Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run,
Along Morea’s hills the setting Sun;
Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light;
O’er the hushed deep the yellow beam he throws,
Gilds the green wave that trembles as it glows;
On old ægina’s rock and Hydra’s isle
The God of gladness sheds his parting smile;
O’er his own regions lingering loves to shine,
Though there his altars are no more divine.
Descending fast, the mountain-shadows kiss
Thy glorious Gulf, unconquered Salamis!
Their azure arches through the long expanse,
More deeply purpled, meet his mellowing glance,
And tenderest tints, along their summits driven,
Mark his gay course, and own the hues of Heaven;
Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep,
Behind his Delphian rock he sinks to sleep.

  On such an eve his palest beam he cast
When, Athens! here thy Wisest looked his last.
How watched thy better sons his farewell ray,
That closed their murdered Sage’s latest day!
Not yet—not yet—Sol pauses on the hill,
The precious hour of parting lingers still;
But sad his light to agonizing eyes,
And dark the mountain’s once delightful dyes;
Gloom o’er the lovely land he seemed to pour,
The land where Phoebus never frowned before;
But ere he sunk below Cithaeron’s head,
The cup of Woe was quaffed—the Spirit fled;
The soul of Him that scorned to fear or fly,
Who lived and died as none can live or die.

  But lo! from high Hymettus to the plain
The Queen of Night asserts her silent reign;
No murky vapour, herald of the storm,
Hides her fair face, or girds her glowing form;
With cornice glimmering as the moonbeams play,
There the white column greets her grateful ray,
And bright around, with quivering beams beset,
Her emblem sparkles o’er the Minaret;
The groves of olive scattered dark and wide,
Where meek Cephisus sheds his scanty tide,
The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque,
The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk,
And sad and sombre ’mid the holy calm,
Near Theseus’ fane, yon solitary palm;
All, tinged with varied hues, arrest the eye;
And dull were his that passed them heedless by.
Again the ægean, heard no more afar,
Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war:
Again his waves in milder tints unfold
Their long expanse of sapphire and of gold,
Mixed with the shades of many a distant isle
That frown, where gentler Ocean deigns to smile.

  As thus, within the walls of Pallas’ fane,
I marked the beauties of the land and main,
Alone, and friendless, on the magic shore,
Whose arts and arms but live in poets’ lore;
Oft as the matchless dome I turned to scan,
Sacred to Gods, but not secure from Man,
The Past returned, the Present seemed to cease,
And Glory knew no clime beyond her Greece!

  Hour rolled along, and Dian’******on high
Had gained the centre of her softest sky;
And yet unwearied still my footsteps trod
O’er the vain shrine of many a vanished God:
But chiefly, Pallas! thine, when Hecate’s glare
Checked by thy columns, fell more sadly fair
O’er the chill marble, where the startling tread
Thrills the lone heart like echoes from the dead.
Long had I mused, and treasured every trace
The wreck of Greece recorded of her race,
When, lo! a giant-form before me strode,
And Pallas hailed me in her own Abode!

  Yes,’twas Minerva’s self; but, ah! how changed,
Since o’er the Dardan field in arms she ranged!
Not such as erst, by her divine command,
Her form appeared from Phidias’ plastic hand:
Gone were the terrors of her awful brow,
Her idle ægis bore no Gorgon now;
Her helm was dinted, and the broken lance
Seemed weak and shaftless e’en to mortal glance;
The Olive Branch, which still she deigned to clasp,
Shrunk from her touch, and withered in her grasp;
And, ah! though still the brightest of the sky,
Celestial tears bedimmed her large blue eye;
Round the rent casque her owlet circled slow,
And mourned his mistress with a shriek of woe!

  “Mortal!”—’twas thus she spake—”that blush of shame
Proclaims thee Briton, once a noble name;
First of the mighty, foremost of the free,
Now honoured ‘less’ by all, and ‘least’ by me:
Chief of thy foes shall Pallas still be found.
Seek’st thou the cause of loathing!—look around.
Lo! here, despite of war and wasting fire,
I saw successive Tyrannies expire;
‘Scaped from the ravage of the Turk and Goth,
Thy country sends a spoiler worse than both.
Survey this vacant, violated fane;
Recount the relics torn that yet remain:
‘These’ Cecrops placed, ‘this’ Pericles adorned,
‘That’ Adrian reared when drooping Science mourned.
What more I owe let Gratitude attest—
Know, Alaric and Elgin did the rest.
That all may learn from whence the plunderer came,
The insulted wall sustains his hated name:
For Elgin’s fame thus grateful Pallas pleads,
Below, his name—above, behold his deeds!
Be ever hailed with equal honour here
The Gothic monarch and the Pictish peer:
Arms gave the first his right, the last had none,
But basely stole what less barbarians won.
So when the Lion quits his fell repast,
Next prowls the Wolf, the filthy Jackal last:
Flesh, limbs, and blood the former make their own,
The last poor brute securely gnaws the bone.
Yet still the Gods are just, and crimes are crossed:
See here what Elgin won, and what he lost!
Another name with his pollutes my shrine:
Behold where Dian’s beams disdain to shine!
Some retribution still might Pallas claim,
When Venus half avenged Minerva’s shame.”

  She ceased awhile, and thus I dared reply,
To soothe the vengeance kindling in her eye:
“Daughter of Jove! in Britain’s injured name,
A true-born Briton may the deed disclaim.
Frown not on England; England owns him not:
Athena, no! thy plunderer was a Scot.
Ask’st thou the difference? From fair Phyles’ towers
Survey Boeotia;—Caledonia’s ours.
And well I know within that ******* land
Hath Wisdom’s goddess never held command;
A barren soil, where Nature’s germs, confined
To stern sterility, can stint the mind;
Whose thistle well betrays the niggard earth,
Emblem of all to whom the Land gives birth;
Each genial influence nurtured to resist;
A land of meanness, sophistry, and mist.
Each breeze from foggy mount and marshy plain
Dilutes with drivel every drizzly brain,
Till, burst at length, each wat’ry head o’erflows,
Foul as their soil, and frigid as their snows:
Then thousand schemes of petulance and pride
Despatch her scheming children far and wide;
Some East, some West, some—everywhere but North!
In quest of lawless gain, they issue forth.
And thus—accursed be the day and year!
She sent a Pict to play the felon here.
Yet Caledonia claims some native worth,
As dull Boeotia gave a Pindar birth;
So may her few, the lettered and the brave,
Bound to no clime, and victors of the grave,
Shake off the sordid dust of such a land,
And shine like children of a happier strand;
As once, of yore, in some obnoxious place,
Ten names (if found) had saved a wretched race.”

  “Mortal!” the blue-eyed maid resumed, “once more
Bear back my mandate to thy native shore.
Though fallen, alas! this vengeance yet is mine,
To turn my counsels far from lands like thine.
Hear then in silence Pallas’ stern behest;
Hear and believe, for Time will tell the rest.

  “First on the head of him who did this deed
My curse shall light,—on him and all his seed:
Without one spark of intellectual fire,
Be all the sons as senseless as the sire:
If one with wit the parent brood disgrace,
Believe him ******* of a brighter race:
Still with his hireling artists let him prate,
And Folly’s praise repay for Wisdom’s hate;
Long of their Patron’s gusto let them tell,
Whose noblest, native gusto is—to sell:
To sell, and make—may shame record the day!—
The State—Receiver of his pilfered prey.
Meantime, the flattering, feeble dotard, West,
Europe’s worst dauber, and poor Britain’s best,
With palsied hand shall turn each model o’er,
And own himself an infant of fourscore.
Be all the Bruisers culled from all St. Giles’,
That Art and Nature may compare their styles;
While brawny brutes in stupid wonder stare,
And marvel at his Lordship’s ’stone shop’ there.
Round the thronged gate shall sauntering coxcombs creep
To lounge and lucubrate, to prate and peep;
While many a languid maid, with longing sigh,
On giant statues casts the curious eye;
The room with transient glance appears to skim,
Yet marks the mighty back and length of limb;
Mourns o’er the difference of now and then;
Exclaims, ‘These Greeks indeed were proper men!’
Draws slight comparisons of ‘these’ with ‘those’,
And envies Laïs all her Attic beaux.
When shall a modern maid have swains like these?
Alas! Sir Harry is no Hercules!
And last of all, amidst the gaping crew,
Some calm spectator, as he takes his view,
In silent indignation mixed with grief,
Admires the plunder, but abhors the thief.
Oh, loathed in life, nor pardoned in the dust,
May Hate pursue his sacrilegious lust!
Linked with the fool that fired the Ephesian dome,
Shall vengeance follow far beyond the tomb,
And Eratostratus and Elgin shine
In many a branding page and burning line;
Alike reserved for aye to stand accursed,
Perchance the second blacker than the first.

  “So let him stand, through ages yet unborn,
Fixed statue on the pedestal of Scorn;
Though not for him alone revenge shall wait,
But fits thy country for her coming fate:
Hers were the deeds that taught her lawless son
To do what oft Britannia’s self had done.
Look to the Baltic—blazing from afar,
Your old Ally yet mourns perfidious war.
Not to such deeds did Pallas lend her aid,
Or break the compact which herself had made;
Far from such counsels, from the faithless field
She fled—but left behind her Gorgon shield;
A fatal gift that turned your friends to stone,
And left lost Albion hated and alone.

“Look to the East, where Ganges’ swarthy race
Shall shake your tyrant empire to its base;
Lo! there Rebellion rears her ghastly head,
And glares the Nemesis of native dead;
Till Indus rolls a deep purpureal flood,
And claims his long arrear of northern blood.
So may ye perish!—Pallas, when she gave
Your free-born rights, forbade ye to enslave.

  “Look on your Spain!—she clasps the hand she hates,
But boldly clasps, and thrusts you from her gates.
Bear witness, bright Barossa! thou canst tell
Whose were the sons that bravely fought and fell.
But Lusitania, kind and dear ally,
Can spare a few to fight, and sometimes fly.
Oh glorious field! by Famine fiercely won,
The Gaul retires for once, and all is done!
But when did Pallas teach, that one retreat
Retrieved three long Olympiads of defeat?

  “Look last at home—ye love not to look there
On the grim smile of comfortless despair:
Your city saddens: loud though Revel howls,
Here Famine faints, and yonder Rapine prowls.
See all alike of more or less bereft;
No misers tremble when there’s nothing left.
‘Blest paper credit;’ who shall dare to sing?
It clogs like lead Corruption’s weary wing.
Yet Pallas pluck’d each Premier by the ear,
Who Gods and men alike disdained to hear;
But one, repentant o’er a bankrupt state,
On Pallas calls,—but calls, alas! too late:
Then raves for’——’; to that Mentor bends,
Though he and Pallas never yet were friends.
Him senates hear, whom never yet they heard,
Contemptuous once, and now no less absurd.
So, once of yore, each reasonable frog,
Swore faith and fealty to his sovereign ‘log.’
Thus hailed your rulers their patrician clod,
As Egypt chose an onion for a God.

  “Now fare ye well! enjoy your little hour;
Go, grasp the shadow of your vanished power;
Gloss o’er the failure of each fondest scheme;
Your strength a name, your bloated wealth a dream.
Gone is that Gold, the marvel of mankind.
And Pirates barter all that’s left behind.
No more the hirelings, purchased near and far,
Crowd to the ranks of mercenary war.
The idle merchant on the useless quay
Droops o’er the bales no bark may bear away;
Or, back returning, sees rejected stores
Rot piecemeal on his own encumbered shores:
The starved mechanic breaks his rusting loom,
And desperate mans him ‘gainst the coming doom.
Then in the Senates of your sinking state
Show me the man whose counsels may have weight.
Vain is each voice where tones could once command;
E’en factions cease to charm a factious land:
Yet jarring sects convulse a sister Isle,
And light with maddening hands the mutual pile.

  “’Tis done, ’tis past—since Pallas warns in vain;
The Furies seize her abdicated reign:
Wide o’er the realm they wave their kindling brands,
And wring her vitals with their fiery hands.
But one convulsive struggle still remains,
And Gaul shall weep ere Albion wear her chains,
The bannered pomp of war, the glittering files,
O’er whose gay trappings stern Bellona smiles;
The brazen trump, the spirit-stirring drum,
That bid the foe defiance ere they come;
The hero bounding at his country’s call,
The glorious death that consecrates his fall,
Swell the young heart with visionary charms.
And bid it antedate the joys of arms.
But know, a lesson you may yet be taught,
With death alone are laurels cheaply bought;
Not in the conflict Havoc seeks delight,
His day of mercy is the day of fight.
But when the field is fought, the battle won,
Though drenched with gore, his woes are but begun:
His deeper deeds as yet ye know by name;
The slaughtered peasant and the ravished dame,
The rifled mansion and the foe-reaped field,
Ill suit with souls at home, untaught to yield.
Say with what eye along the distant down
Would flying burghers mark the blazing town?
How view the column of ascending flames
Shake his red shadow o’er the startled Thames?
Nay, frown not, Albion! for the torch was thine
That lit such pyres from Tagus to the Rhine:
Now should they burst on thy devoted coast,
Go, ask thy ***** who deserves them most?
The law of Heaven and Earth is life for life,
And she who raised, in vain regrets, the strife.”

1

You said 'The world is going back to Paganism'.
Oh bright Vision! I saw our dynasty in the bar of the House
Spill from their tumblers a libation to the Erinyes,
And Leavis with Lord Russell wreathed in flowers, heralded with flutes,
Leading white bulls to the cathedral of the solemn Muses
To pay where due the glory of their latest theorem.
Hestia's fire in every flat, rekindled, burned before
The Lardergods. Unmarried daughters with obedient hands
Tended it By the hearth the white-armd venerable mother
Domum servabat, lanam faciebat. at the hour
Of sacrifice their brothers came, silent, corrected, grave
Before their elders; on their downy cheeks easily the blush
Arose (it is the mark of freemen's children) as they trooped,
Gleaming with oil, demurely home from the palaestra or the dance.
Walk carefully, do not wake the envy of the happy gods,
Shun Hubris. The middle of the road, the middle sort of men,
Are best. Aidos surpasses gold. Reverence for the aged
Is wholesome as seasonable rain, and for a man to die
Defending the city in battle is a harmonious thing.
Thus with magistral hand the Puritan Sophrosune
Cooled and schooled and tempered our uneasy motions;
Heathendom came again, the circumspection and the holy fears ...
You said it. Did you mean it? Oh inordinate liar, stop.

2

Or did you mean another kind of heathenry?
Think, then, that under heaven-roof the little disc of the earth,
Fortified Midgard, lies encircled by the ravening Worm.
Over its icy bastions faces of giant and troll
Look in, ready to invade it. The Wolf, admittedly, is bound;
But the bond wil1 break, the Beast run free. The weary gods,
Scarred with old wounds the one-eyed Odin, Tyr who has lost a hand,
Will limp to their stations for the Last defence. Make it your hope
To be counted worthy on that day to stand beside them;
For the end of man is to partake of their defeat and die
His second, final death in good company. The stupid, strong
Unteachable monsters are certain to be victorious at last,
And every man of decent blood is on the losing side.
Take as your model the tall women with yellow hair in plaits
Who walked back into burning houses to die with men,
Or him who as the death spear entered into his vitals
Made critical comments on its workmanship and aim.
Are these the Pagans you spoke of? Know your betters and crouch, dogs;
You that have Vichy water in your veins and worship the event
Your goddess History (whom your fathers called the strumpet Fortune).

A Verse In Time: A Trickster’s Alchemical Approach to Memory in Three Waves

(Warning: The following collection contains depictions of three waves
of the psychedelic experience—particularly with God’s allies, Los Aliados, the mushrooms—and like the psychedelic experience each wave possesses its own waves within itself.  Ride with discretion.)

.

Wave I: The Allies’ Nursery Rhyme

The Allies
came to visit
and take me
on a trip.
No need for boat
or bus
or plane
or even rocket ship.
The galaxy, as they explained
resides inside your mind,
The portals to the universe
are windows you call eyes.
Instead of always looking out
you should try to look within.
The ending you have always feared
is exactly where you begin.

Yes, all the spans of time and space
exist in you behind your face
and yet you cannot understand
that nothing is a race.

Oh wait, please be careful with that mirror
when we are here and you draw nearer.
Don’t let the face of everyone replace your face with fear.
You are Horus, Mary, Jesus Christ, Cervantes, and Shakespeare,
and all the men from beast to mice, from oceans down to tears.

And so they pried behind my face
and pushed me on through outer space
and soon enough I understood
there never was a race.

It all exists right here, right now—
the past, the future, the grass, the cow,
the vast, the nature, the cash, the house,
the king and the savior
the beast and the mouse
are all your creation,
your relation,
your spouse,
your Path,
your Bible,
your ‘Gita,
your Tao.

It is all
of your moment,
It is all
of your now.

For you are the mystery
of that which you seek.
You invented the minutes, the hours, the weeks,
the deserts, the rivers, the valleys, and peaks,
your digits, extremities, elbows, and knees.
You created the cure, you invent the disease.
The labyrinth is you and
You defeat it with ease.
To master the Minotaur just follow the string
Discover the dinosaur, discover the king,
discover this grandiose song that you sing,
and uncover the truth of the message you bring
when you ring bells or

Stroke piano keys
and make the doctor sweat.
The pranksters shifting shapes again,
it’s time to make a bet.
With silly laws of threes and fives, this riddle I repeat, replies
that by the time the rhyme is over, the trickster will arrive.
Gliding up in cycles by, the prankster grins and winks his eye.
He fabricates a fluffy fix with fuzzy snow white lies
to bring the doctor to a six then down to four inside
and bring the tempest to a wave
on which the four can ride.

Do we glide?
Do we slide?
Do we fly really high?
Do we bobble and sink
with the rise of the tide?

I remember the brink
the cellular stride, the following leap,
the primitive mind
I remember the dirt, the water, the fire,
the wind and the ether,
the passion, desire.
I remember that art
can never expire.

Do we depart?
Do we retire?

The answer is yes,
The answer is no,
The answer’s the same wherever you go.
It’s never too fast,
it’s never too slow
and you are never the last to not really know.
For the sun always shines,
the moon always glows,
the old always die,
the young always grow,
The seeds that you plant
are the trees that you sow,
from the bees and the ants
to the bulls and
black holes.

It is all
in your stance.
It is all
in your
soul,

When you follow your dance
the bliss
takes control.
Take your place
in the play
and master
your role.
The Aum
is your home
it’s inside
of your dome,
Whatever
you wonder,
Wherever
you roam.

And so it flows behind my face
the universe of time and space
Now I understand that time
is invented as the race

Yes, you are Borges, and Buddha, and Krishna,
and Lorca, and Vishnu, Dickinson, Lennon,
Eliot, Gandhi, Marley, McKenna,
Campbell, Picasso, Alpha, Omega.
You are your enemy,
your stranger,
your neighbor.
You are the peasant,
the king,
and the savior,
the mandala man,
the cosmic *******.
You are the taste
You are the flavor
and you are
the wave
the unwavering
Creator

Even us
as they explained
merely extend from you
A mirror to the macrocosm
for you to gaze into.




So when you get lost
within your lies
and cannot find
your rhyme,
Gather inside with your
Allies
and master
the maze
of
time.


Wave II: Contemplating The Allies’ Advice

Thunderbolts of cackling giggles
shutter through your vitals, shaking shoulders
and squirting tears from squinting eyes.
Exciting when dimensions hidden creep into your line of vision,
morphing mapping iridescence with a fleeting fuzzy phosphorescent
undulating elfin presence following your every contemplation.

Concentrating on a caterpillar crawling up the wall
how curious, this furry beast has fingers not to fall.
He folds into his fuzzy form, a sleeping bag to keep him warm,
a little home as still as lead.  He hibernates and contemplates,
waits and waits and transmutates into a gilded butterfly
that flutters through my head.

Violet translucent landscapes bleed through grass and trees,
focus on a precise place of time and space and witness the birth of the human race.  Projections made in fuzzy fourth dimensions quickly fade
if your gaze should wander.  Positioned to ponder,
you plunge into prepubescent wonder as a shooting star splits the sky wide open revealing heaven and everything under the sun is tune and the sun is eclipsed by the moon.  And once again, the music comments chronologically on your moments, as if all these notes and lyrics were cataloged to sync with the scenes of your epic voyage.

Destroying contemplation again, the sea ***** the wind through the trees
and blows a blue marine breeze through your hair.
Do you dare take the time to recognize the punctuality of the gale?
Should your frail and fragile mind be dangled from a line
to flap and fluff and figure out the nature of the rhyme of our mother?
You are your brother, your keeper, and your lover.

All the lines align and oscillate in cadenced flow,
the more you see with your mind the more your mind will know.  
A ****** brain may strain and throw a fit
if faced with the tricky truth of the third eye
Surprise! Who knew that Jesus Christ could sprout from cow ****?
Can you believe it?  Wow, Bob, wow.
Where do you think we got: ******* and holy cow?
Heaven is the here and now
and every time you try to leave
you lose what you have found.

(* All words in italics come from    
   various songs, films, works of        
   literature, etc. and are not the words    
  of the author.)


Wave III: Los Aliados Wake

An apple carries a story deeper than the tree,
More nourishing than the luscious skin,
More central than the seed.
for the apple gave original sin
and knowledge from within
and fell upon the head, announcing gravity.
Have you ever heard the tale of Johnny Melon seed?
(The apple is global, so I wonder why,
what could be patriotic of pie?
Is it not just a strudel,
a pastry disguised?)

The colors we create
distort. manipulate.
The fools who follow fear
are doomed to find their fate
between their ears
where the colors seem
to blend and stream
and almost disappear.
To wonder why we’re here
all colors must appear
and merge into the blinding light
that obliterates our fear.

All your dreams, your fantasies, your symbols, and beliefs,
all a compass pointing you to endless mystery.
The treasure that you seek
resides inside the Self,
A jewel within the rock,
A book upon the shelf.


I bought the ticket,
I’m taking the ride.
I’m spiraling miles through the bowels of time.
I’m spinning and laughing
and losing my mind
and finding
it always returns
just in time.
It’s right where it left me,
so I’ll leave it behind
and return when
I’m ready
to relish the ride
with a bite
from the apple
of my
holy
third
eye.

i don't
even know him.
i only recognize his vitals
rapidly diminishing on
the screen before me.

i'm wrong, this is wrong,
everything is wrong.
i'm trespassing on
vulnerability.

he knows;
he gets it --
how this place
can make you
feel like hell
without even
trying.

if belief were among
my faults, indeed
it would **** me to
scroll again  
        (and again)
through artificial
papyrus, through
reeds and lights
and electronics;

because every
new click
brings another
wrench.
tug at the
heartstrings;
what heartstrings?
these leave nothing behind.

because of you,
i am destroyed.
i am assimilated,
i am protein.
because of you,
i am denatured.

turn down your flame, nolan,
there isn't enough fuel
for you to burn so
brightly
for so
long.

****** Up

Just a ****** up girl with a ****** up life
Not seen not heard not wanted
But that's just life isnt it?
People not caring

Just a ****** up girl with a ****** up life
Alone abused abandoned
Friends aren't there
Parents don't care

Just a ****** up girl with a ****** up life
Dejected deserted neglected
Living a lie
Begging to die

Just a ****** up girl with a ****** up life
Shattered crushed broken
Vitals failing
Everyone's bailing

Just a ****** up girl with a ****** up life
Exhausted ruined drained
Hopelessness surrounds her
Life is a blur

Just a ****** up girl with a ****** up life
Not seen not heard not wanted
But that's what life is isnt it?
*People not caring

And Ulysses answered, “King Alcinous, it is a good thing to hear a
bard with such a divine voice as this man has. There is nothing better
or more delightful than when a whole people make merry together,
with the guests sitting orderly to listen, while the table is loaded
with bread and meats, and the cup-bearer draws wine and fills his
cup for every man. This is indeed as fair a sight as a man can see.
Now, however, since you are inclined to ask the story of my sorrows,
and rekindle my own sad memories in respect of them, I do not know how
to begin, nor yet how to continue and conclude my tale, for the hand
of heaven has been laid heavily upon me.
  “Firstly, then, I will tell you my name that you too may know it,
and one day, if I outlive this time of sorrow, may become my there
guests though I live so far away from all of you. I am Ulysses son
of Laertes, reknowned among mankind for all manner of subtlety, so
that my fame ascends to heaven. I live in Ithaca, where there is a
high mountain called Neritum, covered with forests; and not far from
it there is a group of islands very near to one another—Dulichium,
Same, and the wooded island of Zacynthus. It lies squat on the
horizon, all highest up in the sea towards the sunset, while the
others lie away from it towards dawn. It is a rugged island, but it
breeds brave men, and my eyes know none that they better love to
look upon. The goddess Calypso kept me with her in her cave, and
wanted me to marry her, as did also the cunning Aeaean goddess
Circe; but they could neither of them persuade me, for there is
nothing dearer to a man than his own country and his parents, and
however splendid a home he may have in a foreign country, if it be far
from father or mother, he does not care about it. Now, however, I will
tell you of the many hazardous adventures which by Jove’s will I met
with on my return from Troy.
  “When I had set sail thence the wind took me first to Ismarus, which
is the city of the Cicons. There I sacked the town and put the
people to the sword. We took their wives and also much *****, which we
divided equitably amongst us, so that none might have reason to
complain. I then said that we had better make off at once, but my
men very foolishly would not obey me, so they stayed there drinking
much wine and killing great numbers of sheep and oxen on the sea
shore. Meanwhile the Cicons cried out for help to other Cicons who
lived inland. These were more in number, and stronger, and they were
more skilled in the art of war, for they could fight, either from
chariots or on foot as the occasion served; in the morning, therefore,
they came as thick as leaves and bloom in summer, and the hand of
heaven was against us, so that we were hard pressed. They set the
battle in array near the ships, and the hosts aimed their
bronze-shod spears at one another. So long as the day waxed and it was
still morning, we held our own against them, though they were more
in number than we; but as the sun went down, towards the time when men
loose their oxen, the Cicons got the better of us, and we lost half
a dozen men from every ship we had; so we got away with those that
were left.
  “Thence we sailed onward with sorrow in our hearts, but glad to have
escaped death though we had lost our comrades, nor did we leave till
we had thrice invoked each one of the poor fellows who had perished by
the hands of the Cicons. Then Jove raised the North wind against us
till it blew a hurricane, so that land and sky were hidden in thick
clouds, and night sprang forth out of the heavens. We let the ships
run before the gale, but the force of the wind tore our sails to
tatters, so we took them down for fear of shipwreck, and rowed our
hardest towards the land. There we lay two days and two nights
suffering much alike from toil and distress of mind, but on the
morning of the third day we again raised our masts, set sail, and took
our places, letting the wind and steersmen direct our ship. I should
have got home at that time unharmed had not the North wind and the
currents been against me as I was doubling Cape Malea, and set me
off my course hard by the island of Cythera.
  “I was driven thence by foul winds for a space of nine days upon the
sea, but on the tenth day we reached the land of the Lotus-eater,
who live on a food that comes from a kind of flower. Here we landed to
take in fresh water, and our crews got their mid-day meal on the shore
near the ships. When they had eaten and drunk I sent two of my company
to see what manner of men the people of the place might be, and they
had a third man under them. They started at once, and went about among
the Lotus-eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the
lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring
about home, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened
to them, but were for staying and munching lotus with the
Lotus-eater without thinking further of their return; nevertheless,
though they wept bitterly I forced them back to the ships and made
them fast under the benches. Then I told the rest to go on board at
once, lest any of them should taste of the lotus and leave off wanting
to get home, so they took their places and smote the grey sea with
their oars.
  “We sailed hence, always in much distress, till we came to the
land of the lawless and inhuman Cyclopes. Now the Cyclopes neither
plant nor plough, but trust in providence, and live on such wheat,
barley, and grapes as grow wild without any kind of tillage, and their
wild grapes yield them wine as the sun and the rain may grow them.
They have no laws nor assemblies of the people, but live in caves on
the tops of high mountains; each is lord and master in his family, and
they take no account of their neighbours.
  “Now off their harbour there lies a wooded and fertile island not
quite close to the land of the Cyclopes, but still not far. It is
overrun with wild goats, that breed there in great numbers and are
never disturbed by foot of man; for sportsmen—who as a rule will
suffer so much hardship in forest or among mountain precipices—do not
go there, nor yet again is it ever ploughed or fed down, but it lies a
wilderness untilled and unsown from year to year, and has no living
thing upon it but only goats. For the Cyclopes have no ships, nor
yet shipwrights who could make ships for them; they cannot therefore
go from city to city, or sail over the sea to one another’s country as
people who have ships can do; if they had had these they would have
colonized the island, for it is a very good one, and would yield
everything in due season. There are meadows that in some places come
right down to the sea shore, well watered and full of luscious
grass; grapes would do there excellently; there is level land for
ploughing, and it would always yield heavily at harvest time, for
the soil is deep. There is a good harbour where no cables are
wanted, nor yet anchors, nor need a ship be moored, but all one has to
do is to beach one’s vessel and stay there till the wind becomes
fair for putting out to sea again. At the head of the harbour there is
a spring of clear water coming out of a cave, and there are poplars
growing all round it.
  “Here we entered, but so dark was the night that some god must
have brought us in, for there was nothing whatever to be seen. A thick
mist hung all round our ships; the moon was hidden behind a mass of
clouds so that no one could have seen the island if he had looked
for it, nor were there any breakers to tell us we were close in
shore before we found ourselves upon the land itself; when, however,
we had beached the ships, we took down the sails, went ashore and
camped upon the beach till daybreak.
  “When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, we admired
the island and wandered all over it, while the nymphs Jove’s daughters
roused the wild goats that we might get some meat for our dinner. On
this we fetched our spears and bows and arrows from the ships, and
dividing ourselves into three bands began to shoot the goats. Heaven
sent us excellent sport; I had twelve ships with me, and each ship got
nine goats, while my own ship had ten; thus through the livelong day
to the going down of the sun we ate and drank our fill,—and we had
plenty of wine left, for each one of us had taken many jars full
when we sacked the city of the Cicons, and this had not yet run out.
While we were feasting we kept turning our eyes towards the land of
the Cyclopes, which was hard by, and saw the smoke of their stubble
fires. We could almost fancy we heard their voices and the bleating of
their sheep and goats, but when the sun went down and it came on dark,
we camped down upon the beach, and next morning I called a council.
  “‘Stay here, my brave fellows,’ said I, ‘all the rest of you,
while I go with my ship and exploit these people myself: I want to see
if they are uncivilized savages, or a hospitable and humane race.’
  “I went on board, bidding my men to do so also and loose the
hawsers; so they took their places and smote the grey sea with their
oars. When we got to the land, which was not far, there, on the face
of a cliff near the sea, we saw a great cave overhung with laurels. It
was a station for a great many sheep and goats, and outside there
was a large yard, with a high wall round it made of stones built
into the ground and of trees both pine and oak. This was the abode
of a huge monster who was then away from home shepherding his
flocks. He would have nothing to do with other people, but led the
life of an outlaw. He was a horrid creature, not like a human being at
all, but resembling rather some crag that stands out boldly against
the sky on the top of a high mountain.
  “I told my men to draw the ship ashore, and stay where they were,
all but the twelve best among them, who were to go along with
myself. I also took a goatskin of sweet black wine which had been
given me by Maron, Apollo son of Euanthes, who was priest of Apollo
the patron god of Ismarus, and lived within the wooded precincts of
the temple. When we were sacking the city we respected him, and spared
his life, as also his wife and child; so he made me some presents of
great value—seven talents of fine gold, and a bowl of silver, with
twelve jars of sweet wine, unblended, and of the most exquisite
flavour. Not a man nor maid in the house knew about it, but only
himself, his wife, and one housekeeper: when he drank it he mixed
twenty parts of water to one of wine, and yet the fragrance from the
mixing-bowl was so exquisite that it was impossible to refrain from
drinking. I filled a large skin with this wine, and took a wallet full
of provisions with me, for my mind misgave me that I might have to
deal with some savage who would be of great strength, and would
respect neither right nor law.
  “We soon reached his cave, but he was out shepherding, so we went
inside and took stock of all that we could see. His cheese-racks
were loaded with cheeses, and he had more lambs and kids than his pens
could hold. They were kept in separate flocks; first there were the
hoggets, then the oldest of the younger lambs and lastly the very
young ones all kept apart from one another; as for his dairy, all
the vessels, bowls, and milk pails into which he milked, were swimming
with whey. When they saw all this, my men begged me to let them
first steal some cheeses, and make off with them to the ship; they
would then return, drive down the lambs and kids, put them on board
and sail away with them. It would have been indeed better if we had
done so but I would not listen to them, for I wanted to see the
owner himself, in the hope that he might give me a present. When,
however, we saw him my poor men found him ill to deal with.
  “We lit a fire, offered some of the cheeses in sacrifice, ate others
of them, and then sat waiting till the Cyclops should come in with his
sheep. When he came, he brought in with him a huge load of dry
firewood to light the fire for his supper, and this he flung with such
a noise on to the floor of his cave that we hid ourselves for fear
at the far end of the cavern. Meanwhile he drove all the ewes
inside, as well as the she-goats that he was going to milk, leaving
the males, both rams and he-goats, outside in the yards. Then he
rolled a huge stone to the mouth of the cave—so huge that two and
twenty strong four-wheeled waggons would not be enough to draw it from
its place against the doorway. When he had so done he sat down and
milked his ewes and goats, all in due course, and then let each of
them have her own young. He curdled half the milk and set it aside
in wicker strainers, but the other half he poured into bowls that he
might drink it for his supper. When he had got through with all his
work, he lit the fire, and then caught sight of us, whereon he said:
  “‘Strangers, who are you? Where do sail from? Are you traders, or do
you sail the as rovers, with your hands against every man, and every
man’s hand against you?’
  “We were frightened out of our senses by his loud voice and
monstrous form, but I managed to say, ‘We are Achaeans on our way home
from Troy, but by the will of Jove, and stress of weather, we have
been driven far out of our course. We are the people of Agamemnon, son
of Atreus, who has won infinite renown throughout the whole world,
by sacking so great a city and killing so many people. We therefore
humbly pray you to show us some hospitality, and otherwise make us
such presents as visitors may reasonably expect. May your excellency
fear the wrath of heaven, for we are your suppliants, and Jove takes
all respectable travellers under his protection, for he is the avenger
of all suppliants and foreigners in distress.’
  “To this he gave me but a pitiless answer, ‘Stranger,’ said he, ‘you
are a fool, or else you know nothing of this country. Talk to me,
indeed, about fearing the gods or shunning their anger? We Cyclopes do
not care about Jove or any of your blessed gods, for we are ever so
much stronger than they. I shall not spare either yourself or your
companions out of any regard for Jove, unless I am in the humour for
doing so. And now tell me where you made your ship fast when you
came on shore. Was it round the point, or is she lying straight off
the land?’
  “He said this to draw me out, but I was too cunning to be caught
in that way, so I answered with a lie; ‘Neptune,’ said I, ’sent my
ship on to the rocks at the far end of your country, and wrecked it.
We were driven on to them from the open sea, but I and those who are
with me escaped the jaws of death.’
  “The cruel wretch vouchsafed me not one word of answer, but with a
sudden clutch he gripped up two of my men at once and dashed them down
upon the ground as though they had been puppies. Their brains were
shed upon the ground, and the earth was wet with their blood. Then
he tore them limb from limb and supped upon them. He gobbled them up
like a lion in the wilderness, flesh, bones, marrow, and entrails,
without leaving anything uneaten. As for us, we wept and lifted up our
hands to heaven on seeing such a horrid sight, for we did not know
what else to do; but when the Cyclops had filled his huge paunch,
and had washed down his meal of human flesh with a drink of neat milk,
he stretched himself full length upon the ground among his sheep,
and went to sleep. I was at first inclined to seize my sword, draw it,
and drive it into his vitals, but I reflected that if I did we
should all certainly be lost, for we should never be able to shift the
stone which the monster had put in front of the door. So we stayed
sobbing and sighing where we were till morning came.
  “When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, he again
lit his fire, milked his goats and ewes, all quite rightly, and then
let each have her own young one; as soon as he had got through with
all his work, he clutched up two more of my men, and began eating them
for his morning’s meal. Presently, with the utmost ease, he rolled the
stone away from the door and drove out his sheep, but he at once put
it back again—as easily as though he were merely clapping the lid
on to a

Shane Page made a quick call to his daughter, LeAnn, as he waited in the hospital lounge. “Hey, Dad, what’s up? You sound kind of upset.”

“LeAnn, Grandpa had a heart attack…”

LeAnn’s dark brown eyes grew large. “Is Grandpa dead?”, she asked. She was fourteen years old, and a wise, sensitive girl who cared a lot about her grandpa.

“No, not that, hon. The doctor says he will recover, but he had some blockages and he needs some fixing up.  He’s resting right now, pretty comfortably. I just wanted you to know where I was and that I’m okay—so don’t you worry. Look out after your brother…” He sighed in exhaustion and ran his fingers through the top of his dark hair. “It’s going to be a while before I’m home.”

“Well, wait a minute!” she protested.  “Why can’t Trevor and I go with you? Maybe Mom can drive us up there.”

Shane started to raise his voice, “Leave your mom out of this!” Then he realized his tone was a bit harsh and said more calmly, “You two got school tomorrow and there’s no need for you to be here now. Anyway, I don’t want to involve Mom.”

Shane and his wife, Megan, have been separated for four months now. It would be more than likely that they would be getting divorced. LeAnn, and her brother, Trevor—who was eleven-years-old—were staying with their father. It worked out that they remain in their home.  

“Dad”, LeAnn insisted. “She’s still our mom…”

“Just look out for Trevor. Ok?”

Shane got off the phone, and just sat there staring at the television but having no real desire to even pay any attention. That was the farthest thing from his mind. Around him were a few other tired people, looking about as frustrated, tired or worried as he was.

It has been a trying year for him. Still struggling with his marriage issues and now he was dealing with his father’s health problems. At age thirty-six, Shane was a young father when he married Megan. He felt it was the right thing to do considering she was pregnant at the time. The odds were against them remaining married, but they made if farther than anyone would have expected.  He certainly remained married longer than his parents—who were married for seven years—but he blamed his parent’s divorce on his womanizing, cheating father, a man he did not want to follow in his footsteps.

Dr. Bakkal had spoken to Shane, earlier. “Your father’s fortunate he made it in when he did. He was in requirement of two stents, and he was resistant to having them put in. I told him if he wants to continue to live, he’d be wise to get them. Otherwise, he’ll be in the same boat, but now we can prolong his life.”

“So he’s refusing?” Shane asked. That was his father, alright, stubbornly pigheaded to the bitter end.

“Thankfully, he signed for consent and he’s allowing you to be included in conversation over his medical issues. But really it is a good idea for him to have a power of attorney. You are his only son? ”

“Right.—I’m it”, Shane responded. “Well, that’s my dad for you. He thinks he’s got it all under control. Anyway, I’d be okay with being power of attorney, but who knows if he’d even have me. I don’t need to tell you he’s a stubborn man. He’s a proud man—too proud.”

“That he is”, Dr Bakkal agreed. “He doesn’t have a wife who can step up to the plate?”

Shane laughed a little. “He’s had four wives. My mom was the first. The lady he has been seeing now I’m sure saved his life. She was the one who demanded he go to the hospital and she drove him here. But she called me up and says she’s done with him.” The strain was obvious, as it was written all over Shane’s face. “He’s a headache, Doctor. He drinks too much. He smokes. He has yet to meet a vegetable…”

The doctor stated, “But things don’t sink in until we are forced to face them, sometimes. And he thinks because he looks alright on the outside, he’s okay on the inside—a fairly handsome man—a ladies man—who is, one used to being his own boss.”  

Shane agreed, but his face was grimaced. “That he is, Doctor. That he is. Yeah, but when the ladies get wind that he ends up treating them pretty shabbily—well, I’m not going to fill in the details. Four wives should tell you the answer.”

Dr. Bakkal put his hand on Shane’s shoulder. “Ah, but you seem to have a good head on your shoulders. I’ve no doubt you have some sense.”

Shane nodded.

Nodding his head—drifting in and out of sleep—Shane continued to wait in the lounge. Soon, Shane’s dad, Carl, had been able to get into his own room. Shane was able to go in and see him. Like Carl had told one of the nurses, he was “all wires, tubes and coils” and he had “enough numbers lighting up on fancy gadgets to keep the place busy” as his vitals were constantly monitored. Soundly sleeping, he seemed much smaller in his hospital bed with his face half shielded by an oxygen mask. What a strange sight it was. He hadn’t seen his dad in the hospital since his gall bladder surgery several years ago.  It was a bit unsettling for Shane to see him this way.

He didn’t want to wake his dad, so Shane just grabbed up a chair and sat by the foot of the bed. Before long, he had fallen asleep, too. When his phone range, he was entirely confused as to the time, even to what day it was.

“Hey, Dad, how’s grandpa doing?”

Looking at his watch and then peering out into the darkness out the window, he answered, “What’s that I hear…in the background? LeAnn, is that your mother there?”

“Yeah, Dad, I told her. She felt like we needed her and she’s making dinner for us.” Megan could be heard in the background talking with Trevor.

Shane frowned. “Oh, great! Didn’t I tell you not to involve Mom? You are perfectly capable of cooking, LeAnn. You do a good job, and—“

LeAnn abruptly handed her mother the phone. “Shane”, Megan said. “You can shut me out from helping you, but you can’t shut me out from helping my kids. Don’t act like you couldn’t use a hand.”

“I’ll be home soon”, he insisted. “It’s really not necessary. I’m not trying to be a **** about it…”

“You stay there as long as you need to. I can call Uncle Sal and tell him you might not be into work tomorrow.”

Shane worked as a manager and mechanic in his maternal uncle’s car repair shop. “Megan, I am quite capable of doing this kind of stuff, you know!” He hesitated and gave in to what he saw as interference.  Perhaps, guilt compelled her to come over. After all, she was the one who walked away. She was the one who was unfaithful, the one who strayed.  He added, “You want to look after the kids—then fine. I’ll worry about me”.  

“Well, you got it! I won’t interfere too much in your life, Shane. You’re just a chip off the old block,” she remarked, referring to his stubborn father. “The kids and I are doing just fine. I got it covered! Okay?”

“Hi, Dad! Love you!” Trevor boomed out from the background.

Megan laughed. “You caught that, didn’t you? I think the whole neighborhood did”.

There was no use trying to resist Megan’s help. “Tell the kids that their grandpa is comfortable, sleeping like a log. They can see him soon enough.” He stopped as a nurse came into the room to check in on his father. They briefly smiled at each other.

“Give them each a kiss and a hug for me”, he said, lastly, almost choking up. He wished it was like it was before—the four of them under one roof. But that was not going to happen.    

Shane met Megan at a party. She was a college student learning to be a teacher. He was working for his uncle in his auto repair shop. The plans were set for Shane to take over that shop one day. Uncle Sal had three daughters, none of them the least bit interested in taking over the business. When he met Megan, he was doing well for himself.

It was love at first sight for him. He was attracted to her fun loving personality, as well as her beauty. Her blue-green eyes would light up the room. At first, Megan wasn’t feeling the same way. Shane did slowly grow on her, this “grease monkey” with his serious nature and beyond his years. They would talk about their future together, for they really did enjoy each other’s company. But then reality hit them in the face when Megan became pregnant with LeAnn, and they married very soon. He wanted to marry her anyway, but now it was a matter of integrity. Shane wanted his child to have parents who were married and for his kid to know him better than he knew his dad.  

Megan gave up on her schooling, not becoming the teacher that she dreamed of. Shane often wondered if she resented him for this—like it was entirely his fault—though Megan never expressed that to him. A few years later and Trevor came. Plans to go back to school were put on hold. That light in those eyes seemed to grow dim, but he didn’t really notice that she was unhappy. He seemed to lose focus.

Such thoughts were punishing at this time, and he tried to bury them deep down. It was amazing that he was able to have a sound sleep in the hospital, resting in the chair in his father’s room. Next time he opened his eyes, the sun was shining. He looked up, disoriented a bit, as he noticed his dad looking at him, a small smile on his face and no more oxygen masks.

“Hell, Son”, Carl said in a gruff voice.. “You look worse than I do”. Carl’s thick head of grey hair was disheveled, and his usually, neatly trimmed mustache was invaded by surrounding ****** stubble.  

Shane got up and stretched and said back, “Thanks, Dad. Good morning to you, too.”   He looked at his watch and added, “Glad you’re alive. You scared the hell out me. You got your grandkids worried.”

“Well…get me out of this ****** hospital and I’ll show you I can get around just fine”.

“Whoa! Whoa! Superman—you are not! Just lay back, relax a while, and do what the doctors tell you.”

“Like what?” Carl asked with a furrowed brow.

Shane was careful not to lose his temper. “Well, for one, you can quit smoking. Two, you can give up the *****. Three—take your cholesterol medicine…”

“Ok….ok….you sound like your mother now”.

Shane knew it would go in one ear and out the other. He stood by the window looking down in the parking lot. “Yeah, Dad, Maybe I do sound like Mom, but someone’s got to tell it to you straight. Put some sense into you. Stop just for once and think of someone else besides you. If no one else, think of LeAnn and Trevor.” He paused and added, “Think about me for once.”

Carl laughed and mocked him, “Poor, little Shane’s got it so bad. I’m not against you, Son, okay? You’re a big boy, so man up! I’m sixty-nine years old! My old man was gone by fifty.” He started having one of his coughing spells, his cough like an old smoker’s cough.

Shane shot him a sharp look. “I guess I’m a fool to expect any better. Can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear—as mom always says. Obviously, just wasting my time here!” He went to grab his jacket to leave.

Carl boomed, cheerfully, “Well speak of the devil!”

“What?” Shane asked, unaware of what was going on. He turned around and there was his mother standing in the doorway. He smirked and said, “Mom, I’m surprised to see you! LeAnn, right? ”

Rosina smiled and nodded as she entered the room. With salt and pepper hair, and an olive complexion, she commanded the room with her presence. Carl always referred to her as “Queen Bee”, for she had that quality—regal like a Roman statue when he first laid eyes on her—though she was down-to-earth in reality.

Carl groaned at the thought of her coming. “Is it safe for a person to be in here?” she asked, in her grand entrance.   She whipped Carl a stern glance. I’m not here for you!” Then she gave a look of concern her son, and told him, “I’m here because I’m supporting you, my dear. And yes, LeAnn called me.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek, and a quick hug, and he returned the loving gesture.


“Mom, you didn’t need to drive over an hour to come up here. But since you are—have a seat.”

“You sure as hell didn’t, Rosie”, Carl echoed.

“Oh be quiet!” she ordered Carl, putting him in his place. She dismissed the offer of the seat, and told her ex- husband. “I’m worried about my only son, but I also am interested in how you’re doing…if my grandchildren will still have a grandfather. Take better care of yourself and maybe they will.”

Shane comments were sardonic. “Maybe miracles still happen…like quitting smoking, boozing, and maybe doing some walking and healthier eating…but since when has Dad ever listened to you or me?”

Carl attempted to sit up and get out of bed, but the effort was ridiculous. He groaned in pain. “Give a poor guy some rest, already! You two are just a couple of nags!”

Rosina sneered. “Old nag—old hag—*******—say what you want about me, but you know I’m right! Anyway, you are outnumbered. Or am I, Shane, and the nurses and doctors all talking out their rear ends?”

Carl made a face. If only he could just get out of here.

“Honey”, she said to Shane. I’ll be downstairs in the cafeteria. I’d like some coffee. You can join me down there if you’d like and we can talk.”

“In a little while, Mom, thanks”, he replied.

Rosina walked up closer to Carl and put her hand lovingly upon his chest. “I really do want you to get well, old man. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t care.”

“I know you do”, Carl admitted. “That is one of your faults. You don’t stay ****** forever.”

Carl was more scared than he would let on. He hated hospitals. He would do anything to just be back home in his recliner, watching a football game and having a few beers. What he wouldn’t do for just one puff on a smoke, too. Anxious, he tried to hide his fear, but it was just a smoke screen. He didn’t want anyone to know how he truly felt, nor did he want anyone to feel sorry for him.

There was silence for several minutes. Shane had said all that he should say. After all, he knew his dad probably wouldn’t listen. “Hey, Dad”, he finally said. “LeAnn’s going to her school dance. There’s a boy that likes her, but I’m really not ready for that.”

Carl grinned. “She’s a pretty girl, alright. Takes after her grandma when she was something else—way back, you know. The girl looks more like your ma than you do, though always felt you took after her look instead of me”. Carl’s background was English, Scottish and Welsh, and Rosina was full Italian. To Carl’s side of the family, he looked like his dad. To his mother’s side, he resembled her. Trevor took very much after Megan, with light brown hair and those blue-green eyes.

“Yeah, she is growing into quite a beautiful young lady”, Shane agreed “I got to still go dress shopping with her…and, oh, let the fun begin!  Can’t think of anything more enjoyable than a day of running her all around the malls.”

“Well, let Megan take her, for God’s sake! Or let your mother do it.”

“Dad”, “It’s fine. It may not be my thing, but all the stuff I do with Trevor—going to his baseball games, soccer, to karate. Well LeAnn was more into that stuff but she’s getting more into girly things.”

Soon, a young woman came in with Carl’s lunch, and placed the tray in front of him on his table. “Cute, huh?” Carl remarked about her after she left. Shane did not say a word.

“You need to get back out there. Get out and meet a nice girl”, Carl said, picking over his food. Jell-O, apple sauce, broth, a roll and juice—he wanted a hamburger. But how could he get a good one here? There were too many “spies” as he called them watching over him.

At the moment, Shane seemed miles away from his dad. Whatever he was saying made no impact. He made it a point not to speak of his problems with Megan to his father, and he liked it that way.  By Shane’s expression, he felt his son was holding back on something. But the truth was, so was he hiding something.

“I got myself into this mess, I know”, Carl declared about his heart attack. “I came close to saying, ‘Sayonara—that’s all, folks!’” His remarks were typical—just blow everything off. He joked as if he wasn’t fazed by it all.

Shane had now closed his eyes, and kicked back a little, “Uh huh”, he agreed, though he was simply responding without thinking about what Carl really said.

Carl didn’t want to be tuned out. He had something to get off his chest. He said, “ Well, all that’s done and said, maybe this is the right time to tell you. Got plenty of time here with my own thoughts.” He hesitated, for it wasn’t easy for him to say it. “ It’s bout time you know”, he said. “I think with me almost bitin

Hanging from your words
Like Jon Wayne Gacy
Over the concrete slabs of Babylon.

The women and children gather in the square
To celebrate the suicide of a totalitarian.
We've seen it before, but this time
In your arms
It will never repeat.

Endtimes. Nagasaki.

Why can't we lie here until paralyzed?
Let's just stay here until it's televised
As a sit-down strike against stars undefined
Communism capitalized, now I can die.

Living is over-rated
I want to get lost
In your chest.

I want nothing more than
To be crushed
Slowly
By the force of your thighs.

Lost in the raspberry tinge of a sigh
Swimming til drowning, til choking alive
Treading blood limply, floating inside
Dead in the river of your bloodstream.

Taken by rapids
To disintegrate
In your eyes.

Xeroxed vitals on paperplanes
Crashing into window panes
Broken-heart blisters and voyeuristic veins
Appear and create transparent glass stains
Blue-Green grass on the other side
Laying there, our fathers died
Dreams and streams of alcohol
Run from their mouths with no control.
Shaking, breaking, no where to decompose
Skin peeling off of worn down toes.
Tell me where their love goes
Tell me where their love goes
Everything turned into gun-shy eyes
Blue-lipped Sunday surprise
Bodies breaking into waiting
This is nothing but carbon dating
Bottles breaking of ***** that's so clear
That I won't see until they're near
God and Jesus in picture frames
Suburban families with jungle brains
Broken homes and replacement Brad's
401 k's and missing ads
Finding our homes that aren't so black and white
Let us sleep in our dreams tonight
Validation through our existence
Is dead but still our resistance

Flat lined on the hospital table
Spiritual ER hardly stable
So blind, unconscious,
like some show on cable
I saw myself laying there
Dying and disabled

I heard the machines
The beeping was declining
Nurses rushing
"We’re losing her doctor
She’s not even fighting"

See, in reality I was smiling
As the world went by me
While inside denying
Too much garbage I’d been hiding

Hurts which I thought were buried
Oh the disappointments they varied
And so too much baggage I carried
while myself & lies were about to be married

unforgiveness was the altar
And bitterness the ring
Unbelief like a witness
Disobedience like a wedding theme

Because somehow my heart of flesh
Had turned to stone
Like I had turned my back on the truth I’d known
Too many wounds
My scars that showed
I had enough
Like the prodigal son, decided to hit the road

I couldn’t save myself even if I tried.
My vitals were dropping
as I held onto my pride
Vitals like hope,
And the desire to keep living
My knowledge of the cross
Felt like a guilt burden

Because I hated my own helplessness
What a failure I had felt
I surely failed God
Just like I had failed myself
I self loathed and pitied
Feeling far from help
In darkness, gave up on myself
And death was the result.

But In the spiritual emergency room,
Like they're about to call time of death
The Doctor rushes in and says
“I’m not done with her yet”

Defibulator named love
Shock waves of truth
Loosening the grips of death
Destroyed deceptions noose
A second shock of love then came
Courage filled my veins again
Like oxygen revitalising my brain
Like an anesthetic relieving the pain
One final shock
A breath of hope
Gasping deeply
my heart no longer choked.

So He excavated my heart
Right after an injection of faith
A painful process
But necessary to loose the chains
For darkness to be gone
And Light to be my robe
I was slowly recovering
As my life was being made whole.

So alive in His grace
A mercy filled report chart
I was given a new heart
Myself and my Saviour were no longer apart
Yet still came an even harder part
Rehabilation had to start.

King of all Surgeons
My counselor, so kind He said:
“You're healed, and delivered
But transformation is in
The renewing of your mind”

He said: I paid the cost for your life to be saved
Your life insurance through my own expense has been paid
No condemnation because you've newly been made
Because I heard every cry of help that you prayed

Let me explain:

I was rescued from deception
Set free through redemption
So now everyday He captures my attention
Asking me one simple faith question:

WILL YOU TRUST ME?

And every day I vow: Jesus, I do.

I have seen what nurses' eyes incurr
drained of tears, from war's allure
soothing boys with recitals,
of sweet words to dying vitals
I have seen bright red floods,
stopped by nurses scrubs
stopping blood, so hearts don't fail,
using a tourniquet of pony-tail
I have heard parents, shriek of pain
from an empty bed where kids had lain
when all had run, and with no console
A nurse stepped forward, in mother's role

"To see my 'soldier boy', here in uniform ball,"
a dying grandma's request, in a hospital,
when I could not come, and heart is to burst,
a last hug and embrace comes from a nurse.

You are the last person I would expect
To smile with the glimmer that you have
To laugh with the excitement that you do
To talk with the clarity that you can.

They left you for dead
You watched your father die beside you
A bullet in your leg
Beats a bullet to his vitals.

Fifteen, you are but fifteen
When Daddy's telling you to play dead
They'll go away, just be quiet
He coos
So you do your best not to scream
As you lose blood like energy.

You wake up in a hospital bed
Bandages caressing your injured calf
A nurse tells you to turn on the news
As you ask where your father is.
The television set won't lie to you.
The flat screen relays the message
He's dead.

Years later, still living in the slums
That you so preciously embrace as your home
At seventeen, you're the only sibling without kids
But you have been deemed caretaker.

Yet, to total strangers of different race
Those who barely know suffering
From an affluent community, from generally "good" homes
You tell your story
And leave them with a lasting impression.

You are the spitting image of bravery, fearlessness, courage
And still,
No one's there to save you.
You are your own hero
Your driving force.
And no one will take the greatest gift you have away from you:
Joy, and the ability to grace others with the same.

Air consumers with combustible brains
a spark of life in a fragile out of date heart
keeps you ticking along this weird wonderful life
until the day you stop, and shut down your vitals

Heart beating, brain waves erratic
Depending on another to prove you can be loved
Over think like a new theorem
Numbers & symbols & calculations in your head
Try to look back through all the little details you missed
Are you kidding yourself?
Seeking for honesty
Hoping it’s in your favor
Everything seems fine
When you are together
Search for a sign, an inkling
Why do I try to reach out?
Stretching so far just to feel you energy
It’s so strong
Your lips, administer the strongest of narcotics
Paralyzed with your being
When we part, temporarily of course
My vitals change
And my heart & head battle
For reassurance
You make me delusional
The scent of you more powerful than a magnetic field
As you caress my body, stroke my face
I am no longer on this planet
I float with the spirits above
And sadly it cannot be bought
Release me from this paranoia
This addiction
Why so strongly do I fall into your force field?
Is my pull less intense?
Or is it that others just possess an energy more appealing?
You are nothing to be fooled around with
A different kind of beauty not in my realm
But in a parallel
To bring you into my circle would be an extra force in itself
But the lights around you shine so bright
That I’d gladly take the fall
Use my inner being to fight for you
But when it comes back to calculations and figures
One tight hold directly on another cannot compete with various forces in multiple directions
Even superheroes only deal with one villain an episode
Release me from this intangible pull
Because my revolving fire burns too bright
for this ill-distributed chemical bonding

Its so unlike the heart to pass anothers sadness by
To leave them at the mercy of all complainants and their cries
Its also so unlike the brain, to remember whats forgot
nothing stops intrusive thoughts in a memory where learnings caught
And so unlike, the lungs, it is
To forfeit all their breath.
To suffocate, in anyway, is the most unnatural death.

when you feel the inevitable toll, in your
heart or mind or voice
acknowledge that in desperate times

you always have a choice.

to hug with your heart, & laugh with your lungs
and remember with your mind-
& to never let these vitals go as wonders undefined

Ye distant spires, ye antique towers,
That crown the watery glade,
Where grateful Science still adores
Her Henry’s holy shade;
And ye, that from the stately brow
Of Windsor’s heights th’ expanse below
Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,
Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among
Wanders the hoary Thames along
His silver-winding way.

Ah happy hills, ah pleasing shade,
Ah fields beloved in vain,
Where once my careless childhood strayed,
A stranger yet to pain!
I feel the gales, that from ye blow,
A momentary bliss bestow,
As waving fresh their gladsome wing
My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And, redolent of joy and youth,
To breathe a second spring.

Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen
Full many a sprightly race
Disporting on thy margent green
The paths of pleasure trace,
Who foremost now delight to cleave
With pliant arm thy glassy wave?
The captive linnet which enthral?
What idle progeny succeed
To chase the rolling circle’s speed,
Or urge the flying ball?

While some on earnest business bent
Their murm’ring labours ply
‘Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint
To sweeten liberty:
Some bold adventurers disdain
The limits of their little reign,
And unknown regions dare descry:
Still as they run they look behind,
They hear a voice in every wind,
And ****** a fearful joy.

Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast:
Theirs buxom health of rosy hue,
Wild wit, invention ever-new,
And lively cheer of vigour born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
That fly th’ approach of morn.

Alas! regardless of their doom
The little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond today:
Yet see how all around ’em wait
The Ministers of human fate,
And black Misfortune’s baleful train!
Ah, show them where in ambush stand,
To seize their prey, the murd’rous band!
Ah, tell them they are men!

These shall the fury Passions tear,
The vultures of the mind,
Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,
And Shame that skulks behind;
Or pining Love shall waste their youth,
Or Jealousy with rankling tooth,
That inly gnaws the secret heart,
And Envy wan, and faded Care,
Grim-visaged comfortless Despair,
And Sorrow’s piercing dart.

Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
Then whirl the wretch from high,
To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,
And grinning Infamy.
The stings of Falsehood those shall try,
And hard Unkindness’ altered eye,
That mocks the tear it forced to flow;
And keen Remorse with blood defiled,
And moody Madness laughing wild
Amid severest woe.

Lo, in the vale of years beneath
A grisly troop are seen,
The painful family of Death,
More hideous than their Queen:
This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
That every labouring sinew strains,
Those in the deeper vitals rage:
Lo, Poverty, to fill the band,
That numbs the soul with icy hand,
And slow-consuming Age.

To each his suff’rings: all are men,
Condemned alike to groan;
The tender for another’s pain,
Th’ unfeeling for his own.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies.
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more;—where ignorance is bliss,
’Tis folly to be wise.

The Goddess of the Moon dethroned; hark, she strikes-
the hunter she remains.
Her next prey she takes,
setting him among her hounds.

“Forth!” cry she, and forth he go,
Frenzied in rage by the mistress.

The former prey, his escape near completed
but new hound upon him set,
the wolf, he is, and he is wounded
escape he make, it not be yet.
His wounds, to which he may have attended
And made his life profuse in ecstasy,
But alas, new hound upon him baited
Pinned is he now, below his maw.

“Forth!” Quoth she, the former Prey overtaken,
Cruel arrow strike among the vitals,

Even further crippl’d be he.
Set upon by hounds and jackals,
Escape he makes,
Seems but an impossibility.

He crieth out in pain and lashes out at cruel once mistress,
Turning upon a cur, once friend
“Did I not at once befriend you?”
“Aye,” say he, “but attack command doth my mistress send.

A cruel beast am I, to be obeyed by none,
Once wild but contained now among her fleet.
Bewitched by her bait of comfort,
and tantalizing cuts of meat.”

Onward flees the former,
Set upon by pack and foot
Running from his love, now fallen;
Goddess of the moon; now mortal.

He stumbles forth weak and wounded,
But laughs with sick incredulity,
“I fear, my friend, you hath been tricked,
Nothing but pain and woe await for thee.

Although I am hurt and heavy,
My escape I make, and too my recovery.
Although I have not a place to run,
My defenses shall I prepare for thee.

And once her arrows no longer find me,
Her frustration mounts forevermore,
For I wert the one to she denieth,
The quarry escaped from her bitter clutch,
Her rages shall fall upon you, the silent,
Innocent cur, bewitched in her trust.”

An arrow flew and missed its mark,
And former prey made his escape.
Domestic cur sat now puzzling,
Would there ever come a day?

“Cur!” she cried, the brazen huntress
What fault is it that he hath escap’d?
Would you not have him captured for eternal torture,
To please thy mistress forevermore?”

He looks upon her with woe and worry,
“Why him doth you desire so?
Wherefore his eternal torture
Do you desire him to be in constant throes?

Thou hast me now,” he cries despairing,
“Canst thou be sate, is this not enough?
Must his pain you also seeth,
To satisfy your sickn’d mind?”

“You are my hound, dearest of course,
But one of many I am afraid,
This one cleverly hath escaped,
If not possessed, he must be slain.

No wild coyote may treat me so,
For Artemis, am I.
No one may disrespect the huntress,
with flashing teeth and golden eye.

Forth! I say, forth, go onward,
In pursuit may you him follow,
For my arrows are not enough display
Of the pain deserved him so.”

Here the cur sat wondering,
Lost among his mistress’ hate,
He began to puzzle her condition,
And if her rage would ever sate.

“Doth you not hate him?
He is mine enemy, this is for sooth.
Thereby the ‘proximation,
Should he be yours in truth, in truth.

Let your rage boil up,
Your hackles slacken,
Your saliva build,
This wild beast hath defamed your maiden!

Your beauty, your treasure, your master and mistress!
Go forth young hound, go forth and be vicious!
Tear him apart, rip him asunder!
Have ye no doubt, and make you no blunder!”

And thence stood the hound,
The Goddess’ new prey,
He ran after the wolf,
With little heed.

His doubts now removed,
His blood now aboil,
His frenzy at max,
He set to his toil.

He would now find the wolf,
And pin him down so,
Allowing his maiden to deal that finite blow.

You died on a Monday.

Nobody likes Mondays.
But this day was the first of the longest week there has ever been
or will ever be.
Days dragging their feet like my heart across the pavement.
Please save your questions, comments, and complaints,
I'm trying to wrap my head around dead dreams and saints
Wondering
how the faint cries echoing through my insides
sound
to strangers
and soulmates.

You died on a Tuesday.

Such an unassuming day for departing
Nothing happens on a Tuesday.
Until her phone rang,
We were parked outside of our favorite restaurant
I heard the world flatline to the sound of traffic
We stayed in the car.
Now parked on the roof of patient parking,
Though I had never felt less patient  
wondering
How the ******* sun can shine when you can't even breathe.
I watched my mother cry until she wouldn't in front of you.
we COULDN'T in front of you.
I promised.
But we did.

You died on a Wednesday.

A day like a life, only halfway through and it's forgotten itself.  
Like I had forgotten the heaviest my heart has ever felt
was the night I looked into my sisters eyes
and spoke like doctors,
Wore the words "there's nothing left to do" like they had ever even come close to answering the question
WHY?
Which was the only one she could get out
WHY?
They said he could have up to a year
WHY?
Or as little as a week.

You died on a Thursday.

The day so wrapped up in the promise of tomorrow,
we can only ever think about yesterday.
Throwback to any single moment before this day.
Throwback to 5 days before
watching the irony of a birthday cake in hospice
While I wondered
how many wishes it would take to keep you.
Throwback to the moment that we were alone
when you grabbed me by the collar,
So tight and so close
I could smell heaven on your breath,
As you squeezed a plea into a whisper
Get
Me
Out
Of Here.
I was silent.
But I swear to god I was screaming at the top of my heart.
And I am sorry every single day
that I had no way
to wheel, walk, or wish you out.

You died on a Friday.

I had never been further from TGIF-ing
I was busy wondering why
and begging for your breath back.
You hadn't said a word in days,
your eyelids hung heavy like sheets off an empty bed,
but when mom would whisper our names into your ear
I watched every ounce of strength you had
stand shoulder to shoulder
forcing your eyes open in bursts
like the fourth of july finale
we could hear from your bedroom.
You were a god in each goodbye,
While the blue drained from each your eyes
for us to paint our days with.

You died on a Saturday.

I thought the weekend had a deathwish
showing up like it belonged in our bereavement,
like this week would ever end,
like it hadn't heard the news.
Every night was a silent struggle
we couldn't stay,
but wouldn't go.
The night before we had collapsed into a pile on hard-backed chairs
At the mercy of the nurses who didn't have the heart to make us go,
or just enough
to let us stay.
I didn't sleep a wink that night,
I was busy listening to the human hum of our family set to the slowing beep of your vitals
and wondering,
if the grass you'll lie under will know where it came from.
But this night,
this night there was a quiet compliance
an air of understanding in our war-torn bodies

besides,
nothing happens after midnight.
Until my phone rang.

You died on a Sunday.

You were holier than any day of the year.
I don't know if you let go
or if dying always feels like drowning.
Drowning.
Like I was in every drop of water your skin couldn't hold in anymore.
Like my mother was in disbelief.
Like my grandmother was in desperation.
Like my sister was in sadness.
Our family
drowning
And not one of us moving.


You died every day that week,
and you've died every day since.
You died on her wedding day
and at my graduation
You die on your birthday
and on every anniversary
and every single day that we have to deal
with an absence so great that it deafens.
And all I can do is wonder,
what the time difference is in heaven,
and how many sleeps it will be before I see you again.
I wonder if the angels recognized you.
And how you hid your wings
so well
for so long.

But mostly I wonder,
if you wonder too.

The gentle lines of the coarsest neck
Where the vitals fall in line,
Where breath is held so restlessly,
The first sip of chilly wine.

The shaky fingertips that graze,
Calloused, but seeking gospel
Leaving me covered in the words of
Your author and your novel.

Knobby knees that knock when
Worry scurries through your blood.
That hallow place behind
Where no one thinks to touch.

The portion of your foot that feels
The extremity of the ground.
How fast you're going will always tell
How long you stick around.

(Our souls are where we find them.)

Ever since I was a little girl, I yearned to be good at something,  anything, but I never quite knew how to go about it. I was never shown  by my parents that I was worthwhile.

There is something I need to share, I was alive and that is about all that there is to say about it. At  least that's something huh? I guess one could say with a weakened  voice, 'perhaps it was better than nothing'??

I sit here in  my writing room and I begin to write on this piece of paper (my computer is my paper now) something seems to be in need of writing, my thoughts  are circling within me. I want to write them all down.

I have felt this  way before, especially when I was in love and wanted to put things down on paper, so they wouldn't be lost and forgotten. There is this sort  of hush in the air and the stirrings feel like a gentle breeze coming over me. Like silent leaves falling. It seems strange that I notice  these things. It's as if they have special meaning for me.

Many afternoons I would sit wondering what would become of me. Would I turn  into an old woman in an old wrapper dress with curlers in my hair? But I tell myself this saying “The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave  only once”. I knew I had to give up the feelings that people didn’t like me. I must! I had to **** my fear of people and life, before it killed  me.

“The world is a world into which you were meant to be  in”. I heard this soft, quiet voice say to me. It was if I was speaking to an invisible child, very strange, yet beautiful.  I wanted to be soft; yet brave. To be a part of the sacred, beautiful things in life. To glisten with imagination. To see the beauty in a wild deer. To learn  of all the ancient ways of life. To learn the feelings of safety; of constant love, so I wouldn't feel like I’m in a boat on dark rivers without a paddle.  To be able to see the magic of animals carrying  their tiny young in a forest. scented land. Silent, yet so alive,  sitting in the underbrush looking out at the moon and stars.

There is a part of me that wanted to be wild too, like the animals protecting their young. Something so tender, yet untamed.  But really, I know that wild animals are also helpless too, just like I was as a child, like we all are as children; so dependent on others for love and care.

I  didn't want to remain like that scared child. I wanted to be a lady warrior, glistening with love and life shining down upon me. To be able to soar on wings of an eagle... brave and free. To be able to see the world as a beautiful place, but still know of its dangers without feeling  like I couldn't navigate in a storm.

These secrets I kept within myself; hanging onto them like a leaf that hangs in a tree. It  seems possible to me that perhaps all people at some time feel this way. You can tell by looking at some people that the world remains like a stone to them, with closed doors. I wanted to be an open door; a flower, not a stone. I was afraid it would not be like that for me. Perhaps  after my child self would grow old, then everything would harden and  become small; like my small, closed, childhood doors. Like it was back then.

So I'm thinking that perhaps I would have a hard time remembering  all these things. I wanted to write about them, so my life could still show and have moments of wonder.

I've been sitting here, listening to a  livening seed within me. A slightly, fermenting seed that still wants to be alive. Alive with its own movements and filled with wonder. Like an  orchard blooming, with each new blossom different and alive with energy.

Why should I feel this excitement as an older, grown woman now? Yet I can still be excited. My orchard wants to bloom soundlessly into a fruitful  tree. I don't want it all to go away from me. My light will someday be falling upon darkness and there will come a time when the doors will not open again. The sprouting of new blossoms will cease and the movements  and wonderous openings will be gone. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~­~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

WOW...when did this happen? I have now become that older women in the old, wrapper dress, so I try to write my thoughts down on slips of paper. Trying to  preserve this time for myself, so that afterwards when everything is  gone, I can remember who and what I really was, who I became.

There is a time in the spring of our lives when we shine. When we bear new, live fruit every day. There is also the time in our lives when autumn comes and our leaves begin to fall. But we can still be jewels in this  world.

So I say to myself;  "Lie in the sun with the child playing in your heart shining like a jewel. "Dream and sing, you pagan", I say to myself. Be wise in  your vitals. Stand still like a fat blossoming tree. Rise up like a stalk of corn throbbing, glistening green and yellow in the heat. Lie down like a mare, watching her baby colt's dancing feet as they learn how to stand up on their new, awkward legs. Sleep peacefully at night, knowing earth will bring new blossoms to its bounty. Walk delicately, yet strong as a wheat stalk, at its full time... bending towards the earth waiting for the farmer to reap his effort of plantings. Let your life swell upwards toward the sky so you become like a vase, an open vessel. Let the child within you rise like a dolphin swimming within your heart."

I look at myself in the mirror now. My legs a bit heavier. My face with a few more wrinkles then yesterday.My hips are fuller and my stomach is not as flat as it used to be. Some days I look older then tomorrow's sunset and some days I shine a little bit brighter, like today’s sunrise. It’s all part of nature’s plan. (sigh)

Children are playing outside and girls are walking with young men in the town square. All that doesn't seem so far away in my memories, yet those times are over for me. I am like that leaf hanging onto the tree, but  the seed is still alive within.

I walk a little slower now. I hate the feel of clothes against my skin, I want to leave them off, but the sight of me naked isn’t as pretty as it used to be. Yes, I have  ripened into an older age of life. It's hard to write it all down.  Sometimes denial is precious, but so unreal.

I once knew how it felt  to be a woman who was going to have a child, it's like how a tree feels  when its about to bear its fruit.

Now, my leaves hang from my tree, some of them have fallen, some are ready to fall. I put my hand upon my fallen leaves, their soft surface still surprises me. I can  still feel my tree of life swirling with sap. Sap that's still alive, with  rich roots still surging their power in me, wanting to break through  into another new life.

I walk the streets of my life alone  with the buds of my childhood left behind. And even though I walk alone  under the dark, umbrella of trees, there are many lights shining down on me. There is a hunger and a deep rebellion to march forward. My tree comes  from a far seed, still bending in the wind. My child to, comes from a  far seed blowing across the plains of time in a faraway place.

My inner child's still budding secretly from within, bidding me to carry on. Although, it is much quieter now. The movement of my tree I can still feel, still hear. Its delicate sounds of living moves gracefully within  myself…silently reaching upward.

My leaves twirl and swirl, delicately falling to the ground. My tree within it's roots in an gentle, swaying breeze, moving slowly it's stem of life. Like a stream, clear and strong flowing into the ground.

My trunk may be unseen to some, but it’s spiraling upwards in powerful energy, it's just moving up in a slower motion now. It’s stems twirling fragilely, until they fall once and for all, to be  reconnected with the Universe in all its splendor.

It's a far  more gentle breeze that speaks to my tree now, and as I sit here in the afternoon sun of my life, it seems a very, very strange thing that a tree might come to mean more to one than any of my husbands did. It seems a bit of an embarrassing to acknowledge... but it is so true.

Now as I sit here in my paler, pastel sun, my tree speaks to me with its words of comfort; with its many  soft, fallen leaves of wisdom...speaking to and through the heart of my soul. I finally learned to listen; to listen to the whisperings of my tree speaking to me from within.

How can I describe what I feel is being said by my tree? It speaks to me of love, sharing, kindness and wisdom; of acceptance and self-worth. None of my three husbands really spoke things of that nature to me. None of them spoke to my heart like my tree does.  

There is a much wiser woman in me now, I can hear her breathing. She speaks to me with kindness, acceptance and wisdom. She looks me thru' the mirrors of my soul and says. "I  hear you're going to have a new child, don't worry she will be the same color as the blossoms and the green leaves you once used to bear, she is still playing in the park. She is still alive, waiting to blossom once again.”  

I am writing this on a piece of paper now (like I said, my computer is my paper now). I have walked through my heart and spirit with substantially heavy boots. Large, heavy boots... with my tree bent over and with my leaves falling over into my soul. The light still shines in my eyes with misty expectations.

I sit in my room watching the trees from my window. They are standing,  yet bending willowy and gracefully with the breeze. Some of its leaves have curled,  but its trunk stands steady in the earth, like a stream flowing  smoothly, with a few rumbles of current here and there. So I say, let our trees blossom and spread their roots all over our hearts and souls, now and forever more.

chapter three


June 4th. 1980;


The day, it’s the morning of June 4th.  It’s Wednesday; I go up the block to be with Kelli; her friend Lynne is a sleepover guest, this day. I and Lynne have never got along but if I want to be with Kelli than I’ll have to hang with Lynne for the day. We’re watching “The Price is Right” on television and Lynne went inside for a while. After a time she comes in laughing!?
“I was just on the phone with Barbra B. and she’s off and running…  Let’s go down by her house and see what’s there to watch!?”  Kelli and Lynne get into the front-seats of Kelli’s White Buick Electra 225
I was in the backseat; the two of them were laughing up a storm! Kelli drives up Calamus ave. until she nears 74th. Street; this is where Barbra B. lives. Barbra is frilling a most extremely large kitchen-knife; it must be the biggest knife in her house?! Here she comes with her father chasing up behind her?  He’s trying to catch-up and stop this girl from getting to whatever place she is so hard-pressed to get too???
Lynne slaps onto the side of the door, Kelli slows and Lynne rolls down the window then sticks-out half her body; she waves over to Barbra B. and screams, “Hey Barbra, what’s going on?”
Kelli says, “What are you doing?”
“Where’re you going? You need a lift? Come on there’s plenty of room in the back!”  The door-locks pop open… “Come-on we’ll take you where-ever you’re going!”
Barbra heads towards the car; Kelli, grips the wheel, laughing; I know this laugh… Kelli has no idea what’s going on?! Barbra takes hold of the door as her father reaches her; he grabs her arm and pulls her hand away; Barbra’s father yells to Kelli, “Get out of here; Leave!”
Kelli steps on the gas and drives off!
Heart’s racing… ‘Holy crap, that crazy ***** had her hand on the door? She was about to be inside this car, she had a knife; she, she, she be sitting next to me?! What the hell just happened???’
Kelli drives back towards the house; the two of them seating in the front seat… laughing?! Not the same laugh but…, laughing! Lynne’s, an all too familiar sort; it’s a kind I heard in the silent-times unspoken about; a delight to a well done of what just happened.
Kelli’s, her laugh is also all too familiar, hers, is the kind that reassures. It’s the kind I’d feel deep inside me at three in the morning while swinging, inside Little Bush Park, on those swings beneath moonlight knowing, oddly enough, I’m safer there at that moment than I’d be anywhere-else.
Kelli parks up on the corner, on the side of Tootie’s house; she runs across to store for soda, cigarettes and stuff then we went upstairs.
“What the hell was that…?” Kelli says, laughing, while she slaps the bag onto the table; bag brakes open and as liverwurst, cheese, bottle of soda and the cigarettes flies off to all parts of the kitchen!? “What did you do? That was f----- up!?” Kelli starts to fix us lunch as Lynne tells us about what she was doing in the kitchen while we were watching The Price Is Right.                    
  
Lynne calls up Barbra’s gay-lover and tells her she’s Barbra’s (formerly) ex-girlfriend and that she’s calling to let her know Barbra and she are back together so she’ll no longer be needed or wanted in their lives!  
Afterwards, Lynne calls Barbra’s saying to Barbra, she’s Barbra’s ex-girlfriend’s newest lover and she’s calling to inform her,Barbra, that Barbra’s ex and this girl’s new lover are bopping the sheets with each-other and the two of them are being played as fools; as one could imagine and as we saw for ourselves, Barbra went into a high-speed tailspin. Barbra snaps?!  And now she is out there trying to go end these two women in a pool of their own blood!?  
Unbelievably, Lynne still thinks what she made happen is a big fat hoot???
Kelli, “What the hell were you thinking???”
Lynne looks at Kelli, and with this snide tone and smirk on her face she says,” What… I was bored! Did you see Barb’s father’s face?” laughter erupting from her as she turns to get her stuff out of Kelli’s bedroom; “Hey it was fun!”
Kelli,” Oh brother; you’re…? Hey, get ready and I’ll drive you… home.”
Kelli looks at me and we both put hands up with baffled looks?!          
It’s just around 3 pm. as Kelli rolls up to Lynne’s to drop her off. She asks Kelli to drop her down at the bar she hangs-at so she could find-out what’s been going on there.
Kelli did and on the way back she stops by Julia’s, her mom’s, work; Julia gives us a list and we go over to key-food to shop.
While we’re shopping Kelli keeps, “I can’t get over what we saw???”
I kept thinking how did Lynne know so much of Barbra’s love-life??? She knew names, places and everything she’d need to get that girl Barbra to to such a point and state?’ I think Kelli and I were both shaking from this for the rest of the day.
  Kelli drops me off, goes parks and goes into house.
I remember this date so well because later that night at around 2:30 in the morning I was at my father’s door knocking?!

” Dad? Dad? Dad; you need to get… You have to get-up!?”
My water broke??? My due date’s not ‘til September 18th. I first thought, ‘Oh no not again?! This can’t happening; … not again?! But, there was no pain, no blood, and no sense of dread like the other times?
I went into my room and grab onto my bag and what-ever-else I thought to take; I figured, by this time my dad would be ready to bring me up to the Boulevard and we’ll cab it to St. John’s. He wasn’t in the middle-room; he wasn’t in the kitchen I knocked on the bathroom door and… He’s not in there? Maybe he went up to call a cab to pick me up at the door?? I’d think he would… He’d have said something…,  like when you have what you need I’ll be downstairs I’m going up to get a cab??? The hall-door’s closed?!’
“Holy crap?!”
No, no, no, I go back to my Dad’s bedroom door and knock. “Dad…? “
“What?” My eyes nearly pop out of my head!
I try to open the door but as usual the lock is on? “Dad?! My water broke???” As one could imagine my voice is no-longer an indoor voice?!  “Never mind broke it’s like the dam broke here and there’s water everywhere out here! Come on you have to get up… you need to take me to St. John’s?!”  
Pin-drop silence…?
“Dad?”
This low soft moaning whimper comes from behind that locked door, “Can it wait until the morning?”
  ??? Bang! Needless to say dad needs a new door-lock.
“Nelson…; Get up!”
“Ok.” Slowly he gets to his feet. “I don’t know why…, now? Why can’t you wait ‘til morning?”
“No, now.” In my head,’ Maintain: Four six-packs… I’m lucky I’m going alone?!’
“I need coffee? What the hell is all this water on the floor?”  
   “Dad? Dad; … that would be me?! It’s why you’re up?  We need to go… St. John’s?! Let’s go!”
Ever notice how when you need… there’s never one to be found??? Phone-booth! Lindy’s cab come and picks us up; not one yellow-cab? We get there and they check me out.
The doctor, “You have had what’s called a premature rupture of membranes; you’re being admitted so you can continue to be monitored. Your baby’s vitals but…; we want you to understand the baby’s condition is at high-risk it’s holding its own.”
“Doctor…?” My eyes begin to whelm-up…
“Miss Rose…” The doctor places his hand on my arm, “You need to remain claim; I have the nurse come give you something and I’ll come check on you when they put you in a room; for now remember the vitals are good.”
“Thank you.”
“Ok; your father’s outside, I have him brought in to you.”  
I told him I’d have to stay and he should go home.
“You have money for a cab?”
“My bag is under there, Dad.”
You know, it’s strange; he has no problem asking me to give him money so he could get home!? He doesn’t know where I get money… But, he couldn’t care less?! And, I doubt very much even if he knew it would bother him; hem, he’s lived off her all these years…, knowing that I’ve been signing Elaine’s name and cashing her checks from the checkbook I took and packed in my bag the day I left that place in Brooklyn would faze him?! Well maybe if he was aware I only cashing $50. to $100. At a time out of an account which has $33,000. In it would?! I stopped writing checks after I bought everything I needed for a baby until a baby is one month old; after $1700. I didn’t take anymore. Till the day my mother died neither she or I ever said a word about that checkbook. And, I know she knew… every time a check was cashed.  When I cashed them at Manufacture Handovers Bank would confirm with a call before any check cashing; they did it since my brother, Kevin, cashed out a $12,000 check and left town! A signature that was in no way like my mother’s! The bank made a deal to replace half?! I’m sure she could have had ever last penny back but the bank would have had police-case opened and a warrant out for Kevin and she never did turned her back on that boy?! That check wasn’t even, close-to, the worst thing that boy had done. The day he died I smiled, enough said.  Well, I think she thought I would have felt bad and come home and I’d do what she wanted me to do that day.

The sun’s coming up… They just put me here in this room, room 410; I hear the Doctor down the hall. I hope he has good things to tell me!? I pull the drape to see him when he comes in the door; a circle of people are out there with charts. They’re coming in…,”Miss Rose, these are the team who will be watching over you.” Doctor was saying their names but I wasn’t hearing him; all I want was for him to tell me the baby’s going to be alright. “Miss Rose I spoke to your GYN and he informed me you were already aware of this being a high-risk pregnancy?
“Yes.”
“The chart says you been pregnant before?”
“Yes; never over five months.”
‘Well, you do have that in your favor; although, there’s still no… Miss Rose? What wrong?”
“There’s… No…”
“Listen!” he places his hand on my arm. ”Understand what I’m saying; we’re monitoring the vitals and you and your baby are, for right now, fine. The longer that baby stay in there the better be the chances of survival. Do you understand this?”
“Yeah”
“Good; in order for this to be we will need to keep you in the most sterile environment possible. Do you understand what this means? I can see you’re not; Miss Rose you’re going to have to stay in the hospital until the baby is born. And you’ll need to be on complete bed-rest so we can continue to monitor the baby. This means no wondering the halls this is a private room and you have a bathroom all to yourself no getting out of bed just to walk around, no unnecessary movement you need to stay pregnant for as long as you can. Now, you understand what I’m telling you?”
Crap! I look at this doctor like he just grew three more heads??? “You want me stay here, and to sport this bed? Until, September 18th?”
“No… Miss Rose September 18th Is full-term an ideal time for the baby; we already know that won’t happen that date’s gone and is impossible now. But the idea is to now get you as close as we can to that date. Let’s just take this a day at a time. I come and check in on you later. Remember, no getting up except if you need to use the bathroom. Ok?”
The bathroom only; got it!”  
The doctor leaves my room… Its Thursday morning 7:12 am. June 5th. 1980
Mind this point, it’s still 1980?! You can smoke inside a hospital; and, if you’re in a private room without Oxygen Tanks in use.
The date and time of baby’s birth is...; Friday, morning, on June 6th. 3:54 am.
They took him right away from the delivery room I only saw him from the mirror up in the corner of the room; you know the kind where things are closer than they look type’s… they put me back into my room. It’s 7 am. I know, I have had a baby boy but I haven’t met him? Three hours not one word; not one word to me by anyone here?! Did something happen? Again.
It is 7:10am. Door, to my room, opens… The doctor steps in… “Miss Rose?” he walks to the side of my bed. “Has anyone been in to talk to you?”
“…no.”
“We need to talk to you about what is next for your son…”
“My, son…” I thought sure… he was going to say???
Yes, they are ordering transport for him, now; our hospital isn’t equipped to care for his needs we need to rush him to another hospital that can give him the best chances to survive this early most… we’ll do best we can. They’ll bring him in a moment I know you hadn’t had a chance to hold him.”
As he said this four people enter the room and my baby, my baby.
The nurse walks around to the left of my bed and hands me this itty biddy blanket holding this little face.  I look at him and thought ‘His skin he’s so purple; his face… he looks just as she did. But he’s here. ” Hello Joseph! I’m your mommy. I’m grateful you’re here. “
Big hands; the nurse who handed my baby to me to hold is now on my right-side to take him away from me.
They rush my tiny boy out to the neonatal ambulance He’ll be at Long Island Jewish Hospital when I leave here on Monday.

Your voice floods my ears
At 6:45 A.M.,
"Patient Number Four, it's time
to do your vitals."

I'm standing in the doorframe
of my hospital cubicle--
right hand in yours, the nurse's,
left hand in the shredder--
or is that the wire frame that's holding
me up like I'm a head on a stake?

"Have you eaten, how long has it been now?"
I try to tell you the truth, but my mouth feels miles away, riding on the train
that you people call my throat.
And my throat has brought me here, to your pristine prison cell because
I betrayed it too many times.

"I need to get your vitals, will you come with me?"
And how do I know, how do I really know
that you are not trying to ****** me
with gleaming round numbers
and records of compliance, cooperation.
How do I know that you are not trying to re-name me in this hospital's file-cabinet language?

"I need you to follow me to the lab."
Why are you trying to take me away
from myself?--
The self I spent so many years
constructing from the bits and pieces
of black earth I dug up eagerly, fearlessly.

I cannot move to your white room--
the other flavor of white reserved
for nurses, not the oatmeal in my cubicle.
I cannot leave this arm with its chewed-up edges or this crime-scene throat
with its flapping lid.

"Please give me your arm and make a fist."
I already told you, or tried to,
I cannot give myself to you.
I have given myself away too many times
under too many names.
And I am tired, so tired,
of chasing myself back to Me.

So you drain me right there in the hallway
and seal me back up
without a kiss--
So I kiss myself on the thick vein you chose and whisper
my real name to myself
Because I am terrified, so terrified
of forgetting it.

Your door is shut against my tightened face,
And I am sharp as steel with discontent;
But I possess the courage and the grace
To bear my anger proudly and unbent.
The pavement slabs burn loose beneath my feet,
A chafing savage, down the decent street;
And passion rends my vitals as I pass,
Where boldly shines your shuttered door of glass.
Oh, I must search for wisdom every hour,
Deep in my wrathful ***** sore and raw,
And find in it the superhuman power
To hold me to the letter of your law!
Oh, I must keep my heart inviolate
Against the potent poison of your hate.

I hate the way your eyes used to twinkle
When I finally looked up at you from my books
I wish I had stuck to my plan;
    To pretend like I didn't care about you
I hate the way your hair was so soft
And I hate that stupid scruff,
It used to make me crumble in your hands
I hate the way your lips would quirk up
   on the left side first,
Then slowly on the right
I hate that I know how your lips feel
When they were against mine
or the way that you couldn't stop smiling long enough,
to meet the demands of my own mouth
I hate that I didn't hate that at all

I hate that the way you look at me now,
It isn't at all like the way you looked at me before;
Like I meant something,
like I was something you were determined to discover
And make your own
I hate that when you look at me now,
My face pales and tears immediately spring to my eyes
I hate that I used to have butterflies at the sight of you,
Now, it’s like the butterflies are there,
But they’re dead and make me want to hurl

I hate that when you see me,
Your face,
It’s like I physically punched you
   Again
I’d be lying if I said that I still didn't see the way your eyes get darker,
But it’s not like before, when they were happy
  So happy
Now, they darken with sadness and pity,
I’m sure there’s disappointment mixed in there,
But you and I both know, I run as soon as I see you,
And I’ll never get to see how far the disappointment goes
   Does it make your eyes flame like when you’re mad or make them dull like when you’re sad?

I hate that when you see me in the halls,
You stop
And I hate that I ruin your conversations just with my presence
I hate that you don’t look at me with anger
   Because that would be easy
I hate that I have to force myself to look at you with anger
I hate that you finally listened to me
    For once
You finally believed me when I said that I hated you

I hate the way that your side looks empty without me
I hate that I notice how you’re constantly looking around,
Like you used to for me,
  Because you know I don’t like crowds
I hate that I like to think that you’re looking for me,
And not just looking at your surroundings
I hate how I still order extra fries because you’d eat mine
  And the extras
I hate how you share that stupid smirk,
The one I thought was solely reserved for me,
And I’ll admit,
I miss how it’s not directed at me
And that I never get to hear your smart-*** remarks
   Ones that always left my cheeks red

I hate how your voice carries when you talk,
And how it could put babies to sleep or used for *******,
Depending on your mood
I hate that I have to force myself to walk in the opposite direction
When I hear you talking to someone else
I hate how our persistent bickering doesn't even exist anymore
I hate that my mother still asks about you

I hate how I hate myself when I see you talking to girls
  Talking to her
I hate that I don’t have the right to be jealous anymore
   If I ever did, for that matter

I hate that I’m writing this because I couldn't sleep
Because I kept remember when you’d chase me around your house
Because you wanted to “check my vitals and see if I had suspicious lumps”
I hate that I wrote this because it made me smile
I hate that I chopped off my long hair,
  Because you always told me you loved it
I hate that I left a permanent mark on your perfect face
I hate that you know what I did at my lowest times
I hate that you still check my wrists, even from across the room
I hate that I hit you
I hate how you've moved on,
  but you still look lost

I hate that I’m probably making all of this up in my head;
Imagining that you might not hate me,
Even when I see the way you look at her now
It’s not how I remember you looking at me,
But it’s different,
Because that was me and this is her
I hate that I hate her for being my replacement
   Even though I was never really there to qualify as yours
I hate that I hate so much now
   I used to be Switzerland
      Now I’m more like Idaho
       It’s known for one thing and no one really wants to be there

I get it though,
Why you hate me,
  After all, I told you to
But for some reason,
I can’t make myself forget you
   Because I hate you
I don’t know,
Maybe it was the way you looked, like I'd put the marks on you,
Or maybe it was the way I keep hearing your voice crack in my ear,
           Why did you do this to yourself?
Maybe it was because I woke up shaking
And you were there to hold my hand,
And offer coffee at 4:30 in the morning
It was probably the way a tear rolled down your cheek
And your eyes filled with something that looked like fear and horror

I hate that I keep telling myself all these things to hate about you,
Just to keep myself from banging on your door on nights like these,
And beg for your smile to be turned in my direction,
Just once more
But I can’t do that
Because I can’t promise that my lowest point in life is over
I can’t promise that there won’t be more marks to make you cry
I can’t promise anything
I hate that you didn't get mad at me for hitting you  
    Repeatedly
In my sleep
I hate that you lied and said it was from your brother
I hate that I did that;
   Made you do things that’s not you
     Like lying

Look at me,
I’m writing this,
And it’s the biggest lie I've ever told
I keep writing though,
Trying to put reason behind me pushing you away,
And I guess the reason is that you, not only deserve better,
But you need to be with someone who knows how to love
And doesn't hate hugs
Or someone who likes movies

I can’t take it;
Your eyes not shining
I can’t take that from you,
Because that’s you, and what people love about you
Not just the way your eyes shine,
But what that means
    That— that shine—lets everyone that’s seen it , know that you care
I don't have that,
My eyes have dimmed because of this ****** hand that I was dealt
     And that's okay
      I've accepted it, but I can't trade cards with you anymore

So I will continue to ignore you in the hallways
I will continue to tell myself to hate you
I will continue to tell my heart to stop playing dead,
    because it still works around you
And I will continue to pretend like I don’t know you’re staring at me
Because you should be looking at her
   She’s like you
   Her eyes shine too
     They shine for you

I hate myself for doing things to make you hate me too,
But I can’t love you
  I know she does

Tell your her that I’m sorry,
Because she told me that in the middle of the night,
You reach for her,
But you say my name
Tell her I’m sorry
I unwillingly made her second place
Tell her, that even though I want to rip her perfect hair out,
She’s perfect for someone like you
She's perfect like you

I am not for you
And I'm sorry
The butterflies in my stomach are dead,
and I'm folding
I give up
There's no point in trying to force myself to hate you,
because I don't
I am the polar opposite of hating you
I can't keep playing,
You know my poker face,
And I can't let you see my cards ever again
     Never again
I am not for you
And this card game isn't for me either
     -{ksf}

Her vitals are dropping like flies

The air in the room is staler than bread

Everyone here is a critic of sorts

Amidst curtains and curtains of black, sunken eyes


Her dreams are breaking like stone

The table beside her is colder than ice

She feels love on her arm but can’t love it back

Can only see curtains of palpable bones


So meager, her breath, it drops.

Falls flat.

Why won't my eyes close
Why can't I sleep
Why am I ****** to counting countless sheep
At this funny farm I'm awake *** there's no rest for the wicked
While I lay on this bed so cold and so rigid
I can't even blink
All I do is stare
At the blank walls so empty and bare
I pace all night long without a rational thought
Tying my mind into a perfect slip knot
I hear my neighbors screaming
"Oh please let me die!"
I want to help them but instead I just sigh
All night long there was nothing but noise
Screaming and banging from all the lost boys
Even the voices don't make this much racket
I can hear them through the vents so I covered it with my jacket
It had muffled the noise to a small degree
But silence invites demons
Now they're coming for me
I thought I had left you all back home
I thought in this box I'd be all alone
"Oh quite opposite I do declare. The nurses gave us this room to share."
As the night passes on and I'm crying on the floor, I realize that there's no time to sleep anymore
A nurse walks in "time to get your vitals"
Oh the joy of being suicidal
"You don't have to look" as she sticks the needle in me
"Actually I prefer to watch myself bleed." As I looked contently
The blood filled the tube faster than a rocket and when she was done she put the vile in her pocket. She walked away to the next patient's room "vitals please." Then I finally collapsed on my bed. I was finally at peace.

Friday, 1211h
A man collapses at lunch
and his vitals spin away like
marbles: pulse, breath, pallor
rolling about on the floor
out of reach of the heroes who
shout his name, flash their pagers
like the batman symbol.
Someone get a doctor in here, now.
The old Vets shuffle out of the room
comment blearily on the poor guy
I guess after the War things do not phase you the same
but perhaps they didn't notice the hue of his lips.
And then he stabilizes, and I fall apart
aghast, aback, there is still tuna sandwich in my mouth
ground by my teeth into a diamond to monument the recovery.
The gurney rolls by, I know him.
My stomach falls to Ground Floor
in relief and despair.

That's the thing about long term care
these men are clever, they teach you so well how to live
that you forget they're supposed to die.

You were my star amongst the stars, my own solar system inside my eyes.
Hand you the knife and I'll let you cut out my insides,
create the universe from my cells so I can be so absorbed in you
I am no longer myself.
Let me be what you want.
I know that I am faded
but if you let me
I will chain myself to the insides of your ribcage
protect your heart, because we both know all it controls is the rate
at which your blood flows,
and all it has ever known
is to push everything it has ever met away,
so it is a constant but with nothing of its own
I guess that's the biggest break.
Show me importance the same way I used to see it
I wanna know every single one of your secrets,
watch your eyes flicker on the train
as you lose yourself to back gardens and brick built barriers,
letting yourself inside the subtleties of a strangers life.
Leave your bad days on my pillow love
and I will never make the effort to wake up.
I will swallow your pictures whole
with no attempt to understand your charity shop bags
full of yesterday's thrown out dreams.
Punch me with your closed fist
and I will pretend it is your beating heart
they are the same shape, someone told me once,
I can think of nothing better than the embrace of your vitals and veins,
staple them to my chest so I can store the pain inside myself for future reference.
I can still remember the way your voice tasted those nights,
I counted each one of your heartbeats against my chest every evening we slept
to check you were still breathing,
that's how bad I wanted you to stay,
my hands lying inside your make believe
that you were feeding me,
I never knew what it was what I wanted from you,
and I never understood the languages you spoke in,
But I used to wish on those nights
that I was deep and dark and mysterious like the oceans
we both know you'd love to swim in
and I'd never have the courage to join you in.
Maybe if the things you had told me hadn't have been
as vast as that same ocean,
I wouldn't be trying to pick between pieces of broken glass,
trying to slice out the things which beat around inside my pulse
whenever I think about you.

I tried crushing each memory like a shortening cigarette, but it's easier to allow yourself to die than to forget.

I stood in front of the mirror-the wall behind me scribbled in green-and I watched myself shave the weathered, brunette hairs off my cheeks, chin, lips, and jawline that you found so attractive and wrapped your lips around like a future reunion of, "Hi. I'm sorry for goodbye. I'm glad I met you again before I thought I would die."

And, in my head, I watched you approach my lips with yours.
And, in my head, I took a step back and started to tear up.
You asked me to kiss you, in my head.
And I shook my head, in my head.
You said you were sorry and got help, in my head.
You were better, in my head.
You were healthy, in my head.
But I'm aware some things may only live and die and say goodbye in my head.

I sat on the edge of my bed, no longer in my head, watching "Good Morning, Vietnam", and I remembered where I was when I learned that Robin Williams died. I remembered poking your thigh, in Starbucks, and wondering how long it'd take you to feel my finger or if you'd try to ignore the feeling, like most feelings. Your lips were red and your pants were black and on white, were black cats. And you were afraid to ask for your coffee. And once you sipped on your coffee, you left a red stain and it still appears in my head. And I relive every thing while being dissacioiated with my current life. And every kiss is a red stain in my head. Oh, great, we're back in my head. I guess we never left.

And I remembered when I knew you were dying and leaving and when I knew you had died and left. But I drowned those memories in ***** and suffocated them with smoke, until my body collapsed and until my lungs learned the cursive in every exhale.

In my head.
In my head.
In my head.
In my head.

Here I sit in the dark, watching 80's films. Because thirty years ago, there was no you and there was no me. I imagine it was a simpler time for the both of us.

A time where we never met.
But I'm glad I met you.
A time where we never kissed.
But I'm glad I kissed you.
A time where I didn't say,
"It's okay.
It's okay and it's always going to be okay
because I love you too."

It's not okay. It's not okay. Itsnotokay.itsnotokayitsnotokayitsnotokayitsnotokay

Tomorrow I will wake up, put on a t-shirt, boxers, socks, jeans, worn out Nikes, and a beat up flannel. I'll check my pulse, as I do my vitals, and I'll take my medications. I'll look at my bank account and determine how much money it'll take to forget you and how much more I wish I had so I could help you.

Is there a simpler way of saying I love you, or should I continue writing this album?

I never understood the sound of a heartbeat
the relentless BA-***, BA-***, BA-***
so draining and grating it makes me numb
BA-***, BA-***, BA-***
until we finally succumb

I never understood how people die of a broken heart
the break is not physical
it is not actual
it is not real
it is just how you feel
right?

I never understood why love was a two-way street
shouldn't it be a fork in the road converging
becoming one-way once we finally meet?
but that was because I only saw my side  
I had know idea how our paths were going to collide

And I still never understood the sound of a heartbeat
of all the beats why two?
I never understood it
that is... until I met you

Because you were the second beat
that puzzled me for so long
You were the second beat
that kept me going strong
you were that up beat
to my favorite song
and you are the second beat
that made my heart belong

and now as a widower
I never heard that second beat
a murmur it had become,
until I saw her again
on the day of my death
went the Vitals screen went
BA....BA.... BA.... buuuuummm