One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound
except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember
whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve
nights when I was six.

All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky
that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in
the snow and bring out whatever I can find. In goes my hand into that wool-white bell-tongued ball of holidays
resting at the rim of the carol-singing sea, and out come Mrs. Prothero and the firemen.

It was on the afternoon of the Christmas Eve, and I was in Mrs. Prothero's garden, waiting for cats, with her
son Jim. It was snowing. It was always snowing at Christmas. December, in my memory, is white as Lapland,
though there were no reindeers. But there were cats. Patient, cold and callous, our hands wrapped in socks, we
waited to snowball the cats. Sleek and long as jaguars and horrible-whiskered, spitting and snarling, they
would slink and sidle over the white back-garden walls, and the lynx-eyed hunters, Jim and I, fur-capped and
moccasined trappers from Hudson Bay, off Mumbles Road, would hurl our deadly snowballs at the green of their
eyes. The wise cats never appeared.

We were so still, Eskimo-footed arctic marksmen in the muffling silence of the eternal snows - eternal, ever
since Wednesday - that we never heard Mrs. Prothero's first cry from her igloo at the bottom of the garden. Or,
if we heard it at all, it was, to us, like the far-off challenge of our enemy and prey, the neighbor's polar
cat. But soon the voice grew louder.
"Fire!" cried Mrs. Prothero, and she beat the dinner-gong.

And we ran down the garden, with the snowballs in our arms, toward the house; and smoke, indeed, was pouring
out of the dining-room, and the gong was bombilating, and Mrs. Prothero was announcing ruin like a town crier
in Pompeii. This was better than all the cats in Wales standing on the wall in a row. We bounded into the
house, laden with snowballs, and stopped at the open door of the smoke-filled room.

Something was burning all right; perhaps it was Mr. Prothero, who always slept there after midday dinner with a
newspaper over his face. But he was standing in the middle of the room, saying, "A fine Christmas!" and
smacking at the smoke with a slipper.

"Call the fire brigade," cried Mrs. Prothero as she beat the gong.
"There won't be there," said Mr. Prothero, "it's Christmas."
There was no fire to be seen, only clouds of smoke and Mr. Prothero standing in the middle of them, waving his
slipper as though he were conducting.
"Do something," he said. And we threw all our snowballs into the smoke - I think we missed Mr. Prothero - and
ran out of the house to the telephone box.
"Let's call the police as well," Jim said. "And the ambulance." "And Ernie Jenkins, he likes fires."

But we only called the fire brigade, and soon the fire engine came and three tall men in helmets brought a hose
into the house and Mr. Prothero got out just in time before they turned it on. Nobody could have had a noisier
Christmas Eve. And when the firemen turned off the hose and were standing in the wet, smoky room, Jim's Aunt,
Miss. Prothero, came downstairs and peered in at them. Jim and I waited, very quietly, to hear what she would
say to them. She said the right thing, always. She looked at the three tall firemen in their shining helmets,
standing among the smoke and cinders and dissolving snowballs, and she said, "Would you like anything to read?"

Years and years ago, when I was a boy, when there were wolves in Wales, and birds the color of red-flannel
petticoats whisked past the harp-shaped hills, when we sang and wallowed all night and day in caves that smelt
like Sunday afternoons in damp front farmhouse parlors, and we chased, with the jawbones of deacons, the
English and the bears, before the motor car, before the wheel, before the duchess-faced horse, when we rode the
daft and happy hills *******, it snowed and it snowed. But here a small boy says: "It snowed last year, too. I
made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea."

"But that was not the same snow," I say. "Our snow was not only shaken from white wash buckets down the sky, it
came shawling out of the ground and swam and drifted out of the arms and hands and bodies of the trees; snow
grew overnight on the roofs of the houses like a pure and grandfather moss, minutely -ivied the walls and
settled on the postman, opening the gate, like a dumb, numb thunder-storm of white, torn Christmas cards."

"Were there postmen then, too?"
"With sprinkling eyes and wind-cherried noses, on spread, frozen feet they crunched up to the doors and
mittened on them manfully. But all that the children could hear was a ringing of bells."
"You mean that the postman went rat-a-tat-tat and the doors rang?"
"I mean that the bells the children could hear were inside them."
"I only hear thunder sometimes, never bells."
"There were church bells, too."
"Inside them?"
"No, no, no, in the bat-black, snow-white belfries, tugged by bishops and storks. And they rang their tidings
over the bandaged town, over the frozen foam of the powder and ice-cream hills, over the crackling sea. It
seemed that all the churches boomed for joy under my window; and the weathercocks crew for Christmas, on our
fence."

"Get back to the postmen"
"They were just ordinary postmen, found of walking and dogs and Christmas and the snow. They knocked on the
doors with blue knuckles ...."
"Ours has got a black knocker...."
"And then they stood on the white Welcome mat in the little, drifted porches and huffed and puffed, making
ghosts with their breath, and jogged from foot to foot like small boys wanting to go out."
"And then the presents?"
"And then the Presents, after the Christmas box. And the cold postman, with a rose on his button-nose, tingled
down the tea-tray-slithered run of the chilly glinting hill. He went in his ice-bound boots like a man on
fishmonger's slabs.
"He wagged his bag like a frozen camel's ****, dizzily turned the corner on one foot, and, by God, he was
gone."

"Get back to the Presents."
"There were the Useful Presents: engulfing mufflers of the old coach days, and mittens made for giant sloths;
zebra scarfs of a substance like silky gum that could be tug-o'-warred down to the galoshes; blinding tam-o'-
shanters like patchwork tea cozies and bunny-suited busbies and balaclavas for victims of head-shrinking
tribes; from aunts who always wore wool next to the skin there were mustached and rasping vests that made you
wonder why the aunts had any skin left at all; and once I had a little crocheted nose bag from an aunt now,
alas, no longer whinnying with us. And pictureless books in which small boys, though warned with quotations not
to, would skate on Farmer Giles' pond and did and drowned; and books that told me everything about the wasp,
except why."

"Go on the Useless Presents."
"Bags of moist and many-colored jelly babies and a folded flag and a false nose and a tram-conductor's cap and
a machine that punched tickets and rang a bell; never a catapult; once, by mistake that no one could explain, a
little hatchet; and a celluloid duck that made, when you pressed it, a most unducklike sound, a mewing moo that
an ambitious cat might make who wished to be a cow; and a painting book in which I could make the grass, the
trees, the sea and the animals any colour I pleased, and still the dazzling sky-blue sheep are grazing in the
red field under the rainbow-billed and pea-green birds. Hardboileds, toffee, fudge and allsorts, crunches,
cracknels, humbugs, glaciers, marzipan, and butterwelsh for the Welsh. And troops of bright tin soldiers who,
if they could not fight, could always run. And Snakes-and-Families and Happy Ladders. And Easy Hobbi-Games for
Little Engineers, complete with instructions. Oh, easy for Leonardo! And a whistle to make the dogs bark to
wake up the old man next door to make him beat on the wall with his stick to shake our picture off the wall.
And a packet of cigarettes: you put one in your mouth and you stood at the corner of the street and you waited
for hours, in vain, for an old lady to scold you for smoking a cigarette, and then with a smirk you ate it. And
then it was breakfast under the balloons."

"Were there Uncles like in our house?"
"There are always Uncles at Christmas. The same Uncles. And on Christmas morning, with dog-disturbing whistle
and sugar ****, I would scour the swatched town for the news of the little world, and find always a dead bird
by the Post Office or by the white deserted swings; perhaps a robin, all but one of his fires out. Men and
women wading or scooping back from chapel, with taproom noses and wind-bussed cheeks, all albinos, huddles
their stiff black jarring feathers against the irreligious snow. Mistletoe hung from the gas brackets in all
the front parlors; there was sherry and walnuts and bottled beer and crackers by the dessertspoons; and cats in
their fur-abouts watched the fires; and the high-heaped fire spat, all ready for the chestnuts and the mulling
pokers. Some few large men sat in the front parlors, without their collars, Uncles almost certainly, trying
their new cigars, holding them out judiciously at arms' length, returning them to their mouths, coughing, then
holding them out again as though waiting for the explosion; and some few small aunts, not wanted in the
kitchen, nor anywhere else for that matter, sat on the very edge of their chairs, poised and brittle, afraid to
break, like faded cups and saucers."

Not many those mornings trod the piling streets: an old man always, fawn-bowlered, yellow-gloved and, at this
time of year, with spats of snow, would take his constitutional to the white bowling green and back, as he
would take it wet or fire on Christmas Day or Doomsday; sometimes two hale young men, with big pipes blazing,
no overcoats and wind blown scarfs, would trudge, unspeaking, down to the forlorn sea, to work up an appetite,
to blow away the fumes, who knows, to walk into the waves until nothing of them was left but the two furling
smoke clouds of their inextinguishable briars. Then I would be slap-dashing home, the gravy smell of the
dinners of others, the bird smell, the brandy, the pudding and mince, coiling up to my nostrils, when out of a
snow-clogged side lane would come a boy the spit of myself, with a pink-tipped cigarette and the violet past of
a black eye, cocky as a bullfinch, leering all to himself.

I hated him on sight and sound, and would be about to put my dog whistle to my lips and blow him off the face
of Christmas when suddenly he, with a violet wink, put his whistle to his lips and blew so stridently, so high,
so exquisitely loud, that gobbling faces, their cheeks bulged with goose, would press against their tinsled
windows, the whole length of the white echoing street. For dinner we had turkey and blazing pudding, and after
dinner the Uncles sat in front of the fire, loosened all buttons, put their large moist hands over their watch
chains, groaned a little and slept. Mothers, aunts and sisters scuttled to and fro, bearing tureens. Auntie
Bessie, who had already been frightened, twice, by a clock-work mouse, whimpered at the sideboard and had some
elderberry wine. The dog was sick. Auntie Dosie had to have three aspirins, but Auntie Hannah, who liked port,
stood in the middle of the snowbound back yard, singing like a big-bosomed thrush. I would blow up balloons to
see how big they would blow up to; and, when they burst, which they all did, the Uncles jumped and rumbled. In
the rich and heavy afternoon, the Uncles breathing like dolphins and the snow descending, I would sit among
festoons and Chinese lanterns and nibble dates and try to make a model man-o'-war, following the Instructions
for Little Engineers, and produce what might be mistaken for a sea-going tramcar.

Or I would go out, my bright new boots squeaking, into the white world, on to the seaward hill, to call on Jim
and Dan and Jack and to pad through the still streets, leaving huge footprints on the hidden pavements.
"I bet people will think there's been hippos."
"What would you do if you saw a hippo coming down our street?"
"I'd go like this, bang! I'd throw him over the railings and roll him down the hill and then I'd tickle him
under the ear and he'd wag his tail."
"What would you do if you saw two hippos?"

Iron-flanked and bellowing he-hippos clanked and battered through the scudding snow toward us as we passed Mr.
Daniel's house.
"Let's post Mr. Daniel a snow-ball through his letter box."
"Let's write things in the snow."
"Let's write, 'Mr. Daniel looks like a spaniel' all over his lawn."
Or we walked on the white shore. "Can the fishes see it's snowing?"

The silent one-clouded heavens drifted on to the sea. Now we were snow-blind travelers lost on the north hills,
and vast dewlapped dogs, with flasks round their necks, ambled and shambled up to us, baying "Excelsior." We
returned home through the poor streets where only a few children fumbled with bare red fingers in the wheel-
rutted snow and cat-called after us, their voices fading away, as we trudged uphill, into the cries of the dock
birds and the hooting of ships out in the whirling bay. And then, at tea the recovered Uncles would be jolly;
and the ice cake loomed in the center of the table like a marble grave. Auntie Hannah laced her tea with ***,
because it was only once a year.

Bring out the tall tales now that we told by the fire as the gaslight bubbled like a diver. Ghosts whooed like
owls in the long nights when I dared not look over my shoulder; animals lurked in the cubbyhole under the
stairs and the gas meter ticked. And I remember that we went singing carols once, when there wasn't the shaving
of a moon to light the flying streets. At the end of a long road was a drive that led to a large house, and we
stumbled up the darkness of the drive that night, each one of us afraid, each one holding a stone in his hand
in case, and all of us too brave to say a word. The wind through the trees made noises as of old and unpleasant
and maybe webfooted men wheezing in caves. We reached the black bulk of the house. "What shall we give them?
Hark the Herald?"
"No," Jack said, "Good King Wencelas. I'll count three." One, two three, and we began to sing, our voices high
and seemingly distant in the snow-felted darkness round the house that was occupied by nobody we knew. We stood
close together, near the dark door. Good King Wencelas looked out On the Feast of Stephen ... And then a small,
dry voice, like the voice of someone who has not spoken for a long time, joined our singing: a small, dry,
eggshell voice from the other side of the door: a small dry voice through the keyhole. And when we stopped
running we were outside our house; the front room was lovely; balloons floated under the hot-water-bottle-
gulping gas; everything was good again and shone over the town.
"Perhaps it was a ghost," Jim said.
"Perhaps it was trolls," Dan said, who was always reading.
"Let's go in and see if there's any jelly left," Jack said. And we did that.

Always on Christmas night there was music. An uncle played the fiddle, a cousin sang "Cherry Ripe," and another
uncle sang "Drake's Drum." It was very warm in the little house. Auntie Hannah, who had got on to the parsnip
wine, sang a song about Bleeding Hearts and Death, and then another in which she said her heart was like a
Bird's Nest; and then everybody laughed again; and then I went to bed. Looking through my bedroom window, out
into the moonlight and the unending smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other
houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steady falling night. I turned the gas
down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept.

Are you struck with her figure and face?
    How lucky you happened to meet
With none of the gossiping race,
    Who dwell in this horrible street!
They of slanderous hints never tire;
    I love to approve and commend,
And the lady you so much admire,
    Is my very particular friend!

How charming she looks — her dark curls
    Really float with a natural air;
And the beads might be taken for pearls,
    That arc twined in that beautiful hair:
Then what tints her fair features o'erspread -
    That she uses white paint some pretend;
But, believe me, she only wears red
    She's my very particular friend!

Then her voice, how divine it appears
    While carolling: "Rise gentle moon;"
Lord Crotchet lastnight stopped his ears,
    And declared that she sung out of tune;
For my part, I think that her lay
    Might to Malibran's sweetness pretend;
But people won't mind what I say —
    I'm her very particular friend!

Then her writings — her exquisite rhyme
    To posterity surely must reach;
(I wonder she finds so much time
    With four little sisters to teach!)
A critic in Blackwood, indeed.
    Abused the last poem she penned;
The article made my heart bleed —
    She's my very particular friend!

Her brother dispatched with a sword,
    His friend in a duel, last June;
And her cousin eloped from her lord,
    With a handsome and whiskered dragoon:
Her father with duns is beset,
    Yet continues to dash and to spend —
She's too good for so worthless a set —
    She's my very particular friend!

All her chance of a portion is lost,
    And I fear she'll be single for life;
Wise people will count up the cost
    Of a gay and extravagant wife:
But tis odious to marry for pelf,
    (Though the times are not likely to mend,)
She's a fortune besides in herself —
    She's my very particular friend!

That she's somewhat sarcastic and pert,
    It were useless and vain to deny;
She's a little too much of a flirt,
    And a slattern when no one is by:
From her servants she constantly parts,
    Before they have reached the year's end;
But her heart is the kindest of hearts —
    She's my very particular friend!

Oh! never have pencil or pen,
    A creature more exquisite traced;
That her style does not take with the men,
    Proves a sad want of judgment and taste;
And if to the sketch I give now,
    Some flattering touches I lend;
Do for partial affection allow —
    She's my very particular friend!

seductive decay

on summer days we
rode down the river in our ripe age,
careless if the rapids swept us
into their deadly dustpans,
the black hole of water,
the possibility aroused us,
perhaps because it seemed so far away.

and next to the river,
the appalachian townsfolk wandered the deep grass, they
gathered here to see the circling folding-tables,
buy the spread of goods,
the goods are masks.
the masks are of old folks’ faces,
cartoon-like, goofy comic characters in the funny pages.
masks of rubbered wrinkles, permanent,
bulging eyes, whiskered ears that never stop growing, with
an elastic band, you can become an elder.

old age attracts the crowds,
i have a fascination with it myself,
picturing all the stories that have
taken elders to the present,
it’s hard to fake being wise
when you’re forced to think for years.

The courtesan and poet Zuo Fen had two cats Xe Ming and Xi Ming. Living in her distant court with only her maid Hu Yin, her cats were often her closest companions and, like herself, of a crepuscular nature.
      It was the very depths of winter and the first moon of the Solstice had risen. The old year had nearly passed.
      The day itself was almost over. Most of the inner courts retired before the new day began (at about 11.0pm), but not Zuo Fen. She summoned her maid to dress her in her winter furs, gathered her cats on a long chain leash, and walked out into the Haulin Gardens.
      These large and semi-wild gardens were adjacent to the walls of her personal court. The father of the present Emperor had created there a forest once stocked with game, a lake to the brim with carp and rich in waterfowl, and a series of tall structures surrounded by a moat from which astronomers were able to observe the firmament.
      Emperor Wu liked to think of Zuo Fen walking at night in his father’s park, though he rarely saw her there. He knew that she valued that time alone to prepare herself for his visits, visits that rarely occurred until the Tiger hours between 3.0am and 6.0am when his goat-drawn carriage would find its way to her court unbidden. She herself would welcome him with steaming chai and sometimes a new rhapsody. They would recline on her bed and discuss the content and significance of certain writings they knew and loved. Discussion sometimes became an elaborate game when a favoured Classical text would be taken as the starting point for an exchange of quotation. Gradually quotation would be displaced by subtle invention and Zuo Fen would find the Emperor manoeuvring her into making declarations of a passionate or ****** nature.
       It seemed her very voice captivated him and despite herself and her inclinations they would join as lovers with an intensity of purpose, a great tenderness, and deep joy. He would rest his head inside her cloak and allow her lips to caress his ears with tales of river and mountain, descriptions of the flights of birds and the opening of flowers. He spoke to her ******* of the rising moon, its myriad reflections on the waters of Ling Lake, and of its trees whose winter branches caressed the cold surface.

Whilst Zuo Fen walked in the midnight park with her cats she reflected on an afternoon of frustration. She had attempted to assemble a new poem for her Lord.  Despite being himself an accomplished poet and having an extraordinary memory for Classical verse, the Emperor retained a penchant for stories about Mei-Lim, a young Suchan girl dragged from her family to serve as a courtesan at his court.
      Zuo Fen had invented this girl to articulate some of her own expressions of homesickness, despair, periods of constant tearfulness, and abject loneliness. Such things seemed to touch something in the Emperor. It was as though he enjoyed wallowing in these descriptions and his favourite A Rhapsody on Being far from Home he loved to hear from the poet’s own lips, again and again. Zuo Fen felt she was tempting providence not to compose something new, before being ordered to do so.
      As she struggled through the afternoon to inject some fresh and meaningful content into a story already milked dry Zuo Fen became aware of her cats. Xi Ming lay languorously across her folded feet. Xe Ming perched like an immutable porcelain figure on a stool beside her low writing table.
Zuo Fen often consulted her cats. ‘Xi Ming, will my Lord like this stanza?’

“The stones that ring out from your pony’s hooves
announce your path through the cloud forest”

She would always wait patiently for Xi Ming’s reply, playing a game with her imagination to extract an answer from the cinnamon scented air of her winter chamber.
      ‘He will think his pony’s hooves will flash with sparks kindling the fire of his passion as he prepares to meet his beloved’.
      ‘Oh such a wise cat, Xi Ming’, and she would press his warm body further into her lap. But today, as she imagined this dialogue, a second voice appeared in her thoughts.
      ‘Gracious Lady, your Xe Ming knows his under-standing is poor, his education weak, but surely this image, taken as it is from the poet Lu Ji, suggests how unlikely it would be for the spark of love and passion to take hold without nurture and care, impossible on a hard journey’.
       This was unprecedented. What had brought such a response from her imagination? And before she could elicit an answer it was as though Xe Ming spoke with these words of Confucius.

“Do not be concerned about others not appreciating you, be concerned about you not appreciating others”

Being the very sensible woman she was, Zuo Fen dismissed such admonition (from a cat) and called for tea.

Later as she walked her beauties by the frozen lake, the golden carp nosing around just beneath the ice, she recalled the moment and wondered. A thought came to her  . . .
       She would petition Xe Ming’s help to write a new rhapsody, perhaps titled Rhapsody on the Thought of Separation.

Both Zuo Fen’s cats came from her parental home in Lingzhi. They were large, big-***** mountain cats; strong animals with bear-like paws, short whiskered and big eared. Their coats were a glassy grey, the hairs tipped with a sprinkling of white giving the fur an impression of being wet with dew or caught by a brief shower.
       When she thought of her esteemed father, the Imperial Archivist, there was always a cat somewhere; in his study at home, in the official archives where he worked. There was always a cat close at hand, listening?
       What texts did her father know by heart that she did not know? What about the Lu Yu – the Confucian text book of advice and etiquette for court officials. She had never bothered to learn it, even read it seemed unnecessary, but through her brother Zuo Si she knew something of its contents and purpose.

Confucius was once asked what were the qualifications of public office. ‘Revere the five forms of goodness and abandon the four vices and you can qualify for public office’.
       For the life of her Zuo Fen could not remember these five forms of goodness (although she could make a stab at guessing them). As for those vices? No, she was without an idea. If she had ever known, their detail had totally passed from her memory.
       Settled once again in her chamber she called Hu Yin and asked her to remove Xi Ming for the night. She had three hours or so before the Emperor might appear. There was time.
        Xe Ming was by nature a distant cat, aloof, never seeking affection. He would look the other way if regarded, pace to the corner of a room if spoken to. In summer he would hide himself in the deep undergrowth of Zuo Fen’s garden.
       Tonight Zuo Fen picked him up and placed him on her left shoulder. She walked around her room stroking him gently with her small strong fingers, so different from the manicured talons of her colleagues in the Purple Palace. Embroidery, of which she was an accomplished exponent, was impossible with long nails.
       From her scroll cupboard she selected her brother’s annotated copy of the Lun Yu, placing it unrolled on her desk. It would be those questions from the disciple Tzu Chang, she thought, so the final chapters perhaps. She sat down carefully on the thick fleece and Mongolian rug in front of her desk letting Xe Ming spill over her arms into a space beside her.
       This was strange indeed. As she sat beside Xe Ming in the light of the butter lamps holding his flickering gaze it was as though a veil began to lift between them.
       ‘At last you understand’, a voice appeared to whisper,’ after all this time you have realised . . .’
      Zuo Fen lost track of time. The cat was completely motionless. She could hear Hu Yin snoring lightly next door, no doubt glad to have Xi Ming beside her on her mat.
      ‘Xe Ming’, she said softly, ‘today I heard you quote from Confucius’.
      The cat remained inscrutable, completely still.
      ‘I think you may be able to help me write a new poem for my Lord. Heaven knows I need something or he will tire of me and this court will cease to enjoy his favour’.
      ‘Xe Ming, I have to test you. I think you can ‘speak’ to me, but I need to learn to talk to you’.
      ‘Tzu Chang once asked Confucius what were the qualifications needed for public office? Confucius said, I believe, that there were five forms of goodness to revere, and four vices to abandon’.
       ‘Can you tell me what they are?’
      Xe Ming turned his back on Zuo Fen and stepped gently away from the table and into a dark and distant corner of the chamber.
      ‘The gentle man is generous but not extravagant, works without complaint, has desires without being greedy, is at peace, but not arrogant, and commands respect but not fear’.
      Zuo Fen felt her breathing come short and fast. This voice inside her; richly-texture, male, so close it could be from a lover at the epicentre of a passionate entanglement; it caressed her.
      She heard herself say aloud, ‘and the four vices’.
      ‘To cause a death or imprisonment without teaching can be called cruelty; to judge results without prerequisites can be called tyranny; to impose deadlines on improper orders can be thievery; and when giving in the procedure of receipt and disbursement, to stint can be called officious’.
       Xe Ming then appeared out of the darkness and came and sat in the folds of her night cloak, between her legs. She stroked his glistening fur.
       Zuo Fen didn’t need to consult the Lu Yu on her desk. She knew this was unnecessary. She got to her feet and stepped through the curtains into an antechamber to relieve herself.
       When she returned Xe Ming had assumed his porcelain figure pose. So she gathered a fresh scroll, her writing brushes, her inks, her wax stamps, and wrote:

‘I was born in a humble, isolated, thatched house,
and was never well versed in writing.
I never saw the marvellous pictures of books,
nor had I heard of the classics of earlier sages.
I am dimwitted, humble and ignorant . . ‘

As she stopped to consider the next chain of characters she saw in her mind’s eye the Purple Palace, the palace of the concubines of the Emperor. Sitting next to the Purple Chamber there was a large grey cat, its fur sprinkled with tiny flecks of white looking as though the animal had been caught in a shower of rain.
       Zuo Fen turned from her script to see where Xe Ming had got to, but he had gone. She knew however that he would always be there. Wherever her imagination took her, she could seek out this cat and the words would flow.

Before returning to her new text Zuo Fen thought she might remind herself of Liu Xie’s words on the form of the Rhapsody. If Emperor Wu appeared later she would quote it (to his astonishment) from The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons.

*The rhapsody derives from poetry,
A fork in the road, a different line of development;
It describes objects, pictures and their appearance,
With a brilliance akin to sculpture and painting.
What is clogged and confined it invariably opens up;
It depicts the commonplace with unbounded charm;
But the goal of the form is of beauty well ordered,
Words retained for their loveliness when weeds have been cut away.

I found myself today
I found my strength, imagine that
on the breath of a shy whiskered cat
imagine how great to drift out of yourself
Float off through the night to see your desires
The beautiful feeling of being unrestrained by your skin
To look upon the face you can not replace
and see them smiling and happy
I love to dissolve in the street lights hue
and dance on the rain spinning around you
You know I'm there but you can't find me
No matter how hard you stare, but you can feel me
If we could meet on an astral plane,
we could fly together and make love in the rain

© Crystal Erickson 9/21/08

A proud man,
Upright and unshakable
In belief and morals,
Once only I did I see him
Without a tie.

A child of Edwardian England,
The links Of his watch chain
Glinted
As they hung
With formality and elegance
From his waistcoat pocket,
Yes, even as he worked.

And work he did.
Patiently,
Brilliantly and tirelessly
With ingenuity and imagination.
A craftsman from a bygone age.
A master of his tools.

Grandfathers are soft,
Playful, bear-like in their
Gruff-whiskered familiarity.

Not Poppy.
Unwittingly aloof from his grandchildren,
We avoided the need for directly addressing him,
Unsure of where we stood.
He’d probably have secretly
Loved the informality
Of our secret nickname.
I hope he knew.

The chapel piano did for him.
Too much weight for his work-weary ticker.

Grandma gave me his pocket watch to keep,
And for a time I treasured it,
Measuring its weight
Like a smooth round pebble
In my palm.
A workman’s watch;
Practical.
A yellowing face
Behind a scratched
And hazy glass.
But accurate,
And precise.
Reliable as the man.

Detached in life,
I liked to hope that
Gazing down,
Watching,
He just might have
Laughed
In loving acknowledgement of his
Grandson’s curiosity
And foolishness
Sitting cross-legged on the carpet,
With heart-thumping nausea

Adrift in a sea of springs.

Muse of the many-twinkling feet! whose charms
Are now extended up from legs to arms;
Terpsichore!—too long misdeemed a maid—
Reproachful term—bestowed but to upbraid—
Henceforth in all the bronze of brightness shine,
The least a Vestal of the ****** Nine.
Far be from thee and thine the name of *****:
Mocked yet triumphant; sneered at, unsubdued;
Thy legs must move to conquer as they fly,
If but thy coats are reasonably high!
Thy breast—if bare enough—requires no shield;
Dance forth—sans armour thou shalt take the field
And own—impregnable to most assaults,
Thy not too lawfully begotten “Waltz.”

  Hail, nimble Nymph! to whom the young hussar,
The whiskered votary of Waltz and War,
His night devotes, despite of spur and boots;
A sight unmatched since Orpheus and his brutes:
Hail, spirit-stirring Waltz!—beneath whose banners
A modern hero fought for modish manners;
On Hounslow’s heath to rival Wellesley’s fame,
Cocked, fired, and missed his man—but gained his aim;
Hail, moving muse! to whom the fair one’s breast
Gives all it can, and bids us take the rest.
Oh! for the flow of Busby, or of Fitz,
The latter’s loyalty, the former’s wits,
To “energise the object I pursue,”
And give both Belial and his Dance their due!

  Imperial Waltz! imported from the Rhine
(Famed for the growth of pedigrees and wine),
Long be thine import from all duty free,
And Hock itself be less esteemed than thee;
In some few qualities alike—for Hock
Improves our cellar—thou our living stock.
The head to Hock belongs—thy subtler art
Intoxicates alone the heedless heart:
Through the full veins thy gentler poison swims,
And wakes to Wantonness the willing limbs.

  Oh, Germany! how much to thee we owe,
As heaven-born Pitt can testify below,
Ere cursed Confederation made thee France’s,
And only left us thy d—d debts and dances!
Of subsidies and Hanover bereft,
We bless thee still—George the Third is left!
Of kings the best—and last, not least in worth,
For graciously begetting George the Fourth.
To Germany, and Highnesses serene,
Who owe us millions—don’t we owe the Queen?
To Germany, what owe we not besides?
So oft bestowing Brunswickers and brides;
Who paid for ******, with her royal blood,
Drawn from the stem of each Teutonic stud:
Who sent us—so be pardoned all her faults—
A dozen dukes, some kings, a Queen—and Waltz.

  But peace to her—her Emperor and Diet,
Though now transferred to Buonapartè’s “fiat!”
Back to my theme—O muse of Motion! say,
How first to Albion found thy Waltz her way?

  Borne on the breath of Hyperborean gales,
From Hamburg’s port (while Hamburg yet had mails),
Ere yet unlucky Fame—compelled to creep
To snowy Gottenburg-was chilled to sleep;
Or, starting from her slumbers, deigned arise,
Heligoland! to stock thy mart with lies;
While unburnt Moscow yet had news to send,
Nor owed her fiery Exit to a friend,
She came—Waltz came—and with her certain sets
Of true despatches, and as true Gazettes;
Then flamed of Austerlitz the blest despatch,
Which Moniteur nor Morning Post can match
And—almost crushed beneath the glorious news—
Ten plays, and forty tales of Kotzebue’s;
One envoy’s letters, six composer’s airs,
And loads from Frankfort and from Leipsic fairs:
Meiners’ four volumes upon Womankind,
Like Lapland witches to ensure a wind;
Brunck’s heaviest tome for ballast, and, to back it,
Of Heynè, such as should not sink the packet.

  Fraught with this cargo—and her fairest freight,
Delightful Waltz, on tiptoe for a Mate,
The welcome vessel reached the genial strand,
And round her flocked the daughters of the land.
Not decent David, when, before the ark,
His grand Pas-seul excited some remark;
Not love-lorn Quixote, when his Sancho thought
The knight’s Fandango friskier than it ought;
Not soft Herodias, when, with winning tread,
Her nimble feet danced off another’s head;
Not Cleopatra on her Galley’s Deck,
Displayed so much of leg or more of neck,
Than Thou, ambrosial Waltz, when first the Moon
Beheld thee twirling to a Saxon tune!

  To You, ye husbands of ten years! whose brows
Ache with the annual tributes of a spouse;
To you of nine years less, who only bear
The budding sprouts of those that you shall wear,
With added ornaments around them rolled
Of native brass, or law-awarded gold;
To You, ye Matrons, ever on the watch
To mar a son’s, or make a daughter’s match;
To You, ye children of—whom chance accords—
Always the Ladies, and sometimes their Lords;
To You, ye single gentlemen, who seek
Torments for life, or pleasures for a week;
As Love or ***** your endeavours guide,
To gain your own, or ****** another’s bride;—
To one and all the lovely Stranger came,
And every Ball-room echoes with her name.

  Endearing Waltz!—to thy more melting tune
Bow Irish Jig, and ancient Rigadoon.
Scotch reels, avaunt! and Country-dance forego
Your future claims to each fantastic toe!
Waltz—Waltz alone—both legs and arms demands,
Liberal of feet, and lavish of her hands;
Hands which may freely range in public sight
Where ne’er before—but—pray “put out the light.”
Methinks the glare of yonder chandelier
Shines much too far—or I am much too near;
And true, though strange—Waltz whispers this remark,
“My slippery steps are safest in the dark!”
But here the Muse with due decorum halts,
And lends her longest petticoat to “Waltz.”

  Observant Travellers of every time!
Ye Quartos published upon every clime!
0 say, shall dull Romaika’s heavy round,
Fandango’s wriggle, or Bolero’s bound;
Can Egypt’s Almas—tantalising group—
Columbia’s caperers to the warlike Whoop—
Can aught from cold Kamschatka to Cape Horn
With Waltz compare, or after Waltz be born?
Ah, no! from Morier’s pages down to Galt’s,
Each tourist pens a paragraph for “Waltz.”

  Shades of those Belles whose reign began of yore,
With George the Third’s—and ended long before!—
Though in your daughters’ daughters yet you thrive,
Burst from your lead, and be yourselves alive!
Back to the Ball-room speed your spectred host,
Fool’s Paradise is dull to that you lost.
No treacherous powder bids Conjecture quake;
No stiff-starched stays make meddling fingers ache;
(Transferred to those ambiguous things that ape
Goats in their visage, women in their shape;)
No damsel faints when rather closely pressed,
But more caressing seems when most caressed;
Superfluous Hartshorn, and reviving Salts,
Both banished by the sovereign cordial “Waltz.”

  Seductive Waltz!—though on thy native shore
Even Werter’s self proclaimed thee half a *****;
Werter—to decent vice though much inclined,
Yet warm, not wanton; dazzled, but not blind—
Though gentle Genlis, in her strife with Staël,
Would even proscribe thee from a Paris ball;
The fashion hails—from Countesses to Queens,
And maids and valets waltz behind the scenes;
Wide and more wide thy witching circle spreads,
And turns—if nothing else—at least our heads;
With thee even clumsy cits attempt to bounce,
And cockney’s practise what they can’t pronounce.
Gods! how the glorious theme my strain exalts,
And Rhyme finds partner Rhyme in praise of “Waltz!”
Blest was the time Waltz chose for her début!
The Court, the Regent, like herself were new;
New face for friends, for foes some new rewards;
New ornaments for black-and royal Guards;
New laws to hang the rogues that roared for bread;
New coins (most new) to follow those that fled;
New victories—nor can we prize them less,
Though Jenky wonders at his own success;
New wars, because the old succeed so well,
That most survivors envy those who fell;
New mistresses—no, old—and yet ’tis true,
Though they be old, the thing is something new;
Each new, quite new—(except some ancient tricks),
New white-sticks—gold-sticks—broom-sticks—all new sticks!
With vests or ribands—decked alike in hue,
New troopers strut, new turncoats blush in blue:
So saith the Muse: my——, what say you?
Such was the time when Waltz might best maintain
Her new preferments in this novel reign;
Such was the time, nor ever yet was such;
Hoops are  more, and petticoats not much;
Morals and Minuets, Virtue and her stays,
And tell-tale powder—all have had their days.
The Ball begins—the honours of the house
First duly done by daughter or by spouse,
Some Potentate—or royal or serene—
With Kent’s gay grace, or sapient Gloster’s mien,
Leads forth the ready dame, whose rising flush
Might once have been mistaken for a blush.
From where the garb just leaves the ***** free,
That spot where hearts were once supposed to be;
Round all the confines of the yielded waist,
The strangest hand may wander undisplaced:
The lady’s in return may grasp as much
As princely paunches offer to her touch.
Pleased round the chalky floor how well they trip
One hand reposing on the royal hip!
The other to the shoulder no less royal
Ascending with affection truly loyal!
Thus front to front the partners move or stand,
The foot may rest, but none withdraw the hand;
And all in turn may follow in their rank,
The Earl of—Asterisk—and Lady—Blank;
Sir—Such-a-one—with those of fashion’s host,
For whose blest surnames—vide “Morning Post.”
(Or if for that impartial print too late,
Search Doctors’ Commons six months from my date)—
Thus all and each, in movement swift or slow,
The genial contact gently undergo;
Till some might marvel, with the modest Turk,
If “nothing follows all this palming work?”
True, honest Mirza!—you may trust my rhyme—
Something does follow at a fitter time;
The breast thus publicly resigned to man,
In private may resist him—if it can.

  O ye who loved our Grandmothers of yore,
Fitzpatrick, Sheridan, and many more!
And thou, my Prince! whose sovereign taste and will
It is to love the lovely beldames still!
Thou Ghost of Queensberry! whose judging Sprite
Satan may spare to peep a single night,
Pronounce—if ever in your days of bliss
Asmodeus struck so bright a stroke as this;
To teach the young ideas how to rise,
Flush in the cheek, and languish in the eyes;
Rush to the heart, and lighten through the frame,
With half-told wish, and ill-dissembled flame,
For prurient Nature still will storm the breast—
Who, tempted thus, can answer for the rest?

  But ye—who never felt a single thought
For what our Morals are to be, or ought;
Who wisely wish the charms you view to reap,
Say—would you make those beauties quite so cheap?
Hot from the hands promiscuously applied,
Round the slight waist, or down the glowing side,
Where were the rapture then to clasp the form
From this lewd grasp and lawless contact warm?
At once Love’s most endearing thought resign,
To press the hand so pressed by none but thine;
To gaze upon that eye which never met
Another’s ardent look without regret;
Approach the lip which all, without restraint,
Come near enough—if not to touch—to taint;
If such thou lovest—love her then no more,
Or give—like her—caresses to a score;
Her Mind with these is gone, and with it go
The little left behind it to bestow.

  Voluptuous Waltz! and dare I thus blaspheme?
Thy bard forgot thy praises were his theme.
Terpsichore forgive!—at every Ball
My wife now waltzes—and my daughters shall;
My son—(or stop—’tis needless to inquire—
These little accidents should ne’er transpire;
Some ages hence our genealogic tree
Will wear as green a bough for him as me)—
Waltzing shall rear, to make our name amends
Grandsons for me—in heirs to all his friends.

Its the perfect costume for a superhero goddess, and it makes her feel invincible; fishnet stockings, blazing red bra, heroine hotpants and the clincher; kitten heels.

Bunny can take on the world, now, appropriately dressed. She's got superpowers, alright, the doom-dogs seem to think so, and they're running scared.

Those rumours, that they trade and use and barter, of baby bunny's beautiful mouth, sloe doe eyes, and inexhaustible tongue. It's been said that she can bring an evil tyrant to his knees as she sinks down to her own, it's been said, she's good and bad, so very bad, so very, very good...

But, listen!

*** bunny's been given a new mission; There's a new and timely terror, and the doom-dogs are, of course, the evil source; find and *******, *** bunny, the formidable phallus of doom.

Only you, ***** tawny Queen of Dawn are up to the task. Don your whiskered mask, wriggle your nose once, twice, yummy bunny, and fly, fly! Find the phallus, save the world.

It's your destiny.
You were born to blow the horn for cosmic ****.

--To Elizabeth Robins Pennell


'O mes cheres Mille et Une Nuits!'--Fantasio.

Once on a time
There was a little boy:  a master-mage
By virtue of a Book
Of magic--O, so magical it filled
His life with visionary pomps
Processional!  And Powers
Passed with him where he passed.  And Thrones
And Dominations, glaived and plumed and mailed,
Thronged in the criss-cross streets,
The palaces pell-mell with playing-fields,
Domes, cloisters, dungeons, caverns, tents, arcades,
Of the unseen, silent City, in his soul
Pavilioned jealously, and hid
As in the dusk, profound,
Green stillnesses of some enchanted mere.--

I shut mine eyes . . . And lo!
A flickering ****** of memory that floats
Upon the face of a pool of darkness five
And thirty dead years deep,
Antic in girlish broideries
And skirts and silly shoes with straps
And a broad-ribanded leghorn, he walks
Plain in the shadow of a church
(St. Michael's:  in whose brazen call
To curfew his first wails of wrath were whelmed),
Sedate for all his haste
To be at home; and, nestled in his arm,
Inciting still to quiet and solitude,
Boarded in sober drab,
With small, square, agitating cuts
Let in a-top of the double-columned, close,
Quakerlike print, a Book! . . .
What but that blessed brief
Of what is gallantest and best
In all the full-shelved Libraries of Romance?
The Book of rocs,
Sandalwood, ivory, turbans, ambergris,
Cream-tarts, and lettered apes, and calendars,
And ghouls, and genies--O, so huge
They might have overed the tall Minster Tower
Hands down, as schoolboys take a post!
In truth, the Book of Camaralzaman,
Schemselnihar and Sindbad, Scheherezade
The peerless, Bedreddin, Badroulbadour,
Cairo and Serendib and Candahar,
And Caspian, and the dim, terrific bulk--
Ice-ribbed, fiend-visited, isled in spells and storms--
Of Kaf! . . . That centre of miracles,
The sole, unparalleled Arabian Nights!

Old friends I had a-many--kindly and grim
Familiars, cronies quaint
And goblin!  Never a Wood but housed
Some morrice of dainty dapperlings.  No Brook
But had his nunnery
Of green-haired, silvry-curving sprites,
To cabin in his grots, and pace
His lilied margents.  Every lone Hillside
Might open upon Elf-Land.  Every Stalk
That curled about a Bean-stick was of the breed
Of that live ladder by whose delicate rungs
You climbed beyond the clouds, and found
The Farm-House where the Ogre, gorged
And drowsy, from his great oak chair,
Among the flitches and pewters at the fire,
Called for his Faery Harp.  And in it flew,
And, perching on the kitchen table, sang
Jocund and jubilant, with a sound
Of those gay, golden-vowered madrigals
The shy thrush at mid-May
Flutes from wet orchards flushed with the triumphing dawn;
Or blackbirds rioting as they listened still,
In old-world woodlands rapt with an old-world spring,
For Pan's own whistle, savage and rich and lewd,
And mocked him call for call!

I could not pass
The half-door where the cobbler sat in view
Nor figure me the wizen Leprechaun,
In square-cut, faded reds and buckle-shoes,
Bent at his work in the hedge-side, and know
Just how he tapped his brogue, and twitched
His wax-end this and that way, both with wrists
And elbows.  In the rich June fields,
Where the ripe clover drew the bees,
And the tall quakers trembled, and the West Wind
Lolled his half-holiday away
Beside me lolling and lounging through my own,
'Twas good to follow the Miller's Youngest Son
On his white horse along the leafy lanes;
For at his stirrup linked and ran,
Not cynical and trapesing, as he loped
From wall to wall above the espaliers,
But in the bravest tops
That market-town, a town of tops, could show:
Bold, subtle, adventurous, his tail
A banner flaunted in disdain
Of human stratagems and shifts:
King over All the Catlands, present and past
And future, that moustached
Artificer of fortunes, ****-in-Boots!
Or Bluebeard's Closet, with its plenishing
Of meat-hooks, sawdust, blood,
And wives that hung like fresh-dressed carcases--
Odd-fangled, most a butcher's, part
A faery chamber hazily seen
And hazily figured--on dark afternoons
And windy nights was visiting of the best.
Then, too, the pelt of hoofs
Out in the roaring darkness told
Of Herne the Hunter in his antlered helm
Galloping, as with despatches from the Pit,
Between his hell-born Hounds.
And Rip Van Winkle . . . often I lurked to hear,
Outside the long, low timbered, tarry wall,
The mutter and rumble of the trolling bowls
Down the lean plank, before they fluttered the pins;
For, listening, I could help him play
His wonderful game,
In those blue, booming hills, with Mariners
Refreshed from kegs not coopered in this our world.

But what were these so near,
So neighbourly fancies to the spell that brought
The run of Ali Baba's Cave
Just for the saying 'Open Sesame,'
With gold to measure, peck by peck,
In round, brown wooden stoups
You borrowed at the chandler's? . . . Or one time
Made you Aladdin's friend at school,
Free of his Garden of Jewels, Ring and Lamp
In perfect trim? . . . Or Ladies, fair
For all the embrowning scars in their white *******
Went labouring under some dread ordinance,
Which made them whip, and bitterly cry the while,
Strange Curs that cried as they,
Till there was never a Black ***** of all
Your consorting but might have gone
Spell-driven miserably for crimes
Done in the pride of womanhood and desire . . .
Or at the ghostliest altitudes of night,
While you lay wondering and acold,
Your sense was fearfully purged; and soon
Queen Labe, abominable and dear,
Rose from your side, opened the Box of Doom,
Scattered the yellow powder (which I saw
Like sulphur at the Docks in bulk),
And muttered certain words you could not hear;
And there! a living stream,
The brook you bathed in, with its weeds and flags
And cresses, glittered and sang
Out of the hearthrug over the nakedness,
Fair-scrubbed and decent, of your bedroom floor! . . .

I was--how many a time!--
That Second Calendar, Son of a King,
On whom 'twas vehemently enjoined,
Pausing at one mysterious door,
To pry no closer, but content his soul
With his kind Forty.  Yet I could not rest
For idleness and ungovernable Fate.
And the Black Horse, which fed on sesame
(That wonder-working word!),
Vouchsafed his back to me, and spread his vans,
And soaring, soaring on
From air to air, came charging to the ground
Sheer, like a lark from the midsummer clouds,
And, shaking me out of the saddle, where I sprawled
Flicked at me with his tail,
And left me blinded, miserable, distraught
(Even as I was in deed,
When doctors came, and odious things were done
On my poor tortured eyes
With lancets; or some evil acid stung
And wrung them like hot sand,
And desperately from room to room
Fumble I must my dark, disconsolate way),
To get to Bagdad how I might.  But there
I met with Merry Ladies.  O you three--
Safie, Amine, Zobeide--when my heart
Forgets you all shall be forgot!
And so we supped, we and the rest,
On wine and roasted lamb, rose-water, dates,
Almonds, pistachios, citrons.  And Haroun
Laughed out of his lordly beard
On Giaffar and Mesrour (I knew the Three
For all their Mossoul habits).  And outside
The Tigris, flowing swift
Like Severn bend for bend, twinkled and gleamed
With broken and wavering shapes of stranger stars;
The vast, blue night
Was murmurous with peris' plumes
And the leathern wings of genies; words of power
Were whispering; and old fishermen,
Casting their nets with prayer, might draw to shore
Dead loveliness:  or a prodigy in scales
Worth in the Caliph's Kitchen pieces of gold:
Or copper vessels, stopped with lead,
Wherein some Squire of Eblis watched and railed,
In durance under potent charactry
Graven by the seal of Solomon the King . . .

Then, as the Book was glassed
In Life as in some olden mirror's quaint,
Bewildering angles, so would Life
Flash light on light back on the Book; and both
Were changed.  Once in a house decayed
From better days, harbouring an errant show
(For all its stories of dry-rot
Were filled with gruesome visitants in wax,
Inhuman, hushed, ghastly with Painted Eyes),
I wandered; and no living soul
Was nearer than the pay-box; and I stared
Upon them staring--staring.  Till at last,
Three sets of rafters from the streets,
I strayed upon a mildewed, rat-run room,
With the two Dancers, horrible and obscene,
Guarding the door:  and there, in a bedroom-set,
Behind a fence of faded crimson cords,
With an aspect of frills
And dimities and dishonoured privacy
That made you hanker and hesitate to look,
A Woman with her litter of Babes--all slain,
All in their nightgowns, all with Painted Eyes
Staring--still staring; so that I turned and ran
As for my neck, but in the street
Took breath.  The same, it seemed,
And yet not all the same, I was to find,
As I went up!  For afterwards,
Whenas I went my round alone--
All day alone--in long, stern, silent streets,
Where I might stretch my hand and take
Whatever I would:  still there were Shapes of Stone,
Motionless, lifelike, frightening--for the Wrath
Had smitten them; but they watched,
This by her melons and figs, that by his rings
And chains and watches, with the hideous gaze,
The Painted Eyes insufferable,
Now, of those grisly images; and I
Pursued my best-beloved quest,
Thrilled with a novel and delicious fear.
So the night fell--with never a lamplighter;
And through the Palace of the King
I groped among the echoes, and I felt
That they were there,
Dreadfully there, the Painted staring Eyes,
Hall after hall . . . Till lo! from far
A Voice!  And in a little while
Two tapers burning!  And the Voice,
Heard in the wondrous Word of God, was--whose?
Whose but Zobeide's,
The lady of my heart, like me
A True Believer, and like me
An outcast thousands of leagues beyond the pale! . . .

Or, sailing to the Isles
Of Khaledan, I spied one evenfall
A black blotch in the sunset; and it grew
Swiftly . . . and grew.  Tearing their beards,
The sailors wept and prayed; but the grave ship,
Deep laden with spiceries and pearls, went mad,
Wrenched the long tiller out of the steersman's hand,
And, turning broadside on,
As the most iron would, was haled and ******
Nearer, and nearer yet;
And, all awash, with horrible lurching leaps
Rushed at that Portent, casting a shadow now
That swallowed sea and sky; and then,
Anchors and nails and bolts
Flew screaming out of her, and with clang on clang,
A noise of fifty stithies, caught at the sides
Of the Magnetic Mountain; and she lay,
A broken bundle of firewood, strown piecemeal
About the waters; and her crew
Passed shrieking, one by one; and I was left
To drown.  All the long night I swam;
But in the morning, O, the smiling coast
Tufted with date-trees, meadowlike,
Skirted with shelving sands!  And a great wave
Cast me ashore; and I was saved alive.
So, giving thanks to God, I dried my clothes,
And, faring inland, in a desert place
I stumbled on an iron ring--
The fellow of fifty built into the Quays:
When, scenting a trap-door,
I dug, and dug; until my biggest blade
Stuck into wood.  And then,
The flight of smooth-hewn, easy-falling stairs,
Sunk in the naked rock!  The cool, clean vault,
So neat with niche on niche it might have been
Our beer-cellar but for the rows
Of brazen urns (like monstrous chemist's jars)
Full to the wide, squat throats
With gold-dust, but a-top
A layer of pickled-walnut-looking things
I knew for olives!  And far, O, far away,
The Princess of China languished!  Far away
Was marriage, with a Vizier and a Chief
Of Eunuchs and the privilege
Of going out at night
To play--unkenned, majestical, secure--
Where the old, brown, friendly river shaped
Like Tigris shore for shore!  Haply a Ghoul
Sat in the churchyard under a frightened moon,
A thighbone in his fist, and glared
At supper with a Lady:  she who took
Her rice with tweezers grain by grain.
Or you might stumble--there by the iron gates
Of the Pump Room--underneath the limes--
Upon Bedreddin in his shirt and drawers,
Just as the civil Genie laid him down.
Or those red-curtained panes,
Whence a tame cornet tenored it throatily
Of beer-pots and spittoons and new long pipes,
Might turn a caravansery's, wherein
You found Noureddin Ali, loftily drunk,
And that fair Persian, bathed in tears,
You'd not have given away
For all the diamonds in the Vale Perilous
You had that dark and disleaved afternoon
Escaped on a roc's claw,
Disguised like Sindbad--but in Christmas beef!
And all the blissful while
The schoolboy satchel at your hip
Was such a bulse of gems as should amaze
Grey-whiskered chapmen drawn
From over Caspian:  yea, the Chief Jewellers
Of Tartary and the bazaars,
Seething with traffic, of enormous Ind.--

Thus cried, thus called aloud, to the child heart
The magian East:  thus the child eyes
Spelled out the wizard message by the light
Of the sober, workaday hours
They saw, week in week out, pass, and still pass
In the sleepy Minster City, folded kind
In ancient Severn's arm,
Amongst her water-meadows and her docks,
Whose floating populace of ships--
Galliots and luggers, light-heeled brigantines,
Bluff barques and rake-hell fore-and-afters--brought
To her very doorsteps and geraniums
The scents of the World's End; the calls
That may not be gainsaid to rise and ride
Like fire on some high errand of the race;
The irresistible appeals
For comradeship that sound
Steadily from the irresistible sea.
Thus the East laughed and whispered, and the tale,
Telling itself anew
In terms of living, labouring life,
Took on the colours, busked it in the wear
Of life that lived and laboured; and Romance,
The Angel-Playmate, raining down
His golden influences
On all I saw, and all I dreamed and did,
Walked with me arm in arm,
Or left me, as one bediademed with straws
And bits of glass, to gladden at my heart
Who had the gift to seek and feel and find
His fiery-hearted presence everywhere.
Even so dear Hesper, bringer of all good things,
Sends the same silver dews
Of happiness down her dim, delighted skies
On some poor collier-hamlet--(mound on mound
Of sifted squalor; here a soot-throated stalk
Sullenly smoking over a row
Of flat-faced hovels; black in the gritty air
A web of rails and wheels and beams; with strings
Of hurtling, tipping trams)--
As on the amorous nightingales
And roses of Shiraz, or the walls and towers
Of Samarcand--the Ineffable--whence you espy
The splendour of Ginnistan's embattled spears,
Like listed lightnings.
Samarcand!
That name of names!  That star-vaned belvedere
Builded against the Chambers of the South!
That outpost on the Infinite!
And behold!
Questing therefrom, you knew not what wild tide
Might overtake you:  for one fringe,
One suburb, is stablished on firm earth; but one
Floats founded vague
In lubberlands delectable--isles of palm
And lotus, fortunate mains, far-shimmering seas,
The promise of wistful hills--
The shining, shifting Sovranties of Dream.

In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfrey old and brown;
Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o’er the town.

As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I stood,
And the world through off the darkness, like the weeds of widowhood.

Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams and vapors gray,
Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast the landscape lay.

At my feet the city slumbered. From its chimneys, here and there,
Wreathes of snow-white smoke, ascending, vanished, ghost-like, into the air.

Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning hour,
But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient tower.

From their nests beneath the rafters sang the swollows wild and high;
And the world, beneath me sleeping, seemed more distant than the sky.

Then most musical and solemn, bringing back the olden times,
With their strange, unearthly changes rang the melancholy chimes,

Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sing in the choir;
And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a friar.

Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms filled my brain;
They who live in history only seemed to walk the earth again;

All the foresters of Flanders,—mighty Baldwin Bras de Fer,
Lyderick du Bucq and Cressy, Philip, Guy du Dampierre.

I beheld the pageants splended that adorned those days of old;
Stately dames, like queens attended, knights who bore the Fleece of Gold;

Lombard and Venetian merchants with deep-laden argosies;
Ministers from twenty nations; more than royal pomp and ease.

I beheld proud Maximilian, kneeling humbly on the ground;
I behed the gentle Mary, hunting with her hawk and hound;

And her lighted bridal-chamber, where a duke slept with the queen,
And the armèd guard around them, and the sword unsheathed between.

I beheld the flemish weavers, with Namur and Juliers bold,
Marching homeward from the ****** battle of the Spurs of Gold;

Saw the fight at Minnewater, saw the White Hoods moving west,
Saw great Artevelde victorious scale the Golden Dragon’s nest.

And again the whiskered Spaniard all the land with terror smote;
And again the wild alarum sounded from the tocsin’s throat;

Till the bells of Ghent resounded o’er lagoons and **** of sand,
“I am Roland! I am Roland! there is victory in the land!”

Then the sound of drums aroused me. The awakened city’s roar
Chased the phantoms I had summoned back into their graves once more.

Hours had passed away like minutes; and before I was aware,
Lo! the shadow of the belfry crossed the sun-illumined square.

The moon at midnight
Upon a silent sea
Casting Her glow, iridescent
The waves break in hushed tones
Upon sandy shores, glittering,
In the dark of night
Receding water leaves behind
Pale bodies, sleek and stunning
White and whiskered
Drinking in Her magnificence
They shed their skins
Walking arm in arm upon this earth
Creatures of both land and sea
Naked and gleaming bodies, thrive
Beneath the stars, unseen, unheard
Quiet and graceful as the lull of the ocean
Dancing, singing, siren voices
Until the first light of dawn breaks, then
Back into their silken selves
The tide rolls in, and out again
Taking with it
The moon's sweet daughters.

A dozen years, the length of feline days:
compared to human lives it may appear
the cats lose out. To be a human pays.
I think on this, and on companions dear:
Successive cats whose whiskered lives touched mine
Have lain upon my lap— do you suppose
Their tiptoe through the years is but a sign?
I measure out my life with kitten toes.

As they and I pursue the hilly ways
that fill our lives, "Beware! The end is near!"
"Your death is nigh!" or some such friendly phrase
will tell me that it's all downhill from here.
And soon the ***** more steeply will incline,
And drop away as quickly as it rose.
You trace the arc? My life is on the line:
I measure out my life with kitten toes.

Though now, my cat, we feel the sunshine's blaze—
your windowsill is warm, the skies are clear—
yet still I feel the sun's all-seeing gaze
remind me of the coming day, I fear—
the coming day I cannot feel it shine,
and on my face the smiling daisy grows.
I only have the one, where you have nine:
I measure out my life with kitten toes.

Prince, lord of cats, may endless meat be thine!
O grant that thine immortal princely doze
may evermore upon my lap recline!
I measure out my life with kitten toes.

Catch the motes of dust in light
To feel the threads of time suspend,
In serenade of life’s allure
Where precious moments never end.

Silver tears run down the cheek
In swift departures curled embrace,
Poingnancy for moments few
Of entwined limbs and whiskered face.

Separations loneliness
In gnawing of the very soul,
The wish for time to dissipate
To make the separate halves a whole.

Anticipation’s rawness now
Throws arrowed light to early shroud,
The eagerness to touch and kiss
Brings clear blue sky to morning cloud.

Rationalize the wonderment
Of slender fingers through your hair,
In fantasy of sheer delight
Her silhouette reflected there.

Hold the tantalizing heat
Of tender fires of passion bound
In throngs of longing, deeply felt,
Within the belly’s tufted mound

Exhaustion in the tangled sheet
As bands of sunlight kiss your hair,
Gently now, in drifted sleep
And gales of pleasure fill the air.

Catch the motes of dust in light
To feel the threads of time suspend
In serenade of life’s allure
Where precious moments never end.


Marshalg
Victoria Park tunnel
Auckland
24 July 2010

"Eating hares is an adaptation;
it provides convenient nourishment
and pleasant sensations:
why should I not consume you?"

You have only to look, he said,
into my wide-eyed, whiskered face
to see the adaptation
that would make you human.

You pace in circles.
I speak in smoke rings,
an occasional finger-snapped heart,
a masted boat if I could.
Away away to ocean
in long-legged strides.
Waves crash against the sides,
left, front, and right,
in ripe blueberries and whitewash.

Come to the cabin,
a tail of breadcrumbs,
keep your socks striped,
pinks and purples.
A David Austin rose, or three.
I'm not cohesive either.
Flaunt the ship's wheel,
solid oak, dark, mesmerizing,
nearly your eyes now.
Let gray skies form clouds,
don't pray for better weather.
The rain grumbles hunger,
veiled moonlight stretches its arms
down to slatted deck,
spraying it in gangtag graffiti.

Stay here, circles more on the floor.
Your hips, footprints up your toes
from a whiskered mouse with dusted nose.
He's escaped and curled up
the nook of your ankle.
Eighteen knots tangle your hair.
Call the winds to come in storms,
they'll surely lead the way.

Manacled the hands
Which intertwine with one another now,
Hands that come to grip with issues
Locked within the soul, somehow.

Manacled, the hands that hold her
Manacled in blood and bone,
Hold the baby’s head so gently
Veined and scarred with love intoned.

Hands of strength that strike the anvil
Shape the shoe to fit the hoof
Hold the stallion’s head commanding
Strong control to stay aloof.

Hands that wield the sword of vengeance
Hands that feed the wood to fire,
Work the field with ox and plough
Stroke her body to desire.

Veinous hands, so strong and calloused
Locked within his every day,
Hands that clap to merry music
Hands that to the piper pay.

Hunter hands to snare the rabbit
Catch the carp in yonder lake,
Pen the words of love to paper
Knead the dough of bread to bake.

Quiet hands that rest in evening
Sitting by the fireside,
Listening to the snoring hounds
Which on the mat, asleep, reside.

Manacled, these hands, he ponders
Locked within the ways of sin,
Reminiscent recollection
…Quiet smile on whiskered chin.

Fingers cooled in fresh spring water
Feel the rays of rising sun,
Stride across the purple heather
These hands, a goodly day begun.

Marshalg
FOXGLOVE, Taranaki.
4.20am 17 February 2013

© 2013 Marshal Gebbie

morning
the city is gruffly petted with heat  
       buildings quiver in the primeval whither
wide mouthed and whiskered
         the catfish thrive in the sewers
taking aggression to the air and fixing to the trees
        the insects speed into vigorous breeding

in the populated afternoon    city is sternly scored    
pressed down on    its wilted fur pushed    from back to front
each itchy person   is its own greasy hair
salt beads from brows    and stinging eyes are blinded

scolded and bonded      the witless humans slow
natures patient pace is not kin to their will
          antsy
ticking noises and electric whines whittle the air
discomfort makes life immediate
       a deal to be flustered with
every enduring breath is consciously felt
       alive and in suffering

i crouch my form in shelter
a jilted couch to lean against     bordering a grown over lot
watching the foxes patrol in sweltering sun
what expected prey   brought them into the light ?
i release my hurt understanding   (it patrols also)
my hurt snakes through the long tough grass   and tacky broken glass
it moves further   raised in a mirage hover
over welting heat from the melting tarmac
this way   i please my way into nurture
this way   i ease my suffering
hum with the wires
and smile at a good day putrefying

Tyger, Tyger,
            burning bright
Like a lantern in the night
Who prowls slowly in the dark
Leaving not a single mark
He growls gently in the deep
Sighs to entertain some sleep
Shape and silhouette undefined
But are doubtless in my mind
To belong to that one creature
With strip-ed face and whiskered feature
Eyes that pulse and glow untold
Simmering with melted gold
As they stare and scrutinize
From mighty haunches he does rise
His massive paws and gleaming teeth
His dark lips will soon unsheathe
Like gleaming daggers polished white
Smiling bold in deep delight
Of finding company this late hour
Some small snack soon to devour
His body tense with animation,
Tail flickering with agitation
A coiled trap that’s set to spring
With a jolt and sudden fling
He jumps and runs past in a slur
Former countenance in a blur
Sprinting round with crazed emotion
Faster he spins in frenzied motion
‘Till the Tyger seems to vanish
As if some unseen force did banish
And all that remains is golden honey
Smooth and sweet, the color sunny
I gasp at this mysterious change
A curious sight, awing and strange
I ponder, profound in meditation
Wondering of next morning’s salutation
If this is all that it will take…
To drizzle on my next pancake
02/08/11

I harbor a gentle whiskered beast
made of quiet sighs, all knees and elbows
jabbing my ribs while I sleep,
a weight shifting among the sheets
in the long shadows of earliness.

Suddenly, unprovoked, he is startled
as if threatened by an electric presence.
He listens intently to the silence and bristles
as though a ghost in the corner has spoken
in a tongue meant for beings higher than myself.

When the spirits have gone he sighs again,
his paws turn circles and he lays himself down
curled neatly behind my knees,
quietly pondering primal truths
that I was never meant to understand.

Outside he chases skittering leaves
and imagines he is wild
in the great wooded taiga,
flushing fowl from the brush,
scattering them like gasps of color,
with fluttering hearts beating warm in their *******
among pines capped white with snow.


young but weary were the eyes
that witnessed the desert dawn
and heard the ancient village cries
of sheep and goat and cattle fawn

fatherless, without the skill
to plane and join the wood
used to gather up earths till
steps short of where his father stood

his efforts to drill and plug rough plank
awaited the harvesters scorn
who offered him this one slim chance
to cease the funeral horn

while mother lay in quiet sleep
purloined fresh figs, he stole away
to walk the barren sandy keep
avoiding the words she would not say

he reached the dusty tans and browns
that painted the scorched earth
through dunes and strife and sinking mounds
and fell beneath the suns full worth

so low was he, so lost in spirit
eyed by the death bird, the sharp shinned wing
life’s loud call, he would not hear it
his repose intent on surrendering

then, one last time he raised his head
up from the blistering sand
and spied a vision in coppered red
a fishers boat, perched on parched land

the sight was the spark that fired instinct
that hovers beneath each soul
our hearts homogenous, yet distinct
on chance that one has found his goal

he raised himself with his last strength
and headed for the land locked ship
mindless of the shimmering length
entranced in  dreams shadowed grip


the craft was gray, and far from foam
it’s tethered mast twisted and bent
the hull was gashed, keel and deck undone
from which harbour had this wreck been sent?

the young man reached the sheltered ship
and fell beneath it’s sparse shade
then felt a cup brought up to dry lip
who dreams of water in a desert glade?

the weathered mate was old and broken
much like his stranded  vessel
his words were uplifting, a happiness spoken
his boats plight a small obstacle

whiskered white, crooked in bone
strength hidden beneath frail tendon
the task is great but not alone
could he send the boat, a new sea beckoned

work with me  as we attempt
full sail this craft beneath the windy lair
when labor’s shared, knowledge is kept
my age, your youth and a little repair

why debate the young man thought
events are only but a dream
a chance to practice what he father taught
eye the board, swell the peg, lift the beam

so, that next day in rolling heat
they began their ventured labor
square, line, bit and mallet beat
wood sinew joined with neighbor

and through it all the old man shared
far tales of risk and glory
offered comfort and compared
the mystic with the daily story

the days slipped by, he knew no count
only splintered hands and shoulders weary
their work was slow yet no amount
could turn the craft to sea worthy


a crazed endeavor to sail on land
the bond between us lies untapped
our connection now leads to this command
walk this earth, fulfill the prophets rapt

the sky then shivered, the aura to thin  
and rising from the boat appeared
a red wrapped head o’er charcoal skin
she towered, bright smile adhered

the old man spoke: our love supreme
now walks this ground, w’ no gentle wake
I choose to break the sublime extreme
for I fancy birth, creation’s take

the young man gazed at the African woman
eyes bent upward, she dressed in red calico print
by all that had happened, he began to fathom
a powerful force in her white eyed glint

the work progressed, the craft made whole
guided by only her silent smile
by firelight the young man poured his soul
his laments were heard and felt erstwhile

the day had come to begin the voyage
sun burning high, yet keel on sand
cryptic psalm spoke by the sage
earth and sky bent fully under his command

the blue of the sky fell in shimmered drops
replaced by gray earth shot toward the firmament
transformed to foamy wave from bleak hilltops
the air from dusty pall to green sea scent

cool spray filled breeze under leaded cloud
opened canvas cloth bound with simple tackle
the craft bobbed, new joints groaned aloud
for the sea had fallen to sail the stranded vessel

the young man stared, at heavens new plaque
the red draped figure who steered from helm
guided the boat from tack to tack
crowned and throned in her fresh made realm


the sage was silent, physical sense broken
content to sail the deep brine
sea and sky majestic spoken
new coarse now set,  subject to time

yea ! yea ! celebration is inherent !
laughter emits at the joys of fate !
the young mans laments, gone and spent
fruit, bread, dance, and singing elate !

the journey of these wondrous three
led to adventures, too numerous to here collect
amended the testament and set free
each soul, which when heard, stands boundless to select

steps led to his mother’s mud brick abode
from the young man’s heart, his numinous story leapt
but she knew all, without benefit of being told
and all these things, into her heart she kept

Today, I miss,
The gunslinger in your stride,
Toting a bootfall, swagger laugh.
The plump of a whiskered cheek
Turned sunny side up
Harley Davidson pony tail,
Leathered up decorum,
Wild Child riding in on a heart of gold

Every now and then
When the cowboys seem so small
I think of you
Long shadowed against the platform of my childhood
Hear the faint whistle of John Wayne on the wind
Calling the memories up like
An Ole Spice bear hug
And the loss
Hits like a gunshot

Speak to me thee wet
and lonesome lapping waves
Outrun evaporation of your grave
along this chiseled limestone shore
where you have passed
through distant bygone doors
Across the lake,
where terra cotta porticos
stand tall and dark eyed maidens
wait for men to call
with servant hearts,
and apron strings,
expecting all the good things life might bring
Explain to me the mystery of this place
The air is still; the sun upon my face,
weathering whiskered old men
leathered and tanned
who sell fresh fish from a wooden stand,
pausing to smell the cedars high on the hill
that long for a breath of winters chill
Oh, to be liquid just like you
and stare at it forever
through the eyes of a molecule

Written by Sara Fielder © July 2012

A white whiskered cat purrs along the barrier,
hissing at cliffs when its angry back arches.
Frothing milk forms,
lapped up by coarse tongues.

There are more stars in the sky than grains of sand on the earth,
and that scares me.
I want to climb inside a shell,
and hear the tranquil surf behind my eyes,
Curled up like a foetus, cradled and secure.

I wish I could imprint scales into my skin
and dive to the bottom of the swelling sea,
submerged into an untouched kingdom.
Although I wonder,
if it’s lonely down there.

Moisture hits my restless tongue,
parched by salted air.
Grains make unwanted homes between toes.
The flaming sphere scorches faces.
Once-invisible freckles rise,
like air-trapped bubbles rising to the surface.

Washed up cuttlebone.
Silk brushed carcass,
passed its shell life,
pristine, untouched,
gleaming in its pearly form.
Static and proud,
it sleeps on the bed of faithful sand,
a reminder of vivacity.

A lion’s face caresses the surface,
one fatal yawn
and it’s extinguished by dusk.

The beautiful thing about the ocean,
is the way it always returns to kiss the sand.

brought back by an old greeting
of warm breath and soft skin
the hay-filled scent of childhood yearning
fulfilled once more
by the slender elegance of a whiskered muzzle
a place of sacred worship
where every sorrow was once laid to rest
from those beloved younger years
oh, how easily forgotten this place was
how swiftly it became tainted
by the red passing of first love
for the place that once guarded sanctuary
became a district of grief
yet here the fantasy of little girls is awakened once again
where the shrine of golden tenderness
rests anew within the eyes of a horse

When I dwell on what’s coming
to my little boys
I go down.
I go down.
I go all the way down
to the silent, still chasm, my heart.

When I linger there long
There the sorrow, it dwells,
where it wallows and swells
then I swallow then heave,
wipe my face on my sleeve.

"All the things that they’ll miss"
Clench my face in a fist,
bleeding tears, wet and warm
as a tropical storm.
They run down.
Deluge down.
They go all the way down,
searing my wet, whiskered skin.

And the missed milestones mock,
hurt me, sink like a rock.
They're all wrapped 'round my head
with guilt, anger and lead.
Weigh me down.
Tie me down.
I go all the way down,
All alone, a black bubble my mind

And it's often I find,
that I find myself there,
meet the eye of despair,
the five-hundred-yard stare
So alone,
I go down.
I go all the way down
I go all the way down to no     end.

You are still waters that run deep;

a challenge some may say.

But to me, your closed emotions

are like a test to see



if I can crack you open.



You're not one to spill your secrets

yet every time we talk

whether it be cellular device

or heart to heart in person

I notice



(for intrinsically I notice everything hidden and important not seen with the naked eye)



I notice you slip

some of your most shielded

vulnerabilities

and I catch them

with soft cold hands



(because for some reason or other my hands are always cold)



with soft cold hands warmed

by your toasty rough ones warmed

by your sensible muttering warmed

by your discreet aspirations warmed by your witty attitude.



I like that we can be waggish

together like two jesters

high strung.



My facetious view on life is somewhat wrought with doubt.



My senseless family drama scaling backwards for months on end.

Return is what I want; a sense of peacefulness whereas I'm pulled into the flighty nature of my parents' inconsistencies and my aunts' finicky nature when all I want is for everyone to get along.



You have your barriers drawn and  sometimes and I don't mind it.



We are emotional opposites, bouncing off each other like ping pong *****, but in this scenario it works because we've both got paddles and are willing to play.



That's what I see in you.

An ever-eager possibility;

passionate in your politics,

loyal to your friends,

leader in some circumstances

when I am at a loss for words.



And you spark a sort of electric chord within me, plugging right into my frontal lobe, sparking my interest, lighting up my receptors.



My neurons have never been this happy before; I have never in my life had a romantic reciprocal relationship like this before.



Nothing has prepared me for this.

This floundering of feelings, sloppy, spilling, leaking out of the cauldron every time we speak.



You are boiling broth, a frothy drink I've put up to my lips and sipped from, a drink I did not order but delightful all the same.



You are still waters that run deep;

a sensual spice of parsley or dill that can lighten up any dish;

and it doesn't take a genius to see how much I need a person like you in my life to challenge every predisposition of romance I've seen, read, fantasized or imagined.



Caught in the slipstream of figuring out my future after the new year has yet to arrive. There's still so much to work out; there's still so much hope I have brimming inside me even after my confessions, even after I've asked for forgiveness and complacency.



Where there's hope and forgiveness, there's also peace.



Maybe all it took was the repetition of swimming pools in dreams this past week to understand where I stand. I'm not drowning anymore.

I'm on the edge of the pool looking into clear waters, finding the wise guide of my blue water dragon

and his humongous whiskered face

staring straight at me, into me, telling me that I have all the strength I need to overcome the obstacles. I need not cling to fear any longer. I need not hide away, like I've done in the past, behind thick curtains to blot out the light.



My only constant now is the sun rising and the moon waning.



You are still waters that run deep;

a sure-bound belief



that everything will be okay.

What did your face look like
before your parents were  born?*
-zen koan

When I was a seven I wore a mask for the first time,
the head of a lion, hand-painted,

whiskered and grinning.

That night I prowled my childhood  
neighborhood, clawed at doors,

took candy from strangers.

The world was small then, my face
encased in cardboard, thin slits for eyes,

and still I remember, even at seven,
sailing inwards, watching the dance of a candle

flickering in the belly of a gourd.

I watched it shift shape, twitch
to reinvent itself again and again,

capable in that green dim night
of blooming into anything--

cliff birds rising on warm
volcanic swells,

a fox in the forest, cackling
on its back in the ferns.

I grew light,
knew that I too was ember,

flickering mystery,

neither boy nor lion.

Thinking of the how and why, the wherefore and the who
Returns me inexorably to the serenity of you,
returns me to the values you hold there in your hand
When you smile your gentle smile and say you understand.
When you calm the stormy waters and sooth away the tears
And take my craggy face in hand to kiss away the years,
When you sit and share a moments time to sip a cup of tea
Reflecting on those little things that mean so much to me
...And when you smile into my whiskered face with those honest eyes I love
My world becomes as tranquil as that peerless sky above.

M.
Foxglove farm, Taranaki NZ
8 February2016

Charred beyond belief these souls
Innocent before the blast,
Young and old entwined as one
To sudden death’s horrific clasp.

Haunted hopes and searching eyes
Watch the ticking clock proceed,
Feel the chasm loom before
Shattered hearts that writhe to bleed.

Starkly at the coming dawn
Clinging shadows staunch the light,
Deep inside the aching hurt
Gone forever, blue eyes bright.

Forever gone that funny look
That little smile on whiskered chin,
Forever gone that fresh faced boy
Who often wore a happy grin.

The Pike destroyed a thousand days
Relegated hope to dust,
Blood like as the rising sun
Paints the sadness red as rust.

Marshalg
Pike River Coal Mine Disaster
1 December 2010

Can't

I can't kiss ***
Must be something i ate in class
Or was it mother's scalding tongue
That'd scorch ya just for fun
Or maybe brother's saucy mouth
That'd shake ya 'til all the loot fell out
No I can't kiss ****
Can't figure out this stuff
You might call me a brat
Say I'm a loud whiskered alley cat
But it could be that bull in ****
Dying for just another hit
Whatever it is
I can't seem to kiss ***
And if I did now I'm done
Maybe it sounds crass
But god help me
I'm no good at kissin' ***
I might get hell for this
An
You might think I'm takin' the ****
But I just don't have that kinda class
I just can't
I  can't kiss ****

Run boy

let the wind
rush wish
to catch up
with your
motorised limbs

let the
sun set
falling want to
coo as
quick as
you can
race your
weary
smile

let the sky
and the
nighted blanket
have envy
of your
magnanimous
retreat

remember
the starry
eyes of
that boy
you
whispered
goodbyes
to
on his neck
like kisses
like
gentle breaths
like promises
the whiskered
kitten in
your heart
which purred
as he
held
your hand
so tight
you
could barely
stop the
wilted
smile
and
flooded
heartbeats from
drowning you
whole

he held
your hand
so
tight
you thought
he
wanted
to  
run too.

Nail
half crescent
imprints
of fossilised
hands
they hold you
you trace the scars
they hold you
and you
wish they
would keep
on holding on
as you
run.

Run boy
run into the sun
let the
memories
of open fields and
flower chains
and dotted kisses
trace your
heart with
strength
let yourself
run
until the
city walls are
snowflakes
against the
mountain
until your home
is only
a house
in your dreams
until he

until he is
only a shadow
on the
horizon
and you can
keep on
running
with his
words
on the backs
of your feet.

'love you.'

Run boy
so one day
you can
run on back
and

take him
with you.

Bent beneath this candle’s flame in shadowed cavern lost to light
I wrestle with my rationale to question what I seek is right.
To bend my beetled, battered brow, bent fist beneath my whiskered chin,
To worry, nay to question why…my daughter’s hand is right for him.

Complex are the reasons why he strives to seek her hand,
His dubious inflexion in the way he likes to stand…
Looming and superior he condescends to give
Long lectures of complicity in how wrong, mere mortals live.

There are fractures in the porcelain, thin cracking of the glass
And a chill wind blows within me should I let these questions pass.
For I doubt the man’s sincerity, distrust his very stance
And I’m loath to giving daylight to exposing this to chance.

I’ve come to a decision, hard, to snare his spiders web
With deceptions of complexity with potions, black and red.
Tomorrow as the daylight dawns I’ll paint the mountain's frown
In sowing seeds of conflict to bring this union down….
Endureth she of curve and grace, repaireth she who cries…
I’d rather this, than see her bleed, a lifetime wed to lies.

Marshalg
24 July 2015

Water lifting sand
awash
upon naked toes
Pant legs rolled above the knee
Searching
endless beach
and scanning cloud
for signs of muse

Craving an inspiration

Gull abound
invading thought
taunting the lack of light
But
devoted bards
never rest
till inspiration corners them

Timothy at hand
garners mind’s eye
Sweet grass replaces taste of chewing gum
Then
nature's pearls
enhance the morn
Sunlight heals a mood forlorn
Gentle breeze
on whiskered face
melds with seaside interlace

Seabird songs
lift line of sight

Thought drifts out to sea

Thursday’s skyline
circles back
then dips its quill in me
~~~

We turn around

and find  pinholes,

water streams of light,

from stars

who swallowed

and took our lives.



With sounds of snorts

and whiskered,

bully throats.



Whose heart

am I searching,

in this season of

hello goodbyes?



We look

upon them long

into night,

such twinkles,

of stars

that stole our loves -

their sweet

tender smiles.



Give back our dreamers.



Lend to us more - for years

into years.



2012 Barry Comer

I'm a schizophrenic hypocrite,
thankfully not in a medical way
I don't have to pop pills everyday
to keep an essence of danger under control
and to stop my head doing backward flips and forward rolls
to curtail bad thoughts and contain OCD
wake up and think "what's happening to me?"
but sometimes i'm full of mazy bomb blasts
and crazy contrasts…
Now I love animals and their brilliant ways
they brighten the world and add happy to my days,
I could be walking to work in that new spring sun
and spy a cat on a wall and think “ohh, how fun”,
I’ll bound over with a skip and say “hey you, how’s it going,
although it’s bright today your purr has really got things glowing!”
Or in a Saturday beer garden when I’m kicking back with relax
a dog strolls in his owner and my attention is instantly rapt,
I’ll exclaim “ohh, is your pooch friendly, please may I give him a pet?”
If the guy answers in the affirmative I’ll proclaim “hey big doggy I’m so glad we’ve met,
you’re a lovely doggy aren’t you, look at your slobbering face
and the way you wag your tail I think it’s pretty ace!”.
Or I may be having a saunter round the park taking in some stupendous views
and see a stretch of water and decide to have a peruse,
as I get closer I think “oh I can’t believe my luck
look at that raft of lots of lovely ducks!”.
So I nip to the shop round the corner and buy a loaf of bread
and think “ohh you top paddling guys you’re gonna get real fed!”!
So I chuck plentiful crumbs in the water making sure they all get their fill
of some luscious Warburtons down their chomping bill.
I do love other creatures though not just the ones who go meow, woof and quack,
even the tiny ones who fur and feathers they lack;
I could watch a ladybird for ten minutes and be allured by it’s spots
and then be wary around those minuscule red mites that look like little dots,
ensuring that I always check before I sit on a summer wall
so my plonking down doesn’t squash them all.
Or if I’m walking home down a dark passage way on a rainy night
i’ll get my phone out and use it’s shiny light
to see if there are any snails that have come out from under a bush
so I can daintily skip around them and avoid that awful shell crush.
As for spiders and moths in the house I never **** them I always put them out
And then do a Usain Bolt stance in the living room with a “I love you insects” pout.
However one Thursday when I was off work on a day in lieu
and thought “ahh I’ll venture out as the sky is blue,
I can have a wander with some music and then go see Mum and Dad
but before I do all that there is a shower to be had.”
I stroll into the bathroom anticipating a lovely clean
but am greeted by a sight that is less than serene,
walking on the ceramics are about 14 microscopic flies,
I had to squint to view them, they were almost invisible to the naked eye.
I mused “hmm, how am I gonna solve this they are too flimsy to catch and put outside,
and what receptacle could I place them in to take on freedom’s ride?”
As I’m deciding what to do I see more of them coming out of a hole in the tile
and I say “look guys me you’re beginning to rile”,
then I glance some Dettol wipes lying next to my tooth brush
and in a instance obliterate the flies with a sweeping rush,
I chuck the death tissue in the bin and feel a swell of guilt,
“I thought of more understanding stuff I was surely built,
I got rid of them without compunction because they were disrupting my aqua blast
I hope this killing streak doesn’t last.”
Post shower I’m feeling better and believe my murderous bent has gone away far
pop my ear phones in, crank up the volume and saunter round to see Ma and Pa,
but it won’t just be Mum and Dad I’ll be pleased to see when my feet land on their welcome mat,
it will also be lovely Poppet the cat!
I like Poppet loads, she’s my whiskered friend
all my love to her I always send,
her wild meowing tones are one of my favourite sounds
it’s awesomely brill to have her around,
sometimes when I’m drunk her name slips off my tongue,
that’s how I know we defiantly belong,
I can be gleefully inebriated at a festival
and I’ll just say “Poppet!” and feel more happy full,
Pops Popsicle Poppet, I adore your tabby chest,
ahh Poppet, you’re simply the best!
I get to my parent’s house, call her and she comes running with that bounding feline whizz,
and I exclaim with joy, “ahh, there she is!”,
I give her lots of petting and start to feel all catty rich
but then I notice she seems to have a itch,
I say to my Mum, “is Poppet okay, she looks like she’s having too much of a scratch?”
she replies,  “yeah but I think she has fleas that are more than beginning to hatch”,
she continues, “I’ve got some flea treatment though so those little vamps we can quickly dismiss”,
I reply, “nar, it’s okay Mum, I’ll handle this.”
I say to the fleas, “come here guys” and take them and Poppet to one side,
and remark “look today I’ve already committed insecticide
and I really don’t want to do it again but you’re putting Poppet the cat in duress
and she seems distracted rather than purring in my soft strokey caress,
and I don’t want to deliver a ****** bomb of flea killing pollution,
it’s much better to find an amicable solution,
so if you could just jump off her now and end your inhibiting lease
I promise I won’t hover you up I’ll just let you go in peace.”
I give them a few minutes to mull it over but then see Poppet frantically biting her thigh,
“now that is ****** it, no more Mr Nice Guy!
right you little Dracula *****, you’re about to find out what really *****,
it’s being on the receiving end of my “you’re perturbing Poppet” wrath,
you’re about to take a real long Frontline bath!”
Without remorse I dowse them up and that is that,
“bye bye you tiny ******* Vlad The Impaler *****!”  
See I love all the animals, I really have to say,
just don’t cross me on a Thursday,
oh, and I eat meat way more than a bit,
i’m a schizophrenic hypocrite.

A cat is mischief incarnate
from claws to whiskered nose.
He spreads his form indiscriminately
whenever and wherever he goes.

19% in his tail;
the sweeping fluff of doom.
23% in the wailing cries
that wake you in nighttime gloom.

8% in the claws and teeth
which teach the unwise to take care.
31% in the legs; carrying him
from disasters- he caused- everywhere.

19% in the eyes that direct
these ongoing rebuffs of fate:
surveying all that smacks of horror
in the humans who are always too late.