Words swathe me in calm,
Sentences, paragraphs that soothe.

Viridian verbs burst through the grey,
Taunting me into action-
Seducing me into a delicious dance-
Gypsy girl, swing your sentences my way!

Turquoise adjectives wrap around my wounds,
Embracing my flaws and perfections.
Rough olive skin; somber caesious eyes-
Gypsy girl, with amaranthine scars.

I drape myself over sienna nouns,
Steadfast, supporting me proper, improper, always.
Paper, songs, tree, sky, love, Jami Lee-
Gypsy girl, use your words correctly!

Each turn of a page lures me deeper-
Each spoken rhyme embraces me close-

Jami Lee, sweet little girl, get your head out of the clouds,
And your nose out of a book!

Love, the world
Suddenly turns, turns color. The streetlight
Splits through the rat's tail
Pods of the laburnum at nine in the morning.
It is the Arctic,

This little black
Circle, with its tawn silk grasses - babies hair.
There is a green in the air,
Soft, delectable.
It cushions me lovingly.

I am flushed and warm.
I think I may be enormous,
I am so stupidly happy,
My Wellingtons
Squelching and squelching through the beautiful red.

This is my property.
Two times a day
I pace it, sniffing
The barbarous holly with its viridian
Scallops, pure iron,

And the wall of the odd corpses.
I love them.
I love them like history.
The apples are golden,
Imagine it ----

My seventy trees
Holding their gold-ruddy *****
In a thick gray death-soup,
Their million
Gold leaves metal and breathless.

O love, O celibate.
Nobody but me
Walks the waist high wet.
The irreplaceable
Golds bleed and deepen, the mouths of Thermopylae.

On the dry land,
By the wet sand,
Looking out at the sea,
From where I stand,
At the ocean blue,
So vast and true,
As my dog runs through,
The rock pools to,
A destination she never knew,
Existed until now

The gulls make their way,
Under skies of grey,
To far off shores,
And to distant bays,
As wind howls round,
And rain falls down,
To darken ground,
Of viridian green and earthy brown,
There's not a soul around,
Except us two

And so we walk,
My dog and me,
From the farm,
And to the sea,
Then back again up cliff and hill,
Up the road and up yet still,
We plod and trudge and make our way,
Back to base to plan our day,
Because after all the walking's done,
The morning's really only just begun.

When your creator took her crayon box
That day she thought to draw you all alive,
She found a certain green to sketch your locks,
Another green to show you grow, you thrive;
A green of richest thought unlimited,
A green to match the green of your creation,
A green to go, to boldly forge ahead,
A green for lands of peaceful meditation;
  The Greene King, standing proud with all his queens,
  Jack-in-the-green, surrounded by his trees;
  A thousand other shades of other greens;
  The greenness of the deepness of the seas;
And I, I fall and marvel at the light,
A million greens, like fireworks in the night.

That day she thought to draw you all alive
She drew your outline, sketched you, and refined
And shaped your eyes, that surely saw arrive
The laughing people in the frame behind,
The humans, dogs and kittens, trailing plants,
Who fill your background; all you love are here
Around you in the middle of the dance,
And as you watch, still more of them appear
  Beyond your face within the frame advancing
  Children and relatives and loves and friends
  Holding their merry hands in merry dancing
  Extending off beyond the picture's ends;
I know your other folk would say the same:
It's such an honour dancing in your frame.

She found a certain green to sketch your locks,
A deeper green, a perfect green attaining;
And now another from her crayon-stocks;
Refreshing and repeating what's remaining:
She bleaches it and tries another shade
Then leaves it for a while and grows it out,
Returns it to the colours that she made
Begins to work again, and turns about;
  And why this careful labour to provide you
  With perfect colours captured in your hair?
  She knows your colours mirror what's inside you,
  Eternal greens within you everywhere;
And still beneath, the ever-growing you
Shall dye, and yet shall live with life anew.

Another green to show you grow, you thrive;
Out from the snow the snowdrop breaks in flower.
Who could have called this sleeping bulb alive?
Yet buried patiently it waits its hour,
Counting the snowflakes slowly settling
Their weight upon the heavy earth above;
One day its Winter changes to its Spring.
Who can predict the power of life and love?
  Hope that at last the final frost is dead.
  Faith that the Winter dies and Spring shall rise.
  Love for the life that up through blades has bled.
  Joy to a hundred children's waiting eyes;
For every hour it slept beneath the ground,
A thousand wondering eyes shall gather round.

A green of richest thought unlimited.
I try to say I love you every day:
I know I keep repeating things I've said.
Perhaps I'll try to phrase another way:
Suppose I counted all the money ever
From now until when Abel risked his neck
With my accountants, who were very clever,
And wrote it on a record-breaking cheque...
  It wasn't half your empathising, was it?
  Your thoughts are treasured more than bank accounts;
  The bank won't put your loving on deposit.
  And could they take it, given such amounts?
The jealousy of cash makes misers blind,
And who needs money when you have your mind?

A green to match the green of your creation!
She took her time in sketching out your features,
Shading you well, and, drawn with dedication,
You took the pen she gives to all her creatures
And set about some drawing of your own,
Filling the art with arc and line and shade,
Showing your work the care that you were shown,
And making them as well as you were made;
  And much as life your drawing hand was giving,
  Another life from deep within you drew:
  A life, not merely likeness of the living,
  So separate, yet such a part of you:
Who finds your baby-picture on the shelf
And smiles and finds you, showing you yourself.

A green to go, to boldly forge ahead,
Should shine on traffic lights for every person.
If you should find a colour in its stead
That stops you-- not an arrow for diversion,
To Edmundsbury, Hatfield and the North,
Or any other place that's worth the going--
But rather reds that block your going forth;
If traffic signals freeze your days from flowing,
  Your life is green and you deserve the green.
  And if you try to go about your day
  And greens are coming few and far between,
  And reds and ambers blare about your way:
If so, I pray your days to hold instead
All green, and never amber, never red.

A green for lands of peaceful meditation.
You call: Come stand upon my sacred ground,
Come sit and breathe the peace of contemplation,
Come feel the grass beneath, the lilies round,
Come sleep, come wake, and drink the quiet waters,
Come to the maytree, blackbird, waterfall;
Come know yourselves the planet's sons and daughters.
The people pass and pause, and still you call:
  It's waiting for you when you ask to try it:
  Peace (and the air) cannot be bought or sold.
  You'll never gain it if you try to buy it:
  It's not an asset crumpled fists can hold.
All that you have is nothing you can lose;
You stand on sacred ground. Remove your shoes.

The Greene King, standing proud with all his queens,
Guarding a land of oaks and aches and cold.
It's not a normal place, by any means,
This island of the oldest of the old,
Where bow the ancient oak and ash and thorn
In homage to a figure on a hill;
Deep in the hills where Wayland Smith was born
You stand, an English body, English still.
  For odes and age and air and ale have filled you,
  Made you their own and promised you belong;
  And since their homesick longing hasn't killed you,
  I think you'll be returning to their song;
Come, take your time, and sit and drink with me!
What say you to another cup of tea?

Jack-in-the-green, surrounded by his trees,
Had given birth to leafy life aplenty,
He'd introduced his firs by fours and threes,
And sowed his seedling cedars by the twenty;
The field was filled with trunks and twigs and roots,
The soil was sound and fertile, and the fall
Would fill the forest floor with growing shoots,
And none but Jack was there to watch it all
  Until you came to wander through this field,
  To walk within the ways within the wood;
  Your mind was brought to peace, your spirit healed,
  The forest given form and blessed as good;
Jack-in-the-green will wonder all his days:
your presence never ceases to a maze.

A thousand other shades of other greens:
"Leaf", "emerald", "sea", "bottle", off the cuff;
"Viridian" (uncertain what it means),
But there's so many. Names are not enough.
Yet, in another life, your maker might
Have picked you out among primeval glades
To work as keeper of the rainbow's light
And in another Eden name the shades;
  If so, the planet's poets will rejoice
  That, given life together with a name,
  The colours sing a stronger, clearer voice,
  And every hue will never seem the same:
Each of the shades looks loving back to you,
Its namer and the one who made it new.

The greenness of the deepness of the seas:
A home to fish of many a scaly nation.
Follow the shoals; the smallest one of these
Swims as a fishy summit of creation.
Yet every one's indebted to the shoal,
All subtle in their difference from the rest:
A fish of friends, a member of the whole,
A mix of traits, a taking of the best.
  So you and those of us you love so well
  Will grow along with other friends' increase,
  Required ingredients in the living-spell:
  Each person brings a necessary peace.
The level-headed people mix with mystics,
And both are living mixtures of holistics.

And I, I fall and marvel at the light,
This changing light that grows throughout the years,
Extinguished not by hardship nor by night
Nor foolishness nor sadness nor by tears.
When we were separated by the sea
I wished myself amidst your myriad days.
My wish was mirrored in your missing me;
Your maker joined our wishes, joined our ways;
  She placed our hands on one another's heart,
  And you and I began a lifelong learning
  Of one another, like a magic art
  Whose telling grows with every page's turning,
And holds our friendship as a growing bond
Till seventy years old, and still beyond.

A million greens, like fireworks in the night.**
I fear this sonnet never can be done.
So many colours burst upon my sight
I cannot tell the tale of every one.
But I can tell how vast excitement fills me
When all the flying sparkles fill the sky;
I want to tell the world how much it thrills me
To hold you close, reflected in your eye;
  I want to tell in all my earthly days
  And yet beyond, of what you mean to me;
  I want to say I love the myriad ways
  Of what you are and what you'll grow to be;
These counts combining made the building-blocks
When your creator took her crayon box.

emerald, olive, viridian
oh how you perplex me
forest, jade, chartreuse
why do you tease me so
cyan, verdigris, moss
such excitement arises
to be a word
to be a meaning
is there such a thing,
to have a feeling
to see a vision,
phthalo, pine, teal
are you the same
mint, myrtle, laurel
you make me envious
to be blooming, to be healthy
to be young, to be clumsy
are you callow, how about credulous?
but such a conservationist
unquestioning, so trustful,
tenderfoot and common
the tree, the lawn, the willow
though ecological and crude
a sage in all but name
apple, spinach, pea
aren't you scrumptious,
lime, kelly, bice
are you nature, how about luck
you're pungently rotten
though with such dark beauty and hope,
love and lust ensues
you're the jolliness of balance
and the creative intelligence;
of evil, and decay of money and safety,
will you resurrect me, are you immortality?
such jealousy arises
high goals and honor
so so allusive
healing and vitality
you're calming though fast
lush spring stability,
abundant generosity,
vert vegetation; witchcraft
an aphrodisiac I hear,
are you youth or fading youth?
sunrise and life, growth and fertility
sacred ideology,
eroticized though shameful
so romantic and humble
I see the third ray
or is the the fifth ray, the third eye
are you truth, are you vision
it's becoming a science,
so much compassion
the fourth chakra, the heart,
the centre of us all
a higher consciousness
such a harmonious aura
a hunter, a nurse, a solider, an outdoorsman
villains and superstition
misfortune and prosperity
with toxicity, sickness and death,
recycle and reuse
oh so powerful
you exude auspiciousness
just a holiday
mystical fairies and spirits
though also devilish,
cancer in the stars
a renewal of paradise,
biliously tranquil
are you refreshingly soothing,
peacefully restful,
a naive novice,
very understanding,
is there truly a term for you?
what do you really convey,
countless representations
a definition of name,
or do you signify the feeling, the specimen
the aspect?
though some have no locution for you

here I am,
stepping around the issue
you are you, in any word
yet with a different meaning

Remember her, old friend?
She was...hideous,
You think she was ugly,
oh no, far from it.

She was the fairest,
Her lavishing sable hair,
Her viridian eyes,
Her glamorous smile,

Her soft-hued skin,
Her delicately slender body,
Her dazzling manners,
Her ever so warm demeanor,

Her moves,
Fluid, graceful, focused,
Capturing the essence of the music,
with her mesmerizing artistry.

She was indeed perfect,
Unique, as no one could be as elegant,
Charming, for no one, was as lovely.
Beguile...as no one was as rotten.

What she was, my old friend,
Was an empty vessel,
the soul of which had perished,
mortified by its actions.

For all she ever wanted was approval,
so what she did was put on a mask,
losing herself in the process,
becoming a ghost of her formal self.

Open bramble gate, morning lets itself in,
eyes open in welcome. Water stirs – a

glance outside. A jade tiger rises,
blue herons fly to South Mountain.

~~~

Forage through herb abundance on South
Mountain sunlight pooled in cassia leaves.

It’s why you reclused here, hermitage entwined
in viridian mists. I find your footprints

headed to the clouds, so I leave this
poem on your wall and on a whim

ascend South Mountain ridges. Sticks
snap underfoot – blue herons startle away.

~~~

Boundless and empty to townsfolk,
South Mountain peaks. But here

immortals dance among indomitable pines.
Above the sun blue herons fly into

paper crumpled clouds – clouds the body,
clouds the wings. Sonorous bird song -

radiant clarity – makes mountain forests
sing, each beat moves the clouds, red

dust cleared from rivers and peaks,
ochre streams flood forests and fields,

canyons and gorges, jades and emeralds rise.
Petals scatter on crystalline swells, night

lengthens slowly – coldness wanders by
but I will linger here, a little longer.

Version 2

South Mountain peaks, boundless and empty to townsfolk.
But here immortals dance among indomitable pines.

Above the sun blue herons fly into paper folded clouds
- azure heaven change – clouds the body, clouds the wings.

Sonorous bird song radiant clarity – makes mountain forest sing,
each beat moves the clouds, red dust cleared from rivers

and peaks, ochre streams flood forests and fields,
canyons and gorges, jade and emerald rises.

Petals scatter on crystalline swells – night lengthens slowly -
coldness wanders by but I believe I will linger here, a little longer.

Version 3

South Mountain peaks, boundless and empty to townsfolk.
But here immortals dance among indomitable pines.

Above the sun blue herons fly into paper folded clouds
- azure heaven change – clouds the body, clouds the wings.

Sonorous bird songs radiant clarity – makes mountain forests sing,
each beat moves the clouds, red dust clears from rivers

and peaks. Streams of ochre flood forests and fields,
canyons and gorges, jades and emeralds rise.

Scattered petals on crystalline swells – night slowly lengthens -
coldness wanders by but I believe I will linger here, a little longer.

I want to say being with you was like coming home, but that seems so over-done.
Despite the truth it holds.
I think maybe I’ll try and speak your language. Because being with you was homemade paint.
Mason jars lining shelves, oil and pigment and a palette of your own creation.
When you ran your fingers over my skin it wasn’t Cadmium red, no, it was more like, the setting of the sun after a hot summers day. Orange so deep it feels like you are going to fall into it. Not Permanent or Transparent. No, it was like a fire, warm and so, so bright. Like the world around me had gone up in flames and I was happy to burn with it.
Or when you laughed, the air lit up like a sunflower. Not Hansa or Nickel or Indian yellow. Think something between gold and the shade of a lemon. Honey, sweet and sticky.
And my heart twisted and turned inside my chest, adapting to the mix of colors, oil dripping into my veins.
When you smiled. God, when you smiled. The world seemed to converge. Nothing made sense. I was spinning in a circle in the middle of a carnival. Too much to process. Stained glass windows at noon, playing out across the floors of the church. Iridescent and never ending.
The only thing that brought me back was your brush hitting the canvas, your voice calling out to me, and then it was green, so much green, like a perfectly polished suburban yard and standing beneath a canopy of trees in August, looking up and up until the sun forces your gaze to turn, and the green depression glass that sits pretty on my mother’s bookshelf. I think of light dancing off an emerald ring, not Viridian or Olive or Sap. Nothing you can find in a crafts store. Nothing that can be manufactured. Only that which can be bended and built from your own mind and hands.
And then you were gone. Twice now you’ve left. And it is blue like I have never known. So dark it feels black if I dwell for too long. Richer than Idanthrone, not quite Prussian. Have you ever gone to the ocean at night, just before a storm hits the coast? Or, went up into the country, where the stars illuminate the world around you and the sky is spread out like a blanket above you? Not Cobalt or Cerulean. No, this blue is only something you can make. Something you’ve brought with you. With your sunflowers and your sunsets and your stained glass.
We talked about the way colors can change when they’re next to each other, next to something similar or vastly different. The way the depths can be altered, and just a little more oil can thin it out.
There is nothing to compare anymore.
Just blue. So blue I can’t breathe. So blue my fingers shake and my head aches.
The blue is okay when you’re there. When you’ve laid your palette out before me, when your canvas is full, and beautiful, and I can’t look away. But now, you’ve taken every other color with you, and left me with blue.
Not store bought or easily replaced.
Your blue. From your words and your touch and your voice.
I thought I saw you the other day, for just a moment, the world exploded around me. All the color I thought I’d never see again. A storm so rich with color, I could have gone blind.
But you’re still gone. And I’m still blue.

Veasna Ta Kvak recording
playback
over Chinatown cafe again
while recounting recent events
to journal pages
muddled from frequent
exchanges bag to bag
(Been to Taipei airport, Bali, Vancouver, most
recently)
blind fate
blind fate
shower me with Indian daisies
and photographs of Railway
New Delhi!
Hanoi Old Quarter/
Vietnam monsoon/
evening on balcony/
Darjeeling water boiled
and filtered anti-malaria
golden drink for honeylungs and
spring-soul morningtide
under moonlight canopy
of Avalokiteśvara
the fruitful
Bodhisattva!
English lessons
and future
hourless
comely chimera
in sleep phenomenon
Benares phantasmagoria YELLOW
(near Mata Anandamai Ghat)
speaking to Aghori
prophecy
Kala Bhairava
FIERCE ILLUSORY APOCALYPSE FAMILIAR
WHERE IS YOUR NOOSE?
the Ganges is full of lice and flowers
candlewax melted into holy water
sickness
equal to
harmony & jubilant
eyeclose and mouthcurl.

The future mysteries in
Mexico City poorboy
$2 mystic orb jade green
reflective underneath
dirt now in North American
bottom white four floor house
basement suite coffee table.
Visions indivisible
from the Viridian roundly haze
but surefire in their accuracy
I'm absolute
and universally formed
for the next few cacophonous
decades!

I have beheld
the simpleminded
lark, who sings
sustained
until the very moment
he crumples against
the glass--
I have beheld
the fruitlessness
of his path.
I see now that
the sparrow is
propelled, and what
propels her:
a heedlessness
an artlessness
behind her.

I have held
the hand of a man
in tears and
pet his head.
I have walked in-
to churches one way
and expected to come out
another: naivety.

I have come
to understand why
few ever find
the tunnel's exit.
Behold: one smoker,
smoking; one sad
girl with an older
man; one blind
woman, walking;
one foolish bird
in flight
towards a window.

~
Here is an assertion
and showiness
in the expanse
of white skin – from her
high forehead,
down her graceful neck,
shoulders, and arms.
Although the black
of her dress is bold,
it is also deep, recessive,
and mysterious.

He stalks her
as one does a deer,
his palette composed of
lead white, rose madder,
vermilion, viridian,
and bone black.
A dash of light rose
over the former
gloomy background,
you see, and
the élancée figure
shows to much
greater advantage.

Her body boldly
faces forward while
her head is turned in profile.
A profile of both
assertion and retreat.
The table provides support,
and echoes her
curves and stance.
One strap of her gown
has fallen down
her right shoulder,
suggesting the possibility
of further revelation;
one more struggle
and the lady will be free.

Everything converges to
imply a distant sexuality
under the professional
control of the sitter,
rather than offered for
the viewer's delectation.
Her untamed wilderness
remains unseen.
~

i have held with
fascination, when i was young,
  all of my toys.

a parallel universe of
  marvels. imperial is the mood
of these ecstasies!

i remember my cheap svelte revolver
  back in 1998 bought from
  the festive bazaar in the marketplace at the dreary heart of Bocaue when i was
consumed by the thought of brutal force and how swiftly, in the hands of men meant for twisting open
   the doors, welcome death
or the metallurgy of it.

i used to run off into the sunset
  toting my gun high with pride
   shunning the Sun, and the
reprise of my carousals is my mother
    soldering in her white hands
a "walis tambo" and summoning me
     homeward with a churlish grin
on my face, triumphantly ecstatic
   over my rendezvous.

now my gun has withstood the
   tatterdemalion of dog days
and in one corner i felt its
  brokenness as it yearns to
  be retired early in the peak
    of my youth. happiness wears down like a chip on the old linoleumed floor and i tinker with
  it to unsheathe the grime
  of the unspoken stucco concrete.

  i placed it in a box, my black revolver, together with the toys
   that i once laughed with
when only bliss is as simple as a juvenile love, or the easy picking
    of a santan over the fields
      where i ran off into
the viridian laughing with the verdure of the world that i once knew as something so beautiful
   and intricate.

i heard my black revolver went
   somewhere behind the macadamized wall where i dreamt of having a basketball ring nailed to.
   only i knew how to play
my revolver, and now that i am
   caught within the heaviness
  of all things that mean greater
  than all other joys,
   no other days could ever
surpass how
  i made
    a hero in myself
mighty with the tales
     that i keep.

good ole black revolver, 1998.

The glowing jacinth sun was just beginning its descent,
casting long, flittering shadows on horse and rider alike.
Although the horse was young, he walked
with an air of importance,
like a racer entering the track.
As the playful breeze rustled the viridian leaves,
his muscles tensed.
He perked up like a toy soldier,
watching the purpling sky with wary eyes,
the amaranthine clouds reflected in those deep sable orbs.

As he trotted about like a fairy,
his russet coat shone vibrantly in the setting sun,
a body of twinkling rubies set in amber.
The sprite padded softly on the ground
with the delicate nature of a hummingbird,
he had a stride like a river of sweet milk and honey.

The chestnut dreamer skipped across the ground
like notes across a page,
his song light and airy.
he tiptoed and pirouetted,
his three pearly stockings dancing
like the melodious keys of a piano.

Her cinnabar savior bounded over the fences
like a prancing stag,
and his dainty ears pricked forward
as his chocolate-brown eyes fixed on the obstacle ahead.
As he jumped, he lit up with a bravery
that could have been felt all throughout the arena.
Had the two not been alone,
the entrancing sight would have been easily able to charm his way
into the hearts of even the stoniest of onlookers.

With a gleeful snort,
the sunny gelding seemed to fill the air
with good-natured laughter.
The rider reached down to give him a pat,
and he brightened at her touch,
the pet like a kiss on his glossy ginger neck.

And as the last of the daylight filtered away
into the velvety mazarine sky,
his neck stretched down and his walk slowed.
Satisfied with their ride, the two made their way back inside,
surrounding by the growing darkness.

Since we met in this life we’ve been so together
The trees and the sky will tell you, just ask them
Since, frankly and completely as one
Searching our souls, discovering each other and ourselves
Loving, living and learning with no effort at all
Moulding our life to divine goals, elements exploring
Each day we grow, smoothing our rituals and tasks
Simple, small, understated and beautiful
Yet enormous, devastating and wonderful
I’ve never been clearer in mind nor more ordered
Serious or intended, structured yet mesmerised and dreamy
Child-like pleasures our little hearts

Honestly, knowing you has given an exclusive season of patience
A crown of peace with measures of muted resonance
My emotion and behaviour  jangle with excitement
Gaining speed and velocity as our developing love fertilises everything we do
If any part of me was withheld or absent it was without cognisance or most importantly intent
I was always here totally,  loving you with an undivided heart
Building our future and having the truest most delightful life
Such destiny within two earthly beings, such kismet
But no..earth is not  from where we sprung
No logic or contract by human standards but from cosmos and celestial forces
Stardust, moonbeams, sunlight and energy

Our future is viridian, cobalt, alizarin, ultramarine, carmine...
Colours drawn from a bow of happiness with arrows of true love
Thudding into our hearts every single moment
Rainbows of kindly sparkly crystals reflecting each tiny emotion
Willow tree flexibility, cool streams of pure clear water whisper in our ears
Look to your soul and to the memories of our short time together
Begin to believe that life is so very good ,so treasured like us
Darling Jan my complete lover
The wife I’ve always had, true soul provider, custodian of my heart
Clearer in the transformation from Jan and Max to a ‘whole’ inseparable
By anyone or anything for all time and eternity..
Even better knowing that as always
Now even more.....I’m all yours

drowned the Earth suddenly.

  underneath honest light,
                                  all
   submerged. this cataract of feeling —
waters pursue beginnings. cradling them
to unknown ends, washed by the shore.
        gluttonously the night swallowed
all — parliament of birds warble no longer.
             midnight, the   Moon
claws the supple skin of organized stone
  displaced
               where all the edges bloom
forth torrid froth of dappled light which kills no less than a brief life of matchflame. tenuous spar of wind on
the unserious twilight; bulge of death
in the stream — a body haul, rafting
  in compost; stench of all topple like
resins held loose in vats. rat **** becomes
           as inviting as moulding bread;
tantric music for no instrument, hoarse
cries unbeheld —

            until the flesh no longer flounders
pressed against sleep-shaped youngness
hewn lissome in the hours of no succor,

       modeling silence in the thrill of
this enthusiastic space,
           hands scouring muddied
  obscure, atremble,
      shadowless hours fill stomachs with
the plump word of rescue yet none
  of these fingers unwished the
ingenuity of dull gods — this twilight
  nor twinight could ever grive
in forethought, striking bells to signal birds
         to arrive again so we could feast
in  silver  fish, with bare hands scaled to callouses,
    
      looking at it twice-over, this battered yolk
of whiteness, with deeds of the viridian
   now atrill in new fragile woodworks

       lurching and
         ameliorating as we all
    stutter and sing
       haunts dabbing open
  lips of small wounds that
   wish to shut quietly,   almost
every threat of gray     or pummel of
   wind startles the flyblown ornate,
  
   hurrying us back to cornerless homes
where all photographs washed away,
    very few hang
               swayed by verdure
  of the gradual throne of sea
        curving perpetually the several stars
we have ignored for a while,
     where everything quite begins
    again to enthrall with a melodic
  leitmotif of the most tender of
       instances loose
            in mouths
                 and in endless recall
                  
                                               breathless—

With cause yet without reason she exists,
With sapphires for windows and a searing callous pith for a soul. Gentle yet vicious,
Deafening yet silent, stagnant in movement yet ever moving yet nobody cares.

Drenched in sunrise her skin flashes gold, and silver, and apricot and peach, and ***** coloured like worn cotton of a saari,
Cascading in emeralds and diamonds and rubies whilst filling the empty space with daggers that slice through the very nature of what it is to be human.

And still as she is constant in her ways of corroding the bewitching emigres on which she laid her foundations,
She is fickle.
The once sapphire windows become dulled and turn to lulling pools of icy slate,
Her viridian flesh tears down the breath it once nurtured.

The sapphire windows become slate and the viridian flesh becomes sapphire, and all is left is nothing.

After the screams
I was coming undone,
splitting at the seams.
I hauled all my watercolors
out of my brother's office.
I took the paintbrushes
and palettes of a thousand hues
lodged between his camo army vest
and his heavy shoes
and I sprawled out in the
spinach-green living room.
I painted
willow trees and silhouettes
and viridian snakes spilling from ***** lips.

At 2am I got up
headed to the deck
and watched the stars
Because sometimes I forget.
I let my nights
be slaughtered by sobs.

These nights, this view
It’s mine, you can’t have it.
Everyone needs a place
and this is mine,
this tiny nirvana,
2 o'clock constellations
in the dark purple bruise of night
are my home.

A pool of watercolors,
magenta, cyan, indigo, emerald and cerulean,
swells in my chest,
in the empty space between my lungs.
A drowning, a baptism.

Everywhere, in everything,
your unblinking ghost.
It refuses to dissolve.

I live in a box
Full of yellowed papers
And a kitchen half-painted
Viridian green.

My little house
Always smells of your coffee
Because tea for one
Is lonely in the morning.

I draw the curtains sometimes
And crawl in that queen-sized bed,
Confessing all my secrets
Beneath our tent of sheets.

If they could bottle you
I would add a slice of lime
And drink you dry,
My Communion.

I come home each night
Carrying you across the threshold,
And we play hide and seek
From the world outside.

I’d travel the world,
With nowhere to go,
By foot,
By plane,
Or maybe even a train.
Stopping at fast- paced cities,
And the quaintest of towns.
Aurora skylines,
Viridian plains,
Aquamarine sea ways,
Are just a few sights to see,
So why not travel the world with me?

Watercolor crimson skies
bleed indigo blue pastel lines
waterfall rains spill over
Yellowy blues sink viridian green  
paper clouds bloom fire
a sunrise to devour

She is a sable brush
born of resurrected ashes
sifting her soul in colors
Hillsides greening, looking out
a painter of days and ruins

In Africa the lissome eucalyptus leaves
Sharply ovoid, a washed celadon,
Turn their silvery backs, yield, bend with
The promise of on-coming rain.
You taught me this
Sign, this tree-voiced prediction, long ago, among
The tenderly sloping, densely viridian hills
And heavy, somnolent, rolling fogs of Iowa.
And so, I turn my back. I yield, oh, how I yield.
But, you didn’t foresee, didn’t know
How, much later, my heart would
Flake and flay
How great sheets of myself
Would peel, would fold
Would slough off just like
The bark, the back of those massive whitened eucalyptus trunks, you
Didn’t, couldn’t foretell how this long union
Scars, clings, sinks so deep, tattoos itself so that eucalyptus-like, despite
Repeated rain lashings, leaf bowings, droopings and sun decimated leavings
My heart, my soul sheds, molts, reforms, renews itself and just as those
Sharpened leaves arch and curve and arc and sway
So I bend, I turn, I give in, I give in
To the chafing wind, to the scouring hurt, to
The on-coming African
Rain.

The vividest viridian, the variety,
An orange vinaigrette,
     Vexes her.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

What gentle images in the fading frescos of ancient Italy
Sylph-like figures gliding
Along emerald green and viridian pathways
Showing delicate movements of sophisticated people
Brought down to earth by strong fighting men.
Disciplined soldiers with life long missions
Finding resolve in their heritage and republican history
Gaining new ground and no prisoners taken
Their senators and loved ones walk the streets and market places
Regardless of sweat and toil of their constant striving
The upper classes remain in peace with their souls.
Vellum, wax or stone, the messages remain
Suspended within their time
Yet the beauty of their images
Depicting a tranquil and calm epoch
We can never know the daily lives for sure
But beauty remains and we will accept this simple declaration

obsidian profusion
(from pale scalp)
smothers my
understanding

i've lost my i
looking into
{your}
unimaginable
eye's

viridian temptation
envelopes my physical construct
(and for all my corded sinew
i am so weak to your nuzzling)

please

just

kiss

me

with those unbearable lips

;innocence is the worst sin

The hellish everlight
Sell the entropy like longing
Right insight gives hope though selling
Quells unearthed eulogies loves lost since
Right and wrong  aren't perceived anymore

Body longer than the veins of men combined,
Taller than the heads of seven men
The wind bites and tears through its skeleton,
The rains cleanse its mercurial skin
      the texture of gravel      hardened by fire

It is an artificial parent
A barely-there mother
Young children fall below
     crowd around its silver skin,
reaching up with bladed arms fragile-thin,
and adhere themselves to it,
pulling themselves up     up     up
each twist and turn nearing them to light

One of them dies, and fades
from viridian lime into burnt sienna
Ever clinging on,
refusing to let go,
even when its body shrivels and withers off  
refusing to say goodbye to its mother,
who long since the start
had held it up
brought it close
to the warming light it so desired.

The others,
Carry on
Climbing and winding,
higher and higher and higher until

Finally!

They blind her.
The brush grows thick with feathers and thorns
Surrounding her, her sight
That one no longer sees anything but

An organic fortress

No trace of her skin remains.
None of those shredding scales are seen
Fear-inducements, horror-sights
Hidden behind the blades of her children

Silver bones turn to rust
The damp pour turns her brittle
armored legs crowd round, as close as they dare come
keeping distance still, wary of the past

Her young rush over without fear
Snaking through her teeth, barbs that shred bone
Knowing that her jaws will never close on them–
     her beloved little children
Their cloying arms, arms that once hugged close for comfort
Now ensnare and hold captive
On their own, they wish to stand
     to be as resilient as their guardian–but without her all the same

Limbs wrap tighter
Blades draw nearer
The weight is heavy
     stifling almost, clouding, suffocating
And yet, she endures

There is no sound

And with the groaning of the wind,
A glinting silver bone breaks
Followed by another     and another      and another
Till stolid earth is littered with crystal fractures
     of a once majestic form     that slowly disappears

The green spills over, crashing over placated earth
The children once-fragile, scatter to the plain
Nothing holds them now,
As cold as their once-mother's skin had been,
     her absent passing, far more chilling

In Uganik Bay that year the sun never set
I walked the long greening path to the dock
fireweed taller than I shooting summer's sky
Warmth of sun bringing lazy lily's leaning
Little waves splashed breaking cerulean blue
I waited the mail plane, pontooned it flew
Lulling oceans smooth you landed
with eyes that sailed me far-off island stranded
next to you
Float plane to carry us edging mountains, snowy, jagged
Dall sheep, perched asleep precariously rocky hung
Kodiak bears forded rivers we circled streaming on
Deep black kettle ponds no man to touch
snowy patches amid viridian lush
frozen, not to melt
our treasured days of flying
We met again at Hatcher's pass
with hearts to break as fragile glass
a part of love undying

Gathering colors of day
sea of green viridian, washing storms of grey
seagulls cry in shades colored blue
how mad the ocean's raving tune
it sweeps away the end of day
to paint the sky of blackness
a pale moon fades
beyond the sway
of silvery shades
night shimmers its way
into red and blue
where fiery clouds ignite
the day once more anew.

insanity, begin;

                      PLAY

foam born (A) of the ocean
the backtrack (B)
            to the origin of human emotion
before hue and saturation
    my life may be black and white
but for the next hour
          -  quite frankly -
I don’t give a ****, because
I am a spaceman looking down on you
            no, literally

I am

[above]

you


the decade of statues into which I was born
begged to be forgotten
             left behind
communication with my own kind
             redundant
       boring
meaningless
humanity, mother earth
            nothing worth living for

no one worth dying for
because of the
informal gluttony
            a sickening acceptance
of the inherent claustrophobia of the human condition

I’m floating
            floating
                        floating
further away from you
from any possible natural surrounding
            or human connection
[claiming to be part of humanity always secretly disgusted me]
everything is beautiful from up high
I am a spaceman, a future butterfly.

wait.

something isn’t right
I’m further away
            more detached
than I intended to be
            further away
the safety of my orbit overlooking you
        deconstructing in front of my own eyes
now floating towards the sun of nothing

perhaps I
miscalculated my own superiority
I am the one floating towards eternity
   after all
to an inescapable fate
while you are back home
            with your (our) own kind
perhaps unhappy
but not alone

I am.

watch me pass by
            one last time
I feel my soul breaking apart
my eyes glaze over and
    sha/t/te/r
atmosphere
            burning
mistaken for a shower of stars
            an acceptable way to leave the third
dimension I suppose
perhaps you will see me as the ants of the sky
scattering
            glowing
                        burning
as I find the sun




hello?






am I still alive?




are you still there?




perhaps all I’ve said
            and lived
was nothing more than a prequel to the sequel
life before death?
    or the other way around?
I am no longer confined by four dimensions
      even time is irrelevant
everything is different
            everything is right
bleeding viridian
    feeling the sensation of nothingness
        seeing the sempiternity of the galaxy
hearing translucent shades of the endless chasm
    that now surrounds me


falling


fallin
         g

falli
        ng

fal
      l
        i
          n
             g

f

a

l

l

i

n

g

into the depths
  until I land upon a new horizon

            I am a spaceman
I am discovering everything

I found death
surrounded by white walls
            the greatest journey
of our [lives?]
happens only six feet down
       surrounded by white walls


    this is what we have when we die.
  this is what is left of us.
white walls.


White Walls.

Glacial, the gaze of wintry viridian irides
Silken, the heavenly flesh
Lurid, the flames of a paradise awry
Mourning all the sinister angels have blessed
With their tainted perfection, their hideous lies
Hope shines so thinly in an eonian land barren of all love
Great men become emptied, the tormented cry
Amidst desolation, a beautiful dove
Becomes alive, voicing a longing call
Amongst forgotten pantheons, a saviour resides
Though, broken, gashed, beaten, and threshed
Awakened by beautiful birdsong, driven to reply
Was this an augury? He must strike out to answer this call from above
 To redeem some grace, from the woe of it all

Approach the meridian sun,
Halves forever fated be apart,
Abyssal divide by their own labor.
Brilliant reverie towards the Fraser,
To flow slowly into the blue Pacific.

Way up high in the rainbow,
The dreams we dare to dream,
Aspire under the twinkling stars.
Over the wispy snowy peaks,
Peregrines soar, they fly.

Across the viridian greens,
Through the cloak of morning mists,
Blood red roses sway.
She who wakes upon a spring day.
Sigh... he who dares not breathe.