"A patient man bides his time,"
Theodore tells the man in the mirror
Tomorrow, all the levees will break
And all the fables will be told
Of distant Decembers and forgotten fathers

Livelihoods will be threatened
And remorse will fall by the wayside
He watches as icicles on the awning
Melt away into puddles on the ground
"Warmer every day," he thinks to himself

He hangs up his scarf and overcoat
The way a simple man, with complex demons, is wont to do
And as his wants devolve into needs
And as all his anchors deteriorate to rust
Her smile unnerves a once-settled man

To think of the quality of glove necessary
To hold onto the wagon in this day and age
So Theodore pulls the door to,
Leaving Chopin's "Horseman" to gallop in peace
And in pieces

He watches her from across the courtyard
"Such sweet bliss in her footsteps," he sighs
And it seems to him as if the snow dissipates
Just from the warmth in her steady gait
Just from the radiation behind her brown eyes

He slides open the dresser drawer
A haven for scattered trinkets, odds, and ends
A place of respite for the weary souvenir
There, amidst all the corroded memories
Lies a corroded pistol, unspoken and unburnished

"And a lonely man drinks his wine,"
Theodore says, as intrepidly as he is capable
For there is a time when fathers stop teaching
A time when mothers stop singing
And a place where the sins stop searching

A last breath is deeply inhaled
But never again will find its escape
With a thud that echoes to Seymour Street
Theodore crumples to the cold wooden floor,
A simple man, finally free of complex demons

Remind me not, remind me not,
  Of those beloved, those vanish’d hours,
    When all my soul was given to thee;
Hours that may never be forgot,
  Till Time unnerves our vital powers,
    And thou and I shall cease to be.

Can I forget—canst thou forget,
  When playing with thy golden hair,
    How quick thy fluttering heart did move?
Oh! by my soul, I see thee yet,
  With eyes so languid, breast so fair,
    And lips, though silent, breathing love.

When thus reclining on my breast,
Those eyes threw back a glance so sweet,
    As half reproach’d yet rais’d desire,
And still we near and nearer prest,
  And still our glowing lips would meet,
  As if in kisses to expire.

And then those pensive eyes would close,
  And bid their lids each other seek,
    Veiling the azure orbs below;
While their long lashes’ darken’d gloss
  Seem’d stealing o’er thy brilliant cheek,
    Like raven’s plumage smooth’d on snow.

I dreamt last night our love return’d,
  And, sooth to say, that very dream
    Was sweeter in its phantasy,
Than if for other hearts I burn’d,
  For eyes that ne’er like thine could beam
    In Rapture’s wild reality.

Then tell me not, remind me not,
  Of hours which, though for ever gone,
    Can still a pleasing dream restore,
Till thou and I shall be forgot,
  And senseless, as the mouldering stone
    Which tells that we shall be no more.

I was seventy-seven, come August,
  I shall shortly be losing my bloom;
I've experienced zephyr and raw gust
  And (symbolical) flood and simoom.

When you come to this time of abatement,
  To this passing from Summer to Fall,
It is manners to issue a statement
  As to what you got out of it all.

So I'll say, though reflection unnerves me
  And pronouncements I dodge as I can,
That I think (if my memory serves me)
  There was nothing more fun than a man!

In my youth, when the crescent was too wan
  To embarrass with beams from above,
By the aid of some local Don Juan
  I fell into the habit of love.

And I learned how to kiss and be merry--an
  Education left better unsung.
My neglect of the waters Pierian
  Was a scandal, when Grandma was young.

Though the shabby unbalanced the splendid,
  And the bitter outmeasured the sweet,
I should certainly do as I then did,
  Were I given the chance to repeat.

For contrition is hollow and wraithful,
  And regret is no part of my plan,
And I think (if my memory's faithful)
  There was nothing more fun than a man!

Numb feels ineptly
Nobody
Nothing
Empty.

Numb has a feeble spirit
Numb is numbing

Numb
******* needy
Numb
It runs swiftly
Flows freely
Numb
approaches the needy
  Ever so quickly.
It thinks of him
And deprives me
Of breathing

Numb watches.
Stares.
It  separates me, isolates.
Numb never cared.  
Makes the bleak confiscate
Everything I hate
It thinks of him
And unnerves my limbs

Numb will find it
I cannot quit
The nowhere is near
Numb brings it here

Watching.
Sickly it's ever wanting
So enchanting
Why is It still alive?
Numb will realise
He must  die

For me to be alive

Numb unfolds
Clamour of a dormant soul
The pleads
The need
Numb ever succeeds

Dear Poet:

Your poetry
throbs
amuses
delights
irritates
stimulates
sometimes incites

Mystifies
startles
unnerves
and excites

Perfectly lofty
exquisitely right
dynamic
thrilling
burning bright
brilliant
heartwarming
whimsy in flight

Provocative
magical
forever true
magnificent
moving
engaging too

So now I'll close my letter
with a plea:

Keep writing.
Take care.

Sincerely,

Me

Love is a monster, she is
She makes you take your clothes off
And run on the beach
And laugh at every single
bug you meet,
She plays with your thoughts
And unnerves your nerves
so that you see only
the one that you love.

She's a monster still,
don't you know?
She'll make you take your clothes off
And dance in the snow
And fool you into believing
the warmth you feel inside
is love uncovered
when it is really the fever
of love burning uncontrolled.

She will slice your words
and make you giggle
With a little bit of help
you will need no further tickle

She will remove hunger
She will eliminate sleep
With any luck,
you will fall in too deep

Run now, I say,
before it's too late
She's a monster, she's evil
just you wait!

A flame flickers and hushes
At the **** end of a dead wick
I look right
And then left
And sigh to myself

The realization that permanence is a figment
Of imagination and the utter most wish of a fool
Sinks in deep and comes to the surface at once
The ever present prospect of this unnerves me

Yet
At the same time
Soothes me

My Reportage for 10/8/2018
When I was a child, my mother and the neighbors
would sit on the front stoop and gossip
about current events: ones would pretend
to be reading her book, but ones ears were like
cable vision indoor satellite: broadcasting
Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh
Stirs up a lot in me this past week
About my childhood memories,

I felt unnerves, about topics that old folks chat about back then:
I remember the villains, child *** predators and ****** fathers
the child's entrapment and powerlessness era in our small village
Where the old folks buried the secrets under the rugs
And prayer about it on Sunday morn

Flashing back to those stories,
too often is nerve wrecking
I called them the gossiping sundown moments:
Shilling was a clone of Brett Kavanaugh: he drank and he forgets:

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! /
The world forgetting, by the world forgot. /
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! /
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd
'Eloisa to Abelard', Alexander Pope

Those gossiping sundown moments,
Never dies when it enters the ears of a heedful child:
I was always one of those children,
Who was so careful about stranger’s looks?
the friendlier the neighbors sweet talk tones
I would take off with speed like the swarm drone
Odd! but that was all it took:

All emotions, even those that are suppressed and unexpressed, have physical effects. Unexpressed emotions tend to stay in the body like small ticking time bombs—they are illnesses in incubation.”
― Marilyn Van M. Derbur,
:

I feel my pulse
Quicken steadily;
My fingertips
Perspiring readily,
The anticipation
In my every sense;
Of you coming near
My invisible fence,
Vulnerable to my emotions
It protects me;
But you tear it down
Flimsy no one can see,
I take you in through every pore;
Beauty to my eyes;
Your scent unnerves my core,
The very thought of you
Like an illusion;
Every curl of your hair;
Every curve like a mission,
You wield this control
Unlike any king or power;
If only I could wait
For your command but I cower,
As you touch me
Shivers run through my soul;
What I wouldn't do
But for one kiss no bell would toll,
Your parting lips
To my sight a rose in bloom;
Supple skin and flesh
I wish to hold
Take in my doom,
For; you break my self-control
To give in to this;
What may it be called?
My forbidden bliss...
© okpoet

I am a porcelain doll
My small hands are fragile,
So I let no one touch them.
I try not to blink
Because my eyelids scraping against marble
Is a sound that unnerves me.
I am a stop animation film
In my first language
Twisting tongues.

It takes cement
to make a gent
and
I've been chewing bricks
since nineteen fifty six
that's an awful lot of brick dust.

They say,
needs must when the Devil rides,
time and tides and other adages that
make no sense to me.

I always
listen carefully,
but it's in one ear and out
the other.

Learning is not my disability,
the ability to unlearn is what
unnerves me

and it's Saturday
I should be out at play
but
I'm going to work to
pay my tax
so
some idle swine on
easy street can sit back
and relax.

He's in a shaft
and
they all laughed,
but
it wasn't the
bottomless pit.

There is this separation, this... Duality. There is the girl I live inside, who loves you. Who...craves you, like air, like... A beating heart. She would walk through hell for you. She would gaze at you forever. But then sometimes... Sometimes I can rise above that for a moment, and see you as you are. As "only"- only a girl, only a person. Those moments confuse me, make me sad. I don't want them, but I do. If you'll be distant, if you'll leave me behind and...change, become ordinary, grow up and leave your passion behind for something more stable... Then maybe I need that distance, that rising up. That forgetting. But you are the sun and the stars, to me. You are half of my heart. And being away from that, being beyond it, it feels like mourning, like a funeral. That feeling unnerves me, as if it is a tide rising that I can't stop, as if someday you won't matter. That is part of why you matter so much. The closer I get to the day you decide to become ordinary, to the day when a stranger swallows the girl whose face I've traced with my fingers in awe, the more desperately I love you, the parts of you that shine, that are slowly being hidden because you've something more important to be doing. It's a complex fear, like a secret. Like a key you've buried in the garden and every time you walk by, the ground pulls at you, and nobody else even knows. It fogs up my mind, breath on the glass between me and you, and I stop making sense. But... I can SEE you. I can see you forgetting me. And I can't tell if it is my fear drenched mind throwing shadows by candlelight, or if I am losing the only person I ever gave my whole heart to. Not in a sudden, violent way, but in an insidious, eroding way. I want to beg you to tell me it will be okay. That I'm being silly. That you will try as I will try not to drift away. But by now, I'm not even sure I'd be able to believe you if you did.

You pose him, your child, with the dog, the puppy,
the one your wife insisted you buy for him, your child,
your only son. You stand back. Your wife counts down
from three. Your child smiles in such an unnatural way
like he learned to do it from an instructional manual.
Something about this unnerves you. The posing. The
stilted smile. You made this child, your only son, and
he's five feet removed from you and his face is unnatural,
a caricature of joy. The puppy barks once. It echoes in the small
living room, and you can't help but think of this photo
as a marker, another tangible step closer to your own death.
Wait.
You reframe. You say this is a moment. This is something to
cherish. This is something to look back on. Your wife says
good boy and scratches the puppy behind the ears.
She kisses your child, your only son, on the forehead.
But, of course, one day this dog will die. With any luck, you, your wife, and your only son will live to see this day and this moment
will reemerge and your wife will say he was a good boy and your
son will say he was so small and you'll feel this same dread -- the posing, the stilted smile -- you'll feel it all fresh. How many tiny tragedies can a man anticipate? How many tiny tragedies
can a man endure?

bring along your heart
face its fetters and fears
come to her, near and bare
turn to the moonglade, is there

what part has one played
of accountability and flight
lost in twilight and moment
that one cannot see, so torment

what is keeping you unfair
out of the love one deserves
be a master you love to serve
see how much of it unnerves

leave nostalgia of the past  
as glowing path never go astray
is just one fallen heart away
to a place calling one to stay

Too quiet unnerves me
Distractions are needed;
Sounds of birds chirping
Demanding tabby talking

Too quiet scares me
Only my thoughts
Are they too much
Or not nearly enough?

Too quiet is too much
“Alexa, turn on NPR”
“Alexa play acid jazz“

Microwave
Washing machine
Anything

When one of ten
Cacophony always company
No choice in that matter
Finding comfort in discord

Too quiet
Turns inward
Alone with
Solo voce

Pianos are crashing inside my head as the yellow light of the city and the sun force me into an excruciating halt. An affectionate young man- who is now old, yet remembers the skin he shed- sighs about ****** premonitions through the medium of digital frequencies. A car edges its way to my side- my father tells me “we’re almost there”- the car is positioned in such a contrived way that should I turn my attention exactly ninety degrees rightwards, I would be obliviously vying for the driver’s attention. The thought unnerves me, so I encourage my divagated musings elsewhere. Why did my father tell me that we were nearing our destination? Did he meekly say it, with the meagre velleity of keeping me aware of my surroundings? Where else could my head go, but up?
Pedestrians, their knees adorned with snow trinkets, fall within my periphery. As our car fit itself into a fleeting crevice on the cliff face of concrete, I adjusted my vision into a volitional telescope, narrow and explorative. Among the constellation of humans lay writers in poses denoting propriety, cigarettes suggesting esotericism, and face begging for denial. Facsimiles of these characters dance between the ivory-laced walkways of the interconnected district. I am disgusted by this labile beauty. I am fearful that I will witness its extinction.
I crossed the indifferent street, sure that my haste wasn’t apparent, and therefore, non-existent.
“Disappointingly, the record store sat waiting, knowing of my excitement”, said a fool, pricking my ear. I almost ran for an officer, indignant in my role as a victim to his verbal impotence. When I regained my composition, I paid full attention to the unassuming door between a burger shack and some unidentifiable after-thought-structure. This door, pedestrian to most, contains within it what a common walker would consider heaven. It is, to me, a strenuous Sunday stroll of impulse and and opulence. There is no point in resisting that which makes me happy yet unstable. I could not do without it. To deny is to doubt the music that I loved, and am currently beholden to by chains; the lobotomical sort.
I scoured the store and bough the prized possession. It was quite probably a Tim Buckley record. Here comes a man, quick and close, with a chartreuse disposition.
“I see you thinkin’ kid, it makes my brain throw up alllll funny things. If my erradition ever had anyin’ ta say, it’d shout that you’s too rowdy a rider.” Good sir, a sharp mind and apt humour is all I need to keep myself from harm. I wrote that down, walkings as if the stiff block was nothing but. Such a misdemeanour, to be so passive. I lingered forward and onwards.

No no nee nah naw. All I can offer you is this. Taking a fist, making a new sphincter higher up the body, fistula in hand. People drown in stomach acid. Tell you what’s beautiful – stomach linings reduced to squares that bud next to each other, cross-sectioned like in textbooks with permeable edges and bubbles bursting inside to secrete. Internally imagined bubbles perambulate between other bubbles, and that is a reality never truly observed in our own dimensions, but it is known to exist. It is known. These are realms where opinion and conviction do not contribute in the truest sense. Divorced. Shut eyes.
~
If you could record thoughts what would you make of all the blank spaces? There is more data than we can imagine. More data more data. Anything you like. More data thrown up in order to process more data. Leave them in folders. Folders of *****. If legs could work they would run. Might. Go missing. Never suicide but maybe go missing. There were tangible things blotted away by fear and hurt. Not hopeful. Borne of this could be something worth looking back on. Time to think. Rollerblade between bubbles now, grass blowing into balloon animals stretches the hair on the head until so thin nobody will want to **** that head anymore. Ears red-zoom in on canals thick with inflammation and damaged chicken-haired cells that aren’t coming back. This will not get better. All that are left are diagrams, cut loose from the original context and lying disused. Pull things together, don’t misuse. Watch papers fall to the floor. Walk away.
~
Using bad language like ‘can’t’ for refuge. Don’t force function; it’s needed, O tearing self from self. Hating your twin. My twin ate me and became unlovableunfuckable. Create creatures instead. Push form into something more organic than organic – how was it remembered. False figures false organs pouring out pigs-tongue, locked in the supply closet. Never go to the teacher’s lounge, it is a terrible place full of function and sweat. Not adult like all other teachers. Let students see weakness, it’s portentous of the future. Never will be rich in the religious sense. Chose it. Bathing in it. Nobody else should get in the tub. Want to run. World’s mercy lasted yet, waiting for it not to last but will only know when more risks are taken. Walk away with phone dead in pocket, no chance of recharge and cause panic – mild distaste turns to hatred, problem solved. Be careful to play a long internal game. Feel epigenetic throbbing.
~
Words are gone, and instead shapes bubble from tangible physical observations, stretching up into things that are different enough to find comfort in. Can’t give it out, can’t be asked questions because none of the answers are explainable. Should swear silence and communicate with images. Words were once all and image nothing prior to rejection and age: mental auto-immunity. Not much left before body selling means nothing, wince when it comes up in conversation, nobody needs to know but compulsion’s to tell everyone. Maybe this is the way to make a difference; show humanoid vulnerability, reminding the world that people exist in all corners and really, we’re ok right? Lets co-exist together and in return you can ******* once more in peace. Never a dull moment.
~
Locked in, looking across there is no window that you can’t see yourself in. Looking back. Uniform heights and weights and squares upon squares, regardless of scale. If I see another square I will *****. Tiled floors here are the same as in the museum; you hated them, so I had a shot. Get some ideas down. Images shifted from one medium to another will yield something. Cannot escape the thought that making non-political art is self-indulgent and irresponsible, while political art is best left to someone else. God only unnerves. Almighty someone else can stand. It is still irresponsible to be small? Take-me-out-of-it is not possible with a clear conscience. Gotta break some heart-eggs.
~
Want help with math – sit on down. Work hard, give everything away, don’t have to think about anything and can achieve abstracted absolution. Plan: How many hours pay the rent and the rest of the drip? Remainder can be devoted to something else. Wreck your body, don’t sleep, and keep shuffling, had enough time of half-recovery. Wrecking your body anyway so make no illusions about a change in pace. Switch now into self-sacrifice. Lock all this stupidity back up, not even you benefit from it. Don’t expect anything. Pay, work, give, and zero needs mental or other. Life seems better that way. Pretend you have no twin.

Will you abandon all hope whilst blood still courses through your veins?
Will you open your mouth to the force fed propaganda swallowed readily by the masses?
Drink from the goblet of lies to sit like a cesspool in your stomach, a stench of rot and decay .
Cross the road to avoid the homeless girl as she counts her pennies , her cold dark hell a kinder place than the horror she avoids .
What do you know as you protest of hardship and horror and pain in the comfort of your four walls?
Emotionally devoid - they've seen to that . Comfortably numb in your own small world .
Immersed in triviality and lifted fleetingly by material niceties , averting your gaze from all that leaves a sour taste in your mouth .
Do you feel fulfilled brother , as you watch the destruction in far off lands ?
Do you not feel sick to your stomach as you turn your gaze from the images on the screen of man destroyed - their bodies lifeless and broken - in the name of war and power and religion .
Do you sleep soundly in your bed with the belief that you are in control ?
Wake up!...You were not born to this world to close your eyes to all that unnerves you.
You think you are safe in your small kingdom - untouchable .
But the ugliness will fill every pore of your being and you will flounder in a sea of guilt that will become a madness that will eat you from within until you too lie broken .

YOUR GOD IS INDEED A GREAT MAGICIAN

Ah, this rolling blue globe—
so nobly fashioned, so grandly displayed!
From mountains majestic, sweet waters cascade
o’er flowers that tower o’er beetle and blade,
o’er horrors that harrow, like earth meeting *****.
Newborns like produce, aligned and arrayed
like bluing cadavers—

IN WHOSE IMAGE MADE!

These are factors, my friend!
We roll all our lives to the black bitter end.

Lord, why must Thy children rummage,
famish, and perish in Thy plenitude!
Why must good men stream stalwart to gray?
Are we mortals so unworthy of Thy great giving Hand?
So undeserving of Thy tending?​ How then may we please Thee?

Thou art truly a great Prestidigitator!
Such skill Thou evince, such finesse Thou command!
Let our wretched hearts join, let us marvel Thy sleight—
blood out of bedlam, plague out of mist,
babies in ******* relieved by Thy Fist.
O Master of magic, an awesome Conjurer are Thee!
Inspired are Thine antics; too practiced for sluggards as we.
Thy shills gather round and, as rubes beg to serve,
Thy emphasis thrills, Thy daring unnerves.
The boggling breadth of Thy legerdemain
bewitches the senses, bedevils the brain.
Observe:
Grim maids awaiting their loves gone to war—
a snap of Thy Fingers! These maids wait no more!
Thou art too fleet for guesswork; the moves are all Thine.
What thing of mere flesh could divine the Divine?
Your God is a wizard. Such prowess hath He!
Tsunamis, deluges—whipped straight from the sea!
Histories buried, whole peoples bled,
broken, departed. The doomed and the dead,
beseech His forgiveness from one common knee.
Yea, blessed are we! Be we sick or insane,
be we rife with contagion, be we lovelorn or lame.
O Great Benefactor…just SHOW! Accept our acclaim!
How can we thank Thee, repay Thee, how may we proclaim
Thine Image as Perfect, as Perfect Thy name.
Thou art Hero and Handler—how, Master, do we,
with raw voice revere thee, with swollen soles tread
the stars whence Thou ventured, the slime whence we came.
Forgive us our shame! We have failed Thee sorely.
Wherever Thou art, prithee…reveal Thyself.
Heal us, thrill us, amuse us some more;
Thine antics amaze us, Thine exploits astound.
The fruit of Thy labors in ripe fields abound.
Fruit reaping fruit reaping fruit of its own.
Laborers, ripe, ablaze in the sun,
too worn by their toils, too torn to atone,
their spent bodies ripe for that Magic You do.
O Father Who made us, Who taught us to heel,
We thank Thee for roaches, for each rash and wheal,
for hormones like lashes that drive us to sin.
The Big Dark approaches—what price to get in?
For all this, Dear Maestro, we clamor and kneel,
clapping in time to that Magic we feel.
Though we warble off-key, more than grateful are we
for plagues, flames, and rubble, for death and debris,
for tumors and blood clots and rumors of boils,
for madmen encroaching from alien soils.
Nay, astonished are we, overwhelmed by He—
He who maketh Himself invisible,
unreachable, immeasurable, untouchable, unsearchable,
unflappable, inculpable, impalpable, improbable…
and never even once witnessed! Not even once ever seen—
Genius! Unknowable, indeed, to mind or machine:
too fickle to fathom, too abstract to read.
Yet He is Poet, He is Artist, He is King above kings!
And for this we adore him o’er all other things—
o’er forests and canyons, o’er rivers and glens—
Yea, for all these momentous, magnanimous,
multitudinous, miraculous…ah, such depth and detail!
All the works of man pale, blaze briefly and fail,
like bugs on a slide ’neath Thy Almighty lens.

These are factors, my friend!
Whether magic or miracle or blind nature’s trend,
we roll all our lives to the black bitter end.





Copyright 2019
contact Ron Sanders at:

ronsandersartofprose(at)yahoo(dot)com

Sometimes
He touches
Me like
I’m his child,
Instead of his
Lover,
A finger
Under
My chin
A slick nail
Against my
Cheek.
It unnerves
Me like a
Loose thread
Around my
Toes.

Sometimes
He slaps
The curve
Of my back.
I swear
A cleaved
Nerve or  
Slithering
Disk
Must hold
Right there
The way
His hello
Makes me
Close my eyes.
But I see
My sister’s spine
Arch too.

Sometimes
She goes in
For a hug
So wide
You could park
An RV
In there
So loath
I wonder if
I smell.
To think
There was
A time
I knew
Her heartbeat
From the inside.

Sometimes
He pokes
His little finger
In my belly
Button
Retracing
Our severed
Union
A intrusion
Of the center
Of the universe
Where every
Sign post
Says
Turn around.

We are all
In such a
Contact
Drought
There’s no
Reason
I should be
Resisting
Still
Sometimes
I want you
To touch
Me
Differently.

I hope she finds the love she deserves,
A hand to hold when the world unnerves.
If someone else can give her peace,
Then maybe that’s where her heart can cease.

But deep inside, it breaks me still,
To know it won’t be me who fills
The spaces in her soul, once mine,
As she moves forward, leaving me behind.