheek. "Open your eyes my love, you didn't fail me, you saved me, I'm right here, just open your eyes." He says, his voice choked with unshed tears. When she doesn't respond he cries out , placing his head on her chest, taking his hand away to wrap around her body in a tight grief stricken embrace, his blond hair making a curtain around his face as his grief pours out of him unchecked. A strangled Gasp makes her chest rise and he wipes his head up to find her eyes fluttering open, focusing weakly on him.

               "Peter, you're-" her words fade away as her strength seeps out of her. she lifts her hand and he quickly grasps it in his lifting it to his mouth kissing the fragile pale skin before putting his face in her hand, trapping it between his face and his hand.

               "Yes Lexi I'm me, I'm here, Don't give up" He says smiling through his tears. A faint smile spreads across her bloodless lips as she closes her eyes, her breathing was struggled but she clinged to the last bites of life in her as she pulls her power in, drawing strength from the water around them, the air that fought it's way to her lungs, the Fire from the small candle she had lit in the bathroom earlier for strength, the minuet grands of dirt that always managed to find their way in the house. But most of all she Draws on the Spiritual world the one that swirled around every living creature. She draws all this power inside her and wills her body to heal itself, Fighting for her life. Her power pulls and a soft warm glow fills her body as the wounds slowly pull themselves closed healing themselves. Her breathing becomes easier and she gulps huge mouth fulls, coughing as she takes too much in. Peter tighten's his hold on her and stares at her in wonder as she pulls her broken battered body together. "Oh Lexi," he gushes as color returns to her body, making it flush a pale pink, her eyes going from their crystal green to the purple as she works her magic. Finally the wounds were sealed shut, and her eyes return to their crystal green, her body sagging in exhaustion in his arms.

               "You're you, you're really you." She whispers, happiness ringing in her soft sleepy voice. Peter smiles at her and strokes her cheek, his fangs had vanishes and his claws had retracted.

               "Yes Lexi I'm really me."

               "I thought you're humanity was lost,"

               Peter just shakes his head at her, tightening his hold on her he stands up, carrying her bride style he steps out of the shower, not bothering to shut off the water. Holding her close to his body she rests her head against his bare chest and sighs as she hears his heart thumping at a normal pace. Leaving the bathroom he pads down the hall to their room. Once inside, with one hand he pulls back the covers on their king sized bed and gently deposit her onto it. going to his side of the bed he quickly strips out of his wet clothing and slides under the covers with her, drawing her close to his body, skin to skin. Lifting her eyes to his he smiles at her.

               "NO Lexi, I don't think I can ever lose my humanity again, want to know why?" He says, his eyes hypnotizing her. She snuggles closer to him, her legs tangling with his,

               "Why?"

               "Because YOU are my humanity." He says as his lips crush her in a passion filled kiss.

Memory

     is  the birth of cool, it is rapture and ignominious spokesmanship unearthed. Packed into a slatted-wood crate, milking the obsession from cash-toting hands. Freeing itself from your bottom lip while life ticks itself away on a digital stock-exchange display. I am down and you are up, and you save pennies while I search for Chrysanthemums and vanilla-scented candles. Scent is my fifth grade spaceship,
     I hide it in my pocket and take it into the forest when the week is over. Adventure is the part of our story that's caught in between complaining about money and having clean sheets. Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday my hands mend themselves back from bleach, their crevices cave under bright lights, I go to the garden strip and put dirt on my face, over my shoulders, and on my back. I make a altimeter from an alarm clock, and worry what will happen if your feet should ever touch the ground.
Relief
     is a sarcophagus, the satiny silk chrysalis I weave into invincibility. I make myself a small child with a demon-proof lair, no one comes in, not even you.  I see

     how drugs take out your heart and put you anew, fresh: orange, pink, ultramarine. A wave is a soft gesture for twilight, a slow walk among the greying statue towers, bliss extracted from person to person tedium. How you exclaim about **** music as if your temple home was unfocused by jazz or synth-electro.
     I forgot your room of quiet had no bells, no hope, and no notes of resolve. Tragedy was the desert of your six to sixteen, while I made an opus out of crystal glasses and Cran-Raspberry jars. Then it was the relief, Neptune's hands on your *******, red dots of ecstasy connecting you to a higher vibration. You felt it was time to start exercising. I didn't **** you for modifying your perception of color, degrading in a salt pool- I didn't own your ****** it was just a place I went into to write.
    
    Three years later. I was growing backward, I was sixteen, making you the muse in my doorway, a James Bond goddess unraveling my fingers on her silky skin, except your golden crown was really a turban of snakes, and instead of silk I was groveling underneath you. That was the sweat that Ryan Shultz said I garbled up into two pedestal doves, I aimed by eyes straight at the city of gold, and then inside me shucked out every piece of self-respect and vitrified my spirit, castrating my lips and my tongue for something to come to or come at, he said I lived under pointed stars and that lying isn't a good way to get over past phases of silence.

     A few days ago, it all game back to me, in a random series of songs on an iTunes playlist. One memory from an isolated beach outside a strawberry patch near Santa Cruz, a second, two hands cupped over the ears, my face closing in on her smoothed-out pink bottom lip on an over-exagerated car ride to the San Francisco airport, and the third was the mention of non-vegan banana cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, a birthday I celebrated several years earlier. All of them in the coda.
    
     Verse four unbelievable. It caught me straying from the next stressor at hand. What's next? I move my cold hands from a keyboard versing strange relapse of mind, or I tear out another page, whip across town, and peel stamps onto a postcard to send.
     They were all tails from a memory. A slowing ghost that cooed at me from far away, beating me up and down, pulling my eyes away from a scent I continually tried to remember.

phyllo dough considerations
veil the rigid silence
under quip, under smile-
covered cliche cud.
it is in essence meaningless,
this large party,
this braying urgency of guests

the house swims with life,
we mingle charismatic coughs
as talents strut; bouncing fruit
and swaying surface tension fizz
sparkles off the balcony of floating drinks

our tall pines are echoing beyond the yard
a sylvan soft allure of
living soundboard drape,
it needles aromatic carpet for a
*******, brink-of-dawn escape

allocate the living and the dead,
the borderline is begging to be tread.

an elastic belt extends the real,
a tool for party tricks, a tool for bending time--
i'm bounding off into the darkness
balling lightning in my dantien,
the world a trampoline;
running full i top the rail of gasps,
swinging through the arc
of thinning line to pull me back around,
stomach churning fiction-sick
with gravity inverted joltingly,
umbilically, aware.

then she has a turn as i,
as being me, and as i (as I)
careen away, the vaster leap
of single body, double mind-
it pulls beyond substantial thought

our uber-jumprope dangles
while we speed above the trees -- all is dark
excluding speckled stars
and the one, shrinking party-glow i lose below

the television orbits,
wobbles in a superstrings' embrace
all balance lost --
we're floating in a spin alone
unfocused universal locus..
stars diminishing reliquish cosmic depth
and nourish life in death

reeling eyes of weightless ******
squint to spacetime surgings
inward of the who i am--
plasticity-encasing glass of box
to offer all subverse companionship.
i tug the corded fabric
fronting interweaving screen
of futile marking where
i've riveted, lost, gazing
psychosoma scene
a modern mind-toy posted
to enframe another me we are,
even here with outside sight of world
vacuum up and lower heading
compass only gulping awe,
the breath is gone, a stinging heart
revalves its pacing flow
descending cosmogonic thread

allocate the living and the dead,
the borderline is begging to be tread.

i imagine trees again,
branches soft,
trunks my guideposts to the ground i've lost~
i'm mingling against my sense of real again,
packing leftovers, living social lies unknown.
a man compliments his speech
as "Bristling with business."
the jelly seeps beyond the pita's edge,
the pita slides out from under foil.
the party swivles on its axis,
the clowns play on, noble chefs
laughing in their pots
while i visit drooping psyche forms,
around and through glass doors,
crystal tables -- a furniture of ideal norms
to overturn. ah. i'm found again,
a bit less vast among a crowd
of nescient lives unlived. i'm
found undiscovered open all,
plainly lacking truth as well,
i'm me, this other presence,
this shifting sight,
flood experiential zoo,
this empty vessel holding two
a social fissure prying sense of self
from up a wild void..

grey misty haze
why pray for better days?
silver hues
lick moist air
in the beautiful world we share
puddles painted on the floor
revealing your unfocused stare
grey misty haze
tickling noses blue
should be enough
for you

If I become unfocused
Because my day's been bad
You bring me back to earth with just a smile
No matter your misfortune
Or how far away I seem
You center me again with a small smile

When misfortune rears it's ugly head
Or the washer's on the blink
You bite your lip, and out comes that **** smile
No matter what your pain is
Or the fact the car won't start
You brush it all away, and then you smile

There's a light inside your eyes
That blazes hotter than a sun
It holds me here, I cannot get away
That light shines even brighter
When I walk into the room
I love you, and that's all I know to say

Your smile holds me hostage
It says it all, but not a word
That smile, shows me just exactly how you feel
It makes my day worth living
Knowing what's waiting at the end
Your smile, makes me know our love is real

It's a standard I cling on to
It's the rock that keeps me still
That smile and the love I know it shows
It's the reason I am living
My rainbow ending treasure
That smile, keeps me strong through out lifes lows

There's a light inside your eyes
That blazes hotter than a sun
It holds me here, I cannot get away
That light shines even brighter
When I walk into the room
I love you, and that's all I know to say

The tree that we both planted
When we started out this life
Makes me smile, when I think of it's tough start
How we planted a small twiglet
And how it grew strong over time
It's our tree, grown from deep inside our heart

I miss you dear so badly
I don't know how I can go on
Your smile, burns so bright inside my brain
It took you oh so quickly
Two quick months and you were gone
So, I smile, knowing you are not in pain

There's a light inside your eyes
That blazes hotter than a sun
It holds me here, I cannot get away
That light shines even brighter
I feel you in this empty room
I still love you, and that's all I know to say

Unfocused vision
Blurry images of you
Torment my consience.

+
A bed-sits high and dry,marooned on a sandbank of night.
As  radio 4-casts its nets to isolated ships like me that rudderless drift on into the light.

Still dark outside,no sounds,save the distant echoing bark of a hungry fox ----streets away.
Another dawn ripped blackbin bag of a day creeps and ouzes in

Heavy unfocused lids fogged in the steamy smokeyness of tea and a first ***    
plenty of time            plenty of time.
Time before the world wakes to the morning pips and its flushing, brushing, rushing sounds

A greyness gathers just beyound my pained curtains, as with a silent sigh a roosted blackbird clears its fasted throat.

Then as if by magic I 'm carried, scimming high above and beyound this mooring set in a silvered sea,on a welcomed mantra known to all.

As if a calling pray at day break,following each word in a moment subline
               Un angle vole                                                          un angle vole.

Rockall - Malin - Hebrides
         Humber - Fisher - German bight
               Thames - Dover - Wight.

Each single secert understood and noted only by a few as I glide over in paced, pausey surf rolling words

North northeast - 994 - Falling slowly - Low pressure moving away - Gales 8 very poor - Backing 3-4 later - Mainly good - Becoming variable - Syclonic later - Increasing 6-7 mainly west - Swally showers for a time - Fair - Good.

Oh so good, each pure English comforting sounds heard over lapping waves of air.

The bushy wet nosed fox sulks and cowers away from the breaking sun, as the blackbird draws a dewdropped breath though golden nib and tapping gently, call a hidden choir into song just for me.

Reminding me of the things I'd for gotten I care about.

Sharp timed unwelcomed pips flood the ears to prise open sticky eyes from promised dreams and spoon-cuddles warm
As I set forth on wetted pavements, ready to decline into my charted day.  

Yet smiling as if blessed and no longer alone
            But filled with early morning salty thoughts of strangers
        
                  I
                     have
                                yet
                                       to
                                            meet

Oblivion is the pit of this ravine
And I'm holding onto a feeble vine for dear life
You screamed, "Don't let go!"
My hands are losing its grip
Then you toss me a knife

Nowhere is the destination of this path
Still, I'm trying to find the right way
You said, "Don't get lost!"
My vision becomes hazy and unfocused
Then you give me the broken compass of yesterday

Pain is the entity waiting on the other side
I sink my feet deeper onto the floor
You whispered, "Don't leave me alone."
My fingers no longer hold the keys
Then I see you opening the door

Silver slivers of solid liver and jam
Whiskers kiss past Turks or ham
Flavored paper for popular people
Begin please! Climb our church steeple

Forget it, I mean you no harm
If you can't be cute, then try for smarm
Tell me a secret you know about boys
Though you might not know any, you still have soft toys

Never, ever, always - tall days (in platform shoes!)

Hate, love, lust, rust and remembering
Silly games with guns and dismembering
Bombs that explode into strawberry stars
Sparkle and twinkle, and try to melt cars

Jelly beans, tangerines, chocolate and fries
Buttered toast fireworks in ovaltine skies

Capable people do commonplace things
while I write myself a pair of pink wings
to fly overhead of their sensible plans
and pelt them with pillows and empty food cans.

Babies - of what do they dream?
What thoughts play behind those closed eyes,
Those eyes so like others before
Unfocused and newly revealed?

What is it in holding a child
That brings such a tranquility?
That puts the world's problems at bay
And shows what is truly at stake?

Perhaps when they dream they become
The person they one day shall be
In full philosophical garb
So leading us to what will come

Or maybe it simply is shapes
And colors so formless and free
A way to make sense of the world
They sample with unfocused eyes

2Apr2002

They said the fairest of the goddesses
Was the one to give us love,
The one to fetch the maidens
And bring the boys their girls.
What they meant by fair was beautiful,
Not just or right or equitable,
For it hardly seems fair
That she's a goddess,
Enthroned on a mountain with a mirror in her hand
And we're all of us mere mortals,
Hapless humans,
With our ribcages wide open,
With no bone to shield our vulnerable ventricles
And no sense to tell us to cover our chests.
It's no wonder that this otherworldly seduction
Can ****** us
And string us along
And consume us
Until we forget what life was
Before love caught us.

It seems impossible
That these frail, impermanent bodies
Can hold such ethereal infatuation;
It's too strong,
So it ravages us,
Strips away dignity,
Rips away common sense,
And seizes all control.
Our little human selves
Never stood a chance.

Tell me, Aphrodite,
Does it make you laugh to watch us struggle?
From your lofty vantage point,
Do you giggle when the rational become foolish,
When the thinkers become unfocused,
When the innocent become broken?
Does it please your fair reflection
When those devoted mortals go to ungodly lengths
For this love that you inflict,
Until they have nothing left of themselves,
Until they're worn to the very bones
That couldn't protect their unsuspecting hearts?

Do you revel in the irony,
Aphrodite,
When, exhausted and dejected
And downright tortured,
They still worship you?
When they bow
And sacrifice
In gratitude?
When we miserable mortals
Thank you for these feelings that destroy us,
Because for tiny moments
We felt transcendentally good.

Perhaps she'd had better intentions,
That goddess Aphrodite,
Thought that she was filling our open hearts
With something to give them meaning.
Maybe she thought
We'd left our ribcages open on purpose,
That we'd all simply been waiting for her,
Wondering when she'd reach down her power
And give us a love to cling to.
Or,
It could be that she had it right,
That our chests were left gaping
And our hearts were left empty
So that Aphrodite could look away from her mirror,
Smile from the clouds,
And send us someone to make us whole.

It is a dictionary in ice.
        Pages frozen in place,
        the words blurry and unreadable.
        All cold and slippery.
I cannot grasp the concrete.

It is a blurry photo.
Unfocused, unmotivated,
                                   unknown.
Discarded as soon as it is found.

It is the waking up
                        with a dull pounding.
A nap that did not refresh
An exhaustion that never ends

I cannot wake up
  cannot end this dull ache
  cannot focus
  cannot grasp
  cannot thaw
  cannot do not know

Please wake me up
        and clear my head.
Adjust the focus; twist it
and snap a clear picture.
Give me something concrete.
        Press it to me
        and close my fingers around it.
Then wrap around me
        and help me hold on
        so this does not slip away, too.

there was
  a time in my life
when i didn't know
that
gin
existed.

at some point
   someone put a
gin and tonic
  in my hand,
and i said with delight,
"this is so refreshing!"

i bought the
cheapest gin
i could find
until i heard
snoop rapping
about tanqueray
and i thought to myself,
"what the hell is tanqueray?"

come to find out,
it is a delicious
gin, in a classy green
bottle with a red stamp.

how lovely!
things were just getting better!
i love limes, and
in no time,
a lime version of tanqueray,
"rangpur" arrived,
and i discovered
DIET LIME TONIC

life seriously couldn't get any better.
let's look at the mathematical equation, shall we?

gin=refreshing=limes=tanqueray=snoop=all around good times

marvelous. let's fast forward a decade.

gin=tanqueray=tears.

i honestly wish
life was not this
way and i
could go back
to the way
gin used to be.

and here is the
point i'm
trying to get to -

i'm so blah ...
   so u n i n t e r e s t e d
so unfocused
     that the thought
of going into a store
  to get tonic was
too much for me to bear.
seriously.

so.
i'm drinking gin. with ice. and a little straw.
i have limes in my fridge,
and lime juice.
i looked at both of these items,
and could not summon
the strength
to move either
from the fridge to
the counter,
let alone my drink.

the next step on the road
to the river styx
is gin with no ice and a straw.
then just gin in a glass.
then just gin straight out of the ******* bottle.
then i would just eat the beautiful tanqueray glass bottle.
that seems to be the jist of things around
this place (by "this place" i mean earth) in general.
it's entropy. pick one of the definitions -
i'm pretty sure that poetically any of them apply.
personally, i think
heat death
sounds the best.

We drift through the moments
Of silence in our flickering thoughts
Who are we then?
Brief lapses of lost identities
With none of the trappings of personality
Lies the mind tells itself drop and fall away
Folded up memories cleared
To allow the blank shuffling
Faraway stares unfocused on the present
Drifting moments of silence in flickering thoughts

cc111411

In one's lifetime, comes a moment or two,
when a sunny day's sky of powder-blue
turns to an utterly gloomy black night
not at all a beautiful twilight
:::just a dark firmament...no homing birds in sight

When in a flurry,
it comes naturally,
to want to sit...on the ground,
on the floor...just somewhere down
with both palms cupping jaws
resting on knees are angled elbows
discontent and stagnation
nag one's  imagination
heartbeats
............are drumbeats
glances are fleeting
unfocused:::::escaping
such are vain attempts, to dismiss
avoided thoughts and scenes:::to release
::::and decide...all must eventually cease
yet.........it's never easy to find peace
can't just forget sounds of voices...and sweet laughter
jokes and conversations that came, before and after...
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::
they are tattooed in the mind
::::::::: they are ::::::::::
::: i n d e l i b l e ::::::::::
:::: e s p e c i a l l y ::::
:::on:::moments:::when:::
:::we struggle the most:::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
::::::::only:::­to:::realize::::::
::::::::::::::::::[[[]]]::::::::::::::::
:::::­:::[[ memories ]]::::::::::
::::are:::a::::[[metal cage]]
::::::::::::: and we :::::::::::::::
::::::::::::::::: are :::::::::::::::::
:::::::[[captured birds]]:::::::
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
it usually takes long:::::::::::
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
::::::to be freed:::::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::;;;;
::::::from being:::::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:::::::::::held:::::::::­::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:::[[ c a p t i v e ]]:::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
(November 2015)


Sally

Copyright January 13, 2016
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan

Evenings were sandwich time
brought in by big Ted
sandwiches cut in triangles
in white and brown

and he laid the plates down
on the center table
and the patients
bored out

of their fragile brains
pounced upon them
and ate ravishingly
as if time

was running out
to eat
but  
Yiska nibbled hers

took small bites
her finger tips
holding the brown bread
her white teeth

nibbling gently
Naaman watched her
his sandwich held
but uneaten

smelt
viewed
but held away
from lips

he took in
Yiska's nibbling
the way her fingers
held as if a holy host

not fish paste
and her lips
parted just so
her tongue seen

the white teeth
and her eyes
unfocused
her nightgown

buttoned at the breast
with a missing button
and he wanted
to be that sandwich

in her fingers
wanted her lips
to feel him
her teeth to nibble him

but then
the foreign woman
distracted him
by taking

her sandwich apart
opening it
between fingers
sniffing the contents

******* up her nose
muttering something
in her foreign tongue
throwing it on the plate

and picking up another
don't waste them
a nurse said
ask if you don't see

what you want
the foreign woman
chewed on the sandwich
she'd picked

the nurse removed
the torn open sandwich
Naaman ate
a small portion

viewing Yiska meanwhile
licking her fingers
******* the ends
in and out

and he wished
it he she was doing thus
he looked away
the evening sky

was darkening
through the locked
ward windows
the bright electric lights

above their heads
made mirrors
of the windows
and Naaman saw himself

in his blue dressing gown
sans belt in case
he tried to string
himself again

and he gazed at Yiska
once more nibbling
another sandwich
the same *******

technique
the similar lipping
routine
and the missing button

on her nightgown
revealed a small portion
of flesh viewed
her small *******

pressing the cotton cloth
of the nightgown
and he ate unceremoniously
the last of his bread

watching her fingers
licked again
while outside the window
the sound of fresh rain.

The Doctors point and whisper
With crude and handmade tools.
Pinch and cut and decompress
like blood soaked sweating ghouls.
A slash, a snap, a sting
make a finger move.
The swollen eye, it twitches
and the mouth begins to drool.

Still no heartbeat, still no life
in the body, three days dead,
yet there is the softest sentence
uttered by the head;
Slipping slug-like out
from desperate lips in dread.
With unfocused twitching eyes
this is what it said:

"Let this one thing still be sacred;
The shroud between the dead and living.
Let the sleeping dogs now lie,
The Dead we're never meant to sing.
"Don't bring Death to Living lands
Don't take back the hourglass sand.
Leave the idols where they stand.
Leave the blood on bloodstained hands."

The doctor ***** his head:
"Is there movement in the brain?"
Another doctor shakes his own:
"None that can sustain"
Sowing shut his lips they say:
"Disturb us not again".
But a wordless sorrow is intact
in the soul that still remains.

Once again they dig in deeper
to find the glitch that kills.
With their knives and scissors
and noises crude and shrill.
The dead head slowly drops
with eyes wet, wide and still,
that meet the eye of a mocking bird
upon the window sill.

Crooked road
Dragging down
Satanic dimensions
Twirling
Spinning
Unfocused camera
Snap shot
Tapping nails
Scraping walls
Harlot in the corner
Creeping out
Freaky ways
Strapped
Tapped
White room
Yellow bed
Bleeding limbs
Chambers
Of horror
Demonic town
Take away
Death around
***
Kills the body
Helas the mind
Treated
Insane
Cured
Refrain
Cuts on hand
Bit a man
NIce jacket
I go
Little house on the prairie
Hell no
Crooked road
Haunted down
Satanic dimensions
Twirling
Demonic town
Creeping out
Freaky ways
White room
Where i stay

Murray

Lectures by the river side
My my, my poor unfocused mind
Lost in the summer sun
Why, why do you run

Falling falling
Dynamic falling but into what and where

Too big to small
It’s locked
Flood the door

Weather the storm
3 seagulls
And ones extinct
Yelping from the ocean floor

Nautical and aviated creatures
Spinning, singing
Joining the jig
Go by the prophecy

Getting drowned
Getting dry
The rodent
Is out of time
The twins

honking paradox
stories missing their plots
lungs give out
as you give in

how do you do
that’s manners
pudding, pudding
who’s got the pudding?

tales of greed and trade
tales of gluttony and shame
fabrications of a hard days work
cabbages and kings

take a walk
we’ll share a talk
follow follow
into the dark

a loaf of bread
to bide his time
while I devour
you are mine
weep for you
oh I could sing
broken promises
of cabbages and kings

oh Mary Ann
she isn’t home
but she would be
but she can't

the gloves are lost
as she grows large
cant believe shes back again

the lizard
slithers down the chimney
shrieks in fear of her size

smoke the monster out
toast the *******
spark the fuse
so misunderstood

back to small
it still comes
the flower bed
over run

roses daises daffodils
an astonishing scheme of bright colors

tulips joining the 4 part harmony
in the golden afternoon
music to my ears
growing dying seconds and years

morning glories and butterflies
taking up my time
but I don’t mind
ill sit and smile

no pedals
no stem
no seeds
I’m a common ****

sit and relax
vowels and syntax
Smokey interrogation
caterpillars transformation

I see what grace meant
Looking back on it again

I’m three inches high
Now goodbye

One bight can only take you so far
The consumption
Of a mushroom
And its spores

Now that’s right
But what is left
No where to go
But some where to get…to

Striped and smiling feline
Seems like he’s hiding something
Knows something
I don’t

Points me in all directions
For no way is bad
But every which way
Is surely mad

364 days that aren’t mine
But I"ll cherish them like they are
But why
Because I can

A loon, a hare and a rat
Teapots and party hats

Blowing the candles out
Making your wish come true
Feed your head it’s the thing to do

I never got to sip my tea
What a pity
Speak in riddles
Tease in rhymes

A few tears here
A realization there
Do I ignore
Or continue to care
The roses are faux
So that she wont know
Oh the color red
Spilled blood of the dead

A place where they hail a crown
A place where heads roll around
A nonsensical monarchy
In a vast world of anarchy

Of with my head
Put me on trial
So ill be dead
In awhile, good

Wake up
Wake up
Nothing but a dream
Yes yes but what could it mean

Day dream of silliness
A place where somethings amiss
I dare not go back again
Gaze through the looking glass
To see the wonderland

little saporous pretty prisms
dragged through ashen bones
to place your cloying melt
on my shivering paper skin:
your sticky face,
tongue stripping strangling,
char-chipping my caramelized blisters
from the burning maraschino hum.
Bubbling up whiteness
like our eyes unfocused,
hands moving unaware
spread the chapping numbness
over our senses, succumbed.

Poem written waiting outside the club
that my brother and I frequent
together -
scene:
a hundred mouths breathe clouds
into the biting air,
cold of a Friday night
security at the door, screaming
a sea of voices asking
"can you take me in with you? I'm not old enough"
and the growling of boys half drunk
already
my brother tall, pushed against me

Poem written at the back of the club
that my brother and I frequent
together -
and scene:
us, scouring the dancefloor together
us, drinking ***** lemon on the sidelines
us, stretching necks to see if we
know anyone in here,
half-poised to
escape
should we need to
(we don't want to see others)

Poem written standing at the bar
that my brother and I
frequent together -
this scene:
spilled on the dark, chipped wood
euro bills
sticky cocktails
nose blood
and my hand, washed
in the mix
of liquids
it is 2 a.m.

Poem written waiting outside the toilets
that my brother and I
frequent
apart -
now, scene:
him, nowhere to be found
line, endless
girls, loud and crying, laughing
and my foot tapping
nervously
to the bass that makes
the walls vibrate
and shake

Poem written in the parking lot of the club
that my brother and I
just squeezed out of -
last scene:
him, sober, hands on steering wheel
my eyes, unfocused, trained on
the electric blue of his car radio
playing our after-club mix
coming down, silently
no words between us
only deep-bassed beats
and intoxicated breath
our minds as spent
and exhausted