‘There is not much that I can do,
For I’ve no money that’s quite my own!’
Spoke up the pitying child—
A little boy with a violin
At the station before the train came in,—
‘But I can play my fiddle to you,
And a nice one ’tis, and good in tone!’

The man in the handcuffs smiled;
The constable looked, and he smiled too,
As the fiddle began to twang;
And the man in the handcuffs suddenly sang
With grimful glee:
‘This life so free
Is the thing for me!’
And the constable smiled, and said no word,
As if unconscious of what he heard;
And so they went on till the train came in—
The convict, and boy with the violin.

Subatomic
Silver smoky sauntering lovelessness
Spots on arms, purple and green
Sickness and sleepless
Wow-like, wicked witchcraft catching

Tones humming zzz'ing
Screaming across elbows
Tucked into the ****
Concrete carnivalesque berserk wildness

Ferally and virily.

U U U THANK U...............Rice Krispie
ANNDD BEATS LEAP CURIOUSLY HIDING
UNDER THE SHEETS

Perfervid fervency.

Idling- white crisps
Blinding silences
Sticky fingertips and lurid looks
Tape after tape of binded irises in the pupil symposium,
Where side-by-side the seams mend together

Innards scissor sideways
Upways downways
Exteriors in rhythmic sync

Tastes like lolli-pop rocks
Watermelon- dazzling gold
Front-step excited eyes binding.
See-cells intertwined and idling-pupils
Dance and discover
Wild hypnotic trysts of skins
Twisting in cotton scenes
Hours of comfortable comforts of living
Women and men handling
Fun funds 'n' bon-bons; investing in the bond.
And going back for seconds.

The head riffs over riptides and causeways, lip-lies and kisses on Broad Way.
Two cadavers, hog-tied. Kissing longways and long ways.
Perogative oxytocin. American Express massages scented oils and lotions.
Persons of interest abetted in sweating. Heaving torsos.
Throwing legs, arms, and sparklers. Redonkulous nectars are microscopic.
Sweet flavors on taste buds or lit by recessed black light optics.
Massaging the rhinoceros husk in this 21st century sarcophagus,
Whiles of Wilders' words were spoken
Nickels of wood soaking in splintered tubs
Thumbs under surveillance. Sneaking inches of suspicion
Leaves treated with lacquer, fables beaten within inches of their lines;

Live its Friday night!
Deviled veterans draped in moon-hide rise
Defiling puerile twenty-something lives.

These wild highs in debts of purs'd thighs
Vexed by personal lies. Hexed in white-out lines.
Riled midnight rides inside this pyre of redolent pie- stroke six and nine
Intertwine in one human form supine
While quaffing nectar wine from the vine
Rancor drives the crime and anoints bold creature types to dine
At the interstice of Sublime.

In all backwards and forways,

for upways and downwords

still stick in my mind

that some hearts are not fine

and maybe if I said it thus simple

I would gather all stars to my ribs

but I see it not simple.

If I am, in all consequence,

I must see all together or see not at all.

For harps are not one string,

nor babies one bone

but by influx of rivers

thus comes the sea.

and asking: what sort of waters make up we.

There is a quilt on the bed in Shea's room,
Pink, red, blue, green, and violet,
Lace and stripes and polka dots,
White pillowcases with crisp corners.

There are books on the shelves, different genres,
Stuffed in sideways and upways and frontways,
old fantasy, thrillers, adventure,
Smudged ink in their yellowed margins.

There are papers on the desk by the wall,
Poems and Post-its and signatures,
Cardstock cut into star-shapes
Journal entries and unfinished sentences.

The closet is empty in Shea's room
Cobwebs and dead ladybugs lie still
A lamp has a cord around its middle
No breeze stirs the air; the curtains are closed.

There should be music in Shea's room.
There are songbooks, yes, but no hum of the heater
No branch scrapes the window outside
When a storm comes, the raindrops fall without rhythm
No longer are things made in Shea's room.
The colors are faded in Shea's room.

They say that there's something in Shea's room
Memories and fragments and pleasant dreams
They say stories came alive and still linger
Seeping through the cracks of the wooden floorboards
Horses graze in green pastures in Shea's room.

But I know what's really in Shea's room.

There's a year's worth of dust coating Shea's room
Not a thing has been touched for months
There's no Shea to be seen in Shea's room
Since she headed for the hills and never came back
There's no life and no soul in Shea's room
Shea's room is an abalone shell
The inner shine scrubbed away by disuse
Only shadows survive in Shea's room.

There is nothing alive in Shea's room.

Just an empty closet
And books
And Post-Its
And ladybugs
And remnants