Odysseus struggles needs to prove to himself world he is talented painter determined to achieve recognition goes from art dealer to art dealer seeking support one dealer says Schwartzpilgrim stop changing settle on 1 style you can be known for what you’re doing now is good stick with it call me in 6 months with 300 drawings just like these another dealer says Odys you must learn great art is a **** beneath bed sheets another dealer says Modigliani knew how to paint flesh paint like Modigliani you need to learn more about painting Schwartzpilgrim you’re too young inexperienced another dealer says thank you for your interest in our gallery we’re not taking on any new painters at this time Odysseus knows there are people so much more talented better looking than him he feels inadequate intimidated

thinks to himself sister Penny is right female wish list is curse Bayli haunts she alone always be my ideal until i met Reiko Lee now Reiko Lee Furshe holds me captive i long for her voice eyes shoulders wiry delicateness crazy outrageous humor fiery ****** appetite i need to tear apart wish list leave myself open need to learn to seek inner beauty let anatomy fall where it will need to cultivate new standards it’s difficult to see with different eyes i am so biased how do i do this?

Odysseus muses with Reiko’s ghost 6 months since separation lights candles burns incense opens bottle of red wine pours glass for her and himself sips watches her glass while he makes toasts speaks elaborately of her beauty charm cites reasons why each of them does not need the other why couldn’t you have been the one? what is it about me you didn’t like? what did i do wrong? pours another glass begins talking louder ending in rage why aren’t you here? why? what went so terribly wrong? i love you where are you? how come you’re not here with me tonight? looks at her glass sees she has not even taken sip feels slightly drunk fearful he has sunk too deep  gets up staggers to bed sniffs blanket for traces of her tonight is their anniversary his only excuse

telephone rings sometime in late july hi it’s me Reiko how’ve you been Odys? he questions Reiko Lee? uh yes Odys it’s meee your stray puppy Reiko’s voice sounds playful tender Odys are you there? what’s up? let me come over **** and ******* please he speaks into receiver Reiko Lee is dead hangs up wonders if he has done right thing paces room writes a woman like that you tell yourself you do not need  ignore her deny her let her pass because if you admit how much you want her you become fugitive in chains running from dogs men with guns a woman like that is all you need a woman like that is motive seed chance of a lifetime a woman like that takes chances at twice your speed a woman like that keeps you guessing hoping waiting a woman like that leaves you destitute you cannot have her because she possesses you a woman like that is a wanted woman

decides to move finds new place blocks away apartment on lill street changes telephone number in his heart he knows nothing more thrilling beautiful than joyous girl yet he attracts women who seek abuse because they see themselves in him because he lets them try to mend his abused mind because he misuses them so well reaching finding joyous girl looms impossible breakup feeds venting bitter fires

the most dangerous woman eludes meall other women are too attainable chinese green tea gestapo limousine it doesn’t matter that you don’t understand that is the line darling dangling darjeeling your lips bleeding your ***** on fire imagine i am running sprinting in relay race just up ahead i’m about to pass baton this is life expectancy of poet indonesian cigarettes made of clove leaves i held your wrists pinned your fragile body to floor strummed you like guitar while other men looked on i knew one of them would take you next

miranda comes out on verandah with lemonade on hot summer day hair blows free in breeze leans back against beam softly hums inside time bomb ticks somewhere fly caught in room knocking itself against window ricocheting off corners  buzzing crisscross ceiling floor miranda sips just enough so lips are wet eyelids flutter like butterfly wings ******* swell in heat of midday sun she calls to us with hand stirs more sugar in lemonade late afternoon when fly is caught entangled in spider’s web buzzing is muffled ice has melted lemonade watery we are dozing in hammocks rocking chairs miranda is changing dress perfuming thighs crafting character in mirror screen door slams she looks up recognizing it is only wind sun is sinking orange ball spider crawls fixing aim grabs thread swings in for **** we are passed out in grass at dusk lights around verandah beam on miranda appears wearing low-neck dress with one strap down breath heavy with anise invites us inside giggling shyly as we follow timeless newsreel vision men hard at work war room spins as fly ***** desperately spider opens legs miranda lies arched on bed eyes weaving

he gets drunk loudly sings she must be some kind of witch flying in the wind she must be some kind of ***** to dig this grave i’m in he rhymes it was just another **** stunt forgive me for speaking so blunt she was just being a lady no need to get crazy it was just another **** stunt he scribbles she gets ****** hair styled eyebrows plucked nails done walks out new woman miss fox Mrs. G. Fox madame de faux meeting the girls for lunch wearing her pearls writing her name in swirls talking up a storm pack of women is worse than pack of hungry wolves wolves stop at carrion women carve combs out of bones

Cal is driving Odysseus sits in passenger seat heading to pit & pendulum for cocktails it is raining down hard Odysseus looks out beyond sweeping windshield wipers sees red cowboy boots the ones they found together at flea market there she is Reiko Lee Furshe arisen from wasteland Odysseus tells Cal to stop car turns to see her she is running across street his hand reaches for car door handle what’s happening? Cal demands are you there? i can’t stop cars behind me! this is crazy Odys what’s going on? i’m not stopping! Odysseus stares through rear window frozen watching her disappear behind red brick wall in pouring rain

ghost girl it’s difficult to write in comatose passage apart i am in theater of mirrors with empty seat beside me black hole inside me itinerary of fears i’m seeing dancer but haunted by you look in your eyes smell on your fingers clonking up stairs of your wooden clog shoes feelings we dared plans we knew might never come true la laahh la lay la lay dee la lady of shady lagoon weeping willow pisces moon like India ink you’ve left indelible stain i fumble in dark of empress’s tomb like necrophiliac i grip onto memory stroke ashes of you lantern licorice amethyst bone you are gliding in your canoe cutting through mist swirling whirlpools that untangle themselves behind you dancing nearer to flame la shady lady does pirouettes in rain

Colonial mansion, in an ocean of grass,
windows aglow as I walk past.
funeral service now used of verandah,
but I hear music, not mournful stanza.
french doors open to a reminisce,
with boyhood heart, of vitreous.

Footfalls on parquet floors,
tux and gown past crown moulded doors.
captured ambiance of a setting sun,
shown from chandeliers highly hung,
day I was born, born the day of prom,
I smiled cordially, and my date fawned.

Girls betrothed by corsage on wrist,
rare french curls--a lunar eclipse.
bedraggled boys now dapper and genteel,
vest and bow-tie, a knightly feel.
chapperesses smiling at maidenly gait,
happy drowse in  mansion estate.

Cuff-links, silk gloves, nail polish of gloss,
beheld tonics and sweets, carefully aloft.
opening cord, an arrow from cupid's bow,
striking coquettes to their tippy toes.
they sprang to dance,I stepped back,
invisible in shadow with tux of black.

Shoulders, lake ripples easing to shore,
hips, gentle waves, right before they pour.
boys stiff, as if waists beheld sabers,
legs, sweeping brooms of on shore waiters.
"your too handsome to stay here unseen,"
said rivaling chaperess, past semblance of queen.

"You should dance ,"said glittered lips of pink,
bent like sparrow wings, during teacup drink.
privy to why in shadow I hid my blush,
her class my crush, that crushed me so much.

She strained me, even the shadows she gave,
black silk, stretching,--convex and concave.
crude metal and wood classroom seat,
clasped her waist of slender physique.
she was guarded by a window in curtain mail,
and tended to by servants of light and gale.
light loved her skin of Mediterranean sand,
and wind enthralled by each and every brown strand.

Light penetrated strands, blondly hot,
wind would blow, cooling pony tail off.
her shadow curtsied under my desk,
long legs danced in irritableness.
mourning class is abuzz with scent of prom,
flower not frost, rules the school's dawn.

I gave my consent, to an earlier invite,
then on, suitor blinded me with light.
and Great Gatsy, and looming prom night,
subjects of sparrow wings pressed tight.
" show of hands, who do not have a date?"
slender wrist arises, from an arm curvate.

alone, she shown that no one asked her,
this stone of Rome amongst boys of plaster.
hand fell with boy of teachers match,
wind shrouded her,from the window sash
rays gave discomfort,to gaze her way,
but I looked through burning ray--

To see a trace of a tear,in eyes ovate,
a goddess unsought, with sadful face.
I, poor, fatherless, could not possibly go,
to prom with princess of arched portico?
I could not interweave my hands to dance,
or know where I could place my glance.

Wind blew a scrap from her desk, indiscreet,
it was pierced by light at my feet.
"will" and "with" were dotted with a heart,
"prom" and "me" before most painful part.
my name in her beautiful free hand,
the color red from hearts inkstand.

(Class bell rings) I travel over star lit lawn,
the music gets louder as I return to prom,
eyes turn to cotton, in shadow as I ponder,
as pain was forgotten, I came upon her.
invisible hands, lifted my chin to a red shape,
our eyes met, her's smiling, mine agape.

Only a glass-maker could imagine my sight,
seeing hot curves form in dance floor light.
only a wax-wing could have rivaled her eyes,
waves gently broke to gown down her thighs.
"will you dance with me,"she softly entreated,
" I don't know how,"a coward repeated.

A princess which tournaments were held,
for which every timber of mansion were felled.
not for Rome the mansion's Corinthian column--
--for her--from quarry prom did befall them.
I could not tarnish this feminine form,
with my lineage in crown she adorned.

I turned from beauty, to dark acres tread,
under willow, I play the last thing she said--
my name--as I shunned from last chance,
now back under willow, cane marks my stance.
I have preserved her forever, shying fate,
even if it was with my own heart-break.

I still see her--in the most beautiful prom poses--
--still--as lights flicker out and a coffin closes.

We all know shame and understand to avoid it when necessary. But sometimes, we just walk down her street and hope the world would forget.
Do they forget? Or do you forget? The unexplainable embarrassment of the year.

Yeah! My case was a shame of the year and this is how it happened.

My grandma, "a hajat" runs a retail shop along a highway in some small town. It faces a rising sun which I enjoy bathing on the cold days.
I greet her, grab a chair, place it onto the verandah as soon as she opens her doors to the shop.

She is a tough person to read really. Unlike most elderly ladies who give a cozy feeling while talking to them, she freaks me out. Like she doesn't like me. Or for some reason, hates me and just blurs me in her mind's eye. And I think I did give her a reason to.


About eight months ago, I came to live next to her, at my own place in my own first home. A single room, rented, along a muddy road (cause it's raining now) off the highway. The building is one block away from where the shop is. So if the shop faces north, my room would face the east.


I should say I didn't know her until that time. Like we had not seen each other until then, and until she sold me a three litre Jerry can for I think triple the price, Ugshs 3500. And then, she gave me a reason to go to other shops. It was expensive even in my own ignorance since I had never done shopping for household items before.
So I tried other shops and bought a five litre jerry can at Ugshs2500. I was happy. It felt like money well spent. That I was a genius finally in control of my first days in the real world, away from home and school.
But at the same time, a wrong or the best idea of never to buy from her again. I mean, if family is to be exploited by you, am sorry grandma, I ain't going to be part of your legacy.


So the sneaky dealings started like I was buying drugs from another dealer and had to be sure she never comes to know. Not that she would do anything, but really it would look weird.

My new dealer would be a shop along the same highway, on the same side, just a one block away from the grandma's left.  A she of course, who undeniably is beautiful. A gracious voice and radiant smile, offering to do way good stuff if I buy from her. Like she sorts my rice so I take ready to cook and eat. Which of course my grandma, wouldn't do. And again, she is beautiful.


Anyway I usually peeked at the verandah to see if grandma wasn't there, then walk like a boss to my dealer whom am so proud to buy from. And this was just smooth until, I can't even say...


It was a normal black out, just a few candle lights from the still open shops, and flashing lights of passing vehicles. The sky was dark enough for the  many visible stars that dotted it's canvas. And this guy, myself, chooses to take a walk, masking the night, thinking about my own duties till I come close to my dealer's shop, "mama Mariam" that I remembered I had a pickup to do.

It was dark and if that wouldn't have been the best time, then there wouldn't have been any better. She was not on her verandah, but dumping ******* into a "pit." so I took hold of the moment and made the pickup. I didn't ask for a wrapping for my 1kg of rice and turned to leave the shop.

And duh, lights everywhere. To be specific, light above my head. Electricity was back from its normal routines as it always is in developing countries. Very bright. Probably a new bulb. Looking across me, grandma standing on the verandah looking back at me. With my spoils in my hands, I swear I wished to be anywhere else but not there. I was drowning literally in my mind that I froze for sometime. May be a minute or two. Until I went back into the shop and asked for a wrapping before walking shamefully with my head low.

It was the worst I had ever felt in a long time. Wait, the worst that I still do feel. So guilty that I have been avoiding my morning sun bath.

And when I did see her, she replied to me like nothing had happened. Huh? Nothing?!
Just with her stale face like before which could mean she always knew I bought from that shop. Or worst, "I don't care. You can go to hell grandson. You are a sellout."

And to the moment I write this, I still feel her stale eyes, hear her raspy voice like echoes from a nightmare that am never to wake up from, taunting me like a ghost.

Grandma, am sorry. But she is a pretty  lady the stole me from you. Please just understand why I had to do this. It was a tough decision that took seconds to make and would probably do the same until you start selling a bit cheaply. Wait, even if you did, she is a pretty woman and that's a good reason to keep buying from


And again, am sorry! Love you!

Sunstroke.

There is nothing in the way she looks at me
that would lead me to believe
she'd ever read a book with me
or take tea out on the verandah.

Miranda
Miranda
I dream of Miranda out on the verandah with me
wish she could see what I feel
Wish I could steal her away for a day
wish she would say
'hey
how are you doing
I've got the tea brewing
come out to the verandah'
Oh Miranda
you make my heart ache
wish I could take you and make you believe
put my heart on your sleeve
put my lips against yours.

I woke up out of doors
I'd fallen asleep in the sun
waiting just waiting for Miranda to come.

My next door
neighbour has a tree
that looks like jacaranda.
its branches reach right over
here and stroke at my verandah.
if you boil it's seed pods up
and steep a cup of tea,
the brew will mend
a broken heart
i've heard
apparently.

The phone rang almost off the hook
But I got to it in time,
‘You’d better come here and take a look!’
Said the voice of Esther Clyne.
I shook my head, rolled over in bed,
And said, ‘It’s after one!
It’s after one in the morning, Ess!’
She said, ‘You’d better come!’

Ess was an ornithologist
And she lived in Chandler’s Wood,
She’d never been an apologist
But demanded, when she could,
‘It’s pretty late,’ I tried to state,
‘Can it wait until I’m free?’
Her voice came rattling down the line,
‘Not now, just come and see!’

I dropped the phone with a silent curse
As I scrambled out of bed,
And wondered which of her feathered friends
Had disturbed the woman’s head.
She’d called me out for a frigatebird
That she’d spotted from her snug,
And many a rare and crested tern,
And even a vagrant dove.

I wore a hat and a leather coat
It was getting cold outside,
Grabbed me a pair of driving gloves
And I took the four wheel drive,
The track was sticky in Chandler’s Wood
It had rained the day before,
And headed in through the Maple trees
To the house she called ‘Jackdaw’.

I pulled up by her verandah, she
Had been waiting there for me,
Handed over a walking stick,
‘To beat them off, you’ll see!’
We walked together towards the lake
And there we saw old Jack,
The poor old guy was about to die,
Was lying flat on his back.

He seemed to have lost a lot of blood
It was streaked all over his face,
His shirt was tattered his trousers torn
There was blood all over the place,
And round him gathered the strangest group
That  ever I’ve seen, no lies!
For there was a couple of hundred owls
And one had pecked out his eyes.

I started to raise the walking stick
‘Shall I beat them off with this?’
She said she didn’t know what to do,
The ornithologist!
‘The stick is just to protect yourself
Should they suddenly attack,
Owls are nocturnal hunting birds,
We don’t want to end like Jack!’

There were Tawny Owls and scrawny owls
And a Snowy Owl or two,
A couple of hundred Barn Owls
Up in the trees for a better view,
The Moon was reflected in their eyes
As they sat and stared us down,
Perched in the trees around us and
A-blink, not making a sound.

Esther motioned to come away,
‘We can’t do anything here,
We’ll come again in the morning when
The ground and the trees are clear.’
So we edged away and we got to pray
But neither would turn our back,
We knew if we tried to run away
We’d end up as dead as Jack.

No sooner back at the house, ‘Jackdaw’
We locked the shutters in place,
Bolted the front and laundry doors
And blocked the chimney piece,
Esther put on the kettle, thinking
To make a *** of tea,
But outside there was a whirring sound
So we both looked out to see.

The owls were perched on the hand rail
On the verandah, all in a line,
They stared at the house unblinking
Being so patient, biding their time,
They pecked their way through the telephone line,
We couldn’t call out by phone,
And then they set up a screeching that
Sent chills through me to the bone.

I knew all about the Hoot Owl
But I’d never have heard them screech,
If Esther hadn’t have called me up
When I should have been asleep.
The screeching rattled the window panes
Then Esther let out a howl,
And suddenly they all flew away,
There wasn’t a single owl!

They found her out in the woods today
I can’t say I was surprised,
They said it must be a bird of prey
Attacked, and pecked out her eyes.
I’ve never been back to Chandler’s Wood
Since I got that late night call,
But don’t want to end like Esther, so
I keep a gun on the wall.

David Lewis Paget

(in the dream it is late March)
there's a light rain in Montréal & the sky
is a gorgeous, early-morning variety of slate grey. imagine the lid
of an old metal garbage-can.
everything is dismal, perfect. and quiet; even the people leaving the bars are silent.
dismally, perfectly, silent.

ghosts of old cats—belonging maybe to ghosts of old ladies who lived, say, just off St. Lau, back
in the eighties—ramble downhill, in the direction of rue St. Catherine (Saint Cat! O patron of felinity!) ,
between the legs of those spilling out from the trendy & ****** clubs.
some of the ghosts wander out into the street, flash thru car tires that would've (& have) (at one time)
smashed them to pulpy carpet on the asphalt.
(who goes to pick them up then? when the tires have had their way with them over & over?
when they are just hair & porridge by a sewage grate?)

after a greasy smoked-meat-on-rye or a nightcap at somebody's place, just off the drag,
i'm in a sodden, but warm overcoat, hands curled in the bottoms of it's pockets; mis-shapen mass
of hair plastered to my scalp; walking en bas de la montagne just past the McGill Medical Centre.
—this late, the busses back downtown are never on time.
(driver's probably having a few smokes before he starts that long tour down. full up of drunk kids,
taking one another back to their dorms, etc.)
(and what does he have, to look forward to at shift's end?
        i. a cranky wife—past her prime?
        ii. a buncha dogs—yapping for attention?
        iii. some ******* kid—who's disrespectful & won't shut up or turn his stupid ******* punk-rock down?

—it's enough to make me patiently wait.  i'll wait forever, as long as that isn't me.)

...'spose I'LL have a cigarette too. waiting
in the bus shelter on Ave. Des Pins looking down over the
football fields of the McGill Athletics Dept.
still lit up. no sun yet but
now at 4 AM a dull inch or two of lightened grey out there on the horizon.. dawn will come,

though i'd rather not face the day. all the mornings are so hard after nights like this.
bound to be hungover &
spend the day hiccuping in bed texting some girl; maybe get up
in the late afternoon t'fix coffee, toast & eggs.
sit on the balcony,
make my little guitar sigh,
and try to feel normal until i [have to] puke.

"—and who was that girl i spoke to for so long at St. Sulpice last night? how many gin-tonics did she let me buy myself, nattering on?.. probably too drunk to even get her number."
"—maybe Sean or Dylan will know if she came thru with anyone we knew.."

the bus is finally here. twenty-and-three minutes late. the back of it probably smells of
stale smoke, dim sun, and sweaty, rain-soaked cloth, absorbed from jackets into the seats—the eau du jour.
it's always a bump 'n **** ride down the hill; bound to,
with the other handful of dumb & silent riders, drunkenly sway,
(or is it a natural compensation of the body, to groove along with the curves and stops?)
back & forth like carcasses of half-dozen slaughtered pigs
swinging on their hooks in back of a meat wagon..
(i'll end up getting on, but only for three blocks. i'll ******* walk the rest of the way home,
after that comparison. to hell with the rain.)

SIX MINUTES LATER:
(Avenue Des Pins still—4 blocks closer to downtown)

directly in line now with McGill campus via McTavish; this way i can
cruise down thru the silence of the main drag having a couple smokes drinking beer
(copped a 40 at a Dep before i left St. Lau—frosty under my arm enshrouded by brown paper.)
& be left to my own thoughts for fifteen minutes 'til i get to Sherbrooke
—i adore that fifteen-minute stretch down thru the jumble of
student associations, clubs, faculty offices, administration buildings, resources centres & the like;
all contained in the same red bricked, white trimmed victorian monster, multiplied threescore
on either side of the lane; all built in the early nineteen-hundreds, all acquired by the university in one of several expansion initiatives in a decade i won't bother to guess at, it doesn't matter. you don't care..

midway down the hill i stop and go sit on the verandah of one of the buildings,
the graduate studies in math offices —
cccrack that forty.
sit there with the sun JUST barely splitting the seam of the horizon feelin'
like the lyrics from a Sun Kil Moon song. nothing more or less.  
"off to a good start," says i.

I woke in the early hours to find
My head between her thighs,
She hadn’t been there before, I swear
And I’m not a man who lies.
I’d seen her out in the Public Bar
Of the ‘Jacaranda Tree’,
Halfway along the Outback Track
On the way to Wendouree.

I’d seen her dance on the table tops
I’d seen her prance on the bar,
I’d said to Lance as I saw him glance
‘I don’t know where we are!’
He shrugged, to say that he didn’t care
As long as she danced that way,
Her stockings, down at her ankles and
Her skirt in disarray.

‘Now there is a ***** to turn your head,’
Said Lance, with a burst of pride,
He’d been out on the verandah, then
He’d turned to go back inside,
She’d joined him there for a moment,
Just brushed by for a quick connect,
But he hadn’t noticed her eyebrow raised
In a sign that said, ‘Reject!’

We both had our eighteen wheelers parked
Outside in the hotel grounds,
I was headed away up north
And he to the lights of town,
He offered to give her the sleeper cab
While he drove the star-filled night,
I looked away and I thought it sad,
But the trucks both looked alike.

I heard him leave at the midnight hour
And thought she was gone for good,
It wasn’t often I hauled this way
Or stayed in this neighbourhood.
But then I clambered into my bunk
Above, at the cabin’s rear,
And fell asleep like a hopeless drunk
Till the morning sun drew near.

I made an offer to buy that pub,
The ‘Jacaranda Tree’,
But only when she agreed to stay
And dance on the bar for me,
I asked if she’d meant to go with Lance
And she looked at me with scorn,
I sleep the sleep of a new romance
And the pillows keep me warm.

David Lewis Paget

From his glassed verandah
he stared in wonder at the motionless sky
with not a star twinkling,
he felt sadly amused,
the little stars don’t twinkle here
and he was so far away from the land
he had known all along as his home.
suddenly it dawned on him
that it wasn’t for no reason
that he felt rootless and homeless
in what was so long his abode
the same way he’s feeling now
in this glassed verandah
one fifty million miles away
from the place he calls home.
he shivered in this thought
looking at the vast frigid sky
where hurtled the ghost of phobos
whose pale orb he found too dimmed
to spin webs of dreams
he did with the silvery disc
in his once familiar sky.
at the sight of that desert terrain
exposed yet bereft of the wind’s ravage
where time stood timelessly frozen,
he felt lost in a massive alienness
listlessly searching for a way out
to come back to a tranquil equilibrium.

then his eyes fell on the ocean water blue
and he couldn’t hold back his tears.
like a man possessed
he started tapping the keys….

The first flower blossomed on that lifeless world.

He lay awake in his narrow bed
And opened his bedside drawer,
Then fumbled around until he’d found
The thing he was looking for,
A faded folder, covered in dust
It must have been there for years,
‘I want you to take this folder, son,
And give it to Mildred Pierce!’

His grandson blinked away a tear
And uttered a silent sigh,
Then dropped his gaze, he found it hard
To look in the old man’s eye,
He knew he wouldn’t be there for long
Though his steely brow was fierce,
He said, ‘Sure Gramps, I’ll pass it along
When I find your Mildred Pierce.’

‘You’ll find her back where I left her, when
The way of the world was wide,
Up on the banks of the Darling, she’ll
Be there on the Wentworth side,
She used to teach when the town was young
In a little timber school,
I should have stayed, but the girl had clung
And I guess I was just a fool.’

‘She looked so prim in her teacher dress
And her hair was up in a bun,
We used to walk by the river banks
When her teaching day was done,
Down in the shade of the eucalypts
I kissed her there one day,
With her hair let down on her shoulders
She said, ‘Please don’t go away.’’

‘I only stayed for the shearing, then
I followed the shearing tracks,
I had to keep on the move as long
As the wool grew on their backs,
We said goodbye at the junction where
The mighty rivers join,
I should have stayed for the love she gave
But my only love was coin.’

The old man, he was exhausted then,
Lay back, and then he sighed,
His grandson waited a moment, but
He saw that his gramps had died,
He took a look in the folder when
He settled in back at home,
And found a number of pages there
And each one was a poem.

One called ‘Sorry!’ and one called ‘Why?’
And one that he’d drowned in tears,
One that was just a stark lament
‘For the Love of Mildred Pierce’.
The boy had blushed at the poem meant
To eulogise her thighs,
While others sought for her tender lips
And the lovelight in her eyes.

He waited until the summer break
When the funeral was done,
Loaded the car and headed out
To where the rivers run,
He thought that she would be dead by this
It was just an exercise,
But when he had asked for Mildred Pierce
They had caught him by surprise.

‘She’s out on the banks of the Darling
You can’t miss her little shack,
She keeps herself to herself, prefers
To wander the outback.’
He stopped the car at her garden gate
And he called out by her door,
‘I’m looking for Mildred Pierce!’ Then heard
Her footsteps on the floor.

He half expected an ancient dame
With half a foot in the hearse,
But what he saw was a lovely girl
And still in her tender years,
‘They named me after my mother
Who was named for her mother too,
But Gran’s been gone for ever so long
So what did you want to do?’

They sat on her small verandah, and
He showed her the folder then,
‘My gramps wrote these for your grandmother,
Some time in the way back when.’
She slowly read through the pile of verse
And her eyes had filled with tears,
‘I’d heard all about this shearer from
My grandma, Mildred Pierce.’

‘He couldn’t have known they had a child,
My mother arrived in the spring,
And she was told who her father was
But they never heard a thing.
My Grannie died as a spinster, still
A teacher at the school.
How sad that he couldn’t reach her then
To say that his heart was full.’

They went to walk by the river where
Some fifty years before,
A teacher walked with a shearer for
A magic moment more,
They stopped, stood under the eucalypts
With them both reduced to tears,
And that was the moment he kissed her,
For the love of Mildred Pierce.

David Lewis Paget

My nose is cold
because its the middle
of Winter
but I'm sitting here
on the back verandah
waiting for my soul
to splinter

because its so frustrating
that I'm waiting

for Life to just come
smack me in the face
as I sit here and pity
such a waste...

What dreams did I imagine
while just watching the river flow?
What real life did just pass by
as I watched another day die,
burnt beneath a fiery glow?

Slowly does the irritation
leech from my fingertips
Rapidly does the poison
fall from my unmoving lips

Achievement from the sleeping state
is all that I ever seek
but coming from my wakened state
is the havoc that it reeks

I close my eyes and fall asleep
and ask my demons to hopefully keep
one eye open to look around
for my sanity to be found

*Amen

THERE WERE FADED PRINTS ON THE WALLS NOT QUITE STRAIGHT,
THEY ALL WENT AWAY AS THOUGH THEY COULDN'T WAIT,
A DOOR SWUNG IN THE BREEZE AND OLD BOARDS CREAKED,
FLIES BUZZED IN THE KITCHEN AND AN OLD TAP STILL LEAKED;
YOU COULD SIT ON A CHAIR AND GAZE AT THE VIEW,
THERE WERE VOICES BUT NONE OF THEM BELONGED TO YOU,
THEY BELONGED TO WHO YOU WANTED THEM TO BELONG TO,
THEY GAVE THE RIGHT ANSWERS AND GOOD REASONS TOO,
DISTANT LAUGHTER RHYMED WITH THE CLINK OF GLASSES,
BECOMING SOFTER, AS ONLY TIME AND MEMORY PASSES;
A DOG BARKED AS THE SUN WENT DOWN AND DOWN AND DOWN,
IT WAS TIME THEN AND TIME NOW TO RETURN TO TOWN,
HE SHOULDN'T HAVE COME - LEFT ALL THE GHOSTS ALONE BUT -
COULDN'T RESIST A SMILE WHEN HE KICKED THE SCREEN DOOR SHUT.

Have you ever heard in your mind
the sounds that silence makes
the silence that spreads like music
as in splendor a dewy morning breaks
silence that clings to a Florentine fog
as lone cyclist a cobble street snakes

the silence that hangs heavy
after a heavy down pour finally ends
or await with it for the moment
when heaven its pearly reward sends
they sound so different and surreal
like life’s ethereal myriad bends

the silence that weighty dwells
in wisps, rises from vacant eyes
the silence that fills to the brim
dole, of a beggar’s ripping sighs
silence that hangs like a sword
on fears of unsaid distant byes

silence o endless tormenting silence
you play on a piano’s dusty keys
from a chair that rocks in howling wind
on a lifeless verandah, distant sees
from a score of such like mends
wherefrom one has drunk to ones lees

it speaks no man’s earthly breath
yet heard in shattering numbness
in ache and blight so steeped
in rustle of a long gone worn dress
in raucous merry gay proceeds
or the mirth of a child’s bless

in the time of a frisky bloomy day
or gnaw of a long starry night
the lullaby of distant streaking trains
or the gondola’s reflective sight
the cavort of journeys done together
Echoes the hush of a soundless blight


original
saadat tahir
22nd July, 2k13
Islamabad.

We're at the point of almost melting
Hellish heatwave is most sweltering
All of us getting an absolute baking
Thermostats are all upwardly rising

Abundant solar activity is happening

Skin on our faces akin to pork crackling
Copious amount of water we're drinking
Our sweaty brows are in need of mopping
Relief from the heat we're always seeking
Cool locales like long verandah shading  
Hades is where us folks are now dwelling
Endless hours of excessively high temperatures
Reductions in these would be such a pleasure

in a dimly lit bucolic moon--
erstwhile a blooming, beauty,
riparian valley...
a widow worn down,
with beleaguer of ethereal sin,
spoke swiftly to the sky.

her verandah the ocean--
her audience the sparrows,
soft dulcet moans slipped
from seer's mouth.

the wafture of the waves reflected
in obsidian overcast iris,
vision surreptitious overcame her mind--
susurrous, her lithe body convulsed
in fits of meaningful jerks.
Although evanescent, she changed.

(Eyes clear, voice booming, not desultory in the slight)

she brooded for a moments flash,
quivering, uttered with but cerulean to listen,
what had played before her eyes.

what she knew with certainty.
the tragedy of the girl who's ashes--
floated in the summer breeze.
benevolent and altruistic,
taken advantage of at not thirteen.
in her woe, she jumped of the cliff
between clarity and fog,
into Hades firey wrath,
her body never found.

seer shook with violent tremours,
the ephemeral dove now chirped,
as she made way to the holy man,
the one to whom she was to confess,
a fugacious bone creaking draft
left her paranoid.
but what was a woman of her character to do?

once upon father's altar,
woman called to the dear messenger.
she hissed and requested
a private meet.
Startled, the priest led her to
iron doors of his quarters
when inside she barred the doors
with a sword from the hilt behind the passage.

now toward this evocative woman,
this man was not one of holy thoughts
her plump ***** tempted one
who had only before been promised to god.
but as she told him of what she had seen
he remembered the countenance
of last forbidden love.

red draining from innocent lips
leaving ugly guilt to forever remain
regardless of bleach and arsenic.
red hands to forever stay
perpetual stains on cleric robes
never the stark white of heaven again.

enraged priest pounced,
to which our dear heroine had no defense
spine slammed against stone wall,
head concussed and blurred.
our seer now decided (too late)
to always listen to ones bones.

she soon found a thick rope around her neck,
as she felt herself being violated below.
history repeats itself
all she breathed was damp, the mold.

when darkness took over her,
and her lungs tantrumed and kicked,
the priest took out the gleaming sword,
cackling, leaving a sweet wet trail
ruby necklace on white marble.

and he dragged her to the old well
boarded up and fading with age
a pungent putrid smell wafted up
a remainder of what the priest thought
were days long gone.

the seer, with her dark charcoal hair,
and omniscient clear gaze,
fell awkwardly on top of not one,
but seventeen.

the priest had fun once too.

The train goes rattling down the track
A trail of smoke is at your back.
A spot of soot may close your eye,
To miss the gums as they fly by.

The porter shouts "All tickets please",
To check that all have paid their fees,
The engine driver blows his whistle,
As the view converts to thistle.

Out on the verandah the children play,
"Come inside", the parents say.
From the windows they hang around,
Not a care is to be found.

Traveling onward 'round the bends,
A joyous journey with our friends.
Then at last our stop we reach;
Hooray! Hooray! It is the beach.

Eric Rodda 1996

The lake is smoothed jade after the rain
and only the commercial flotsam
of a lonely plastic Aqua bottle is adrift
on untrammelled waters.
A butterfly of the kind we usually see pinned and dead
drifts by
like me, enjoying the return of the sun,
“mata hari”, the eye of the sky
shining fiercely like Hanuman
from a leaden countenance.
Boys fool by my verandah view offering
to sell me a girl.
The travellers pass through like capsules,
pausing only to bleed money into outstretched palms.

They said it was only climate change,
It would take a hundred years
To raise the temperature one degree,
It was easy to reverse,
But the weather pattern was changing
We could see that for ourselves,
And the strangest things were happening
But it only came in spells.

Torrential rain in the dryest state,
And flooding over the plain,
Blazing heat in the winter like
We’ll never see again,
The Ozone Layer had opened up
With the use of C.F.C’s,
And the burn effect of the sun increased,
Was causing more disease.

I told Joanne she should cover up
When she sunbathed at the beach,
You can lead a horse to water
But there’s some you just can’t teach,
She cooked herself to a golden brown
And the burn began to tell,
As the melanomas began to form
In her fragile, human cells.

She had a couple cut out, but then
Some more began to form,
But still she went to the nudist beach
When the sun came up at dawn,
‘I want to look brown and healthy
Not a pastey white, like some,’
And shook her head at the zinc cream
And the protection I put on.

The level of radiation was
Increasing with U.V.,
And even the whales in Summer Bay
Got cancers in the sea,
I warned and warned but she tossed her head,
In that stubborn way she had,
I braced myself for the future, for
I knew, it would be bad.

It started off as a scaley lump
On her shoulder, then it grew,
Faster than anything I’ve seen,
An inch, in a day or two,
I told her to get to the hospital
But she said, ‘I’ll use some cream.’
We little knew what was coming through
It seemed like a nightmare scene.

She sat in the sun again next day,
I said, ‘You’re tempting the fates!
Go and have it cut out, Joanne,
Before it gets too late.’
But the clouds rolled up and the sun went in
It was sultry still, not cool,
Then the lightning flashed around our place
And struck, in our garden pool.

It ran along our verandah rail
And it lit up Joanne’s chair,
While static electricity
Was crackling in the air,
Her hair stood out like a *******
Then her skin began to glow,
And that must have been the moment when
The thing began to grow.

The scab fell off in the morning
Leaving a hole, both red and raw,
And later, when she was screaming,
How to describe the thing I saw?
She stood in front of the mirror with
Her eyes so full of dread,
For up and out of the open wound
Had popped a tiny head.

The tiny head of a pygmy thing
That glared, with razor teeth,
With evil, glittering, crimson eyes
It was just beyond belief,
And then it started to babble in
A strange high, whining tone,
The only words I could understand:
‘You’d better leave me alone!’

Joanne collapsed on the bathroom floor
She had gone out like a light,
And I went straight for the cabinet door,
I was petrified with fright,
I pulled out the cut-throat razor and
I sliced it off at the neck,
But not before it had bitten me
As I dropped it on the deck.

I’m writing this final message so
The rest of you will know,
You’re going to have to cremate us
To destroy this so-and-so,
Joanne has five, and is terrified
While I have only three,
But we’ve sliced off more than a dozen heads
So far, God pity me!

David Lewis Paget

Bullock carts moving forward
With the music of jingling bells
Women walking like a peahen
Balancing mud pots of water
On their head with a band
Women churning butter from
Milk with the churning rod
Men with their spades to fields
Ready for the ploughing
Boys,with their tool, catapult
Aiming at the juicy mangoes
Little girls running with laughter
To the call of a bangle-seller
Old men sitting in the verandah
Memorising their days of youth
Fruit selling woman calling out loud
Bananas,Apples,Mangoes
Smoke from the chimneys
Like an engine of a train
Red chillies, turmeric and coriander
Spread on sheets in the sunlight
Goats and calves crying out in
Search of their pet homes
Village full of greenery with
Gulmohars, Banyan and Neem
Busy with their daily duties
Happy with no disappointments
The villagers of olden days !

We two sitting out upon the verandah
On a Sunday late may cooler afternoon
And you were knitting clicking away
As I sat enjoying a port when very soon

Two birds so high away up in the blue sky
I stopped and turned around looking at you
You looking over your glasses saying .. what
You waiting for my answer a puzzled true

I said  look at those two birds away up there
Side by side of how they together as one fly
Both in the very same direction perfectly
And they are only birds will be till they die

You and I can't agree on anything at all
Try to do so we do so every other single day
Since I married you down the street its true
We spend most of conversation arguing I say

They are only birds and always flying as one
Regardless of the weather come what may
And here we are a supposed inteligent species
Yet we argue over everything every single day

terrence michael sutton    
copyright  2018

Holiday in the Gulf
The intimate ones
With the night shift worn face
Of Uwaisi hospital nurse Clara
The queen of spades
In the attire of
Althaf Hotel boy Kassim
The king of clubs
With the face of my dad
Waiting for the postman
At the verandah of
The half finished house
The king of hearts
With the face of Abu
Staring at my young sister
When he comes to collect
The cut throat interest
Of the never ending debt
Hiding face down
For a full hand sweep
The trump diamond jack
Cornered in the hand
The waste twos and threes

Remember
The jobless gang home
The canal side cards play
Unaware to the opponent
With a scratch mark
Or a creased edge
Hinting the card in hand
The foul-trick playpal...
Breaking the trap
Jumping a fence
When the police ambush
Making me hide
In the abandoned ghost well
The saviour friend Ravunni

Keeping in mind friend
On the next home visit
A job visa for you

Here tonight when I am
Losing games one by one
Behind the opponent stands who
Invisible to prompt his cards
To make me win round by round
By honours and by fulls

On the phone at odd hours
Who is that from away home
What's the news so urgent

In the abandoned ghost well...

and so to infinity
if things pan out
it'll be the end
of me.

*** you Bonanza
I'm on the verandah
with a spiced drink

you thought
I think
*** you

cute eh?

but it's melodrama in the
panorama
the doctor tells me

'he would wouldn't he'
(and him never knowing the
Christine that I did)

About this time I'm high
or I was
time gone by

the genie is looking after me
thinks he
as he balances on the edge
of the World.

Atlas
kiss my ***
I'm calling you out.

I want to be a lavender orchid
on your beaming verandah
That you'll spray water
and I'll see your face every morning.

I want to be a glittering pen
in your pulpy hand case
That you'll write poems
and I'll touch your emotions every day.

I want to be a brooding pillow
on your squishy bed
That you'll sleep deep
and I'll read your dreams every night.



Poem 20
Book 'Beckoning Jade-Dreams' April 2007
Copyright Musharrat Mahjabeen
Mizan Publishers, Dhaka, Bangladesh
ISBN 984-8700-82-X

one fine spring morning
sitting in my chair
newspaper
in hand
basking the sun
in front of my eyes
a scene thus run:

a sparrow perched
on nearby neem tree
sailed to my verandah
and sat on the sill,
in front a looking glass
a while she sat still
a little thoughtful
a little perplexed
finally she was
bitterly vexed.

her own image in the glass
she couldn’t tolerate
to beat it with her bill
at the glass she knocked,
so madly she did drill
as if ‘the other’
she would ****.
in doing this
she broke her beak
all over the beak
the blood did spill,
ignorantly her own
she couldn’t bear
mercilessly her own
with her own beak tear.

frequently she visits,
she now understands,
she comes with her company
but I never saw the repeat,
she and her company
seem to have known
the harmony in Nature
to places they have flown.

WE ‘the roof and crown of things’
spill blood of our brothers
some times on 9/11
in US and fly
again in Jaipur and
Bombay high.

How long will go on this ****** trail?
When will the harmony in man prevail?

C. P. Sharma

the air is crisp
as i sit on the front
verandah, snuggled up
in wooly hoodie, flannel
pyjamas and ugg boots
hands wrapped around
a large mug of steaming
coffee
watching those with more
enthusiasim, than nouse
riding up the hill in bright
lycra body suits.
the weekend pelaton rides
on to  wherever.

it was only a little house,
two bedrooms, small in space, a kitchen, bathroom
and living area..
some woul call it quaint,
others run-down and dilapidated...

...but it was
a happy place....even if it
sat alone ...bar a jacaranda tree...out in the middle of
a drygrass sea...

on the outside, the paint
had peeled and the boards
had begun to warp...
the yard was dry brown
grass and dryer red dust,
the roof, corrugated tin
was dull with age....

the door, was once painted
a bright hopeful blue
but now faded like old
denim... on the verandah
two chairs a table.....and
an old cattledog....
the bell, a suprising ******...


but inside that ramshackle
house... that stood by luck
and will alone....

was a home....filled to the brim with love....
the old couple who lived there...
still held hands ....still looked
at each other with love and
longing.....still danced to the old record player most nights....
still slept wrapped in each others arms....
still bickered and fought
then made up....with a lasting passion....
still wished for, more days
together in the sun....

these are my memories
of my aunt beth and uncle
wilf.....
and the house,
they made a home....
out in the middle of nowhere....

A little empty that morning
she sat on the top step
of the verandah
sipping tea, sipping thought.
Three steps down to the pavement
squares of sandstone
lay in even handed rhythms;
flatly refusing to contour.

He’d moved away last week; big bloke, big smile
could clasp four pavers in one hand,
laid the lot inside ten days,
maybe a record, who could say.

Completed, the pavement was now empty of him,
no more scraping back, no more chipping out,
no more broad smiling hands
reaching for her cups of tea.

She missed this; as she missed the slightly flat renditions of
‘midnight oil’ and ‘fleetwood mac’, the **** of his straw hat
and the farewell call of... "see you sometime in the morning suze..."
(always at exactly 6.30 a.m.)

He was big on tea,
said he was glad
to meet someone who knew it
wasn’t merely the dis-colouration of milk.
She’d smile at that, he was right,
things like tea were best, given time to infuse.
She sipped her tea, sipped her thoughts
and the deeper taste that came with a little time.

I’d seen her wander along the street
A number of times, or more,
And know I should have approached her then
But she might have said, ‘what for?’
I could have asked for a date, but then
I left it much too late,
And saw her then with a guy called Ben,
But he looked like spider bait.

He had a straggly beard and hair
That stood up straight in spikes,
I don’t know what she could see in him
For my first response was ‘Yikes!’
His frame was thin and all caving in
And his clothes were contrabands,
But he clutched at her with a bony paw,
With hair on the back of his hands.

She went to stay at his cottage, which
Was set at the edge of the wood,
More of a tumbledown shack, I thought,
Not right for that neighbourhood,
It lay half-hidden between the trees
With their foliage hanging down,
You had to push past the bushes that
Enclosed the whole surround.

She’d sit out on the verandah with
The sun about to set,
While I would creep in around there
For a glimpse of her, Colette.
I thought, perhaps if she saw me there
She might come out to see,
And once I’d managed to talk to her
She’d fall in love with me.

But Ben would never let go of her
Nor let her out of his sight,
He kept her there by the spiders that
Would weave their webs each night,
From every dangling branch there hung
An orb web in the breeze,
And in each centre a spider that
Would make Colette’s blood freeze.

I think he must have been breeding them
He seemed to take delight,
In pointing out how the thousands seemed
To weave there every night,
Then she began to withdraw from him
And refuse his coarse demands,
Whenever he went to reach for her
With his scrawny, hairy hands.

The webs ballooned and they hit the roof
Formed a blanket from the trees,
They covered the little cottage and
I heard her frightened pleas,
She couldn’t leave the verandah though
She said she’d have to go,
He said that he was a spider man,
And that’s when I heard his ‘No!’

She didn’t come out again for days
And I heard her cry at night,
‘I hate this place, and I hate your face,’
But he said, ‘You’re my delight.’
A week went by and I heard her sigh,
The last sound that she made,
So I burst through all the gossamer webs
With an old and rusty blade.

He was knelt beside her form supine
In the corner of the room,
While she was wrapped in gossamer fine
And looked like a large cocoon,
I lashed out with the rusty blade
And cut off his evil head,
When thousands of spiders scurried out
From his neck, and over the bed.

I cut her out of the tight cocoon
And peeled it back from her face,
She hugged me in the gathering gloom
And said, ‘Let’s leave this place.’
I’d like to say that she went with me
But I’d left my run too late,
‘I’ll never look at a man again
Since he made me spider bait.’

David Lewis Paget