"On the seventh day of the Seventh-month, in the Palace of Long Life,
We told each other secretly in the quiet midnight world
That we wished to fly in heaven, two birds with the wings of one,
And to grow together on the earth, two branches of one tree.
Earth endures, heaven endures; some time both shall end,
While this unending sorrow goes on and on for ever."
-  Bai Juyi - A Song of Unending Sorrow - 300 Tang Poems

+++++

The first day they met he gave her the poems
he'd carried all the way from China, a young boy
with a dream and 300 poems a thousand years old

...on the seventh day of the seventh month...

How could she not fall in love with him?

And his sculpture... carved with fire,
the strong, bronze back now frozen,
arms raised in wild and sensual supplication.

Were they his arms reaching for her?

He'd kept it hidden for twenty years,
waiting for someone, the right woman to give it to
And he'd told her,"I knew it was meant for you."

How could she not fall in love with him?

Each night before she sleeps
she reads a poem and traces her fingertips down
the cold beauty of that graceful spine

Wish he were here
wish this was his back
curving around me
curving around me in my bed...
whispering the poems of his ancestors

She knits her loneliness into scarves,
soft pink wools like clouds of candy cotton,
rough mountain wools that smell of heather and winter solitude.
Years from now, she'll wrap them round her neck to remember
how he once kissed her.

Didn't she write a poem about it?

and this is her dream:
they meet when they are young,
they fall in love,
they fall in love and marry,
they fall in love and marry and have ten children,
they fall in love and marry and have ten children and grow old together,
they grow old and blind and deaf, and still in love, they fall into the final sleep together
and their children's children's children will remember their love for a thousand years.

It's just a dream.
He will have children
but not hers.
She'll die alone,
she wrote that poem, too,
thirty years ago.

karma, karma, karma
stealing heaven

she writes:
what does this world mean to me without you?*

utter loneliness

Now,
We are mellow.
Having spent the evening exploring the threads of friendship.
That had come adrift of warp, weft and weave.
Time and distance had
silks, snag-tagged-torn,
on the bustling-busy,
hectic-hustling of work
and family.

Teasing-taunt,
needle-gnawing,
small, gap-rip-rents
in the snug comforter
that is... the wonder of us.

Us, so many secrets woven. So many, nights of tissues and sobbing tears.
Darning in daring exploits. Cutting away knotted,
fear-angry-scream-fighting feuds.

Cutting work, for days of delight and nights of desperate yearning.

We used anything at hand, rough wools, pieces of string and twines.
To weave a blanket,
to hide us from life's storms.

We were,
so young, so strong, recklessly-brash,
stupidly-joyous
and braveheart-fools.

And now, time and age,
has softened our work. Felted and fuse-melded,
the fibres into a beautiful entity.

That we store-save in the heart's cupboard,
of special and precious  things.
It is an heirloom of sorts.
We bring it out,with occasional, humble-grace,
to be dandled and stroked with reverence.

Caressed and cossetted are our memories held within the abstract weave.

We are the dwindling
of a youthful exuberance
flung-thrown-heaved
to the wild winds.

So now, we are grateful to be curator-custodians of the retrospective nature
as we augment-append
and reiterate-repair.

A new thread here,
now,
embellish-embroider,embed
and tatt-stitch.
My son and your twin girls, squeezed, splashing
into your tiny bathtub
big-grin-giggling in the gurgling water.

Our future, here and now,
is the brightest of silks,

Our past, mellow and yielding in,
the luminent opulence,
angelically-asleep in,
the other room.

bye, bye, pie in the sky*

I made a dream

I made you out of nowhere,
Out of the mountain snow and out of the air.
I was spinning your head
On my spinning wheels
Out of warm sunshine and out of cool moon beams.
For months and months,
I was spinning your head.

I was weaving your hair
Out of silky threads
For weeks.

Carefully pedaling my old fashioned,
Singing
Sewing machine,
I spent nights
Stitching adornments on your pockets,
Embroidering your cuffs.

Crochet crazy,
I crocheted laces for your sheer enjoyment
And for your windows,
Hooked on the crocheting hooks
Way up high.

I knitted sweaters
For your sacrificial lambs
Of colourful wools.

You are almost finished,
My just a dream, just a dream,
I'll let you go
With the African hot wind.
I am all done
With you.

Sorry, I couldn't hold on
To my golden
Knitting needles
Any longer.

(1-16-07)

The Pigs
symbolize for me now
the hell
that was the year that just fell away
a year now spent and in ruins
dropped off like a golden husk
dead cobra flesh
summer sugared flakes of skin,
torn with teeth from a wintered mouth

The Pigs were an omen on that day
last January
day of first blizzard and weather churn,
sleet and howling,
first day of white knuckles and prickling thighs,
first day of numb chins and jowls,
thick and gummy feeling against hands

dead and uncovered in the back
of a grisly pickup truck
The Pigs came into existence,
piled ten feet high and fifteen long,
bodies jutting stiff and macabre
reaching for the sky, blank and indifferent.

I remember being disturbed by their enormous heads
and the way the ice formed a crust over their bodies
binding them one to another-snout to useless ***, milky underbelly
to back
creating not a pile
but a mass.
Somewhat
globular.

I watched
mesmerized by them in their sorrowful death bed,
gliding over black ice down that empty leg of highway,
black beautiful forests woven into color hungry sky
and chalky fields on all sides
devouring sound
I felt numb and small on the back of that prairie stretch
In my blacks and my wools,
gut colored scarf around my throat
Stuffed into my panting mouth
Breath freezing to the yarn and to my lips
Cold wet song escaping me
-my protest against the freeze that held me
Music about wolves against my ears-the haunting lyrics
Stumbled upon by a man with ancient desires, the need for
Animal blood, stone dwellings and strong women

This collage woven by the senses
Became me in that moment
For me a holy moment-every piece of me engaged and
Acute
Body clenched, mind awhirl, ears ringing, eyes filled with white

And then The Pigs whipped past me-in their resting place of crusted steel and chipping
Paint, their eyes clenched like hundreds of tiny fists,
Their mouths open and crookedly petrified
around the last breath of their lifesong
Their flesh as pink as the day they were born
Their minds and organs preserved by the patient
hands of Manitoba winter
The smell of death was imagined then-I was
Stricken by the harsh, wet scent of flesh
Against the back of my throat it lingered for only a moment

In that moment I was complete

I blinked and The Pigs were beyond me-one hundred miles an hour
to nowhere beautiful
And I was left with a sense of awe and a thousand questions
Death riding my thoughts
Hand against my padded heart

I moved forward in time-caught my ride
Which followed the tracks gouged by
The ***** pick-up for a little while
Something small and true stirring within me
Protected beneath all of my meticulous layers
A new awareness of something
dark and curious in the world.

gathering up my threads,
my bits my pieces my wools
those funny little socks
these tight ****** garms
all my happy sparkling pieces

THEN there is the cadence
of tying my red laces
licking and lapping over my sappy amber boots
my foot tickling inside a fossil.
And of course the happy little dance
--the wild jig of putting on my pants

a look at you. a slow saving glance.
with your arm above your head
the wild grains grown on your chest...
you unspooled me! my bits my pieces
my wools, and my silvery threads too
you took them all, took them all
took them out

FINALLY stepping outside
existing away from your bed
I feel like there’s a trumpet playing somewhere
walking into some sunlight,
a shimmering realization:
there's a parade in my head!!

I'm starting off agressive because I'm sick of this ****
You seem to have more excuses thn a crack head *****
Either your going to the store or out with your friends
And today for the 7th time you walked the dog again
Lies
Quick thought travel to the mouth and released thru the lips
As I watch ya mouth move I know its all bullshyt
No way in hell you been to work all week and your missing 2days pay
**** right I know ya hours, clock-in time, and hourly wage
Why the lies
You continuosly try to pull these wools over my eyes
Oh yea she ya cousin from ya father side
I know its bullshyt I see no resemblence at all
And I saw the look in her eyes when I kissed you as she walked off
Your lies
Has put you in a compromising position with me
Sick of your lies ya stories my once blind eyes now see
Here's wat you do take ya going out with ya friends, dog, and shopping sprees
Don't forget ya missing days paycheck, and cousin who don't like me
And step
One foot in front of the other ***** salute
March out my life cause I'm done with you
Yea I kbow its a rude way to say good bye
But you ****** up the day you thought it would be better to LIE........

To divine the truth, is to define a miracle --
since you asked I'll reach into the bag of
both realigned and canned answers I keep
with the good intention of weaving old
wools for you, into wisdom anew,
just for you
Hell, I'd rather reach inside my lungs,
scrape with ten jagged fingernails at
lining sprayed with silver by what's
become known as better judgment
until the flesh caught underneath
peels away
There's gotta be more to this exhaling
exchange of words than we've let on
constructions of construction in the
destruction come from centuries
of hard and stark speech revision
for science
Ever open restaurant rooftop under
four grounded legs, four gazing eyes
Sky scape splashed navy painted dusk
You ask lightly, highly of me
How do humans rust?

A burlap bag broke in bleeding insides
I reach deeper into my recesses
the cavities keeping my trying heart intact
and pull that bleating piece of trash
up through my teeth and cough
up for you

Is there a soul there?
Is there a soul there?
Is there a soul there?

how can they make such rigid stuff
from soft wools, take the thing then
harden it.

they say it will last a lifetime, hold its own.
tradition.

looks as if it would hold
the rain out, repell the scattered
words of cold,

and evil. a coat so heavy
it dragged us down.

there was crocheting yesterday,
with blue and softer yarn, a small ply.

a gentle thing, a memory.

sbm.

The bitter wind hits your face,
you put on layers, But
are never quite warm enough
always one part that insists on, staying
cold, refusing to accept the warmth
you offer it.

Wools and furs,
Nothing helps, yet when
a roaring fire is waiting
your feet start to realise, they're
defeated.

You look out and sympathise,
With the poor soul running from the hail,
Nose red, hat half off
fighting and losing the battle.

The warmth is shared,
But it's got a special place in it's heart, for
you, the smile is passed,
You realise your home.

we will not have blankets,

if there are none, take the old

rags, layer , stitch and stitch

by hand till fingers bleed.

work along the coast

with thread and diligence.

gather wools, layer carefully,

we shall have warmth this winter.

we will have quilts to share.

sbm

Now hiding hearth and packing wools away
A careful tide arrives to mark changed towns
Chartreuse of verdant blooms commence decay
While we can’t stop what grows by leaps and bounds
Which soil holds firm or shifts beneath the clowns
It’s blind to glimpse so far as nations go
Unfaithful seed of those whose blood still grounds
Our stars and stripes which fly through ebb and flow
Mothers may darkly wail by morning glow
Seeking to raise their daughters to bright dawn
And burn hewn totems to some men they know
Dancing through smoke which wafts hither and yon
Yet fools by terror ******* and billions mocked
Win while we wait with angst by tics and tocs

Out on the fringes of a difficult life,
she's hiding from darkness,
& sheathing a knife,
she plays us along,
with a lonely old fife,
through the years an years of unspeakable strife,
she walks on alone,
a long searching wife,

She's a bit different,
from the accepted,
of  the current "social norm"
a strong & bending tree,
in a devastating storm,
she will never ever break,
& no,
she'll not conform,

She waits for days of nice & long in sunny warm,
though she's not been the one that you,
can truly ever warn,
& it's been this way since long before that girl was born,

Her hands outstretched,
she's waiting for the gifts to come to her,
as locust's come again to swarm,
down she is digging,
she's digging up this very special corm,

An ancient vow to which she's secretly been sworn,
in secrecy she takes the pain,
a native crown she that she'll still adorn,
as they are pushing very deep,
& old and hateful piercing thorn,

She falls down on her knees again,
in every death to cry and mourn,
she raises empty hopeful hands,
till again she hears that gypsy horn,

She rides & yips,
though she's hard outside,
her sleeve of hearts is always worn,
in these days of pain
and endless rain,

She cries her yips,
she still always feels the scorn,
she's been apart,
because that heart's been ripped & torn,
she's just like a sheep who's wools been shorn,

That truth,
her truth,
it is her own,
bend don't break,
is what she's shown,
be so strong,
a true & sturdy bone,

Just like her Dad,
even when times are pretty bad,
it's the only way she's ever,
really known,

As she leans in with a hungry groan,
you never hear her whine & moan,
she knows she'll never walk alone,
her body here is on a loan,

Some skills for her she's yet to hone,
on heady winds again she's blown,
never broken,
again she's flown,
in an ancient plight again she's thrown,

Like every tiny seed she's ever sown,
when she's dead then she'll lie prone,
she will only bow,
before a worthy throne,
a marker for her death,
a lovely granite Bethel stone,

Just look above a starry dome,
shining bright a distant chrome,
nomadic feet will always roam,
she waits again in twilight gloam,
with praying hands she hears the ohm,

Peace out there somewhere,
a  love strong home,
setting roots in her earthy loam,

Where she can be so high and deep,
but the cost to her is very steep,
a hope again the lost can reap,
say you must just take a leap,
but even when she tries to sleep,
pray her soul that you will keep,
she'll never ever say a peep,
when enemies come so near and creep,
scaring her,
they think she weep,

"But I am wolf,
and not just sheep"

Can't lay the dead in empty heap,
inject a vein then let it seep,

Tell her no and give her fuel,
so stubborn like a foolish mule,
her heart is like a precious jewel,
and ready for a worthy duel,

Howling out at a brilliant waning moon,
& snarling with her sharpened ugly teeth,
bays what you sow, so you shall reap,
she still stands firm in her belief,

She'll go the way that she knows is right,
to direct you in a distant fight,
a leader bringing in a little light,
hearing all a poet's plight,
as her heart it just...takes off,
IGNIGHTS
off again
another fateful flight,
dreaming off again in night,
blinded by the stars her sight,
is
g o n e....
again,

I know that she will find a way,
her heart will never really stray,
late at night,
with her to lay,
to be with her when come what may,

It ain't a game she wants to  play,
when skies ahead are scary grey,
down any kind of which of way,
listen close her lonely bay,

She's got your ever loyal back,
from an angry hungry new attack,
you prepared for her a lovely snack,
keeps 'em off as the angry hack,
angry for what they seem to lack,
nightly reading,
still slipping through the daily cracks,
wonder who's picking up the extra slack,
but some think maybe she's a silly quack,
but don't you give her any flack,

Do you even hear me jack?

Nothing is just white or black,
to be a part a truly faithful pack,
a way to always keep on a steady track,

When things sometimes are in a confusing murky haze,
like living in a dreamy daze,
a wild wonderland of crazy craze,
just look into her careful looking gaze,
a busted potters shiny glaze,
your heart will gladly set ablaze,
on blood & bones again she'll graze,

It maybe just another phase,
I hope that we can change our ways,
so the ones ahead of us
are yet to be,
the BEST of all our earthly days,

So please live your life from a place of gratitude. *** - VERMONT

Cherie Nolan © 2016

Sitting here i suddenly realized
It's oh so clear to me
The wools been lifted from my eyes
And it's oh so plain to see

The lives we live
The things we give
Have no meaning
Can't stop this screaming
You screamed at me this lullaby
But i can't sleep until your throat is  dry

Incapable of making an sound
You still manage to bring me down
If i loved myself as much as i loved you
Then i wouldn't be wishing to become someone new

A few hours have passed
And i'm still sitting here
I have a brief moment of clarity
As i drink my warm beer

The things we do
The things we use
We lose everything
Left with nothing

And i screamed at you until my throat was dry
With nothing left to say "Goodbye"
If i loved myself as much as i loved you
Then i wouldn't be wishing to become someone new

And in an instant
What we thought was permanent
No longer existant

To the bones that births wisdom
And swallows life,
Like sniffing grapes gasping for freshness;
That the nation may one day
Walk on the streets of renaissance.

At the mills;
Tales of recollected wools ready to heal,
The over three-hundred and seventy
Pieces of broken fabrics
Into an assembly of fitted rhymes.

When the clouds are consumed by heavy grief
They drop their tears on us
So that sands may travel wider than their range
To earth a new evolution with fate
And moments mightier than cold modesty.

© A. O. Nwulia Literary Diary 2017

And to think that even the otherworldly
Is made other by this world of ours.

And every fiction
is just some little reality
wrapped and tied in ribbon
or cloaked in elven wools
painted in one thousand colors
or masked in grime and muck.

And, so disguised,
Reality becomes truer.

Beyond the prairie,
grew the grade.
As we trekked
the mountain's shade,
Earth grew stony underfoot,
the wind blew unallayed.
Two of the horses
were made lame
before a quarter trip was made,
so we divided up their burden,
and made camp for the day.
Two more night's march,
boulders growing along the way,
brought us 'round to skirt the giant,
the landscape: disarray.
A man was thrown from mount,
and he died, to our dismay,
in a state of so much pain
it was a frightening display.
The ground was much too vile
for the horses on this foray.
Two men left, for the castle,
with the equines, at my say.

We left the mountain's shadow
for the heat of a new day.

The warmth was welcomed
by the men and I,
after our climb
on the mountainside.
Quickly, though, we realized:
The sun was wolf,
in sheep's disguise.
We shed the wools,
and all the hides,
carried a minimum
of supplies,
and still we found,
to our surprise,
a heat that cooked us all alive.
It scorched our skin,
and burned our eyes
with pain that grew
throughout the night.

We then travelled in the darkness
for what seemed an endless flight.
We tried to sleep during the day,
but the sun yet brought us plight.
We travelled two days under moon,
and one day through the light.
On the fourth day in the desert,
our objective lay in sight.

LITTLE RED LACQUER BOX

I peer inside
Van Gogh's
little red lacquer box

full of nothing
but
a jumble of wools

odd ***** of it
yellow & blue
wrestle together

orange & yellow
sneaking in & out
of themselves

a simple tool
studying the interaction
of how colours

seek each other out
compliment the other
or have a row

touching in its
simplicity
the myth of him

becoming
ordinary
man again

*

Went to see a Van Gogh major exhibition in the Rijksmuseum and it was this little box of coloured wools was what touched me in its simplicity. The note books of his drawings and notes were so detailed and thorough.

Posted on March 6, 2017



we will not have blankets, if there are none, take the old rags, layer , stitch and stitch by hand till fingers bleed.



work is steady,  absorbsion  as if the outside world is ended.    looking up find it has not.     stitching can be rhythmic, and never mind the capitals.                  other words confound.   birds beat the window.



the questions came that i cannot answer here   or ever.   did not count this time only the final one.                                     noticed the first ones  are now undone. the wrong knots.



maybe we need to check our numbers at the end to see if one or more are missing. ? we need to count them carefully, one side then the other?

work along the coast with thread and diligence. gather wools, layer carefully, we shall have warmth this winter.

eight thirty  till five.   it could have been easy, yet there were issues of the electronic kind   meaning wasting time with wires and connections.



cover the surface.   it takes time.



sbm.

I have tested positive for all this negativity,

unsurprisingly my eyes would only see the
corrugations in society.

I look for and expect the worst as if
my heart was empty
and my head would
burst with all the minus signs that mark
these end of times,
and negative is what you get when I give,
it's like a magic carpet
being woven with the wools
of regret
flying and yet
not,
or
a spot that cannot be removed,

either way to change this modus operandi
I must believe in the positive
give out that which I want to get
and get that which
I exude,
change my attitude,
the way I look at things
the way things seem to be
is not the way they
have to be.

Green, long grass.
Fields tamed by stone walls
Fences twisted by stray twigs.
Breeze that brushes through
Cows' ears and lambs' wools
Strokes my hair as I stare
With glee knowing that we
Are joined by this same sensation.

Perhaps they avoid stepping on bluebells
And then regrettably flatten buttercups
like me.
Might they not step on the cracks
between stones,
As I do not step on cracks between drains?

We share the same fear as other
humans approach,
Ready to flee if they come too close.
For they could be the death of us
Or we the death of them.
Once this fearful distance is breached
What will happen then?

Remembered best.

Conspired in listful site.
Lay upon frozen forgoing lake.
Seize in the night.
For embrace of lips of world.
Intertwined.
Only imagined.
In the mist blue grasping through.
The pines.
Glisten of eyes.
Mirrored in soft pyro
She lay.
Wrapped.
In nothing but amethyst wools.
Playing the 6 string.
She sleeps to the tune.
In easiness of the early brake of new.


Garrett Johnson

oddly rhymes with posterity

austerity

the irony

how can they make such rigid stuff
from soft wools



take the thing then
harden it.

they say it will last a lifetime

hold its own
tradition

in the cold frozen

the code will not work,

nor will the counting with interruptions

austerity rhymes

with irony

not posterity

small thing ragged who knows all of it pieces torn away

work along the coast with thread and diligence

gather wools layer carefully

we shall have warmth this winter

wind blows around our houses

water seeps

small thing  ragged who knows all of it

pieces torn away

work along the coast with thread and diligence

gather wools

layer carefully we shall have warmth this winter