by John Greenleaf Whittier  (1807 – 1892)

“As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so Good Spirits which be Angels of Light are augmented not only by the Divine Light of the Sun, but also by our common Wood fire: and as the celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of Wood doth the same.”

        COR. AGRIPPA,
           Occult Philosophy, Book I. chap. v.

“Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow; and, driving o’er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight; the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.”

                                       EMERSON

The sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming less than threat,
It sank from sight before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told.
The wind blew east; we heard the roar
Of Ocean on his wintry shore,
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there
Beat with low rhythm our inland air.

Meanwhile we did our nightly chores, —
Brought in the wood from out of doors,
Littered the stalls, and from the mows
Raked down the herd’s-grass for the cows;
Heard the horse whinnying for his corn;
And, sharply clashing horn on horn,
Impatient down the stanchion rows
The cattle shake their walnut bows;
While, peering from his early perch
Upon the scaffold’s pole of birch,
The **** his crested helmet bent
And down his querulous challenge sent.

Unwarmed by any sunset light
The gray day darkened into night,
A night made hoary with the swarm
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,
As zigzag, wavering to and fro,
Crossed and recrossed the wingàd snow:
And ere the early bedtime came
The white drift piled the window-frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.

So all night long the storm roared on:
The morning broke without a sun;
In tiny spherule traced with lines
Of Nature’s geometric signs,
And, when the second morning shone,
We looked upon a world unknown,
On nothing we could call our own.
Around the glistening wonder bent
The blue walls of the firmament,
No cloud above, no earth below, —
A universe of sky and snow!
The old familiar sights of ours
Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and towers
Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood,
Or garden-wall, or belt of wood;
A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed,
A fenceless drift what once was road;
The bridle-post an old man sat
With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat;
The well-curb had a Chinese roof;
And even the long sweep, high aloof,
In its slant spendor, seemed to tell
Of Pisa’s leaning miracle.

A prompt, decisive man, no breath
Our father wasted: “Boys, a path!”
Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy
Count such a summons less than joy?)
Our buskins on our feet we drew;
With mittened hands, and caps drawn low,
To guard our necks and ears from snow,
We cut the solid whiteness through.
And, where the drift was deepest, made
A tunnel walled and overlaid
With dazzling crystal: we had read
Of rare Aladdin’s wondrous cave,
And to our own his name we gave,
With many a wish the luck were ours
To test his lamp’s supernal powers.
We reached the barn with merry din,
And roused the prisoned brutes within.
The old horse ****** his long head out,
And grave with wonder gazed about;
The **** his ***** greeting said,
And forth his speckled harem led;
The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked,
And mild reproach of hunger looked;
The hornëd patriarch of the sheep,
Like Egypt’s Amun roused from sleep,
Shook his sage head with gesture mute,
And emphasized with stamp of foot.

All day the gusty north-wind bore
The loosening drift its breath before;
Low circling round its southern zone,
The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone.
No church-bell lent its Christian tone
To the savage air, no social smoke
Curled over woods of snow-hung oak.
A solitude made more intense
By dreary-voicëd elements,
The shrieking of the mindless wind,
The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind,
And on the glass the unmeaning beat
Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet.
Beyond the circle of our hearth
No welcome sound of toil or mirth
Unbound the spell, and testified
Of human life and thought outside.
We minded that the sharpest ear
The buried brooklet could not hear,
The music of whose liquid lip
Had been to us companionship,
And, in our lonely life, had grown
To have an almost human tone.

As night drew on, and, from the crest
Of wooded knolls that ridged the west,
The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank
From sight beneath the smothering bank,
We piled, with care, our nightly stack
Of wood against the chimney-back, —
The oaken log, green, huge, and thick,
And on its top the stout back-stick;
The knotty forestick laid apart,
And filled between with curious art

The ragged brush; then, hovering near,
We watched the first red blaze appear,
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam,
Until the old, rude-furnished room
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom;
While radiant with a mimic flame
Outside the sparkling drift became,
And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree
Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free.
The crane and pendent trammels showed,
The Turks’ heads on the andirons glowed;
While childish fancy, prompt to tell
The meaning of the miracle,
Whispered the old rhyme: “Under the tree,
When fire outdoors burns merrily,
There the witches are making tea.”

The moon above the eastern wood
Shone at its full; the hill-range stood
Transfigured in the silver flood,
Its blown snows flashing cold and keen,
Dead white, save where some sharp ravine
Took shadow, or the sombre green
Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black
Against the whiteness at their back.
For such a world and such a night
Most fitting that unwarming light,
Which only seemed where’er it fell
To make the coldness visible.

Shut in from all the world without,
We sat the clean-winged hearth about,
Content to let the north-wind roar
In baffled rage at pane and door,
While the red logs before us beat
The frost-line back with tropic heat;
And ever, when a louder blast
Shook beam and rafter as it passed,
The merrier up its roaring draught
The great throat of the chimney laughed;
The house-dog on his paws outspread
Laid to the fire his drowsy head,
The cat’s dark silhouette on the wall
A couchant tiger’s seemed to fall;
And, for the winter fireside meet,
Between the andirons’ straddling feet,
The mug of cider simmered slow,
The apples sputtered in a row,
And, close at hand, the basket stood
With nuts from brown October’s wood.

What matter how the night behaved?
What matter how the north-wind raved?
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow
Could quench our hearth-fire’s ruddy glow.
O Time and Change! — with hair as gray
As was my sire’s that winter day,
How strange it seems, with so much gone
Of life and love, to still live on!
Ah, brother! only I and thou
Are left of all that circle now, —
The dear home faces whereupon
That fitful firelight paled and shone.
Henceforward, listen as we will,
The voices of that hearth are still;
Look where we may, the wide earth o’er,
Those lighted faces smile no more.

We tread the paths their feet have worn,
We sit beneath their orchard trees,
We hear, like them, the hum of bees
And rustle of the bladed corn;
We turn the pages that they read,
Their written words we linger o’er,
But in the sun they cast no shade,
No voice is heard, no sign is made,
No step is on the conscious floor!
Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust,
(Since He who knows our need is just,)
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must.
Alas for him who never sees
The stars shine through his cypress-trees!
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away,
Nor looks to see the breaking day
Across the mournful marbles play!
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith,
The truth to flesh and sense unknown,
That Life is ever lord of Death,
And Love can never lose its own!

We sped the time with stories old,
Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told,
Or stammered from our school-book lore
“The Chief of Gambia’s golden shore.”
How often since, when all the land
Was clay in Slavery’s shaping hand,
As if a far-blown trumpet stirred
Dame Mercy Warren’s rousing word:
“Does not the voice of reason cry,
Claim the first right which Nature gave,
From the red scourge of ******* to fly,
Nor deign to live a burdened slave!”
Our father rode again his ride
On Memphremagog’s wooded side;
Sat down again to moose and samp
In trapper’s hut and Indian camp;
Lived o’er the old idyllic ease
Beneath St. François’ hemlock-trees;
Again for him the moonlight shone
On Norman cap and bodiced zone;
Again he heard the violin play
Which led the village dance away.
And mingled in its merry whirl
The grandam and the laughing girl.
Or, nearer home, our steps he led
Where Salisbury’s level marshes spread
Mile-wide as flies the laden bee;
Where merry mowers, hale and strong,
Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along
The low green prairies of the sea.
We shared the fishing off Boar’s Head,
And round the rocky Isles of Shoals
The hake-broil on the drift-wood coals;
The chowder on the sand-beach made,
Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot,
With spoons of clam-shell from the ***.
We heard the tales of witchcraft old,
And dream and sign and marvel told
To sleepy listeners as they lay
Stretched idly on the salted hay,
Adrift along the winding shores,
When favoring breezes deigned to blow
The square sail of the gundelow
And idle lay the useless oars.

Our mother, while she turned her wheel
Or run the new-knit stocking-heel,
Told how the Indian hordes came down
At midnight on Concheco town,
And how her own great-uncle bore
His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore.
Recalling, in her fitting phrase,
So rich and picturesque and free
(The common unrhymed poetry
Of simple life and country ways,)
The story of her early days, —
She made us welcome to her home;
Old hearths grew wide to give us room;
We stole with her a frightened look
At the gray wizard’s conjuring-book,
The fame whereof went far and wide
Through all the simple country side;
We heard the hawks at twilight play,
The boat-horn on Piscataqua,
The loon’s weird laughter far away;
We fished her little trout-brook, knew
What flowers in wood and meadow grew,
What sunny hillsides autumn-brown
She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down,
Saw where in sheltered cove and bay,
The ducks’ black squadron anchored lay,
And heard the wild-geese calling loud
Beneath the gray November cloud.
Then, haply, with a look more grave,
And soberer tone, some tale she gave
From painful Sewel’s ancient tome,
Beloved in every Quaker home,
Of faith fire-winged by martyrdom,
Or Chalkley’s Journal, old and quaint, —
Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint! —
Who, when the dreary calms prevailed,
And water-**** and bread-cask failed,
And cruel, hungry eyes pursued
His portly presence mad for food,
With dark hints muttered under breath
Of casting lots for life or death,

Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies,
To be himself the sacrifice.
Then, suddenly, as if to save
The good man from his living grave,
A ripple on the water grew,
A school of porpoise flashed in view.
“Take, eat,” he said, “and be content;
These fishes in my stead are sent
By Him who gave the tangled ram
To spare the child of Abraham.”
Our uncle, innocent of books,
Was rich in lore of fields and brooks,
The ancient teachers never dumb
Of Nature’s unhoused lyceum.
In moons and tides and weather wise,
He read the clouds as prophecies,
And foul or fair could well divine,
By many an occult hint and sign,
Holding the cunning-warded keys
To all the woodcraft mysteries;
Himself to Nature’s heart so near
v That all her voices in his ear
Of beast or bird had meanings clear,
Like Apollonius of old,
Who knew the tales the sparrows told,
Or Hermes, who interpreted
What the sage cranes of Nilus said;
A simple, guileless, childlike man,
Content to live where life began;
Strong only on his native grounds,
The little world of sights and sounds
Whose girdle was the parish bounds,
Whereof his fondly partial pride
The common features magnified,
As Surrey hills to mountains grew
In White of Selborne’s loving view, —
He told how teal and loon he shot,
And how the eagle’s eggs he got,
The feats on pond and river done,
The prodigies of rod and gun;
Till, warming with the tales he told,
Forgotten was the outside cold,
The bitter wind unheeded blew,
From ripening corn the pigeons flew,
The partridge drummed i’ the wood, the mink
Went fishing down the river-brink.
In fields with bean or clover gay,
The woodchuck, like a hermit gray,
Peered from the doorway of his cell;
The muskrat plied the mason’s trade,
And tier by tier his mud-walls laid;
And from the shagbark overhead
The grizzled squirrel dropped his shell.

Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer
And voice in dreams I see and hear, —
The sweetest woman ever Fate
Perverse denied a household mate,
Who, lonely, homeless, not the less
Found peace in love’s unselfishness,
And welcome wheresoe’er she went,
A calm and gracious element,
Whose presence seemed the sweet income
And womanly atmosphere of home, —
Called up her girlhood memories,
The huskings and the apple-bees,
The sleigh-rides and the summer sails,
Weaving through all the poor details
And homespun warp of circumstance
A golden woof-thread of romance.
For well she kept her genial mood
And simple faith of maidenhood;
Before her still a cloud-land lay,
The mirage loomed across her way;
The morning dew, that dries so soon
With others, glistened at her noon;
Through years of toil and soil and care,
From glossy tress to thin gray hair,
All unprofaned she held apart
The ****** fancies of the heart.
Be shame to him of woman born
Who hath for such but thought of scorn.
There, too, our elder sister plied
Her evening task the stand beside;
A full, rich nature, free to trust,
Truthful and almost sternly just,
Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act,
And make her generous thought a fact,
Keeping with many a light disguise
The secret of self-sacrifice.

O heart sore-tried! thou hast the best
That Heaven itself could give thee, — rest,
Rest from all bitter thoughts and things!
How many a poor one’s blessing went
With thee beneath the low green tent
Whose curtain never outward swings!

As one who held herself a part
Of all she saw, and let her heart
Against the household ***** lean,
Upon the motley-braided mat
Our youngest and our dearest sat,
Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes,
Now bathed in the unfading green
And holy peace of Paradise.
Oh, looking from some heavenly hill,
Or from the shade of saintly palms,
Or silver reach of river calms,
Do those large eyes behold me still?
With me one little year ago: —
The chill weight of the winter snow
For months upon her grave has lain;
And now, when summer south-winds blow
And brier and harebell bloom again,
I tread the pleasant paths we trod,
I see the violet-sprinkled sod
Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak
The hillside flowers she loved to seek,
Yet following me where’er I went
With dark eyes full of love’s content.
The birds are glad; the brier-rose fills
The air with sweetness; all the hills
Stretch green to June’s unclouded sky;
But still I wait with ear and eye
For something gone which should be nigh,
A loss in all familiar things,
In flower that blooms, and bird that sings.
And yet, dear heart! remembering thee,
Am I not richer than of old?
Safe in thy immortality,
What change can reach the wealth I hold?
What chance can mar the pearl and gold
Thy love hath left in trust with me?
And while in life’s late afternoon,
Where cool and long the shadows grow,
I walk to meet the night that soon
Shall shape and shadow overflow,
I cannot feel that thou art far,
Since near at need the angels are;
And when the sunset gates unbar,
Shall I not see thee waiting stand,
And, white against the evening star,
The welcome of thy beckoning hand?

Brisk wielder of the birch and rule,
The master of the district school
Held at the fire his favored place,
Its warm glow lit a laughing face
Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared
The uncertain prophecy of beard.
He teased the mitten-blinded cat,
Played cross-pins on my uncle’s hat,
Sang songs, and told us what befalls
In classic Dartmouth’s college halls.
Born the wild Northern hills among,
From whence his yeoman father wrung
By patient toil subsistence scant,
Not competence and yet not want,
He early gained the power to pay
His cheerful, self-reliant way;
Could doff at ease his scholar’s gown
To peddle wares from town to town;
Or through the long vacation’s reach
In lonely lowland districts teach,
Where all the droll experience found
At stranger hearths in boarding round,
The moonlit skater’s keen delight,
The sleigh-drive through the frosty night,
The rustic party, with its rough
Accompaniment of blind-man’s-buff,
And whirling-plate, and forfeits paid,
His winter task a pastime made.
Happy the snow-locked homes wherein
He tuned his merry violin,

Or played the athlete in the barn,
Or held the good dame’s winding-yarn,
Or mirth-provoking versions told
Of classic legends rare and old,
Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome
Had all the commonplace of home,
And little seemed at best the odds
‘Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods;
Where Pindus-born Arachthus took
The guise of any grist-mill brook,
And dread Olympus at his will
Became a huckleberry hill.

A careless boy that night he seemed;
But at his desk he had the look
And air of one who wisely schemed,
And hostage from the future took
In trainëd thought and lore of book.
Large-brained, clear-eyed, of such as he
Shall Freedom’s young apostles be,
Who, following in War’s ****** trail,
Shall every lingering wrong assail;
All chains from limb and spirit strike,
Uplift the black and white alike;
Scatter before their swift advance
The darkness and the ignorance,
The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth,
Which nurtured Treason’s monstrous growth,
Made ****** pastime, and the hell
Of prison-torture possible;
The cruel lie of caste refute,
Old forms remould, and substitute
For Slavery’s lash the freeman’s will,
For blind routine, wise-handed skill;
A school-house plant on every hill,
Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence
The quick wires of intelligence;
Till North and South together brought
Shall own the same electric thought,
In peace a common flag salute,
And, side by side in labor’s free
And unresentful rivalry,
Harvest the fields wherein they fought.

Another guest that winter night
Flashed back from lustrous eyes the light.
Unmarked by time, and yet not young,
The honeyed music of her tongue
And words of meekness scarcely told
A nature passionate and bold,

Strong, self-concentred, spurning guide,
Its milder features dwarfed beside
Her unbent will’s majestic pride.
She sat among us, at the best,
A not unfeared, half-welcome guest,
Rebuking with her cultured phrase
Our homeliness of words and ways.
A certain pard-like, treacherous grace
Swayed the lithe limbs and drooped the lash,
Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash;
And under low brows, black with night,
Rayed out at times a dangerous light;
The sharp heat-lightnings of her face
Presaging ill to him whom Fate
Condemned to share her love or hate.
A woman tropical, intense
In thought and act, in soul and sense,
She blended in a like degree
The ***** and the devotee,
Revealing with each freak or feint
The temper of Petruchio’s Kate,
The raptures of Siena’s saint.
Her tapering hand and rounded wrist
Had facile power to form a fist;
The warm, dark languish of her eyes
Was never safe from wrath’s surprise.
Brows saintly calm and lips devout
Knew every change of scowl and pout;
And the sweet voice had notes more high
And shrill for social battle-cry.

Since then what old cathedral town
Has missed her pilgrim staff and gown,
What convent-gate has held its lock
Against the challenge of her knock!
Through Smyrna’s plague-hushed thoroughfares,
Up sea-set Malta’s rocky stairs,
Gray olive slopes of hills that hem
Thy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem,
Or startling on her desert throne
The crazy Queen of Lebanon
With claims fantastic as her own,
Her tireless feet have held their way;
And still, unrestful, bowed, and gray,
She watches under Eastern skies,
With hope each day renewed and fresh,
The Lord’s quick coming in the flesh,
Whereof she dreams and prophesies!
Where’er her troubled path may be,
The Lord’s sweet pity with her go!
The outward wayward life we see,
The hidden springs we may not know.
Nor is it given us to discern
What threads the fatal sisters spun,
Through what ancestral years has run
The sorrow with the woman born,
What forged her cruel chain of moods,
What set her feet in solitudes,
And held the love within her mute,
What mingled madness in the blood,
A life-long discord and annoy,
Water of tears with oil of joy,
And hid within the folded bud
Perversities of flower and fruit.
It is not ours to separate
The tangled skein of will and fate,
To show what metes and bounds should stand
Upon the soul’s debatable land,
And between choice and Providence
Divide the circle of events;
But He who knows our frame is just,
Merciful and compassionate,
And full of sweet assurances
And hope for all the language is,
That He remembereth we are dust!

At last the great logs, crumbling low,
Sent out a dull and duller glow,
The bull’s-eye watch that hung in view,
Ticking its weary circuit through,
Pointed with mutely warning sign
Its black hand to the hour of nine.
That sign the pleasant circle broke:
My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke,
Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray,
And laid it tenderly away;
Then roused himself to safely cover
The dull red brands with ashes over.
And while, with care, our mother laid
The work aside, her steps she stayed
One moment, seeking to express
Her grateful sense of happiness
For food and shelter, warmth and health,
And love’s contentment more than wealth,
With simple wishes (not the weak,
Vain prayers which no fulfilment seek,
But such as warm the generous heart,
O’er-prompt to do with Heaven its part)
That none might lack, that bitter night,
For bread and clothing, warmth and light.

Within our beds awhile we heard
The wind that round the gables roared,
With now and then a ruder shock,
Which made our very bedsteads rock.
We heard the loosened clapboards tost,
The board-nails snapping in the frost;
And on us, through the unplastered wall,
Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall.
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do
When hearts are light and life is new;
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew,
Till in the summer-land of dreams
They softened to the sound of streams,
Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars,
And lapsing waves on quiet shores.
Of merry voices high and clear;
And saw the teamsters drawing near
To break the drifted highways out.
Down the long hillside treading slow
We saw the half-buried oxen go,
Shaking the snow from heads uptost,
Their straining nostrils white with frost.
Before our door the straggling train
Drew up, an added team to gain.
The elders threshed their hands a-cold,
Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokes
From lip to lip; the younger folks
Down the loose snow-banks, wrestling, rolled,
Then toiled again the cavalcade
O’er windy hill, through clogged ravine,
And woodland paths that wound between
Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed.
From every barn a team afoot,
At every house a new recruit,
Where, drawn by Nature’s subtlest law,
Haply the watchful young men saw
Sweet doorway pictures of the curls
And curious eyes of merry girls,
Lifting their hands in mock defence
Against the snow-ball’s compliments,
And reading in each missive tost
The charm with Eden never lost.
We heard once more the sleigh-bells’ sound;
And, following where the teamsters led,
The wise old Doctor went his round,
Just pausing at our door to say,
In the brief autocratic way
Of one who, prompt at Duty’s call,
Was free to urge her claim on all,
That some poor neighbor sick abed
At night our mother’s aid would need.
For, one in generous thought and deed,
What mattered in the sufferer’s sight
The Quaker matron’s inward light,
The Doctor’s mail of Calvin’s creed?
All hearts confess the saints elect
Who, twain in faith, in love agree,
And melt not in an acid sect
The Christian pearl of charity!

So days went on: a week had passed
Since the great world was heard from last.
The Almanac we studied o’er,
Read and reread our little store
Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score;
One harmless novel, mostly hid
From younger eyes, a book forbid,
And poetry, (or good or bad,
A single book was all we had,)
Where Ellwood’s meek, drab-skirted Muse,
A stranger to the heathen Nine,
Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine,
The wars of David and the Jews.
At last the floundering carrier bore
The village paper to our door.
Lo! broadening outward as we read,
To warmer zones the horizon spread
In panoramic length unrolled
We saw the marvels that it told.
Before us passed the painted Creeks,
A   nd daft McGregor on his raids
In Costa Rica’s everglades.
And up Taygetos winding slow
Rode Ypsilanti’s Mainote Greeks,
A Turk’s head at each saddle-bow!
Welcome to us its week-old news,
Its corner for the rustic Muse,
Its monthly gauge of snow and rain,
Its record, mingling in a breath
The wedding bell and dirge of death:
Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale,
The latest culprit sent to jail;
Its hue and cry of stolen and lost,
Its vendue sales and goods at cost,
And traffic calling loud for gain.
We felt the stir of hall and street,
The pulse of life that round us beat;
The chill embargo of the snow
Was melted in the genial glow;
Wide swung again our ice-locked door,
And all the world was ours once more!

Clasp, Angel of the backword look
And folded wings of ashen gray
And voice of echoes far away,
The brazen covers of thy book;
The weird palimpsest old and vast,
Wherein thou hid’st the spectral past;
Where, closely mingling, pale and glow
The characters of joy and woe;
The monographs of outlived years,
Or smile-illumed or dim with tears,
Green hills of life that ***** to death,
And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees
Shade off to mournful cypresses
With the white amaranths underneath.
Even while I look, I can but heed
The restless sands’ incessant fall,
Importunate hours that hours succeed,
Each clamorous with its own sharp need,
And duty keeping pace with all.
Shut down and clasp with heavy lids;
I hear again the voice that bids
The dreamer leave his dream midway
For larger hopes and graver fears:
Life greatens in these later years,
The century’s aloe flowers to-day!

Yet, haply, in some lull of life,
Some Truce of God which breaks its strife,
The worldling’s eyes shall gather dew,
Dreaming in throngful city ways
Of winter joys his boyhood knew;
And dear and early friends — the few
Who yet remain — shall pause to view
These Flemish pictures of old days;
Sit with me by the homestead hearth,
And stretch the hands of memory forth
To warm them at the wood-fire’s blaze!
And thanks untraced to lips unknown
Shall greet me like the odors blown
From unseen meadows newly mown,
Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond;
The traveller owns the grateful sense
Of sweetness near, he knows not whence,
And, pausing, takes with forehead bare
The benediction of the air.

Written in  1865

It started with a clever picking
Then the horn of cenarius sounding
Followed by an agile creep-blocking
The start of the beginning

Sk, Lina, Leoric lanes the bottom
A superior lane control no one could ever question
Burrow, Bolt, and array has been thrown
That poor enemy's troll got pawned

And now let's go into the middle lane
Whe're SF and Davion came
In this battle they would have to claim
The elusive exp and gold they can possible gain

The top lane's meepo was quite steady
For his enemies are getting heavy
Fissure and Nova are his enemy
The fearsome combo of deadly harmony

As the ferocious battle goes by
In ganks and clashes, skills fly
Some juke, some escape, and some die
The other team thrashtalks "nice try"

Oh dear meepo tries to solo Roshan
The other heroes try to *******
In the woods they find the one
That lone troll farming in wonderland

Sandking immediately winks
Followed by a nimble blink
Burrowstrike makes the troll sink
GG troll as many would think

The the team tries to push
TP-save the opponent used
But meepo breaks the unwanted truce
And tries to squeeze away the juice

They have to **** raigor
Who, in echo slam, has had a great score
But you seeit was only five versus four
Thus it leads the enemy in sore

Alas! the balance has been broken
It's a gg that's nearly spoken
The defenders has fallen
Rax, towers, and the tree are all broken

If only they've warded more
They would've prevented the gank on troll
The other team had a greater score
And they could have a chance to backdoor

Perhaps it was a close call
For a team you wouldn't easily small
Life indeed is like a ball
Just pawned because of the lone trol

It started with a clever picking
Then the horn of cenarius sounding
Followed by an agile creep-blocking
The start of the beginning

Sk, Lina, Leoric lanes the bottom
A superior lane control no one could ever question
Burrow, Bolt, and array has been thrown
That poor enemy's troll got pawned

And now let's go into the middle lane
Whe're SF and Davion came
In this battle they would have to claim
The elusive exp and gold they can possible gain

The top lane's meepo was quite steady
For his enemies are getting heavy
Fissure and Nova are his enemy
The fearsome combo of deadly harmony

As the ferocious battle goes by
In ganks and clashes, skills fly
Some juke, some escape, and some die
The other team thrashtalks "nice try"

Oh dear meepo tries to solo Roshan
The other heroes try to *******
In the woods they find the one
That lone troll farming in wonderland

Sandking immediately winks
Followed by a nimble blink
Burrowstrike makes the troll sink
GG troll as many would think

The the team tries to push
TP-save the opponent used
But meepo breaks the unwanted truce
And tries to squeeze away the juice

They have to **** raigor
Who, in echo slam, has had a great score
But you seeit was only five versus four
Thus it leads the enemy in sore

Alas! the balance has been broken
It's a gg that's nearly spoken
The defenders has fallen
Rax, towers, and the tree are all broken

If only they've warded more
They would've prevented the gank on troll
The other team had a greater score
And they could have a chance to backdoor

Perhaps it was a close call
For a team you wouldn't easily small
Life indeed is like a ball
Just pawned because of the lone troll

Don't worry DotA 2, I'll sacrifice my sleep for playing everyday!

Squeaky wheel chairs
And graying gray hairs
Walk hand in hand
Down hospital halls
Blinding white lights
And lonely black nights
We pay the cost
Beloved ones lost
Tiled white floors
And black numbered doors
Old painted walls
Line hospital halls
Waiting for doom
Wait in small rooms
Dripping IV’s
And color TV’s
Lunches on trays
And flower displays
Candy machines
And everything’s clean
As I walk down these hospital halls

Mind. Body. Both are transfixed among one another. They attract a certain multitude of how both permeates the other with constant activations among it’s greater whole. Two sides to the same coin. Something remotely without judgemental issues to be weary of. Mind and body servitude one another on the grand scale of themes. Monitoring what it’s like to function without one another in the best-case scenarios. One would like to think they both do have separate parts among being each others counterpart. It’s more finite then one would think at first. The difference between finite and separate existence comes with its own separate finite pieces without the other to perturb it’s operations. Finite is a judgmental classification among something to do with how each permeates the other. Yet have many finite pieces among one another who they deem isn’t worthy of there time. There’s an operation going beyond both connections between mind and body can foresee. The skeleton key of mind and body! This key is able to permeate both situational events at one singular time. A simultaneous rate without virtue to uphold it’s investigations. Investigations being something without equal ownership to who’s to be the most separate among each other. And having their own finite pieces among mixed connections one is deemed worthy to uphold among differences entirely. Does mind and body disagree with one another? Or do they simply don’t understand what they are among one another? If they did, then why the hustle from one another? A simple documentation among desirable functions on instinct to never get along. Yet why be brought together to permeate among connections across many of their pieces they already deemed worthy? Is it because they have no choice, but are fixed to get along? A forced operation which localizes their own behaviours across mind and body’s actions. Systematically removing respect among one another. All the above are equilateral. But the skeleton key of mind and body isn’t equilateral by any means. It’s the warden of both mind and body. It’s the warded succession that binds these permeated systems together for peace, and agreement. Desires without conquest isn’t deserving among one another. It’s only deserving among two sides of the same coin, when the key hiding in-between all separate pieces of finite details which takes the entire cake! Why does natures evolution want to keep these visuals under wraps? It’s only the in-between operations without separate pieces of finite details to rhythm the constant of all processes. The skeleton key is the proper picture hiding in plain sight for (non being the wiser) to evoke upon. (A reason being obvious among other reasons without closure among each other.) A testament to become stuck apart, if not for the skeleton key to fill in the gaps. Constantly pushing the desires from urges which are constantly giving practice toward mind and bodies believe in one another. Believe equals sacrifice. Both giving a well-known awareness that they aren’t truly at conflict with one another. There aware of another which binds their desires from urges over and over again. Unlocking one’s own processes among believe which equals sacrifice on a huge scale! Trying to process a path of deservance between how life is truly instructed upon. Natures evolution trying to permeate the true picture from the original design back into another’s claim. Its skeleton key is the object to truly finding progress with the original design. Mind and body being just pawns in a greater horizon. Evolution is the shenanigans of natures ploy. A thing helps pertain the connection between mind and body. Subjecting a skeleton key to react over and over again. Why? Simply so it isn’t disowned by the original designer. Evolution being natures shenanigans is a crafty finite detailed version onto natures spectrum indeed. Evolution being the key to mind and bodies success. A deceiving skeleton key hidden in plain sight for non to equally see!

Lipstick stains all over your mouth mixed with drawn blood as your tongue crashed violently around my insides
As you traveled
you left behind your mark as if I were something to be discovered
Some the size of Ireland
Others the size of Australia
When the sunlight reflects on our window, I am reminded that it is my time to be vulnerable
Rubbing orange peels on my aching body as if there were a bad spirit that needed to be warded off
Your nose would scrunch up,
but even still your amber eyes seemed ready to sap away my soul
Leaving behind a husk of a body
My straw hair falling off each limb
just like the leaves gathered on the forest floor
I longed to crush them under my sole
The marks on my body seem to have started to absorb the yellow from your eyes
I can’t seem to get rid of you
The avocado toast in the mornings only seem to fill me up temporarily before they are all expelled
Oh how quickly avocados turn ugly!
My nostrils are filling with an emptiness that is cold and engulfing
My head is a boat
I will sail away even if I’m tattered
The raging storm lurks behind me and threatens to end us both
But I know behind those dark clouds
there will be an array of colors
waiting for my happy ending to be painted

(m.p)

We stand in twilight hues...
Fingers consciously entwined in a clasp.
We speak without vocals
that crescendo between sighs and gasps.

We anticipate...
But we do not look forward...
Not to the promise of freedom and salvation.
More so the uncertainty
that resonate with the *****
of feathered morning birds.

The unknown scares us so.
We know not of what lurks,
in the impending light of day.
We simply bide the ticking seconds...
As we scramble for the right words to say.

When there needn't be such uncomfortable silence.
No need for an awkward stance.
For we've embraced the melody,
memorised the lyrics
and rehearsed the dance.

Yet...
We hesitate...
Even though we've decided that we must.
For what shadow that looms agape below us,
hurling threats of swallowing us whole,
will soon be warded off...
As quick as the errant gust.

The darkness...
Will soon be cast behind our backs.
And all would be committed to memory
as surely as it had begun.
It would dissipate as it would stretch far...
But only if we turn to face the dawning sun.

Do images of I appear in her thoughts?



Or simply the fostering of quaint fantasies?



Through all pandemonium paramour is sought



Though warded within profound secrecy





Frantic I plea for reprieve



To recover voluminous wounds



Renounce excuse to grieve



Slaughter the walls of this cocoon





'Tis never known where time will guide us



Underneath the sun she soaked hollow promises



Issuing surreal decrees decayed of trust



To romantic encounters she remains a novice





Genuine amour long since faded



Perennial you've become jaded

I'm walking a lonely road again.
Just passed a stretch of happy lane,
Now I'm all alone again.

For me, loneliness is a chill
That must be warded off by thrill,
Lest the biting jaws of cold
**** my finally stable self
And replaces me with seething magma.

I'm walking this dark lonely road
With no end in sight.
Staggering across the tiles,
Counting down the miles.

As old memories start to surround me,
I saw a bright fork in the road.
It hinted at cheerful times.
Despite the warning signs everywhere, I walked towards it,
Too desperate for warmth,
And too starved for touch.

I surrender to all…
I surrender to all of your subterfuge, all of your deceit, all of your mendacity, all that has become bleak.
You’ve caused me to question humanity, and my soul, oh my soul had a quandary filled with doubt.
The stars slowly begin to fade in luminescence, the darkness begins to speak.
She whispers to me softly of my imminent demise.
She fills me with a newfound sorrow that disheartens my very soul.
The liminal creature that lies at the end of this realm, He lies in the womb of nothingness, he floats above the ground.
He resides in an orb of lightness, fetal position.
-Awaiting the beckoning of a new dawn-
Glorious rays of the sun immerse this sphere, the placenta of iridescence in a positivity surge.
I’m separated from my doppelganger.
I’m searching in the darkness, awaiting the departure of an ebony backdrop lingering everywhere I turn.
-Never-
I hear voices inside of my head screaming of their revulsion and contempt for my being, for my existence.
They’re uttering to me of my folly, reminding me of my shortcomings and iniquities.
I fall to my knees.
I ponder my existence trying to determine where I went wrong.
No, pianos are playing amongst the obscurity of this apparition of the real world.
Minor chords prognosticate the deluge of sadness and doom that awaits me at the core of this abysmal place.
I’m searching for Him; I’m searching for the love of my life, the one that I shall metamorphose into…
-He is I.-
Seeing all of this pain surround me, it becomes hard to continue on my voyage for truth, for chaste efflorescence.
“I long to reach the zenith of my potential, to expand in caliber”
“I long to expand in breadth, width and height into an even more colossal creature.”
“I shall tower above the Earth, touching the sky.”
Emerging from my cocoon, a goliath wing shall glide off into the sunset in search of a brighter tomorrow.
When will I find myself?
A swirling column of light emerges from the ground beneath me, and lush foliage gently embraces my waning vitality.
It rejuvenates me with the breath of life.
-I’ve been given a second chance at life-
I glimmer with an iridescent light emanating from my heart and soul; and I illuminate the darkness.
The chaos surrounding me is warded off and I can hear the cries of The Malevolent signifying His pain.
He has succeeded for but a moment at encumbering my soul but now, now?
I see a new entity over the horizon.
Supplication has led to efflorescence in my spirit.
I’m nearing the edge of the world, or this world, the world I once knew and that once was in order to embrace a higher plane of existence.
I shall fuse with my other half.
I shall bloom like the most delicate and dainty orchid budding in the vernal atmosphere.
This is what you’ve done to me…
You’ve made a fighter out of a pacifist.
“I’ve evolved due to your vitriolic ways and I sincerely express my gratitude.”
-He is waiting-
-He is waiting-

By, Iridescently Effloresent

The wind never sleeps, so walk with the breeze.
The sun always blazing with brightness
bestowing a glorified light
upon the face of dark man weeping like a willow.
Tired bags below his eyes
reflect the soul of a stormy night.

Every morning he wakes and ages just a bit.
So subtle, yet it all adds up
to being warded in a hospital bed;
staring at a ceiling that sees only shadows
cast by the light of the Righteous Man above.

The shadows overcast the glory of the deeds done
and follow the man like the footsteps of
of a thief wearing iron boots
that make the ground crumble behind him.

Mundane perils of sitting at the kitchen table
with a newspaper in hand trying to read between the lines.
Walking to the beat of a humdrum drum.

Instead of asking politely “pretty please”
he utters with a long face “pity please”
like a toddler who can’t quite say pretty correctly.

Casting a shadow as far as the eye can see
A ship set sail long ago never to return from sea
leaving an empty dock along the beach
with a lone seat that sits at the very end.

Footsteps in the sand wash away with the waves
erasing a path once cast over by a shadow.
This man has a dark past lost in his memory
from traumatic confabulation
of what he wishes really happened.

Shadows of sin have followed this man everywhere he goes.
Sitting on the dock watching a deathly sunset,
he imagines a ship sailing across the horizon
casting a shadow along the suns reflection.
He awakes in a hospital bed staring at the ceiling,
drowning in his own shadows of sin.

I came to witness the future
Archon, archetype
an emanation of opposites.
"not every spirit is in
spiritarionic"

try 'em. Is God? Ax ye 'em dat.

Is God, ified, a re
warder of the unwarded,
or the warded?

expiration, due date duty, now,
reporting
ad hoc an'all, do you remember
who you intended
to become?

Do you remember who we emu
late, as our flames lick
next and next and next in
bubbles

axiomatic sparks stored in that
mother lode of mitochondriac
ical me-we-canicle chronicle time

reason. Ax dem ex-spirit-eers,
what is a spirtual bypass?

It's a heart way to avoid
growing old and
wise.

====
witchist, I y'know, 'r j?

alla words's once said, aloud, right?
alla words writ, once was heard, right.
check.
goodt'go. Hoorah.

the code. Who? RA! powerless sans
knowing that.
Yahoo, same set of mis con ceived
battle songs
which ended wars never fought.

the preacher claimed to have known
a poor wise man, who by his
wisdom saved a city, yet
not one of us knew,
the preacher said,
that poor wise man's name.

Ja', tha's who rah, ya'll laugh later.

this is visitation day at the comedian
rehabituational s'cool.

D'jew know why you listen to non sense,
from motley clad lads an'lassies?

Culture. Kultur. Gut biome axioms
juicin' carbs 'n' fiber. Fectin'

laughter trigger,
good meds. Good medicine, as General
Custer or Emory or somebody
said of blankets. In 1763. Oh,
You know, AI knows you know and now

we watch your eyes. Grin. All done, jest

let me with
draw the cathe.... there. All better.

Wisdom will seep through. Y'live.

And the moon seeps through the runs in my stockings,
Snow melts off ruddy cheeks and boils to the atmosphere
Patchwork skies and yellow air.

We threw snow behind our shoulders for lack of any salt
Steeped, stewed and warded off our demons,
Invoking the wrath of the wandering cars
And the moon seeps through the runs in my stockings.

A lonesome traffic light directs the phantom engines
The dewy skylights have yet been good to me
A fog of breaths entwined lift up to the
patchwork skies and yellow air.

As our tinny music on cell phones dampened the stillness
The lamps shone out to nobody still
Loud, jarring, paling the night sky’s starlight,
And the moon that seeps through the runs in my stockings

Our riotous whisperings
Were but cracks in the ice
Our cigarettes were torches held against
the patchwork skies and yellow air

This city is a tyrant
Its icy stillness grasping through my clothes
The stillness sears my inhibitions,
the moon seeps through the runs in my stockings

We fell into the yellow cab
Made inert by our indiscretions, plagued
By the moon that seeped into the runs in my stockings,
The rosy skies and clearing air.

the eye of the needle lies in the teeth of the wind
the mouth of the cave lies in the skin of the pearl
the dream is the door and the star is the key.

ALL CRIES ARE WAKING!
Whitest White of all White!
Blackest Blacks of all Blacks!
Shame and Son, Sun, and Shadow!

Stronger than gods, brighter than mortals!
Only He is Awake! Only He is Alive!

He Knows the Names and the Naming!
He Knows the Wait and the Waiting!
He Enters into every Star and Moon!
He Shines through their Shadows!

One Shape, One Spelling!
One Wraith, One Casting!
From Darkness, He is Armed!
From Light, He is Warded!

He is All Things! Drake! Liche! Theomen!
On rivers of fire he comes forth!
Through storms of dreams he rides!
With slivers of steel he pierces the Heart!

All Spells, Powers, Curses Broken!
The Chains are Shattered!
The Scales Fall Away!

I see you with MY EYE!
And all is SILENCE!
I Wake!
I Remember!
LORD!

THE DREAMER IS AWAKE!

It’s about boot heels for metronomes tonight,
the out of tune guitar grinning on the upstroke
is our Harvest, is our reveling
in daybreak frost never coming—

can be
warded off
by rosy cheeks
a two-step
a whisky breakdown—

Not yet, not yet

Drinking off cold to keep a rhythm
in step with Michigan months
shifting to auburn tones
like old-fashioned photographs.

Until ***** hounds trickle into blankets,
incubate into hangovers
thrown on living room couches,
floors, acres,

The cuddled up crop
of our Harvest Gathering.

My dearest reader, seconds ago, before your
Decision to turn the page, there was nothing.

These very words were hidden away and thus
Unseen, to all intents did not exist:
Just like the beauty of the Jovian Moons
'Til “Voyager” beamed those pictures back to Earth.

For you have brought this page to life - yes you and only you!
You bring along a wealth of memories of your own,
Your feelings, thoughts, regrets and sorrows, joys
And fears, your hopes and fantasies.

You have the mountains of your mind:
Your personal rivers, clouds and suns: flowers and gasometers!
Landscapes, dreams and nightmares of your very own.
And me, as you sit reading this, I might be dead and buried,
Or with you right now, or maybe miles away.

To you I give the role of God: to breathe your life upon this page.
Take you away, dear reader, and there’s nothing: formless void.
Yet now, together, you may join me, in a realm
Where Life, though challenged by evil,
Is warded by our Love.

Paul Butters

(C) PB 1997.

Here I am! Elevated to a sordid state of mind;
And about my surroundings I claim no clue;
I just awoke from a kindred nightmare, true;
That I had had of late, ah! And I was blind;
Perhaps there ain’t a lovely creature around;
To t’is fate I hath been forcefully bound.

Here I was! As deranged as I may be now;
That I hath loved and vowed on the down low;
As much as I used to do, and again today;
The finished worlds spoke to me like yesterday;
And the dead, descending in smoke on me;
Seem even more real than yon living tree.

And so, far from the bulging little lilac;
All hath been too demanding and tough;
That all hath been terse under the sunlight;
I pretty much am frightened not by the night;
But I, seeking not the morning of the hand;
I only find my love in words, and paint;

And being far, behind in the know;
I wish I could understand today and tomorrow;
That they shan’t stare at me with rugged fright;
That I can still share their gift for the light;
But so, they cannot see my calm and anger;
I hath grown out of them, forever.

To those whom I once loved, and now still do;
To those whom I hath found in my chest, anew;
To those in whom I once engrossed my faith;
To those that hath hurt me, of late;
To those, to whom Midnight is wrong poetry;
To those, to whom my love remains yet for me.

To those, to whom love bears another form;
To those, to whom Lavender is barely a poem;
To those, who threads not enough love to love me;
To those, to whom my herd is not yet born;
To those, to whom such singing is not what I see;
To those, to whom my applause is but my own.

To those, to whom darkness is not fair;
To those, to whom joys ought not to be shared;
To those, to whom May is May, and hark!
To those, to whom tears are in the park;
To those, to whom depression is laughter;
To those, to whom laughter is bland anger!

To those, to whom tears are a strand of love;
To those, to whom scars are not enough;
To those, to whom coarseness is strength;
To those, to whom care is not in length;
To those, to whom loving is not to be gently;
To those, to whom wrong is fate, and hate is me!

For such sadness is gloom, and gloom is joy;
To me that joy has flown, and misery borne still,
And misery that carries happiness to feel;
Misery that itself remains an elegant coy;
And there is no place on earth for us to roam;
No glance at our rights, no words for our poems!

For such sorrow is true, and sick am I;
I am a stranded fool to the simmering sky;
That even the Sun shall render me wrong;
I am not to enchant its unwavering songs;
And so all my poems be a string of hate;
None has cursed me, but strained me of late.

For such tears are faint, and weak am I;
I am a disillusion to the enlightened lie;
A disgust to the retraced steps and roads;
I am a disturbed one to the minds of both;
I am diseased, a sick to the brain and cold;
I am a heartless litter, a stained cloth.

For such illness, and tortured am I;
They shan’t know me, even my lies;
That in the graveyard that we could stay
Holding hands at the passing of awkward days;
I am too delighted at the bribed night;
I am alone, a solitaire under daylight.

For such disgrace, and hateful lesions;
For such talent is but an illusion;
That in the tomb that only they surrender;
Asking that the slyness shan’t last forever;
That they shall ask us to forgive, and hear
What they all now seek, and have here.

For such hallucinations, and thoughts;
For such merits, and feelings, are locked;
That I can see not the soil gray today;
Tramped on by their noisy feet, and say;
That even such a modest fate they deny;
That all that exist are a lie.

And who shall be me, who shall see?
I live in a poem, and die in paint;
That they shall seek not the quiet of me;
I smell like grass myself, and turpentine;
I shall grow and die both in the shadows;
And cease on the halo of tomorrows.

And who shall seek me, who shall care?
These months hath been depressed and unfair;
Ere such days, there were lonely winds;
The most severed hauling I’d ever seen;
And with them were sane, pitiful torments;
Sending me off into sad, consumed moments;

And who shall be with me, who shall comfort;
I hath been warded off by my cruel Lord;
‘Hind the shades, I can only hear weeping screams;
Yet not so beauteous as the raging beams;
And who shall hide within my slumber’s visions;
For I hath no pleasure, nor divine provisions;

And who shall be by my side, who shall sleep;
For these dreams hath no notions to keep;
And whose disdained wisdom shall fight to stay;
Whilst they hath words no more, not to say;
And who shall sleep amongst they frayed wise;
None to live under them, nor be their disguise;

And who shall be my darling, be my gloom;
I hath no more wit left, not to meet;
Nor discomfort, nor to see my light poem;
I am not entertained by their sullen bits;
For such laughs are tears, and insincere;
For such songs are bitter, none that I hear;

And who shall be my heart, be my truth;
Who shall be grief to play my Eolian lute;
I hath seen none else among this seared grass;
And my winters shall go, and for fires to last;
They made me leave my heart in the sick past;
They hath made me and my chest apart;

And who shall be my tree, be my kind;
My poem is in good and evil and their lines;
For no dearer has sought me, by mean peril;
They’ve wished to run me into an Evil;
Ah! But whose love can be, to love me;
I am a literal madness no soul would be;

And who shall be my tree, be my lover;
Perhaps this sadness shall last forever;
And such joys shall sleep in demerits;
And the weathered daydreams, shan’t meet;
Perhaps I am meant to be my sweetheart—
Nor my darling, a thousand worlds apart.

Everyone loves the comedian.
He can bring a smile to someone’s face that had been covered with a cloud of darkness for decades.
He feels the sadness emitting from another person, even from their heart, and can chase it away with a joke about an interrupting cow or a dog and sandpaper or with the punchline being the lyrics to a song that when said is played in the head of the listener and its beat revives their heart with an electric shock.
He can put in order the right words and can say them with such perfect deliverance that it can make a crowd keel over, laughing so hard they can barely breathe and applaud with the forcefulness equivalent to a stampede of wildebeests.
People like to laugh.
He can make them laugh.
But what if the comedian no longer walks with a spring in his step? What if that cloud of sadness that he chased away found its way and circled back towards him?
What if it just so happen to be that, when he walked off the stage, he pulled off a mask that no one knew was there in the first place because he hid it so well by distracting the attention from his face and onto to what happiness he could provide them with. That by mending other broken spirits, none of them would notice his, even more broken than theirs. And in the silence of my- his- own misery, he is left to rage war with himself that he can only feel on the inside of me- him- and gives no hint to it on the outside so as to remain the jester. My- his- heart and mind is a warzone fought between him and his fears. The insecurities that reach out their withered hands to paralyze me- him- from the heart down are fought only with the will to press on as normal. And while I tell that joke about the rabbi, the priest, and the atheist that walk into the bar I’m on the other side of it drinking myself into a protective pit trying to forget the other joke I told about the chicken who crossed the road as if trying to paint me- it- with some amount of courage to cross the road when deep down inside I know the truth that I am much less than a coward unable to cross a dead road for fear of getting run over by myself. My insecurities and fears that I warded off for so long have finally grabbed hold of my ankles, ripping the supports from underneath me so that I fall and crash to the ground, blood spilling everywhere, all the while keeping a calm composure and a smile taped to my face so no one will know it kills.
Yet still I press on.
Why?
Because everyone loves the comedian.
I can bring a smile to someone’s face that had been covered with a cloud of sadness, emitting from their heart, coming in to save the day and chase away that darkness and revive their heart with an electric shock that has the forcefulness equivalent to a stampede of wildebeests that will leave them breathless and with a smile on their face.
And so they press on.
And so I press on.

You will see me tonight,
although your dreams are warded
against love and nightmares

I am the constant; the timeless;
the moon that waxes
and wanes in your thoughts;
I am here; I will not leave;
you shall not be abandoned;

i am the lie you've been fed;
[and the truth with which
you've been poisoned]

i am the facade of reality;
i am the one you have buried;
i am here;
i am timeless;
i died with eternity;

i died like so much snow swept away

planets of all colors and sizes
floating on an endless universe
of mystic dust
and rainbow smoke

angels fly
from planet to planet
watching for the living
caring for their order

suns all around
distant but present
shining their lights
flickering in the night

one stands proud in the middle
the Sun of suns
the king of the universe
strong and powerful

it is a lovely world
a fantasy made up
watched and warded
but the lurking man

he plans carefully
outlines every detail
he paints the smiles
he writes the lies

he is a clever one
i must admit
everything plays out as his says
he is an award-worthy director

the lurking man stands above
we are standing on his palm
blindfolded, unaware
complete fools

he paints a beautiful scenery
he is the architect of paradise
he even lets us believe
that there is a greater power than him

you see,
the lurking man is a liar
and a cheat
he is a trickster
and a fraud
he hides in the shadows
planning his next move
creating a demise
waiting for the right moment
to strike

and it scares me sometimes
it keeps me up at night
how he is able to portray
such real dreams
into my own mind
and how one of this days
he will finally attack

People said he was demented
Who strode past their dignity
He was happy and decorated
It’s more likely, they’d say so
They weren’t illiterate or unaware
They were taught, from the beginning
These men aren’t humans, beggars
He lies in the street paths
Poverty taught him kindness
To be simple and be thankful
For every penny he thanked
But the ones who warded him off
Still craving for more
Believed they were cursed
And not thankful for the fortunes
Let us be silent for their greed
That will perish with death

I'm a bit fragmented
Warded up
With layers
Of
Stay-aways
A whisper of
"Don't get too close"
I'm a little too-easily broken
None too strong
All I need
Is a little warmth
And maybe I'll begin to grow
If only
I could trust
That someone else
Will handle me gently
If only this shell
Weren't made of glass
I might not shatter
Under the weight
Of all the "maybes"
Dripping into my ears
But every atom
Has a breaking point
You simply need to know
From what height
It must be dropped

This morning the rains fell upon the city;
heightening the contemplative mood
within which I found myself.

It began as a cacophonous downpour,
followed by a brief but measured rest.
Upon resuming, the rains alighted gently and rhythmically,
as if relief had come from the initial burst
and contentment from the pause.

I longed to be in the presence of that revered trio
whose trumpeter's sounds still echo within me.
Yes, though my convictions have grown dubious with time,
an impassioned but faithful rendition
is something to embrace on such a day.

Having warded off a material challenge
from late afternoon's chaotic fusion of asphalt and steel,
the melodies continued well into the night.

The rains, bond between past and future,
temporal and eternal, are exalted
for allowing respite from the mundane and disconcerting,
and bringing us closer to the ground of our being.

Is it bad that I feel lonely?
Is it bad that even though I am not alone,
I long for company,
I just don't know whose.
Is it bad I'd rather sit on my floor,
look at the wall and feel the world around me move,
but feel so still in all of these bright, false colors.
Is it bad that I want to be alone,
but not lonely?
I want to run away.
It's happening again,
I've been feeling it coming for so long,
but warded it away.
It's coming on to me so quickly now..
the broken glass on the floor,
the bite of the razor,
the cold water and wet clothes,
the music and voices no one else can hear.
I want you, who used to always notice,
notice me now in this state.
I thought you would see the signs...
but you haven't...so I'm alone again.
Should've known.
It's okay, though. It's happened before,
I'll leave you alone now.
I'll run away on my own,
and keep being alone and lonely,
because it's better than feeling falsely loved.
It's okay, I'm used to it.
No fault of yours.

He couldn’t see beyond the veil of mist obscuring the burrows
where the army of undead stood, where the price he had paid for living awaited.
In the gloom of a moon trapped behind a nimbus night,
they didn’t shuffle or groan or whisper terrible things,
nor did they appear grotesque and layered in slabs of their own blood.

He slunk forward to meet them, eyes darting in wild arcs,
skinned lips bitten a bittersweet rosy delight.
It was fear written on his face, not anger or pity or nostalgia,
or maybe it was under his eyelids, beckoning him toward what couldn’t be considered friends,
they were acquaintances of coincidence instead.

The sincere light had been snuffed out long ago,
back when people believed in gods who gave a **** about them—
now they had to make their own ******* miracles.
He might’ve laughed at the word if he wasn’t stuck in a place resembling the Asphodel Meadows…
they weren’t heroes or noble or mighty, they were the murdered, the slaughtered.

He joined his brethren, his body warded off in a grave he felt didn’t matter;
nothing changed because of his death or the hoarse public howl.
The ranks reminded him of the scene in Lord of the Rings with legions of men and women standing strong against a matching foe, but for the foe itself—
their foe numbered fewer, a cluster of pale beings with roaring eyes full of fallacies.

He couldn’t see back where he had burst forth from, but he didn’t try—
his fear hadn’t evaporated, it swirled around him… no, it coiled around all of them,
a mass of heaving exhausted dread spanning too many centuries.
They were all the same in one terrible condition, one method of mayhem done,
he fell to his knees and cried out, for he saw past the veil—

swathed in hopeless suits and scapegoat words, their nation had let another gun prevail.

How hollow the hallowed hours are spent in adoration,
These born not by feeling, but simple desperation,
As false green pastures of forests set as scenery now wither,
That feared cold that the woodland warded against now haunts and hounds, leading one to shock and shiver.

Loneliness. That dark dire and deadly dread that stalks us through our lives,
We're told we're only alone in death but far less than lonely when we die.

We are very rarely not alone, with respect to lives within our heads,
Which hold thoughts and hopes and words, only thought of, never said.
Nobody really knows us, not all of us I feel
The reality is we only reveal a part of ourselves, our self idealised ideal,
So here we're left, severed, distant, and detached,
Hoping, seeking for some form of a preformed idea of a match,
Distinctly apart from each other we are kept for most of the time,
Is there any surprise in false emotion of devotion spoken?
With loneliness as motive, is there any wonder why the crime?

Anything to avoid the harrow of a hallow of the heart
It makes out endings and our starts, but which leaves us more apart,
I see others, remark and wonder, ponder whether or not they are the same,
Lonely empty canvases, blank and always seeking a partner, painter or just a frame.

Though these plays we cast, for a time they do sustain,
I'd like one day, for the truth to at last be known,
Is there a mirror or a soul with who we are the same?
Or are we always to be be left alone?

I took a rain pill today
and drifted into dreams
in which I came to know
the inside of a lotus flower
that taught me how to be
grateful to the mud.

I wore rain glasses today,
their blurred glasses veiled
the long lines of lovers,
like you, marching towards me
with a practiced silence.

I cashed a rain cheque today
and got a lifeless wet kiss
in a way you slip yourself
an extra fifty dollars
of Monopoly money.

I took off the rain ring today
and put it into my pocket,
trying to remember the girl
with the arrogant smile,
chestnut eyes that warded off
nightmares on air flights,
kisses in playgrounds at night.

I put on a rain dress today,
shapeshifting to a fluid bond
between the frailties
of my soul and my mind,
concealing the warping
of my shadow.

This is where it starts.
This is where it ends.
October rain does not last forever.
At some point it becomes
November rain.

Sitzfleisch, sit flush, ready to besieged be
or be re warded with the safety
of our common sense safe,
the culture that congeals
the clearness, in which we form, thoughts

muses Mozart must have noticed, as these
seem, in the air wisting any wish were
taken as this next stage in stating
being as we wish a while bliebe
doch.

And there, I close the door on the unread Faust.

We appear to be negotiating international peace,
in this unbiasable cctv coverage, ai sworn witnesses,

ours in to to reason totally reasonably in terms of
fifty fifty ratio, balance in all things,
and
pht. pht pht. the try, you know, it ai
not I ai swore, she said try to say it in a whisper,

happy as a thought that functions fine, if winning
has no loser in mind.
A big brother, once, has that experience.

That is the character in the play, you never noticed
watching, while your mind was in white room mood,

we learned to interact with e e, e alone and the knowing
mass is a word for message signal sign on off
stop go
know know know know jo know adjudged ad in phun item.

from the early ripples in the curtain,
we knew, some thing is moving
on the stage soon the scene

before our very open eyes we ov-ob-serve
attention being made to pay its worth
to all who pay it.

Yep, hear. Here's a wild idea, it wandered in and I fed it,
got to know it by the way, I need to stretch
and take a few deep inhalation of life's breath,
only here,
for mortal mind lines of reason being set for match
point or blaze, lucified game in lights names
left in utter avility to say willagers vould if vee may

be kings in terms of being good as may be,
under the best of times, as we know these are,
since ever, so far as we know,
with out puzzling how certain artifacts
are certainly artificial constructs from high social order.

Ant-like, by god.
Watch the world from just
Google-Earth high,
see the hive,
see the sense of madness, not visible
no evil thing intent on ending all hope of
peace  on earth, good willed toward men

safety feeling good inside, for a minute.

I think it. Then you try, make a minute of mortal peace,
worldly peace, in weary wicked minds
in desperate need of just a little
peace at a time like this, when
I make it up and let it go,
it is so good to know,
truth works as law
alone, once known, time being all the same,
yesterday today and ever on.