What's it take
These days

To write a poem

That makes the world go mad
That brings the crowds to their feet
That spreads like wildfire
Through a dry winter forest

Is it those excessively long words?
The ostentatiously loquacious
Platitudinous ramblings
Of an insecure mind aspiring
To authentic intellect?

Is it perhaps...
     the "creativity"
               of      varied      spacing
  or...    could it be..... the lack
                              of capitalization
               the loathsome little letters
               screaming out
                         hey, look at us!
         ... or maybe it's
               the punctuation marks,
     littered, haphazardly
          through the text
                    (whether used correctly)
               or, theyre not?!
     despite worrds mispeled
          and a grammar might is broken
   can these gimmicks increase interest
        though miswritten or misspoken?

Is the trick alliteration
Whose bite brightly bids us
To center on the snappy sounds?
Although all along
     unvoiced underneath
Ideas idle in the isles
   (or perhaps the aisles)
Of the mind
To meld and craft and bind
Our thorough thoughts
And worthy words
Into lines
Which
Heard by herds
Raise the
                  Praise for which we
                  Privately, desperately
                  Pray

Maybe it's a magical mix
Of splendid in-your-head rhythm
Marvelous meter that perfectly clicks
Flowing smoothly without schism

Well-spaced stanzas
Well-used time
Well-crafted phrases
Well-thought-out rhymes

Well, maybe not...
     those gems are often ignored
     cast-aside, unread, even abhorred

Why?

Because the modern world
doesn't need your rules
your restrictions
your regulations
your misguided boundaries
your oppression
your antiquated ideas
   of "the right way"
   to write
   to speak
   to act
   to live
   to (fill in the blank)

No, what the modern world needs
is
Negation!
Contradiction!
Resistance!
Revolt!

And poetry whose words
Say the same thing
Repeat the same meaning
Echo the same lyrics
Rephrase the same thoughts
But in an ever-so-slightly
Different
Varied
Altered
Adjusted
Changed up way

Line
After line
Of synonyms
          over
               and
                    over
                         and
                              over
                                   again

-----

What's it take
These days

To not give in
To narcissism's spiral?

But more importantly:
What's it take

To make my poem go viral?

I have spent much time
on daydreaming,
I forgot things
I should have written,
words I supposed to pen
in the blank space,
are now gone —
gone as the night sleeps.

Becoming unknown,
from those fantasies I built,
the heart speaks —
when lips unvoiced by guilt,
for those lovely words
were now forgotten by time,
forgotten by my mind,
forgotten by the night.

Just like how the dandelions disperse
with a sudden yet firm kiss of the wind,
I hope these unvoiced feelings of passion,
of longing,
of dreaming,
of loving
will soon be swept away by fate
so it may find its way to flourish
within the tall fences of your own world.

Dear Soulmate
I'm pretty sure we've crossed paths before, just unassured of the spot
But I know you've already forgotten
How I look or how my name sounds like
Just another wallflower within your area of sight

Dear Soulmate
It's pretty weird for me to have you here as well
A bit restless, I don't know if you can tell
After being spun around the other way
By you who caught me in his arms and let me stay

Dear Soulmate
It almost feels like I have a debt to pay
Only to be fixed by paying attention to you
One burden I don't find myself to be in dismay
For I know that somehow, you carry the same load too

Dear Soulmate,
I am not in love with you, let's make that clear
I have learned not to after all these years
From many a chance encounter broken by this mere
Emotional "commitment" shrouded in unvoiced fear

See, I can not be caught in the teeth of romance
For it has bitten me once, let's not give it another chance
to ruin something good, I know you'd understand
So let me keep my distance now, before it catches me with its glance

Dear Soulmate,
I hope you feel the same
As I write to you, it may sound insane
Let me explain, before things turn twisted
Why I can't let you be one of them in the end

The problem is when my soul finds a mate, it ***** it dry
leaving it dependent for it to thrive
I see yours basking in freedom, a wonderful light
So I won't say goodbye, but rather, goodnight.

While you were away,
My words seem to fall on deaf ears.
Unvoiced mutterings that fall out in droves,
Burning rants swallowed back in singes and sears...

While you were away,
Time was stagnant; a viscous puddle.
Hours only stretched longer,
The second hand jabbing its ferocious needle...

While you were away,
The clock drove me insane.
Ticking my life away in literal seconds.
Losing sand grain by grain...

While you were away,
And when it's all quiet and dark,
I could hear my heartbeat...
Awaiting the new day to make its mark.

While you were away,
My words seem to have lost their meaning...
As if they were stuck in limbo,
Unanswered calls that keep on ringing...

While you were away,*
I am but a little lost foal...
Because whenever you're away,
I am never whole...

I

However the image enters
its force remains within
my eyes
rockstrewn caves where dragonfish evolve
wild for life, relentless and acquisitive
learning to survive
where there is no food
my eyes are always hungry
and remembering
however the image enters
its force remains.
A white woman stands bereft and empty
a black boy hacked into a murderous lesson
recalled in me forever
like a lurch of earth on the edge of sleep
etched into my visions
food for dragonfish that learn
to live upon whatever they must eat
fused images beneath my pain.

II

The Pearl River floods through the streets of Jackson
A Mississippi summer televised.
Trapped houses kneel like sinners in the rain
a white woman climbs from her roof to a passing boat
her fingers tarry for a moment on the chimney
tearless and no longer young, she holds
a tattered baby's blanket in her arms.
In a flickering afterimage of the nightmare rain
a microphone
****** up against her flat bewildered words
"we jest come from the bank yestiddy
borrowing money to pay the income tax
now everything's gone. I never knew
it could be so hard."
Despair weighs down her voice like Pearl River mud
caked around the edges
her pale eyes scanning the camera for help or explanation
unanswered
she shifts her search across the watered street, dry-eyed
"hard, but not this hard."
Two tow-headed children hurl themselves against her
hanging upon her coat like mirrors
until a man with ham-like hands pulls her aside
snarling "She ain't got nothing more to say!"
and that lie hangs in his mouth
like a shred of rotting meat.

III

I inherited Jackson, Mississippi.
For my majority it gave me Emmett Till
his 15 years puffed out like bruises
on plump boy-cheeks
his only Mississippi summer
whistling a 21 gun salute to Dixie
as a white girl passed him in the street
and he was baptized my son forever
in the midnight waters of the Pearl.

His broken body is the afterimage of my 21st year
when I walked through a northern summer
my eyes averted
from each corner's photographies
newspapers protest posters magazines
Police Story, Confidential, True
the avid insistence of detail
pretending insight or information
the length of **** across the dead boy's *****
his grieving mother's lamentation
the severed lips, how many burns
his gouged out eyes
sewed shut upon the screaming covers
louder than life
all over
the veiled warning, the secret relish
of a black child's mutilated body
fingered by street-corner eyes
bruise upon livid bruise
and wherever I looked that summer
I learned to be at home with children's blood
with savored violence
with pictures of black broken flesh
used, crumpled, and discarded
lying amid the sidewalk refuse
like a ***** woman's face.

A black boy from Chicago
whistled on the streets of Jackson, Mississippi
testing what he'd been taught was a manly thing to do
his teachers
ripped his eyes out his *** his tongue
and flung him to the Pearl weighted with stone
in th e name of white womanhood
they took their aroused honor
back to Jackson
and celebrated in a *******
the double ritual of white manhood
confirmed.

IV

"If earth and air and water do not judge them who are
we to refuse a crust of bread?"

Emmett Till rides the crest of the Pearl, whistling
24 years his ghost lay like the shade of a ***** woman
and a white girl has grown older in costly honor
(what did she pay to never know its price?)
now the Pearl River speaks its muddy judgment
and I can withhold my pity and my bread.

"Hard, but not this hard."
Her face is flat with resignation and despair
with ancient and familiar sorrows
a woman surveying her crumpled future
as the white girl besmirched by Emmett's whistle
never allowed her own tongue
without power or conclusion
unvoiced
she stands adrift in the ruins of her honor
and a man with an executioner's face
pulls her away.

Within my eyes
the flickering afterimages of a nightmare rain
a woman wrings her hands
beneath the weight of agonies remembered
I wade through summer ghosts
betrayed by vision
hers and my own
becoming dragonfish to survive
the horrors we are living
with tortured lungs
adapting to breathe blood.

A woman measures her life's damage
my eyes are caves, chunks of etched rock
tied to the ghost of a black boy
whistling
crying and frightened
her tow-headed children cluster
like little mirrors of despair
their father's hands upon them
and soundlessly
a woman begins to weep.

Feelings are within you
In your deepest heart and soul
Feelings are felt and seen
By those who only feel for you

Feelings unheard troubles the mind
Feelings unread torches the softest heart
Feelings unvoiced torments your soul..
Feelings uninterpreted, unanswered...
Killing you.. killing you softly , suicidal love..

Feelings are words unspoken
Feelings are invisible touches
Feelings are unseen caresses..
Feelings are shared dreams unfulfilled
But feelings are continuous...
Reflections of heart, life, love and soul...

Hidden feelings ... pathetic souls
Blinded kisses... numb and cold..
Unveil... unveil...
Let the magical love be revealed....

The cottage is old and the garden trees have overgrown,
The long missed smells of mother’s food…
Oh, what joy to eventually come home!

Shrill morning breaks to the call of crows
As the sun rises from behind prison walls.
A reminder yet again, Light alights in sleeping hours,
Daylight brings hell, the unvoiced tortured wails
Which cry out for the Light.
But it plays tantalizing games at night
And leaves the mornings in the hand of the jailor.
No friend, no foe, no merchant nor sailor
Will ever come to see…
We’re alone in our six square feet cells
Us, and the haunting drum roll of the surrounding sea.

I am fighting the inner self
i can only fell the smell of devils
I hold my breath
on the tip of my tongue
and pause its rhythm
out there in a grief
that causes my body to shiver
and shake abruptly
as my voice vanishes
like baby teeth.
I am fighting the inner self
with much sorrow and pain
i wish for a save
but what's coming is rain
GOD please listen
and help me
break these chains.

Unfinished sentences have become my forte.
Unvoiced emotions have become my norm.

When you see penguins or giraffes,
When you taste pancakes or lo mein,
When you hear josh turner on the radio,
When you drive through the eclectic neighborhoods
Of hilly chilly San Francisco,
Will you miss...

I will always love...
Even though I shouldn't...
But maybe one day...
Yeah...
One day this won't hurt so much...

Right?

Let's liberate this silence
Let it blemish with the smoke
Coming off of the cooling coal
That once burned
in the wake of unvoiced promises

Somehow, you and I have managed to exchange dreams,
fears, and beliefs with one simple unspoken conversation

And now words cascade
Down rivers of my arteries and veins
Toward the palm of your hands
Hold them close
(I never intended to let them go)

But it seems that with every nonverbal exchange
A string of understanding ties us together
And there is nothing left in my power that I could do

To save us from the falling sky, splinters of moon,
and blankets of midnight blue

Under a stagnant sky,
Gloom out of gloom uncoiling into gloom,
The River, jaded and forlorn,
Welters and wanders wearily--wretchedly--on;
Yet in and out among the ribs
Of the old skeleton bridge, as in the piles
Of some dead lake-built city, full of skulls,
Worm-worn, rat-riddled, mouldy with memories,
Lingers to babble to a broken tune
(Once, O, the unvoiced music of my heart!)
So melancholy a soliloquy
It sounds as it might tell
The secret of the unending grief-in-grain,
The terror of Time and Change and Death,
That wastes this floating, transitory world.

What of the incantation
That forced the huddled shapes on yonder shore
To take and wear the night
Like a material majesty?
That touched the shafts of wavering fire
About this miserable welter and wash--
(River, O River of Journeys, River of Dreams!)--
Into long, shining signals from the panes
Of an enchanted pleasure-house,
Where life and life might live life lost in life
For ever and evermore?

O Death!  O Change!  O Time!
Without you, O, the insuperable eyes
Of these poor Might-Have-Beens,
These fatuous, ineffectual Yesterdays!

Closeted. Red.
Corrupt. Abrupt.
Jarring & Tarring.
Obsession. Infatuation.
Sweet confrontation.
Voiced. Unvoiced.
Heat. Discreet.
Prohibited discovery.
Trespassed precinct.
Animal instinct.
Sinful rust.
A burst of Lust.

From the visions of sparrow vanguards
that fly insatiably onward.
From the tombs of ancient hearts draped
in flowing, moth-eaten fabric.
From the fighter jets stalling somewhere
above solitary and succinct farmlands.
From the bottom of a broken purple
sunset that lies embossed on my brain.
From the silliest half-thought left
unvoiced in the vagrant light of a damp
and desolate lamp lying in a landfill.
From several mouths at once.
From oracles cross-legged in caves.
From the gills of a catfish on a hook.
From mythical forgeries and the perjurer's tongue.
To the subdued hope resting in a
trembling hand gripped round its pen.
To satisfaction that is oneness that
seems to never arrive but is there
all along.
To the peaks of the Himalayas.
To my spidered desk light, shallow with doubt.
To my flustered and torrential page.

There are days when
the unvoiced pain hits me.
It takes me by surprise,
all the tears I haven't cried.  
How can there be more?
That **** is buried so deep,
unacknowledged,
untended,
unfelt.  
There's a deep dark well of pain in me.
It's waters are silent, vast, unreflecting,
at the bottom of a cold, lightless cavern.
It calls to me,
wants to swallow me whole.
It feeds off my life, my light.
It has ahold of my soul.
The only way to shrink its power
is to drain it,
to cry out the pain,
to speak the pain to life,
so it's no longer caged inside of me,
to name it,
to feel it.
Only then will the dark waters recede
and the threat of drowning be lessened.

The odor of blood drops in drapes,
figures half-lit form false shapes;
the bed on which I lie and the windows
welcome what the delicate line knows:
the open imagination's well-kept trade
that many shrug off
with a stilted stare or cough,
throwing discredit on what honest hands have made.

All that dreamlike inspiration
becomes a beautiful conflagration:
the smell of emblematic men and women slain,
and flickering lights from where thought's shadows came,
issue out of the creative heart's desire
that's uncontrollable,
requiring an artistic toll,
like the worn fingers of the bard that plays the lyre.

But that's what poetry's about,
a deep and draining silent shout;
the hand is left cramped and consumed,
the heart's violet blossoms begin to bloom:
sedative perfumes slide over your wearied frame –
half-memories abate,
the odorous dead dissipate –
you're deserted, yet the halcyon heart flares aflame.

Symbols come and symbols go:
the disfigured trees obscured by snow,
or simply standing against the wind
or windless heat; a cherished friend,
loved ones who’ve passed and the Lost Lyricist;
the Muse that eludes
the damp room in which it broods;
an image of stream near a stony tower’s twist.

Find here, dear reader and friend,
a testimony sung over again.
I write this text to release me from
broken thoughts and anger’s sum:
all that childhood and adolescence approved.
The unvoiced thoughts
of a boy caught by cast lots
inked to find something beyond evanescent truths.

By cold logic you arrive,
not through panic nor insanity,
for they are something separate.

You recall those who witnessed,
through blinded eye the beginnings.
Those seemingly oblivious of your falling to this place,
and who could offer no sanctuary or escape.

In your mind the inaction testifies, of a value you no longer hold.
Not just in your place of open eyed awareness,
But also in their world of illusion,
where you no longer belong.

There are two pathways ahead.
But only one will each choose according to their need.
Emotional pain made into the physical
Or the ending of pain both felt and caused, both past and future.

At the beginning and in the intermediate,
the times when cries for help prevailed.
Not consciously shouted but through changes,
altered interaction with the world as it once was.

To those who bore witness to beginning and middle,
at this stage comes the "why?".
"I saw it"...."Why did I not see this outcome?".... "I knew",???

To those who have not been here,
There seems to be no logic,
They cannot see from where they stand the simple rationale.
So contrary and beyond sight
that only the tag of insanity gives explanation.

At the beginners guide just so the numbers who sought to read.
At the intermediate a lesser number could give an interest.
The despair of others an unwanted knowledge and the readings so reflect a reality best kept unvoiced... too disturbing to the ear.
And fewer now here... dear reader... eyes uneducated still asking why.... you few are too late to understanding and by now despair has been defeated.

I think of you often.
In the morning, late at night,
but those thoughts go unvoiced,
the mortal touch goes unfelt.

It’s easier to keep to myself,
to avert my gaze deliberately.
It’s safer to keep ravenous.
It’s simpler to bamboozle with silence.

It's late and I'm tired
But I can't go to sleep

There's too much to do
Too much I haven't told you
Too much I want to hear
Too much to listen to
Too little to waste

There are adventures
not yet experienced
There are voices
unheard
There are thoughts
unvoiced
There are songs
unwritten
There are kisses
unfelt

And I have adventures to experience
And I have voices to hear
And I have thoughts to voice
And I have songs to write
And I have kisses to feel

And I have you.

Oh, you.

Who are you?
I certainly haven't found you yet
Actually, I thought I had, but you went away
Now I fear I will never see you again

Oh, you.

You with your saddened eyes
You who have endured so much
You who deserve so much more
You who I try to help but
You who shy away to
You who are gone.
gone.

gone.

It does not make my thoughts any clearer
It does not make me feel any better
It does not make my eyes any drier
to write.

But it does help the sunshine keep a little longer
It does let your kisses linger in the shade
It does help my weary head resurrect
The light from whence we came

And I know that someday you will return
And I won't let you slip down down again
And my time awake is time well spent
So I cannot sleep.

I cannot sleep.

Wishing your hands might fuse with my *******,
and that your phallus,
flaccid,
-just the way I like to taste it more-
may set in my mouth its lightest traces,
may reborn,
helped by saliva, which is full of poems,
and then you ***,
and we both become some crude socialists, or communists, or wherever you like the most.
Then you take my red ***** as your communist flag, and recite your manifest before it.
And then my nails painted with desire, dovetail with your left arm,
-tattooed of what your soul unvoiced-
and become draw a turquoise butterfly,
emulating me,
and then, an ****** beyond re-surge,
that will go from sadism to communism,
and from metamorphosis to ******,
and if while I write you this,
my *** is getting wet,
little by little,
getting full of my sacred elixir
–according to your mouth-
perambulate my ******,
-self-possessed and palpitating-
and if my mind doesn’t do anything else but imagining  you,
raining white over my shoulders,
and my back,
and my hair,
and nothing matters then,
because it’s voluntary retention, and your ******* friend Marx is next to you,
and not me,
that I’m just listening arias,
and smoke,
slowly smoke,
towards your savage, flaccid, tasty ***, always present in my mind,
and my lonely ***….

It ends 
Dusty room 
Flooding memoirs 
Frozen words, voices 
Unspoken word, unvoiced 
Ripped my heart that I was just a passerby in the rain.

GOS'POZHO! NE GO'VORYA' BALGARSKI
(Madame! I Don’t Speak Bulgarian!)

( for Onelia )

I stand outside
your world

all voiced & unvoiced
consonants

(& yes I know voiced consonants can become voiceless
but only in certain positions.)

‘mislya...’pisha
(to think...to write)

It’s all Cyrillic
to me.

Only able to enjoy the shape of it!

б
There is an O
with a scarf billowing
over its right shoulder

that really is a b.

(Reminds me of Isadora Duncan driving to her death
her scarf getting caught in the wheel.)

A capital Ɓ that is a v
(Oh yeah? Yeah!)

A large З that looks like a pair of *******
looking down from above from the side.

(And Lord save us
it’s...a z!)

An X that’s a h!
(I see...I see!)


Ф

An apple being cut in two
by a knife
once again
looking down from above

...that’s an f.

(Yes? Yes!)

Something that could be
a starburst
Ж
(zh...zh...zh)
Such a treasure!

Or a strong man
clasping two ladies by the waist
swooning to him in a tango
one on either side.

An Я
looking the wrong way

(Ya? Ya!)

И

Two capital I’s
hanging out together

with the I (i...i...i)  on the right
with its hand on the left one’s ***

(naughty vowel...naughty vowel)


Й

And an other two I’s
up to the same shenanigans
but with half a halo over their heads
as if they only wanted to be half good!

Maybe one day
I’ll learn

A little Bulgarian
(dogo’dina... dogo’dina)
((next year...next year))

But right now
it’s all

pictures
to me

that dash across
my imagination.


Stra’hotna ‘roklya!

Iz’ghezhdash prek rasno!

(Fabulous dress!)

(You look great!)

Boring clothes
Quiet unvoiced thoughts
Loud voice
Loud presence

six months to the day,
of treading along.
like many good things,
an Internet accident.

180 days can be converted
to one of these units:
15,552,000 seconds
259,200 minutes
4320 hours
180 days
25 weeks
(rounded down)

six months here,
a fortune of time,
goodly to behold.

new faces
from new places,
now crowd the heart
that has no shape,
for it expands daily,
making room for
more of you.

your welcome
welcomes more than poems.

ces triestes,
ces chansons de mon cœur,
don de la liberté,
doués pour vous,
dans la célébration de mon
Jour de l'Indépendance

some fingernail torn
from darker memories,
from fears of the future.
others from eyes to paper
ink spilled quickly,
lest the letters,
remain among the
stillborn ashes
hid in the caverns
of the man's mouth.

the ink in the bottle,
that spilt,
gotta be drops of
mixed blood.
by anybody's definition.

perhaps you sense the fearful
truths that lie within,
some yet to be invoked,
unvoiced, unyoked,
for which my concealer
in actuality is a
point-the-way revealer.

all in. good time.

Yet, never met a poem
did not like,
for the man in the beast
is just like {you, man}.

my only excuse for
to having not read
all of yours,
is oft thine stop me hot,
diverting me
to spill some more,
oh child of mine.

convinced still,
is the man,
that the secret
to this poetry racket,
is to never ever stop
laughing at yourself,
loving all the parts of you,
secretly and
secretly, as well,
in the open wide.

so you feed the beast
that devours me,
for restless are the
words that need a home.

someone said to me,
you are one of those
who are
nostalgic for
the future.

restless is the man inside
the beast, restless is the
beast that is the man,
who hates the word I.

With this sole exception.

**I thank you.

Whence once I heard the faint whisper of the rushing wind
It formed a name in the air, whispering
The faint decibels that your soul voiced
Called out to me, unheard and unvoiced
Sweeping right back I searched for your figure
Forming shapes in the clouds
Awaiting your selfless shoulder
“Oh brother!” I cried out, “Where had you gone?”
You curved your lips and embraced me for long
My head felt light. My soul lingered
And I drifted to another world
To a scape bygone
As toddlers, I saw us playing on the hill tops
Amidst wintery clouds
I saw me run after you and fall on the ground
And suddenly you turned, with concern on your brows
Chasing back and picking me up
Brushing my tears and swinging me up
I saw us race to the school in the mornings
And I saw you hold my hand while returning
But then I felt my hands bereft
My head felt light. My soul revered
I saw me race alone to the school
And I saw me fall and chase the lonely cloud
I saw your face, and its obscure lines
My wet eyes rained bringing me back to this time
Sweeping right around I again searched for your figure
In vain I tried to form some shapes in the clouds
And then I heard the whispering wind rush in
Blanketing the clouds and taking them in
I heard no whispers, no names and no sound
“Oh brother!” I cried out, “Where have you gone?”

I once had a hand-basket filled with red
roses, and gave it as a springtime gift
to my love. She called them beautiful, but
an unvoiced disappointment seemed to reach
out more clearly. I did not understand
what more the basket should have contained, so
I asked her if she liked better yellow
or pink roses. She told me that color
was not the source of discomfort, rather
that I had called her my love when she had
yet to know who I was. I began to
stammer, shocked by her sudden ignorance,
but I didn't have a chance to explain
before a store clerk ran up to us. He
grabbed the roses and called an officer
over because they were not payed for. The
officer grabbed my arm and asked how I
had gotten out again. I inquired
as to what I had gotten out of, but
we were already inside the car. He
mumbled numbers into his radio
and we came to a wide white building that
I seemed to remember from a dream, but
the large blue words over the doorway were
both foreign to me. PSYCHIATRIC WARD.

I learned all about paralysis
when I found myself waking,
cheek pressed against the wetness
of a blank journal page, aching
with the stifled screams of
my unvoiced muse.

Perhaps it was the cold hand
of my nightmare that shook
me awake, Vulnerability-
who carried himself in vain
and laced his gaze with the
severity of a thousand swords
bracing for impact, framed with
the familiar mask of the Joker-
whom I have become.

Crippled by a force almost demonic
which hovered my thoughts over paper
close enough to almost feel them come alive,
yet distant enough to watch them
disintegrate from the rooftops and
collect as a *** of torment
stuck permanently in the part of my throat
I could not bear to swallow.

To unravel like the peel of
a summer tangerine, lying exposed-
cool air breathing under naked skin
I have taught myself to shelter
from the judgment of  bitter eyes
and words put together only
to criticize.

but in visions I see a girl, dark eyes and
charcoal hair spilling over paper
covered in pretty penmanship
and she is fearless-
hand dancing along to the symphony
of her thoughts, staccato beats
and Allegro! her passion encompasses
more than just ink on lines, you
can see them echo and reverberate
fragmented poetry through the channels
of her veins

and it is so evident- she is free.

and for her, my dream expands further
and I begin to unravel words
stuck trapped under thick orange skin
and invisible walls designed to shelter,
exposing myself to him-
my nightmare, and the retinas
coated effortlessly in judgment

and I am reborn today rather
than tomorrow, eyes a little brighter
and this time, I awaken to the aroma
of new beginnings.

Another Sunday.
Opening the empty space.
What shall it be
On the last day of everything?

Start in the upright,
Twirl to the melody,
Wearing down old soles
To the heels of memory.

Nausea of routine,
Waning appeals unvoiced.
Visions thickening,
Melodies reduced to noise.

   An empty space to fill.
   What shall it be?
   Towards the last day of everything,
   Withering out of mortal shackles
   In emptiness,...freed

~~~

Everything is done
All that I have tried to say
Voiced, unvoiced, crumples.
This place, inconsequential
Hangs above me by a thread.

His name is William
Just a boy
A perfect stranger
Who even after meeting, I retain now knowledge of
Except for a name
And a face
Not just a stranger, but a best friend

I think of him
I feel his effect on me in an almost nostalgic euphoria
As if imbedded in memory
I experience the sentiment of moments never shared
Reminiscing our friendship never realized
I don't know him
But we know each other completely

He recognizes my ways
Adapting movements without force to mine
Being just William, for me
An individual with a head to imagine
A single body to interact
Without hesitation he considered me-
A girl with no known purpose in his life

This indescribable man, he lives honestly
And he remembers that he, first and foremost is a man
Practicing human nature
Feeling emotion
Considering others in all realities
And utilizing his mind to better understand others
Thinking before thinking

He frequents fantasies, just like many
But keeps his life amongst the living
With no imagination to smooth imperfections
But he still interacts with shadows who present themselves willingly
Looking past their movements before
And treats all equally
As their living, breathing, feeling selves

I trust William
And don't care if I am wrong doing so
He's seen inside me with glazed eyes
And opened them to look at me
Considering my thoughts and feelings voiced many times before
Never manipulating in his favor, and never dismissing my views
He sees me, Alice

He heard my words in his hand
Unvoiced scribbles spelling thoughts
If he didn't agree, he never shook the letters off
He sees me living
And with that solely in mind
He turned his head, with body not brain
And shared a smile with feelings and heart.

The Politician

Has he kept his word?

Kept to promises you heard?

Are you satisfied? Let down?

Waiting to see what comes round?

These choices voiced, unvoiced

From voters of the officers new crowned.



To those who vote by rote or call

To those who vote at all:

Has he or she distorted vows

To overpower and devour:

Double thought through double-think?



Misconstruing and misstating,

Skewed with bias filled with hating.

Stinking skills to sell and buy,

To peddle lies which sink a country –

Even if potentially –



Are the aides, incomes denied,

Who stand to profit on the sly,

Men in masks, men in power

Hidden men, men of the hour,

How will tasks now basked in

At whose call flasks, casks are drunk from:

Will affairs of state be slunk from?



This a call to politician;

Call to listen;

He or she just person

In the end.



The Politician 2.28.2017

Our Times, Our Culture II;

Arlene Corwin

The trembling sounds
Enchanting voice
The Music
Knocking at the door
of my longing soul
Talk to me ..
…in Music
Whisper with the blending notes
The Richness of the unvoiced
Its magical tone…
Stronger and deeper
than many Talks
Carries the language
Of million unsaid words
Touches
Feeds
and Cares
For me
& my fragile Thoughts.

in summer,
steel-hearted girls
play dress up,
hiding fears
in secret parts of their souls,
swallowing keys
to unvoiced thoughts,
and swearing
to keep their lips sealed tight

in summer,
steel-hearted girls
play dress up,
searching for the
perfect disguise

You can never skip an opportunity to call yourself that
Because you’re your ma’s son:
Didn’t get caught up in the tool shed
Got spiked through with the hooked art of repeating yourself instead

Should I feel insulted then
That these cracked, digited fringes
These rejects of your diminutive anatomy
Are how you love me?

You love me with the unvoiced, unexplained idiocy
Of fingers that make Mexican waves
To one particular song
And lure mine to come dancing too

You love me with the whorls where you keep your DNA
Counting the concaves in my skeleton:
Explore them, soothe them
Wonder if you made them

And I think you fear that
If you ceased to trace me as I grew –
A carpenter sifting through the age rings in my spine –
I’d only feel the dislocating vagueness
Of an absence too menial to be mourned.

“Cack-handed”
But I remember different:
I remember your hands like leather,
All heated and scratchy from your pockets,
Unhooking the problems from my mouth.
And how the weather’d teethed on them,
Gnawed away chunks down around the cuticles
Until they were dry and scarred like February –
February getting lost in its own bleak cavernousness

They stir the rag in the shoe polish,
And the burnt spoon in the bean tin.

I used to try to pinch them
But my nails were too soft
And your palms too crusted
But when they tell me “thick-skinned”
I shake my head and think
“No, beautifully cack-handed”

Some poems are better not birthed
be locked with the key never found
their scripts be seen by no eyes on earth
like the sigh’s dewy tears on the ground!

Some poems are better not carved on papyrus
be hidden in the deepest nook
unworded pains nurtured in hush
flowing within like a brook!

Some poems are better not shown daylight
be buried neath sorrow’s growing pile
unvoiced aches lost in the night
dawning in the morn as a smile!

Some poems are better not ever revealed
be breathed on the lonely walkway
living in heart feeling fulfilled
dying when the days die away!