Part One
Nascent Craving

The insular heart unsealed; pearled eyes
Breach parapets of stone— periled shield,
The sweetest ****—
A threatening wonder and irrefragable synergy,
Nervous routes of cognition  
In this nascent, amorous craving.
Locked and abased,
Dissonance lends pathos — euphoric and onerous,
Disconsolate cries curb sublimation,
The regnant bleed diffusing — fervid lust
Fondled, tactile surfaces in throbbing anticipation.

Sullen, aft a veil of laughter,
Visceral aftermath, out of
The ardent ash,
Burns a thirst;
Insuperable numbness and ache.
Efflorescent intimacy,
Table for two
Enraptured in new alliance,
Élan vital (psyche);
Urgent dialect petitions
Equivocation, jocularity blending
Provocation with indecision,
Noted lilt of descending inhibition.

Adrift, the incessant Now;
As occasion inexorably diminished;
Resonant simpatico tending,
Numinous amity;
Heard conversant, cognitive idioms—
Lassitude, time-eaten pangs of the unhinged heart,
Wounds axiomatic,
In disquieting synergy,
Nibbling, the circumference—
Misery’s permeating truth;
None immune, all trundle incongruously past,
Facing intrepid savages.

Licitly felt, reverberations of Amor
Whence the heart behaves;
Measured cadence, pulse elevating—
Treasured lover, contemplative muse;
Undulating clasp, inflated bone of absence;
Incarnation — a woman,
Beyond prosaic;
Ineffable adoration pours in certitudes of verse,
Elenita, enclothed —virtue unvarnished;
Reservoir intrinsic, poised advocate of the innocent:
The crooked lines of insolence,
Brazen culture of neglected youth.
Perceptive blue stare, sensitized tears—
Plaintively, evincing her injustice ago.

Part Two
Tendered Senses

Siren silence, eruptive blush, ampler between phrases
In dulcet tones — stirring discourse;
Foments rebellion, the strife beneath— his ****,
Out of its vast reserve,
Penetrate the narrowed ambit, vaguely announced.
Groping hands, migrating the sensual member
Stern faces grimacing— mirror in abrasion,
Under the blind surf of consent;
Burrowing ambiguity, emerging torsion,
Plunge, enlisted and content in the sea;
Subsumed in the nonverbal cue,
Persuasion’s plea,
Quelled in the post cerebral assent.

Piercing eyes parallel crystalline waters of Lake Tahoe.

An untouched portion of his awareness remains aloof,
Palpable in the subsequential quiet,
Obsequious and febrile, they sinned on sofas;
Peregrine predilections quenched and viscid—
Serenely requited, the room breathes her presence,
Limp, figures *******, mantled in adolescent torpor.

Erudition in bloom, trust undoubted,
Illuminating, satiating; tempest calm—
Under canvas
Terrain soaked and sodden,
Postliminary — rains of invalidation.
Allowance and permission
Recalibrate, salivate, shortly only—
Initiate, obliged consecration, appraising
Curvatures of the spine,
Stuns him obeisant, her femenine pulchritude,
Propinquity inciting vigor,
Emergent allure, the updriven
Tower of wood sprung from the blanket.

Suffused in ether, purring streams of remembrance
Vaginal honeyed dew, sung into
Orchids, remnants of remember;
Drenched down the cynosure of devotion;
Succulent view, diaphanous pantied bottom;
Halcyon mist, saporous wine — compliance of the will,
Freed fires wander,
Pliable rind, twin plums dripping,
Abject confession, dispatching doubt
In tendered senses,
Pivotal tree, lavender Jacaranda holds the key,
Unfurled, cindered vulnerability.

Half-denuded skin invites confessional savor
Acutely bubbled rear, fleshly furnished denim;
Sultry visit, San Ramon Valley in the fall,
Strewed limbs splendid, flowing filmy;
Imagination yields—
Bursting silk congealed
Across deft thighs, ambrosial thong draping ankles,
Grazing ascension, the curvaceous trajectory
Nose inflamed with fragrance,
Inhaling, climb of acquiescence,
The ****** weal, amid the globed fruit,
Focal intention — ploughed lance thrusting,
Absconding, the ancillary perfume of essence.

Perceiving avid validation,
Swimmingly, amid the monstrous gaze.
  
Humid skies simper dank, set swell the incense of Eros,
Surge of poetry engorged
The flame levened shaft,
Nimble ******* flounce, spill the harboring mouth;
Moist hands merging, unfettered,
Weave in supplication,
Vicinity voicing, enmeshed diversion;
Supple and spherical behind
Posterior arch, milky-skin against the lip—
Ripeness jostling their complacency;
Lapped the mooring, ridden decisively;
Recapitulating— spumed forth, bellied over hips warmth.
Abandon the dirge of self-pity
Late under ego’s trance.
  
Part Three
Present Tenses

Tempting trespass across sacred gardens,
Flowering, scandal set luminous: attachment—
Consensual, their corresponsive fear;
Protean manifestations— evocative, perpetual
Unutterable contention in a fictive resolve,
Deliberating the merits of their widely disparate tastes in coffee,
Amorously touring wine, let’s drowse through the gnarled vine.
Sundry deficiencies pale, once contrasted;
The beatific vision—
Material substance unaccompanied,
Imperceptible, tear-streamed cheeks in synch,
Ventral kiss, peak of carnal perfection,
Reminiscence— flesh violent with Love.

Fiction knew to meander the innominate rift,
A tincture of irony soften misdeeds
Immense as the sea.
Insolvent beast stippled with sapience—
Unmasked, the fabric of delusion;
Dependence smothering the disciplined heart
Resentment put up for release.

Waste of residual years
Fate’s apportion, scars bleakly observed;
Chastened by heartache, engulfing fervor
Too faint to recapture.
Vague glimpses dry—
Hypervigilant his defenses,
Veritable suspensions, embers lit linger;
Slender walls of solidity, the horizoned self,
Faith and reason in concert — stone levels of elucidation.

Fractured bones of distance, emanate a rigid salience,
Another ponderous night of absence—
Lingering, cauldron of dearth as indifference ushers,
The quotidian coil of contrition.
Tearful pallor, sequestered —ciphering time and solitude;
The unkissed mouth, his restive brow;
Suspend in the approximate span.
                      
After Lucid alliterations are spoken
Devoid of her face, his lover’s nudge—
The man nurtures his hurt.
Anxious as seldom unscarred,  
Venus’s susurrations,
In present tenses,
Kissed by her serenades of integration—
Notwithstanding metaphysic intrusion,
No chain stays unbroken,
Postponed drifts of deferment left unspoken,
Reverberations of amor.

© 2013 W. S. Warner

Static, memories
Emanating, separating  
The postcard- perfect
Still life speaks
From its storied past.
Invisible, to drift
Among  
The florid aphorisms,
Ending in
Deleterious debris,
Aftermath of
The inevitable.

Empty room, echo hollow
Tabula rasa -
Carpet clean, quite candid in it's
Return to callow.
Consciousness athirst,
Absorbing phenomena
Effervesce, inquisitive
Ideas foment,
Sealed inside a question.
The what -
Against the narrow
Scarcity,
And fatigue of should.

A tender malleable
Youth,
Betrayed, under
An assumed decorum -
Residue of truth,
Flattened emotion
Privations of a self
Unheard;
Misplaced affirmation,
Buried pathologies  
In architecture
Fear manifests symbolic.

Harboring apathy
The lunacy of pious
Pedigree,
Import contagion,
Fetters of benignity
Doubt and indecision  
Into ******
Cognizance,
Fallow spirits
Seep fumes of decay,
Credulity bleeds a human stain.

Social edifice, inoculated  
Heirs of neurosis;
Palpable, sensual pain
And transience, though
Tacit - remain,
Our haunted history,
The blind hyperbole,
Maudlin
Forbearance, this haven,
A portrait
Of immaculate condition,
Nurtured with precision
Under sterling pretense.

Provincial domicile -
House beautiful,
Savage irony -
Unseen treasure
Innocence unabridged,
Faces, tiny creations;
Compliant vessels
Wounded,  
While modernism murmurs  
Its promise.

Brave New World,
In a late model sedan,
Domestic ranch on a
Corner lot,
Suburban natives,
Silence means security.
The misunderstood
Speak louder -
Consumerism beneath    
Unvarnished ambition,
Never could
Repair the brokenness within...

© 2011 & 2018 W. S. Warner

disclaimer: unedited rambling and overly long and frankly, Scarlet, don't give a **** anymore...

Thus spake and quested
another, younger poet to me,
a far better one than I,
but obligations thus provided,
are serious business,
to those who understand
poetic responsibilities, and
under his own Rules of Order,
an answer,
though long in coming, AR,
must be provided.

Well well well
all is not well,
the faucets offers choices....
chrome hot
chrome cold

there is no such thing as
lukewarm truth in
clear waters that
run run,
yet never
run stilled,
birthed at turned-on conception,
to drain death removal,
another daily poetic miracle,
unappreciated by most,
overly consumed by their
own passage on this Earth

peddler wayfarer,
passing through with truth
poem pots and rattling pans
(nowadays, mostly panned),
a historic factoid,
and not what Amazon delivers...
truth is a genetically modified
bitcoin currency, misunderstood,
prone to sometimes useful,
but never ever, to stick or stain,
for I got excuses and who gives a ****,
yesterday is forgotten instantly

The coldest truths,
the confirmation of same
by mirrored image text sent,
(immediacy a necessity,
for though poor, it is 'real')
the twitter that methodically
A-lists your major crimes
B-lists your petty,
hope-you-didn't miss my
exposé of latest misdemeanors

the hot truths,
only whispered,
merely mint hinted
in a hot cuppa,
the heat itself
a cover up,
for what you do not
wish me to plainly speak
or plainly sell,
is accursed truths,
won't sell, even if free

Can't write about moon and June,
alabaster is a fine word,
but white suits me fine,
don't know the diff
tween dragon flys and lullabies

The way I write is
just the way I think, believe,
from my eyes to paper
there is no misdirection,
just silent labor conception

Poor poor real truth
is out of favor these days,
because there is nothing
no one won't cease or hesitate
to expose himself,
flaunt the anguish,
copy other's jive,
but that is real,
but it is not truth

Had a bad day,
You need to know about it
Right away!

Though I meander and excuse,
there is one state of truth,
I need yet to annotate

Too oft when tapped turned on,
it is rusty water and rusted truths
expelled and this, my stuff, my days,
not in vogue, or a top seller

I love the color rust,
overused in my poems,
but compulsion is not a
conditional, but a must

This then is the form
they spill in these,
my final days here

You might think that rust implies
lack of use,
a non-caring
for his voice,
his well practiced instrument

Au contrarie, amigo!

My rust is from overuse,
my eyes don't see
what the popular want nor
could I provide it
even if
it was demanded,
which it is not....

Rusted but unvarnished,
undisguised by fancy words
or silent cries, what you read
is what you get
until I find
a more "authentic" voice,
one that satisfies the world
not just me...he sneers....

Feel for me in the summer breeze,
from whence my best stuff
has always been plucked
sent on its way, to you,
in self-same wind,
to kiss your cheeks,
slap you alert

I used to write
on both feet
upstanding,
then Hillel was asked for
the whole truth
while standing
on just one leg

His reply:
"Love they neighbor as you love thyself"

So I switched
and now compose,
in quiet ignorance,
a wrong footed poet,
left only with his what's left,
and to put his left foot truths
first, forward and foremost,
is what he got, and
what I got, you'll get....

But a cautionary note,
drinking riposte rustys,
bad for the body,
but kindly
for your mental
wealth,
if your have the
only other element
most needed,
in your pocket posses,

courage

rich soil
fleck with a bit of black
dark chocolate
parched summer soil
glossy chestnut brown
unvarnished oak
mahogany flecks
apple pips
varnished cork
dessert palm tree
flecks of acorn shell
his eyes
the most beautiful pair
of eyes
she has seen

Thus spake and quested
another, younger poet to me,
a far better one than I,
but obligations thus provided,
are serious business,
to those who understand
poetic responsibilities, and
under his own Rules of Order,
an answer,
though long in coming, AR,
must be provided.*

Well well well
all is not well,
the faucets offers choices....
chrome hot
chrome cold

there is no such thing as
lukewarm truth in
clear waters that
run run,
yet never
run stilled,
birthed at turned-on conception,
to drain death removal,
another daily poetic miracle,
unappreciated by most,
overly consumed by their
own passage on this Earth

peddler wayfarer,
passing through with truth
poem pots and rattling pans
(nowadays, mostly panned),
a historic factoid,
and not what Amazon delivers...
truth is a genetically modified
bitcoin currency, misunderstood,
prone to sometimes useful,
but never ever, to stick or stain,
for I got excuses and who gives a ****,
yesterday is forgotten instantly

The coldest truths,
the confirmation of same
by mirrored image text sent,
(immediacy a necessity,
for though poor, it is 'real')
the twitter that methodically
A-lists your major crimes
B-lists your petty,
hope-you-didn't miss my
exposé of latest misdemeanors

the hot truths,
only whispered,
merely mint hinted
in a hot cuppa,
the heat itself
a cover up,
for what you do not
wish me to plainly speak
or plainly sell,
is accursed truths,
won't sell, even if free

Can't write about moon and June,
alabaster is a fine word,
but white suits me fine,
don't know the diff
tween dragon flys and lullabies

The way I write is
just the way I think, believe,
from my eyes to paper
there is no misdirection,
just silent labor conception

Poor poor real truth
is out of favor these days,
because there is nothing
no one won't cease or hesitate
to expose himself,
flaunt the anguish,
copy other's jive,
but that is real,
but it is not truth

Had a bad day,
You need to know about it
Right away!

Though I meander and excuse,
there is one state of truth,
I need yet to annotate

Too oft when tapped turned on,
it is rusty water and rusted truths
expelled and this, my stuff, my days,
not in vogue, or a top seller

I love the color rust,
overused in my poems,
but compulsion is not a
conditional, but a must

This then is the form
they spill in these,
my final days here

You might think that rust implies
lack of use,
a non-caring
for his voice,
his well practiced instrument

Au contrarie, amigo!

My rust is from overuse,
my eyes don't see
what the popular want nor
could I provide it
even if
it was demanded,
which it is not....

Rusted but unvarnished,
undisguised by fancy words
or silent cries, what you read
is what you get
until I find
a more "authentic" voice,
one that satisfies the world
not just me...he sneers....

Feel for me in the summer breeze,
from whence my best stuff
has always been plucked
sent on its way, to you,
in self-same wind,
to kiss your cheeks,
slap you alert

I used to write
on both feet
upstanding,
then Hillel was asked for
the whole truth
while standing
on just one leg

His reply:
"Love they neighbor as you love thyself"*

So I switched
and now compose,
in quiet ignorance,
a wrong footed poet,
left only with his what's left,
and to put his left foot truths
first, forward and foremost,
is what he got, and
what I got, you'll get....

But a cautionary note,
drinking riposte rustys,
bad for the body,
but kindly
for your mental
wealth,
if your have the
only other element
most needed,
in your pocket posses,

courage

I lie strategically in place
Innocent framework fused
With royal carapace
Frail and allknowing fingers clenched and intertwined,
Mimicking the honest silver circuit in the night sky
As candid as the shore
Each slumbered and delicate breath
Vitally delivered from those sublime lips
Both damp and potent
I get a candied wind of
An accidental consolation
To my crippling worry
Sorrowful, I am, my love
For eavesdropping, but
My reveries are your keepsakes
And I,
Watching you sleep, carefully
In A placid coma, caging waves of covenants
And exhaling tokens of a life once dreamt of
I envisage the unvarnished truth,
your marrow as my sustentation,
Your veins, My lifeline
Where each filament of platinum and sorrel remain entangled and sprawled in forever, impeccably
And how drawn out and vexing
My intervals of lingering for you
Have been
And then you leak a sigh in a dream
And exhale a veil of whispers
Directly to my ribcage
And I simper, cradling you tighter
So you can breathe my craving,
My contented tribute
To my one veritable sentiment.
And I seal it all in the midst,
Of a drifted and slumbered and deathless
Kiss.

The TSA won't let me fly
It seems when airplane-jailed,
My muse sneaks aboard
Without paying for a seat.

Another airplane poem like 30B,
From a long ago flight,
Found dusty, in the poetry sewing box


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

with every breathe he tithes
a packet of whispered wishes,
a blended osmosis of
past and future scenes,
reviewed, previewed,
moments in time,
actual and dreamed

some received,
airborne plucked,
in his chest stored,
prepared for future
takeoffs and landings,
for ultimate insertion
in both
your recesses
and
your abscesses

some native,
combobulated, containerized
packets of seconds,
of joyous moments,
bytes of historical
hugs n' kisses,
as a child
to a child
from a child

those are vanilla frosted,
residual payments for the
good done and given,  
forwarded with all clear signals,
to his loved ones,
now resent, to you,
fellow travelers and sojourners,
intersectors of our peculiar
coded dots and dashes

thirty five thousand feet high,
composure lost,
he swoons as
Bocelli's voce del silenzio
releases tears so sweet,
which are by nature,
gravitated and transformed
into snowflakes to decorate
the Sierra Nevada's
breasted peaks and valleys,
over which his physical notion
is at rest, yet in motion,
within a Delta flying ship

Yet his fevered chest
beats rough,
for every flight seems
a time warp interlude,
a forced reflecting rhyme,
not of his choosing,
a lawful, thoughtful, imprisonment

having donated to you
his best, the remainders,
the man tallies, recalls:

ancient slights, scaled heights,
requiems for his forefathers
scored by cantorial choirs,
liberation struggle weariness,
offers taken and refused,
aces in the hole that proved
insufficient to save his soul.

goal line stands made,
onslaughts refused,
true lies and false truths,
moist lips and monster tears,
occasional A's and calcu-hell-us,
hand me downs received,
help me ups got n' given,
buildings pricked by airplanes,
death wishes granted
and nothing thereby gained,
children, found and lost,
mine, yours, ours...

The sums, always the sums!

engine noises and pilfered winds
are dulled and semi-silenced,
yet the silvered chamber prison
resonates from end to end
as each ledgered memory,
each packet of the
hidden whispered poems
he does NOT choose to send,
dents the man,
leaving claw marks,
screaming pay attention to me,
as if they were the priorities
of a six year old child,
refusing to be ignored

he does,
attention, he does pay,  
allowing rocking guitar heroes
to overtake weeping violinists,
just as newer transgressions
surfeit even his
most really *****,
ancient sins

No matter how he counts,
unable to master the additions,
no matter how many times
counts are initiated,
taken and retaken,
the tally's net net is
concluded, numbered
"forsaken"

his life's W-2 is black n' blue,
deductions falsely enumerate
and thereby underestimate
dues he has paid summarily,
earnings, distorted,
taxes paid never enough,
to satisfy the justice scales,
so wearily he
cries and enunciates,

The sums, always the sums!

THEN COMES HIS SHOUT OUT,
at his most vulnerable,
when a thin veneer of alumina
separates him,
from a fall inglorious
to an end most gorious,
a rapping beat moderne
insists that he go all out,
disallowing no
airy fairy poetry
to disguise that:

If the integers are false,
the entries of a life lived,
are sucker lies
black eyed flies
toxic shockers
that bust open
stinko lockers
where the B.S.
mocking stories
are kept

don't look close
at his documents
they ain't exactly
heaven sent
and the government men
be back on his track
their aviator shades
protect them from
burning light of the
man's furnace
where he burns their liens,
and the agent's ear pieces
drown out his screams of

The sums, always the sums!

God bless you,
keep and recall those packets of
whispered wishes, good tithes,
that the man bequeaths,
gift baskets of
expresso essentials
with God's love delivered

Tho his words,
amateurish and unvarnished,
silly and pompous,
nonetheless, they are the
return on his investments,
his yearnings for your happiness
are the savings accumulated,
though meager jewels are they,
they are ad valorem,
mixed into his confused murmurings

here then,
are his summings up,
what he wills you,,
the tally finale
the best wisdom is
found on coffee cups
at 2:47am.

Dance
Love
Sing
Live

to which he respectfully amends with a
Write.
(See banner photo)

~~~
a poem derived from these words of
Joel M Frye
"Poetry is a self-policing agency, enforcing nothing
~~~

The Truth Burden
is the accursed need obligatory,
the sacred sanctity requisitioned,
when the whenever,
chooses to drops in and
upflag the mailbox,
an uninvited invitation,
announcing with precise bluntness,
that precisely now,
is the tool crafted moment
and you fool,
are the selected tool

you must render unto Ceaser,
by your own hand,
render your own rendering,
do your own undoing,
go forth and in haste,
will thyself into the cauldron of the
Great Mystery of Creation

you cannot lie in poetry

-one can only validate-

you will tell the whole truth,
and nothing but,

all in good order,
to secure me to thee,
to muddle
our molecular cocktail mix,
you must,
must give only
truth in poetry,
or give
nothing

police yourself
in every aleph bet,
don't substance abuse us with deceit,
give only your unburdening,
force us to lip kiss
when
we face each other,
when
pronouncing the blessed script of
ourselves,
that we have been granted by sharing
each other's unvarnished lettres

the burden is
to un burden

cut out what needs
to be bridged from
the secret walled-in safe,
and give form, life and breath,
expose it to the atmosphere,
reform your bleak introspection
and white horseradish bitter realism,
turn blue blood veined internal
into an amberina red,
all by being
unsaved, unsavory, unsafe

you are the enforcer,
you are the police,
you are the validation
and the validator,
enforcing this sole law,
police your self,
give us

with no agent in between,

give us
nothing but,
a voice
one will recognize instantly
as the whole fats milk of
truth

oh, how I will embrace thy
one and only,
when given,
your

one and only

for do we dare disagree that is
each other's truths that
shall set us free?

•••

for we are the inhabitants,
of this wild land of
no inhibitions,
no rule of laws,
except one,

defend the essence,
protect the defenseless integrity,
promote the mystery of the
human poem

i love your imperfection
dry, split ends, rosacea cheeks, dry skin
the real things, the unique things, that make you

i love you most, in the morning
when you are just waking up
the natural, the real, unvarnished look

unpainted, i can see, you, in all your beauty
the acne on your chin, the scab on your lip
like a diamond with its countless flaws

you look, are vulnerable, approachable
i want to touch, caress your face
kiss your dry, chapped lips

rough hands, warm heart, i kiss your fingertips
nails natural, unpainted, coated in potter’s clay
i press my face into your hand, feel their strength

weekends, wearing comfortable torn jeans
baggy shirt, draping, but non concealing
i hug you like a dear, loved teddy bear

dollar store flip flops with a dandelion tops
the bottom of your feet dried, a bit cracked
from walking, bonding barefoot with gaia

you are the feminine, i am the masculine
you are the woman, i am the man
you are the girl, i am the boy

my love for you is endless, boundless, eternal..., Minou

I've been drawing
A blank
Dwelling in this
So called
Conundrum

Only giving
Half hearted gestures,
Forsaking all others

I've deliberately
Out smarted
All the details
Lost in time

Jittery
On every
Steamy day

The remedy
Never lies
In the score book,
Or with
Criminal instincts,
Not even
The crooked
Cab drivers

So I'll wander
In these
Unvarnished
Chocolate covered
Nightmares

I'll hide
Under the
Stairs
Where spiritualistic,
Speakeasy
Behavior
Only leaves
You
Killed or injured

A whirl
Of such discovery
And you
Will finally
See

It's mostly people
Who cause
This kind of
Unease

I read
I read anything,
Prose or poem, article or essay,
I'm so hungry for it
I wish my eyes had detachable jaws
That ate ink and binary alike.

Its not for allure of assonance and alliteration,
The collective subjective seeking the objective,
But the idea whittled, still unvarnished,
Because that is what we are and that is who I am.

an utterance of folly
her natural unvarnished thoughts
spill slowly from her adorned lip
and crawl forth to battle his opposing view
her words crowd his ear
a thousand angry little versions of her
with sword in hand coming to slay the misbehaving dragon
of his free will
his own thoughts flee as one
from the opposite side ear
with furtive glances back
hoping to escape unscathed

his own folly
childlike in form
plays marbles
looking for that elusive Aggie
called inner peace

together they amble down
country road
both shouting the random formulas
for completing and mailing
the required forms for
a visa to paradise
its roads are paved with candy
she insists
its hills are carved from
pure chocolate he  interjects
neither realize its paradise because
it lacks the likes of them

he kisses her adorned lip
and tastes the metal of her
resolve to  endure
she french's her tongue into
the small spaces of his mind
and savors the spices of his
need to flee
whats needed here they devise
compromise is a plate of cold fish
seal it in a bottle and cast it overboard
perhaps their lives shall find a sandy shore
to rest their every weary
makeout machine

"Try it out." he said
And my stomach
tangled with my brain
hunger
consumed me
but not the other
way around

we had always been
unvarnished
and mostly untouched
but then
I crept into the
basement of my
halfway thoughts
and there I wished
to hear him
one more
time

but I knew
his pale,
blue moon voice
had been lost
and I knew
the past could
only feel good once
and cigarettes couldn't
be smoked twice

I knew better
but still
   it came as such a surprise
that each fraudulent feeling
wouldn't seep the same
and even through
your stumbling words
I could tell
that you meant
well

I found it in the way my name stumbled out of your mouth like it had weak ankles.
Almost like it had been stuck in the hollows of your cheeks.
But it wasn’t stuck.
Just lingering.

I found it in the way you unfastened the brass buttons down my spine and slid the tough skin off my shoulders, like a wool sweater I never grew into.
Almost like I never knew how sticky and hot my woes were.
Until I saw them piled on the floor right at my feet.
The chill of the air hitting my bones.

I found it in the way you unraveled my grief, and used the same tattered thread to hem patience into your heartstrings.
Almost like the fabric of my intricacy kept you warm.
You and I.
The same cross-stitches of unvarnished truth.

I found it in the way you uprooted the weeds nestled in my soul to make light for the marigolds.
Almost like you always believed in my potential garden.
Despite the monsoon rain and my uncanny inability to tend.
There was always room for growth.

I found it in the way my hands extend towards you, until my fingers coil into vulnerability.
Almost like I sought solace in the holes of your palms.
Being entirely, immensely, forever
Tangled up in you.

I found it in the way the fog draping my irises lifted when your kisses graced the corners of my eyes.
Almost like you unveiled a galaxy of color I never knew I painted.
Brushstrokes of clarity.
A reverie of us.

I found it in the way you delicately dismantled all my fragments to polish them.
Almost like you salvaged me from my own wreckage.
All this time, I dreamt I was wandering.
But I was undoubtedly misplaced.
Tucked away in a wrinkle of solitude.

Until you, my love, unearthed me
And in return, I found my heart;
A vestige of our pearl in the oyster.

You told me it was wrong.

The magnetic pull of my body towards the need.
The way I feel it, the longing, in my chest,
how I place my hands absently on my neck,
sultrily telling you what I'm feeling.

Perhaps it's a ripple of something that has been brewing
for many years. Something always there, underneath.

Heightened by loneliness and summer heat.

Maybe it comes from a lack of normal things,
things which usually accompany
young boys.
Those things I didn't get.

Maybe it's someone's fault.

Maybe I should ask Freud, maybe he
could place his hand on my delicate cheek bone,
how it comes it a gentle hill.

He could stroke the freckled valley underneath my eyeball with his smoking pipe
and tell me pragmatically
the reasons for my feelings,

why I wanted a man to touch me without asking,
to make my face his baby in wrapped cloths.

You told me it was wrong,

like the smoking
done after the house had gone to bed at hushed hours
in the ***** garage.

like the tequila shot I did at the kitchen counter that summer
how it tasted like heat and pine needles,

how it tasted like the wooden chest in our home,
like the inside of it, the dark unvarnished interior
that could hold my tiny body if I had needed to hide

where my father kept his winter sweaters.

And how I ****** it down with the lime that I didn't bite hard enough,
my eyes were red and flooded.

It was wrong.

I lie on the grass and listen to the silence that surrounds me.
I immediately squint my eyes as I look up at the sky
I take a deep breath and ask myself, What is the sun?
I think it is just a ball of hydrogen and helium bound together by a strong gravitational pull
A pull towards the light at the end of the tunnel
A long breath held with the ability to suffocate and torture
But still held together by a thin string of hope,
Hope that the light will come soon

Or maybe it is just where everything began
A look shared by two souls with
A secret understanding, not known to the rest of the world

Maybe it is the shining light upon all of the darkness in the world
A merciful and truthful gift that was given to us from nature
The protective cloak of warmth, safety, comfort and certainty
A chance to start a new chapter with nothing the armor of love
A ruthless game unless played with nothing but honesty
Of what seem to be the unvarnished truth
But maybe is it more than it seems
Maybe it is not a blanket of the warm and fuzzy feelings of love and trust
Maybe it is what makes me so blind to the truth
Naïve and easy to fool
Maybe it is the pain from the revelation of that truth
The sting of his touch
The mark of his burn
The ashes of a broken heart
Scattered
Along the beaten path
And along the same beaten path,
Another illumination of what was and what could have been
Constantly reminded of the naked truth

I wish that I could comprehend the truth; the purpose of the light
Understand the reason behind pain that surrounds the reality
And the importance of the getting hurt and moving on

But because of the of truth, there is no longer an us
Because if there was a beginning,
This must be the end
A release of the breath held in
With the realization that
Truth comes from the revelations of darkness.
And excruciating pain comes from the revelation of the ugly truth.

Why do biopics
have to dramatise and
sensationalise?
What is wrong with the unvarnished truth
Do they think that our brains can't handle it?
Harry Houdini the famous escapologist
never hated his father
met Rasputin and never was a spy
He did escape whilst tied to a cannon
with it's fuse lit
and don't ask people to punch
you in the stomach
because that is how he died

Soowee, soowee. Top of our lungs
That’s how we used to call the hogs
And every time they would come,
Running just like well trained dogs,
Because they knew it meant food
Even though that food was just slop,
Those pigs have nothing like taste.
But nothing could make them stop.

Lately I have noticed human beings
Who seem to behave the same way.
They gobble the media slop they hear
Every day after mind-numbing day.
They too seem to have no taste
And smell something they really dig;
Nothing any sensible creature eats
But it seems to be ambrosia to a pig.

Squee, squee, squee they snort
And salivate, squeal and chow down
On the unpalatable pap served up
By the greedy media super-clowns.
It’s almost like they would pass up
A meal of honest, unvarnished truth
To gorge themselves to a stupor
On the crap they loved as a youth.

I’m always surprised that these folks,
This metaphoric, too human swine
Don’t go out in public in pajamas
Like worn by young neighbors of mine
With cartoon mice and supermen
Instead of the clothes of an adult.
They go vote like uninformed fools.
And current Congress is the result.

I ride this broomstick high on *** or Lsd either
one,
it don't bother me, nothing does above the roar
of my heart shredding
and, what is more,
I have no license for this stick, which I
picked at random,
I am the kick, the jam, the butter and the ram,
the ruthless raider on the lam but on the stick
I am superman and I am so slick
it's sick.

But bedding down
I am the crying clown,
the fish without its bowl,
the end's in sight but not my goal,
unfinished artwork
I am sold, unvarnished,
tarnished by some trick,
painted
tainted by the stick,
no room for two upon the broom,
in the doom there are no friends,
only ends and untied things.

Alright lads here it comes full truth unvarnished
         lately I feel life is tarnished,
         with this Patina upon my soul,
I tell you all I won't grow old.

We won't be sharing drinks and dandling grandkids boys,
this world is grey, I'm null and void,
underappreciated hated unemployed,
a jaded unappreciative oul ****?
yeah I deserve that-I can't front
no more lies but bitter truths,
lets rip these forgeries out by roots,
lets force this Gall and Hemlock down,
a deadly cocktail but I've found,
once choked down I'm Numb...comfort cold,
to you I'll leave behind I know,
believe me please...just let me go

Chorus/Sample 2

"So if you love me let me go
And run away before I know
My heart is just too dark to care
I can't destroy what isn't there
I only wish you weren't my friends
Then I could hurt you in the end
my own was banished long ago
It took the death of hope to let you go"

all right lads "order! down in front"!
a lot to take in all at once?
I know I know my lying smile
has fooled you all but it's been awhile
I'm sorry Bro I really am,
I tried my best to face the flames
but now I'm falling, no more games
no more lies Procrastination,
no more ******* obfuscation,
took the Beck Depression inventory...scored 100%!
been through a few too many ****** up life events,
more just round the corner-the Reaper awaits,
but It matters not how strait the gate,
      How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
      I am the captain of my soul.

"So if you love me let me go
And run away before I know
My heart is just too dark to care
I can't destroy what isn't there
I only wish you weren't my friends
Then I could hurt you in the end
my own was banished long ago
It took the death of hope to let you go"

The End?

I don't want you to bother
building up a thick lather,
your shower-soaped hand
moving between your legs,
then reaching the long-way round to
spread yourself wide open, bending forward
just so that you can drag the steel edge of a razor across
your soft skin

I’ve never stood
in a field of wild flowers and
thought it to look overgrown

You don’t need a single drop of perfume
on your *******, near your *** or on
your sheer white tank as I don’t mind
the taste or scent
of your sweat,
dripping
from your summer skin,
glistening in the
afternoon heat.

No need to burn
your soft long locks between
two tongs,
to pull them taut, or blow them dry
to make them straight.

Your curls,
untamed and  
and unpredictable
need no refinement;
I'll follow them as they
twist and turn

I want you my love,
unvarnished,
unapologetic,
unfinished,
unrealistic,
and most
assuredly
unshaven.

Making sense of it all…
  our grandest myth

Wisdom born of age,
  bleeds from youth’s betrayal

Questions drying unvarnished,
  naked meanings

Darker darks reface the cliff,
  edges sharper cut

Two images, clearer than before,
   preying in deadly contrast
  
As wonder divides the day,
  —fear stalks the night

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)

I lie on the grass and listen to the silence that surrounds me.
I immediately squint my eyes as I look up at the sky
I take a deep breath and ask myself, What is the sun?
I think it is just a ball of hydrogen and helium bound together by a strong gravitational pull
A pull towards the light at the end of the tunnel
A long breath held with the ability to suffocate and torture
But still held together by a thin string of hope,
Hope that the light will come soon

Or maybe it is just where everything began
A look shared by two souls with
A secret understanding, not known to the rest of the world

Maybe it is the shining light upon all of the darkness in the world
A merciful and truthful gift that was given to us from nature
The protective cloak of warmth, safety, comfort and certainty
A chance to start a new chapter with nothing the armor of love
A ruthless game unless played with nothing but honesty
Of what seem to be the unvarnished truth
But maybe is it more than it seems
Maybe it is not a blanket of the warm and fuzzy feelings of love and trust
Maybe it is what makes me so blind to the truth
Naïve and easy to fool
Maybe it is the pain from the revelation of that truth
The sting of his touch
The mark of his burn
The ashes of a broken heart
Scattered
Along the beaten path
And along the same beaten path,
Another illumination of what was and what could have been
Constantly reminded of the naked truth

I wish that I could comprehend the truth; the purpose of the light
Understand the reason behind pain that surrounds the reality
And the importance of the getting hurt and moving on

But because of the of truth, there is no longer an us
Because if there was a beginning,
This must be the end
A release of the breath held in
With the realization that
Truth comes from the revelations of darkness.
And excruciating pain comes from the revelation of the ugly truth.

To have an affair ... is different than to cheat
cheating is bad but the affair has it beat
My affair, not one that had been planned
It's something i'm ashamed of ...
I musn't ... I cant.
the pushy counselor pressuring me to talk, let it out, she predicts that it'll fell good ...
she has no idea what's about to come out of this messy confession. an affair, coming from under the trunk of this hood.
i'll be the first to testify of it's illusion
opposite of its face value,
misery and loneliness will be the only winner.
Like dying and going to the medium place where utopia does not exist, contingent to utopia's disappearance it only makes sense that hell would delete itself as well?
haven't we longed for the day when there'd be no such thing as hell? Then we'd be free?
Life's twisted humor,
everything has an opposite, an article of faith
being positioned isn't possible without opposition to accompany its lifeless soul,
It preys on the thriving, takes from the present, holds the living hostage as it meets up with  fear and justice, freedom and sadness. birthing the first of many to come,
dicontentment is born and swooned and rocked, fed and held, growing so strong
these thoughts in my mind ...?
you see,
i thought were mine were mine that I could actually be SAFE for ONCE the only place i am safe and free of interference, has been compromised...
discontentment has spread like a wildfire this morning, the remains the evident unsupervised testimony.
and as conciousness demanded an invite inside my mind, I insisted i would clean and make space first, denying my insistence of alone time.
i opened the door, my body quickly analyzed a familiarly foreign emotion,
My mind, the mitochondria, could detect a feeling like this in a crowd of a million waldo's,
This home has felt plenty of drive by emotions all of which fall sorrowfully short,
Relief, one  emotion i've never known well, but good enough to  consider an aquantaince, My higher self, the God dwelling in me
is only awaken by my ego's alarm going off at the maximum volume alotted,
My ego has always disappointed me and always will, a true representation of its impulsiveness no awareness of self control
Demons survive,(yes survive) the lowest level of vibration due to it's subsisting unvarnished truth,
shame and survival are the vibrational levels of those who die,
living and surviving,
"He who is slow to wrath has great understanding,
and unlike my actions, he who is impulsive exalts folly"
God says it himself, a fool will never see the gates
those pearly gates, I pray, will be a presentiment that the abuse i've endured on earth has always been accounted for.  I pray my damaged,not to mention, and terribly fragile sixteen year old learns to stand up for herself.
I'm sorry for the fear I put her through and all the criticism, My God i don't even think it's normal the tight leash i set before my, adolescent at the time
I snap out of what seemed like a continuous paralysis where i cant stop vomiting out my emotions.,
"I feel .... not good amie,"
Of course this is your ego denouncing its reign, you better believe it's stopping it's feet like mad,
I get what you're getting at Doc, but that's not the case for me,I work in recovery so i know how tough it can be to let go of ego's control.
If it isn't you ... tell me more about your sixteen self, what happened to you? why are you sorry to her? How did you hurt her?
the real inquiry to be at is, was that you that hurt her? you an innocent teeny bopper,
I know you don't see yourself as innocent,because you felt all grown up,
or maybe you've felt misunderstood since a child which is it for you nisey?
she notices the sting of silence,  must've been chilly for a princess like her
she probably has never known a cold night, i think and quickly think better of, once i feel the green-eyed monster creeping up, my enemy, the one i resist
so with that said it is the one that pursues, I know it is because I delight in it that it has an extraordinarily special control over my ego
"Or maybe, my sixteen year old snapped I am exhausted of justifying my actions to people who never listened"
I am the party that shame and depression loves to crash late at night, whenever they spot out happy with their
laser beam focus and their macular degeneration"
God acting as an Implantable Miniature Telescope,
as I unleash my arsenal of scriptures, he sits with his mouth pursed, his pursuit to relinquish his pain and hate, written all over him, his body vocalizing all the hate he refused to articulate through linguistic expression as his special form of punishment, wrapped specifically for me
I give the gift a home and take it as an
accolade of the abuse my ego thinks i'd win for staying.
water and oil.
needless to say, these enemies are not holding one another hostage, instead their proverb differing in hindsight,

Their moral compass, primarily, astray from the "good" commandments".,
the same commandments seen as good, although there is no such thing as good or bad, obviously i've had one too many philosophy lessons,
Now like every great philosopher I delight in inquiry,
It used to bother me amie,
surpising to those who know me as goddessnisey, my altar ego that is ingenious in its successful attempts at imitation of my authentic self, minus the flaws, has people fooled,
My inauthentic self, the one that needs to know everything before trusting, the one that misses out on opportunities because she let's impulsiveness govern her actions.
To that little girl, I owe the grandest of apologies, I'm talking like the kind the cops owed rodney,
the one's that took hold of me,  Covered me in shame and loneliness, .
dolizing
finally got on top and now it's my *****, only thing is
now habituated by their entire nation of people go by the saying birds of a feather flock together, they do not associate, because they are opposite.


Where did this relationship go i ask amie, my,newly discovered personal guru, that i'm paying a **** load to vent to,!?
like the housing of my body I am inconsistent
personification live in the flesh, as absolute irony and it's downer cousin named realistic, tag along to keep this broken law of language a secret,(only writers will get what im saying)
GASP* a breath of fresh air  reveals itself in the highest light promising that if you choose your freedom, and reveal your secret, she will personally bring you freedom and peace.
neighboring discontentment,  I am a survivor of fire at it's wildest,
Like an incurable error the pilot finds in the computer's main frame,
I am that pilot as i begin to confess, called it a day...
beckoning for professional help
but they were not my doing
long time enemies and both close to me,
old-time cliches they love to preach ....
"you'd do best to keep your friends close that way it
distracts your enemies from the intentional tenure you have on them."
weighing my options i decide to speak, silence is death, im smarter than that
I just can't tell you how sorry i am, I told him
not because of what i've done
but because i'd do it again
His mouth was closed,
But he wasn't quiet I could hear him,
The sound of his heart begin to slow,
and for every woman out there, this is when you know...
heart-break is real.
He refused word of mouth but that did not forestall the howling of his heart, an injured wolf
true to character, injured, no forced deal.
His eyes spoke everything that his genetically encrypted ability to stay poker face, failed to exceed at
it took for him to shut his mouth, and just listen as he'd promised
we may need a doctor over here stat,
I know once I've told him that if given a choice ,
Him or her ...
he'd end up disappointed .
he had a way of upholding his secret self hate from childhood,
just like us all, carrying across our baggage, picking up more and expecting to climb mountains.
converting it into tortuous rituals and facades, he wears it across his chiseled countenance so well, you'd think this is who he is.
My problem is , so does he...
I tell HER about him all the time, in hopes that the buddhist teaching will be the key
They say what you hate is a reflection of what you resist in yourself.So i know he'd maintain face, at least until I got on with the confession,because I'd do the same,
that's the honest painful truth... an artifact in this raw and true moment, The highest self in me has decided I am ready
for yet another piece of wisom,
every year,
a new piece watching as if they were refereeing the play offs.
then i realize, this is the play offs I am the main star and I have the ball, the therapist told me herself, it's my turn to talk ..
worry filling the abyss in the center of me, as nervousness takes over my anatomy, triggering negative feedback and certainlymy body breaks down in an immediate cry for ventilation,
Then it dawned on me, I am the negative feedback , an excuse, a sad one.
Catlystic I am it's true, negative feedback, the return of part of an output signal to the input
blaming my conditional love on a lack of attention on your part ... wow excuse me for the foot,
the one i put in the door when you begged for my explanation and my honesty,
putting out the foot has been the biggest aid in our demise, I know how bad i hurt you,
that's the thing about a fleshy soul,
we tell our stories through our eyes.
so worried of what others think of me that I can't focus on
That's what's important to you isn't it? saving face i wanted to yell, but preserved for another time, when yelling could raise the stakes far past what I could gamble.
when we sat to write with a pen in hand,
a private affair began.
I' was afraid,
afraid that this would happen,
fate would force a baby shower that would give birth to the haunting of my heart, my secrets befallen.
As the doctor proceeds to clip the umbilical from my median,
seperating the blood i've shed with the body that is supposed
to house vital fluid but  nowholds senseless emotions.
l a gallery of clips and photos like a drawn out trailer that gave away all the parts you pay for,
  no way to express myself, choosing introversion over conversation... what a bore.
I was afraid this would happen because I know my death is timely,
gambling in these neck of the woods could cost you your family, primely... of course,
some of your loved ones may understand, either way
the other literature sorcerest's don't resist to spill the main course, guess what it's YOU.
This secret could tear me apart and feed me to the sharks,
parallel to satan, its only objective is destruction, insisting i like the dark,
a spell cast upon me of course I hate the dark, this secret can't get out or my friendly facade will melt like a witch dead in a pool of salty raindrops,
slowly burning the witch, as water was foreign,
life without literature is surely foreign to me,
my partner will be sorry if he makes me leave her
tantums, panic attacks and more take her away and a blur will ride her vision and taunt her in her maturity as the blur grows stronger
she will have amnesia
and once my partner finds out that she was feeding us, not aiding in our demise, reconstruction is to come.
like a newborn, failure to trhive, the difference between you two ? I need one to survive
My mind no longer would focus on anything else ..
this affair started between a muse and myself
He understood things without having to say a word
To talk to him all i needed was a pen and a journal.
all faithfulness adjurned.
It was a poetic journey as we entered another element,
a renewal of spirit and soul,
My partner and i would have to call it quits.
A "no trespassing" sign was posted and the door shut
Locked with no key, just us alone
no one to bother me.
It is in this affair that he has given me purpose
on my previous relationship i have closed the curtain
to have an affair is different than to cheat
poetry is the mistress
and has him beat <3

The  dark corners
of my nights
undulate  into days
swallow  me whole
even the starkest rays
won’t light my path
nestled
between
my pillows
a creature
  born of  fear
coupled with
unvarnished reality  
preys upon
my sleeping form
to pop  
out of my mouth
Hellbent and
voracious
for my
bleeding soul.

I only find out
three years after you died.
So far as I knew, you were still out there,
scamming and scheming,
racking up more debts you’d never pay,
dreaming up your next dodgy deal,
the bonanza you knew was your birthright.  
Three years on, I learn that you’re dead.
I shouldn’t be sad about it.  
The unvarnished truth of it is
you were a bit of a *******:
a con man, a crook;
a lousy business partner, a nightmare debtor,
a negligent father, a faithless husband, 
a bad boss and a shady friend.
You didn't even like Champagne; 
you just liked other people seeing you drink it.
Yeah, you were a *******,
but you were our *******.
Our Fagan, our Black Beard, our
cockney Don Corleone,
lurid legend of the tabloids and consumer shows
with your Montecristo cigars and malapropisms,
your E-types and your excesses,
your bankruptcies, both financial and moral.  
You looked after us.  You took us in.
Any port in a storm,
and those were stormy times,
and - although it came close - we didn’t drown.
Perhaps it’s gratitude, or
misplaced loyalty,
that pinches uncomfortably somewhere inside me,
when I hear about how you went.
It should have been different.
There should have been some last stand,
a blaze of dubious glory, a final reckless burn
as you rode one right off the cliff edge.  
It shouldn’t have been so small, so dismal,
so unremarkably tragic.
Back in the day, I wasn’t even sure you could die;
I figured you’d just move on and start up
some new franchise operation,
reincorporated under a new name, in a new town.  
But when I heard you were dead,
I think what shocked me most
was finding out it wasn’t suicide.

the men I crave
speak blunt,
wanting me for
my poetry persona,
strength sheer as a cliff,
me to be their tour guide to the edge,
my sexuality unabashedly to be their owing

they speak plain,
believing directness
is an aphrodisiac for me,
my style, direct unvarnished,
so that must be whom I am, surely

but they err deep grievously

I do love my poets so, the
ones, soft spoke, genteel, feeling
using first, no never, guile, words harmonizing,
softening the edges so smoothly rough necessary
for me to protect, confounding the harsh takers,
who never think to ask, never cradle, stroke,
don’t go below, see deeper that my nerves
are feminine, that pink is but a color,
that anyone could love, not an
invitation, a philosophy of
automatic surrender

now you know why I write poems,
to understand better the heart human,
ferret out the chaff, the bad, for everyone else.

#brandychanning

in the stillness of a wintry 
December moonlit night
is when i think the loudest
I lay, howling at the moon
as my friendly, gray wolves do

perched on a mountain top
their howls harmonized
familiar yet eerie
appealing yet revolting 
we draw closer yet withdraw
from their vicious cries

only the gray wolves know
their unvarnished message 
of their synchronized howling
just as i know hidden
behind my barking
is you

Unwashed and wild, we ran under street lamps of places
unknown
Unvarnished, the raw stuff below the
grain
Light spills from groups of inky syllables on chest, collar bone,
calf
From the exhale there is rebirth, sacred sterility and latex
lives
I found a place today, not my own, but mine the
same
Saw you there counting the crows and the petals of
dead flowers
Taking the tally between lines on crumpled notebooks,
torn loose leaf
We drank gin till the sun rose, and sighed, slight and
pale against me