Fragile egg-shell mind on dawn’s highway bleeding the segue between times traversed only in momentary dreams or in enduring excursions

We drag our droll and quaint 60s baggage like the luggage of a safari made of concrete girding a cavernous expanse of unheralded ground

With our ears oriented to the floor, we leap out of body never to deplore….never to ignore….never to miss the blue bus of our drafted imaginations, so carefully culled from brash elitism

I trounce the intervening time between being friendless and an ironic end, and an irenic comrade becoming the dearest amazed but always aplomb friend

We simper in our glorious traversal, and though bedraggled through an ornamented cavern we linger just long enough to be celebrated

Then a blues riff emanates from a vapid bar, and finally someone heralds my exhumed memory still rusty with the pavement of encased concrete on an empty or full tomb

So I wander in my mind to that roughshod Paris glassy tincture a romanticized gild of proper sensibility crafted in the tongues of lizards emulating the tongues of serpentine Anglicans

As the power of love transcends the love of power, both are afforded serendipitously upon the stately occasion of a fitful revolt where heads literally rolled and deaths still unfurl from the slippage of a violent malevolent eternity, crafting a new creative way to expedite the smite of preventable scourge

So, I see your picaresque side and your wide-eyed love for a listless ship anointed of a crystal blip just detectable long enough on RADAR to become the statistic to crack the slim WHIP

No wigs are needed at this formality, no figs grow from trees forty-five years buried and almost a full month unsung

Pitiable cretins of an invented insanity, they scoff at my ravenous and portentous heart for its excess and for aligning with an upstart verging on only a specious insanity

Why in all humanity could a month be mustered with every defense of history and yet for it to be so widely flouted as a risible exercise in futility

The irony that the artistic glamor of a past vogue becoming a revival that is often toked only to one song but never to the memorial of great cavernous and commodious imaginations, staggers with dismay where otherwise the mayday would be a disaster but still a great day

Then I look at a triggered-fingered omen of a death so ominous yet so brazenly confronted as the ambassadors of time provide plaudits to a fearless martyrdom

Why such a sad spate, why such a stringent but malevolent fate a malediction on a family whose crest is not crestfallen like rolling waves but ornamented with gravity impounding its own weight

A fugacious tomb, an eternal flame, a swan song announcing an independent authority on a prescient demise mashed and deprived

A single shot rippling through the broadened space between clasped eternity and a histrionic disgrace as a psychological confederate pays lip service to a reiterative applause

A cousin hardly American in a defected record of incendiary plumes of a hoarse hatred of waxen discs and flying discs alike,  climbs out of a bonfire mounted purely out of vindictive spite

Then upon a great white buffalo a wrapped package of Californian love before California ever alighted like something beyond an avaricious dove, saw a rocky park and a hearth of illuminated darkness the singular spark

Captain Morgan knows the jackknife applause of a botched deal morphing into a disbelieved spiel. A shibboleth of enormous mystical weight crashing down from an ethereal abode and heaven heavily saddened cannot hardly appeal

Then a loving spoonful of crystal blue persuasion led me to Ethel’s regimented keepsake and for once in my life nobility and I became a grateful waif. But temerity laughed, splintered spacecraft, and the wooden paws of a bearish applause led to resurgent clarity

Blinking stars shattered by knighted and raw applause punctured the liberated might of a sentient hortatory savior grasped by the internecine wrench of a waxen time

An indie track slides by unnoticed in an aleatory time, and the threadbare whine of centuries of lament becomes a dastardly barn set ablaze with the fury of ancients and the scurry of faineant patents

Perfidy slides in recess, and in gentle forbearance the winged angel lingers like a halo on conifer and spring above a remedial ring

I dial frisky celerity tingling the dangling claws of a raven’s screed and in plunder of all history’s pilfer secrets I eagerly weave a tapestry Indiana Jones himself would be proud to watch

Not the riotous ruin of a mystery tour of verdure crippled by genocide but overcome by the revived life of raised rain razing the moments of indelible pain

But the culmination of a proffered time taken at its word for its every careened bird, for its every brazen gird. The manger of proctored stars calls us home tonight and home forever. Life in quaked timorous stumbles suddenly no longer so fitfully absurd.

The quixotic plundered of pirates and emperors in direct emulation of some crooned pastiche of whittled integrity, surges above any encased blurb and any vain testament to a pyramid rigid in destiny and ragged in desultory and sturdy sincerity

Multiplying the ineffable by the division of arable divorced from edible is too creative to be eaten as pabulum when sparks curdle flickered moonlight crimson and that become golden only to the last laugh of ennobled ragamuffins

Frankly the desert of melliferous gorillas abetting the lark of a heavily vetted camarilla engaged in the sinecure of a rigged wall on a main street to block the tall from the lame bleat. Stocks grazed, costs engaged on a littoral beach at the end of a Bossy promenade

This prayer is a cutthroat collapse of a merry spare, a ribbed ****** waiting to plunge into the antithesis of female despair, but sincere in its restraint that vixens courted in love aren’t courted in litigation of a wagered dare

Ambulances chase Deloreans through the desolate moon-stricken skies of a time agape with fleets of phantasmagoria on a Cliffside too wise to ever mince words or excise cries

Skulking the red-teared caverns of entombed films and lampooned tinctures on a passion vetted only for certain and utter deracinated disguise, I wallop with winged men in a single soul Armed to the Teeth with inveterate tithes to eternal internments of poached and endangered gazettes

As growth older in wizened skin bets on epithets rather than epitaphs for rinsed peace and triumphant clefts we leap above in orbit of only the bellowing nether of blown tolls and untold souls aggregating the esoteric grasp of Alexandrian tomes

The denumeration of certainty is a carousel of wonder, a splurge of time ripped asunder with majesties of paparazzi scuttled impacts a throttled iniquity of regalia’s indicted blunder frenchified but still clean with inestimable sheens

With twenty-five dollars, a dime an assist and a nickeled reiteration of currency already so personable it is divine and sublime in crazed desist I watch the embroiled natives clash in denatured violence with the warriors of a crossed repast hearkening to an old land much of ire but too much of grandstand to ultimately last

Itching for a holy field husk of peerless ties listed as rumpus and beer, a two-packed smoked by bludgeoned blokes careless in irascible sputters of a muffled doom, a Vegan becomes the author of too many sacrosanct homilies becoming defiled witchcraft brooms dead on arrival too many lionized tombs

In plaudits and the scause of an amplified “what if?” of an olfactory nightmare of petrified fog of effluvium bogged in Wade and in heat it is always clogged, sinewy libations of toasted preemptive revenge become a powerballed hog

A castle in the sky founded on Franklin but scourged of wineskins brimming with a distilled time, a swift repartee becomes the whispered ladder of saints blather becoming not rather other than a Dan Rather spatter

A door breeched by a broached inconvenience of amphigory beyond common reach, I clamber excess and whisk the lingered love into destiny beyond any word other than a beseeched preach of nothing tired but everything inspired of noble love with abundance often to teach

Fireworks of turned tides of fallow tithes to aliens beyond any conceivable bribe the bushwhacker writhes but survives Stayin' Alive without even a hint of garbled jive a 27th floor glass elevator is quite a resplendent ride

Wellsprings knowing radical rolled tides of errant dice also themselves guilty of confessional tithes to the monolith of avarice at the nooked cranny of an evaporated time we whine as the police sting the album rained with songs too lugubrious to sing but in their elegy every lonely heart has a propinquity phone of souled resonance ring

Iterative mastery of a mathematics of love, loss decay and the dross of a dental Occidental floss, the sweep of screened queues become questions of inestimable importance to foreign dues on A Horse With No Name but so consumed with fumes

A fright occultist Thriller prowls in a waylaying daylight, masquerading an innocent confection for a rescued triage of a dawn stabbed with knives in our last dying days of trembled plight

He resurrects only the wraiths of detest, squinted at by the putrefaction of summoned cardiac arrest and littered with bullets that somehow can penetrate even impregnable bullet proof vests the wrapped carcass of the mummified husk of ready despair offers itself a ghoulish and raspy prayer

Synchronized in a low roaring swathe of rollercoasters too immersive to ride, the terpsichorean obscurantism of deliberately shattered fragments becoming blurbs dismissed with hijacked deride the carnival of a summer sun becomes the ocean of limitless love becoming endless fun

We forget the drawl of the droll old tales that haunt like specters in the closet and beneath the bedridden valetudinarian of an effrontery of shackled fright, we sprawl the innumerable caverns of prophetic insight afforded by the pantheon of history enter stage left, depart stage right

And with their insight I write and write, I grasp the tusk of democracy and wage an insurrection against the doubt of plodding limitations in otherwise immaculate sight

*** and tyrannosaurus rex, of litigable offenses leading to pardonable arrests, the gated entryway of a poetic splurge leads to the demiurge of a demotic enlightenment and suddenly the frank becomes the frazzled retirement and that haunting hounding bunny transmogrified by a shattered eye averts the car crash that careens ponderous engines out of limitless twilight blue skies.

Diamond lightning in pristine skies escorts the telegraphic totems of riddled modems from distant forbearance to nescient ultimatum and suddenly all venerable personages converge on a teeming scene of a union unified by a universal dream. To become everything and yet nothing and out of light and darkness to become a beatific beam

Dear Readers, President Theodore Roosevelt wanted
to save this marvelous Natural Wonder for posterity! So
the Grand Canyon National Park was set up in 1919. In
1979 it was declared as World Heritage Site! With the
portion “Sun rises and sets over the Grand Canyon”, -
I have concluded this poem. Kindly take your time to read,
no need to comment in a hurry please ! Thanks, -Raj

CONCLUDING THE GRAND CANYON
STORY IN VERSE – RAJ NANDY

INTRODUCTION
Literature about great natural features include
two personal types of writing;
Description of things observed, and impressions
of what is known and seen!
The story of the Grand Canyon takes us back
to the Pre-Cambrian Age,
When violent forces were unleashed from within
the Earth, during its formative stage;
When mighty forces of erosion began to sculpture
her undulating landscapes!
Therefore, I begin with a quote about Erosion,
From the great poet Alfred Lord Tennyson; -
“The hills are shadows and they flow,
From form to form, and nothing stands.
They pass like clouds, the solid lands.
Like clouds they shape themselves and go!”

TO RECAPITULATE PART ONE:
In Part One we have seen, how movement of
earth’s tectonic plates unleashed violent forces
from within!
It formed mountains and lakes, shaping our
landscapes, which now appear so peaceful,
grand, and serene!
Over millions of years the forces of erosion in
the form of wind, rain, sun and snow,
Sculptured earth’s evolving features creating
majestic, panoramic vistas as we know!
Geologists now opine, that the Grand Canyon
was carved out by the Colorado River, -
cutting through ‘layers of Geological time’!

THE COLORADO RIVER CARVED THE CANYON:
In the state of Colorado, from the high country,
Where snow and ice lasts well beyond the dawning
days of Spring;
There the majestic peaks of the Rockies form the
perennial fountain head from which springs, -
One of the great rivers of the world the Colorado;
Which travels 1400 miles through seven States
reaching the Californian Gulf west of Mexico!
Now during prehistoric days, the pristine Colorado
had flowed almost along the same path as today!
But after the magical rise of the Colorado Plateau
some five million years ago, (Refer Part One)
It had blocked the river’s path making it flow
south-east into the Gulf of Mexico!
Few Geologists now opine, that this diverted river
had formed the pre-historic Lake Bidahochi,
Which later drained out to form the Little Colorado
River, which today we get see!
But the cut-off western portion of the river (named
Hualapai Drainage) continued to eat away through
the Plateau’s southern portion,
Through a gradual process known as ’Headwater
Erosion’!
For the river flowing at a steeper gradient along
the ‘Grand Staircase’ of the Plateau, carried
stones, rocks and debris,
Which formed the cutting tools, deepening the
Canyon over countless centuries!
When the softer sedimentary layers of the Plateau
below the top rocky layers gave away, - it resulted
in several rock falls!
While flash floods and erosion continued to breach
the sides of the canyon walls!
Thus over millions of years the width of the Canyon
gradually increased;
While the gushing and untamed Colorado River
chiseled through the depths of those Cyclopean walls, -
running deep!
Now the ancient Lake Bidahochi which had breached its
banks, had captured our pristine Colorado;
And their combined power increased the volume of
water and river’s chiseling power, with its rapid flow!

ENDANGERED COLORADO RIVER :
It is unfortunate that today, the Colorado no longer
reach the mighty Pacific as in the olden days!
With the progress of civilization and the spawning
of big cities,
Like Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Los Angeles;
And to cater for the agricultural farmlands and the
Industries,
Many dams got built to divert its water and to
generate electricity!
Thus over a century of overuse and abuse of this
precious natural resource,
Gradually choked up the great Colorado, as it
became a mere trickle at the end of its course!
Ecologists now debate, while USA has launched
‘Save the Colorado River Project’!
Let us now cheer up by getting back to our
Grand Canyon’s scenic beauty,
Before concluding this wondrous Canyon Story!

SUN RISES AND SETS OVER GRAND CANYON!
To see the sunrise from Mather, Yaki, or the
Hopi Point, - located on the Southern Rim,
Becomes a life time experience, better than any
surreal dream!
First a glimmer then a glow, when a faint blue-white
sheen begins to show!
As the sun gradually sprinkles its light, streaks of
crimson red spreads across the eastern sky!
Soon orange and yellow shafts of light, light up the
Canyon walls up high!
Squirrels scurry out of sight, and birds twitter in
the sky!
The Hummingbird hovers like a helicopter, and
Big Horn sheep are also seen;
The Hummingbird which can even fly backwards,
enlivens this early morning scene!
The sun now rising in its resplendent glory,
showers the canyon with its kaleidoscopic beams;
With streaks of yellow, gold and red, it chases out
lurking shadows from within!
Like a curtain lifting before their eyes, the tourists
view this panoramic sight!
As the Grand Canyon awakens to greet the day,
With cameras madly clicking away!
The great ancestors of the Hopi tribe, Hopi
meaning both peaceful and wise;
Had inhabited these areas some eight thousand
years hence!
Their scooped out granaries and tools found inside
Canyon walls, - have an ancient story to tell !
The Spaniards were the first Europeans to reach,
in search for gold which they never found!
But for the Hopis the Canyon remains, as their
sacred Holy ground!
When those Spaniards saw the Colorado way
down below, from the Canyon’s upper rim’s side;
They said that this thin blue streaked River, was
barely five feet wide! (In mid-16th century)
The average width of the Canyon is around 10 miles;
While the River at its narrowest point is 600 yards
wide!
The Condor the largest American bird, catching an
upward draft circles up high;
Like an uncrowned monarch he surveys his kingdom
below, nothing escapes his watchful eyes!
Temperature at the Canyon’s floor is 20 degrees
higher, when compared to its outer rim;
Supports an ecosystem of plants and animals,
With the river as chief nourisher of all things!
Evergreen pines and furs grow along the cooler
areas of the Canyon’s outer rim;
While cactus species are found on its arid floor,
Their exotic flowers bloom during Summer and Spring!
The Northern Rim a thousand feet higher, offers many
spectacular sites!
But the Southern Rim remains open throughout the
year, while the Northern closes during Winter time.
From the Hopi Point west of the Canyon, the visitors
enjoy the beauty of the silent, sinking sun;
When the sky gets diffused with vermillion red, as
darkening shadows engulf those Canyon walls!
The mighty Canyon with its Cyclopean walls,
perhaps the playground of the Titans from eons past;
Shaped by some mythical Vulcan, shall remain till
this World continues to last!

CONCLUDING THE GRAND CANYON STORY:
I conclude my Grand Canyon Story by quoting a
poem I had once read;
Written by an Anonymous author, whose name
I had failed to get!
“BUILT WITH PATIENCE OF ENDLESS TIME,
YEARS ERODE AND SHAPES DEFINE.
LAYERS YIELD THEIR COUNTLESS AGE,
EYES CAN SEE BUT CANNOT GAUGE!
STAND AGAPE WITH AWE INSPIRED,
IMAGE READS OF LIFE TRANSPIRED.
CLIFFS REACH OUT TO TOUCH THE SKY,
PATHS LEAD DOWN WHERE RIVER LYE.
COLORS, SHAPES AND SHADOWS MELD,
HERE, A PLACE FOREVER HELD.
WALK AWAY YET NEVER PART,
BODY LEAVES BUT NOT THE HEART!”
- Anonymous
……………………………………………………………
ALL COPYRIGHTS WITH THE AUTHOR RAJ NANDY
OF NEW DELHI, E-MAIL: [email protected]

Tripped out on Californian sunshine,
In the fields a whole troop of us
Running giggling round the fishing lakes
Or sat under the deep dark trees
I once found a whole city with streets
In miniature on a path
Citizens of blue and green and red walked different paths
Sue, Foxy and the others shouting to come on
I said no I'll just stay here a while
At least I had a reason
Splodge spent the whole day walking round the same tree
Sid had to drag him off
Then we built massive fires in the barn with no roof
They thought we were satanists doing rituals
Pulled it down
Ghosts in my head, some are gone
It was stranger the day I watched the Sun melting
Dripping onto snow drops of gold

There is a beautiful girl who wears blue dresses and has golden blonde hair and picks apples and reads George Orwell and listens to Bob Dylan and lives on the north side of Texas.
Today is her birthday and the best thing I could do is give her a phone call but I lost her number months ago and she hasn't called me yet.
Instead I'll sit here and think about her. Maybe if I think good things about he she will feel good.
That's all I could really ask for, isn't it?
That's all I want for her anyway.

I, on the other hand, want to hold her strong body in my arms and be whispered to sleep by her warm voice. I want to run my calloused hands through her soft hair and read her some E.E. Cummings and nap with her out in the warm Texas sun and drink some of her mother's sweet black tea that is eerily famous in that small town.

I remember the first time she came to this side of the country, the first time I met her.  
She came to visit a friend (who we had grown accustomed to calling Tex) who had moved to this side of the country three or four months earlier.
I met her, the girl who wears blue dresses (Anna) at a market that this town has weekly.
Her golden hair shown against the California sun in a dazzling manner and her blue dress stood out among the short shorts and tank tops. She was eating an apple and walking with Tex. When Tex spotted me she yelled and beckoned me over.
"Nolan, this is Anna," she had said "You're the first native Californian she has met."
I took Anna's hand and told her that I was honored and that it was good to have her in this small town and how sorry I was that I am the first Californian she met and not about how warm her hand was and not about how beautiful she looked in the Autumnal aura surrounding us.
She smiled and told me, in her minute Texas drawl, that it was quite alright and that she liked my sweater.

The second time she visited, we were all sitting in Tex's living room with Tex, her boyfriend Lukas, and Anna. Tex had forced me to come because she felt bad for third wheeling Anna and that "Hey, Anna thought you were cute."
Nervously, I somehow managed "So, uhh, '50/50' is in theaters and it looks ******* awesome. Plus, it's got JGL in it... oh, pardon my language, Anna. But uhh yeah, we should go."
Anna placed her hand on my wrist, "Oh, I would love to! It could be a double date!"
It took me a second but I blushed a darker shade of red that I had ever seen.
Tex clapped her hands "Oh lordy why aren't we on our way now?" Her accent had mostly gone away but she still said 'Lordy' and 'Ya'll' and it was funny.
Lukas was down and we all piled into my old, green Ford Ranger and were on our way.

At the Theater Lukas was on my left and Tex was on his left. Anna was in the seat to my right.
At one point in the movie, I can't remember when, Anna placed her hand on my wrist and I sat there scared halfway to hell.
At another point Anna started crying and I put my arm around her and she cried into my shoulder.
The movie ended and Anna looked up at me and smiled.
She said something and now I can't remember what it was but I can still hear it.

I dropped Tex and Lukas off at Lukas's and drove Anna over to Tex's place.
I walked her to the front door and today she was wearing a dark pink dress. Or maybe it was light red. She had her hands gripping the sides by her thighs as we stood on the door step.
I started to tell her that I had a good time and it's okay, the tears would probably wash out of my shirt when she leaned up and kissed me. Her hands stayed gripping my sides during the quick kiss.
We stood there facing each other for a few seconds before she shoved her finger in my chest and said "I'm going to invite you inside and we're going to kiss some more but I am going back to Texas in a week so you better not make me fall in love with you, Nolan Fillman, or I will be very angry."

We fell in love.
I drove her and Tex to the airport on the day she had to leave.
Tex and I sat with her until the moment she had to board.
As we stood up she kissed me, longer than on the doorstep a week before and I could feel tears against my face. She stuck her finger in my chest again and said "Well this is just peachy, Nolan Fillman, I will probably never see you again."

That was two years ago. It was her birthday and I spoiled it and now two years later I can't properly wish her a happy birthday.

"It is a bad religion to love someone who can not love you back"








-

Smooth, smooth, fringed by yellow smudged, hard plastic
smooth, left to right then a painterly inconclusive running
out, the stroke all 60” expires into the yellow, then a firm
vertical orange stripe, a bookend, a hot surface elevated
upon a warm yellow bed, exotic, turmeric, heated from
below, as though from another world, a future planet found
in Manga, gum wrappers, belonging to the wedding
wardrobes of older women, and those with impossible
shoes, maybe a scarf, definitely lipstick and small Japanese
cars, decorative paper, a can’t-miss logo, as when I close
my eyes in the act of love, holding your kneeling body to
me I lose myself in a pattern of flashes, the bright play of
light and colour, a sensual play of pigment, blue and red
wavelengths, fuchsine, electric, electric, and the aura of
artists, such latent energy, hidden passion, rich in ******
fragrance, edged with desire.

The path of the brush now right to left yellow exposes a
yellow bookend at the left hand edge, there is a roughness
here in its covering of yellow, as though applied in haste or
in a single gesture with a large brush, it is thick, thick and
rough, but the yellow is almost present, a hint, a reflection,
as in the petals of the Bellis Perennis, you open your mouth
breathing, breathing your lips frame such perfect teeth as
day arrives,

Left to right, the paint thick then thinning to a broken
tailpiece revealing yellow on magenta, again, again, again, again,
how little I yet understand your body, the innerness,
the sheltered regions of your desire, I am afraid to harm this
preciousness, be disrespectful of the tapering valley where
love’s caress and kiss meet, are multi-dimensional, the
rectangle is not charcoal, but deflected, hesitant, to the left
the darkness of chocolate, to the right a greyness, a *****
grey, a dusty dark dog, loamed, a depth then play of
shadow, dark, textural as your maidenhair under the covers
above my right hand as it spreads my fingers across its
darkness into deeper darkness, a flat stone, its left end
washed by the cold tide, olived, clothed in mourning, there
is unpleasantness, some distaste, a little fear, the unknown,
the unknowable.

Daisy petals, opening in the morning light, the clapperboard
house on the Block Island beachside fresh-painted every
spring, immediately weathered, porcelained sea shell
textured, turned, tumbled, a dawn sky after rain,
ceramicised fungi, plain flour, acidic, taut, the moment
when the heart and breath seem to pause as we join each
other’s flesh as though this cannot be cannot really be.

Unrhymable this flower shade hued pigment deep saffron
vibrant, phoned, not quite of the fruit, a different tang,
sharper without sheen, magenta beneath its smoothed
surface up to left and right edge, (but for the yellow
frill beneath), lip covering, silk-scarfed, not autumnal yet, but oh
those Californian poppies, those desert landscapes as the
sun sets,

a single uneven gesture thrown left to right, an island
in silhouette with a rocky foreshore spreads into distance,

a bed of sylvan jade, an oasis, this an aerial view of tree
tops modulating to grassy pasture, a down-stroke western
boundary, an edge of surf on its northern border, perhaps
the brush formerly coloured has left its trace,

the main body of this Australian desert seen from the air,
Sidney Nolan’s bush, aboriginal earth, coloured mud,
unguent, the sense of liquid in your kiss, its warmth, the
very tip and corner of your lips, the brush of hair as you
move your head to my chest, the rubbing of hair on hair,
under your arms this play of sensation through the lips’
touch, then the shore, the sand no sand though, only in the
brochures, daffodilled perhaps, unsmudged, fresh,
vigorously golden, well-watered.

Back to my land of verdant green
To feel the bite of winter chill
To know that while all this is so
That far off land enthralls me still.

That far off land of granite peaks
Of crystalline white massif high,
Of conifer which scale the *****
Of rocky outcrop to the sky.
The baking heat of desert mesa
Spread as far as eye can see
Sage bush in its fragrant aura
Tumble **** soon rolling free.
Squirrel dart on shale cascade
Of green grey slate on alpine flank
Bright blue birds in curious hover
...For this, my reeling senses thank.

Fishing boats in bright array
Adorn the West coast sheltered lee,
Crab and mackerel brim the bin
Of bearded fishermen with glee.
Pounding surf of North Pacific
Carves the rock of bastioned coast
Embryonic currents cold
Do modify the climate most.
Redwoods huge clad coastal ranges,
Bright geraniums do sing
From earthen pots outside the cafe
Hot coffee fragrant from within.

Hilarity as laughing people gather
Watch as yelling Serbs do sling
Huge silver fish across the stall
Amid Seattle's Pike's Place din.
Colour paints this market place
Flowers stacked in every hue
Noisy vendors bawl their product
Creamy ice cream cone for you.

Streaming dust in streaming hair
Scree slopes avalanche past for thrill
Mountain crevasse yawns aloof
As ATV's roar up the hill.
Wild terrain of wilderness
On mountaintop of forest fir,
Cougar, grizzly bear and wolf
In pack are found herein astir.
Atop the very precipice
We view the everlasting peaks
Magnificent in summer sun
Embalmed in snow when Winter speaks.

Freeways snake from coast to mountain
Clover leaf in junctions pile,
Forty ton trucks pull big trailers
Endless day for endless mile.
Barrel straight these concrete tarmacs
Stretching far as eye can see,
Headlong surge huge pickup trucks
But cautious eye for Sheriff be.
Roadside diners loud and raucous
Selling burgers, selling beer
Neon flashing through the night
Old ***** waitress' toothless cheer.

The years have clad our friendships well
Familiarity's warming hand
Allows resumption of our words
Despite the 40 year gap spanned.
Houseboat floats in crowded wharfage
Swimming through a clear cool lake,
Californian wine with friends
Hot chilli food and fresh bread bake.
Eye fillets grill on barbecue
See the distant mountain peaks
Summer snow endures aloft
Glows indigo as sunset speaks.

Endless skies of cobalt blue
Cloudless in the summer sun
Gracious denizens do offer
Generosity unsung.
Graciousness across the land
Across these people so diverse,
The wondrous gift of ready smile
Friendly hand and open purse.

History tells these people spoke
Electing leaders for their time
When sanity's quiet need arose
It was promulgated on the line.
With Washington and Lincoln
Through FDR to JFK,
The Presidents who bed-rocked
This Foundation for the nation's day.
Astounding, that exceptional men
Have carved this face from stone,
Have caste the global presence
That Americans call home.

I understand the feeling now,
Of pride and patriotic stance.
I understand the inner strength
Of America's great, true romance.

This poem bequeathed to our good friends who inhabit this land... Big Rich, Suzie and Mike, Our mate Stevo and Ian, Heidi, Wyatt and Cooper, Dear old Greg and his elegant lady, Holly.
But most of all, with gratitude and love, to our marvelous son Boaz and his lovely lady, Angela.

Marshalg & Janet
At "Foxglove", Taranaki... In the Southern hemisphere's mid winter.
2 August 2013

I call it poison, but perhaps you won't. These cold pressed apples, pineapples, and spearmint only paste more modge podge over my face as I schlack it on...gritting my teeth I light yet another cigarette, now that's 2 packs of Marlboro Red Labels now onto American Spirits Light Blue. Cancer isn't coming fast enough. I wish I would at least be ******* out my innards by now, I haven't even vomited, maybe I'll take that toothbrush I bought for you to use when you would stay the weekend, that I haven't gotten around to whitening the sink with. Maybe I can do that Sunday. FUUUUCCK!!!! I am not praying I make till then. I don't know if I can even breathe another hour like this. I haven't drawn a sober breath in years- I'm on the wagon, but I was just transferred from a wheel into the **** bag for a horse. Being ****- at least it's something I am used to (a sigh of temporary relief washes over me. Or is it finally the Nicotine buzz I've been hoping for since I escaped to the forest with an airplane bottle of Southern Comfort[Brainstem: South to the **-femalien crease that's been comforting all these years, where are you now?] , and a pack of my Uncle's cigarettes to find out the first time how to make the pain she's gave me go away.

Men drink essentially because they can no longer illicit their needs.

You who I wasn't even attracted to at first, where together we barely called [Brainstem: this is where I construct a motive for using a chainsaw to pick my nose with] . You who I can now remember the way a mixture of your hair, body spray, sweet sweat, and vintage knits began leading my nose and my memory towards one of the greatest happinesses and darkest times I have EVER had.

[Brainstem: I just hate him. The kind of hate you have for a mosquito, a person who encourages you to speed up while they're walking without reflectors or night-lights in the middle of the road at night with their dog- that kind of hate. The hate that has me smoking my cigarettes to their orange and gold filters, that has me staying awake, unable to touch my own **** because it's already started staying at someone else's place and looks like two Californian Prunes and a shriveled overcooked mini-hotdog does. The kind of hate that has me burping up what smells like rotten eggs or bial.

....Out of nowhere without anything but the image of a virginate 21 year old casing around my aorta, lying in my bed in just a pair of her Fuschia & White Victoria Secret striped 100% cotton ******* that ever so slightly crease inward into the creases where her skinny young legs meet the ever-so-bite-worthy crease....After our first official date where we knew we weren't going to **** each other but rather she was focused on her breathing hoping I wouldn't be able to notice how excited she was [Crime: #4] then step away and find an imaginary monster that challenges every thought I have, conversations and incidents and challenges and givers and receivers and lines and dots, darts, knives, life, and *** and blood faintly stained onto the bottom of the that 1 1/2" piece of fabric which is the biggest obstacle between us.

While I write, recall, remember and dictate and draft up this piece, I realize that I am not the lawyer visiting the killer in prison OR even the killer cruising around in a slightly rusted robin's egg blue Volkswagen Anti-Climaxer, I am not even part of the story anymore, after you decided it was acceptable to be so graphically forward with me (I take another Xanax that's beginning to be two an hour that I avoid taking) Interspliced are scenes from Dexter, versions of serial killer life, visions of this fake superstar with his **** out flailing around spurting a little streaky one shot of *** onto your tongue and in your mouth, or maybe you were plastered with it.

I just know it's good I don't have a gun, I could go for a bullet sandwich 9 times over about now. I never touched, discussed, abused, misused, lead on, flirted with; I never did anything unattractive with the exception of being a heavy smoker and a low-earner right now, but I see women even younger than you make better choices than you. In fact right now I believe you will not even breathe on me. But it's no matter I have the reconstructed skeleton of his severed body parts I let soak in hydrofluoro until I could pick away what little gum-like pieces of pink sinew are still left. (Dexter: The Sarge and The Lieutenant walk  out of the precinct at the same noticing each other.

Do you believe that I really handed over the upper-hand to you? I've never had someone begging to **** my **** on a Thursday and getting a fake celebrity ****** from an awesome artist. And what really ***** the hammer and lifts my limp **** and ****-ticket up to your pretty little mouth, is knowing that eventually you will have to be alone again, and the shine of this excitement will wear off, and then I TOO CAN PLAY THE GAME.

1. Time to light the cigars.
2. I present the Nicaruagan landscapers' body, George Marshall, who is better known as 'The Skinner."
3. I accept that you're going to think being honest about your most promiscuous moments is attractive to talk about. I certainly thought that, up until you That is.
4. No more chocolate cake, again.
5. Throw out the soda.
6. Start taking Amphet Salts and running away from home and into everyone I would've liked to kick with my foot, bare, filthy, and furious into their cheekboned. Then smear the bottom of my oily and baby-***, **** and inviting foot into your Hood until you spray like the five hundred other times you tell me you didn't. But even all this. This cell phone, this furniture, the awful sound of the train all night, the illusion and total manic state that puts diplopic faces of imaginary people between me and the rest of the world.

I need to know, do you even want to here this? Are you confused? What led you to come over or invite yourself here?

Pills, blade, play, or having that kid. But putting up with his ******* to be in the background of thought as someone while I was at home with his four kids. And I just relax then because, while I thought organizing the tower room to serve our primary guest of action was necessary when I looked at it so lit up by the buildings across the way shining their light through its atrium making all of the room much more suited for making art, writing and dancing. This is a huge handful of good-naturedness in a friend that can't seem to get off the phone and I must have to hid the monkey. I have to go to Walmart and return the monkey. I will...... and this is the biggest luxury, the hotel maintenance will even cover up my own series of murders or Dexters.

You believe me right sweetheart. You're my closest friend, but she is worn together and I just like the rings I own to be worn by you so that you don't get the idea to slip up and not just give me more anneurisms for my ****** up already head, or cancel the party, but really play that game and seee them cased out, otherwise I could be...a? A Cosmetic Manufact- "I believe in Freedom." You said.
"hahahaha", I can see that got you where you are today, postulating my grief by throwing self-care out the window and just judging me based on what you don't relate to instead of what you do relate to.

PS I know you didn't have time to let anyone know I was coming already? Until I snuck a peak and figured out you had been casing me the whole time from beginning to end to break me. But I'm not broken. I'm just not eager to be touched by anyone else of the ** form other than you for a minute. I also have time believing that while you were scared of me giving you your first ***-to-mouth experience while I stand you up in a skirt in the back of the school bus. And I can recognize tears of someone around us, and so I stand up and I recognize that it's my friend Stephen who is really (...is really, an imagined hologram of myself I invent to learn about myself in dreams, and other horrific events that my mind shuts down for, and no you're not the only 5' foot and 5" inch blonde haired ex of mine that performs from the camera but not for the eye. It will all come out in the wash regardless. I better to get goin.....I could write on and on and on and on about all of these multi-secular, uninhibited, depressing suggestions from the same bill my sister has to pay her Electric and Water monthly on, but I need to not sleep to make the need more. And even though I say the photo of her touching a single toe with a dead boring hell bent nobody Phillistine that could care less about her Grandfather being sick or her getting an STI or STD or if she is taken care of. But I do. I will. I don't stop being the good natured caring and and passionate person I am just because someone I really thought was going to take me an honest man, just taught me to be more meticulous in making sure I dispose of the body properly... But maybe she isn't playing pretend, maybe she's just another Fake Prada caught up in the mix.

Californian skies ever blue
long hung the hue
rain didn't appear
only a dry fear

the landscape sought lots of wetness  
soaking dampness
yet none did drop
all in a flop

wells depleted of goodly fill
water flows still
arid the land
no rain at hand

i love/    the water.
gonna set my sights
on a sunny californian day.

thought of you,
oxytocin coursing the grooves of my brain.
and you/      in rising colors.

i love/     that.
that polyeurithmic song of again and again
our bodies.

dark parked cars.
neighborhood bedroom lights, on then off.
we continue/      in tongues.

i love/    the sand and scent
of life. of finding ourselves,
in ourselves.

Need adventure Helicopter not included
I mentioned before California is like cereal it is full of fruits nuts and flakes well add Larry to the list he
Found himself out in the yard in a lawn chair and the unthinkable happened he come to the conclusion
He was bored now that just won’t do not in Los Angeles so to solve the problem he dashed down to the
Army surplus store bought a bunch of weather balloons stopped along the way got a tank of helium
Brought them home filled and tied the balloons to the lawn chair then tied the rope to his jeep went in
Got his pellet pistol sat down in the chair so with figuring at release he would float up thirty feet one or
Two ways to get down use the pellet gun shoot a couple of balloons float easily to the ground or if not
That you’re just about even with the top of the house surly you can get the house underneath you to
Jump Off on the roof now Larry wasn’t mechanical so anything to do with engineering was out what was
Is that wonderful feeling of being up there so he pulled the rope there was a slight difference in the
Expected feet not thirty but he shot up and leveled off at sixteen thousand feet ever feel your rope
Might be missing some length well if the thought ever crossed his mind about the pellet gun idea two
Things he was certain about he wasn’t bored and he didn’t want to shoot any balloons deceleration the
Other Way was not an option so what’s a not to bright Californian to do well besides holding on for dear
Life and freezing you added yourself into nature mixed bag nothing left to do but let nature do her thing
So eight hours later he drifts into the Los Angeles airport corridor of all people you would meet a pilot
Trying to land three hundred people calls the tower with this message I passed a man setting in a lawn
Chair with weather balloons and by the way he is at sixteen thousand feet and he has a gun to scrabble
F-16 would be too much even for California so good news for Larry they sent out just a Helicopter and
Brought the lame duck back to safety just another day in the state it’s hard to be surprised in but some
Still succeed

I mentioned before California is like cereal it is full of fruits nuts and flakes well add Larry to the list he
Found himself out in the yard in a lawn chair and the unthinkable happened he come to the conclusion
He was bored now that just won’t do not in Los Angeles so to solve the problem he dashed down to the
Army surplus store bought a bunch of weather balloons stopped along the way got a tank of helium
Brought them home filled and tied the balloons to the lawn chair then tied the rope to his jeep went in
Got his pellet pistol sat down in the chair so with figuring at release he would float up thirty feet one or
Two ways to get down use the pellet gun shoot a couple of balloons float easily to the ground or if not
That you’re just about even with the top of the house surly you can get the house underneath you to
Jump Off on the roof now Larry wasn’t mechanical so anything to do with engineering was out what was
Is that wonderful feeling of being up there so he pulled the rope there was a slight difference in the
Expected feet not thirty but he shot up and leveled off at sixteen thousand feet ever feel your rope
Might be missing some length well if the thought ever crossed his mind about the pellet gun idea two
Things he was certain about he wasn’t bored and he didn’t want to shoot any balloons deceleration the
Other Way was not an option so what’s a not to bright Californian to do well besides holding on for dear
Life and freezing you added yourself into nature mixed bag nothing left to do but let nature do her thing
So eight hours later he drifts into the Los Angeles airport corridor of all people you would meet a pilot
Trying to land three hundred people calls the tower with this message I passed a man setting in a lawn
Chair with weather balloons and by the way he is at sixteen thousand feet and he has a gun to scrabble
F-16 would be too much even for California so good news for Larry they sent out just a Helicopter and
Brought the lame duck back to safety just another day in the state it’s hard to be surprised in but some
Still succeed

I’ll bloom in spring
Alongside the Californian hills.
When the rain paints
The terrain green
With speckled white wildflowers,
I’ll tiptoe on sunlight
to touch the sky.
I’ll be the brightest star
They’ve yet to discover.
Shooting, shining, falling,
And wished upon.
Dry land, crispy and brown
Underneath my feet on
A winter night.

*****, *****, *****, *****, ***** and moan
about us drinking all the milk
that you didn't help pay for
and then drink each last beer
that you didn't help pay for
while the guy who bought them and got to drink none
is busting *** at work
making him able
to buy yet more things
for you to take for granted.

With friends like these..

By the way,
where's the last few months' rent?
You know, for all the months sense your parents stopped payin' it?
Oh, I'm sorry,
I didn't mean to assume
that you would assume some responsibility
like the rest of us
to whom you ceaselessly complain
about how un-*******-fair
your spoiled ******* brat lifestyle is.

You can't even keep a plant
you want for personal reasons,
so how is it even fair to assume
you could get and keep a job?

How foolish of me!

At least you can roll a good joint
with **** you didn't acquire
and papers you didn't buy.
A ******* professional, you are.

By the way,
that soldering iron
you neglected to leave the house to pick up
would be ******* fantastic to have,
but even a walk half a mile to the post office
is too ******* strenuous
for you.

By the way,
do you want ants?
Because your heap of cans, bottles and dishes
is a great way to get ants,
but you get all vindictive and indignant
if anyone tries to clean "your space"
in my ******* house
you haven't even paid to live in
for many months.

While Money is far from everything,
and I wish it was a non-issue,
kindness and good intentions
will not even begin to pay
the bills, the mortgage
or these exorbitant Californian property taxes;
and, even if they did,
I fear you'd still fall
rather short.

Perhaps-
no, not even perhaps:

I've been far too nice far too long
to people who couldn't be ******
to show some ******* respect.

Reno, if a troll messeth with thee, forgiveth them
Their bound not free.

Reno, when the clown's maketh bad choices
Silence them with silence, not voices.

Reno, thou art a dear friend to me, so I thank thou
For always caring, and sharing what tis I believe.

Reno, thou art a being with class, and hopes art high,
Be thyself girl, let the poetry like bullet's fly.

Reno, we've been through this same type of hell,
Yet we don't quit do we? We're not trapped in some cell.

Reno, child of the lighter side,
Open thy mind, continue to expand, taketh that freak poet ride.

Reno, west coast poetic, like medicine thy word's art alphabetic
To soothe a person's bad day, into happiness in cool shade.

Reno, I shalt continue to back thine wonderful work's
And even whilst its us others do hurt, showeth them love always!

Reno,
What a blessing to all of us thou art
Reno,
Poetess by birth
Californian muse heart.....


©Brandon nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry
©Reno dedication/friendship dedication

I found myself missing you
Craving the sound of your voice
And the taste of your neck
And the feeling of your fingers
Tracing the edge of my scruffy jawline
And That look in your eyes that reflects
All of your Californian dreams
And that's when I realized
I Love You

She egresses from a pool of blue and straight into the colorless, Californian dregs of summer.

Each passing plane reminding her how stuck she is.

The question remains whether some people are doomed to just survive, a yearning for freedom following them around, until they learn to numb themselves to such aspirations.

Faraway trains pass by.

The sound in their whistles knowing the events she will litigate with herself for years to come until it empties the contents of her soul.

On a Sunday evening, the hall started to fill up.
for one of the most influential leaders
young people, full of questions about the church they once loved
reassurance to challenge articles of faith without leaving faith behind
the preacher had come to speak out against what he called lies
eternal damnation might be misleading
Gandhi’s in hell? We have confirmation of this?
God wants all people to be saved. Does God get what God wants?
The leader had rejected Hell, thereby embracing heresy.
hoped to spark a movement
faith is best expressed in deeds, not words.
we have a winner.
I’m only going to say things that I know are true.
the future of the faith belongs to skeptics and doubters.
dreaming of a world without Hell, building Heaven on earth.
Jesus will come again, to judge the living and the dead.
We disagree about the nature of this judgment.
Hell was a divine penitentiary, Hell was the status quo.
Hell was a riot of mutations—a sick parody of the natural order.
Hell was the only fitting punishment for the crime of being born
Hell was a vivid symbol of an awesome, unreasonable God,
holding you over the Pit of Hell, much as one holds a Spider
the doctrine of Hell doesn’t hamper recruitment efforts,
God is good enough to save you from it.
worry, instead, about eradicating the various hells on earth.
life beyond is a continuation of the choices we make here
God might offer salvation to dead people who failed to choose
-Who would doubt God’s ability to do that?
-Just picking  the verses I like? I think everybody is
free will means that human beings must have real choices,
judgment is God’s way of taking  human agency seriously.
choose between a personal Jesus and a perfect Bible,
some questions about the afterlife will have to wait until we get there
the mystery at the heart of creation
one more mildly spiritual Californian,
was a dissenter in Michigan.
Not a lifelong believer.

my best friend has a boyfriend
and i want to scream
the love inside me is bubbling
it is rage on a californian summer day
my best friend has a boyfriend
and i want to scream
she is holding his hand
and he is touching her cheeks
he is tall and fair and quiet
he is what you were not
he is not you
but my best friend has a boyfriend
and i want to scream
i want to tell her to run from love
because it ends up in pain
i want her to teach me how to
fall in love again
i want her to tell me
how it felt when they first kissed
i want to know if it felt as mystical
as magical
as terrifying as us
my best friend has a boyfriend
and i want to scream
because everytime i see them
i think of you and me
dark and so much taller than me
speaking in tongues all native to me
silences that spoke more than words
my best friend has a boyfriend
and i want to scream
they have gotten what i have not
they are living what i will not
the death of us is the beginning of them
my best friend has a boyfriend
and i want to scream
this life is beautiful
but without you, thats hard to see.

You were born with thunder rumbling from between your lips.
Your words were learned to be feared.
the promise of being trapped in the rain was too frightening for anyone to listen.

You were a flower that had begun to wilt,
covered by the shade of those towering above you,
and when they stole the last ray of light,
you learned to become your own sun.

Lightning shown in your golden-brown eyes.
Fierceness and a refusal to take any odds into consideration.
You struck hearts into beating again,
you struck minds into thinking again.

Your soul is a flood raging over hills. You are washing down every crevice of the world;
drowning and sweeping away things that will never measure to your strength.

You are a Californian wildfire.
Beautifully destructive and distinctively fearless.
You are crackling heat in valleys where thirst will never be quenched.
Don't be offended when they turn away,
some people just can't take the heat.

You have grown into a refusal to let the natural disasters inside of you sit still.
You have taken every ounce of nothingness that you felt and turned it into a brewing storm.
We will hear that thunder rolling from your lips this time.

Sonnets were written about your icy smile years before you were born.
Poets know the beauty of a powerful earthquake that could send cities crumbling,

Everyone knows the beauty of a powerful woman that can send worlds crumbling.

We hiked mountains and dove into ocean temples
We tasted apple candy, fried onions and sushi platters
Without you to nourish my soil, my earth shatters
In my mouth lingers the dry taste of our kindred kiss

Longing for a touch that is now long gone
I trudge when I walk back to where we walked
In dreams I call (your name), in dreams I fall
Back into your arms…emptiness… alone!

October 2017, Lyon
Dedicated to my former Californian lover, Aaron S.

My heart is fleshy and soft inside like an orange.

Beating with the morning and acidic in the night.

My heart, you peel it slowly as the spray hits you with every rip.

Fill in the gaps

You dig your nails into my heart almost as deep as into my back.
It's marked with little red crescents like a Californian sunset behind blushing clouds.

Fill in the gaps

You and I are an orange ripped in half begging to fall in place like puzzle pieces.
Like mountain ranges on orange peel.

Fill in the gaps

Invert me and let every peak meet every crevice.
Seal the nothingness between us and make it full and dark and beautiful again.

Fill in the gaps

And let us rot together until we're swallowed whole.

don't eat it,
but don't tell me
"It ain't Texas enough."
I know.
We are in Seattle,
the owners are Chinese,
and I'm Californian,
so it's definitely not Texas.
It's a mutt.
"Dog food," said a customer.
I don't blame. I ain't mad,
they just pay me to be here.

It was late June in New York,
humidity was at about 98 percent
and random rain storms
left my hair and face
in a state of disaster.

I looked like my mother
wearing curly hair and defeat
like it was summer's hottest trend.

Andrew said something about
us Californian kids being *******.
My lungs were too heavy to fight back.

"Just 10 more blocks,"
he promised,
as if that was supposed
to comfort me.

When we finally made it to his building
we walked up 7 flights of stairs.
Each floor served as a rest stop
where I would sit and make quiet snide
comments like,
"It's illegal to have a building
larger than 3 stories
without an elevator in California."

We reached his floor, the 7th heaven,
I threw myself on his air mattress
and he turned on the window a/c unit.

I slept until nightfall,
when I awoke
he had prepared dinner
and opened a bottle of Canadian wine.
Bob Dylan's The Freewheelin' spinning on
the record player.
(Andrew would later gift me that record as a parting gift.
And I would later listen to it
every time I thought of him
or New york;
It's still in heavy rotation.)

After dinner we climbed up the fire escape
to go smoke joints on the rooftop.
Andrew asked me how New York
was different from California.
I pointed out that you can't
see the stars in New York
but told him that the skyscrapers
that painted the ***** skyline
were surprisingly just as beautiful.

He smiled to let me know that
there was hope for this suburban girl yet.