I watch the prom Dance,
In an awkward stance,
my friends walk in with dates,
and the excitement Abates.
Alone in a corner,
I mope like a mourner,
With no partner to dance with,
No gentleman to prance with.
Amidst the mirth and cheers,
My eyes fill up with tears.

I rush out into the open air,
And by Jove! I see Voltaire!
With his satirical charms,
He draws me in his arms.
As I sway to the beats,
I'm waltzing with Keats.
Causing my funny bone to arouse,
Enters P.G.  Wodehouse!
Using nonchalant wittiness,
He acknowledges my prettiness.
And then walks in Shakespeare,
Who  wipes away my tear,
And my senses curdle like curds,
As he showers me with words.
While I repress the excited child,
I'm swaying with Oscar Wilde.
I'm rendered helplessly mute,
With his phrases so astute.
With a proposal so verse-y,
I'm serenaded by Shelly  B. Percy.
And before this fantasy can spoil,
I fox trot with  Conan Doyle.

And thus literally seduced,
into putty I'm reduced.
I am platonic-ally smitten,
By the genius of what they've written.
The dating circus can’t make me cry,
because a host of paramours have I.

The drunk chanting of "chug" has faded away. The liter of jäger is at war with my liver as I take another long drag of a Seneca Red.
Embers in the grill still smolder away, the taste of pork chops linger on my tongue. My stomach feels empty, although we've only just eaten. The hot dogs are gone. So are the hamburgers and chops. I can't just throw some food in the grill anymore. I must journey to the main campus and sate my hunger for heated meat, perhaps some wings.

I check my phone and see the time is eleven. Now is as good a time as any. I flick the **** into the cool spring night and cross the parking lot towards my Toyota. I grab the wallet from the glove compartment and place my headphones around my ears. Roger asks me if I've heard the news. I tell him I haven't. He says the Dogs are dead. I say that must be good news for the Sheep. My walk, or should I say incoherent stumble, from the town houses is accompanied by the sounds of Animals, a truly relaxing atmosphere.

As I progress down the road from town houses to the main campus, flanked on either by side by wooded areas, memories start coming to me through the darkness. I've walked this path almost daily for close to three years now. Sophomore year I'd walk to Francis from Doyle to get dinner, or hang out with friends who lived there. Junior year, it was from the Phase Twos to my classes and back. This year, it's from the coveted Phase Ones, which I don't truly understand. Phase Two and Three are so much better. Why does everyone want to live in Phase One?

These semi-joyful, or at least not totally depressing, memories flood my consciousness, and bring me back to easier, simpler times. I lack liquor, so I drink these memories down, savoring the sweet scents and full flavors my mind is so adept at bringing back to life. I smash the bottles which held them as I finish them, watching the drunken starlight shimmer and dance over the bits of shattered glass.

As I pass by Doyle and enter the main campus, the memories begin to change and shift. Instead of days which were laden with friendly laughter, I now begin to remember my freshman year, living in Shay Hall and having a whole new campus to discover. When I was forced from my shell and began to meet new people. One of those people would become my first real relationship, and would last all of nine months in my life. Her name was Gabby, and despite her undeniable insanity, was one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen.

We did everything together, from eating and sleeping to going to our pals parties. She loved me, I loved her, and life was wonderful. Until it all, just, wasn't anymore. She grew demanding and distant, while at the same time requiring more and more attention from me, until one day the dam failed under pressure and let the reservoir flood the lands we'd been cultivating for nine months.

She cheated on me. While this was no new fact for me to deal with, looking back on my history with women, it was nonetheless still quite hard to face. She had the good grace to break it off face to face, but there was still a great deal I couldn't forgive her for. The constant demand she placed on every thing I did, no matter how minor or minuscule. The night she struck me for not putting my cell phone on vibrate. The words she would say, layered with condescension whenever I should fall short.

So I cursed her. Not in the typical sense one associates with curses, but more of a silent prayer that she would one day feel the pain that she subjected me to. I didn't have to wait long, though. The following year, she made her way to New Orleans to celebrate for Mardi Gras. Her new beau, the one she had left me for, stayed behind in New York, and put her rightly on the receiving end of the pain she brought me. While she enjoyed the festivities of Fat Tuesday, he enjoyed the carnal company of three seperate women. When she returned, she was heartbroken.

I never received a phone call. No apologies for what she did. No offer of kind words to soothe a soul which still had yet to recover from the blows it had been dealt. No lesson had been learned. No insight into her own actions taken away. No moment of clarity in which she realized the mistake she had made, or the pain she had caused with her selfish actions. The curse remains, hanging over her head like an everlasting storm cloud, dissipating only when she realizes what she has done to one man who enjoys nothing more than holding a well founded grudge.

Herbert O' Doyle was a very simple man. Simplistic in his ways, simplistic in his tastes, he believed all good things in life were earned, rather than gained. You would think a rich man of his stature in his early 60's could sit back, put his feet up and relax. But Herbert despised the idea, for he was one to never be seen doing nothing - as he often quotes, doing nothing 'made his teeth itch'.

No, Herb was always doing something; from building new furniture to tending to the gardens, he was up and about 24/7. So much so, people who visited his Manor grounds surmised he ran on clockwork, an unfeeling machine unable to do nothing but grind on methodically through the day. Sadly, what the people didn't realise is that he was, in fact, at the mercy of his obsessive compulsive disorder - his own snarling little demon he'd had to live with for his whole life. If the hedges were not trimmed perfectly, the demon would snarl. If one of the visitor rooms looked too empty, the demon would snarl. If, goodness, a spoon was laid out of line, the demon would snarl, make his head whirl, only in correcting the anomaly would stop it gnawing at his stomach.

There was one advantage to having OCD, however, and that was he knew every corner and cranny of both the O' Doyle Mansion and the gardens outside. Well, that was what he'd thought, anyway.

For upon the morning of Saturday the 2nd August 2016, Herbert discovered a secret his predecessors had hidden, even from himself. A secret that defied common knowledge and that had probably brought about his late family's considerate wealth.

A secret that he would later come to wish he'd never known.

- - -

It was by sheer accident he'd discovered the shed. Upon clearing out the weeds and grasses that had started clogging the miniature river that ran through the gardens, he had slipped, tumbled into the water, and been left facing the back end of the river. The fall wasn't severe enough to hurt him, but enough to dislodge a few rocks in the river bank's side.

At first he saw nothing but dead leaves, mud and moss covered sandstone, but upon further inspection his eyes came across a sharp glint that caught in the sun's glare. To him it looked like a metal plate, or maybe a blade, rusted up and stained near beyond recognition. But, it was unmistakably metal. And whatever it was, it was horrifically out of place.

To say that it had been purely compulsion, not curiosity, that had led Herb to clear off the mud and rock from the bank could possibly be a lie - but to say that curiosity had not proceeded him to open the metal door behind definitely is. For as soon as Herb saw the sand chewn handle his mind immediately wanted to know what was beyond. And before he even knew what he was doing, the door was open and he was climbing inside.

- - -

It turned out the door led directly to a series of catacombs beneath the Manor grounds - something Herb had been completely oblivious to. Ever since a child he had lived here, brought up with his parents, shown the many secrets that hid within the grounds by his late father.

All apart from this one.

His father had disappeared long ago, his mother explaining that he'd found another woman and had left. Herb hadn't believed that, from the almost desperate plea in his mother's eyes to the fact he knew his father had loved his family, he couldn't help but think of it as a lie. And up until now, he had dismissed that thought - for if his father hadn't run away, where was he? But finding this cavern of wandering tunnels, he realised maybe his gut instinct had been right all along; could his father have got lost in these tunnels, unable to escape and subsequently died?

Or maybe he was still here, alive but not quite living.

Herb had shivered at that point. Thinking such thoughts in a dimly lit place like this would only cause his minds to play tricks. If he lost his head, or his way, he would never get back.

There was a very real danger he would suffer the same fate others down here probably had.

He shook his head, cleared the thoughts, and walked on - tirelessy trundling along until he finally came to a dead end where the rocky walls collided together.

- - -

What he'd found was far beyond amazing. Where the walls had closed together someone had crudely chiseled out a door way, 6ft high with a curved arch reminiscent of victorian architecture. The method was clumsy, the jagged stone sharp and even dangerously dagger-like in places. Just like teeth guarding a gaping mouth.

When Herb had finally gone through that doorway he had entered a vast hall, supported by limestone pillars, half eroded, and a floor lined with smooth granite slabs. The air inside was musky, almost miasmic, and stale. The very atmosphere itself was of death, as if the very oxygen that it consisted of had deceased. Even the stone walls resembled long abandoned corpses.

But these things Herb quickly disregarded, for lined in two perfect rows down both sides of the hall were twelve golden statues, sun-kissed and glinting amber in the light of his torch.

There were six on either side, some missing arms, other devoid of heads, but what tied all these masterpieces together was the deliberate attention to detail. And that they were all female.

He could pick out the minute hairs upon their bare arms, the slight bumps under the skin where the arteries knotted around their wrists. For those with heads, their hair flew out around them, as if caught in a summer breeze, and, most fascinatingly, Herb could gaze into their eyes and see the brushed lines of the iris and the miniscule veins around the edge of their sockets. The attention was precocious, compulsively perfect, and the result was dazzlingly beautiful.

When he'd eventually torn his eyes away from the statues, Herb's gaze fell upon the dankly lit shed sat right at the back of the hall. It was ugly, falling apart in places and obviously riddled with wood rot. Surrounded by the statues of gold, it looked sorely out of place, like a stray dog that's wandered onto a Crufts show.

Not even realising, he started towards it, by-passing the statues and their grimacing faces, instinctively seeking to open the shed door and peer inside. Why would this be down here? The sculptures are unexplainable but having a garden shed locked deep in some catacombs is even stranger. Maybe it's owner forgot about it... or wanted no one to ever find it.

And that's when he realised something was stuck to the bottom of his shoe, stopping him merely a few yards from the shed. Reaching down, he ripped it off and opened it up, the sprawling hand writing instantly denoting it was a note of some kind.

Ignorant to the sudden wind behind him that wheezed through the archway, Herbert started to read the final words of his long lost father.
- - -

I will keep pushing myself.
Keep going.
I will read Edmund Spenser,
Shakespeare, Wilde,
Shelley, Doyle, and CS Lewis
By the end of the summer.
You laugh.
Two weeks, one book a day, it isn't hard.
I only have four chapters of chemistry to finish,
Two chapters of AP Physics,
Four chapters of AP US history,
My personal reading list,
Four debate cases,
And a little light reading
(Judith Butler and Ayn Rand).
I WILL finish everything I have to do.
Refill the coffee ***.
I'll use more eyedrops.
Two weeks.
I will finish my summer homework.

Where do you go to when you are caught?
The Sandmen will pursue in your dreams
Do you ever give that a second thought?
For he is dutiful and loyal while relentless
The Runner will scurry, even risk us
Putting so many people in the way, he tries to hide
They all clear the way to either side
Francis Seven makes the **** and takes no small amount of pride

The odds for renewal you deny
When you are caught, you die
This is what happens when you run
Francis holsters his gun
Emotionless in the revelry of a crowd
Dead in a fountain, black blossom revealed, his job there is done
Spectators cheer for the violence, so loud
He finds Logan, admiring his son,
And reminds his friend of the balance: “One for one.”

On the way to the Carrousel, to bear witness, they enter Arcade
Where the cabinets burst with all sorts of debauchery and debts to be played
And pass their hedonistic delights, ******, drugs and surgery
Logan all the while curious, Francis cautious of his curiosity
It seems he has doubts of the system, this itself is living dangerously

Donned in white robes and masks, flames crawling up the legs
They stand on the red flower and ascend,
Exploding into dust, with uproarious cheers
The deafening roar for renewal, a spectacle, the question it begs
Is this how we all must meet our end?
Contemplating, the celebration of execution, the last thing anyone hears-
Renewal! Renewal! Renewal! Renewal! Renewal!

But they are called away again, and **** Doyle Ten
With his possessions, they return to headquarters, to report
The mastermind of all time,
The computer, infallible, whose Megalopolis is sublime
Does he care one bit?
These rebels threaten society
He clocks them out with apathy
A servant to civility
Idyllic, perfect, too perfect
A top secret mission, unusually
Called to locate the Runners who have escaped the city,
Confounded by the computer, every moment owed to technology
LOGAN FIVE, FIND AND DESTROY SANCTUARY

One thousand and fifty-six refugees purportedly escaped beyond the wall
Logan’s flower has been activated, his questions answered, there is no renewal,
He slips out to contact a rebel, who can help him escape the city and **** them all
Jessica, who posited this machine was malfunctioning; the object of Logan’s desire
They run together, Francis chases, unwilling to believe until he sees
The seeds of distrust sewn and falsely confirmed, the rebels believe Logan is a killer and a liar
Then their eyes meet, Francis Seven, the unrelenting predator
He hesitates, takes a shot at Jessica, but Logan saves her
In panic and fervor, the fox and the cat, certain they’re done for
Hunted in the ruins beyond the walls, the Sandman turned Runner

What evil irony the pair endure,
To have hope renewed in their travels
Only to find it frozen, killed by a broken machine
One thousand and fifty-six humans, stored in ice
Looking to add two more, before its store collapses
Amazed to be alive, they flee, meeting the old man and his cats
The only other human they’ve seen in their retreat
Better to be stored by Box or shot by Francis, who finds them,
Gone mad with his obsession, his grief and frustration, his desperation serves his defeat
Unwilling to listen to reason, to see through the lies and illusion, these two who were once like brothers now fight
All of the ******, the time and the ruthless, mindless divulgence of decadence, all comes to a head over a blinking light
Logan kills Francis, holding his head in his arms, fitfully delirious ramblings, Logan tries to keep him calm
When he starts up one last time, to say look at your palm
The blinking red and black now clear: “Logan you renewed!”

In the city he reveals the deception of their structure
You can live past thirty! The Carrousel is a lie! You can have a future!
Captured, confronted, questioned and caged, probing his mind
Six spinning heads anger the computer who demands, WHERE IS SANCTUARY, WHAT DID YOU FIND?
Six spinning heads all repeat, that one truth was always so near,
There is no sanctuary here!

The computer shorts out, and soon the Sandmen are destroyed, Logan shoots his way out, the city empties in chaos and fear
Standing on the steps of this erupted crater of truth, Logan and Jessica are looking out as a pair
All people are free, they gather around the old man, something they never imagined they would see
Some touch him, in awe, some simply stare
Sometimes there’s no time to run, no time to live; it all hardly seems fair
Something is certainly different when there is hope, there is a change in the air
Somehow alive, the Sandman who ran to the finish and managed to survive, Logan Five has time to spare.

Phileas Fogg,
On a brigantine sledge,
Braved the Omaha wind
As it twirled.
So, Jules Verne might say
That a full eighty days
Is plenty to travel the world.

Amelia Earhart
Crossed the sea –
The quickliest feat
…For a girl –
In twelve hundred forty
Short minutes, you know:
Others failed, but gave it a whirl.

Rosemary Doyle,
Our wonderful mum,
Exceeded these
Feats of grand scale!
She has crossed oceans faster,
Breezed over Great Plains,
And – without perspiration – prevailed!

Carefully, casually,
She raised five kids:
‘Neath our burden
She never collapsed.
Loving and giving
Us lives we are living.
Have there – really – eight decades elapsed?

Octogenarian?
Silliest word:
It sounds like
A sea creature’s vet,
But if you want true fun,
Then just orbit the sun
Eighty times, like our mom:  It’s no sweat!


© 2Mar2018 DracoTalpus
For Rosemary N. Doyle
On the occasion of her 80th birthday

As I left the house the other day I felt some eyes on me
But, I looked around both front and back and no one did I see
I had this funny feeling as I walked on down the street
They were hidden in the background and were being quite discreet
It really did unnerve me to be watched out in  the dark
But then  I found  my stalker when I walked down  by the park
I turned around so  quickly and looked up in the trees
And there it was ,   I saw it, sitting staring  back at me
A pair of eyes were  smiling, on a cat , the Cheshire kind
When I looked again, I knew again,   that this was just my mind
I'd had this feeling once before a year or so ago
But I'd looked around for someone and that someone didn't show
But here I was years later standing, looking in that tree
At a cat with eyes wide open, sitting, smiling back at me
I said "where did you come from?" and "what is it you want?"
"Why choose me to follow, why am I the one you haunt?"
He blinked and said "I'm sorry, it's is you that chose to choose"
"I'm just here to help your writing, you can say that I'm your Muse"
"You see I surface when you need me, to give your ideas a little push"
"I help filter out the voices, I'm the one that tells them shhhhhh"
"An artist has a model, Lautrec...he had his ******"
"Doyle had his ***** and you can say I'm yours"
"But why a cat?...of all the things there is for to be chosen"
"I don't know he said, maybe your mind was just  frozen!"
"You must like Lewis Carroll for I'm his , not yours, you know"
"And just like back in Wonderland, I know just when to go".
"I know when you are stuck on a word or on some prose"
"That's when I come and help you, come to help show how it goes"
"But, why do you stay hidden, come on  now and  tell me true"
"Who'd believe a tale of talking cats...not me...and I'm sure not you!"
"I'm near and then I'm not so close, I come just when I must"
"Usually, you're on your own, your thoughts you're best to trust"
"To write and share your stories, it takes a leap of faith"
"But who'd believe it if you said you  got your stories from a wraith?"
I thought a bit, and that made sense, there's no way to tell
Even though it's madness, they'd condemn me right to hell
A Cheshire cat who writes your poems and sits up in a tree
Now who would believe that fancy tale ?, certainly not me
He said my mind has many thoughts that should be put to paper
And his job was to come around when ideas began to  taper
Poems, and essays, stories, who knows even a book
I'd only have to dig deep down, and give my mind a look
Before he left I asked him why I'd not seen him before
He said to me "truth be told, you've never opened up that door"
"You've never crossed the threshold to where your mind gives birth"
"To the ideas for all your writing, your imagination hearth"
"But now you know I'm  here for you and here to help you write"
"I'll disappear just like before and I shall say goodnight"
"Before you leave I have to say, I'm glad that this was no ruse"
"And of the things there is around I'm glad it's you I chose to choose!"

Sunday 40,88 82 82 80 82 Between South Africa, Brazil and Macedonia 600-100-300 300 John Wilson, 300 + 40.82 Congress, eight letters, George Washington. Brazilian art gallery More than 1,300 years later, German, African and Chinese ****** arrive in South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, 60.6006 million 40600300600 (20) ******* divorcees, 8,8,8,8, Brazil, Brazil Brazil, 600 600 600, 600, 82 300, 300, 300 Brazil, 40.82 - another "teacher" in France France is full of ****** from Brazil 600-100 - Six dogs and ****** are full of the fruity aromas of Carmen Campbell, a woman who lives with prostitutes; Prostitutes have existed for 300,700 years (according to Tom Wilson) 300 8 George W. Ashington, USA Euro, Brazil, Brazil, Gabon, Morocco, Ra Ramalin, Harlem, 0.82, Latin America, Africa, Macedonia, South Africa, 40.82, Yobe Africa, Morocco, 40-82 years. MacDonald's, May 2, South Africa, Curse, United Kingdom, Russians, ******' ****** and G'ilimão de Mécoques 2011 6,000,000 days in South Africa, China, South Africa, Go-Go UK / EU. Yuku Uyu and 600, 600, 600, 600, 600 Google ******. Yeh, one Sunday, George Washington attended the coronation of George W. Murray 40.82 600-100-300 300 300 Tom Wilson has Good News for Ephraim in South Africa, ****** from Africa And South Africa bloom in the dust of South Africa. 82300300 has a place of landing for Brooklyn ******, Washington ******, and ****** from East New York in South Africa with 600 600 000 300 (8) 600 doctors, South Africa Google with more than 600 people. 5-300000 600,600,000,600,600 600,000 John Wilson, George Washington, 200,000 in 50000 - 60000600402 in the morning 6006,0066 3006 63 00000 100 600 600 600 600 ****** are here. 600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,6­00,
600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,6­00,600,600,00,600,660,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600­,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,­600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,6­00,600,600,600,600,600,600,
600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,600,6­00,600,600,60,6 ******* canned report 600600600 40, 82, Brazil, South African and possibly poisonous, 300B - ******* for Tom Wilson, Rudolf, Morocco 600-100-300300 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 6 600 6 600 6 600 6 600 6 600 6 600 6 600 6 600 6 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 1300 Brazilian Producers Paul Paulson, Wilson 2: 40.82, South Africa, South Africa and Brazil 600 600 600 United States' 'Hamster' Washington 100 6006006 Miami, Florida 300,600 82.3003 million more in Brazil, South Africa, Mexico and Russia; Tom Hamilton 40.82 to Morocco and Brazil, South Africa; Freedom in Ohio as a frontier wife, Macedonia, Brazil; United States, Spain, Brazil 20.8 Aborigines, Moroccan, Brooklyn and Harlem ******, 0.82, Decoration: Often, a professional, in fact, is a pre-recorded decision. Others see teenagers, while others see "magic." Doyle is the most vicious woman, of the bride for $15 per night to support her classmate, the "ex" ******* who is still a "*******". The figures show that prostitutes are from the local community, that they are disgusting ****** and a woman who has been trafficked for less than a month can reduce stress she receives through using a *******. **** *******, your *** is your money! Your ******* donkeys, and donkeys are your money.

An old curiosity shop
a lost world depository
dark dusty as pharaoh's tomb
worming squirming carefully through
where 'Breakages Must Be Paid For'.

Stopped clocks claiming time is up
sofas trailing their entrails
peeved pictures offered for their frames
and bureaux bursting with bumf.

Rummaging through dank passages
searching inner chamber book stocks
classic novels at six old pence
thumbed pages bought for improvement.

Nelson Collins Clear Type Press
Dent and Everyman in distress
Dumas Dickens and Conan Doyle
countless cultural references.

Home of the navy, big and strong,

Think that's it? You are most wrong,

Home of Dickens, and Isambard Brunel,

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stayed a while as well,

Singers like Same Difference born so very close to home,

Gunwharf Quays, Action Stations and even a PlayZone,

An Aquarium, lots of shops, amusement parks and more,

Theatres, museums, the Isle of White; it's fun from shore to shore,

Portsmouth is a brilliant place, to live and work and play,

People who live or visit here shouldn't ever move away!

ian anderson wears my father's face,
my small hands in his work-worn palms
as he sings to me: war-child,
dance the days and nights away...

LATER.

my home is barefoot wandering baker street
in the dirt-path days before arthur conan doyle,
rabbits running in the gutter,
arms full of tea-cups,

praying to the gods of war
at the chapel of the bright city mile
on a dusty sunday afternoon--

and every song is home:
like the inside of a tavern,
yellow candlelight dancing across the wooden walls.
i see falstaff, ruddy-faced and drunk in the corner,
roland, passed out with a cup in hand,
my father, the minstrel in the gallery,
smile on his face, piping out a tune.

it is because of him i am a valkyrie, a war-child.
it is by his virtue that i brandish a sword,
that i stand at attention, that my back is unbroken,
that i give no armistice--
and he taught me how
(though it seems inconsequential)
to play solitaire.

OF COURSE.

and while the horses wander the hillside,
while i become the poet and unsheath my pen,
while i join the stage and leave the audience,

i know-- always--
i can follow the flute home.

You are more poetic than Donne
Smoother than Shakespeare

You are more romantic than Austen
More mysterious than Doyle

You are stronger than Neruda
More interesting than Vonnegut.

You are
Wasted.

The lamplight is
dimly lit.
here am i,
shoving
panda express
into the dark cavern
called my mouth
where the stalactites
and stalagmites
dance together and apart
it's a bit tangier than usual
my taste-buds concur
the rice is lukewarm
and falls off my fork
paperwork due tomorrow
SAT prep
projects
my future
and all i want to do  is
write poetry
7:18 pm
and i sit,
writing poetry
for me writing is breathing
air
and sometimes i hold my breath for
days at a time
i cannot be a hermit
i must have interaction
though i
want to be alone
far away
where even
beethoven's fifth symphony
wouldn't drown out the noise
he laughs at me
who?
who are they that mock me?
beethoven
shakespeare
poe
conan doyle
even
charles dodgson finds me funny
"so you want to be a writer?" they boom, and suddenly i
am as
small as dust
"YOU a FEMALE WRITER and MUSIC LOVER? ha! i never heard anything funnier!"
and the voices mush into one
and it softens to become the voice
of my inner critic
my nemesis
my arch foe
my ennui
and that is only the 14th
of April.

Dennis Doyle, a barrister,
gave up his job upon a whim.
Now what to do? A quest!
A quest he would begin.
A lifelong fan of the New York Knicks
He'd follow them home and away!
Tickets were a big expense
=Twenty five thousand he would pay.
Then there would be planes to catch,
food and hotels along the way.
He'd sit and cheer his heroes on!
Each night he'd watch Carmelo play.
Too soon, the losses began to mount;
he watched the season slip away.
It takes a special sort of soul
to sit and watch this team at play;
to seize defeat from victory ,
the Knicks would surely find a way.
To qualify for a high pick
they traded half the team away.

Each night He'd sit and glumly watch
This team that will not win a ring.
Is it all worth it? Who can say?
For the true fan, the play's the thing!

I jumped off a cliff, and did not want to die this time. The time and preparation I took with a new found value for my life, kept me breathing. The harness I wore hugged my hips I once hated, while the neon rope kept me far above rock bottom. As I clipped into my climbing belay device from the top of the rock rather than the bottom for the first time, I had a revelation; I knew the harness I was wearing held legs that were stronger than ever before, the shoes on my feet kept me scaling above the expected, and the rope I tied into would lead me to stability and adventure. Harnessing the last of my inner strength allowed me to step into the shoes of the man I knew I was meant to be, all while trusting the ropes I learned during the time that I was away. I learned how to love boldly and with transparency.  

Recognizing my ability to love and be loved I set foot on a journey to develop my underlying drive to better the environment. I took the information in like a luffa squash sponge anytime I could, resulting in a vast variety of knowledge. I was taught how to sow, fertilize, maintain and sustain hundreds of species of vegetables, flowers and fruits on seemingly endless lengths of garden beds. Wise mentors and old souls graced me with historical lessons an artifact of how us humans have interacted with the native land for over four centuries. All while highly educated and selfless individuals devoted their time to teaching sustainable and invaluable information to myself and the next generations to come. I want to be one of the wonderful humans who has taught me everything I know about farming and the environment thus far. I want to be a good human too.

Before I started that week in late spring of 2018, I had recently finished pushing myself through my first year at a community college. I was not only grieving the passing of the most incredible person I knew, but I was preparing to lay to rest the female self I once lived for 18 years. I needed to grab onto something to stay in this lifetime. With hard work, maturity, perseverance, self reflectance, and the ability to be honest with myself and others, I healed and I learned. Holding a record of my rapidly growing 1000 hours of environmental and agricultural experience between last farming season and the current one, I continue with an undeniably honest passion for actively learning and striving to create a life I want to be in. Taking the time to restructure my life while connecting with a countless number of unforgettable people to teach and guide me along the way has prepared me for this moment. I am ready for what is next. The time as come to succeed. My name is Neive Doyle, an organic farmer, transmasculine individual with a purpose to save the only earth we have.

There’s tale upon tale told
In praise of Washington’s Big Train
And the horsehide deeds of Old Pete
Shall be told often and again.
And honest Matty, the Big Six
Hurl’d more than a gem or two,
But they can’t match The Rainmaker
Tossed by Pittsburgh Dan McGrew.

He’d come by train from Keokuk
As green as a patch of clover;
And though he stood ‘bout six-foot-three
Weighed one-forty or just over.
He sauntered up to the owner
Mister Dreyfus? I’m Dan McGrew,
And I am the damnedest pitcher
That anyone has ever knew.

Old Barney found himself amused
By such a gangly cow-town rube
So the boss man and Freddy Clarke
Thought they’d have some fun with this ****.
There’s Wagner—can you strike him out?
His reply left them in stitches.
I reckon that won’t be too hard;
I should only need three pitches.

Oh, so your fastball is that good?
Skipper Clarke said with a chuckle
Don’t throw one, so Clarke said aghast
Can your curve make Hans’ knees buckle?
He shook his head, Nope, don’t throw that,
As he grinned like a wiseacre.
Got just one pitch, that’s all I need,
And I call it The Rainmaker.

They called the Dutchman to the plate
To knock him back to I-o-way
And he swung early and swung late
But couldn’t put one into play
And Wagner grunted, moaned and screamed
But found he couldn’t hit his stuff;
Whatever this Rainmaker was
It sure was plenty good enough.

He tossed the ball twenty feet high
Just a soft lob with a stiff wrist
And a slight twitch of his fingers
To give it just a little twist
Oh, it might swoop like a falcon
Or drift as softly as a dove
And often it would come down wet
From touching rain clouds up above.

The clubs in the senior circuit
Found themselves flummoxed by this lad:
He no-hit the Bees in Beantown
And drove the Cubs and Redlegs mad.
He hasn’t got enough to hit!
They growled in Brooklyn and Philly,
But his ledger said otherwise;
A gaudy twenty-six and three.

The final day of the season
Found the Buccos and Giants tied,
And no one doubted who would be
Taking the hill for Pittsburgh’s side
For New York, Matty took the hill
And both hurlers were simply great
Not one batter had crossed home plate
As the two clubs completed eight.

The Giants bench hooted at him
That beanpole throws like a girlie!
But he got Doyle to pop up
And then fanned Snodgrass on just three
The next Giant to reach the plate
Was the hard-hitting Red Murray
And John McGraw said Now he’s done,
Red will chase him in a hurry.

But Murray tapped the first pitch foul
And missed the second one outright
The Pittsburgh bench now taunted him
Good morning, good noon and goodnight!
McGrew than tossed one up so high
His catcher swore it clipped a bird
And then Dan strolled right off the mound
As not a soul uttered a word.

The old ballpark is long gone now
And those who toiled the same;
That pitch still lives in infamy
As does the pitcher and the game.
The Bucs have had other heroes
With deeds and feats of great renown
But they still speak of Dan McGrew
And his pitch which never came down.

Can I rest now?
Spend the evening tracing roots
Try to grasp the awe i.e Poe
Doyle & Christie's original truth
Can I revere now?
At a genius' mind of old
While Chopin fills the backdrop
With his beautiful tones
Can I withdraw now?
From all the noise there is,
From all the ire there is,
From all the strife there is.
Can I just get lost?
For this moment that slithers,
For a retreat not far away,
To events not common today.
Go on what's stopping you?

Sitting in the best seat in Dublin
Gives a chance to watch the city
In its rawest way.

The outlet store that has the opposing view
And been gated for years
Is still closed. Its roof a bus shelter.

A woman walks by
Eating ice cream.
It’s Christmas in Dublin

And I imagine Roddy Doyle seeing the funny side.
The Chinese are eating a Cornetto
While we’re hiding from the rain - he might say.

Here, I know, is a piece of home
Always patiently waiting.

I love Sherlock quotes. I love Sherlock the show, Sherlock Holmes the movie series and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I just understand Sherlock with his madness and witty insults. He may be a detective and his best friend Dr. Watson is a writer.
I guess madness goes both ways. Sherlock is canonically is a high functioning sociopath and I am a high functioning sociopath too.
Speaking the truth is easy for us because normal people are slow, all the same, boring and have cases that should put them in therapy.
I am a writer and Sherlock is a detective, the smallest details of a person are important just most people choose to ignore them.
Yes I am making a faux pas. I am good at it.
They may see but they don't observe. Poor narrow minded humans never seeing the big picture at the small details.

It was the incense perfumed aftershave that first aroused her
suspicions
Though there were other clues:
The purple balaclava
And the fish tattoo
The funny collar on the bedroom floor
Sunglasses indoors
The little round wig he always wore

“I think you have a secret life,”
She murmured to her lover.
As, under cover of darkness,
Father Doyle
Traced a crucifix in baby oil across her thighs
And gave her a blessing in disguise