there are so many places to hide,

in my home at 17th and South screaming death threats at my roommates laughing diabolically playing  videogames and Jeopardy cooking quinoa stretching canvas the dog going mad frothing lunging  spastic to get the monkeys or the wookies or whatever random commandments we issue forth  drunken while Schlock rampages the backdrop,

at my uncle's row house on 22nd and Wallace with my shoes off freezing skipping class to watch March  Madness unwrapping waxpaper hoagies grimacing with each sip of Cherrywine or creamsicle  soda reading chapters at my leisure,

in the stacks among fiberglass and eternal florescent lima-tiled and echo-prone red-eyed and white-faced  caked with asbestos and headphones exhuming ossified pages from layers of cosmic dust  presiding benevolent,

in University City disguised in nothing but a name infiltrating Penn club soccer getting caught after  scoring yet still invited to the pure ***** joy of hell and heaven house parties of ice luge jungle  juice kegstand coke politic networking,

at Drexel's nightlit astroturf with the Jamaicans rolling blunts on the sidelines playing soccer floating in  slo-mo through billows of purple till the early morning or basketball at Penn against goggle- eyed professors in kneepads and copious sweat,

in the shadow tunnels behind Franklin Field always late night loner overlooking rust belt rails abandoned  to an absent tempo till tomorrow never looking behind me in the fear that someone is there,

at Phillies Stadium on glorious summer Tuesdays for dollar dog night laden with algebra geometry and  physics purposely forgetting to apply ballistics to the majestic arc of a home run or in the frozen  subway steam selling F.U. T.O. t-shirts to Eagles fans gnashing when the Cowboys come to town,

at 17th and Sansom in the morning bounding from Little Pete's scrambled eggs toast and black coffee  studying in the Spring thinking All is Full of Love in my ears leaving fog pollen footprints on the  smoking cement blooming,

at the Shambhala Center with dharma lotus dripping from heels soaking rosewater insides thrumming to the  groan of meditation,

at the Art Museum Greco-fleshed and ponderous counting tourists running the Rocky steps staring into shoji screen tatame teahouses,

at the Lebanese place plunked boldly in Reading Terminal Market buying hummus bumping past the Polish  and Irish on my way to the Amish with their wheelwagons packed with pretzels and honey and  chocolate and tea,

at the motheaten thrift store on North Broad buried under sad accumulations of ramshackle clothing  clowning ridiculous in the dim squinting at coathangers through magnifying glasses and mudflat  leather hoping to salvage something insane,

in the brown catacombed warrens of gutted Subterranea trying unsuccessfully to ignore bearded medicine

men adorned with shaman shell necklaces hawking incense bootlegs and broken Zippos halting conversation to listen pensive to the displacement of air after each train hurtles by,

at 30th Street Station cathedral sitting dwarfed by columns Herculean in their ascent and golden light  thunderclap whirligig wings on high circling the luminous waiting sprawled nascent on stringwood pews,

at the Masonic Temple next to City Hall, pretending to be a tourist all the while hoping scouring for clues in the cryptic grand architect apocrypha to expose global conspiracies,

at the Trocadero Electric Factory TLA Khyber Unitarian Church dungeon breaking my neck to basso  perfecto glitch kick drums with a giant's foot stampeding breakbeat holographic mind-boggled  hole-in-the-skull intonations,

at the Medusa Lounge Tritone Bob and Barbara's Silk City et cetera with a pitcher a pounder of Pabst and a  shot of Jim Beam glowing in the dark at the foosball table disco ball bopstepping to hip hop and  jazz and accordions and piano and vinyl,

in gray Fishtown at Gino's recording rap holding pizza debates on the ethics of sampling anything by  David Axelrod rattling tambourines and smiles at the Russian shopgirl downstairs still chained to  soul record crackles of antiquity spiraling from windows above,

at Sam Doom's on 12th and Spring Garden crafting friendship in greenhouse egg crate foam closets  breaking to scrutinize cinema and celebrate Thanksgiving blessed by holy chef Kronick,

in the company of Emily all over or in Kohn's Antiques salvaging for consanguinity and quirky heirlooms  discussing mortality and cancer and celestial funk chord blues as a cosmological constant and  communism and Cuba over mango brown rice plantains baking oatmeal chocolate chip cookies,

in a Coca Cola truck riding shotgun hot as hell hungover below the raging Kensington El at 6 AM nodding soft to the teamsters' curses the snagglesouled destitute crawling forth poisoned from sheet-metal shanty cardboard box projects this is not desolate,

at the impound lot yet again accusing tow trucks of false pretext paying up sheepish swearing I'll have my  revenge,

in the afterhour streets practicing trashcan kung fu and cinder block shotput shouting sauvage operatic at  tattooed bike messenger tribesmen pitstopped at the food trucks,

in the embrace of those I don't love the names sometimes rush at me drowned and I pray to myself for  asylum,

in the ciphers I host always at least 8 emcee lyric clerics summoning elemental until every pore ruptures  and their eyes erupt furious forever the profound voice of dreadlocked Will still haunting stray  bullet shuffles six years later,

in the caldera of Center City with everyone craning our skulls skyward past the stepped skyscrapers  beaming ear-to-ear welcoming acid sun rain melting maddeningly to reconstitute as concrete  rubber steel glass glowing nymphs,

in Philadelphia where every angle is accounted for and every megawatt careers into every throbbing wall where  Art is a mirror universe for every event ever volleyed through the neurons of History,

in Philadelphia of so many places to hide I am altogether as a funnel cloud frenetic roiling imbuing every corner sanctum sanctorum with jackhammer electromagnetism quivering current realizing stupefied I have failed so utterly wonderful human for in seeking to hide I have found

in Philadelphia

Johnny Warren after life all-stars v the Saturn stringers




Johnny warren got together an after life soccer team with players like Don Bradman, as well as 2Pac, and even Christopher Reeve, also Elvis Presley, and Paul Berenyi, and Brett Eggins, we're all fired up to give Saturn a total soccer makeover, Johnny Warren alan picked Scott McDonald as well as Billy Thorpe and Tony Campbell and Saturn was a team who had some very good names as well, who are John FKennedy, Robert Kennedy as well as Martin Luther King, Walter Burley Griffin who has lived on Saturn since 1980, earth time, and never wanting to go , because Saturn has really nice homes where he can be a good athlete, also Jack Dyer and Tony Grieg and Chris Mainwaring made up the numbers.
So the game started and Johnny Warren started the play, passing it to Christopher Reeve, who is trying to bring Superman in with a really beautiful kick up the centre which is blocked by Martin Luther king, who passes it to burley Griffin who stops to look down on earth, to hear what a stupid professor is trying to say he'd like, and used his powers with a kick which made the goal, to put Saturn in the lead 1-0, the kick off came and Johnny Warren gave a big kick up which was intercepted by Jack Dyer, who dribbled it up the field, trying to stop the interception, by the other players, and then after that he passed it to Martin Luther king, who began to dribble it down a few more times, and nearly got a goal, but he missed,and the ball was intercepted by 2Pac, who ran right to the other side and kicked it in the goal, and it was counted, and that made the score 1-1, and 2Pac very happy and went to the crowd, and said, me and Johnny W, go back a long way, in afterlife sports.
The kick off happened as Martin Luther king kicked the ball over to John F Kennedy, who dribbled it further down the field, and dodged so many of Johnny Warren all star players, and finally passed it and the Johnny Warren Allstars intercepted it and John F Kennedy tried to block 2Pac the whole way, and he did and then John F Kennedy passed it to brother Robert and Robert ran down to the other side, dribbling the ball as he goes, but Billy Thorpe, intercepted it and ran down to the other side, with the ball and passed the ball to Johnny Warren who missed from right in front, and suddenly Walter Burley Griffin got the ball and dribbled it down to the other end, and yes, he kicked but it was saved very nicely by the Johnny Warren All stars goalkeeper, yes, this game was looking very good, you see these are only 1 half games,,because Johnny Warren wanted it that way, as Paul Berenyi ran it to the half way line and passed it to Brett Eggins who ran it down and as soon as he got to the goal line, he passed it to Johnny Warren who snuck it in to 2Pac who scored the Johnny Warren all stars second, and that made the score 2-1, with 2 minutes to go in the match, and the reason why there is no half time, because the players are the undead, and they don't need to break cause they can no longer be killed,
And Martin Luther king ran it down and flicked it across to John F Kennedy who passed it to Johnny Warren who was so excited he booted the ball all the way to the other side, and 2Pac knocked it in, to make the score 3-1, yes and this was really exciting for Johnny Warren and then Margaret Thatcher came into the field and Paul Berenyi booted the ball so hard, It hit Margaret thatcher right in the noggin,,and despite trying very hard to hurt her, she can't be hurt, but people can try to hurt her if they want to, and then Margaret Thatcher, left, saying I want that Paul Berenyi in Mercury, and then Martin Luther King scores a goal and at the end of the match, the score was, 3-2 to Johnny Warren all stars, and Johnny Warren sat down and had a talk with Paul Berenyi, and Paul said it's the after life coach, she can't be hurt, but Johnny, said I know, but we need to be nice to one another, or you Paul Berenyi will be locked in Mercury for all eternity, and Paul said he'll behave, and was let off with a warning.

Late, my grandson! half the morning have I paced these sandy tracts,
Watch'd again the hollow ridges roaring into cataracts,

Wander'd back to living boyhood while I heard the curlews call,
I myself so close on death, and death itself in Locksley Hall.

So--your happy suit was blasted--she the faultless, the divine;
And you liken--boyish babble--this boy-love of yours with mine.

I myself have often babbled doubtless of a foolish past;
Babble, babble; our old England may go down in babble at last.

'Curse him!' curse your fellow-victim? call him dotard in your rage?
Eyes that lured a doting boyhood well might fool a dotard's age.

Jilted for a wealthier! wealthier? yet perhaps she was not wise;
I remember how you kiss'd the miniature with those sweet eyes.

In the hall there hangs a painting--Amy's arms about my neck--
Happy children in a sunbeam sitting on the ribs of wreck.

In my life there was a picture, she that clasp'd my neck had flown;
I was left within the shadow sitting on the wreck alone.

Yours has been a slighter ailment, will you sicken for her sake?
You, not you! your modern amourist is of easier, earthlier make.

Amy loved me, Amy fail'd me, Amy was a timid child;
But your Judith--but your worldling--she had never driven me wild.

She that holds the diamond necklace dearer than the golden ring,
She that finds a winter sunset fairer than a morn of Spring.

She that in her heart is brooding on his briefer lease of life,
While she vows 'till death shall part us,' she the would-be-widow wife.

She the worldling born of worldlings--father, mother--be content,
Ev'n the homely farm can teach us there is something in descent.

Yonder in that chapel, slowly sinking now into the ground,
Lies the warrior, my forefather, with his feet upon the hound.

Cross'd! for once he sail'd the sea to crush the Moslem in his pride;
Dead the warrior, dead his glory, dead the cause in which he died.

Yet how often I and Amy in the mouldering aisle have stood,
Gazing for one pensive moment on that founder of our blood.

There again I stood to-day, and where of old we knelt in prayer,
Close beneath the casement crimson with the shield of Locksley--there,

All in white Italian marble, looking still as if she smiled,
Lies my Amy dead in child-birth, dead the mother, dead the child.

Dead--and sixty years ago, and dead her aged husband now--
I this old white-headed dreamer stoopt and kiss'd her marble brow.

Gone the fires of youth, the follies, furies, curses, passionate tears,
Gone like fires and floods and earthquakes of the planet's dawning years.

Fires that shook me once, but now to silent ashes fall'n away.
Cold upon the dead volcano sleeps the gleam of dying day.

Gone the tyrant of my youth, and mute below the chancel stones,
All his virtues--I forgive them--black in white above his bones.

Gone the comrades of my bivouac, some in fight against the foe,
Some thro' age and slow diseases, gone as all on earth will go.

Gone with whom for forty years my life in golden sequence ran,
She with all the charm of woman, she with all the breadth of man,

Strong in will and rich in wisdom, Edith, yet so lowly-sweet,
Woman to her inmost heart, and woman to her tender feet,

Very woman of very woman, nurse of ailing body and mind,
She that link'd again the broken chain that bound me to my kind.

Here to-day was Amy with me, while I wander'd down the coast,
Near us Edith's holy shadow, smiling at the slighter ghost.

Gone our sailor son thy father, Leonard early lost at sea;
Thou alone, my boy, of Amy's kin and mine art left to me.

Gone thy tender-natured mother, wearying to be left alone,
Pining for the stronger heart that once had beat beside her own.

Truth, for Truth is Truth, he worshipt, being true as he was brave;
Good, for Good is Good, he follow'd, yet he look'd beyond the grave,

Wiser there than you, that crowning barren Death as lord of all,
Deem this over-tragic drama's closing curtain is the pall!

Beautiful was death in him, who saw the death, but kept the deck,
Saving women and their babes, and sinking with the sinking wreck,

Gone for ever! Ever? no--for since our dying race began,
Ever, ever, and for ever was the leading light of man.

Those that in barbarian burials ****'d the slave, and slew the wife,
Felt within themselves the sacred passion of the second life.

Indian warriors dream of ampler hunting grounds beyond the night;
Ev'n the black Australian dying hopes he shall return, a white.

Truth for truth, and good for good! The Good, the True, the Pure, the Just--
Take the charm 'For ever' from them, and they crumble into dust.

Gone the cry of 'Forward, Forward,' lost within a growing gloom;
Lost, or only heard in silence from the silence of a tomb.

Half the marvels of my morning, triumphs over time and space,
Staled by frequence, shrunk by usage into commonest commonplace!

'Forward' rang the voices then, and of the many mine was one.
Let us hush this cry of 'Forward' till ten thousand years have gone.

Far among the vanish'd races, old Assyrian kings would flay
Captives whom they caught in battle--iron-hearted victors they.

Ages after, while in Asia, he that led the wild Moguls,
Timur built his ghastly tower of eighty thousand human skulls,

Then, and here in Edward's time, an age of noblest English names,
Christian conquerors took and flung the conquer'd Christian into flames.

Love your enemy, bless your haters, said the Greatest of the great;
Christian love among the Churches look'd the twin of heathen hate.

From the golden alms of Blessing man had coin'd himself a curse:
Rome of Caesar, Rome of Peter, which was crueller? which was worse?

France had shown a light to all men, preach'd a Gospel, all men's good;
Celtic Demos rose a Demon, shriek'd and slaked the light with blood.

Hope was ever on her mountain, watching till the day begun--
Crown'd with sunlight--over darkness--from the still unrisen sun.

Have we grown at last beyond the passions of the primal clan?
'**** your enemy, for you hate him,' still, 'your enemy' was a man.

Have we sunk below them? peasants maim the helpless horse, and drive
Innocent cattle under thatch, and burn the kindlier brutes alive.

Brutes, the brutes are not your wrongers--burnt at midnight, found at morn,
Twisted hard in mortal agony with their offspring, born-unborn,

Clinging to the silent mother! Are we devils? are we men?
Sweet St. Francis of Assisi, would that he were here again,

He that in his Catholic wholeness used to call the very flowers
Sisters, brothers--and the beasts--whose pains are hardly less than ours!

Chaos, Cosmos! Cosmos, Chaos! who can tell how all will end?
Read the wide world's annals, you, and take their wisdom for your friend.

Hope the best, but hold the Present fatal daughter of the Past,
Shape your heart to front the hour, but dream not that the hour will last.

Ay, if dynamite and revolver leave you courage to be wise:
When was age so cramm'd with menace? madness? written, spoken lies?

Envy wears the mask of Love, and, laughing sober fact to scorn,
Cries to Weakest as to Strongest, 'Ye are equals, equal-born.'

Equal-born? O yes, if yonder hill be level with the flat.
Charm us, Orator, till the Lion look no larger than the Cat,

Till the Cat thro' that mirage of overheated language loom
Larger than the Lion,--Demos end in working its own doom.

Russia bursts our Indian barrier, shall we fight her? shall we yield?
Pause! before you sound the trumpet, hear the voices from the field.

Those three hundred millions under one Imperial sceptre now,
Shall we hold them? shall we loose them? take the suffrage of the plow.

Nay, but these would feel and follow Truth if only you and you,
Rivals of realm-ruining party, when you speak were wholly true.

Plowmen, Shepherds, have I found, and more than once, and still could find,
Sons of God, and kings of men in utter nobleness of mind,

Truthful, trustful, looking upward to the practised hustings-liar;
So the Higher wields the Lower, while the Lower is the Higher.

Here and there a cotter's babe is royal-born by right divine;
Here and there my lord is lower than his oxen or his swine.

Chaos, Cosmos! Cosmos, Chaos! once again the sickening game;
Freedom, free to slay herself, and dying while they shout her name.

Step by step we gain'd a freedom known to Europe, known to all;
Step by step we rose to greatness,--thro' the tonguesters we may fall.

You that woo the Voices--tell them 'old experience is a fool,'
Teach your flatter'd kings that only those who cannot read can rule.

Pluck the mighty from their seat, but set no meek ones in their place;
Pillory Wisdom in your markets, pelt your offal at her face.

Tumble Nature heel o'er head, and, yelling with the yelling street,
Set the feet above the brain and swear the brain is in the feet.

Bring the old dark ages back without the faith, without the hope,
Break the State, the Church, the Throne, and roll their ruins down the *****.

Authors--essayist, atheist, novelist, realist, rhymester, play your part,
Paint the mortal shame of nature with the living hues of Art.

Rip your brothers' vices open, strip your own foul passions bare;
Down with Reticence, down with Reverence--forward--naked--let them stare.

Feed the budding rose of boyhood with the drainage of your sewer;
Send the drain into the fountain, lest the stream should issue pure.

Set the maiden fancies wallowing in the troughs of Zolaism,--
Forward, forward, ay and backward, downward too into the abysm.

Do your best to charm the worst, to lower the rising race of men;
Have we risen from out the beast, then back into the beast again?

Only 'dust to dust' for me that sicken at your lawless din,
Dust in wholesome old-world dust before the newer world begin.

Heated am I? you--you wonder--well, it scarce becomes mine age--
Patience! let the dying actor mouth his last upon the stage.

Cries of unprogressive dotage ere the dotard fall asleep?
Noises of a current narrowing, not the music of a deep?

Ay, for doubtless I am old, and think gray thoughts, for I am gray:
After all the stormy changes shall we find a changeless May?

After madness, after massacre, Jacobinism and Jacquerie,
Some diviner force to guide us thro' the days I shall not see?

When the schemes and all the systems, Kingdoms and Republics fall,
Something kindlier, higher, holier--all for each and each for all?

All the full-brain, half-brain races, led by Justice, Love, and Truth;
All the millions one at length with all the visions of my youth?

All diseases quench'd by Science, no man halt, or deaf or blind;
Stronger ever born of weaker, lustier body, larger mind?

Earth at last a warless world, a single race, a single tongue--
I have seen her far away--for is not Earth as yet so young?--

Every tiger madness muzzled, every serpent passion ****'d,
Every grim ravine a garden, every blazing desert till'd,

Robed in universal harvest up to either pole she smiles,
Universal ocean softly washing all her warless Isles.

Warless? when her tens are thousands, and her thousands millions, then--
All her harvest all too narrow--who can fancy warless men?

Warless? war will die out late then. Will it ever? late or soon?
Can it, till this outworn earth be dead as yon dead world the moon?

Dead the new astronomy calls her. . . . On this day and at this hour,
In this gap between the sandhills, whence you see the Locksley tower,

Here we met, our latest meeting--Amy--sixty years ago--
She and I--the moon was falling greenish thro' a rosy glow,

Just above the gateway tower, and even where you see her now--
Here we stood and claspt each other, swore the seeming-deathless vow. . . .

Dead, but how her living glory lights the hall, the dune, the grass!
Yet the moonlight is the sunlight, and the sun himself will pass.

Venus near her! smiling downward at this earthlier earth of ours,
Closer on the Sun, perhaps a world of never fading flowers.

Hesper, whom the poet call'd the Bringer home of all good things.
All good things may move in Hesper, perfect peoples, perfect kings.

Hesper--Venus--were we native to that splendour or in Mars,
We should see the Globe we groan in, fairest of their evening stars.

Could we dream of wars and carnage, craft and madness, lust and spite,
Roaring London, raving Paris, in that point of peaceful light?

Might we not in glancing heavenward on a star so silver-fair,
Yearn, and clasp the hands and murmur, 'Would to God that we were there'?

Forward, backward, backward, forward, in the immeasurable sea,
Sway'd by vaster ebbs and flows than can be known to you or me.

All the suns--are these but symbols of innumerable man,
Man or Mind that sees a shadow of the planner or the plan?

Is there evil but on earth? or pain in every peopled sphere?
Well be grateful for the sounding watchword, 'Evolution' here,

Evolution ever climbing after some ideal good,
And Reversion ever dragging Evolution in the mud.

What are men that He should heed us? cried the king of sacred song;
Insects of an hour, that hourly work their brother insect wrong,

While the silent Heavens roll, and Suns along their fiery way,
All their planets whirling round them, flash a million miles a day.

Many an aeon moulded earth before her highest, man, was born,
Many an aeon too may pass when earth is manless and forlorn,

Earth so huge, and yet so bounded--pools of salt, and plots of land--
Shallow skin of green and azure--chains of mountain, grains of sand!

Only That which made us, meant us to be mightier by and by,
Set the sphere of all the boundless Heavens within the human eye,

Sent the shadow of Himself, the boundless, thro' the human soul;
Boundless inward, in the atom, boundless outward, in the Whole.

                                                *

Here is Locksley Hall, my grandson, here the lion-guarded gate.
Not to-night in Locksley Hall--to-morrow--you, you come so late.

Wreck'd--your train--or all but wreck'd? a shatter'd wheel? a vicious boy!
Good, this forward, you that preach it, is it well to wish you joy?

Is it well that while we range with Science, glorying in the Time,
City children soak and blacken soul and sense in city slime?

There among the glooming alleys Progress halts on palsied feet,
Crime and hunger cast our maidens by the thousand on the street.

There the Master scrimps his haggard sempstress of her daily bread,
There a single sordid attic holds the living and the dead.

There the smouldering fire of fever creeps across the rotted floor,
And the crowded couch of ****** in the warrens of the poor.

Nay, your pardon, cry your 'forward,' yours are hope and youth, but I--
Eighty winters leave the dog too lame to follow with the cry,

Lame and old, and past his time, and passing now into the night;
Yet I would the rising race were half as eager for the light.

Light the fading gleam of Even? light the glimmer of the dawn?
Aged eyes may take the growing glimmer for the gleam withdrawn.

Far away beyond her myriad coming changes earth will be
Something other than the wildest modern guess of you and me.

Earth may reach her earthly-worst, or if she gain her earthly-best,
Would she find her human offspring this ideal man at rest?

Forward then, but still remember how the course of Time will swerve,
Crook and turn upon itself in many a backward streaming curve.

Not the Hall to-night, my grandson! Death and Silence hold their own.
Leave the Master in the first dark hour of his last sleep alone.

Worthier soul was he than I am, sound and honest, rustic Squire,
Kindly landlord, boon companion--youthful jealousy is a liar.

Cast the poison from your *****, oust the madness from your brain.
Let the trampled serpent show you that you have not lived in vain.

Youthful! youth and age are scholars yet but in the lower school,
Nor is he the wisest man who never proved himself a fool.

Yonder lies our young sea-village--Art and Grace are less and less:
Science grows and Beauty dwindles--roofs of slated hideousness!

There is one old Hostel left us where they swing the Locksley shield,
Till the peasant cow shall **** the 'Lion passant' from his field.

Poo

I was given, at my first birthday party,
a gift sublime, a lovely, lush garden
I played among its fonts and flowers,
traded baseball cards with Atlas and Athena,
rolled in high grass with iridescent dragons

Then one fine day through leaflets high,
I spied a fat juicy fig, haloed by Summer sun
The tree was poison, I knew, its sweet fruit
most likely bad as well, but in my arrogance
I climbed the trunk, got tangled in its branches

I lost control, lost something never truly held,
and fell, through viney snarls and vicious thorns
Fell farther than I ever rose, to putrid death,
moldered slime beneath the canopy
of verdant paradise on gentle hillside above

I crawled about in mud and earthen warrens
Slowly, year by year, learned to walk again
But arrogant I remained—had not my
lesson learned, and so I doubled-down,
made mockery of this chance for redemption

All the sweet virgins did I ****, and teach
our children sin, in crystalline waters
I did shat on mulched fields, amber and green,
with cigarette butts and baggies blowing
listless on Autumn winds

When Winter finally came, as winters must,
to **** off weakened souls, and make
the garden ready for new attendants,
I did not learn, I did not take the blame...
It's Him, I cried, I have not power to do this!

But then my youngest daughter sobbed
She watched, sadly, out clouded, grimy windows
and, looking up at my limpid, sullen eyes
crawled into my arms one last, lonely time
to face what I could not...

Behold, the Silent Spring

please-please   add your waxy scrolls
   truths   to the panic pyre
madden   an inflamed swarm of intelligence
worm warrens    into the collective of our brain
maybe
   having been riddled
      it'll collapse under the corrective strain
      and start blinking a genuine signal
process recognized    compassionate inkling

Qui Transtulit Sustinet

There sat CONNECTICUT, a twit
blue nanny-state, and doomed to sit
on welfare-warrens of the ******
her social service on demand.
She withers on NEW ENGLAND‘s vine
a bygone has-been, and a sign
of democratic overkill
where her once-dear and verdant rill
now stagnant flows: polluted stream
a moribund New England dream.
The richest state with poorest heart:
the Northeast’s saddest story. Part
of history’s renowned revival,
now irrelevant. Survival
chains her children in dependence
keeping back the state’s ascendance.
Apostate Puritan, grown old—
for LIBERTY, no longer bold;
a slave to Man, where once God’s WORD
awakened greatness. Souls were stirred
in ENFIELD (of all strange places),
Christ beheld in radiant faces . . .
Edwards held their spellbound souls
like spiders over flaming coals,
in gratitude for Gospel grace
renewing thus both town and race.
But I digress. Connecticut
is what I came to speak about:
forgotten dull colonial matron
yoked in failure, plebe as patron
nostalgic for her Charter Oak
whose deadwood limbs went up in smoke
along with dark tobacco wrap
while the plantation took a nap.
Her social programs overgrowth
pose forest fire-risk. Under oath
her public servants signal virtue;
sign which really should alert you
to the democrat-machine’s
impending failure (ways and means).
Nutmeg-addled Tax-and-spenders,
dollar drunks on welfare benders
widen economic rifts;
force single moms toward double shifts
while Latin Kings hold court in prison
waiting out their royal season:
fiscally unsustainable—
yet totally explainable
(nutmeg is a drug for witches
spendthrift warlocks, bankrupt *******).
Oh HARTFORD, city of the dead
which dies at five, then home to bed,
insurance once assured your rise;
but now your ghosts haunt sadder skies.
Your life displaced, outsourced, out-dated;
so, it seems, your fall was fated.
Meanwhile, close to New York City,
fairer fields are growing pretty
long on corporate commutes.
Data-driven growth computes
as data-drivers flood the roads
and enter by Manhattan-loads
from golden coasts’ Atlantic shores
and posh patrician golden doors
to bite the apple of our time:
a number-cruncher built on crime.
New England’s puritannic granny
(data-driven tyrant ******)
seeks to harbor tropic isles
with blandly bureaucratic smiles.
Your poor dear heart cannot afford
to welcome every island lord
who looks to better his estate
and so decides to emigrate.
Displaced Jamaicans outta yard
compel the soft verse to get hard.
Boricua separatists, dispersed
show nationalities reversed
and dwell between two foreign lands
in Spanglish no one understands.
Such nutmeg gets the covens high
to soar the stormy Liberal sky.
It’s Yankee hubris: condescension
taxing plebes for such dissension.
Though you connect, there I would cut,
excising from New England’s gut
metastasizing social tumors:
clueless and obese consumers,
teenage moms, pajama-clad
whose nenes wait in vain for dad.
QUI TRANSTULIT SUSTINET—truth . . .
but that was was in our nation’s youth.
She’s gotten worse with passing years
confirming citizens’ worst fears;
showing her colors every vote
her monotone, a droning note
on which the blue-bloods hang their hue
when hope and change are overdue.
Her atheist zeal meets Yankee pride:
a most progressive broomstick ride;
oblivious to her Christian past,
an enemy of God at last.

Jared held his breath.

He knew this was going to be a very close race going into the final weeks of the election but he did not anticipate such a nail biting last minute count. He took a long swig from a local artisanal beer that had been brewed as a tie-in with his campaign. His slogan was emblazoned on the side of the glass and a scene showing the peace that would come when he was in office was depicted on the label. he knew the beer was a campy campaign gimmick but he felt above his opponent by bringing in local businesses as part of his election. Jared knew his win would be won by the proletariats and not the business classes that the other candidates catered to. He savored the hoppy taste on his tongue as he gulped the ale back and sat the bottle down on the table allowing the beads of condensation to puddle up and leave a ring. His wife would be mad at him for not using a coaster but he had made it okay with himself by reasoning that when, not if, he wins the election he will buy her a new table. One that matched a certain house painted white.

Jared ran his fingers thru his slightly balding blonde hair and couldn’t believe he had made it to this moment in his life. It felt like just yesterday when he had passed the bar exam for New Vegas and celebrated with his buddies by renting out a tennis court and getting wasted.

But that was nearly forty years ago and much had changed. He saw his country torn apart as he reached his thirties and watched the States die and be reborn as new states, watched with tense shoulders and determination the outcome of the second Cold War as it became the Third World War. He watched his brothers and many of his friends take up arms for their countries and lose their lives in combat. He became a lawyer and fought old and new laws. He saved lives and condemned others. He listened to the politicians spread lies as their power grew and he saw the people grow tired of it and rise up. He saw the tearing down and building up of a new government.

He watched and watched until he could watch no more and had to be a part of the solution.

It was hard going at first getting capital and endorsements to run but he did not let that stop him. He would politic on every corner and his charisma would draw people in and he would win them over with his platform. Soon the street corners became auditoriums became venues became local tv became national tv and the gathering of people grew all the time as well. He was announced as a candidate and immediately went into political overdrive, getting himself, his brand, and his message out to the people as quickly as possible. He was for the people and by the people. A real presidential hopeful in the days that needed a hero to lead them.

He drank some more beer and watched the television as it reported ninety three percent of jurisdictions were reporting in saying that his opponent, Warren, had won but that the race was still too close to call.

The phone rang and he picked it up. “Hello?" “Hey-o j-loser," warren said. “Have you seen the good news, looks like I’m winning. Guess you shouldn’t bet against big business. After all they’re the ones with money and we know everyone can be bought, he-haw-he."

Jared put the receiver down, he didn’t feel like listening to Warrens donkey like laughter.

Jared checked his beer and it was empty so he left the tv and walked to the kitchen to grab another one. He twisted the top off and put it to his lips as he walked back to the living room. As he was about to take another drink the news flashed on screen and reported that all precincts were now reporting and that the winner and new president was Jared.

He had won.

The people had voted him in.

The phone rang.

It was Warren again, conceding the race. Jared laughed and told him it was a hell of a race and hung up.

The phone rang again.

This time it was friends and family calling him up to congratulate him.

He took the phone off the hook and finished his beer and grabbed another one and went to looking out the penthouse window at the city celebrating below. Tomorrow he would start on all the promises he had made and he would get his country back on track but tonight, tonight he would drink his beer and celebrate the race being over.

Summers heat has left the land as Autumn walks this land

This new daughter has all the trees leaves falling like the rains

The beaches sands are turning from hot white to a duller yellow

Cliff sides show warm Browns and burnished golds across their tops

And Summer and Autumn will touch fingers for mere moments

And then they will be separated in time for another year

Animals all through this cooling land hurry about their chores

For Autumn trails her very fingers through their fur

they know it’s time to be ready for the arrival of her chillier sister Winter

But for now there are still nuts and berries to be hurriedly gathered in

The wind rises a notch as Autumn surveys her quarter realm

And Sunset deepens over land and sea as nights draw quickly in

The daytime skies turn grey as buzzards seek their prey

Squirrels hide their hordes of nuts and then seek their dreys

Hedgehogs rolled in darkened leaves ready then to make their nests

Mice and voles scurry forth one eye on the skies for predator on high

The rabbits make warmer warrens, while foxes watches with evil eye

It’ll not be long before Winter with her chilly hand is all across the realm

But for now Autumn casts a comfort of gold and brown across this land.

Once upon a time
        In a land not so far away
        Wait, Sorry that was right here
        Last summer this very day
        I bought three bunnies
        black white and grey.

        before bringing them in
        I worked all things out
        built three wooden warrens
        poured milk in separate bowls
        As I put them down
        like a precious prize
        what they did then and there
        took me by surprise.

        All three baby rabbits
        latched onto the same cup
        like allies in a fight pit
        they went slurp slurp slurp
        But I tried to let that slide
        maybe they were hungry and dazed
        Later that night I put them to bed
        in their wooden boxes side by side

        Waking up the next day
        what I saw blew me away
        cuddling together in one box
        there they were cozy and gay
        Do they fail to see
        the difference in their color
        like we the "righteous" humans do!
        Don't they feel superior to one another
        like we with our clever conscience do!

        Are we the savages or are they?
        Is humanity just a cliche?
        From cavemen to civil beings
        are we too evolved to see
        Death doesn't discriminate
        So why should we?

Why do we need to redeem ourselves?
To know one and to cherish one
To live thy life that we solely covet
No turning back, only now

Moles are blind and see no light
But they find their way
Carving mud and dust to get
To one’s itinerary

Paving their ways through filth
But they find their way
With warrens, dug in and dugout
And trusting their grit and snout

Working their way through lands
But they find their way
Through hard work with their two bare hands
Burrowing and Burrowing

Heroes and heroine
Harrowing and harrowing, but not like blind moles
Worry, why? Aren’t you much precious than them, darling?
With gift of sight, to see one’s light

The raccoons on this Kentucky farm formed a quagmire. They're wild thieves embedded in the ecosystem. Irreplaceable valuables are erased in the cover of night. The farmer offers to negotiate with the masked vermin. A raccoon response results in scramble trash, they say they've got a birthright from the past. Wits end is where dog ownership begins after the adoption of a rabid dog that only sees death. Regret rocks raccoons wrestling with Cerberus but there's no turning back, Cujo is chained in their yard.  Hellhound terror leaves spellbound hares abandoning their warrens until only reddened raccoons remain with their canine warden.

Lamenting the loss of liberty, a revolutionary raccoon resolves to romp around. The dog of damnation's laser locked bloodlust focuses on the rodent-like rebel. Charging like a rocket out of its launcher, the driven dog is lured from its isolated den. This game of cat and mouse has magnanimous stakes reaching across the farmer's lake.

The rebellious raccoon runs rapidly from the rabid ravenous Rover. The runner dips and dives through cover to avoid the teeth of the other. A snapping jaw matches the movements of the juking and cutting critter. Inside of a hollow tree becomes the raccoon's destination, he enters and ascends, the snarling snapper chasing in after him.

Death's embrace seems certain for the raccoon as the hound's teeth shave the edge of its fur, but at that point the fatter can go no further. The hound's blinding bloodlust vanishes upon realizing it's stuck. Its unwavering rage turns into panicked fear once it realizes its end is near. The raccoon revels in the dog's misery, enjoying watching it slowly starving.

The raccoons revelry is rebuked once the dog just starts staring at it. They both stare at each other, unblinking, waiting for the other to die. Neither of them willing to move an inch for fear of accidentally helping the other. Both willing to die to ensure their opponent's death. The hollow facade that saved the raccoon now becomes its tomb. Defeat and death act as a sedating punishment for the dog's aggression. Fierce foes drink the poison of resentment as they both accept their demise while staring into each other's eyes.

the engines of night labor in the distance
flush with the sound of enduring all that might come
flush with sounds of all those  who thrive in its endless warrens

the creeping shadow
waitings baited breath just at lights edge
for a quick peek at another way of life
but must retreat along its own mindless dream ways
a victim of its fantasy of ever better tomorrow's

the engines of night labor on
producing a fine silt that stains the river of time
with its dark mutterings
and cast off malformed beasts
they writhe in pain at the touch of light
that speak in dead languages of mystery's
that souls never harbored

bring out the small boat
we venture out onto the still waters
mindful of the noise we incur
that threatens to expose us
to all prying eyes
we put out our line
and fish for the treasure
but never having been here before
we failed to think that nothing will be gained
we failed to believe we could ever succeed

i must soon leave this room
this place of years
and venture onto the sandy soil
onto the thick air that strangles
and hope there is something to be gained
from such utter folly

Bobbing to a swaying gait,

Torch light bounces at the edge of the world.

Laughter and larks hushed like the shushing waves,

As we crumple daisies and kick the tops off mole hills.

Home is only a field away,

But in the adjusting night, sleeping undercover never seemed so
surplus to requirement.

Clear skies, ***-bellies,

A watery film between the heavens and earth make freckle impressions on the sky,

Blemishes on perfect tone but it's all the more beautiful for it.

Deep indigo, emerald green, pillar box red then bed.

Zips bid the outside world goodnight.

Goodnight to hedgerows and gorse and guide ropes.
Goodnight rabbit warrens and linnet nests and bog asphodel.
Goodnight puffins and the minky whales and the surf.
Goodnight salty hair, goodnight cold noses, goodnight.

Surrounded by false idols, the emptiness stares
all I ever wanted was for someone to care -
dead as the beat thrumming in my heart
a pain dislocated from the world

restless

apart

get your hand off mine
you ain't 18 anymore
there's no point in life
if nothing's sore

the hurt says you're still breathing
because one day your winning
and the next you're weeping

they sing of Angels and Evil
whilst ******* upon their own steeples -
politicians, bankers, users and ******
matrimonial monkeys with ideals

greed and grotesque galore

teary eyes are just a disguise
there's a story behind everything you despise

[I hate our race, just make it quick
God humanity makes me sick]

like rabbits in warrens
we fornicate
we flaw

corrupting minds that were designed

*to experiment, explore

the rabbit hole is deep and has many warrens
one could spend a lifetime exploring
which is what I’m doing
but you will still only experience a tiny fraction
good thing we get so many

The Devil muttered words to lose
skirting precepts the prompt hewed
forbidden chants once inscribed
the decline that’s now described

first came passion mixed with desire
this turned towards what’s despised
with a chuckle the nuptials
became the taint that held them both

this union that begged for flight
not to run but to escape
down the warrens of false hope
damning those who lived above

to end it all would be the choice
presented by the Lord of Lies
twisting words that can’t be used
profanity shunned in respect

broken free of chains that bind
dogma stated by holy ones
from the turrets of ancient spires
creeds no longer supporting lives

belief too weak to crawl alone
when foundations are destroyed
all the pronouns become like worms
lacking words Satan that robbed.

© 2018. Sean Green. All Rights Reserved. 20181105.

I hate mowing the lawn,
hate the way it sends chinch bugs
flying to the stars after the rain.

In my dreams, however,  I have lots of land,
and delight in sculpting neat parallel rows
with my tractor- over and over, on and on,

aerating the start of warrens and burrows
for rabbits and woodchucks to finish their
tunnels, for deer to graze my flowers, weeds.

In the morning the milkweed blossoms,
bringing supping butterflies. At night,
the fireflies rise painting the darkness.

When the grass grows high and it’s time
to mow again, I will close my  eyes,
and feel the biting bugs and buzzing flies

mating dreamscapes in the coming dusk.