Though tomorrow is there,
But I won't be there.
Nobody care.
World doesn't stop for any one of us.
People come and go.

The sky will still be blue,
While mine remains dark.

I won't be there.
It's just another candle burning
But now it's dim.

Though tomorrow is there,
I won't be there.

Life is a train bound for the divine,
many souls will get on and off.
Some will reach the last stop,
and others will get off early.
Some will get on by mistake,
and others will sit comfortably.
Enjoy your journey, "and remember to leave your luggage before the end."

you can't stop hearing it,
that signal, being transmitted
on all channels,
filling those frequencies to the brim.
not a single gap in between
for your own voice;
too quiet for others to notice,
loud enough to make you paranoid.
what if they know it's there,
but would rather pretend
for the sake of not getting involved
with another basket case?
what if there's no one else?
what if you made them up
so that you wouldn't feel as lonely?
the ups and downs of laughter,
interrupted by helpless sobs.
there might be someone out there,
but all you hear is noise;
too distant for others to notice,
too intrusive for you to ignore.
transmitted on all channels,
not a single pause in between
for your own voice
sending out a distress message,
wondering if anyone knows
you're still here.

". . .THE WONDROUS ARCHITECTURE OF THE WORLDE. . . ."

I laugh
the road over the Hog's Back
closed because....it melted

was the sun ever so
back in your day
eh Kit?

and what do I read
Mr. Marlowe?
why words, Kit, words

that word magician
Dr. Burgess he presumes
to bring you back

to life again
and so it seems
I see your blood Kit

streaming in the firmament
nay only a Deptford sunset
dragged screaming from memory

your blood upon the page Kit...
mere cherry juice it
stains the words

and so to Deptford I
do go
thanks to Madame Remembrance

I a poor
purveyor of poetry
clutching at words

and here
a great reckoning
not  in a little room

but on a lost street
staining the scene
a sickly yellow

and so enough
of Prologue...
Act 1 begins

a smiling ruffian
see his knife smiles too
the blade eager for blood

alas I
in so much pain I
have no fear of death

indeed would welcome
the flicked knife
if it would release me

from my life
a man prepared
to die if it be so

"Come live with me and be
my love..." I doth quote
in my best Passionate Shepard

"Wot?" he wots
scared of my insouciance
the ghost of Marlowe by my side

ahhh he the very villain
a scar from eye to smile
he aims to do the same to me

"Where rogue did
they get thee?" I mock
"VILLAINS 'R' US?"

Marlowe's ghost laughs
"Aye lad...ay lad
to him!"

"Only one of us..."
I warn my hellhound
"....will come out of this alive!"

I pause for effect
"And I'm afraid
it won't be( hee hee ) thee!"

I take a determined step
towards my would-be
now trembling killer

who all this wordage
being too much for him
he flees

ahhh the glint of words
defeats the glint of steel
he my Ortygius

"What sort of Feend,, or spirit of the earth,
Or Monster turned to manly shape
Or of what world or melted he be made...?"

I declaim to an audience
of cats and cans and
other streetly filth

I...I. . .unable to
find the next line
and so I etc., etc., etc.

and once more
I am of Guildford yet again
30 years or more away

and there melts a road
upon the Hog's Back
and I laugh to be alive

"Doth teach vs all to have aspiring mindes:
Our soules, whose faculties can comprehend
The wondrous architecture of the worlde.."

**

Ha ha spent all this morning writing this after Jan came in and told me about the melting road! On the hottest longest day of the year for 40 years I was reading Anthony Burgess A Dead Man in Deptford and remember one of only my two visits there. Of course this is where Marlowe was killed/assassinated.

For seven years after a head injury I was in immense pain and would have been grateful to be taken out of it...so my poor villain had met a man who didn't mind dying....hence all the verbiage and wordage.

Reunion

One bright day, in the middle
Of July two great loves
Got up

to Fight.

There were no more

Kisses.

One Great Love waited
while the other
Spit on his hands
      And went back to work.

It's the heat that makes me

Crazy.

I am fertilized with the
salt of years.  


I

Sadness has

Accomplish

So long ago a time.

That time has scratched

you

like a tattoo

onto the outline of my
body..

I remain in my old age

Yours to do
With me some
things

Where there is little time
for hand candy

Or

Tears.


Caroline Shank


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