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In the rectory garden on his evening walk
Paced brisk Father Shawn.  A cold day, a sodden one it was
In black November.  After a sliding rain
Dew stood in chill sweat on each stalk,
Each thorn; spiring from wet earth, a blue haze
Hung caught in dark-webbed branches like a fabulous heron.

Hauled sudden from solitude,
Hair prickling on his head,
Father Shawn perceived a ghost
Shaping itself from that mist.

'How now,' Father Shawn crisply addressed the ghost
Wavering there, gauze-edged, smelling of woodsmoke,
'What manner of business are you on?
From your blue pallor, I'd say you inhabited the frozen waste
Of hell, and not the fiery part.  Yet to judge by that dazzled look,
That noble mien, perhaps you've late quitted heaven?'

In voice furred with frost,
Ghost said to priest:
'Neither of those countries do I frequent:
Earth is my haunt.'

'Come, come,' Father Shawn gave an impatient shrug,
'I don't ask you to spin some ridiculous fable
Of gilded harps or gnawing fire:  simply tell
After your life's end, what just epilogue
God ordained to follow up your days.  Is it such trouble
To satisfy the questions of a curious old fool?'

'In life, love gnawed my skin
To this white bone;
What love did then, love does now:
Gnaws me through.'

'What love,' asked Father Shawn, 'but too great love
Of flawed earth-flesh could cause this sorry pass?
Some ****** condition you are in:
Thinking never to have left the world, you grieve
As though alive, shriveling in torment thus
To atone as shade for sin that lured blind man.'

'The day of doom
Is not yest come.
Until that time
A crock of dust is my dear hom.'

'Fond phantom,' cried shocked Father Shawn,
'Can there be such stubbornness--
A soul grown feverish, clutching its dead body-tree
Like a last storm-crossed leaf?  Best get you gone
To judgment in a higher court of grace.
Repent, depart, before God's trump-crack splits the sky.'

From that pale mist
Ghost swore to priest:
'There sits no higher court
Than man's red heart.'
Jeremy Duff Aug 2012
A boy named Jake and a girl named Lexi had never met before.
They had a class together last year, but neither one knew it at the time.
They both walked into their Sophomore Drama class for the first time, scared and apprehensive.
Lexi there five minutes before the final bell and Jake, seconds before the final bell.

Jake entered the class and quickly took the only seat on the floor not occupied by an unfamiliar face.
They all introduced themselves, all 27 of them, mostly Sophomores with a few Freshman, Juniors, and a single Senior.It was then, when Lexi said "Hi, my name is Lexis Marilyn Manchester and I go by Lexi," that he first noticed her.
She was cute, shoulder length blonde hair, a floral shirt and jeans, although Jake didn't notice those things at the time. Only her dazzling pale blue eyes, and angelic voice.

The guy sitting next to her didn't say his name at first, even though it was his turn. She tapped his leg and motioned toward the center of the circle the class had made in the Drama Room. Room I7.
He said "How.. uh, my name is Jacob Turner. I don't have a middle name, but I go by Jake."
He was cute. He had short, yet unruly brown hair, a white shirt with the letters "LDTA" on them and nice fitting black jeans. The only thing she noticed about him however were his mysterious pale blue eyes, and for some reason, lack of middle name.

Jake didn't even care that the class had laughed at his lack of middle name. The only thing of importance to him was that when he looked over, the cute girl named Lexis Marilyn Manchester, who went by Lexi, was looking at him. He quickly looked away as did she.

The class went on and neither Jake nor Lexi, made an attempt to talk to the other although they did steal careful looks often. The bell finally rung. It was a seventh period class, so school was over.

On his way home Jake thought of nothing but Lexi, and driving.
He stopped at a sign, only blocks from home. The traffic rushed by. The car behind him did not see his car. They pushed him into the oncoming traffic just as a big SUV hybrid drove by. The driver slammed the breaks but still did not manage to avoid hitting the drivers side door of the small, blue, beat up, Toyota.

The doctors say he was killed on impact.

That's what the school told the small group of friends who were asked to attend a quick meeting regarding the accident. Lexi went.

She thought about him everyday for the yest of the school year.
Even some over summer.
He never faded.
She wouldn't let him for some reason.

He was killed on impact but he never faded.
Yesterdays pain is following you
sits on your shoulder 'n don't set you free.
Took the wrong footin n stepped down on those,
lookin thru eyes that di'n't want to see.

We is diff'rent in colour
but skin an' blood just the same.
I am filled up wit' anger,
you is covered in shame.

Scared to look back
at hist'ry past
unable to turn from
what you wanted to last.

Tortured and toubled,
when it came to the clinch
you bought us along
an' introduced Mistuh Lynch.

To you Mistuh Whitey
we ar' lower than low,
Mistuh Blacky does the t'ings
that you don't want to know.

I belongs to the man,
just like-the dogs.
There for pickin' the crop
an' choppin' the logs.

Yesterdays pain's not goin' nowhere
It's stickin to you all o' the way.
Fo' the evil yo' done 'tis stayin' right there.
Never t' move, never t' sway.

Yeah yest'days pain is followin you
it sits on yo' shoulder 'n it won't set you free.
Cos you took the wrong footin' an' stepped down on those,
while starin' thru blind eyes that don't want t' see.
8th April 2016.
Lilith Avenue Nov 2013
i am so hopeful
yest so unhopeful
all at the same time

it's like that light
that you see
that tells you everything
will be okay
is like the sun on
a cloudy day;
it fades in an out
dimming and brightening

like a lightbulb
hanging on a thread -
hanging on to life

like a car
racing down
the free way
at two in the morning
the moments of darkness
after the faint moment
of brightness
as we drive under
street lamps.

i am so hopeful
and so hopeless
and i sway
like a pendulum
unable to find
a healthy balance
Ken Pepiton Dec 2018
Bang the drum slowly

There was a rhythm, an echo
Everything, after to day has been leavend
by Iain McGilchrist I heard him speak on Youtube.
----
We can learn forever, I think he agrees. We live to learn.
I've lived a bit longer.

When the teacher is ready the student appears
in arrears
twisted from duty by dereliction

do you understand, stand under, any

one thing word god idea and that's it truth?
I do.
What idea do you stand under?
Seek and ye, meaning me, shall find.
seek a place where you believe that is known
make that place your home,
make that place
make that
effectual, fervent axing fells the forest for the trees

if you please, brief turing-inspired tests of ideas
re-presenting old good ideas
rusted through disuse

for possible recyclings through a level of minecraft.
the wargames are
less
rewarding, post-war on terror.
After age 27, winning alone is not enough,
even the gang, the fam, the team
all the weese we ever was

We aint. I am

needing meaning like air

oh my god, a worship song I heard that
You are the air I breathe

do we, the we of you and me believe air is good?

we do, I knew. Good, 'ts'at mean? Air is meaning?

all one after the morph into alone
I am the way or there is no way

that could be the story but for you,

I-Thou Philosophy, I bow to thee,

en passant on pointe

Ministry of truth Prognosticator Hagee he say
Hell? Yes, he say Hell yest'here is a hell for all

who fail to escape it. I say
One way or another,

you escape one hell,
paying nothing more than proper attention
to detail (did we define duty),

you know how, do it as needed,
friends help but
eventually, something like a father must judge me

good. That is the whole duty. Or else nothing,
eventually right,
live a life that brings honor,
he who troubles his own house

inherits the wind,
you heard he said I came to divide?

Split the flow with a contrail of ice
cutting through the clouds
a jet plane don’t know if
any thing of the sort was ever seen

before my generation.
slice the current into paisleys bubbles reaching away
from the point whence most heat meats least resistance
boiling begins
bubbles emerge and pop.

as old as sin
then
yada, the chorus sings, all the little milk sops sing

yada yada yada and mock the need

to know, you know? More,

after all's been said and done why goes on,

she waves, Cliché crashes to my frontal lobe from lizard brain
Dive in
follow wisdom flowing past
our di er rama drama direct ******* of re ality ify ing

ding.
Did that work? That's maybe
as good as praying, effective

Judge you, I judge me. Can I live with your
following the flow I followed

ob right ob vious not en vious

if the clouds and rain were what water wishes to be,
first some tears must add specialsalt to the sea,
earth salt, from mudmen,
then salt ***** water from
the mud after the flood
when the mammoth
died, (Thank him, for his bones)

then grandpa tells another lie and we laugh
and he weeps

it only hurts, when I laught, he winks,

She pushes and the story takes 'is father's breath,
his first alone, all one, all the air in the world
flowing in to fill the need pressing listing
need need need to breathe
lusting listing and
there,
a new whirl in the world
with all the wind an heir may need
someday, from one bubble to another

in one breath.
One beat of the walking drum,
Meaning, the search for reason and rhythm, skipping it seems, the old man declares is a necessary mode at some point in every upright walker's life.
Ken Pepiton Apr 2021
--------
wait a minute, nullify a doubt  shade
shine on
now from when shine on was thought to mean
ignor.
in the olden days, shine it on, meant, ignore whatever
was urging
eee merge merge merge as I was going
dive
dive
dive kplunkthunked heavy heart, heavyhead, heavy hand

heave, **
its off to work we go,
lift the spirits of this old man, put laughing children
in his ya'd, yah we say jah, we say no aitch
and we say glory all the same, next
is ever after now is full of life.

So give it y'best. That's what coach angels say.
So we can categorize angels, if we wish,

or if the spirit that comforts us, soothes our trepidity,
calms our fear of stupidity exposure,
or academe memeself infection,
we  may take Gebser's five stage program for a ride,
click eh eee ha  I
mean
cliché has the e automaticall em-pha-s-ized, hypenatewait

a minute once too often and you gin gain ing alt alte alter a
aaa alter native be
ing ding… gnoshit UFO?
No, Jesus, it is an act, a show, we put it on the internet
and some guy used it to start a religion,

and some body, some institortured tonsured reality,
has to die a bloodless death.

So, that is a brief as to where this course change has
put, yest out is the word for our state,
put out, however, earlier in
us, the we who hold certain truth self evidently
ex-static…
shhhh  life is too interesting to ignor at the moment
listen magic stage minds in my grand children
laughing in my hall
go quiet.
Then reappear, in the kitchen, far away.
a piece of this sunday in april
Mateuš Conrad Dec 2019
ich würde, vielmehr: schreiben
etwas deutsche:
graswurzel, das ja!
the ******* need more you
ponce of a mongrel saxon!
better deutscheland grammar?
we had our "solistice"
time-out... welcome tomorrow...
no point leaving
a workaholic out for no
apparent reason: best bet?
"look busy"... ******* furlong's
worth of "short"...

jump that! y'ah ******* dwarf
bridge-gap brigade!
der hobbitenvolk ar kommen!
der hobbitenvolk ar kommen!
nicht die kirschemäntel... aber!
noch die "unerwartet":
zeppelinpumpernickelhoppla!
- why am i bound to the scotch
nationalists? oh... i lived among them
for over three years...
the celtic remants...
perhaps edinburgh would be
the new dublin...

christmas... it's such a german "ting"
like... that irish celtic tad woz
zee timez... C'U... C'U... no...
no L8ER...

but i managed! everything i served on
the plate and placed on a table...
the oven-cooked tatties...
the parsley snippets...
the carrots... the garlic...
the peppers... the red onions...

what the **** am i celebrating,
now? i'm pretty sure, that,
whatever it was... will fizzle out
come post-christmas hangover of a tomorrow...

and a buckling-load-of-****-of-europe...
the same islander "english" mentality...
euro-trash continent...
this... belly-button of the world
english mentality...
you wouldn't suspect it among
the welsh, the irish, the scotch...

perhaps the united kingdom can become...
the next yugoslavia under charles the III...
does he keep his name?
does he? London is long gone...
just as Danzig was long gone...
when Venice wrote the blueprints...
an ancient folklore of a city state...

******* just interrupted something...
no... it wasn't the Royal Ascot...
the horses, ran, ran and buckled...
broke some legs and not being able
to fall asleep standing: were put down...
the greengrocers of betting had their harvest...

we'll still have the top hats,
the champagne "socialism"... the CLASS...
oh you have to remember the CLASS / CASTE
pseudo-hindu "oops"...
england will still be...
what scotland and wales could be...
the less timid bits and pieces of...
what could probably hang in the air
as the new yugoslavia...

"problem" being... it's an island...
it's unlike iceland...
and it's quiet unlike new zealand or...
or... japan...
it's... when...
alt vati pommerschen...
flüsterte in der kinderwagen
auf sachsen, und sagte...

the ******* think you're going?
******* yew-tree quasi-nomad
of germania? you're an imitation
hebrew... or you're...
you're not a: bayerischverwandtschaft?

as yes, christmas only makes sense
now... drinking from the amber spring
of the baltic...
some scotch runes in: mash-up...
easy, easy...

i can use this, acquired, language...
but i know the ******* will have their Ascot...
die sächsischweg...
ants-in-their-pants...
and now "they" think they're settled...
post-colonial imperialism bound
to a nationalist revival...
so much for having no nostalgia...
akin to...

the battle of Tannenberg 1410 -
the date 680 by St. Wilfrid...
such a date... a northern crusade against
the last pagans of europe:
the lithuanians... **** me, i don't need
to paint... the lithuanians and the other
baltic folk... whatever the hell became of
the prussians: who weren't exactly treated
as germans by the teutonic collective...

oh i'll sing the carol songs...
i'll sing the crusader songs... hey! pronto!
i'll sing that... baby jesus doesn't really do it for me...
i'll go and visit Catalonia where
the name Jesus is diffused...
ends up a hey-zeus construct...
a H'ezeus etc.... and the party is over...

but i could celebrate christmas...
if it was in german...
i don't know why... perhaps it's riddling
a masochism remains with teasing
the whole: "wunderbar"?

better still... when europe is cited...
there's that black-hole europe...
there's that... cindarella of europe...
that "missing link"...
between what the balkans served up
in the 1990s... the collapse of the soviety union...
how the 2008 economic crash didn't really
affect this region...
von unter die eisenvorhang...

island people: shire folk...
hobbits... you know the sort...
very idiosyncratic...
one minute a russophobe...
next minute... exotica of the siberian ooh!
aah! i have lived on these isles for...
it's not worth stating:
a better part of my life...
but i have lived... among...
the scots, the irish...
i teased the welsh...
and in London? the tower of babel came...
come to think of it...
the english have sort of reacted like
vermin... you rarely see them...
perhaps in oxford...
of ****... pakistani **** gang there too...

my bet is... elizabeth is "dying":
no she's not... seen that ***** on roller-skates?
seen her pre-house-of-windsor
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha teeth,
chin... and... what the hell and other have
they almost made... insufferable
in it being: signatured? the teeth,
the chin... the eyes!

saxons... jews of the germans...
nomads of the north...
it's not like they ever moved with
a hope for adventure...
when a saxon moves...
he moves with a sense of investment...
he brings his reproductive tools with him...
no wonder there was a feud between
the germans and the "germans": the saxons...
this is... what could not possibly be...
the basic interpretation of england...
past the "chernobyl" of the norman invasion...
how celtic became saxon became
french... became... a ******* cocktail
cosmopolitan...
but the welsh still retained their:
Cymru...
there you go...
white cross on a black canvas...
pirates!
Wales and Cornwall...
dip into a ditto-esque whatever...

the remains of the saxons when the global
cocktail decided to send a postcard from
'ere minding the cockney shlang as:
the proper way to speak... Estonian...
eh?!

bewildered germans speaking...
i don't even know what i am speaking:
it's not much of an achievement if you're
speaking english...
you're bound to suffer from a variant of
flu or fluke or slang...
it's not exactly regarded as:
high esteem latin... or hebrew...

pauper Poland: "where i'm from"...
thank god it's omitted...
never in discussions...
by western "proletariats"...
cheap beer in Prague while... Warsaw?
sowwy... not enough bi-lingual
tour-guides and trout ******* mothers
from the caravan of Zappa...

and we will beg to differ...
i don't come from a people who would
celebrate being conquered by ancient rome
had to matter...
yet somehow i write in Latin encoding...
imagine if... Latin encoding was lost
akin to cuneiform...
but it wasn't...
i did, i truly did...
miss the glagolitic transition via
greek into cyrilic...

invader kin: these slavs these indo-europeans...
it ***** up the narrative of the origin seekers...
these modern, "protestant":
afro-europeans of the YEST...
i say: part of the gesticulation of jesting...

among the saxons who disavow their germanic
heritage... thinking they could somehow
replicate the polish-lithuanian commonwealth...
last time i heard...
just because the scotch speak english...
but keep their: wee part of the equation...
the welsh still speak their welsh...
pen dal i fyny uchel draig...

what's the difference betwen...
the medieval Lithuanian...
and the modern Welsh?
what doesn't allow this "union" to sink
into a second Yugoslavia?
h'american influences?
the... "commonwealth"?
at what point sharing a tongue is a plus...
when anyone can start reciting a Bruce Lee
film: kung fu action packed:
chop sui?

augusta III sasa and
marii józefy habsburżanki...
the house of ßaß...
saxons... again: the hebrew of the germanic people...
the nomads of the confederation...
they always... need... to... move!
and if you find them not moving...
they settle for pyramids...
and i mean: pyramids without Giza
reliefs of archeological "findings"...

but there's a massive gap...
between europe... that "bit" in the middle...
and russia...
russophobia is quiet funny...
i'd still prefer to speak german when
celebrating christmas...
after all... i did make a fickenumbringen
when it came to that alcoholic cake...
nein nein...
nicht ein königskuchen noch ein
stollen! keks... kegs...
a rumtopf!

oh i don't mind the natives...
who are the natives?
where the **** is alice?
parasites leeches... sächsischumgangssprache:
wo / wann sesshaft...
are the natives the welsh with their
retainer tongue kept intact like...
the scotch? the ire hell and fire 'reesh!
who does it take...
to speak to the natives of these isles?

just wondering...
because the saxons that remained...
and the saxons that left...
have a ******* in las vegas...
glory be to man to be the man
on the moon...
and all that...

i spent this christmas and...
i didn't buy anyone anything...
i just undermined myself...
when in england...
feel at home, during christmas...
talk some german,
some german outside of a saxon
influence of being the jew-german...
moving from place to place...
****: ja ja... ich "versammeln"...
nomadin / se-my'tine... deutsche "mischling"...

please excuse the saxons...
they are a... frivolous bunch of...
hobbit seeking elven folk...
the chinese crusade and medicinal ivory powder...
apparently: those ****-*****-base-*******-stinkers
will grow! they have size 11 feet and are...
5ft6 tall... walking on chicken nuggets then...
or stilts... or... that chinese harem of:
tied feet and toe "heels"...

oh i'm very much in england...
i can just soak myself in wild...
belligerent humour...
i've dropped any sense of irony...
it's ridicule on steroids...
but as long as there's an element of being
self-deprecating?

poland is the cindarella of europe:
hungary is worthwhile the better return of
being an: examplar reminder...
of how to deviate from socio-political norms...

black hole piece of europe...
then again: in between russia and the west...
there's some variation of an "interlude"...
which is neither west, nor east, nor central...

ensure you keep a **** in the orchestra...
so foul that it would make
a cat jump running...
giggling... turning on nazareth's
hair of a dog... being reminded:
there's a cow bell in it being towed...
and what choir spectacular didn't ever use
a castrato?

- because if i wanted to retain...
rhyme and a formality of this tongue...
how would i ever feel comfortable...
nothing of the spectacular...
the everyday myopia magic:
how umbrellas became mushrooms
in the fog grey forest of the urban
amnesia...
because i too tend to forget a Mozart...
when i find myself...
falling asleep to the sound of falling
rain on a tin roof...
violin begone! cello begone!
give me rain on a tin roof!

i'll be your Muhammad counting
the number of bones in a body...
truly and vividly so...
i can forget Mozart...
when i fall asleep...
while it's raining and...
the monotone gives me bliss...
the same note: on repeat...
on repeat.. on repeat...
nonetheless: it's still to be regarded
as a polyphony!
Harriet Shea Aug 2018
Surrendering in a field of wild flowers
searching darkened skies, waiting for
drops to fall upon the thirsty earth
thoughts come alive within my memory
bank making me laugh aloud, remembering
when a bunch of us use to run after
little rabbits, playing hide-go-seek, in this
very field of wild flowers.

Overwhelmed by vivid memories, tears
swell and fall to the ground by my head
Remembering all those bright sunny days
when only nature kiss our life with delight
free from stress and confusion.

So many wonderful days doing what we
wanted to do out doors after our chores
were done in the summer time of my
life.

Sunny days still are here with tension
breaking the calmness, yet we complete
our life with a filled heart, and a promise
to make living a little brighter through
the darkness that followers close behind
in shadows of doubt and fear.

For now! I lay and listen in silence, in the
field of wild flowers, dreaming dreams
of sentiment and joy of my youth
of yest-er-year.




By Derena
© 2018 Derena (All rights reserved)
Ken Pepiton Oct 2021
We
imagined living easy. Ai, easily, as art intuits
beaux
bon chance, as light would have it,
were eyes
the ***** of
the master sense,
the dominant receiver, transceiver, if we think of gleams
shining things glimpsed
in eyes,
and beams of love or hatred from eyes,
depicted in ever so many pointing stories see, see, me
I tell the truth
I give the push pro-verbial, way to go
edgewise

free, listen, free
and none, among the rooted things
here since ever was, earthly
fully functional systems
of sequence, first this
then that, time and
chance and next
perfect, step by step learn the dance… do as we say we do
none
of those things dis-suaded me, sweet, I say, one taste,
I am persuaded,
I am called of all that is called god, good.

Now, that is a breath of fresh air, given a bit of thought
to offer you as sacred sufficiency in time of need,
- feeling useless
yeah, about as helpful as thoughts and prayers,
right, like a medicine, or an enema,
that's what a good laugh
is worth, and why I am the fool
who laughs at, as opposed
to making jokes, faking you into thinking
this old man has been to the pig sty, he seen
- dead pig farmers fed to the pigs?
- really?
- feels like we all have seen plenty too ugly,
- yest none too beautiful, so far
Funny is a funny word, fun, is just life, not funny,
funny is when it works together for an advertised high,
we all get the lid open and crawl in the box…

always asking what do we think about this, is this funny?

Are we there yet?

yet another time passes, unredeemed, seems none care,
all cares,
cast away, these folks think living is easy
once you find a place where it can be done
with tools,
used in times past to conform fools to information,
ee see re worked info, woe, y' know
new package, same old please, to meetcha
I am the ghost of your chance exposure to
information forms fitting privvy circumstances in the think tank.

Right, and some things can go wrong,
so those do,
go. Wrong, go. Right, learn,
step from the edu-line, linger near the edge

but the odds are steeper, for mortal minds with mini
augments, like knowledge of smartphones,
but, fret not,
minds that augmented,
empowered to know such things as tekhne,
not sacred secret codes to reach distances un dreamed
and draw wind and rain, and make fire,
wow, biggie, that
make fire.

Figure that out. Cast-out, outsider, driven from the fire,
go
find a fire of your own.

-Woe, imagine, might I, or must I go
back and beg
see me, see me, open heart to mind empathos see
my pain
my pain
for you to see me, see me, worthy of warmth…

Nah, kid, this is how the Spartans did it.
First seven minutes of Gunga, the movie, did it, makes birth
seem, painless, to the sow,

some how, that can't be fair, but then
pigs live like pigs,
except in stories. Men act as pigs act, naturally,
we need
we need the juices to flow, this is the reason

for the thaw.
So quit ******* about the warming and handle the waste.

The world is able to heal its own wounds,
let patience be our by word,
long times redeemed in short stories leave a lot to be
desired, who
sired you, the person you are who reads this drizzle,
Hot fudge,
dam, right, break bread with the ghost of a thought
and think
I thought that was right, first time
I knew,

the magic is in recalling how it feels to think all that has been
thought again,

this is the effect of the real crossroads deal ending when I say, enough.
One day at a time.
Thinking you read this is what makes it fun to write it, no agenda that I sense,
has infected the leaven I sneeze.
Abhinav Pradeep Sep 2020
A blank expanse stretched seemingly on
Not a dent nor a curve in sight
With every step I land here again
An endless plane shroud in white

Around me echoes a subtle hum
A sordid tone, a promise to crest
But with every step it labours on
Undying yet forever at rest

A sly scent comes wafting by
Yearning to shine on times past
At the cusp of memories fond and dear
Yet the joys of yest never come to pass

In a sudden flash that broke the white
Colors, melodies, aromas a plenty
Threatened to overwhelm, so I blink
And back I was in my world, empty.

— The End —