Initially she began contacting me over the course of a year or so and increasingly over the last few months she started visiting me, helping me, caring for me and occasionally employing me in different ways.

She’d just had a break up a few weeks before, explaining that things hadn’t been right in the relationship for some time!

She presents herself as respectful, thoughtful, gentle, kind and considerate and after what seemed to be a very short length of time; unexpectedly declared that she had feelings for me; regarding love, admiration, desire and some other adventures.

She then began to bombarded me with love talk; occupying around 70% of my time gaining my trust, I was swept off my feet; she took a great deal of interest in me, learning everything about me, what I liked, where I would go, always asking what I was thinking feeling, how she could help and I was flattered and she was charming, though a little awkward at times.

As our friendship grew she started sharing her back story, including some tragic life experiences; she vilified her past lovers, and ex-partners and branded them as crazy, or bitter liars and troubled souls; slowly gaining my sympathy, whilst securing my allegiance, and keeping me on side; keeping me close; drawing on my compassion loyalty & trust!

During intimate moments she would sometimes seem a little awkward, false, over enthusiastic or a little insincere, and I made allowances for this given my knowledge of her backstory.
Re: (tragic events & experiences)

She began to choose and buy me clothes; outfits, take me shopping, gradually altering my outward image and appearance.

She introduced me to her friends; but was careful to keep me and them at arms-length, I realise (((Now))) that she was building an alternative profile of me in their minds and that the people she introduced to me rarely exhibited the behaviors or characteristic that I was led to expect.

She soon started to embroil me in her own rituals and compulsive behavior's, explaining that tasks needed to be performing in very specific ways to prevent her getting distressed!

She made many promises : ‘The hook’ It was my expectation i.e. waiting for some of those promises to materialise, that kept me hanging on the hook; As this increased her control and I think exited her too.
(Next to none of her promises came to fruition!)

She gradually had a hand in almost every aspect of my life i.e. my home, my work, my friends, family, my finances, the way I dressed, the food I ate and many other things besides, much of which I didn’t realise until our relationship was finally over. and I was left empty.
(In every way)

She often took immense pleasure in duping, individuals or companies out of something through theft, shoplifting, or getting something for nothing, a profiteer, a chancer!

To question or challenge her authority would result in seeing her facade slip and watch her decline into meltdown. It's at that point, she would lose composure, and I would see her irrationality come to the fore; revealing the real person underneath; childish, contrived and very fragile; It’s as if control is the glue that holds her together, without it she just falls apart, during this time she can’t be consoled and it’s impossible to calm this escalating situation; in fact; at this point that she would attempt to regain control by ‘gas-lighting’ me, she would distort the truth; re: who said what; in an attempt to damage my self-esteem, to make me question my own mind, my words, my intention and any actions, apportioning blame, pointing fingers, making me feel guilty, use rejection, or using hurt, sorrow, tears, shame and even threaten liable or legal action, and then use *** to pacify or regain control over me and my actions.

These episodes would appear often; though irregular and without provocation, I would always be deemed at fault!
I found silent compliance was less stressful than engaging in discussion.    

She never took responsibility or made any apologies for her conduct.

She would set me tasks, and go out a lot, and lie or bend the truth, as to where she had been; I never once challenged this behaviour!

When the relationship was finally deemed over; I was both devastated and relieved.

I began to see my new position in the cycle; as she immediately begin to vilify me in order to give credence to her new backstory, I felt very confused, disorientated and emotionally fraught, shell shocked! questioning, how much of our relationship was true and how much was a lie? For everything I thought I knew was now knitted together with a very complex web of loyalties, lies and half-truths.

Her pattern of repetitive and controlling behaviors have seemingly remained unchanging throughout all her relationships;
(I was covertly contacted by many of her previous partners and various other casualties since leaving her, and they offered shared many familiar experiences.

Within two weeks of being apart (ostracised) she informed me that she had fallen in love (And that my replacement) some-one she admires, someone kept just within the circle, a mutual acquaintance and she even thanked me for bringing them together.

My assumption is that: The grooming of her new lover will have commenced some time ago; her M.O. (Her pattern of behaviors, her techniques have remained fixed.)

She’s incredibly self-conscious, her biggest fear is that other people will find out about her true demeanour, as her image and appearance is everything to her. She's afraid that people will shun her for being so very, very different.
She is a wolf, that’s not to say she is a malevolent creature par-say; she is awesome, beautiful and beguiling in many ways, but you don’t want to be pray.

Full circle:
I too have joined the ranks of the discredited; labelled a liar, troubled, bitter and crazy; she contacted members of my, family, friends and some fellow musicians; and a few folks shared some of these conversations accusations with me.)
I suspect that she may even attempt to vilify me with authorities or threaten some form of legal action; as she has to other lovers in the past.

Despite everything I'm still drawn to her charismatic boldness, her awkward ****** power, her intelligence, and so…I have blocked all means of contact to curtail my own almost pathological interest, for despite everything that’s transpired, her lies, her infidelity, her deceit and appalling behaviour, I'm still drawn, intrigued, bewitched, beguiled by the person hiding underneath the façade.

Now the dust has finally settled; I’ve somehow remained sound of mind.

I don’t feel guilty or loyalty anymore; I’m aware that I’ve been manipulated into thinking and acting in ways that don’t truly represent my character; and that I’m just one of many people seduced by a sociopath; (((another natural human variant)) a person devoid of empathy for others, an entity that’s developed a narrow set of skills and mirroring behaviors, that allows her to blend into mainstream society in order to feel safe, secure and in control.

She would have preferred to keep me hanging on, like many other dependents, adding me to the hareem; a bank of beguiled individuals that she occasionally calls upon to perform simple tasks, or perhaps to monitor and re-assess her clever handwork.

The last time we met she opened with nervous politeness and finished with pleasure and veiled cruelty.
I left feeling drained, uncomfortable and quite fazed.

I’ve written this diary account to help further understand what had transpired during this complicated relationship.
(I’ve published it here with no names, because I think it’s worth understanding, it’s not a warning or a vengeful act.

In any case, Her next lover will ignore any pre-warnings as just bitter ramblings, as most individuals are driven by the natural pursuit of love, which consists of caring intellectual loyalty, *** and romance rather than following advice of some seemingly bitter ex. ( And rightfully so)

Good kind or exciting people further enhance the image and status of a sociopath and they will orbit your small shiny star, tapping into your  valuable energy before  slingshotting into a larger, more attractive orbit of a lager star.
Sadly love, *** and desire is simply a tool for manipulation and gain, it's all about prestige.

I wish her well, like every creature.

Expect high drama.

I can imagine her in Aarhus Kunstmuseum coming across this painting, adjusting her glasses, pursing her lips then breaking out into a big smile. The gallery is almost empty. It is early in the day for visitors, but she is a tourist so allowances are made. Her partner meanwhile is in the Sankt Markus Kirke playing the *****, a 3 manual tracker-action gem built in 1967 by Poul Gerhard Anderson. Sweelink then Bach (the trio sonatas written for his son Johann Christian) are on the menu this morning. In the afternoon she will take herself off to one of the sandy beaches a bus ride away and work on a poem or two. He has arranged to play the grand 83-voice Frobinus ***** in the Cathedral. And so, with a few variations, some illustrious fugues and medley of fine meals in interesting restaurants, their stay in Denmark’s second city will be predictably delightful.
       She is a poet ‘(and a philosopher’, she would say with a grin), a gardener, (old roses and a Jarman-blue shed), a musician, (a recorder player and singer), a mother (four girls and a holy example), but her forte is research. A topic will appear and relentlessly she’d pursue it through visits to favourite libraries in Cambridge and London. In this relentless pursuit she would invariably uncover a web of other topics. These would fill her ‘temporary’ bookcase, her notebooks and her conversation. Then, sometimes, a poem would appear, or not.
          The postcard from Aarhus Kunstmuseum had sat on her table for some weeks until one quiet morning she decided she must ‘research’ this Sosphus Claussen and his colleagues. The poem ‘Imperia’ intrigued her. She knew very little Danish literature. Who did for goodness sake! Hans Christian Anderson she dismissed, but Søren Kierkegaard she had read a little. When a student, her tutor had talked about this author’s use of the pseudonym, a very Socratic device, and one she too had played with as a poet. Claussen’s name was absent from any online lists (Were there really on 60 poets in Danish literature?). Roge appeared, and the painter Willumsen had a whole museum dedicated to his work; this went beyond his El Greco-like canvases into sculpture, graphics, architecture and photography. He looked an interesting character she thought as she browsed his archive. The one thing these three gentlemen held in common was an adherence to the symbolist aesthetic. They were symbolists.
         For her the symbolists were writers, playwrights, artists and composers who in the later years of the 19C wanted to capture absolute truth through indirect methods. They created work in a highly metaphorical and suggestive manner, endowing particular images or objects with symbolic meaning. Her studies in philosophy had brought her to Schopenhauer who considered Art to be ‘a contemplative refuge from the world of strife’. Wasn’t this what the symbolists were all about?
         Her former husband had introduced her to the world of Maurice Maeterlinck through Debussy’s Pelleas and those spare, intense, claustrophobic dramas like Le Malheure Passe. It was interesting how the discovery of the verse of the ancient Chinese had appeared at the time of the symbolist project, and so influenced it. Collections like The Jade Flute that, in speaking of the everyday and the natural world, held with such simplicity rich symbolic messages. Anyway, she didn’t do feelings in her poetry.
           When she phoned the composer who had fathered three of her children he said to her surprise ‘Delius’. He explained: C.F. Keary was the librettist for the two operas Delius composed. Keary wrote a novel called The Journalist (1898) based on Sosphus, a writer who wrote plays ‘heavily laced with symbolism’ and who had also studied art and painted in Paris. Keary knew Claussen, who he described as a poet, novelist, playwright, painter, journalist and eventually a newspaper owner. Claussen was a close friend of Verlaine and very much part of the Bohemian circle in Paris. Claussen and Delius’ circle intersected in the person of Herman Bang, a theatre director who produced Claussen’s Arbedjersken (The Factory Girl). Clauseen wrote an important poem on Bang’s demise, which Delius set to music.
          She was impressed. ‘How is it that you know so much about Delius?’, she asked. He was a modernist, on the experimental edge of contemporary music. ‘Ah’, he replied, ‘I once researched the background to Delius’ Requiem. I read the composer’s Collected Letters (he was a very serious letter writer – sometimes 10 a day), and got stuck into the letters of his Paris years when so many of his friends were Scandinavian émigrés. You once sent me a postcard of a painting by Wilhumsen. It was of Clauseen reading to two of his ‘symbolist’ colleagues. I think you’d picked it up in Denmark. You said, if I recall, that you’d found it ‘irresistible’’.
          And so it was, this painting. Irresistible. She decided that its irresistibility lay in the way the artist had caught the head and body positions of reader and listeners. The arrangement of legs, she thought, says so much about a man. Her husband had always sat with the care embedded in his training as a musician at an instrument. He could slouch like the rest of us, she thought, but when he sat properly, attentive to her words, or listening to their sweet children, he was beautiful. She still loved him, and remembered the many poems she had composed for him, poems he had never seen (she had instructed a daughter to ‘collect’ them for him on her passing). Now, it was he who wrote poetry, for another, for a significant other he had said was his Muse, his soul’s delight, his dearly beloved.
          The wicker chair Sophos Claussen is sitting in, she decided, she would like in her sitting room. It looked the perfect chair for giving a reading. She imagined reading one of her poems from such a chair . . .
 
If daydreams are wrecks of something divine
I’m amazed by the tediousness of mine.
I’m always the power behind throne.
I rescue princes to make my own.
 
‘And so it goes’, she thought, quoting that American author she could never remember. So it goes, this strange life, where it seems possible for the mind to enter an apartment in 19C København and call up the smell of brilliantined hair, cigar tobacco, and the samovar in the kitchen. This poem Imperia I shall probably never read, she thought, though there is some American poet on a Fulbright intent on translating Claussen’s work into English. In a flash of the mind’s miracle she travels to his tiny office in his Mid-West university, surrounded by the detritus of student tutorials. In blue jeans and cowboys boots Devon Whittall gazes out of his third storey window at the falling snow.
 
There is nothing in the world as quiet as snow,
when it gently descends through the air,
muffles your steps
hushes, gently hushes
the voices that speak too loud.
 
There is nothing in the world of a purity like snow's,
swan's down from the white wings of Heaven,
On your hand a flake
is like dew of tears,
White thoughts quietly tread in dance.
 
There is nothing in the world that can gentle like snow,
quietly you listen to the silent ringing.
Oh, so fine a sound,
peals of silver bells,
rings within your innermost heart.
 
And she imagines Helge Rode (his left arm still on his right shoulder) reading his poem Snow in the quiet of the winter afternoon at Ellehammersvej 20 Kastrup Copenhagen. ‘And so it goes,’ she thought, ‘this imagination, flowing on and on. When I am really old like my Grandmother (discharging herself from hospital at 103 because the food was so appalling) will my imagination continue to be as rich and capable as it is today?’
          Closing her notebook and shutting down her laptop, she removed her cat from its cushion on the table, and walked out into her garden, leaving three Danish Symbolists to their readings and deliberations.

I'd like to thank eveybody for their time,
as we conduct this interview in rhyme.
If you have a disability such as mine,
Everybody wants to pry into your mind.
So in this piece im going to address,
all the questions im asked, i intend to put that to rest.
But i can't do this alone, i require some help
Bluestar , thank you so much for providing assistance
Yes thanks, ladies and gentleman, here we go,
What we have here is a fine young specimen,
A young age male with a disability no one knows,
And what is it, you ask?
Why, I don't mind if I do begin to explain him
Epilepsy, that's what it is,
It's what he's got inside
And before you start to ask, no it's not a mental disorder
Do you want to hear the facts or think the fiction, you have to decide
Shall i dispense with the facts?
Hmm with the mighty sword of knowledge ignorance i shall attack!
Epilepsy is a neurological disorder,
It causes me to be prone to seizures.
Not the kind that causes the removal of property,
But occasionally my brain will fry, and my body go crazy,
Like a vampire exposed to holy ether
But don't worry, he's not going to die,
If you're with him when it happens you cannot run and hide
He'll need you to support him, to make sure he's okay
Make sure things are out of his reach and do not force him to obey
In conclusion dear friends, im just like you,
I may have neruological quirks, but im still Neroamee Alucard,
Not some show at the zoo,
So if you know somebody, with any form of fault or disability,
Dont patronize or be overbearing,
Just make allowances for their need

To the two boys who think I owe them something.
My heart doesn't belong to either of you,
and your spindly fingers clenching it
don't look enough like ribbon
to fool me into thinking that
my love is a gift to you.
To the two of you,
so willing to give me
your monthly allowances of text messages
yet not your loyalty.
For thinking that an "honest" apology
fixes me having to question why
just me was never good enough
for either of you.
You were both greedy,
you always wanted more.
Now run free and fill your stomach with all the flavours that will burn your taste buds and scorch your tongue.
To both of you for being willing enough to open my box with a key that I never gave you,
rifle through my thoughts and feelings,
and not even open your ears to them,
leaving the lid off
and the contents strewn across your floor.
For offering to help me pick them back up again,
but only because my "small, little arms" are not strong enough to carry my own weight that I've carried for
fifteen years on my own.
Here's to both of you for putting me down about being small.
That is NOT my fault.
I have a mighty big cathedral for a heart and a generous brain
and that's all within 5"2.
It doesn't make you any bigger than me
(metaphorically).
Your few feet advantage doesn't give you
the power above me,
even if you can see the roots of my hair in more detail
than you would ever care to observe
the fault lines of my cracked smile.
Boys are being taught that
to love me
is to fix me,
that I am some kind of messy enigma,
a project, a goal.
I'm just a girl with a family, a girl with a head, with a spiders web of veins and a lifetime of lessons that I'm opening my arms and my heart to.
You mistake yourself for a lesson,
when I'm fully qualified to teach myself.

You diagnose yourselves
as "depressed".
Mental illness is not an accessory,
nor a quirk to make you seem more vulnerable to me.
Don't brandish it in the air,
it is not a weapon against me.
It doesn't make you adorable,
or some kind of cuddly bear boy.
Everything that's
"killing you"
is just as toxic to me.
You set my skin into blue flames
because I won't give myself to you.
No,
no,
no.
I'm tangled in my rejection,
and it thickens.
I can't be with you out of pity.
My guilt, raging deep within my bowels,
marching violently through my organs,
exploding into a supernova of
thinking that love and guilt are almost the same thing.
"I'll do anything",
I don't want anything from you.
"I'll write you a poem because I know how much you love that."
I also love being respected but neither of you ever gave me that.
My craft is not a tool of trickery,
and your words not a trance.
"I'm not like him".
But you still act like my skin is a carpet to your home,
and you walk across it with muddy boots.

You think you're a blanket to keep me warm,
but you ended up suffocating me.
To the boys who think I owe you them something,
go home.

Paragliding is a matter of maths.
You launch, fly, land, bash or crash.
How you meet the ground depends on maths.
Maths is key to survival.

Allowances for maths out of your control, will drive your fun.
Wind, heat, thermals and other pilots in the sky.
Unforgiving ground is gravity's final aim.
The wind will blow, thermals will lift, but gravity's maths will always win.

Your time in the air, and possibly life's end, will depend pilot error.
But gravity's maths doesn't care, he is all.
Gravity is annoyed with paragliders aiming at the ground with miss.
Gravity has calculated it's maths.

He spies those who fly forever, and wishes them on the ground.
With silence and invisibility, he draws those pilots in.
Some follow the maths and land with ease.
Some ignore the maths with peril.

Gravity's maths will always win.

whenever i go online shopping,
no matter if it's
high end, low end, or in between,
i would always sort the items
from low to high.
not only because it's a safe way to shop
and that it makes me look like
i take budgeting seriously,
but that's the only thing i can afford.

talk about me,
a high middle class kid that tries
DESPERATELY
to not spend so much on
the things he wants
rather than the things he needs
while still unemployed
and in college
as well as getting many allowances from his parents.
you are COMPLETELY allowed to say
that i am spoiled,
i understand and am aware of that.

as i scroll down and observe
the price tags slowly rising up,
$10, $15, $29.99, $49.99, $79.99,
until it hits $3,000,
i not only thought,
"how do you think that
it was a good idea to make that
simple, plain jacket
in such a high price?"
but i also had to admit that
i really did wanted that jacket
since i thought it looked cute.

the problem with that is:
most of the stuff i wish i have
in my wardrobe,
they would all usually be so expensive,
especially since most of the stuff
i want to have is from
high end streetwear brands.

i would see almost every celebrity
wear my future wardrobe,
all looking so confident,
trendy,
iconic,
stylish.

oh, how i wish to be like them, sometimes.
how i wish to be rich.
how i wish to not worry about saving money.
how i wish to just show off iconic outfits
from amazing high end brands.
how i wish to have what i always wanted.

i know i should be content
with what i have.
i mean there always will be
other solutions to wear something
inspired by designer clothes
i've dreamed to have.

but ****, would i look good in that
$3,000 jacket.

I recently got reminded... Oh how I am caught
In a delicate web of disillusions
Make me see what is actually not
Make invisible my heart's secret questions

Been successful in putting aside all grief
But truth has it's way to make you pay
You can bury all grievances; you can mask all disbelief
But it'll all catch up; these things you've kept at bay

Make your silly compromises
To have the the best you just make allowances
Keep up your futile pretences
Accommodate your selfish preferences

Day had dawned where each question need their answer
Questions I've shrugged and left unaddressed
Indistinguishable when fact and fiction begin to blur
When dreams and reality have coalesced

Tonight I lay with the load I bring
Body asleep with my heart fully awake
Blessing or curse, this rude awakening
Decisions and choices left for the following suns to make

Sometimes poetry doesn’t happen. One needs more space to work things out, to play around with what you’ve got until you know it well, have felt its worth, weighed it up and reckoned it.

You go somewhere a little known. The location is not a complete surprise, but time and circumstance newly fashion its affect. Is it really eight years since last you were here? Then it was late autumn, now it’s summer’s end.

It’s sad my driving worries you. You drive with me, in a state of constant anticipation, making sure the speed is legal, the line of car to the road is straight. Often, your left hand reaches involuntarily for the door-handle restraint. The more I try to be steady, the worse it seems to become. But today I hand you the keys before you can ask: so that we may start this journey well. Since early morning the sun has shone, and as we head north the clouds assume great floating forms, magisterial, ermine-cloaked.

I like to watch you when you drive. I think it’s the pleasing proportion of your seated self, the body and limbs often motionless in their purposeful position. I look at your profile, the flow of your hair hiding your ears, the cleft and point of your chin, your nose I love to stroke with my nose, the wide mouth whose lips don’t fit my lips when we kiss, and this morning a warm glow on your left cheek.

We have become so careful you and I, with what we say and the way we say it. Politeness, attention to detail, purposeful decision-making, we both make allowances, keeping the conversation airborne, the tone steady, the content ‘of interest’.

After ninety miles it’s good to get out the car, good to get out in a village now bypassed by the main road, a quiet place. A church rises above the village and like a former coaching inn next to its gates faces down a wide street of 18C houses. Scattered variously there are a few unusual shops – wooden toys and metalled stoves. Here we prepare for the next stage of this journeying. On bicycles we’ll take minor roads to the coast.

At the top, after a steep climb out of the village, there it is: the sea. Since childhood that sighting moment has remained special. There’s a lifting of the spirit. The day remains fine, but a cool wind from the land is soon at our backs (you take care not to be cold and wear a scarf around your neck and ears). After just a few miles, we turn gratefully onto a very minor road where cycling becomes a pleasure. Passing vehicles are occasional and we are not continually pressed hard to the kerbside by speeding traffic. We could ride companionably side-by-side, but we don’t.

There is time to look about, to take in the dip and fold of fields and hedges, the punctuating farms and their ribbons of road. A fine manor house rises out of a forest of trees climbing in coniferous ranks to a limestone escarpment. On the breast of a hill we come upon a tapering stone tower that assumes the point from which the rolling landscape’s perspective flows. There’s a combine at the edge of a field and later its grain ‘tender’ heavy-laden meets us on a narrow bend. At a former mill a weir, where the greenest of green shade over water is too vivid not to photograph. Passing a row of cottages an elderly couple, sitting on their front porch, smile at our friendly wave. Above, swallows dart and spin.

A main road interrupts this idyll, and after a long straight ride with the sea a distant backdrop, we arrive at a coastal village overwhelmed by its recumbent castle. Lunch is eaten in a quiet corner of an ancient churchyard. Crows gather on the stubble in an adjacent field. We sit on a bench in the sunshine, though a cloudy afternoon beckons in the west. Later inside the church, where one of the northern saints is laid to rest, an unsteady light plays variously across the stone statues of the sanctuary.

Distance and a head wind begin to strain the calm confidence of the morning. Perhaps we have come too far and expect too much of ourselves? It is cheering though to beat the rain back to the car six miles hence.

Ten miles further up the coast the tide has retreated across a horizon-reaching expanse of sand and mud; it leaves a narrow causeway to an island beyond. It is a long way to its disappointing village full of car-borne visitors, attendant dogs and tired children. There, a little apart from these tourists, we sit to look out upon a further but tiny island where another northern saint found solitude. Wading into the cold sea he would face the setting sun as it fell into the folds of distant hills: to pray until dawn.

You are so tired when we reach the hotel. You are so tired. Our en suite room holds an enormous bed and a large long bath. From its window just a slice of sea can be seen in a gap between houses. I insist, for your sake, on immediate food and soon the strain on your pale, day-worn face begins to disappear and some colour returns as you eat. I catch your eyes smiling – for a brief moment. Oh, your green eyes, my undoing, so full of a sadness I have never fathomed. How often my memory returns to another room where one afternoon, newly married, we were the dearest lovers. In its strange half-light I caressed your long nakedness over and over, my hands and body visiting every part of you – and your dear face full of peace and joy.  

As dusk falls we walk down the village’s only street to view the sand and sea. Then to bed and hardly a page turned before you seek the sleep you need. I soak gratefully in the large bath. After engaging in a ‘difficult’ book for a few minutes, I soon turn off my light. But I am restless and the bed is hard. So I begin to reassemble the day moment-by-moment, later to dream strangely and sporadically until dawn breaks.

woke up not knowing what time it was, looking toward a sewing machine instead of a clock on my desk, still reeling from hypersexual dreams of celebrities, old friends, fast cars, thunderstorms, video games and social experiments, mutual ******* without contact, floating in a nothingness world of bliss, then, thinking about sewing the right way, with seam allowances, wrong and right sides, and cutting out pizza slices from curves, wondering if my forlorn yellow polka dot shirt with the holes in the yoke would look nice as a giraffe, or if it's still worth mending. shades of marigold and dandelion pouring through my hands, buttons touching down on my great grandmother's old flowered quilt, taking their places over the holes. a needle threaded with delicate string weaves in and out 'round the tears, the negative space, the flaws, closing them up, sutures administered on a long forgotten corpse, breathing life with every stitch. open the curtains and it looks like dusk, though i'm sure it's morning: dark clouds, lightning, mist, fog, grey, gloom; promises of a storm, like in my nighttime mirrorimage otherworld of chances never taken, experiences that never, can never, will never, present themselves in reality. taste tests of who you want to be, but without the risk of ruining everything you've worked for. secrets you can keep, burning through eyelids, wanting to get out, but staying just below the thin layer of skin and lashes poised just right, painted and black and reaching toward the heavens, before flaking off into tears that confuse a happy face, slow dancing to the sweetest music, smiling to the words, the motion, the what will comes and the what might happens and being carried away with the love in the room and the sun in the sky and the warmth in the wind. no dreams, no mirrorimage otherworlds, no pretend existences, could ever ever ever be as sweet as these feelings, this love, the beating of twin hearts, the warmth of skin on skin, the colours of sun-shone sea and land irises looking at mine, through me, into places only you can see, only you know, only you've ever been. my comfort, my rock, my anchor in the storm, holding the moon tight in orbit, even when it pulls, even when it wants nothing more than to get in a boat and never see land again. heavy weathered metal from the earth digging deep into the ground under wires and waves and crashes of the sea, tethering the melancholy man in the moon to the only place that makes sense: helping sailors see the way on clear nights, reflecting sunlight from china to the seven seas, shining through dark windows to light up blushed faces of lovers and dewy tangled limbs, twisting sheets and straining steel, singing quiet songs of familiar feelings only we know, never wanting, never needing, to write the lyrics down; they whimper, weep, wail, cry out with passion, from every pore in our heaving entangled bodies before laying down to rest, to visit the nighttime mirrorimage otherworld that will never ever be as real, as sweet, as warm, as this real world life we share.

Stan was born in a shady street, a ruined home and a **** lab
Grey was born in a posh home, boulevard street, with all one can have
Stan was raised in dirt, popping pills and dealing by the age of seven
Grey was raised in heaven, with a personal butler at the age of eleven  
Stan was bullied at fourteen,never had a childhood, and even lost his teens
Grey first broke the law at the age of fifteen, dad settled it out of court, made it a routine
Stan vowed to change his life, and came out clean when he caught a line
Grey went on without a care, hurting others all the time
Stan lived in poverty, saving every bit for a better future and life
Grey lived like a king, spending a fortune every night  
Stan wanted to go to a college, studied hard, got through, but didn't get the scholarship
Grey went to the finest college, never studied and bribed every teacher of his
Daddy paid for the tution, for the place he stayed, and every wish he could have
Stand went in depression, unable to turn his life around, but he never went back  
Grey was reckless, taught to cheat and lie his way to the top
And even though stan never had a chance, he always helped others the first chance he got  
Grey went on to finish his college and make millions through his dad
Stan struggled to survive, never giving up when things turned bad
Grey married a model, and divorced her when she got pregnant and refused an abortion
Stan married a ******, when he got her pregnant and ruled out an abortion
Grey went through wives, cheated and ruined lives of many
Stan stood by his wife, loved her, and held her when the days where rainy
Grey became a dad but refused to acknowledge her daughter
Stan was proud when her daughter was born and vowed to give them all a better future
Lily was all stan could ask for, he never let her leave his sight
And Mary grew up with no dad, and no one by her side
Lily grew in poverty, but her parents gave her all she needed and more love she could as for
Mary grew up on dads monthly allowances, could have all she wanted and then some more
Lily was all stan could think about,and saved every dime for her
Mary felt alone, whenever she stared in the mirror
Lily went on to be an honorary student and the brightest in her class
Greys habits finally caught up with his daughter at last
Stan was proud, the day lily got in the best college in her state
Mary never made it out of high school, paying for her dads mistakes
Lily graduated with honours, and cried on the podium when she spoke about her dad
Mary hated her father and held him responsible for all the problems she had
Lily went on to have a successful life, but never forgot her father
Mary became an addict, and grey came to his senses soon after
Grey tried to help her, but Mary was long gone
Everything came crashing down, and he found himself alone
Stan was loved by many, an honest man with a heart of gold
Never forgot where he came from, and helped anyone who came to his door
Grey never helped anyone and soon his business crashed
Spent some time in jail, when he couldn't pay the tax
Stan died a happy man, with his family and friends by his side
Grey died an old man, alone,  with no one by his side
Lily gave birth to her son, in a posh home, boulevard street, with all one can have
Greys granddaughter was born in a shady street, a ruined home and a **** lab

Everything plus-minus,
Venus, I beg you
to sponge me
All her fishes
Swim to surplus
and I imagine John
and all the people living
in peace but your niece looks
like Octopus
A priority the postman comes
Again twice got sponged
paid another
wet your
palate
price

His sturdy strong
legs
Milkman diary
but so many legs
But not enough time
Seattle rain
dating site
of Squid
She said to put a
lid on it
With such fluid
of water legs

They can really swim
Diet of fish my mask had
holes Swiss cheese lace
The golf game hole in one
sponge
I am home cooking
Calamari all knifed
inside like
Samkari  Uncle Sam
Sponged in with a lady
in her Mercedes

All squid-crabmeat
Those fish cakes water
crabby women
town
Sponge Bob aquarium
what an age
The college sorority
took over
the man's legs
Colliegate Girly
Fun side
authority sponge me
anytime no cell phone
So precocious hair rinse
game
So fictitious
legs so pompous
showing
Something always
more flirtatious
Sponge wet lips
she thought things were
clean delicious women
why do we
get devious wanting
what others have
You cannot share
your way too jealous
everyone became about the
The next winner New Jersey
Mrs. Cleaner not the dry ones
joy luck don't press me out
Club sandwich of legs
Got sponged
obnoxiously
I Apple phones
too much of a bite
She got bugged
things had to change
They deleted
everyone's name
Those monstrous

Mother in laws belly buttons
with gems rings of octopus
Everytime the same things
Octopus every October
They were Cowboy riders
And baked trio swingers
Quickdraw Mcdonald burglar
the gun always the silencer
Those sponge ladies love
to clean with their dancer's legs
Hitting some ***** spots
with her sponge
Those octopus men muscles
Leg lift Taylor Swift
Men love their leggy
eating muscles
Snake eyes of Venom
That jellyfish way too clean
lemon
Those surrenders
and wet calender
reminders
They got suspicious email
But lemons are the climate
Of October clean
Halloween became
beyond nasty
Thirteen sides slippery
Got slimy at the Door concert
Jimmy with his Morris(sons)
  Octopus
Octopus caused a vigorous
scene smashing pumpkins
There is no science to an
Octopus and sponge
But she loves her computer
and it was
an infectious disease
She was overly had
obsessive-compulsive
behavior

Cleaning it with her sponge
Eating her blueberry
sponge cake big mistake
She became on this sugar
leg kick really sick
Aggressiveness
So reckless or
Metamorphosis
Wheres her thesis
What a day for the sponge to
be doomed with curses
Sponge talk ***** lounge
Cafe with mud packs
Dilemmas

Sponge sticking to Mamas
Octopuses garden wanting
to hold your hand
The Beatles pin cushion shaped;
like an Octopus needles
I am the Walrus all doodles
Meretricious appliances
Her child had
Octopus performance
What allowances

Woodstock New York
The concerts heavy rained on
Purple haze Octopus
You needed to ring it
out on the clothesline
This felt like a pipe dream
The Octopus needed
more money

All burlesque Cher legs I got you
Sponged
The seamstress what madness
The butterfly lost her wings
Hannibal all Octopuses cannibal
They were sewed into the
Octopus picnic outing
Salads calamari tomato rotten
Got crush from her leggy

Going out of the country but
I cant back down
Tom Petty got sponged
with a  million buggies
Dr. Seus Octopus in the hat
Her legs got flat
That's a Jerry Mcquire Hire
Octopus got so baked I wonder
who made the fire

Dear Sabah,
For the past forty-four days I have been waking up at dawn so I can reap sunlight the way an old peasant in a jasmine farm does.
My brother said he might have seen sunflowers but he never saw suns flowering; “the sunlight you reaped is useless” he said “why are you collecting it?"
My grandfather collects stamps, my mother collects china sets, my father collects rare books, my uncle collects money, and my grandmother collected hearts. “Because I want to be like Teta”, I answered him.

Dear Sabah,
I have been waking up at dawn, and I can assure you that they lied about dew being playful.
Dew doesn’t slide on a rose petal the way a child does in the park.
Dew sits still in an ungenuine grace the way an aristocratic woman does in a third cousin wedding; Dew is my aunt Fatima in her brother’s wedding.
However, they didn’t lie about how early birds get the worm..
This morning, I saw a bird eating two worms, and the eldest of my cousins cutting off his brothers’ allowances right after taking over his father’s company.

Dear Sabah,
I read in The Little Prince that people like watching sunsets when they are sad; that he watched the sunset forty-four times in one day when he had a fight with his rose.
So for the past forty-four days I have been waking up at dawn and morphing my notebook into a camera lens.
I now have 44 synonyms for your name, and each evening, I read the scribbles of morning I managed to pluck: fresh, fragile, blue and pink hues, childlike, clean grass, birds chipping, family…

Dear Sabah,
This morning, when my uncle told us how his son is now running his company, my 11 year old brother asked me if our family is a monarchy. “No, Hady” I said, “our family is an Arctic morning; for six months straight it is a cold dark environment, and for the other six, the sun doesn’t set.”

I am the first to admit
I’m not God’s gift to women
It’s more like a penance when I’m involved really
And I am certainly a little rough around the edges
But there are certain things you can do
To make yourself more respectable to the fairer ***
Like: be wary of your weight and what suits
Don’t loaf onto a bus with your gut
Hanging out, wearing a stained Hawaiian t-shirt
Sweating like a hog in the midday sun.
I know ladies make allowances:
Ineptitude
Dickishness
Bravado
Rudeness
Even arrogance.
But even our fair compadres draw the line
At sheer disregard for personal hygiene.
I wonder what people think
When they go out dressed like that?
They’re either one of three things:
Very ignorant to what women want,
Femo-phobes,
Or they think they got something god-**** special
No woman can resist.

O Darling,
let me configure your world
with my saucy liberties.
Let me paint you a picture
of what you may be lacking.
Let me describe in
cryptic sensual-detail
some escapades you may like.

'Cause in doing so,
you allow me the privilege
to display my talents,
the sensuous-things
I've so desperately been
in need of,
yearn for &
dream about.

You are My Dear,
a Precious Sweet-Angel,
for your allowances
given to me.

It is painful perhaps to be awakened from a vision as to be born and by my body's action teach my mind the pain of being alive. Also because all creation is simpler than what some philosopher thinks. Descartes looks more outré than the painted wizard. Curse the dark hour that gave me birth. Never to have lived is best. I am alive only by accident. I alone awake at dawn. The gods have invented a terrible torture for us. I have suffered to have a soul still not yet pure enough. I'd give up years, yes, years of my own life for such. Everyone's life is the same life, if you live long enough. But better to die than live a mechanical life that is a repetition of a repetition. It is life inside life inside itself. When clocks and mirrors are reversed to show ourselves as only we could ever know.
      If man is born so soon, if life is so brief like some sleep I feared I'd never wake from. We have so little time on earth that anyone does not ever make anything better. The same or less ambition only makes the ambitious greater. There is not time enough on earth for all I'd like to do. How strange it seems, with so much gone of life and love, to still live on! Where is the life we  have lost in living? It takes life to love life. I and this love are one. It is death, which our flesh dreads, is the very death of every night, which we call sleep. My eyes, with the weight of death heavy upon them. For the death of beauty is beauty. Inspiration comes from living the death. It is not easy to die, oh, it is not easy to die the death. I do think brave death outweighs a troubled life. To return to the celestial sphere where everyone goes. When all flesh had peace, and the efreet offers a brilliant void where our mind could be perfectly clear and all our limitations destroyed. The obsolete, epic scale. In death I believe I shall be as the flowers have been. We are like family who see each other only at funerals. The wax and honey of a mausoleum – the round dome is proof its maker is alive. O death, I cover you over with roses and lilies so that I may carry earned riches beyond death like the Egyptians.
      Follow me with gilded shadows to my secret room where I read each poem entire. The poems you would have written had your life been good. I could have said more than I could ever have written in poems. Perfection, of a kind, was what I was after, and the poetry I invented was easy to experience. Experience is what you do not want to experience. All poetry is difficult to read but easy to misinterpret. The mysterious composition of poetry. No man has dared to write these words yet, but I do know, how the souls of all great men at times pass through us and our blood is mixed with their blood.
      Some of you have written poems, usually short ones, and some kept diaries, seldom published til after death, but most make no memorable impact except on your closest friends and pets. The black young cat jumped onto my lap as I write. I have suffered the total isolation of the ***. I write for those who cannot write. We need not write the books men read to be poets. The flame in which I write burns in the dark alone. So for ten more verses I keep the light on. So much to be done before tomorrow. Let us be more productive like the gnomes. One drop of oil burning, to light up seven days of writing. Save me from damnation! The profession of writing where one needs one's brains all the time. I hate my verses, every line, every word, oh pale and frail pencil I did try. Must I persist in my errors. Words have no value for words that are not true. Truth shall grow great eclipsing other truths. But now all these heavy books, are no use to me anymore, for where I go words carry no weight. I am ready to swear never to write another word, away from books, away from art. Words were but wasted breath. The art of novel writing is dead. I know that you will pay the price of authorship and make the allowances an author has to do. To know in words that which we have always known in thought. Better than most mortal flower, yours are the poems I do not write. We who move every man at a deeper level than Mozart.
      We read the Bible for its prose. Shall heaven so soon be the prize we obtain? How far is it to heaven? Since Heaven and He are one. In the sun that is young once only. Death comes but once. There is no other life, only one. Once is never the beginning of enough, is it? I do not pretend to know the reason anymore than it is. Oh, pity the dead that are dead. Who cannot take the longest journey. Who moan and weep against the huge adamant walls of life's exclusive city. A man like Houdini escaped death through his immortality. A shadowy durability for which we were not meant to live. A covenant of swords without the word. No doctor ever does the work of the carpenter if our nerve and ideologies die first.
      A dream has power to poison sleep. I dream of a duel between myself and old masters. The underground road are, as the dead prefer them, always dark and lonely. This is the sort of tableau of my doom. The death of the poet piqued the interests of his peers. It was then that he became what he admired. And from death he won the fame he would be known for. O the bullet can never **** the soul. O downpour of rain! O sad anthem, when will you end? This is the flesh we are but never to believe. The flesh that dies but in death we pity. Without me Adam would have fallen with Lucifer in his grand city, he would never have been able to cry, “O Felix Culpa.” And whoever walks a mile full of false sentiment, walks to the funeral of the whole human race. Was that why Macbeth murdered sleep? How O how could the scorpion sting itself to death!
      Awaken the leviathan of the heavy mind. What is death? A life disintegrating into smaller simpler ones. But in total emptiness, the sure extinction that we travel to shall one day be lost to us. Not here, not there, not anywhere, and soon nothing more terrible, nothing more true. I floated with the whole human family, those who are living, those who have died, and those who are not yet born. We passed into the chamber of the sleeper. We, who have died beyond the clock. Slowly the silence of the multitudes passed. Every artist must die when they sleep and sleep when they rise to face the living. Such, is the dream; you do not sleep, you only dream of your thirst for sleep. May you in your troubles not be ashamed of any suffering as ****** as it maybe, nor hear them like a hero in the grandest way.
      Let us hear poets recite their poems and tragedies to crowds of listeners. We, poets, thanks to a tongue deprived of so many inflexions, can very easily turn nouns, if we wish, into verbs. Those who say in verse what others say in prose. Because in dying is a drama. There is no quiet drama. As quiet and chaste as a poet's own life. It is the dead who need no moon to dream by. Death, in the dark, in the deep, in the dream, forever.

Stan was born in a shady street, a ruined home and a **** lab
Grey was born in a posh home, boulevard street, with all one can have
Stan was raised in dirt, popping pills and dealing by the age of seven
Grey was raised in heaven, with a personal butler at the age of eleven  
Stan was ***** at fourteen,never had a childhood, and even lost his teens
Grey first ***** at the age of fifteen, dad settled it out of court, made it a routine
Stan vowed to change his life, and came out clean when he caught a line
Grey went on without a care, hurting others all the time
Stan lived in poverty, saving every bit for a better future and life
Grey lived like a king, spending a fortune every night  
Stan wanted to go to a college, studied hard, got through, but didn't get the scholarship
Grey went to the finest college, never studied and bribed every teacher of his
Daddy paid for the tution, for the place he stayed, and every wish he could have
Stand went in depression, unable to turn his life around, but he never went back  
Grey was reckless, taught to cheat and lie his way to the top
And even though stan never had a chance, he always helped others the first chance he got  
Grey went on to finish his college and make millions through his dad
Stan struggled to survive, never giving up when things turned bad
Grey married a model, and divorced her when she got pregnant and refused an abortion
Stan married a ******, when he got her pregnant and ruled out an abortion
Grey went through wives, cheated and ruined lives of many
Stan stood by his wife, loved her, and held her when the days where rainy
Grey became a dad but refused to acknowledge her daughter
Stan was proud when her daughter was born and vowed to give them all a better future
Lily was all stan could ask for, he never let her leave his sight
And Mary grew up with no dad, and no one by her side
Lily grew in poverty, but her parents gave her all she needed and more love she could as for
Mary grew up on dads monthly allowances, could have all she wanted and then some more
Lily was all stan could think about,and saved every dime for her
Mary felt alone, whenever she stared in the mirror
Lily went on to be an honorary student and the brightest in her class
Greys habits finally caught up with his daughter at last
Stan was proud, the day lily got in the best college in her state
Mary never made it out of high school, paying for her dads mistakes
Lily graduated with honours, and cried on the podium when she spoke about her dad
Mary hated her father and held him responsible for all the problems she had
Lily went on to have a successful life, but never forgot her father
Mary became an addict, and grey came to his senses soon after
Grey tried to help her, but Mary was long gone
Everything came crashing down, and he found himself alone
Stan was loved by many, an honest man with a heart of gold
Never forgot where he came from, and helped anyone who came to his door
Grey never helped anyone and soon his business crashed
Spent some time in jail, when he couldn't pay the tax
Stan died a happy man, with his family and friends by his side
Grey died an old man, alone,  with no one by his side
Lily gave birth to her son, in a posh home, boulevard street, with all one can have
Greys granddaughter was born in a shady street, a ruined home and a **** lab

Forcing an alignment of corporate resources
for some theory of best fit correlation
doesn't work on Kingdom People
when using an unspoken method of tabulation.

If Life is about true spiritual growth,
then why do ministries attempt to pigeon-hole
not making any allowances for us
to develop, expand and break our current mold?

Despite multitudes of outcome possibilities
the Church seems to suffer bouts of paralysis
from the continued mashing of talents and gifts
resulting from unexplained Presbyterian analysis.

There are many ministry leaders who speak of vision -
Their tone indicates that the laity is completely blind and numb;
their message is clear - the Body is not interested
to reach the Earth before Kingdom Come.

We are souls with great, untapped potential
and not just elements of an array.
Despite our abilities and life experiences,
our dreams and desires we're not allowed to convey.

For a failure of Church motivational tricks
comes from cramming God's People into a human matrix.



Author Notes:

From the book: Reaching Towards His Unbounded Glory
The ISBN is: 1-4196-5051-3

Learn more about me and my poetry at:
http://amzn.to/1ffo9YZ

By Joseph J. Breunig 3rd, © 2006, All rights reserved.

Small town sounds
Unlocked doors
Not that many cars.
Main Street grocery store
Nickel candy bars.
Church Street,
“Sunday shoes”,
Parents stood outside and smoked,
Kids caught with cigarettes
Would have allowances revoked.
Corn Growers
Push mowers
Friday football games.
Everybody, Everywhere,
Knew everybody’s name.
Summer shouts
Paper routes
Cub Scouts once a week
Boys and girls in sixth grade
Dancing cheek to cheek.
No shirts
Blue jeans
Walking through the beans
Witches, ghosts and scary things
Every Halloween
Greased pigs
Little League
Swimming lessons in the lake
Talking back to teachers
Was a BIG mistake!
Teachers had hard paddles that
They were not afraid to use
Parents told them,
“Go ahead.”
And they did not refuse.
Bicycles everywhere
Pocket knives
Truth or Dare
Water balloons,
Kids Cartoons
Fishing in the creek
Not it
Gravel pit
Games of Hide and Seek
Bible School
Golden Rule
Jesus Loved Me This I Know
Several generations
Watching children grow.
Laying on a blanket
Watching shooting stars
Teachers went two towns away
When they went to bars.
Home grown tomatoes
Juicy burgers nice and thick
Eating home-made ice cream
Until all of us were sick.
Nine o’clock bedtimes
The nights were very still
I still hear the small town sounds
I guess I always will.
PwL 5/5/15

One of those days you notice most things through yesterday's eyes
In a moment you feel distraught in someone's decision said it applies to you
Feeling blah
a place of intense competition or ruthless struggle for survival,
a gathering place for the unemployed.
They sweat for the sun and hurt for dirt, cry for work and smile to struggle.
Money accumulate and it resolve in one big circle.
Your concerns and criticism is tossed like eaten herbivores, not your biggest fear
Individual self made issues stir as you consummate with one's in the same environment.
A battle of nice and not-nice to talk, smile, converse in a suite of respect.
But allowances is as far as you allow not wanting to be consumed.
It's like a jungle out here!

First impression, first date.

You come late, a major sin in your own lexicon,
tango dancing redesigns your hair to curls atwitter,
despite remedial ministrations in taxi,
you text apologies profuse en route,
but you have been outed, and
I am charmingly amused

A warm December eve,
a local Italian eatery,
table by the window,
red wine floes melt your defenses,
allowances made, you're intrigued,
enjoying  our dinner of
charming amusements

But really you like my understated swagger.
I like that you like my understated swagger.

Walk home armed, arm in arm,
your paintings I must come see,
Immediately (!),
You offered this as  desert, instead  of biscotti,
a tour of your new apartment, sleek/simple,
messaging that this is me,
if you ever want to be invited to stay

Inspection over, my smile is a knowing
that this first foray deserves a concessionary accolade,
So in a mode so gallant at the front door,
Adieu you are bid, and devilishly clever,
I merely shake you hand,
leaving you delighted by this gallant, modern,
charming amusement

Looking at my watch, three and half hours
have passed.

Maintaing that in your ways set,
Early on, I challenge your rigidity,
Turning your hair from curly,
Into spun straight Rapunzel gold liquidity,
By asking politely, humbly, on bended knee,
You give in happily,
Charmed, amused at my ferocious insistence

Looking at my watch,
I too, am delighted, charmed, amused, to discover,
It seems my watch is running slow,
For it is now three and a half years later