As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say
The breath goes now, and some say, No:

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,
’Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th’ earth brings harms and fears,
Men reckon what it did and meant,
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers’ love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined
That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th’ other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows *****, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must
Like th’ other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.

When my feet touch the grass

In the place I call home,

My reception will not be that at all,

But a valediction.

Serendipities torrential deluge
Of dulcet applause reigning
In the divine dynasty of
Empiricisms arcane lore,
Heavens most high of heirachies
Beyond the veil
Drowning in altruistic
Reflexive salutations;
The regnant patent mutitioning
Of the waters Lethe from
Serpens poisened chalice of saints
Evoking the advent vigil of
Dusts chaldean dreams,
The sabbatical ordination
The fatal ravens annunciation
Heralding valediction
Convening betwixt and between
Gates of ivory and horn
Arraigning the apostolic conclave.


ELEETE J MUIR.

I

Midwinter spring is its own season
Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,
Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.
When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,
The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,
In windless cold that is the heart’s heat,
Reflecting in a watery mirror
A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon.
And glow more intense than blaze of branch, or brazier,
Stirs the dumb spirit: no wind, but pentecostal fire
In the dark time of the year. Between melting and freezing
The soul’s sap quivers. There is no earth smell
Or smell of living thing. This is the spring time
But not in time’s covenant. Now the hedgerow
Is blanched for an hour with transitory blossom
Of snow, a bloom more sudden
Than that of summer, neither budding nor fading,
Not in the scheme of generation.
Where is the summer, the unimaginable
Zero summer?

              If you came this way,
Taking the route you would be likely to take
From the place you would be likely to come from,
If you came this way in may time, you would find the hedges
White again, in May, with voluptuary sweetness.
It would be the same at the end of the journey,
If you came at night like a broken king,
If you came by day not knowing what you came for,
It would be the same, when you leave the rough road
And turn behind the pig-sty to the dull facade
And the tombstone. And what you thought you came for
Is only a shell, a husk of meaning
From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled
If at all. Either you had no purpose
Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured
And is altered in fulfilment. There are other places
Which also are the world’s end, some at the sea jaws,
Or over a dark lake, in a desert or a city—
But this is the nearest, in place and time,
Now and in England.

              If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
Here, the intersection of the timeless moment
Is England and nowhere. Never and always.

II

Ash on and old man’s sleeve
Is all the ash the burnt roses leave.
Dust in the air suspended
Marks the place where a story ended.
Dust inbreathed was a house—
The walls, the wainscot and the mouse,
The death of hope and despair,
       This is the death of air.

There are flood and drouth
Over the eyes and in the mouth,
Dead water and dead sand
Contending for the upper hand.
The parched eviscerate soil
Gapes at the vanity of toil,
Laughs without mirth.
       This is the death of earth.

Water and fire succeed
The town, the pasture and the ****.
Water and fire deride
The sacrifice that we denied.
Water and fire shall rot
The marred foundations we forgot,
Of sanctuary and choir.
       This is the death of water and fire.

In the uncertain hour before the morning
     Near the ending of interminable night
     At the recurrent end of the unending
After the dark dove with the flickering tongue
     Had passed below the horizon of his homing
     While the dead leaves still rattled on like tin
Over the asphalt where no other sound was
     Between three districts whence the smoke arose
     I met one walking, loitering and hurried
As if blown towards me like the metal leaves
     Before the urban dawn wind unresisting.
     And as I fixed upon the down-turned face
That pointed scrutiny with which we challenge
     The first-met stranger in the waning dusk
     I caught the sudden look of some dead master
Whom I had known, forgotten, half recalled
     Both one and many; in the brown baked features
     The eyes of a familiar compound ghost
Both intimate and unidentifiable.
     So I assumed a double part, and cried
     And heard another’s voice cry: ‘What! are you here?’
Although we were not. I was still the same,
     Knowing myself yet being someone other—
     And he a face still forming; yet the words sufficed
To compel the recognition they preceded.
     And so, compliant to the common wind,
     Too strange to each other for misunderstanding,
In concord at this intersection time
     Of meeting nowhere, no before and after,
     We trod the pavement in a dead patrol.
I said: ‘The wonder that I feel is easy,
     Yet ease is cause of wonder. Therefore speak:
     I may not comprehend, may not remember.’
And he: ‘I am not eager to rehearse
     My thoughts and theory which you have forgotten.
     These things have served their purpose: let them be.
So with your own, and pray they be forgiven
     By others, as I pray you to forgive
     Both bad and good. Last season’s fruit is eaten
And the fullfed beast shall kick the empty pail.
     For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
     And next year’s words await another voice.
But, as the passage now presents no hindrance
     To the spirit unappeased and peregrine
     Between two worlds become much like each other,
So I find words I never thought to speak
     In streets I never thought I should revisit
     When I left my body on a distant shore.
Since our concern was speech, and speech impelled us
     To purify the dialect of the tribe
     And urge the mind to aftersight and foresight,
Let me disclose the gifts reserved for age
     To set a crown upon your lifetime’s effort.
     First, the cold friction of expiring sense
Without enchantment, offering no promise
     But bitter tastelessness of shadow fruit
     As body and soul begin to fall asunder.
Second, the conscious impotence of rage
     At human folly, and the laceration
     Of laughter at what ceases to amuse.
And last, the rending pain of re-enactment
     Of all that you have done, and been; the shame
     Of motives late revealed, and the awareness
Of things ill done and done to others’ harm
     Which once you took for exercise of virtue.
     Then fools’ approval stings, and honour stains.
From wrong to wrong the exasperated spirit
     Proceeds, unless restored by that refining fire
     Where you must move in measure, like a dancer.’
The day was breaking. In the disfigured street
     He left me, with a kind of valediction,
     And faded on the blowing of the horn.

III

There are three conditions which often look alike
Yet differ completely, flourish in the same hedgerow:
Attachment to self and to things and to persons, detachment
From self and from things and from persons; and, growing between them, indifference
Which resembles the others as death resembles life,
Being between two lives—unflowering, between
The live and the dead nettle. This is the use of memory:
For liberation—not less of love but expanding
Of love beyond desire, and so liberation
From the future as well as the past. Thus, love of a country
Begins as attachment to our own field of action
And comes to find that action of little importance
Though never indifferent. History may be servitude,
History may be freedom. See, now they vanish,
The faces and places, with the self which, as it could, loved them,
To become renewed, transfigured, in another pattern.

Sin is Behovely, but
All shall be well, and
All manner of thing shall be well.
If I think, again, of this place,
And of people, not wholly commendable,
Of no immediate kin or kindness,
But of some peculiar genius,
All touched by a common genius,
United in the strife which divided them;
If I think of a king at nightfall,
Of three men, and more, on the scaffold
And a few who died forgotten
In other places, here and abroad,
And of one who died blind and quiet
Why should we celebrate
These dead men more than the dying?
It is not to ring the bell backward
Nor is it an incantation
To summon the spectre of a Rose.
We cannot revive old factions
We cannot restore old policies
Or follow an antique drum.
These men, and those who opposed them
And those whom they opposed
Accept the constitution of silence
And are folded in a single party.
Whatever we inherit from the fortunate
We have taken from the defeated
What they had to leave us—a symbol:
A symbol perfected in death.
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
By the purification of the motive
In the ground of our beseeching.

IV

The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
     Lies in the choice of pyre of pyre—
     To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
     We only live, only suspire
     Consumed by either fire or fire.

V

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea’s throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter’s afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

Let me pour forth
My tears before thy face, whilst I stay here,
For thy face coins them, and thy stamp they bear,
And by this mintage they are something worth,
For thus they be
Pregnant of thee;
Fruits of much grief they are, emblems of more;
When a tear falls that, thou falls which it bore,
So thou and I are nothing then, when on a divers shore.

On a round ball
A workman, that hath copies by, can lay
An Europe, Afrique, and an Asia,
And quickly make that, which was nothing, All;
So doth each tear,
Which thee doth wear,
A globe, yea world, by that impression grow,
Till thy tears mixed with mine do overflow
This world—by waters sent from thee, my heaven dissolved so.

O more than moon,
Draw not up seas to drown me in thy sphere,
Weep me not dead, in thine armes, but forbear
To teach the sea what it may do too soon;
Let not the wind
Example find,
To do me more harm than it purposeth;
Since thou and I sigh one another’s breath,
Who e’er sighs most is cruellest, and hastes the other’s death.

When the word over finally made sense,
I shook you from me
like water,

like sleep.

Your ******* gently caress your face
precise in their touch
rhythmically moving upward
to come together;
herald of a new day …

Your dark hours
caress me, hide me, protect me,
I adore your silence
save the gentle pulse of you.

I need with a black passion
to hold these moments forever,
to stop your onward journey into the light of day
for this morning must never come.

But my efforts can never bear any result
for, even if I could stop your relentless march,
you serve a greater master than me
and to stop that celestial dance
is beyond any possibility.

So I know what I must do
and smile at the simplicity of it …

It is I who must withdraw
from this unending journey
of dark into light...

One grain, one taste,
stretches every minute, every second;
you slow your caresses,
the celestial dance ceases,
the black night settles over me…

I have bid farewell to morning ...

if he were to leave like
a passing storm,
tracked by a team
of experts,
but, swept out to sea,
forgotten by forecasters
but remembered by fish.

if he chose to
leave on terms
gathered,
saying goodbye in a
short note of giving:

“Heather,
Your pretty face wasn’t enough,
I saw the *** marks and
I actually feared them.
Mike,
You ****** at soccer,
the idea it was better than
baseball disgusted me,
Gail,
Your younger years made
my whole life whole,
remember that,
Trisha,
I always loved your pies,
blueberry, pumpkin,
who could leave out apple,
John,
I leave to you my
knuckleduster,
Fred,
to you my ’69 chevy,
Uncle Steve my
Who Pinball machine,
Helen,
my distasteful character.
Mary,
my married heart.
Jesus,
you know.

and my putrid eyes to a ****** of magpies”.

Snap your fingers,
Tap your bag,
Grab your hair,
Scratch your skin.

Walk as fast as you can,
Don't run yet,
Don't look back
Don't fight so hard

Hope that he'll help,
Grab your hand,
Just to hold you down,
Keep you here

Watch the blood drip onto the keyboard,
The welts and bruises on your forearms
You were meant to look nice before you leave..
Leave this town and this home,
Leave these friends and these lovers
Ha.
Lovers.

Thin respect veils the difference
between dawn and morning
Circles of chairs watch the small
worryings emanate from my hands
and folded arms
Routine is fallacious, and I'm starting
to think, so are you
So, without further delay, adieu.

-cj

the farewell of the magical-masque
           the dance of the whirlwind
           the twist in valediction
a pantomime of comedy dripping in life’s heat, its tragedy blooms forlorn
silently the mountain-ranges stare
the sky-face won’t relent and contemplates the open-disease in homes*


1.
disguised as simple relief – rescue lies cooing in the palm
     crumbling in blue-ash beside your grinding-palate
     you reach for pen and paper to appease an entity unknown
shrouded in grey, no scavenger can touch the head of one
who carries blessings in the scabbard – the present worthy of now

stairs are slippery, fish are mouthing, anger grows
     symbols hop along outrageous, so stylised and signs come in decisive
     all at once, almost
there is some purchase in the widening-valley
when climbing-feet need to rest on your narrow angular-will
and wait.. (before them chips rain down)
until the merry-turnstile comes in view


2.
the worm-wheel goes blank a while
and out tunes a dastard-and-devilish prank, courtesy of blunted-fate
sacred-fillies get hacked at by small silver things and they lie slaughtered on stark-plains
and the orb dips in reverse this time
a sooty-traveller from the western-flank
               glances out at massive-figures at supine-rest
               gets startled by the rude ***-fire
eyes slit and pates distort in hostile-fever
at the starling-ingénue in mock-fatigues and fake-epaulettes
but cheering up with wry-humour makes your feet
           a touch too slow to react in time
           and the halberd comes crashing down
well, the last thought you hold before your next one
is how utterly beautiful she looked at the station
long, black hair – silky-shining in your eyes and gay-dancing in the wind
when she passed you all her sweet-love from eyes so wet and smile so quiet
and selected dried-fruit in redolent-parcel
                                   a sealed pelt-skin of unmixed-whiskey
along with fresh-baked raisin-bread in cotton-cloth
                    coarse-sliced and buttered so generous
and
a semi-rusted dry-tin rattling its bounty of macaroons through that smudgy, ***** window
what sweet-victuals to keep alive . . .



man, that journey is a long one!


                             (I’M STANDING HERE        oh, you just know I am here

AND YES -- I’M WATCHING YOU                        
                                                                ­               and no use looking round now..
      YOU CANNOT SEE NOR HEAR ME  
                                                                ­               or begging a purty-release
                                                                 ­                                             
                                  oh easy, boy.. EASY!!)                                                          ­                            
                                                                ­                                             
                   ­                                          


3.
once more, the worm wriggles in microbial-distaste
and the season’s wheel comes dangerously close to being undone
IT DOES
and seconds later, cogs fly hard in every fool’s direction
and luckily.. you catch some in your face.. mouth agape
        crushing your tongue
        splintering all your dental-treasure
        smashing half your reason
no time for moaning.. or eroded-regret.. or even to feel your lips in ribbons
for, when they turn their backs, you will know
what to do..


because you’ve picked some pearls the hard-way..
that atonement could well appear in spells
of any shape
or size



not so?





S T, 30 dec 2013

shall I not grieve
to miss
your voice
your sight
the glint of mischief
   in a glance
   from half-closed loving eyes
your smile
   that lighted up my life
   more brilliantly than does
   the winter sun on snowy slopes
   outside the train
   taking me at this moment
   through the landscape of my youth
      and recently of our love
   to places where
      however much I'm looking
      for your face
   I know you will not be -

shall I not grieve?

Winter, my last friend, thank you for this morning.
Even as your silver cloak grows frayed
With new freckles of azur accenting
The golden, our covenant you have not brayed.
This silent valediction, moonstone rayed
Belies the dying of our Sapphire,
Our council, our secret, our pyre!

Autumn arrived clothed in whiskey and wind
that dressed the ground in leaves it lifted
from the old oak trees.  In the crisp air

you traced the outlines of their branches
to give their loss meaning, you said
as I considered the weight of the golden leaf

I was twirling absent-mindedly
between two fingertips. Then in October
we became thieves like the harvest

breeze, surreptitiously stealing glances
and words and then, feeling brave, kisses.
Under the gray afternoon sky

you fashioned a map out of fallen leaves
to give their death purpose, you said
as I tread lightly over their surface, now

brittle and brown. Then in autumn's quiet
valediction came the swift invasion
of winter, who cloaked our leaves

in a blanket of snow, robbing us
of the delicate guidance of that
which we had come to know as beauty.

Diastolic memory fills mind with blood
Heart purges other unforgettable serum
Gushing in and out; valediction, invasion
Scent left on bed sheets binomial theorem

Calculus, physics computing mnemonics us
Trust not sum of it, exponents baying flux
Participles and components abject humbling
Stumbling bio discourse create sedentary crux

Stupefying brain surgeons, those of heart too
Call in mathematicians, astronomers as well
No making sense of it, linguistic doctorates few
To tell of this push-pull sensory denoting hell

Not much time to live after lungs dispensed
Entrenched questions remain to be adoring
Extravagantly historians exploring
Unanswerable examining of this imploring

Must breathe the linens till all dissipation
Your essence in the ether of our resting
Place turned into mad languid laboratory
Conjuring back moments I am requesting

Call me a heretic
I question the Bible
I question faith
my own.
I believe because it says that it's the right thing to do
I'll be saved?
But define religion.
Define what is infinite but is secrete
God, YHWH, Allah, The Creator
of what?
We are able to gain information of such large rocks
within our galaxy
Yet we see them...
from Earth
As tiny specks through a large magnifying glass
That makes it seem colossal or the actual size
but still remains at distant and a permanent mystery
Never in person. Inaccurate as well
I guess everything is just a hypothesis
It's become a habit that if you get more people to agree with you
You assume valediction
Well if that's what it has come to nowadays...
Amen.

The world started as a mouse maze
science knows that but not Miss Anthropy
the hunger lets us smell the happy-meat
Run, children, R-U-N, witches and **** wolves are coming you see
I aimed the small gun for my head but got the shouldered white-angel instead
accidentally made a blood paint on the wall like glaze

No doctors! I do this my own self fast
Trap some daylight in a jar and go inside
Poke some holes in you Miss, like a reverse vampire death
let the light out. Burn, Burn. It's you are me all that's left
I'll mouth you and duct tape for mount ride
Invade. Take the tall kingdom. Shadow cannot last.

Signifying not a thing-- Idiot Doc and weird *** science
and Hate Hate Hate, what would you do?
-- Eat 'em up, **** 'em dry. Of course, take them in. Drown them in acid
--Sounds like fury to me -- No! No!-- It's a valediction hid-
den inside your love-soul. All is careful in a yellow hue
Two sides to the hitting fence: Love you lonely or build a shoddy allegiance.

Keep your options open
Keep your self apart
Clear out the reminders
Never tie your heart

But I could never follow
Your truly sage advice
I'd rather feel the feelings
Though one must pay the price

And though the speech was spoken
And though we have last kissed
And though the door has closed
Leather still binds my wrist

And though Xoxo is banished
And though you learn the bass
I still look at your picture
Maori on your face

And though the cost of loving us  
Was more than we were able
And though there is no fairy dust
Your bowl will grace my table

And though the first half gain
And second half was loss
Despite that wrong direction
I still lean when I floss

Though we talked without our hearts
And only with our head
Though I left not crying  
Your smile still warms my bed

And though you do not tiptoe
So hearts are breast to breast
Though you say valediction  
Your compass claims my desk

And though our love was lust  
And though I am a mess
A balloon hides in my closet
And I am truly blessed

Finding myself away from you,
I wonder now
How we survived
Pre-cell phone,
Pre-Internet
Pre-instant
Everything.

Then I remember
Poets of the past
Whose lovers waited
Months,
Or even years....

Napoleon's letter to his Joséphine de Beauharnais,
Having been away on campaign for months,
"Coming home in three days...."
(And then his coded lover's words.)

Or Donne's "Valediction Forbidding Mourning,"
Reminding her of love's elasticity, fine as beaten gold,
Before he left his wife to journey far;

Or Ezra Pound's translation of the letter
From the Chinese merchant's wife
Whose love had driven her to journey
As far as Cho Fu Sa....

I realize the softness of my day,
The way 21st Century love hangs
Eternal or ephemeral,
Electrically upon the ethereal air...

Commit myself again to you.
Thirty-two years is
A long time and a short time
In the scope of centuries of lovers,
An eternity of generations who remember
Better loves in spite of harder lives.

My love is all for you.

I died a few times in the night.
Hungry lips are decades away.
My passport is locked up tight
in the safe in my closet.
I’ve been a poet for so many years now,
but this feeling will always be
ineffable.
All the nudists riding bikes past my window,
all the love songs, all the sad songs,
all the lens flares and strong ‘o’ sounds,
and Jameson, always Jameson;
my hands get shaky
and tap out
you—you—you
on the coffee table
and suddenly I’m spilling drinks on myself
and I need to go for a run
and I feel sick to my stomach
and none of this makes sense.
I see the maintenance man every morning
and he says,
“Just another day in paradise”
and I actually believe him.
It’s easier when you’re so far away
because I don’t have to worry about
having you and then not having you.
I am terrified of the valediction.

One phone call later.
A swift valediction-
Volcanic silence erupts.
Animated adrenaline fires
through my veins
singeing like flames licking paper.
Just his voice,
his words have flipped my internal balance
and let the butterflies out of their cages.
So they fly,up up and up
around in perfect tea cupped patterns.
and I'm helpless just to watch their performance.
I don't feel like me,
More of a mysterious mirage that appears when you call
and when the phone clicks- it ends.
when I'm around you,
you my dear just you
I'm intrepid.

Now don’t get hurt
Because the way that things are going
Proves this will only get much worse
So I observe
Then I codex the minutiae
That comprise your waking world
Threats unfurl
Then I realize way too late
That I cannot shake this girl
No, I cannot break the pearl necklace
And let the pearls disappear

I’ll wait a year
And maybe realize that by then
That this was all unfounded fear
You’ll disappear
My emotions will reset again
And then I’ll settle here
For whomever I’ll come close to
Someone close enough to hear and feel and hold
Someone close enough to love
But I won’t forget the space we shared
The stars we shared above
And I won’t forget the memories
Affection, care, and gentleness
Fate silently rebuffed

Come closer here and together
Let us share a final dance
Come with me dear, and let’s have fun
Forget any romance
Because that’s not what we’re here for
We’re here for the blissful radiance
The comfort of togetherness
The closeness of companionship
The air suspended in a trance
And so we dance and dance and dance

One, two, three step, dear don’t trip
I’ll rest my hand upon your hip
And relegate existence to a grade lower than this
So I’ll concentrate on keeping my eyes
From resting on your lips

This is goodbye, I’m well aware
Admission, valediction
Along with regrets I’ve yet to spare
How I would’ve liked to daily run my fingers
Through your hair
Oh what I would give to gaily
Spend my days with you still there
But mental fictions hold no truth
And hope degrades into despair
So I cannot let this pass
Without saying all is fair
Oh, these days have been so fair

But tonight we’re waltzing in an hourglass
And time has crystallized
And the sands have stilled like snowflakes
Seen reflected in your eyes
No, I can’t let go just yet
Oh, I’m so lousy at goodbyes
If a good life’s led to this
Then I’d assume this was the prize

In our little bubble
The universe has folded in
And I try so hard to exile
Feelings I have so long held within
But in this endless moment
All I manage is a grin
And in an instant realize
Just how good our time has been
Oh
How good our time has been

-AK

when i was ordained a journalist,
a halfwit wisdom-speller with i's too often after e's,
they mounted a valediction for me:

"goodbye, you crucible of culture and the end," they pomped.
"we wish you joy on your carpetbagging beats,
the inciting sins you write your things about—

"the ways in which we fall.
and glory to you, the one who settles truth
by shivering quotes in darkness

and flickering candles in caves.
for what would be the world without you?"

a better place, I'm told; a feast of fiends without wits.
and likely more bourbon
to go around.

it can trench and channel
you - a deep conscious gulf
mother narrating,
“the connection is bad
I can hardly hear you,”
but you know **** well
it isn’t the phone
you think to yourself
as you chat, something
has progressed –
this thing is stirring
not eternal
so you lean in
attending honorably
to her while she
talks to her pain
and updates you
about father,
you do the right thing,
because you care
and because she wiped
your *** and fed you
warm sweet milk (at night),
and rubbed menthol
on your chest
when you couldn’t breathe
and your arrogance
fades into nothingness
with each sunset  
you steadily slow
and the know it all spawn
who has the whole ****
thing figured out
stares at his plate
issuing predictions
like you don’t know
what the hell you -
are talking about
and your mind flashes
back in time
from mother to son
when you were so willing
to see the world
your parents were
just a barrier
to the open road
and bottles of six
it’s comical that way
how things drift
in circles
so quick loose,
the golden valediction
the ghost plate
has not proceeded
but is forever altered
where his way leads.

"Validation, valediction
What's the difference now?
Eschew the standard
Turn the paradigm upside down
You could be happy, if you wanted to be
Don't feel obliged to live a life you never wanted to
The best way out is straight through
Let intuition guide you
You could be happy, if you wanted to be".

The Bard ruined stargazing, ‘tis a fact, ‘tis true,
John Donne’s Valediction made the candles die out,
Ben Johnson’s sweet prose does no justice to you,
And Spenser writes nothing worthy of a shout.
All redemption lies in the stars above,
But soft, no twinkles show their strife,
No stars, no lights, no beacons of love,
No nothing to show the place you have in my life.
But as my eyes scan the briny deep
Of black night, so dark and scary,
I see a gleam of light, so sweet,
That my heart, ‘tis no longer wary.
I watch as a lonely comet doth fly
And reminds me of you, me, and our life.