The weather is sunny
The sun blazes the call of Spring.
Awakening out of my Winter frame of mind
I gain more youthful Energies and Glow Like
a Ring Made of Gold.
I feel renewed
A newer version of myself,reborn.
For that's what Spring is all about.
Renewing one's self and feeling free to tell all
From even the tallest mountain top with a glorious shout.
Fresh ideas, conversations with friends and loved ones, and the start of even new true love.
Spring brings me a heart that beats knowing that I am fresher, newer,
and somewhat "Reborn."
To rewind our clocks and forget the past. It's time.
To enjoy not just a new and fresher season of sun and warmth..
We should understad that a new foundation for our futures is being laid...
Right under our footsteps.
For such is Spring and the rest will all come to reward us in just time.

"...FRESHER FIELDS THAN FLANDERS..."


Christ! Even the Son
of God can get it wrong!

Time his Second Coming
to end up in WW1.

To us he looked like one of the 'Un!
To the 'Un he was one of us.

Both sides let him
have it.

Him who had come
to die for us

and by God
He did.

Hung on the barbed wire
for days on end

we all thinking will it
never end.

Crying for His Father
getting on our ****** nerves.

Some say they saw him
at the Somme

some say at Crucifix Corner
"...forgive them for they know not..."

it went on and on
'...what they've done."

But I had by gum!
I pitied the poor ******.

Crawled out under
****** fire.

Put my last ciggie
between his lips

made of nothing but
tea leaves....liquorice...treacle.

"Thanks mate.!" he gasped
with his last breath

turning into young Tommy
Smith at His Death.

A right good lad I knew
from Hudersfield.

Shell shocked
they said I was.

I wasn't.

All men are the Son
of God as it happens.

Even a dead 'Un is one.

The Son of God is forever
getting it wrong.

Christ! Will He ever
learn.

Timing His next Coming
to land up in WW11.

Other Wars
waiting in the wings

for Him
to come again.

Wish He would just
give up on us.

He's of no ****** use
whatsoever.

Death is a better
friend.

Survival as I know
is Hell.





"...FRESHER FIELDS THAN FLANDERS..." is the last line of a Preface that Wilfred Owen intended for his book.

Was first going to write a sci-fi thing with the Saviour coming down at just the wrong time. But as I wrote I remembered an old man I used to look after who would tell me about his WW11 experiences and of his grand dad's tales from WW1 so that it ended up as a mixture of the real and the unreal in the surreal situation of war and all it entails.

I can smell the flowers
On this nice spring day
I used to smell smokes and food
But now I can smell the flowers
It is great to be losing weight
You know, I lost 7 kg since the last time, I am losing weight
All the time
It makes it easier for me to
Smell the nice flowers
I love that smell better than the smell of drowning ***** or Coca Cola, no I still feel like partying but I can smell the flowers better now
Each flower I smell mate
Drifts me away from my
Mental illness voices
And as I do my exercises outside I can feel the touch of nature
Because I can smell the flowers easier it is a lovely smell indeed
I love flowers they are very nice
And beautiful and I am starting to feel fresher and smell fresh things
There is nothing more to life
Than beautiful flowers
Taking over your sense of smell
I know I will do my exercise good
Especially if I keep the lovely
Sensation of smelling flowers
In this lovely month of spring
Better than pizza or nachos or others
Yeah smelling the flowers is the best yet

"...FRESHER FIELDS THAN FLANDERS..."


Christ! Even the Son
of God can get it wrong!

Time his Second Coming
to end up in WW1.

To us he looked like one of the 'Un!
To the 'Un he was one of us.

Both sides let him
have it.

Him who had come
to die for us

and by God
He did.

Hung on the barbed wire
for days on end

we all thinking will it
never end.

Crying for His Father
getting on our ****** nerves.

Some say they saw him
at the Somme

some say at Crucifix Corner
"...forgive them for they know not..."

it went on and on
'...what they've done."

But I had by gum!
I pitied the poor ******.

Crawled out under
****** fire.

Put my last ciggie
between his lips

made of nothing but
tea leaves....liquorice...treacle.

"Thanks mate.!" he gasped
with his last breath

turning into young Tommy
Smith at His Death.

A right good lad I knew
from Hudersfield.

Shell shocked
they said I was.

I wasn't.

All men are the Son
of God as it happens.

Even a dead 'Un is one.

The Son of God is forever
getting it wrong.

Christ! Will He ever
learn.

Timing His next Coming
to land up in WW11.

Other Wars
waiting in the wings

for Him
to come again.

Wish He would just
give up on us.

He's of no ****** use
whatsoever.

Death is a better
friend.

Survival as I know
is Hell.

It is full summer now, the heart of June;
Not yet the sunburnt reapers are astir
Upon the upland meadow where too soon
Rich autumn time, the season’s usurer,
Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees,
And see his treasure scattered by the wild and spendthrift breeze.

Too soon indeed! yet here the daffodil,
That love-child of the Spring, has lingered on
To vex the rose with jealousy, and still
The harebell spreads her azure pavilion,
And like a strayed and wandering reveller
Abandoned of its brothers, whom long since June’s messenger

The missel-thrush has frighted from the glade,
One pale narcissus loiters fearfully
Close to a shadowy nook, where half afraid
Of their own loveliness some violets lie
That will not look the gold sun in the face
For fear of too much splendour,—ah! methinks it is a place

Which should be trodden by Persephone
When wearied of the flowerless fields of Dis!
Or danced on by the lads of Arcady!
The hidden secret of eternal bliss
Known to the Grecian here a man might find,
Ah! you and I may find it now if Love and Sleep be kind.

There are the flowers which mourning Herakles
Strewed on the tomb of Hylas, columbine,
Its white doves all a-flutter where the breeze
Kissed them too harshly, the small celandine,
That yellow-kirtled chorister of eve,
And lilac lady’s-smock,—but let them bloom alone, and leave

Yon spired hollyhock red-crocketed
To sway its silent chimes, else must the bee,
Its little bellringer, go seek instead
Some other pleasaunce; the anemone
That weeps at daybreak, like a silly girl
Before her love, and hardly lets the butterflies unfurl

Their painted wings beside it,—bid it pine
In pale virginity; the winter snow
Will suit it better than those lips of thine
Whose fires would but scorch it, rather go
And pluck that amorous flower which blooms alone,
Fed by the pander wind with dust of kisses not its own.

The trumpet-mouths of red convolvulus
So dear to maidens, creamy meadow-sweet
Whiter than Juno’s throat and odorous
As all Arabia, hyacinths the feet
Of Huntress Dian would be loth to mar
For any dappled fawn,—pluck these, and those fond flowers which
are

Fairer than what Queen Venus trod upon
Beneath the pines of Ida, eucharis,
That morning star which does not dread the sun,
And budding marjoram which but to kiss
Would sweeten Cytheraea’s lips and make
Adonis jealous,—these for thy head,—and for thy girdle take

Yon curving spray of purple clematis
Whose gorgeous dye outflames the Tyrian King,
And foxgloves with their nodding chalices,
But that one narciss which the startled Spring
Let from her kirtle fall when first she heard
In her own woods the wild tempestuous song of summer’s bird,

Ah! leave it for a subtle memory
Of those sweet tremulous days of rain and sun,
When April laughed between her tears to see
The early primrose with shy footsteps run
From the gnarled oak-tree roots till all the wold,
Spite of its brown and trampled leaves, grew bright with shimmering
gold.

Nay, pluck it too, it is not half so sweet
As thou thyself, my soul’s idolatry!
And when thou art a-wearied at thy feet
Shall oxlips weave their brightest tapestry,
For thee the woodbine shall forget its pride
And veil its tangled whorls, and thou shalt walk on daisies pied.

And I will cut a reed by yonder spring
And make the wood-gods jealous, and old Pan
Wonder what young intruder dares to sing
In these still haunts, where never foot of man
Should tread at evening, lest he chance to spy
The marble limbs of Artemis and all her company.

And I will tell thee why the jacinth wears
Such dread embroidery of dolorous moan,
And why the hapless nightingale forbears
To sing her song at noon, but weeps alone
When the fleet swallow sleeps, and rich men feast,
And why the laurel trembles when she sees the lightening east.

And I will sing how sad Proserpina
Unto a grave and gloomy Lord was wed,
And lure the silver-breasted Helena
Back from the lotus meadows of the dead,
So shalt thou see that awful loveliness
For which two mighty Hosts met fearfully in war’s abyss!

And then I’ll pipe to thee that Grecian tale
How Cynthia loves the lad Endymion,
And hidden in a grey and misty veil
Hies to the cliffs of Latmos once the Sun
Leaps from his ocean bed in fruitless chase
Of those pale flying feet which fade away in his embrace.

And if my flute can breathe sweet melody,
We may behold Her face who long ago
Dwelt among men by the AEgean sea,
And whose sad house with pillaged portico
And friezeless wall and columns toppled down
Looms o’er the ruins of that fair and violet cinctured town.

Spirit of Beauty! tarry still awhile,
They are not dead, thine ancient votaries;
Some few there are to whom thy radiant smile
Is better than a thousand victories,
Though all the nobly slain of Waterloo
Rise up in wrath against them! tarry still, there are a few

Who for thy sake would give their manlihood
And consecrate their being; I at least
Have done so, made thy lips my daily food,
And in thy temples found a goodlier feast
Than this starved age can give me, spite of all
Its new-found creeds so sceptical and so dogmatical.

Here not Cephissos, not Ilissos flows,
The woods of white Colonos are not here,
On our bleak hills the olive never blows,
No simple priest conducts his lowing steer
Up the steep marble way, nor through the town
Do laughing maidens bear to thee the crocus-flowered gown.

Yet tarry! for the boy who loved thee best,
Whose very name should be a memory
To make thee linger, sleeps in silent rest
Beneath the Roman walls, and melody
Still mourns her sweetest lyre; none can play
The lute of Adonais:  with his lips Song passed away.

Nay, when Keats died the Muses still had left
One silver voice to sing his threnody,
But ah! too soon of it we were bereft
When on that riven night and stormy sea
Panthea claimed her singer as her own,
And slew the mouth that praised her; since which time we walk
alone,

Save for that fiery heart, that morning star
Of re-arisen England, whose clear eye
Saw from our tottering throne and waste of war
The grand Greek limbs of young Democracy
Rise mightily like Hesperus and bring
The great Republic! him at least thy love hath taught to sing,

And he hath been with thee at Thessaly,
And seen white Atalanta fleet of foot
In passionless and fierce virginity
Hunting the tusked boar, his honied lute
Hath pierced the cavern of the hollow hill,
And Venus laughs to know one knee will bow before her still.

And he hath kissed the lips of Proserpine,
And sung the Galilaean’s requiem,
That wounded forehead dashed with blood and wine
He hath discrowned, the Ancient Gods in him
Have found their last, most ardent worshipper,
And the new Sign grows grey and dim before its conqueror.

Spirit of Beauty! tarry with us still,
It is not quenched the torch of poesy,
The star that shook above the Eastern hill
Holds unassailed its argent armoury
From all the gathering gloom and fretful fight—
O tarry with us still! for through the long and common night,

Morris, our sweet and simple Chaucer’s child,
Dear heritor of Spenser’s tuneful reed,
With soft and sylvan pipe has oft beguiled
The weary soul of man in troublous need,
And from the far and flowerless fields of ice
Has brought fair flowers to make an earthly paradise.

We know them all, Gudrun the strong men’s bride,
Aslaug and Olafson we know them all,
How giant Grettir fought and Sigurd died,
And what enchantment held the king in thrall
When lonely Brynhild wrestled with the powers
That war against all passion, ah! how oft through summer hours,

Long listless summer hours when the noon
Being enamoured of a damask rose
Forgets to journey westward, till the moon
The pale usurper of its tribute grows
From a thin sickle to a silver shield
And chides its loitering car—how oft, in some cool grassy field

Far from the cricket-ground and noisy eight,
At Bagley, where the rustling bluebells come
Almost before the blackbird finds a mate
And overstay the swallow, and the hum
Of many murmuring bees flits through the leaves,
Have I lain poring on the dreamy tales his fancy weaves,

And through their unreal woes and mimic pain
Wept for myself, and so was purified,
And in their simple mirth grew glad again;
For as I sailed upon that pictured tide
The strength and splendour of the storm was mine
Without the storm’s red ruin, for the singer is divine;

The little laugh of water falling down
Is not so musical, the clammy gold
Close hoarded in the tiny waxen town
Has less of sweetness in it, and the old
Half-withered reeds that waved in Arcady
Touched by his lips break forth again to fresher harmony.

Spirit of Beauty, tarry yet awhile!
Although the cheating merchants of the mart
With iron roads profane our lovely isle,
And break on whirling wheels the limbs of Art,
Ay! though the crowded factories beget
The blindworm Ignorance that slays the soul, O tarry yet!

For One at least there is,—He bears his name
From Dante and the seraph Gabriel,—
Whose double laurels burn with deathless flame
To light thine altar; He too loves thee well,
Who saw old Merlin lured in Vivien’s snare,
And the white feet of angels coming down the golden stair,

Loves thee so well, that all the World for him
A gorgeous-coloured vestiture must wear,
And Sorrow take a purple diadem,
Or else be no more Sorrow, and Despair
Gild its own thorns, and Pain, like Adon, be
Even in anguish beautiful;—such is the empery

Which Painters hold, and such the heritage
This gentle solemn Spirit doth possess,
Being a better mirror of his age
In all his pity, love, and weariness,
Than those who can but copy common things,
And leave the Soul unpainted with its mighty questionings.

But they are few, and all romance has flown,
And men can prophesy about the sun,
And lecture on his arrows—how, alone,
Through a waste void the soulless atoms run,
How from each tree its weeping nymph has fled,
And that no more ’mid English reeds a Naiad shows her head.

Methinks these new Actaeons boast too soon
That they have spied on beauty; what if we
Have analysed the rainbow, robbed the moon
Of her most ancient, chastest mystery,
Shall I, the last Endymion, lose all hope
Because rude eyes peer at my mistress through a telescope!

What profit if this scientific age
Burst through our gates with all its retinue
Of modern miracles!  Can it assuage
One lover’s breaking heart? what can it do
To make one life more beautiful, one day
More godlike in its period? but now the Age of Clay

Returns in horrid cycle, and the earth
Hath borne again a noisy progeny
Of ignorant Titans, whose ungodly birth
Hurls them against the august hierarchy
Which sat upon Olympus; to the Dust
They have appealed, and to that barren arbiter they must

Repair for judgment; let them, if they can,
From Natural Warfare and insensate Chance,
Create the new Ideal rule for man!
Methinks that was not my inheritance;
For I was nurtured otherwise, my soul
Passes from higher heights of life to a more supreme goal.

Lo! while we spake the earth did turn away
Her visage from the God, and Hecate’s boat
Rose silver-laden, till the jealous day
Blew all its torches out:  I did not note
The waning hours, to young Endymions
Time’s palsied fingers count in vain his rosary of suns!

Mark how the yellow iris wearily
Leans back its throat, as though it would be kissed
By its false chamberer, the dragon-fly,
Who, like a blue vein on a girl’s white wrist,
Sleeps on that snowy primrose of the night,
Which ‘gins to flush with crimson shame, and die beneath the light.

Come let us go, against the pallid shield
Of the wan sky the almond blossoms gleam,
The corncrake nested in the unmown field
Answers its mate, across the misty stream
On fitful wing the startled curlews fly,
And in his sedgy bed the lark, for joy that Day is nigh,

Scatters the pearled dew from off the grass,
In tremulous ecstasy to greet the sun,
Who soon in gilded panoply will pass
Forth from yon orange-curtained pavilion
Hung in the burning east:  see, the red rim
O’ertops the expectant hills! it is the God! for love of him

Already the shrill lark is out of sight,
Flooding with waves of song this silent dell,—
Ah! there is something more in that bird’s flight
Than could be tested in a crucible!—
But the air freshens, let us go, why soon
The woodmen will be here; how we have lived this night of June!

PROLOGUE
               Hyde Park weekend of politics and pop,
Geldof’s gang of divas and mad hatters;
Sergeant Pepper only one heart beating,
resurrected by a once dead Beatle.
The ******, Queen and Irish juggernauts;
The Entertainer and dead bands
re-jigged for the sake of humanity.
   The almighty single named entities
all out for Africa and people power.
Olympics in the bag, a Waterloo
of celebrations in the street that night
Leaping and whooping in sheer delight
Nelson rocking in Trafalgar Square
The promised computer wonderlands
rising from the poisoned dead heart wasteland;
derelict, deserted, still festering.
The Brave Tomorrow in a world of hate.
The flame will be lit, magic rings aloft
and harmony will be our middle name.

On the seventh day of the seventh month,
Festival of the skilful Weaving girl;
the ‘war on terror’ just a tattered trope
drained and exhausted and put out of sight
in a dark corner of a darker shelf.
A power surge the first lie of the day.
Savagely woken from our pleasant dream
al Qa’ida opens up a new franchise
and a new frontier for terror to prowl.

               Howling sirens shatter morning’s progress
Hysterical screech of ambulances
and police cars trying to grip the road.
The oppressive drone of helicopters
gathering like the Furies in the sky;
Blair’s hubris is acknowledged by the gods.
Without warning the deadly game begins.

The Leviathan state machinery,
certain of its strength and authority,
with sheer balletic co-ordination,
steadies itself for a fine performance.
The new citizen army in ‘day glow’
take up their ‘Support Official’ roles,
like air raid wardens in the last big show;
feisty  yet firm, delivering every line
deep voiced and clearly to the whole theatre.
On cue, the Police fan out through Bloomsbury
clearing every emergency exit,
arresting and handcuffing surly streets,
locking down this ancient river city.
Fetching in fluorescent green costuming,
the old Bill nimbly Tangos and Foxtrots
the airways, Oscar, Charlie and Yankee
quickly reply with grid reference Echo;
Whiskey, Sierra, Quebec, November,
beam out from New Scotland Yard,
staccato, nearly lost in static space.
      
              LIVERPOOL STREET STATION
8.51 a.m. Circle Line

Shehezad Tanweer was born in England.
A migrant’s child of hope and better life,
dreaming of his future from his birth.
Only twenty two short years on this earth.
In a madrassah, Lahore, Pakistan,
he spent twelve weeks reading and rote learning
verses chosen from the sacred text.
Chanting the syllables, hour after hour,
swaying back and forth with the word rhythm,
like an underground train rocking the rails,
as it weaves its way beneath the world,
in turning tunnels in the dead of night.

Teve Talevski had a meeting
across the river, he knew he’d be late.
**** trains they do it to you every time.
But something odd happened while he waited
A taut-limbed young woman sashayed past him
in a forget-me-not blue dress of silk.
She rustled on the platform as she turned.
She turned to him and smiled, and he smiled back.
Stale tunnel air pushed along in the rush
of the train arriving in the station.
He found a seat and watched her from afar.
Opened his paper for distraction’s sake
Olympic win exciting like the smile.

Train heading southwest under Whitechapel.
Deafening blast, rushing sound blast, bright flash
of golden light, flying glass and debris
Twisted people thrown to ground, darkness;
the dreadful silent second in blackness.
The stench of human flesh and gunpowder,
burning rubber and fiery acrid smoke.
Screaming bone bare pain, blood-drenched tearing pain.
Pitiful weeping, begging for a god
to come, someone to come, and help them out.

Teve pushes off a dead weighted man.
He stands unsteady trying to balance.
Railway staff with torches, moving spotlights
**** and jolt, catching still life scenery,
lighting the exit in gloomy dimness.
They file down the track to Aldgate Station,
Teve passes the sardine can carriage
torn apart by a fierce hungry giant.
Through the dust, four lifeless bodies take shape
and disappear again in drifting smoke.
It’s only later, when safe above ground,
Teve looks around and starts to wonder
where his blue epiphany girl has gone.

                 KINGS CROSS STATION
8.56 a.m. Piccadilly Line

Many named Lyndsey Germaine, Jamaican,
living with his wife and child in Aylesbury,
laying low, never visited the Mosque.   
                Buckinghamshire bomber known as Jamal,
clean shaven, wearing normal western clothes,
annoyed his neighbours with loud music.
Samantha-wife converted and renamed,
Sherafiyah and took to wearing black.
Devout in that jet black shalmar kameez.
Loving father cradled close his daughter
Caressed her cheek and held her tiny hand
He wondered what the future held for her.

Station of the lost and homeless people,
where you can buy anything at a price.
A place where a face can be lost forever;
where the future’s as real as faded dreams.
Below the mainline trains, deep underground
Piccadilly lines cross the River Thames
Cram-packed, shoulder to shoulder and standing,
the train heading southward for Russell Square,
barely pulls away from Kings Cross Station,
when Arash Kazerouni hears the bang,
‘Almighty bang’ before everything stopped.
Twenty six hearts stopped beating that moment.
But glass flew apart in a shattering wave,
followed by a  huge whoosh of smoky soot.
Panic raced down the line with ice fingers
touching and tagging the living with fear.
Spine chiller blanching faces white with shock.

Gracia Hormigos, a housekeeper,
thought, I am being electrocuted.
Her body was shaking, it seemed her mind
was in free fall, no safety cord to pull,
just disconnected, so she looked around,
saw the man next to her had no right leg,
a shattered shard of bone and gouts of  blood,
Where was the rest of his leg and his foot ?

Level headed ones with serious voices
spoke over the screaming and the sobbing;
Titanic lifeboat voices giving orders;
Iceberg cool voices of reassurance;
We’re stoical British bulldog voices
that organize the mayhem and chaos
into meaty chunks of jobs to be done.
Clear air required - break the windows now;
Lines could be live - so we stay where we are;
Help will be here shortly - try to stay calm.

John, Mark and Emma introduce themselves
They never usually speak underground,
averting your gaze, tube train etiquette.
Disaster has its opportunities;
Try the new mobile, take a photograph;
Ring your Mum and Dad, ****** battery’s flat;
My network’s down; my phone light’s still working
Useful to see the way, step carefully.

   Fiona asks, ‘Am I dreaming all this?’
A shrieking man answers her, “I’m dying!”
Hammered glass finally breaks, fresher air;
too late for the man in the front carriage.
London Transport staff in yellow jackets
start an orderly evacuation
The mobile phones held up to light the way.
Only nineteen minutes in a lifetime.
  
EDGEWARE ROAD STATION
9.17 a.m. Circle Line

               Mohammed Sadique Khan, the oldest one.
Perhaps the leader, at least a mentor.
Yorkshire man born, married with a daughter
Gently spoken man, endlessly patient,
worked in the Hamara, Lodge Lane, Leeds,
Council-funded, multi-faith youth Centre;
and the local Primary school, in Beeston.
No-one could believe this of  Mr Khan;
well educated, caring and very kind
Where did he hide his secret other life  ?

Wise enough to wait for the second train.
Two for the price of one, a real bargain.
Westbound second carriage is blown away,
a commuter blasted from the platform,
hurled under the wheels of the east bound train.
Moon Crater holes, the walls pitted and pocked;
a sparse dark-side landscape with black, black air.
The ripped and shredded metal bursts free
like a surprising party popper;
Steel curlicues corkscrew through wood and glass.
Mass is made atomic in the closed space.
Roasting meat and Auschwitzed cremation stench
saturates the already murky air.              
Our human kindling feeds the greedy fire;
Heads alight like medieval torches;
Fiery liquid skin drops from the faceless;
Punk afro hair is cauterised and singed.  
Heat intensity, like a wayward iron,
scorches clothes, fuses fibres together.
Seven people escape this inferno;
many die in later days, badly burned,
and everyone there will live a scarred life.

               TAVISTOCK ROAD
9.47 a.m. Number 30 Bus  

Hasib Hussain migrant son, English born
barely an adult, loved by his mother;
reported him missing later that night.
Police typed his description in the file
and matched his clothes to fragments from the scene.
A hapless victim or vicious bomber ?
Child of the ‘Ummah’ waging deadly war.
Seventy two black eyed virgins waiting
in jihadist paradise just for you.

Red double-decker bus, number thirty,
going from Hackney Wick to Marble Arch;
stuck in traffic, diversions everywhere.
Driver pulls up next to a tree lined square;
the Parking Inspector, Ade Soji,
tells the driver he’s in Tavistock Road,
British Museum nearby and the Square.
A place of peace and quiet reflection;
the sad history of war is remembered;
symbols to make us never forget death;
Cherry Tree from Hiroshima, Japan;
Holocaust Memorial for Jewish dead;
sturdy statue of  Mahatma Gandhi.
Peaceful resistance that drove the Lion out.
Freedom for India but death for him.

Sudden sonic boom, bus roof tears apart,
seats erupt with volcanic force upward,
hot larva of blood and tissue rains down.
Bloodied road becomes a charnel-house scene;
disembodied limbs among the wreckage,
headless corpses; sinews, muscles and bone.
Buildings spattered and smeared with human paint
Impressionist daubs, blood red like the bus.

Jasmine Gardiner, running late for work;
all trains were cancelled from Euston Station;  
she headed for the square, to catch the bus.
It drove straight past her standing at the stop;
before she could curse aloud - Kaboom !
Instinctively she ran, ran for her life.
Umbrella shield from the shower of gore.

On the lower deck, two Aussies squeezed in;
Catherine Klestov was standing in the aisle,
floored by the bomb, suffered cuts and bruises
She limped to Islington two days later.
Louise Barry was reading the paper,
she was ‘****-scared’ by the explosion;
she crawled out of the remnants of the bus,
broken and burned, she lay flat on the road,
the world of sound had gone, ear drums had burst;
she lay there drowsy, quiet, looking up
and amazingly the sky was still there.

Sam Ly, Vietnamese Australian,
One of the boat people once welcomed here.
A refugee, held in his mother’s arms,
she died of cancer, before he was three.
Hi Ly struggled to raise his son alone;
a tough life, inner city high rise flats.
Education the smart migrant’s revenge,
Monash Uni and an IT degree.
Lucky Sam, perfect job of a lifetime;
in London, with his one love, Mandy Ha,
Life going great until that fateful day;
on the seventh day of the seventh month,
Festival of the skilful Weaving girl.

Three other Aussies on that ****** bus;
no serious physical injuries,
Sam’s luck ran out, in choosing where to sit.
His neck was broken, could not breath alone;
his head smashed and crushed, fractured bones and burns
Wrapped in a cocoon of coma safe
This broken figure lying on white sheets
in an English Intensive Care Unit
did not seem like Hi Ly’s beloved son;
but he sat by Sam’s bed in disbelief,
seven days and seven nights of struggle,
until the final hour, when it was done.

In the pit of our stomach we all knew,
but we kept on deep breathing and hoping
this nauseous reality would pass.
The weary inevitability
of horrific disasters such as these.
Strangely familiar like an old newsreel
Black and white, it happened long ago.
But its happening now right before our eyes
satellite pictures beam and bounce the globe.
Twelve thousand miles we watch the story
Plot unfolds rapidly, chapters emerge
We know the places names of this narrative.
  
It is all subterranean, hidden
from the curious, voyeuristic gaze,
Until the icon bus, we are hopeful
This public spectacle is above ground
We can see the force that mangled the bus,
fury that tore people apart limb by limb
Now we can imagine a bomb below,
far below, people trapped, fiery hell;
fighting to breathe each breath in tunnelled tombs.

Herded from the blast they are strangely calm,
obedient, shuffling this way and that.
Blood-streaked, sooty and dishevelled they come.
Out from the choking darkness far below
Dazzled by the brightness of the morning
of a day they feared might be their last.
They have breathed deeply of Kurtz’s horror.
Sights and sounds unimaginable before
will haunt their waking hours for many years;
a lifetime of nightmares in the making.
They trudge like weary soldiers from the Somme
already see the world with older eyes.

On the surface, they find a world where life
simply goes on as before, unmindful.
Cyclist couriers still defy road laws,
sprint racing again in Le Tour de France;
beer-gutted, real men are loading lorries;
lunch time sandwiches are made as usual,
sold and eaten at desks and in the street.
Roadside cafes sell lots of hot sweet tea.
The Umbrella stand soon does brisk business.
Sign writers' hands, still steady, paint the sign.
The summer blooms are watered in the park.
A ***** stretches on the bench and wakes up,
he folds and stows his newspaper blankets;
mouth dry,  he sips water at the fountain.
A lady scoops up her black poodle’s ****.
A young couple argues over nothing.
Betting shops are full of people losing
money and dreaming of a trifecta.
Martin’s still smoking despite the patches.
There’s a rush on Brandy in nearby pubs
Retired gardener dead heads his flowers
and picks a lettuce for the evening meal

Fifty six minutes from start to finish.
Perfectly orchestrated performance.
Rush hour co-ordination excellent.
Maximum devastation was ensured.
Cruel, merciless killing so coldly done.
Fine detail in the maiming and damage.

A REVIEW

Well activated practical response.
Rehearsals really paid off on the day.
Brilliant touch with bus transport for victims;
Space blankets well deployed for shock effect;
Dramatic improv by Paramedics;
Nurses, medicos and casualty staff
showed great technical E.R. Skills - Bravo !
Plenty of pizzazz and dash as always
from the nifty, London Ambo drivers;
Old fashioned know-how from the Fire fighters
in hosing down the fireworks underground.
Dangerous rescues were undertaken,
accomplished with buckets of common sense.
And what can one say about those Bobbies,
jolly good show, the lips unquivering
and universally stiff, no mean feat
in this Premiere season tear-jerker.
Nail-bitingly brittle, but a smash-hit
Poignant misery and stoic suffering,
fortitude, forbearance and lots of grit
Altogether was quite tickety boo.



NOTES ON THE POEM

Liverpool Street Station

A Circle Line train from Moorgate with six carriages and a capacity of 1272 passengers [ 192 seated; 1080 standing]. 7 dead on the first day.

Southbound, destination Aldgate. Explosion occurs midway between Liverpool Street and Aldgate.

Shehezad Tanweer was reported to have ‘never been political’ by a friend who played cricket with him 10 days before the bombing

Teve Talevski is a real person and I have elaborated a little on reports in the press. He runs a coffee shop in North London.

At the time of writing the fate of the blue dress lady is not known

Kings Cross Station

A Piccadilly Line train with six carriages and a capacity of 1238 passengers [272 seated; 966 standing]. 21 dead on first day.

Southbound, destination Russell Square. Explosion occurs mi

i have fallen in love
with the blush of the cherry blossom
the delicate scent
the bloom on the branch

i have fallen in love
with the cascade of the cherry blossom
the clusters like grapes
and patterns of light and shade

i have fallen in love
with a pink so pink
fresher than strawberry ice-cream
or revlon’s baby pink gloss

i have fallen in love
with cherry blossoms in the breeze
petals flutter and hover
like snowflakes in the night

i have fallen in love
with every day, every season, every flower
every birth, every death, every sickness
because life changes and alters

i have fallen in love
with life, with love, with pain
i have fallen in love
i have fallen in love

if you find one happiness
like the barrel on your head
loaded with a pocket of air for you to breathe

then you know that if you sink
to atmospheric tides
you must find fresher barrels
when the novelty declines
and the oxygen gives way
to the oceanic brine

for the last moments of time
you’re chin-up on a water bed
the water cradles your esophagus
and then you find you surely must
find some fresher air to breathe

but to search is to be dissatisfied
to question once is to imply
that everything can be replied
with answers and with truth

that bucket on your head
running out of salty air
to stay is to slip into death
like listening to the ocean in a seashell
till slow blood flows in too few waves

but could you not also swim?
abandon the comfortable end
for the off chance that some underwater shelter
will serve you shots of oxygen?

the funny thing you find
when you let dying pleasure go
and you’re suspended, all alone
the gas trapped beneath
was too stale for you to breathe
but enough to buoy the unburdened barrel
into swiftly surfacing

it's as if the air is thinner and fresher and my lungs pull it in
to roll around in and soak up its potent clarity

exhales sure remind me of letting go of heavy quilts
my frozen goosebumped mind longs to hide under

there is nothing to hide from, not even black holes - for
there is beauty within the unknown

a fear of blossomed beauty is a fear of losing that pinnacle of
infinitely heightened completeness

One falls for this belief when shyness to greatness is solidified -
belief they know depths and levels and proofs

knowing is knowing, yes, unknown is everything

If I knew where we were going,
I'd drive or would tell you to drive

not knowing encompasses everywhere and I'd sooner rather
look into your green eyes and drift into a black hole of unknown beauty
- where we could breathe in thinner and fresher air and
reach the peak of One with just two

ESSAYS ON
LEADERSHIP FRONTIERS OF AFRICAN LITERATURE
By
Alexander   k   Opicho




Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya; aopicho@yahoo.com)

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents                                                                                                                Page
TABAN MAKITIYONG RENEKET LO LIYONG AND PREFECTURE OF AFRICAN LITERATURE 4
THE CURRENT EAST AFRICA IS NOT A LITERARY DESERT 27
AFRICAN WRITERS HAVE CULTURAL RIGHTS TO FORMULATE AND CREATE ENGLISH WORDS 31
LIKE PUSHKIN, AFRICAN WRITERS MUST CREATE THEIR OWN PROFFESSION OF LITERATURE 35
THERE IS POWER IN THE NAME ‘ALEXANDER’ 40
KENYAN COURTS AND PARLIAMENT ARE BETRAYERS OF HUMANE GOVERNANCE 47
AFRO-CHRISTIAN RESPONSE TO RADICAL LITERATURE IS GOOD AND SWAGGERISH 50
YUNUS’S SOCIAL BANKING IS A GOOD BENCHCMARK FOR THIRD WORLD ENTREPRENEURS 54
HEROISM IS NOT GREATNESS BUT HUMILITY IN SERVICE TO HUMANITY 57
KENYAN STUDENTS; YOUR MOBILE INTERNET CULTURE IS ANTI- ACADEMICS 61
WHAT IS THE MAGIC IN THE WORD ‘DRINKARD’ OF AMOS TUTUOLA 63
SOCIETIES IN AFRICA HAVE TO MENTOR BUT NOT CONDEMN THE LIKES OF JULIUS MALEMA 66
AMERICA WILL NOT WIN THE WAR ON GLOBAL TERRORISM 69
AFRICA CAN OVERCOME A MENACE OF **** IN EVERY 30 MINUTES 71
COMPARATIVE ROLES OF AFRICAN-BRAZILIAN LITERATURE IN THE POLITICS OF RACIAL AND GENDER DEMOCRACY 76
NEO-COLONIALISM IS NOT THE MAIN VICE TO THE GAMBIAN POLITICS 85
RELATIVE MEDIA OBJECTIVITY IS ACHIEVEABLE IN AFRICA AGAINST POWER CULTURE AND TYRANNIES OF TASTE 89
READING CULTURE IS GOOD FOR BOTH THE POOR AND THE RICH 96
VIOLENT DEATH IS THE BANE OF AFRICAN WRITERS AND ARTISTS 100
AFRICAN WRITTERS AND ARTISTS MUST ASPIRE BEYOND A NOBEL PRIZE 104
WHAT ARE CULTURAL RIGHTS OF AFRICAN ENGLISH SPEAKERS? 109
WHY IMPRISONMENT OF WRITERS CONTRIBUTED MOST TO AFRICAN LITERATURE 113
DORIS LESSING: A FEMINIST, POET, NOVELIST, WHITE-AFRICANIST AND NOBELITE UN-TIMELY PASSES ON 121
Amilcar Cabral: Beacon of revolutionary literature and social democracy 127
How the State of Israel is brutally dealing with African refugees 131
Historical glimpses of language dilemma in Afro-Arabic literature 146
THIS YEAR 2013; IS THE YEAR OF GREAT DEATHS 153
AFRICAN LITERATURE WITHOUT POETRY IS LIKE LOVE WITHOUT VAGINAL *** 156



















PROLOGOMENA
BARRACK OBAMA READS MOBY ****
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
American president is reading Moby ****
Ja-kogello is reading Moby ****
Ja-siaya is reading Moby ****
Ja-merica is reading Moby ****
Jadello is reading Moby ****
Ja-buonji is reading Moby ****
His lovely Oeuvre of Melville Herman
And what are you reading?

Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because untimely death took his father
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because untimely death took his mother
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because untimely death to his brother
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because untimely death took the grannies
His lovely Oeuvre of Melville Herman  
And what are you reading?

Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Baba Michelle is reading Moby ****
Baba Sasha is reading Moby ****
Baba Malia is reading Moby ****
Baba nya-dhin is reading Moby ****
Sarah’s sire is reading Moby ****
Ja-sharia is reading Moby ****
The ****** is reading Moby ****
His lovely Oeuvre of Melville Herman
And what are you reading?

Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because here ekes audacity of hope
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because here ekes dreams of fathers
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because here ekes yes we can
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because here ekes American dream
His lovely Oeuvre of Melville Herman
And what are you readings?

Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because American president is like whale hunting
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because Obama is a money making animal
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because hunting Osama is whale riding
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because hunting Gaddaffi is whale riding
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because coming to Kenya is whale riding
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because Guantanamo prison is a bay of whales
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because Snowden is a Russian whale
Because launching drones is whale riding
His lovely Oeuvre of Melville Herman
And what are you reading, Moby ****?














CHAPTER ONE
TABAN MAKITIYONG RENEKET LO LIYONG AND PREFECTURE OF AFRICAN LITERATURE

I am writing this article from Kenya on this day of 23 September 2013 when the Al shabab, an Arabo-Islamic arm of the global terrorist group the Al gaeda have lynched siege on the shopping mall in Nairobi known as the West Gate where an average of forty people have been killed and a hundreds are held hostage. The media is full of horrendous and terrifying images. They have made me to hate this day. I hate terrorism, I hate American foreign policy on Arabs, I hate philosophy behind formation of the state of Israel and I equally hate religious fundamentalism. Also on this date, all the media and public talks in Kenya are full of intellectual and literary tearing of one Kenyan by another plus a retort in the equal measure as a result of the ripples in the African literature pool whose epicenter is the Professor Taban Lo Liyong .He is an epicenter because he had initially decried literary mediocrity among the African scholars and University professors, Wherein under the same juncture he also quipped that Kenya’s doyen of literature Ngugi wa Thiong’o never deserved a Nobel prize. Liyong’s stand has provoked intellectual reasons and offalities to fly like fireworks in the East African literary atmosphere among which the most glittering is Chris Wanjala’s contrasting position that; who made Liyong the prefect and ombudsman of African literature? This calls for answers. Both good answers and controversial responses. Digging deeper into the flesh of literature as often displayed by Lo Liyong.
Liyong is not a fresher in the realm of literary witticism. He is a seasoned hand .Especially when contributions of Liyong to east African literary journal during his student days in the fifties of the last century during which he declared east Africa a literary desert. In addition to his fantastic titles; Another ****** Dead and The Un-even Rips of Frantz Fanon, Professor Taban Lo Liyong also humorously called Amos Tutuola the son of Zinjathropus, what a farcical literary joke? I also want to appreciate this Liyong’s artfulness of language in this capacity and identify him in a literary sense as Taban Matiyong Lo   Liyong the son of Eshu. He is an ideological and literature descended of the great West African Eshu. Eshu the god of trouble which was dramatized by Obutunde Ijimere in the imprisonment of Obadala and also recounted by Achebe in the classical essays; Morning Yet of Creation Day. I call him Eshu because of his intellectual and literary ability to trigger the East and West Africans into active altercation of literary, cultural and political exchanges every other time he visits these regions. Whether in Lagos, Accra or Nairobi.
Now, in relation to Ngugi and intellectual quality of Kenyan University literature professors was Liyong right or wrong?  Does Liyong’s stand-point on Ngugi’s incompetence for Nobel recognition and mediocrity in literary scholarship among Kenyan Universities hold water. Are Liyong’s accusations of East Africa in these perspectives factually watertight and devoid of a fallacy of self-aggrandizement to African literary prefecture as Professor Chris Wanjala laments. Active literary involvement by anyone would obviously uncover that ;It is not Liyong Alone who has this intellectual bent towards East Africa, any literary common sense can easily ask a question that; Does Ngugi’s literary work really deserve or merit for Nobel recognition or not ? The answers are both yes and no. There are very many of those in Kenya who will readily cow from the debate to say yes. Like especially the community of alumni of the University of Nairobi who were Ngugi’s students in the department of English in which Ngugi was a Faculty during the mid of the last century. Also the general Kenyan masses who have been conditioned by warped political culture which always and obviously confine the Kenyan poor into a cocoonery of chauvinistic thought that Ngugi should or must win because he is one of us or Obama must win because he is one of us or Kemboi must win because he is the son of the Kenyan soil. These must also be the emotional tid-bits upon which the Kenyan Media has been based to be catapulted into Publicity feat that Ngugi will win the Nobel Prize without reporting to the same Kenyan populace the actual truths about other likely winners in the quarters from the overseas. I am in that Kenyan school thought comprising of those who genuinely argue that Ngugi’s literary work does not befit, nor merit, nor deserve recognition of Nobel Prize for literature. This position is eked on global status of the Nobel Prize in relation to Ngugi’s Kikuyu literary and writing philosophy. It is a universal truth that any and all prizes are awarded on the basis of Particular efforts displayed with peculiarity. Nobel Prize for literature is similarly awarded in recognition of unique literary effort displayed by the winner. It is not an exception when it comes to the question of formidability in a particular effort. However, the most basic literary virtue to be displayed as an overture of the writer is conversion of theory into practice. This was called by Karl Marx, Hegel, Antonio Gramsci and Paulo Freire, especially in Freire’s  pedagogy of the oppressed as praxis.History of literature and politics in their respective homogenous and comparative capacities has it that ;There has been eminent level of praxis by previous Nobelites.Right away from Rabitranathe Tagore to Wole Soyinka, From Dorriss Lessing to Wangari Mathai.Similar to JM Coatze ,Gao Tziaping,Alexander Vasleyvitch Solzhenystisn and Baraka Obama.This ideological stand of praxis is the one that made Alfred Nobel himself to to stick to his gun of intellectual  values and deny Leo Tolstoy the prize in 1907 because there was no clear connection between rudimentary Tolstoy in the nihilism and Feasible Tolstoy in the possible manner  of the times .In a similar stretch Ngugi wa Thiongo’s literary works and his ideological choices are full of ideological theory but devoid of ideological praxis. Evidence for justification in relation to this position is found back in the 70’s and 80’s of the last century, When Ngugi was an active communist theoretician of Kenya. His stature as a Kenyan communist ideologue could only get a parallel in the likes of Leon Trotsky and Gramsci. This ideological stature was displayed in Ngugi’s adoration of the North Korean communism under the auspice of the Korean leader Kim Yun Sung. This is so bare when you read Ngugi’s writers in politics, a communist pamphlet he published with the African red family. By that time this pamphlet was treated equally as Mao tse Tung’s collected works by the Kenya government which means that they were both illegal publications and if in any case you were found with them you would obviously serve nine months in prison. And of course when the late Brigadier Augustine Odongo was found with them he was jailed for nine months at Kodhiak maximum prison in Kisumu ,Kenya .O.K, the story of Odongo is preserved for another day. But remember that, this was Ngugi only at his rudimentary stage. But when Ngugi got an opportunity to get an ideological asylum, he did not go to Russia, nor East Germany, Nor Tanzania, nor China but instead he went to the USA , a country whose ideological civilization is in sharp contradiction with communism; a religion which Ngugi proffessess.In relation to this choices of Ngugi one can easily share with me these reflections; is one intellectually  honest if he argues that he is a socialist revolutionary when his or her employer is an American institution like the university of California in Irvine ?
Ngugi was not the only endangered communist ideologue of the time. There were also several others. Both in Kenya and without Kenya. They were the likes of; Raila Odinga, George Moset Anyona, ***** Mutunga and very many others from Kenya. But in Africa some to be mentioned were Walter Rodney, Yoweri Museven,Isa Shivji,Jacob Tzuma ,Robert Mugabe and others. The difference between Ngugi and all of these socialist contemporaries of him is that; Ngugi went to America and began accumulating private property just like any other capitalist. But these others remained in Africa both in freedom and detention to ensure that powers of political darkness which had bedeviled Africa during the last century must go. And indeed the powers somehow went. Raila has  been in Kenya most of the times,Anyona died in Kenya while in the struggle for second liberation of Kenyan people from the devilish fangs of Moi’s dark reign of terror and tyrany.Walter Rodney worked in Tanzania at Dare salaam University where he wrote his land mark book; How Europe underdeveloped Africa. Later on he went back to his country of birth in Africa, Guyana where he was assassinated while in the revolutionary struggle for political good of the Guyanese people. Yoweri Museven practically implemented socialism by fighting politics of sham and nonsense out of Uganda of which as per today Uganda is somehow admirable. Isa Shivji has ever remained in Dare salaam University, inspite of poverty. He is now the chair of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere school of Pan African studies. Jacob Tsuma and Robert Mugabe they are current presidents of South Africa and Zimbabwe respectively. The gist of this reference to African socialist revolutionaries as contemporaries to Ngugi wa Thiong’o is that a socialist revolutionary must and should not run away from the oppressor in to a zone of comfort. But instead must remain and relentlessly fight, just like in the words of Fidel Castro; fight and die in the battle field as long as it is a struggle against the enemy of the revolution. This view by Castro is pertinent as it’s a Revolutionary praxis which actually is redolent of practice of an ideology that has to be held for ever above ideological cosmentics.Ngugi scores badly on this. So if the Nobel academy looks at Ngugi in terms of defending human rights then it must be reminded that Ngugi have no marks on the same because he only ran away from the practical struggle. Anyway, Politics and ideology has its own fate. But let us now come back to literature. Ngugi and his books. As at  this time of writing this essay  Ngugi has published the following works; Weep not Child, The River Between, A Grain of Wheat, Black Hermit, Petals of Blood, Devils on the Cross,Matigari,Homecoming,Decolonizing the Mind, Writers in Politics, Ngugi Detained, Pen Points and Gun Points, Wizard of the Crow,Globalectics,Remeembering Africa, Dreams in Times of War and I Will Marry When I Want as well as the Trial of Dedan Kimathi which he wrote along with Micere Githae Mugo.Out of this list the only works with literary depth that call for intellectualized attention are ;A Grain of wheat, Wizard of the crow and Globalectics. The Grain of wheat is simply a post colonial reflection of Kenyan politics. Its themes, plot, lessons and entire synechedoche is also found in Wole Soyinka’s Season of Anomie as well as Achebe’s Anthills of the savannah. My argument dove-tails with those of Liyong’s stand that rewarding Ngugi’s Grain of wheat and forgetting Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah and A man of the people would be a literary ceremony devoid of literary justice. Wizard of the Crow is indeed a magnum opus. I am ready to call it Ngugi’s oeuv

I

My love, this is the bitterest, that thou
Who art all truth and who dost love me now
As thine eyes say, as thy voice breaks to say—
Shouldst love so truly and couldst love me still
A whole long life through, had but love its will,
Would death that leads me from thee brook delay!

II

I have but to be by thee, and thy hand
Would never let mine go, thy heart withstand
The beating of my heart to reach its place.
When should I look for thee and feel thee gone?
When cry for the old comfort and find none?
Never, I know! Thy soul is in thy face.

III

Oh, I should fade—’tis willed so! might I save,
Galdly I would, whatever beauty gave
Joy to thy sense, for that was precious too.
It is not to be granted. But the soul
Whence the love comes, all ravage leaves that whole;
Vainly the flesh fades—soul makes all things new.

IV

And ’twould not be because my eye grew dim
Thou couldst not find the love there, thanks to Him
Who never is dishonoured in the spark
He gave us from his fire of fires, and bade
Remember whence it sprang nor be afraid
While that burns on, though all the rest grow dark.

V

So, how thou wouldst be perfect, white and clean
Outside as inside, soul and soul’s demesne
Alike, this body given to show it by!
Oh, three-parts through the worst of life’s abyss,
What plaudits from the next world after this,
Couldst thou repeat a stroke and gain the sky!

VI

And is it not the bitterer to think
That, disengage our hands and thou wilt sink
Although thy love was love in very deed?
I know that nature! Pass a festive day
Thou dost not throw its relic-flower away
Nor bid its music’s loitering echo speed.

VII

Thou let’st the stranger’s glove lie where it fell;
If old things remain old things all is well,
For thou art grateful as becomes man best:
And hadst thou only heard me play one tune,
Or viewed me from a window, not so soon
With thee would such things fade as with the rest.

VIII

I seem to see! we meet and part: ’tis brief:
The book I opened keeps a folded leaf,
The very chair I sat on, breaks the rank;
That is a portrait of me on the wall—
Three lines, my face comes at so slight a call;
And for all this, one little hour’s to thank.

IX

But now, because the hour through years was fixed,
Because our inmost beings met amd mixed,
Because thou once hast loved me—wilt thou dare
Say to thy soul and Who may list beside,
“Therefore she is immortally my bride,
Chance cannot change that love, nor time impair.

X

“So, what if in the dusk of life that’s left,
I, a tired traveller, of my sun bereft,
Look from my path when, mimicking the same,
The fire-fly glimpses past me, come and gone?
- Where was it till the sunset? where anon
It will be at the sunrise! what’s to blame?”

XI

Is it so helpful to thee? canst thou take
The mimic up, nor, for the true thing’s sake,
Put gently by such efforts at at beam?
Is the remainder of the way so long
Thou need’st the little solace, thou the strong?
Watch out thy watch, let weak ones doze and dream!

XII

“—Ah, but the fresher faces! Is it true,”
Thou’lt ask, “some eyes are beautiful and new?
Some hair,—how can one choose but grasp such wealth?
And if a man would press his lips to lips
Fresh as the wilding hedge-rose-cup there slips
The dew-drop out of, must it be by stealth?

XIII

“It cannot change the love kept still for Her,
Much more than, such a picture to prefer
Passing a day with, to a room’s bare side.
The painted form takes nothing she possessed,
Yet while the Titian’s Venus lies at rest
A man looks. Once more, what is there to chide?”

XIV

So must I see, from where I sit and watch,
My own self sell myself, my hand attach
Its warrant to the very thefts from me—
Thy singleness of soul that made me proud,
Thy purity of heart I loved aloud,
Thy man’s truth I was bold to bid God see!

XV

Love so, then, if thou wilt! Give all thou canst
Away to the new faces—disentranced—
(Say it and think it) obdurate no more,
Re-issue looks and words from the old mint—
Pass them afresh, no matter whose the print
Image and superscription once they bore!

XVI

Re-coin thyself and give it them to spend,—
It all comes to the same thing at the end,
Since mine thou wast, mine art, and mine shalt be,
Faithful or faithless, sealing up the sum
Or lavish of my treasure, thou must come
Back to the heart’s place here I keep for thee!

XVII

Only, why should it be with stain at all?
Why must I, ‘twixt the leaves of coronal,
Put any kiss of pardon on thy brow?
Why need the other women know so much
And talk together, “Such the look and such
The smile he used to love with, then as now!”

XVIII

Might I die last and shew thee! Should I find
Such hardship in the few years left behind,
If free to take and light my lamp, and go
Into thy tomb, and shut the door and sit
Seeing thy face on those four sides of it
The better that they are so blank, I know!

XIX

Why, time was what I wanted, to turn o’er
Within my mind each look, get more and more
By heart each word, too much to learn at first,
And join thee all the fitter for the pause
’Neath the low door-way’s lintel. That were cause
For lingering, though thou called’st, If I durst!

**

And yet thou art the nobler of us two.
What dare I dream of, that thou canst not do,
Outstripping my ten small steps with one stride?
I’ll say then, here’s a trial and a task—
Is it to bear?—if easy, I’ll not ask—
Though love fail, I can trust on in thy pride.

XXI

Pride?—when those eyes forestall the life behind
The death I have to go through!—when I find,
Now that I want thy help most, all of thee!
What did I fear? Thy love shall hold me fast
Until the little minute’s sleep is past
And I wake saved.—And yet, it will not be!

.   classical music is so outdated, when it comes to exposing children to it, for them, to then, later in life, reap the benefits of "increased" intelligence... oh look... they took down xenomorph's satan's presence video... the one with all the great artwork, including exponents of Goya and Dürer, and... Adolphe-William Bouguereau's masterpiece: Dante and Virgil (the onlookers)... shame, really...  because who said that children can't keep count, when listening to psy-trance electronic music, attempting to keep count, rather than understand violin, brass, or woodwind melodies? not me... there's an upper echelon, of music, sure, it's a hyper-inflation of African drum culture... but it's there... and, like me... some ******* just need to be pulverized by the beat.

problem with the alternative to rolling tobacco -
akin to chesterfield brand...
    when compared to golden virginia?
the tobacco is drier -
                  you need to squeeze it between
your fingers, to get some juices flowing...
and i've heard a lot of ******* in my days...
but that rolling papers,
are somehow different to the cigarette wrap,
as the reason why...
   a rollie will die off if not smoked,
but a cigarette will not?
     it's not the papers...
   it's the to(e)-ba(h)-khh-khh-co(e)...
high quality rolling tobacco is fresher...
slightly moist...
    akin to golden virginia...
   but a brand like chesterfield?
   dry like **** about to give you
          an imitation circumcision...
you actually have to squeeze the ****
brown **** to get an adequate
rolling technique going...

never mind that though...
  **** me! i've been looking for this scenario
since time immemorial...

(current year, England...
   when was it permitted,
for a neighbour, to tell another neighbour,
where, and when, he can smoke
a cigarette on his property?
when?!
         i have the neighbourly decency
to not walk ****-naked into my garden,
subsequently scratching my ***,
and then jerking off anything
but chicken in full view...
  but where, i can smoke a cigarette?
this is England...
             i compromised -
   but she can't have, the *******, night!)

ah... the su doku observation!
i've been looking for it for years...
   no. 10,044

0  0  0  1  2  7  0  0  8
0  8  0  5  6  9  0  2  4
0  0 ­ 0  4  8  3  0  0  7

     the common problem with
people solving this puzzle,
is that they start thinking of...
   fractions: namely?
   only two alternatives, rather than three...

i've seen my father's notation
sometimes, 1 / 5              i.e. or
    9 / 3
                      etc.
in the English, catholic, teaching methods
concerning basic mathematics of
Pythagoras - you were required
to find, 3 points...
  to draw a straight line (just to make sure) -
well...
        unless that third point
a liquor store, going AB      BA...
      sure...
              but drawing a straight line?
never mind

0  0  0         0  0  1    |  0  0  8      via      (  x  )
0  0  0   i.e. 0  5  9    |  0  2  4                 (  y  )
0  0  0         0  0  0    |  0  0  7                 (  z  )

i needed a matrix answer... and i fiddled
one out!

( 5  9  9  5 )
( 1  1  1  1 )
( 9  5  5  9 )

              there simply can't be an alternative
to where 1, is supposed to be placed
on the grid...

0  0  0         0  0  1    |  0  0  8
0  0  0   i.e. 0  5  9    |  1  2  4
0  0  0         0  0  0    |  0  0  7

i've surprised myself -
       which is even more gratifying...
than i'm slightly tipsy -

0  0  0
0  0  0
0  0  0           (what's that?
                     spatial coordination,
for said, example).

have to coin a phrase for this discover...
ah... the su doku third coordinate,
of a straight line... #howlin'wolf'sblues:
could been a spoonful' of sugar...
ah... **** never gets old.

I'll be completely honest but not completely true 
I'll be true to my heart but not always true to you

some of my words will reflect much of what I feel
while you'll find that other lines are more contrived to conceal

you see a poet can use their words to bear their deepest feeling
but look again and you may see something deeper redder bleeding

read again between the lines of the fresher tender cuts
and you'll brush a slower finger over old wounds long untouched 

you may disturb my untold stories seeping through the pages
and find a heart much like yours where an older passion rages

SPRING

I slowly unfurl to the World
Stretching up to the sky blue
And sense an early morning chill
Of Spring waking me anew.
Each day grows a little warmer
As daylight hours extend
Making this leaf feel fresher,
Tothe bright sunlight I bend.

SUMMER

I’m at my most greenest now,
Hot sun burns upon my veins;
How glad am I to finally enjoy
Those cooling, copious rains.
At which point, I pour in drips,
A refreshing, rousing trickle
That falls on grass and buttercup
Teasing them with a tickle.

AUTUMN

Mists have now arrived, enshrouding
My form with heavy dew;
The greens has all but leached away,
Bled from veins no longer new.
Down below the tree are vivid reds
Browns and translucent golds
Which, increasingly each day now
People their captivation holds.

WINTER

The first frost of Winter
And a biting, northerly breeze
Cut into me,and scores of others
Were torn from their trees.
I’ve fallen now, to the ground
All wrinkled, and utterly fragile
Awaiting my final hour
Until, I meet my funeral pile…

I'm looking for you on the crowded streets,
that are all full with the car's blinding lights,
and the wandering souls that aren't complete,
well, they just pass right through my sight.
The voices all turn to a slur, each word seeped in pure dread,
and my sight begins to blur, I need to get this all out of my head.

When the tears are fresher than air, and the hurt is always there,
I know there's a happy place, I just have no clue where.
When the words hit like a shot, the wounds won when I fought,
I'm giving it all but there's not much that I've got.

I'm searching for peace in an empty room,
the walls echo and bounce back my ragged breath,
and the blue skies still seem to hold some gloom,
as life will always have it's death.
"It's the release I crave," I always say to myself,
now it's time to be brave, and put fear on the shelf.

When the tears are fresher than air, and the hurt is always bare,
I've got a million problems, if you need some I can share.
When the words hit like a shot, the wounds bubble from the spot,
I'm going against everything that I was taught.

If she stays by me, I should be alright.
The sky's ablaze I see, and it shines so bright.
If she stays by me, I should be alright.
With the days passing, I always pray for night.

When the tears are fresher than air, and the hurt becomes a prayer,
My mother always told me that life is never fair.

WHILOM, as olde stories tellen us,                            formerly
There was a duke that highte* Theseus.                   was called
Of Athens he was lord and governor,
And in his time such a conqueror
That greater was there none under the sun.
Full many a riche country had he won.
What with his wisdom and his chivalry,
He conquer'd all the regne of Feminie,
That whilom was y-cleped Scythia;
And weddede the Queen Hippolyta
And brought her home with him to his country
With muchel glory and great solemnity,                           great
And eke her younge sister Emily,
And thus with vict'ry and with melody
Let I this worthy Duke to Athens ride,
And all his host, in armes him beside.

And certes, if it n'ere too long to hear,                     were not
I would have told you fully the mannere,
How wonnen was the regne of Feminie,                            won
By Theseus, and by his chivalry;
And of the greate battle for the *****
Betwixt Athenes and the Amazons;
And how assieged was Hippolyta,
The faire hardy queen of Scythia;
And of the feast that was at her wedding
And of the tempest at her homecoming.
But all these things I must as now forbear.
I have, God wot, a large field to ear                       plough;
And weake be the oxen in my plough;
The remnant of my tale is long enow.
I will not *letten eke none of this rout.                hinder any of
Let every fellow tell his tale about,                      this company
And let see now who shall the supper win.
There as I left, I will again begin.                where I left off

This Duke, of whom I make mentioun,
When he was come almost unto the town,
In all his weal, and in his moste pride,
He was ware, as he cast his eye aside,
Where that there kneeled in the highe way
A company of ladies, tway and tway,
Each after other, clad in clothes black:
But such a cry and such a woe they make,
That in this world n'is creature living,
That hearde such another waimenting                      lamenting
And of this crying would they never stenten,                    desist
Till they the reines of his bridle henten.                       *seize
"What folk be ye that at mine homecoming
Perturben so my feaste with crying?"
Quoth Theseus; "Have ye so great envy
Of mine honour, that thus complain and cry?
Or who hath you misboden, or offended?                         wronged
Do telle me, if it may be amended;
And why that ye be clad thus all in black?"

The oldest lady of them all then spake,
When she had swooned, with a deadly cheer,                 countenance
That it was ruthe for to see or hear.                             pity
She saide; "Lord, to whom fortune hath given
Vict'ry, and as a conqueror to liven,
Nought grieveth us your glory and your honour;
But we beseechen mercy and succour.
Have mercy on our woe and our distress;
Some drop of pity, through thy gentleness,
Upon us wretched women let now fall.
For certes, lord, there is none of us all
That hath not been a duchess or a queen;
Now be we caitives, as it is well seen:                       captives
Thanked be Fortune, and her false wheel,
That *none estate ensureth to be wele.       assures no continuance of
And certes, lord, t'abiden your presence              prosperous estate
Here in this temple of the goddess Clemence
We have been waiting all this fortenight:
Now help us, lord, since it lies in thy might.

"I, wretched wight, that weep and waile thus,
Was whilom wife to king Capaneus,
That starf* at Thebes, cursed be that day:                     died
And alle we that be in this array,
And maken all this lamentatioun,
We losten all our husbands at that town,
While that the siege thereabouten lay.
And yet the olde Creon, wellaway!
That lord is now of Thebes the city,
Fulfilled of ire and of iniquity,
He for despite, and for his tyranny,
To do the deade bodies villainy,                                insult
Of all our lorde's, which that been y-slaw,                       *slain
Hath all the bodies on an heap y-draw,
And will not suffer them by none assent
Neither to be y-buried, nor y-brent,                             burnt
But maketh houndes eat them in despite."
And with that word, withoute more respite
They fallen groff, and cryden piteously;                    grovelling
"Have on us wretched women some mercy,
And let our sorrow sinken in thine heart."

This gentle Duke down from his courser start
With hearte piteous, when he heard them speak.
Him thoughte that his heart would all to-break,
When he saw them so piteous and so mate                         abased
That whilom weren of so great estate.
And in his armes he them all up hent,                     raised, took
And them comforted in full good intent,
And swore his oath, as he was true knight,
He woulde do *so farforthly his might        as far as his power went
Upon the tyrant Creon them to wreak,                            avenge
That all the people of Greece shoulde speak,
How Creon was of Theseus y-served,
As he that had his death full well deserved.
And right anon withoute more abode                               *delay
His banner he display'd, and forth he rode
To Thebes-ward, and all his, host beside:
No ner Athenes would he go nor ride,                            nearer
Nor take his ease fully half a day,
But onward on his way that night he lay:
And sent anon Hippolyta the queen,
And Emily her younge sister sheen                       bright, lovely
Unto the town of Athens for to dwell:
And forth he rit; there is no more to tell.                       rode

The red statue of Mars with spear and targe                     shield
So shineth in his white banner large
That all the fieldes glitter up and down:
And by his banner borne is his pennon
Of gold full rich, in which there was y-beat                   stamped
The Minotaur which that he slew in Crete
Thus rit this Duke, thus rit this conqueror
And in his host of chivalry the flower,
Till that he came to Thebes, and alight
Fair in a field, there as he thought to fight.
But shortly for to speaken of this thing,
With Creon, which that was of Thebes king,
He fought, and slew him manly as a knight
In plain bataille, and put his folk to flight:
And by assault he won the city after,
And rent adown both wall, and spar, and rafter;
And to the ladies he restored again
The bodies of their husbands that were slain,
To do obsequies, as was then the guise.                         custom

But it were all too long for to devise                        describe
The greate clamour, and the waimenting,                      lamenting
Which that the ladies made at the brenning                     burning
Of the bodies, and the great honour
That Theseus the noble conqueror
Did to the ladies, when they from him went:
But shortly for to tell is mine intent.
When that this worthy Duke, this Theseus,
Had Creon slain, and wonnen Thebes thus,
Still in the field he took all night his rest,
And did with all the country as him lest.                      pleased
To ransack in the tas of bodies dead,                             heap
Them for to strip of *harness and of *****,           armour *clothes
The pillers* did their business and cure,                 pillagers
After the battle and discomfiture.
And so befell, that in the tas they found,
Through girt with many a grievous ****** wound,
Two younge knightes *ligging by and by             lying side by side
Both in one armes, wrought full richely:             the same armour
Of whiche two, Arcita hight that one,
And he that other highte Palamon.
Not fully quick, nor fully dead they were,                       *alive
But by their coat-armour, and by their gear,
The heralds knew them well in special,
As those that weren of the blood royal
Of Thebes, and *of sistren two y-born.            born of two sisters
Out of the tas the pillers have them torn,
And have them carried soft unto the tent
Of Theseus, and he full soon them sent
To Athens, for to dwellen in prison
Perpetually, he n'olde no ranson.               would take no ransom
And when this worthy Duke had thus y-done,
He took his host, and home he rit anon
With laurel crowned as a conquerour;
And there he lived in joy and in honour
Term of his life; what needeth wordes mo'?
And in a tower, in anguish and in woe,
Dwellen this Palamon, and eke Arcite,
For evermore, there may no gold them quite                    set free

Thus passed year by year, and day by day,
Till it fell ones in a morn of May
That Emily, that fairer was to seen
Than is the lily upon his stalke green,
And fresher than the May with flowers new
(For with the rose colour strove her hue;
I n'ot* which was the finer of them two),                      know not
Ere it was day, as she was wont to do,
She was arisen, and all ready dight,                           dressed
For May will have no sluggardy a-night;
The season pricketh every gentle heart,
And maketh him out of his sleep to start,
And saith, "Arise, and do thine observance."

This maketh Emily have remembrance
To do honour to May, and for to rise.
Y-clothed was she fresh for to devise;
Her yellow hair was braided in a tress,
Behind her back, a yarde long I guess.
And in the garden at *the sun uprist                           sunrise
She walketh up and down where as her list.
She gathereth flowers, party white and red,                    mingled
To make a sotel garland for her head,            subtle, well-arranged
And as an angel heavenly she sung.
The greate tower, that was so thick and strong,
Which of the castle was the chief dungeon
(Where as these knightes weren in prison,
Of which I tolde you, and telle shall),
Was even joinant to the garden wall,                         adjoining
There as this Emily had her playing.

Bright was the sun, and clear that morrowning,
And Palamon, this woful prisoner,
As was his wont, by leave of his gaoler,
Was ris'n, and roamed in a chamber on high,
In which he all the noble city sigh,                               saw
And eke the garden, full of branches green,
There as this fresh Emelia the sheen
Was in her walk, and roamed up and down.
This sorrowful prisoner, this Palamon
Went in his chamber roaming to and fro,
And to himself complaining of his woe:
That he was born, full oft he said, Alas!
And so befell, by aventure or cas,                              chance
That through a window thick of many a bar
Of iron great, and square as any spar,
He cast his eyes upon Emelia,
And therewithal he blent and crie

A quick right turn is accompanied by a shiver
Which just might balance the quivering intestines.
It is best friends, it is best friends…if we
Keep our eyes focused on the same horizon,
The locus is only half forward, half circled,
And it’s almost as if this river is natural..
It’s almost as if it’s course was cut before it’s spring was opened.
The salmon drive stealthy…relentless to the pressure,
Thinking that in conflict there might emerge something fresher,
Fresher than telephone calls with Alice
As she faced the looking glass
Or the crass manner of reaching for
An always-empty chalice.

But the shiver in itself was enough to explain his expectations
And the gaze of something greater gave him visions of creation
Shelter from the storm
Her silhouette has him splintered
Splintered in hope and doubt that the fates beat the furies

Dear Nike,

No better felling then when I get that new shoe smell
Fresher than a spring breeze
Like a wizard making a new spell
I reach out and grab my Nikes
Pull them on my feet
They are
Comfy as a the softest cloud
Smooth as the purest silk
Magnificent as a majestic eagle spreading its wings to fly off into a deep red sunset
They make me feel relaxed as  sitting in the shade on a warm summer day

When I wear you
I feel as strong as the Rock lifting a thousand pounds
faster than Usain Bolt shattering a world record and hearing fans cream his name
All the pressure off
It's just my Nikes and I

I'm a blur with my nikes
Fast as a cheetah sprinting after a desperately bounding antelope
Can't even see me

People try to keep up
All they do is trip up
When they glance up from the cold hard ground thick mud covering their face
All they see are my beautiful piercing green Nikes

Running down the court
Legs pumping
Muscles flexing
So much sweat pouring off my face its like a raging river
I taste the sourness of salt in my mouth
Next thing you know
It's all over
The buzzer roars
Everyones jumps on their feet
All eyes locked on the ball flying through the air
Fans screaming like angry banshees so loud it could make you deaf
Swoosh
And it's all over

There's a reason Nike means victory
It's because no one can even compete
Before the battle is started they've already been beat

People who don't wear them
Just haven't realized
that the shoes they wear are inferior
Do their shoes give them the power to jump one thousand feet
Sprint at the speed of light
Make exery shot they take
No

On the torn up field
On the scuffed up court
It doesn't matter

When I wear my Nikes
They make me fly
Around the world
Through white wispy clouds surrounded by beautiful baby blue sky
Across the endless oceans full of green and turquoise churning water and silver jumping fish
Through fields full of long dark green grass
Feeling the wind blow through my face like an angry hurricane
Its like I'm in the flashing streets Hong kong
Nike shoe game is just too strong

Love, Zach

i'm catching my breath,
harder and harder each time.
polishing every idea till every single one is perfect
crushing ice cubes, i need some water
like a plant, i need to grow
i need constant growth
who am i
if there's no getting better
i don't wanna live
in the world without a goal
it's pointless then
let me rest
new ideas came
they need my attention right now
let this one sink
in its flesh
i won't cry after it
there will be plenty to come
newer
fresher
better
more creative
let this one die
let chaos take over

1397

It sounded as if the Streets were running
And then—the Streets stood still—
Eclipse—was all we could see at the Window
And Awe—was all we could feel.

By and by—the boldest stole out of his Covert
To see if Time was there—
Nature was in an Opal Apron,
Mixing fresher Air.

I have been eating flowers recently and hoping that one day I will be able to restart the garden in my heart that you tore apart. The light will shine again and roses will bloom to the steady staccato beat of my pulse, daisies and sunflowers rising up from the ground to create their own sunrise. Pale pink buds of tulips and bright blue violets will paint my veins with vivid life, the world beautiful again, the air fresher, my heart better.

The more I consume, the less there is of you and more of nature; earth taking over to heal the hurt in my soul. I tell myself this will work, it will succeed eventually; but inside the core of everything there is the pin ***** of reality that leads me back to the truth.

-

For despite everything, I still love you.

First, last, always.

(A.H.Z)

As the warm days of summer give way to chill, and shadows grow longer as days shed their hours.
High winds and rain storms scrub the tired landscape down.
Colours are changing from rich green to gold, from yellow to red and orange to brown.

The grain has been gathered, wheat, barley and oats, cut and collected, sifted and sorted and put into store.
Grown by God, and by man with machine and by effort of hand.
Poppies and stalks now mark the spot, of the return for their labour. The wealth of the land.

Birds follow the tractor, rising and falling, swirling and soaring they move like a cloud.
The farmer is out and turning the stubble into the ground.
Rooks and crows, gulls and wood pigeons, starlings and magpies follow him round.

Hay long since mown is now bailed and in barns, or rolled up and bagged, ferments now in high silage towers.
The countryside has yielded reward for all Adam’s toil.
Work done in rhythm with the seasons, sowing, growing, reaping, ploughing and tilling the soil.

Gathering goodness, from garden, and greenhouse, carrots and courgettes, tomatoes in bunches.
Fresher than any you can get in the shops.
Picking the bounty gleaned from the hedgerow. Rosehips and cobnuts, damsons and hops.

Elder and sorrel, mushrooms and puffballs, sour green crab apples, and brambles in tangles.
Sloes that were missed by the late winter frost.
Not all are pleasant and some really can hurt you, pick only those that you know and trust.

Take full advantage of God’s generosity, share it with gladness, with thanks, there is plenty for all.
Sticky syrups and cider, wines, cordial and beer.
Pies, puddings, sorbets and ice creams, jam, jelly, and chutney and enough pickles to last into next year.

As the warm days of summer give way to chill, and shadows grow longer as days shed their hours.
High winds and rain storms scrub the tired landscape down.
Colours are changing from rich green to gold, from yellow to red and orange to brown.

Weighing in on this pain and pressure,
Want to wake up feeling fresher,
Hurts to see nothing working,
Hearing cackles and smirking,
While my eyes are wide open,
Can't sleep till day light,
Feel the hot rays in strands quite bright,
Lost my mind,
Love to wake up my soul,
Faith is gone out the window,
Purpose is vanished,
Hope has faded,
Routine is as solid
As solid the economy,
Sleepless nights,
Heavy hearts,
Heavy chest,
All the worries and feeling depressed,
Listening slowly as the curtain,
Casts upon me,
The race of life has just begun,
and I'm waiting on starting line,
While they are all at the finish.
But I'm not giving up.
*Oh no, Im not giving up

If I could subjugate the seasons, and bend them full,
Unto my will, then I would make them playthings…
Like pretty maids, all in a row; and all I hate I’d cull.
Of old, I held esteem higher than bards and kings…
When the sickles fell in the corn, as the fire did roar,
The wicker man died, to the druids’ mystical chants.
I was there and in my honor the maidens sang more,
As the blood of the wicked watered growing plants!
My symbol was the ram, the horned beast of Hades,
And I am the wolf that runs wild, amongst the flocks.
My holy temple lies in the realm of the palest shades,
Cast low, yet rising ever higher from infernal rocks…
From such places have I climbed seeking my justice!
Elfin queens have donned the black courtesan gown,
And danced before my throne as many a mistress…
Their grace enhanced, by silvery slippers and crown.
I was the serpent Saint Patrick cast from out of Eire!
The children of Dana spoke of me only in whisper…
Whilst their mother kept tended, for me, a secret fire.
Only she could touch it without one burn or blister…
But her traditions are now the stuff of forgotten myth.
The gods have laid me low, seeking to humble pious,
A spirit wilder than the forest when cloaked in mists!
Though I bow to no tyranny; as a god, I was jealous.
As a man I am lonely and angry at the evils I behold,
Hungry for love and thirsty for what peace I can find.
In the name of desire, I rage until Hell’s fire is cold…
Look beyond my flesh, and do not in hubris be blind.
Know me by my words and know my love is honest,
I offer up my darkness with my light to here confess!

Descent I: The Spire of the Eye

(No heresy of Babylon, was ever so honest…
As that which captured my soul, in conquest.)

To love me, you must take my hand and so enter…
The hidden places, where not just good is centered,
But also evil the like of which you knew not I kept.
If you can understand, sweet dreams blissfully slept,
Then mayhap you can bear the nightmares’ sting…
And when all is so done, more of love we shall sing!
I am the darkness, the eye watching from the spire,
The one you deny, the embodiment of your desires.
I am the shadow, the faces in your mirror’s pane…
The one you fear, as you enter a nightmare domain!
Welcome to my paradise, let me offer you an apple,
As I send you to the Abyss on a steed lithely supple.
Behold the gardens where my kin wait to be free…
The roses there grow reddest, all from infernal seed.
I can lead you beyond the fire, if you take my hand,
For you are but a stranger, in my own strange land!
Behold the desolation, caused by the sins of man…
Would I punish humanity for it, if not for divine ban?
Nay, I am not God nor could I ever be one so aloof.
When I see the innocents who perish in disasters…
I weep for the children the most and I ask for proof,
That God cares for any soul, either here or hereafter.
Do you say wickedness lives, in the hearts of some?
I see it even on high, and wish it could be overcome.
But then somebody hurts me and I cannot forgive…
And in that hour I know why God can be full of fury.
Some pains are too much, to endure and saintly live,
I too was a child, and not a one wept for my worry!
Is my pity a service, to those who cannot be saved?
The answer is in no scripture, or on altars engraved.

Let me look into your eyes so that I might wonder,
Whilst you gaze into my own to behold the thunder!
Let us shake the heavens, until they are darkened…
Whilst those that slumber, below, violently awaken!

Descent II: The Feast of the Fallen

(No heresy of Atlantis, was ever quite blest…
As that which, here, has been shown interest.)

Behold the table I have set out for one great feast…
The wraith-maids come to dance in gowns creased,
By night-threads woven by the spiders of the pits…
As screams of the ******, provide a song most fit!
You ask, why God would create a domain like this,
A twisted realm of mad passions: and madder bliss?
It was the creation of the darkest dreams of angels,
And gods fallen, who found a home within the hells.
Where the elfin kin were remade into a dark image,
In a time lost to all history, unrecorded by any sage.
When love is denied me, I am a prisoner of the ice,
Which sweeps across my heart by sorrow’s device.
Fire and ice lie before you, within my soul reflected,
The origin of this nightmare you dream unprotected!
Do you feel the chill that I kept from all who’d pry?
Now you know how awful is loneliness, and why…
To bear it any longer would be verily to lose myself.
Far better is companionship, for the spiritual health!
Oh the irony of the ignorant who called me maker…
Knowing not, the blasphemy to which they commit!
Woe unto the repast prepared for them by a baker,
Who serves them the poisons to which they submit!
Only love can provide release that passion can seal.
Awaken me from my nightmare, with a love so real!
Black webs stretch across gulfs where vultures soar,
And I know how terrible goodness can be, unveiled.
For there is a terrible righteousness at Hell’s door…
Hotter than the sun over the waves man once sailed!
More terror lies in light too bright for eyes to handle,
Than the dimly flickering fires of one lit black candle.

What reflects in a mirror, naught but flesh opposed,
Is less real than midnight’s embrace, hotly imposed!
What you see in my face, only a tiny facet of a form,
Is something primal and untamed as a raging storm!

Descent III: The Light of the Dawn

(No heresy of Gnosis, which many did contest,
Was ever so revealing as what I’ve addressed.)

In a ziggurat in the center of an Eden grown so wild,
Sits enthroned, the dawn star in the form of a child…
Her power undaunted, despite her unassuming form!
For the heart is the domain, of the angel of the morn.
She is the light in the darkness that I have described,
Her soul is the flame, from which sinners would hide.
Would you sacrifice your wickedness unto her now?
Only light can forgive darkness, by grace endowed!
The banner of a ****** cross on white, unashamed,
Flies from that temple I share, with she I just named.
How many died beneath it, in the days of the sword?
What lies were men told, that evil was God’s word!
Armor is heavy, when the cause of arms is not just…
It shines less brightly, when bloodshed makes it rust.
You were not there when I knelt and wept, faithless,
Abandoning God, and lusting for a kinder mistress…
But if you would love me, you must know its’ cause!
For love I ****** myself, and did so without pause.
Through Sophia, and the child angel, God illustrated,
Unto me, the depth of the mercy I doubted did exist.
Oh Sophia, first mother of mine, how oft I hesitated,
Blind to the grace that, within us all, does so persist!
Just as in grief Athena gave herself unto tragic death,
I gave myself unto the night, for I had not a thing left.
There are sights that cannot be unseen by inner mind,
And there are sensations that cannot be taken away!
Tear away the outer garment and there you can find,
All that man is truly clad in, hidden from light of day!
To the left hand is the path: to the right hand of glory,
It is the winding way I took, throughout my life story.

Let me show you the glories of the hour of witching,
When a single tear can break one’s spirit, twitching!
Let me take you to the ball where the undead dance,
Where the dire ravens gather and the satyrs prance!

Descent IV: The Madness of Love

(No heresy of Cain, which was silenced to rest,
Was ever so damning as what I just confessed.)

For love, a brother’s very blood would I so give up.
I would heat it like a tea and pour it in a golden cup!
For love, my very flesh would I scourge, and scar…
I would offer my pain to every god to bottle in a jar!
For love, all of the earth would I conquer: lay waste.
I would build it anew, all its’ fresher delights to taste!
All of these wicked deeds would I do for one I love,
But I would never forsake her, not for angels above!
We have all had the frightful thoughts rise, unbidden,
Of which these are but a sample, of what lies hidden.
Am I good because I did not commit such mad acts?
No, for the thoughts were still mine, sharp as an axe!
To know there is evil within us is wisdom of a sort…
It means good is within to define it, granting comfort.
Once was I a god, but fell because of the inner dark,
Growing jealous and wanton, until I would not hark!
Love redeemed me before, and it can do so again…
If you love me you can, with a kiss, my torment end.
I am not a beast for awaiting beauty’s loving bounty,
Though all who live have within them a true monster.
People misunderstand much, and oft speak contrary,
Seeing not the raven until it flies up under their rafter.
Be a goddess in mortal flesh, and share my throne…
So life can be a dream, beyond mere flesh and bone.
Perhaps one must sin to know salvation’s soft touch,
Making the blessed into hedonists hungry for feeling.
I have known ambrosial delights far beyond all such,
Not by denial but by an embrace that left me reeling!
It is man, who first called me the Prince of Darkness,
Even though, of old, no such title did I once possess.

What sacrifices, as are offered: to redeem the fallen,
Cannot bring them salvation as a flower gives pollen!
What boon you grant, must be for only we to enjoy,
Cannily breaching my soul like the gates of old Troy!

Descent V: The Paradise of Perdition

(No heresy of Lucifer, with a rebellious zest…
Could shine so brightly, from east unto west.)

Trapped in memories, and tormented by my visions,
I’ll struggle ever onward making the only decisions…
Which ever my destiny allowed me freedom to bear.
If you are lost in my nightmare you had best beware!
No one can save you if you hold not love most dear,
And cannot endure darkness to conquer your fear…
For terrible is the beauty of the paradise of perdition.
But I would rather be bound there, than by tradition!
There is freedom in darkness and light there aplenty,
Not tainted by those who sold their faith, for money.
If fallen I am, at least in one way I am still redeemed:
Ever was I honest, and by me no one was deceived.
My sins have been great, and I reveled in them all…
This is where they dwell, amidst the flowers ever tall.
You have seen the surface of my darkness laid bare,
Walking in the wastelands where few would so dare.
If you love me, we can make the desolations bloom,
Build a heaven in our hell and let light replace gloom!
Joy is hedonistic, but modern man dulls it insensibly.
So why not partake, of what others fear to indulge?
The fruit that I offer you is born of true irresistibility.
The twilight of the gods begins not without a tumult!
Tell me if you be, such an adventurous and fair maid.
As Persephone was to Hades, be unto me: unafraid!
Let me touch you softly, and show you carnal virtue,
So that all the things they taught you were wicked…
Are revealed as pleasures, when passion pays a due.
Let us live and love with zest, on finer ambrosia fed!
The flames that scorch others, will be for us sensual,
In Hell is that paradise granted to the true individual.

Let me be swept away, by tides of passion carried,
Where any wish might be granted but never harried!
Let us do as we will, and that shall be our only law,
When the Abyss comes for us, we dive in its’ maw!

Ave Eous! Amor Aeternus. Gloria Paradiso Inferni!
Amorem et Lucem! Ignus Aeturnus. Ave Luci via!

fables of pheromones have me
searching for lust outside of
learning to love and
a genuine care for the
human race.

hearts left at bedside, as
normal love set aside
and frightened lovers
turned to a fresher side
of new conditions
and a newer rendition
of what we call love.

Soon you will see,
that it's not about you or me.

and that it's just like methamphetamine.

making your heart race by just
looking at her face, and an
expression of depth;
like getting away with theft
of a real love.

Night is so much better.
Fresher air ≈
Brighter stars ♦
Tighter hugs ♪

Its the only time I feel truely awake.

Hello there, I’m Heidi.  I’m 17 years old but I’m no longer alive.  I was 16 years old when I died.  It’s been a year since I’ve breathed the earthly oxygen.  The air up here is so much fresher than down there.  It’s quite unbelievable.  If you listen closely, I’ll happily tell you my story even though it’s not very happy.  If you're emotional, please take a moment to make sure there's a box of tissues handy, because by the time I reach the end, you might need some.  I’m just letting you know.  It’s not a happy ending.  Anyways, have you ever fallen in love?  Not the kind of love that you confused with the real kind.  I’m talking about true, heart pumping love.  The kind where you'll do absolutely anything for, anything in the world.  Even if it kills you.  The kind that if it starts slipping away, you'll do whatever it takes to hold it together.  You’re probably asking yourself, "16 and in love?"  Yea.  Well, here is my story.  
It all started with the day Sammy’s dad got a new job out of state.  We lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for as long as I could remember and her dad's new job was all the way over in Long Beach, California.  "This can’t be happening," I thought to myself.  "How will I survive without Sammy?  She’s literally my life, the air I simply breathe every day.  She’s the only person I fully trust with my whole heart.  She’s the only person in my life worth talking to.  She’s so incredibly sweet, the sweetest girl I’ve ever met.  She doesn’t judge, she doesn’t cause any trouble, she’s real down to earth, well put together, and smart.  Everything."  It seemed too perfect, almost dream-like.  You know, the dream that you never want to wake up from.  Well, there I was living it and I didn’t ever want to wake up.  
People use to call me "The Dreamer" because I was always in a great mood.  I was always smiling and taking big risks.  I only took those risks if I absolutely thought it was worth it.  Which most of the time I thought it was.  In my opinion, I thought I was too positive but not cocky.  I was definitely not cocky at all.  I was simply positive and cheerful and constantly trying to cheer everyone else up.  Especially Sammy, I secretly thought that I had super powers.  I somehow summoned a power deep within myself that could make real smiles appear on people’s faces.  Real smiles!  The ones that create a bundle of energy instead of taking it away.  You know, fake smiles, they are forced as a result of wasted energy.  The only thing better than real smiles are real laughs.  My energy comes from laughs and smiles from other people.  When I created laughter and smiles, my energy level would rise to the top of the meter and I would be confident about everything.  I would feel indestructible, and nothing could ever hurt me.  So I thought.
When Sammy and I said our goodbyes that day, I surely didn’t want that to be the end.  I didn’t want that moment to be the last.  So I promised her that I would look for her in the future and we could get back together.  We’d keep in touch everyday with texts, calls, and the internet.  She got on the plane and that was that.  I didn’t cry.  She didn’t cry.  Until our backs were toward each other, then I couldn’t hold it.  We knew we’d see each other again and we were sure of it.  She knew I had a plan up my sleeve and that I was going to make sure everything was going to be alright.  Trust, number one thing in a relationship.
The next day I couldn’t stand it.  I couldn’t put up with the empty feeling anymore.  She wasn’t physically here.  I missed seeing her face, her smile, and her eyes.  I missed her laughter and her hugs the most.  My energy was dying.  So I thought up a scheme and I was going to follow through with it.  I called her up and told her that I was coming to see her.  Soon.  
I searched all my drawers and pockets for all my money.  I was going to have to be able to afford a one-way plane ticket and maybe a hotel if Sammy's parents wouldn't let me stay with them.  I wanted to plan for the worst just in case.  I wouldn't want to show up with no money and assume they'd let me live with them.  What if they wouldn't, then I'd be *******.  So after a while of looking around, I came up with 510 dollars.  Enough for a plane ticket and a cheap hotel for a few days.  I’ll have to find a job for sure.  But first, I'd have to go online and find the cheapest airline to use.
I picked out a few sets of clothes and fit them into a single bag.  I didn’t want anything slowing me down.  I didn’t tell anyone I was leaving or where I was going.  Besides Steve, my neighbor, I got him to drop me off at the airport.  We waited in line to buy a ticket to the first flight to California.  Fortunately, the soonest one was in a few hours and there was still a few seats left.  He walked me to the security check and then they wouldn't let him past without a ticket, so he wrapped his arms around me gave me a tight squeeze and he told me that he'd miss me an awful lot and if I ever needed any help to just call him and he would help out as best he could.  Which made me feel a ton more relaxed.  He had tears in his eyes when we separated.  I remembered saying, "I’ll text you when I get there."  I assured him that I would be just fine and he had nothing to worry about.  I also thanked him for being such a great friend.  He really was and always will be.  He stood there as I attempted to walk away, but then I turned and had to go back for another hug.  Then I was sure I was ready to go.  The second attempt to walk away was more successful than the first.  I felt him watch me the whole way till I turned the corner, out of his sight.  
I sat in the terminal for a long time, analyzing the room.  I remember that there was a cute little blonde girl with her dad, a guy with a mysterious black hat and matching trench coat, a tall thin girl with a guitar, an average looking group of 20 year old guys and a few old women.  Those were the only people that stood out, there was many more but I don’t particularly remember them.  After a while, they started calling seat numbers that were allowed to board, starting with the back.  My ticket said that I was seat number 22.  When they called 20 through 30, I got up and found my seat in the big jet.  The butterflies in my tummy are as hyper as possible.  I imagined myself with a butterfly net trying to capture all the fluttering creatures inside me so I could release them on the outside.  They were all crammed in there, fighting each other for space, and it was an unbalanced feeling.  I put my bag under my seat, sat down in seat 22 and decided to make a quick call to Sammy.  I told her I was on my way and I should be there in a few hours.  She sounded extraordinarily excited which made my heart pound.  She made the violent butterflies stop their fighting.  She also told me that her parents agreed to pick me up at the airport.  How nice of them!  Then a lady told me to get off the phone.  I thought it was rude of her to say that to me, but I don’t like making people mad, so I listened to her.  The thing I remember the most is when I told Sammy that I love her, with honesty in her voice she said it back.  Then I hung up and then I finally turn my phone off.  As soon as everyone was in and completely ready, a woman’s voice spoke on the income system.  She said something about there being flight attendants going around checking everyone’s bags and seatbelts to make sure they're secure.  There was the sound of my pulse in my ears and it was louder than anything else.  It was difficult to catch everything she was saying.  I buckled my seat belt but I left a lot of room for movement.  Before I knew it, we were up in the air.  Then I closed my eyes and that’s all I remember.  Don’t ask me how I fell asleep.  All the excitement must've made me exhausted.
The next thing I know, all of a sudden, I was thrown from my seat and I hit my head off the window and it sent sharp shooting pains through my nerves.  Everyone gasped at the same exact moment, and I had no idea what was going on.  I don’t think anyone did but I think we all knew it wasn’t good.  The feeling was like standing in an elevator, having the cables snap, and being dropped from 100 stories high.  Only it was a million times worse.  I was being thrown around everywhere.  I couldn't hold on or even fight back.  Everyone was in mad panic trying to grasp anything near to sturdy themselves.  I managed to get a glimpse out the window to see the clouds shaking.  That told me that the plane wasn’t working right.  Something absolutely horrible was going to happen, the feeling was so strong.  I heard a loud click and then a thud and I caught a glance of the little blonde girl across the aisle from me get hit in the face with a huge metal suite case.  It hit her so hard that it knocked her clear out of this world.  She fell limp and her head lay still on the floor, blood oozing out.  The puddle started streaking toward me, it told me that the plane was tilting or rolling over.  I noticed that her dad wasn’t around.  I stumbled across the aisle and held her in my arms.  I remember my vision being really blurry probably from tears or the plane shaking, or both.  I patted her cheeks to try and wake her, but she was out.  I held her tight and quickly took the time to look around for help but then realized there was no help.  Every ounce of calmness was clearly gone.  I set the girl in the seat and buckled her in.  I wasn’t sure if that would do anything but it seemed like a good idea.  The plane stayed tilted on its side then shook and it literally felt like an earth quake.  My stomach started twisting; the nose of the plane was dipping forward.  I took another look out the window.  My head was spinning, thoughts scattered everywhere.  Everything was moving way too fast and I couldn’t keep up.  I couldn’t concentrate or focus on anything.  I stood up and that was it.  After that, everything went black and then a bright white light took over.  Eventually something happened and I was floating above looking down.  It was a horrid sight, everything so lifeless and dead, unmoving.  Besides for the flames, they were more alive than anything.  Smashed metal, sparks and fire, soundless noise, and in the middle of nowhere, what was going to happen to all these bodies?  
Later, I somehow channeled my sight into a different location.  It’s been hours later and I saw Sammy and her parents in the airport.  They were anxiously waiting for my plane to arrive.  Little did they know, I wasn’t coming.  Hours and hours passed only making them more and more worried and confused.  I felt horrible.  I wish I could send them a message from up here.  They went to look at the departure and arrival screen and there was no time recorded on the screen for the flight they were looking for.  It was completely wiped off the board.  Her dad led them to the main desk to ask the man behind the counter if the plane had arrived yet.  A sorrowful look fell upon the man’s face.  He blinked away tears and you could tell he was searching for the right words to say.  He started to open his mouth but then failed to force words out.  He swallowed a gulp of air and he shook his head.  Something turned all their attention to the 40 inch flat screen on the wall where there was a lady reporting “heart breaking news” about a tragic accident.  He pointed Sammy’s attention to the television behind him, although she was already deeply fascinated.  The news reporter explained and then there were live videos being shown from a chopper that was looking down at the accident.  Sammy cupped her hands over her mouth.  Tears immediately leaked down her face.  Her parents were crying too.  Sammy collapsed to her knees.  I felt like I was standing right there watching everything but I couldn’t feel my feet.  I floated over to Sammy who was sitting on the floor with her face buried in her hands.  Her mom knelt next to her with her arms braced around her.  I waved my arms and shouted, "Look I’m right here!  Please stop crying."  But no one saw me or heard me.  I went over to Sammy and tried to grab her face to make her look at me, but I couldn’t feel anything.  I looked down at my hands and they were transparent.  I panicked and I knew this couldn’t be happening.  But it was.  I was dead.  
I channeled into another location, my house.  My parents were watching the same news channel but they didn’t know I was on that plane.  They didn’t know I was missing.  They didn’t know I was dead until weeks later.  When I didn’t come home that night, they called the cops and sent out search parties.  Whelp, they found me.  They identified my body in the plane.  My parents didn’t believe it because they had no idea how I would've got on the plane in the first place.  Then when they brought my body back to bury it, it was proof to them that it was fact me.  I absolutely hated watching everyone cry.  I hated that I couldn’t do anything about it.  Everyone that I left was left in silence.  I at least got to tell Sammy that I love her.  I got a last hug out of Steve.  Those were the most important people in my life.  I couldn’t feel worse at this moment.  
I felt like I was doing the right thing, chasing my dreams.
The dreamer thought she could fly.

I spit that non fiction, when i say life is my addiction, I'm such a contradiction;
you can call me COURAGE the cowardly. don't OVERSTEP your boundary.
the lames seem to bow to me, and if life were a *****. i'd charge her by the hourly.
i feel FREE like a SEED, in the wind
there's no need to pretend
that no thought is more electric than your intent, i intend
to manifest success. my game infrared,
sounds like a different dialect, fresher than disinfect, dangerous like Russian roulette.
when its us or them
the beast against men
melanin augments; to increase my inner G for the main event!

A mansion reeking of mystery and ***
Unlike your parties, the brain is the hex
Who's got the most phantastic story
Stitch the real hunters with unreal quarries
By candlelight she writes in her mind
Death-obsessed, web-like bind
Study the corpse, exhume the dead
Fresher the better, revive the head
Harvest the organs, strike a chord
Of nerve tissue and spinal cords
Touch your jutting collar bone
Think there's no place like home
Electric frogs and pinwheel rats
What do you think about that
Run from the monster disfigured
It's trying to hug you like a gun hugs a trigger
Go worship all your seraphim
Yeah, it's a freak, but you made him
Where have you gone Prometheus
Were you our guest or just an atheist
Yeah, wonders come in clear handcuffs
You're only safe anonymous
Oh, it's dead and it's jiving in no man's hands
Oh, it's alive and it's lying in no man's land
Electric frogs and pinwheel rats
What do you think about that
Run from the monster disfigured
It's trying to hug you like a gun hugs a trigger
Go worship all your seraphim
Yeah, it's a freak, but you made him

It just feels like yesterday


It just feels like yesterday , I learnt how to brush
It just feels like yesterday,  I had my first crush
It just feels like yesterday, I  came home late from the playground
It just feels like yesterday, I discovered the earth is round
All these tiny moments I wish they would last
Suddenly I realise I'm growing up too fast.

It just feels like yesterday, my mother waited for me at the bus stop
It just feels like yesterday , I tasted my little sister's teardrop
It just feels like yesterday, I watched the sky change colours
It just feels like yesterday, I realised about the world and us there is so much to discover
All these tiny moments I wish they would last
Suddenly I realise I'm growing up too fast.

It just feels like yesterday , high school began
It just feels like yesterday, I wanted my life to have a plan
It just feels like yesterday,I got my first mobile phone
It just feels like yesterday, I wondered what it's like to be on my own
All these tiny moments I wish they would last
Suddenly I realise I'm growing up too fast.

It just feels like yesterday, I dreamed of being a fresher
It just feels like yesterday, I succumbed to peer pressure
It just feels like yesterday, I couldn't get enough of Barney, Swat cats , justice league and Hey Arnold
It just feels like yesterday , India finally got its McDonald's
All these tiny moments I wish they would last
Suddenly I realise I'm growing up too fast.

It just feels like yesterday, I turned an undergraduate
It just feels like yesterday, studying architecture was fate
It just feels like yesterday, I was surrounded by my family and friends
It just feels like yesterday, I realised its never too late to make amends
All these tiny moments I wish they would last
Suddenly I realise I'm growing up too fast.