There was a town beyond the woods,
Ne’er there any water stood,
Alas, a Well, of the purest kind,
The aquifer under, is here described,
Beyond a thousand gallons under
The diamond-esque rubble and sunder.
But one bucket, at but one time,
Kind, the town, taking turns of rhyme,
This essence, used to bathe and cook,
To drink, to create, a cozy nook.
-
The happy town, the gorgeous shire,
The crops grown there as green as Ire,
No law exists, they live but civilly,
A fetching, quiet community,
But always there exists a one,
Who would want power, want this undone,
So it was said regretfully,
Poisoned their Well, emotionless he.
-
Now this village was quite secluded,
No one not there born, ne’er intruded,
Deep in the forest, behind a mountain,
Over a peak, under a cloudy curtain,
It existed in secret and abolition,
And one did seek its demolition,
Knowing the only flaw to here exist,
The essence of life, no man resists.
-
He crept at night, while the guard did sleep,
Promising the pure water to weep,
Dropping the genocide with bucket and crane,
Releasing its Demonic Alchemic Strain,
The Well did hiss as the poison moaned,
Recoiling at this unwanted drone,
The assailant then brought to his steady lips,
A cup and was first to take Devil’s Kiss.
-
On the morrow of the mentioned crime,
Busy bodies awoke to start the day’s time,
Queuing at bucket and awaiting turns,
Each family there a portion yearned,
Not one did from the water strafe,
Each then bathed, then drank, unsafe,
No one could tell different taste,
Water is water, but not today.
-
The plague did start like any disease,
Sore throat, fever, stopped nose, displeased,
The people sought the witchdoctor,
But he from bed, would rise no longer,
He caught ill too, and wouldn’t budge,
Afraid for his life, afraid of this grudge,
He knew this sickness, had heard before,
But told no one, the end was sure.
-
In a week, vomiting and nausea,
Nasal passages sealed, no nostalgia
Brought to memory of any like sickness,
The virus brought about decrepit afflictions,
But slowly and steady, worse and worse,
The people became, some saw the course
But kept silent, to avoid alerting,
The so many children in need of comforting.
-
In two weeks’ time, the pathogen,
Had taken wits of sensible men,
At night, they screamed in somber fright,
Their deepest fears, real now, and bright,
The lutes died out, the bards not singing,
An unfortunate time, but this was only beginning.
-
Fingernails rotting off at the cuticle,
Too much blood for any receptacle,
Leprositic, the fingers came next,
One by one, extremities hexed,
Children lost their legs to run,
From mothers’ faces rotted, undone,
In every other step, heard were bones breaking,
Kneecaps cracked open, shins splintering,
Eyes turned cadaverous, awake, but not seeing,
Cataracts formed, blinded from viral being,
In cradles were witnessed toddlers there suffering,
Their mothers watched with empty sockets, but listening
To the cries impossible to stifle,
The pain too much for these tiny disciples.
The dogs normally to their masters zealous,
Became of them mortally jealous.
They bit the hands that fed them well,
For watering them from the cryptic Well.
Men watched their sons dive right under,
The bridge that harnessed a valley of blunder
Hundreds of feet above sharp rocks and stumps,
Their namesakes leaped, impaled in clumps,
For those lucky enough to still have eyes,
Cried tears of acid for images despised
Sickness was spewed upon the walls,
Entrails adorned the Gathering Halls,
Some had turned to mutilation,
Blood-letting for some, abomination,
Some crazed enough to “cure” themselves,
Clawed throat and stomach til flesh dissolved,
Some rich with elixir tried to embezzle,
Upon some of the poor, tired and grizzled,
Riot broke out amongst the walking dead
Fortune or lack of, irrelevant,
Black pustules broke out that looked Bubonic,
But the cure for that failed, how ironic,
That it rather hastened the steadfast curse,
Faster than iambic verse,
Molecules turned to embryo,
Rising like a great Pharaoh,
They became flesh parasites,
Taking internal organs, slow and precise,
They started with the liver and spleen,
So there lasted hours of wretched screams,
The intestines of some would close and then
Becoming septic, they passed, bile in stem,
A few had throats seeming cauterized,
Friends watched friends closest, strangle alive,
There were in fact, some optimists,
Among them, talk of being “rid of this”,
They too died while clutching life,
Endeavoring their eternal flight,
From noses, there dripped blackened murk,
Thicker than combined oil and dirt,
It then secreted as sweat from all pores,
Fatigue then struck those left to the floor.
Upon broken knees some prayed,
Usually the skin under ribs was flayed,
Trying to understand what went wrong,
Dissecting the dead was not headstrong,
It only furthered viral progression,
The open corpses breathing infection,
The cadavers would move still, the fleshbugs active,
The horror of lifeless movement, corrosive,
The minds of the weak, it pure happenstance,
One found eating dead flesh for a cure, no chance.
All in all, this lingering curiosity,
Provided once good people with animosity,
One man turned good people to hate,
Their neighbors in ways that were irate.
-
The chaos was not anarchy,
For, as I said,
It was civilly,
But verily, I do decree,
That no one knew such misery,
The inhabitants of this village,
Did not suspect innocent visage,
Or perhaps, their cherished Well.
To be culprit behind this hell
So they drank and drank to remedy,
To recompense this malady,
To no avail did blood get thicker,
Alas, they got but sicker and sicker.
-
This hell, the townsfolk then realized,
Wouldn’t end til they all were nullified,
Eliminated they were, eradicated at that,
This pathogenic virus had verily spat
In the faces of the people here,
Decimated they were, not quenching their fear,
Murdered they were by a systematic
Suicidal psychopathic,
Inflamed in the mind of darkness thereafter,
Only satisfied by his own laughter.
Not many, til now, know of this town,
From lowly peasant, to “Godly” Crown.
An explorer found the deserted hamlet,
Body parts and questions then found the hermit,
He had heard of a town like this, he wrote:
“It was a new age Roanoke…”
But the village, not a town to cause commotion,
All that was left of them, a tree scratched, “CROATOAN”.

She paves the path
Of dynasties carved
With buckets of sludge upon back;
Bent, not unlike her mother’s limb,
But under shinier red flags,
Cloth coated, with lesser blood.

She’d had a hint of gray
She’d not had last time,
She had a newer limp
She’d not had last time,
Her ***** furthered from firm,
Reaching for the ground, a promise,
In years to be wed with,
And yet the underneath
Of it all remained as radiant
As any sun’d ever been;

And come the cloudy day she leaves,
Even mine own eye
Will remain far from dry
As I’d remember freshly cured bacon,
And her tender chopsticks offering life;
She’d saved me once, she’d save me again.

Carrying a somewhat cliche heartbreak on her shoulders, she climbed the hill. She figured that all the men in the town would be able to see her up there, so high. Climbing, she contemplated her past relationship and how it had ended. She then tossed it off the hill on her way up, ready to receive a new presence from a new man. Knowing she deserved better, and knowing she would receive better, she had high hopes, but still, a gray aura surrounding her.

She knew that when the sun would set each night, it would glaze her silhouette with vibrant colors of passion and light, reeling in her new mate.The excitement aroused her. Waiting on that sun to go down each night, marking the end of each miserable say of waiting, she sat at the top of the hill.
The first few weeks were hard to watch. She planted a garden and sang and danced around its crops, from day to day. When she became tired, she would stop and sit and close her eyes. Sometimes she would open them, very wide at first, as if expecting a change of scenery. Her eyes would then droop in the realization that nothing had yet changed, but her tomatoes ripening.

I think it was about two months when the flowers in her garden began turning brown and dry. Her sister had stopped carrying water up to the hill for her, from the well. Whether she had asked her to stop, or whether she stopped on her own account, is a mystery to me. But she did stop. This water, was of course, for the girl, not the plants. There was plenty of rain, it being springtime and all. It was the lack of water that the girl was receiving that finally caused her to cease gardening.

Not only did her flowers grow brown, but her smile grew blue. It was that of a forced expression. It looked as if she was trying to convince herself of happiness, when in fact things had taken a volatile turn, downward.

After a long period of thinking herself silly, she began to sleep more often. Her mind was asleep when her eyes were closed; she found this  much easier. When her mind was turned on, she only thought about her past dreams sinking away. Hopelessly, she continued to sit on the hill, now in silence.

~

One early day, she woke to the sun blinding her. A small bird dropped out of the sky and landed on her shoulder. The bird sang songs into her ears and circled her for hours. The bird was doing for her, what she could not. During this time, she began to think deeply.

She thought of all the things that had happened to her. She thoughts of love, and lust, and hate, and life. She thought about the bird that had the strength to sing when she did not. She was ready to sing now. She was ready to dance again. She thought about how selfish she had been to her garden when she had stopped caring for it, because she could not even care for herself. She thought about all the time she felt she had wasted on this Hell of a hill. None of the townsmen had ventured forth; none had even called up to her for her to come down. They must have thought she was crazy!

Only three more days passed, before I looked through my telescope in awe. She had begun to walk down the hill, slowly, but surely. I thought, this must be a trick. Maybe she dropped a shoe. But both shoes were on, and the rest of her clothing, for that matter. She had a determined look on her face, as if she had transcended over night. It was beautiful, really.

As soon as she met the precipice of the hill and the meadow, she ran. She ran toward the trees, where the stream flows so elegantly. She dove in, headfirst, and played like a child, almost. She then got out and lay in the sun, on some grass nearby. She thought herself lame and unjust to spend so much time looking for another man, when she had had herself all along. She was happy alone; I could see it.

After a couple of hours, she got back up and walked over to the water. She crouched down in the kneeling position and then furthered her body toward the water, gazing in, as if hypnotized. She looked down at her own reflection and then screamed with joy. She jumped around and danced and sang. She was so ecstatic, I couldn't help but smile to myself with the utmost joy. She had found herself again. The one thing she hadn't been looking for, had come. And now that her soul had returned to her body, I could return to my life. In that moment, I knew that she was ready for me to go and meet her.

Love is sharper than stones or sticks;
  Lone as the sea, and deeper blue;
Loud in the night as a clock that ticks;
  Longer-lived than the Wandering Jew.
Show me a love was done and through,
  Tell me a kiss escaped its debt!
Son, to your death you'll pay your due--
  Women and elephants never forget.

Ever a man, alas, would mix,
  Ever a man, heigh-**, must woo;
So he's left in the world-old fix,
  Thus is furthered the sale of rue.
Son, your chances are thin and few--
  Won't you ponder, before you're set?
Shoot if you must, but hold in view
  Women and elephants never forget.

Down from Caesar past Joynson-Hicks
  Echoes the warning, ever new:
Though they're trained to amusing tricks,
  Gentler, they, than the pigeon's coo,
Careful, son, of the curs'ed two--
  Either one is a dangerous pet;
Natural history proves it true--
  Women and elephants never forget.

        L'ENVOI

Prince, a precept I'd leave for you,
  Coined in Eden, existing yet:
Skirt the parlor, and shun the zoo--
  Women and elephants never forget.

I get scared easily.
And I always have persisted to allow my mind to be torn out when I let it affect me.
They say, "Worst case scenario is rare." in most situations.
I have yet to seek why they ignore worst case, become it, leaving nothing left for the worst.
Habitually it creates an aggression with associates: replacement and correlation.
Without me noticing inevitably.

Behind.
This shadow that follows, desires its personification;
Consequently the main man must fall,
He will dissipate towards the rock where the one before him stood.
Rather take a spot of one greater, it is that of less higher.
A demotion of sort.
In order for it to transpose into progression, a compromise is of order.
The compromise of time, itself, playing the waiting game - (let us back step)

…replacement…correlation…

The understanding of this is of which I no longer feel that emotion;
It is configured by the other, making a statement which is unrecognizable.
So much, not even I, the speaker, can do anything to prove to you what I mean.
--For keeps sake--
This is no where near a poor pardon for my actions.
They are far from a credible stature. Far from a pity fete;
Indeed a fare apology is in par.
Yet this is a means of report to say in far value: worry.
It is of pure arrogance that I state this claim. Keep this in mind.
That I fear the replacement emotion shall take place in fair time once more.

As the tail is coming back again, second time to be specific.
And your steps in self-fulfillment climaxes,
The steps to which I take are mimicked to that of the first tail.
(The apex forms and your entitlement proclaims its spot.)
I wish it not, to be furthered in my rut.
As of the annum before, was explained by dis-valued ties.
This is not to which I think.
It is your confidence which speaks and separates your feet.
Placing one foot in one path, far ahead from the other.
As I stay with the other, while the other one is altered.
Being free as it walks along with out I.
I wish for an ignoring of replacement, and to this I will forcibly try.

For you, my love.

Ink in the bowl goes on to skin
Culture from Africa to Americas Indians
Ink that is absorbed into the mind
Held in place forever in time

Ink that controls the blood in veins
Moving through the pulses and chains
Not strong enough to hold the soul
Ink that lives infinite in the world

Smooth grooves in nights and bars
Jazzy blues, singing croons through guitar
Villages and huts where elders bang drums
Leaders dance songs for rain and sun

Music through words transferred through ink
Thoughts held in mind brought into links
That form into the soul of the world
Blood that stains as ink swirls

Tantrums and storms that guide the spirit
A spirit so combative you can't come near it
It won't come if you hear it or read it
Learn to live the life, words true when you feel it

Artist from autism, loose thoughts bridge cataclysms
No cure for the self, wealth grows, pace kept slow
Races to save victims and glorify human conditions
Giving thoughts and heart to help, it is felt, is it felt?

Writing soul, from heaven to hell
Spiritual fire, culture is furthered
For my blood flows parallel to ink
Ink that flows and grows from me

Me goes to you, then travels beyond
We show growth, all faces of God
One voice seeks to speak
Through songs, poetry, love in the ink

****** lovely ink
Muddy purity links
The ink the ink
The ink the ink .

Euryclea now went upstairs laughing to tell her mistress that her
dear husband had come home. Her aged knees became young again and
her feet were nimble for joy as she went up to her mistress and bent
over her head to speak to her. “Wake up Penelope, my dear child,”
she exclaimed, “and see with your own eyes something that you have
been wanting this long time past. Ulysses has at last indeed come home
again, and has killed the suitors who were giving so much trouble in
his house, eating up his estate and ill-treating his son.”
  “My good nurse,” answered Penelope, “you must be mad. The gods
sometimes send some very sensible people out of their minds, and
make foolish people become sensible. This is what they must have
been doing to you; for you always used to be a reasonable person.
Why should you thus mock me when I have trouble enough already-
talking such nonsense, and waking me up out of a sweet sleep that
had taken possession of my eyes and closed them? I have never slept so
soundly from the day my poor husband went to that city with the
ill-omened name. Go back again into the women’s room; if it had been
any one else, who had woke me up to bring me such absurd news I should
have sent her away with a severe scolding. As it is, your age shall
protect you.”
  “My dear child,” answered Euryclea, “I am not mocking you. It is
quite true as I tell you that Ulysses is come home again. He was the
stranger whom they all kept on treating so badly in the cloister.
Telemachus knew all the time that he was come back, but kept his
father’s secret that he might have his revenge on all these wicked
people.
  Then Penelope sprang up from her couch, threw her arms round
Euryclea, and wept for joy. “But my dear nurse,” said she, “explain
this to me; if he has really come home as you say, how did he manage
to overcome the wicked suitors single handed, seeing what a number
of them there always were?”
  “I was not there,” answered Euryclea, “and do not know; I only heard
them groaning while they were being killed. We sat crouching and
huddled up in a corner of the women’s room with the doors closed, till
your son came to fetch me because his father sent him. Then I found
Ulysses standing over the corpses that were lying on the ground all
round him, one on top of the other. You would have enjoyed it if you
could have seen him standing there all bespattered with blood and
filth, and looking just like a lion. But the corpses are now all piled
up in the gatehouse that is in the outer court, and Ulysses has lit
a great fire to purify the house with sulphur. He has sent me to
call you, so come with me that you may both be happy together after
all; for now at last the desire of your heart has been fulfilled; your
husband is come home to find both wife and son alive and well, and
to take his revenge in his own house on the suitors who behaved so
badly to him.”
  “‘My dear nurse,” said Penelope, “do not exult too confidently
over all this. You know how delighted every one would be to see
Ulysses come home—more particularly myself, and the son who has
been born to both of us; but what you tell me cannot be really true.
It is some god who is angry with the suitors for their great
wickedness, and has made an end of them; for they respected no man
in the whole world, neither rich nor poor, who came near them, who
came near them, and they have come to a bad end in consequence of
their iniquity. Ulysses is dead far away from the Achaean land; he
will never return home again.”
  Then nurse Euryclea said, “My child, what are you talking about? but
you were all hard of belief and have made up your mind that your
husband is never coming, although he is in the house and by his own
fire side at this very moment. Besides I can give you another proof;
when I was washing him I perceived the scar which the wild boar gave
him, and I wanted to tell you about it, but in his wisdom he would not
let me, and clapped his hands over my mouth; so come with me and I
will make this bargain with you—if I am deceiving you, you may have
me killed by the most cruel death you can think of.”
  “My dear nurse,” said Penelope, “however wise you may be you can
hardly fathom the counsels of the gods. Nevertheless, we will go in
search of my son, that I may see the corpses of the suitors, and the
man who has killed them.”
  On this she came down from her upper room, and while doing so she
considered whether she should keep at a distance from her husband
and question him, or whether she should at once go up to him and
embrace him. When, however, she had crossed the stone floor of the
cloister, she sat down opposite Ulysses by the fire, against the
wall at right angles [to that by which she had entered], while Ulysses
sat near one of the bearing-posts, looking upon the ground, and
waiting to see what his wife would say to him when she saw him. For
a long time she sat silent and as one lost in amazement. At one moment
she looked him full in the face, but then again directly, she was
misled by his shabby clothes and failed to recognize him, till
Telemachus began to reproach her and said:
  “Mother—but you are so hard that I cannot call you by such a
name—why do you keep away from my father in this way? Why do you
not sit by his side and begin talking to him and asking him questions?
No other woman could bear to keep away from her husband when he had
come back to her after twenty years of absence, and after having
gone through so much; but your heart always was as hard as a stone.”
  Penelope answered, “My son, I am so lost in astonishment that I
can find no words in which either to ask questions or to answer
them. I cannot even look him straight in the face. Still, if he really
is Ulysses come back to his own home again, we shall get to understand
one another better by and by, for there are tokens with which we two
are alone acquainted, and which are hidden from all others.”
  Ulysses smiled at this, and said to Telemachus, “Let your mother put
me to any proof she likes; she will make up her mind about it
presently. She rejects me for the moment and believes me to be
somebody else, because I am covered with dirt and have such bad
clothes on; let us, however, consider what we had better do next. When
one man has killed another, even though he was not one who would leave
many friends to take up his quarrel, the man who has killed him must
still say good bye to his friends and fly the country; whereas we have
been killing the stay of a whole town, and all the picked youth of
Ithaca. I would have you consider this matter.”
  “Look to it yourself, father,” answered Telemachus, “for they say
you are the wisest counsellor in the world, and that there is no other
mortal man who can compare with you. We will follow you with right
good will, nor shall you find us fail you in so far as our strength
holds out.”
  “I will say what I think will be best,” answered Ulysses. “First
wash and put your shirts on; tell the maids also to go to their own
room and dress; Phemius shall then strike up a dance tune on his lyre,
so that if people outside hear, or any of the neighbours, or some
one going along the street happens to notice it, they may think
there is a wedding in the house, and no rumours about the death of the
suitors will get about in the town, before we can escape to the
woods upon my own land. Once there, we will settle which of the
courses heaven vouchsafes us shall seem wisest.”
  Thus did he speak, and they did even as he had said. First they
washed and put their shirts on, while the women got ready. Then
Phemius took his lyre and set them all longing for sweet song and
stately dance. The house re-echoed with the sound of men and women
dancing, and the people outside said, “I suppose the queen has been
getting married at last. She ought to be ashamed of herself for not
continuing to protect her husband’s property until he comes home.”
  This was what they said, but they did not know what it was that
had been happening. The upper servant Eurynome washed and anointed
Ulysses in his own house and gave him a shirt and cloak, while Minerva
made him look taller and stronger than before; she also made the
hair grow thick on the top of his head, and flow down in curls like
hyacinth blossoms; she glorified him about the head and shoulders just
as a skilful workman who has studied art of all kinds under Vulcan
or Minerva—and his work is full of beauty—enriches a piece of silver
plate by gilding it. He came from the bath looking like one of the
immortals, and sat down opposite his wife on the seat he had left. “My
dear,” said he, “heaven has endowed you with a heart more unyielding
than woman ever yet had. No other woman could bear to keep away from
her husband when he had come back to her after twenty years of
absence, and after having gone through so much. But come, nurse, get a
bed ready for me; I will sleep alone, for this woman has a heart as
hard as iron.”
  “My dear,” answered Penelope, “I have no wish to set myself up,
nor to depreciate you; but I am not struck by your appearance, for I
very well remember what kind of a man you were when you set sail
from Ithaca. Nevertheless, Euryclea, take his bed outside the bed
chamber that he himself built. Bring the bed outside this room, and
put bedding upon it with fleeces, good coverlets, and blankets.”
  She said this to try him, but Ulysses was very angry and said,
“Wife, I am much displeased at what you have just been saying. Who has
been taking my bed from the place in which I left it? He must have
found it a hard task, no matter how skilled a workman he was, unless
some god came and helped him to shift it. There is no man living,
however strong and in his prime, who could move it from its place, for
it is a marvellous curiosity which I made with my very own hands.
There was a young olive growing within the precincts of the house,
in full vigour, and about as thick as a bearing-post. I built my
room round this with strong walls of stone and a roof to cover them,
and I made the doors strong and well-fitting. Then I cut off the top
boughs of the olive tree and left the stump standing. This I dressed
roughly from the root upwards and then worked with carpenter’s tools
well and skilfully, straightening my work by drawing a line on the
wood, and making it into a bed-prop. I then bored a hole down the
middle, and made it the centre-post of my bed, at which I worked
till I had finished it, inlaying it with gold and silver; after this I
stretched a hide of crimson leather from one side of it to the
other. So you see I know all about it, and I desire to learn whether
it is still there, or whether any one has been removing it by
cutting down the olive tree at its roots.”
  When she heard the sure proofs Ulysses now gave her, she fairly
broke down. She flew weeping to his side, flung her arms about his
neck, and kissed him. “Do not be angry with me Ulysses,” she cried,
“you, who are the wisest of mankind. We have suffered, both of us.
Heaven has denied us the happiness of spending our youth, and of
growing old, together; do not then be aggrieved or take it amiss
that I did not embrace you thus as soon as I saw you. I have been
shuddering all the time through fear that someone might come here
and deceive me with a lying story; for there are many very wicked
people going about. Jove’s daughter Helen would never have yielded
herself to a man from a foreign country, if she had known that the
sons of Achaeans would come after her and bring her back. Heaven put
it in her heart to do wrong, and she gave no thought to that sin,
which has been the source of all our sorrows. Now, however, that you
have convinced me by showing that you know all about our bed (which no
human being has ever seen but you and I and a single maid servant, the
daughter of Actor, who was given me by my father on my marriage, and
who keeps the doors of our room) hard of belief though I have been I
can mistrust no longer.”
  Then Ulysses in his turn melted, and wept as he clasped his dear and
faithful wife to his *****. As the sight of land is welcome to men who
are swimming towards the shore, when Neptune has wrecked their ship
with the fury of his winds and waves—a few alone reach the land,
and these, covered with brine, are thankful when they find
themselves on firm ground and out of danger—even so was her husband
welcome to her as she looked upon him, and she could not tear her
two fair arms from about his neck. Indeed they would have gone on
indulging their sorrow till rosy-fingered morn appeared, had not
Minerva determined otherwise, and held night back in the far west,
while she would not suffer Dawn to leave Oceanus, nor to yoke the
two steeds Lampus and Phaethon that bear her onward to break the day
upon mankind.
  At last, however, Ulysses said, “Wife, we have not yet reached the
end of our troubles. I have an unknown amount of toil still to
undergo. It is long and difficult, but I must go through with it,
for thus the shade of Teiresias prophesied concerning me, on the day
when I went down into Hades to ask about my return and that of my
companions. But now let us go to bed, that we may lie down and enjoy
the blessed boon of sleep.”
  “You shall go to bed as soon as you please,” replied Penelope,
“now that the gods have sent you home to your own good house and to
your country. But as heaven has put it in your mind to speak of it,
tell me about the task that lies before you. I shall have to hear
about it later, so it is better that I should be told at once.”
  “My dear,” answered Ulysses, “why should you press me to tell you?
Still, I will not conceal it from you, though you will not like BOOK
it. I do not like it myself, for Teiresias bade me travel far and
wide, carrying an oar, till I came to a country where the people
have never heard of the sea, and do not even mix salt with their food.
They know nothing about ships, nor oars that are as the wings of a
ship. He gave me this certain token which I will not hide from you. He
said that a wayfarer should meet me and ask me whether it was a
winnowing shovel that I had on my shoulder. On this, I was to fix my
oar in the ground and sacrifice a ram, a bull, and a boar to
Neptune; after which I was to go home and offer hecatombs to all the
gods in heaven, one after the other. As for myself, he said that death
should come to me from the sea, and that my life should ebb away
very gently when I was full of years and peace of mind, and my
people should bless me. All this, he said, should surely come to
pass.”
  And Penelope said, “If the gods are going to vouchsafe you a happier
time in your old age, you may hope then to have some respite from
misfortune.”
  Thus did they converse. Meanwhile Eurynome and the nurse took
torches and made the bed ready with soft coverlets; as soon as they
had laid them, the nurse went back into the house to go to her rest,
leaving the bed chamber woman Eurynome to show Ulysses and Penelope to
bed by torch light. When she had conducted them to their room she went
back, and they then came joyfully to the rites of their own old bed.
Telemachus, Philoetius, and the swineherd now left off dancing, and
made the women leave off also. They then laid themselves down to sleep
in the cloisters.
  When Ulysses and Penelope had had their fill of love they fell
talking with one another. She told him how much she had had to bear in
seeing the house filled with a crowd of wicked suitors who had
killed so many sheep and oxen on her account, and had drunk so many
casks of wine. Ulysses in his turn told her what he had suffered,
and how much trouble he had himself given to other people. He told her
everything, and she was so delighted to listen that she never went
to sleep till he had ended his whole story.
  He began with his victory over the Cicons, and how he thence reached
the fertile land of the Lotus-eaters. He told her all about the
Cyclops and how he had punished him for having so ruthlessly eaten his
brave comrades; how he then went on to ******, who received him
hospitably and furthered him on his way, but even so he

A Mass Inversion.

I have lived to witness an Apple
become a juggernaut
see the followers nod their heads in belief,
walking segregated on the streets
unaware of their own worship.

We have not yet realized
that the largest religion in the world
is no longer faith based,
technophiles fill our rural
and metro quintessential sprawl.

Their numbers swell
and burgeon with new converts
that give funding rank and file,
whom are taught to know indulgence
in name only, mistaking desire for need.

This technology based obsession
is without age or gender restrictions,
without race distinction,
it asks not for ethics,
       pride,
morality,
intelligence or privacy.

It is all-consuming
just as any ideology-
as any religion,
answering the same fervent questions,
demanding tribute and changing the way you think.

-

The View Outside.**

Among the whole, the slow mass conversion,
there is occasional dissension,
some who glorify a golden era or fill with nostalgia
for something they may not have even experienced,
an immaterial escapism of the present
furthered by a childish inability to accept ephemerality
and our irregular morality.

Sometimes amid this denial,
this abstaining,
there is a seed of anger that grows with gnarled roots
that twist throughout with nary a cry or shout.

It is a quiet anger,
unconditional and baseless but for an intensity,
a burning sense of being wronged,
an infection that spreads without exception.

And when your self-righteous halo eventually slips to catch
in your now flapping jaw,
your anger will fade as you choke on hard etched resolve.

4.
I remembered the world
For what it seemed
For what it was.
I just remembered being.
And I remembered everything.
From holding my mom’s shivering hands
To watching my grandma descend from this world
From the sun rays that shined upon the beach
To the moon that cowered behind the buildings.
It all seemed like a distant dream
A dream worth seeing

6.
The loss of our home
A simple one story with three bedrooms and one bathroom,
A simple home in a simple neighborhood.
Gone,
In an instant.
Welcome to the apartment story
Population: The Diaz.
With only one friend made
I wonder how much of my sixth year of living do I remember.
That I can ever recall

7.
Packed bags
Packed moving truck.
Off to the North for this So Cal Babe
Because maybe just maybe my mom doesn’t have a pathetic excuse for a family
Maybe they’ll come to see her.
Or maybe we’ll be ignored
****** like **** that doesn’t belong in a sea of flowers
****** like sailors out in horrendous weathers.
How is it that my mother was the only golden child out of these coal filled children?

8.
A new life
A new home
Can’t believe I made any friends
Can’t believe I still hold onto one.
Can’t believe I fell for the other one.

11.
From apartments to townhouses
Just down the street
Further and further away from him
A start of a whole new chapter
I furthered myself from religion
Furthered myself from faith
I just kept on living on
Didn’t think too much of anything

14.
A new chapter starts again
While everyone moves on from childish games
Playing in the big league
While getting lost in the High School hallways
I remained true to myself
True to the inner me
I had forgotten what it was like to be an embarrassment
Forgotten what it was like to not be me.
I continued my childish acts
And continued on this path I set for myself
I looked towards writing
Connected with the dead.
I found my passion in words
And my words in worlds
And even my worlds in dreams
I no longer knew what everything seemed to be.

16.
I dreamt of him
Dreamt of us
I fell in love with those dreams
Fell in love with him
Or perhaps I’m just low balling it
And just stuck with the whole dream thing
Stuck with the whole dreaming someone means they were always thinking of you
Because perhaps I wanted to believe deep down inside his mind
He always had thoughts of me


17.
Graduated with no honors
Don’t know where life will take me
Don’t know what to do
All I know is
My pathetic thoughts, imagination, and stupidity let someone else take him away
I lost sight of where I wanted to be
Lost sight of he who belonged in my dreams
Reality took over me
And dreaming was the only thing that let me be.

18.
Still alive but I’m barely breathing
Still alive but I’m losing grip on everything
Still trying to survive
Still trying to go on
I’m just aging day by day
While I watch the leaves float on by
I watch the parts of my life flutter away.
I want to start over again
I want to wake up when I was 4
Restart life all over again
With the knowledge that had been
I want to change what I’ve done
Re mold myself to a better person
But wishes don’t happen like that
Got to work with what I have
And mold a better tomorrow
From the crummier today’s.
But on the bright side,*
With too much philosophy on my mind
Sometimes
I’m kind of excited where my life will be.

1
There are more penetrating people if not the death of, as in living in this very livid moment of the unsure which is a surety.
Falsify me. Growing heavy with the absurd. To face you, me -- more mirror the blank end of a chamber, or if that you must **** me, do it at the plaza in front of my mother. That if you must lament me over the lapped up moment of some false life the invented and wrong, do it. Do it. ****** me the unassailable truth that is, I am capable to splinter this moment and that it still lives like a sprawled body spilled from the mouth in the bathroom -- it still lives: you have to be quick.

2
Once have you been startled by the form of absence as a letter slid underneath the soft and warm pocket of your mouth like it was the first time to have a naked body pointed at you, all with it trying to predict you in a sterile room, and is more shattering than an aggravated twilight.

   Who, at first thought, was there behind the trigger, and was he/she drunk with any other pretense apart from the face that he/she hates that common meeting within the day’s fine-tuned crosshair?

3
If you listen to it carefully, the music is a mosaic shifting the hypothesis into a pallor of a question back to it again with its basic agony of becoming so bent and so small on paper – which is to say, that we are, if to listen to a droning sound, becoming of it delving deep into the center, checking our own weight like our name after a fall from a high place, they said they would.

4
I have left something in Baguio that I cannot take back – a monochromatic caricature of my face shoved into a crevice waiting for a revision. What have I furthered into?

When I was just a child, they were just a married couple;
Older, middle-aged, nothing distinguishing about them at all.
I loved swimming in their swimming pool,
Until they upsized, to a glitzy neighborhood of rambling,
Ranch-style houses.
And they upscaled, to exotic, foreign vacations.
Brought me back a Hawaiian volcanic stone, with emerald flecks,
A salt and pepper shaker set from Israel.

She was a clothes horse, always kept her figure,
Dressed slinky but classy, for an old babe;
Visibly stood taller, if another woman
Ever complimented her clothing or style-
And they invariably did.

My dad said that when alone with her husband,
That man would brag about daily *******
From his office receptionist, at the end of the workday
Before going home. I was older then, tried to imagine
How the shared exchange could have furthered
Some ancient, nightly excavated ambition?

Alone with her once, my dad said he made an innuendo,
Some playful joke which he had since forgotten the point of,
Probably due to the more stunning reaction it caused.
He had always loved teasing with words,
But he said that she had dropped all suggestion of pretense,
And she had told him then, You couldn't handle it..
He still chuckled about it, long after the fact.

Funny how for all those years, what I remembered seeing
Was a mostly colorless couple
Who always drove large Cadillacs.
And how in the later years, he could only move
While tethered to his oxygen tank,
Though it never hindered his smoking.

A stern Russian ruler named Vlad
made his minions and satellites glad
when he told them to choose
between true and fake news
(but the fakers still furthered the fad).

Broken Spirit

As I watch the water flow from my hands
A glance in the mirror reminds me that I’m still human
& the heart must break to heal.
Graphic and detailed memories
Of a broken Spirit. I’ve succumb  to the darkness & of the pain I felt, losing my breath was the easiest thing to do. Walking amongst the crowd pity was not felt! Truly deserving ROARS of laughter
Foolish Broken spirit
The L on my forehead would depict a loser so I was marked and shamed named a *****
For a performance held behind closed doors
Embarrassed and Broken
Cause lack of knowledge furthered the humiliation of this woman
The anticipation of anxious hands grasped this angelic ***
And once more giving into a lie as I laid there naked and confused
Broken Spirit
A mouth full of *** not swallowed bothered me as his lips curved happy
Was he, I lost my respect somewhere on bended knee
And so unsure was he as he pulls his pants up and walks out
The door leaving me with this Broken Spirit…

I’m keeping my head up!!!

Thanks for the advice(M)
Written By Monica Chrisandtras Hines