fischers rap
on a hot tin roof
bristol creek pools
over rock and seed
english wolfhound (and the barkbuster)
stroll pine lane
vibrant colors
of a cool spring
in cob yellow and
forest green

field mice squander
in cotton wind
goats and ferret
hold seven hour trim
raven and ****
meddle and forage (on a splendid fiaker goulash!)
crickets and frogs
hidden
in swollen grey logs

creepers fill the
cut stone walls
coy wolf high
on a frayed white rope
eagles perched
at trudy’s bend
catamounts laze
on a snow base cedar
(pared arbutus bent  
through a failed ground rock)

brush spider spins
a timely web
brown bears fumble
at the spirit jamboree
quizzical squirrels
crack their nuts
as pillow clouds float
over telegraph trail

12 point dances
on talus and scree
hen hawks float
in a big hard sun
clydesdale and coach
trot copper smith road
(glancing down
on finch and the warbler
whistling through
colander row)

lavender fills
the peat soil box
mountain cats
guard the heavenly gates
black eyed ridge
is wide and open
the country squire hails
this fruitful land

Chunks of meat
ground heated
on medium
until browned
strained then set aside.
tomatoes stewed
basil and oregano
onion first
then garlic sauteed
Water brought to boil
salt added then noodles
8 minutes to al dente.
combine all three
bring to simmer
Serve with bread and salad
dinner

See,
      Thy world is a smelting *** of whimsical worldchyme stew,
A goulash that aquire's carrots, beef, potatoes, and other uncanny things,
Well,
        As for me!
                                           I'm its gravy!!!!

Basil, paprika, cold Hungarian goulash,
bleu cheese and stale cinnamon
coffee cake dominate
the taste of  your
mouth and skin;

it’s not because you are
slovenly that pulls me
into you, I am alone.

Intuition not mind boggling

Steak not goulash

Friend not lover

Know not question

Breathe not hyperventilate

(Add more please)

There are those that want it
to come to a complete halt,
frozen solid and white,
like an ice sculpture
stuck in a peculiar pose.
This is the only way
to stop that heart-wrenching
moment,
that robs them of their blue skies.

Then there are those that want it
to quicken its footsteps
and flip by, like the pages of
a notepad giving motion
to squiggly drawings,
in order to get the next paycheck
or start that dream job.

Me? Every now and then I want it
to make a stop by the side of the road
and enjoy a leisurely doughnut,
maybe join in on the freckled giggles
of the little girls hula hooping
on the concrete pavements,
and sing nursery rhymes of
broken eggs and fiddles.

But sometimes I just don't care
whether time shoots up the skies
or gets weighed down with iron,
especially when I've got
my favorite chicken goulash
served with fine couscous
on an afternoon such as this one,
where the sky frowns with dark clouds
and spits angry beads of rain.

As far as I'm concerned,
the brown-eyed little boy
on the corner of the street
could be the keeper of time,
making sure it walks on nonchalantly,
with no regard to people's wishes,
leaving in its wake footprints of
sadness, joy and everything in between.

As I listen to her last breaths, I lay curled on a hard recliner, sick to stomach and head, staring with her with the same blank blue eyes.
As I listen to her last breaths, I think what a cruel, painful and ugly world this kind, joyful, beautiful world can be. I think how broken and sad is her spirit, my spirit.
As I listen to her last breaths, I think of puppet shows and Mother Goose, of paintings and the blue bike she never rode. Of art classes and musicals, piano songs, of cheezits and coke. I think how sweet she is, even at the end and how lovely they all say she is. She is. Always.
As I listen to her last breaths, I think of high school yearbook pictures, of Hungarian Goulash, of sneaking to sleep at the end of her bed, of her notes to herself. I think of fear and worry, pain and disease. Of love and joy, of wit and family.
As I listen to her last breaths, I think I didn't appreciate enough, share enough, talk enough do enough, show how very much I loved enough.
I think I should tell her how incredibly strong - incredibly strong- she is.
As I listen for her last breath.

(  
     )


In the silence of cold, quiet,
after midnight hours...wind
audibly pushes branches and
leaves...sends them swaying
and rustling....i hear the rain
falling...like small nails hitting
the neighbor's acrylic eave.

the peace of these unholy hours
empowers me...i feel, i rule the world,
my senses and my mind are sharpest..
while others are asleep and dreaming.

everyone's eyes are closed...mine, too,
yet, i am so awake, i see this cauldron,
where my life's goings-on are stirred by
an unknown force, spinning clockwise,
simmering, nothing burns, or breaks,
for, underneath, its fire burns slow...

good and bad issues mix and join
the stew of old stubborn ones;
daily rigors, wee triumphs blend in,
like a goulash of meat and veggies,
slowly cooking, as fire burns slow,
giving time...............taking time
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
::::::::::::::::::::::­­:::::::::::::::::::
the strong aroma of arabica jolts me
from my reverie...it matters not if i
haven't slept......6 am, i'm back to
reality.....lots of work await me
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
::::::::::::::::::::­­:::::::::::::::::::
five-pm past, arabica again stands by
me as i watch the orange fires of sunset,
hear the crickets sing, or a frog's croak,
while my rocking thoughts are cradled,
while i enjoy some peace and quiet,
exuded by a fragrant twilight.....it's
that feel-good part of each day...saying
gratitude for every sunrise and sunset,
while my candle's fire burns slow....
........
......
...

Sally

©Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
  January 6, 2021

I could tell you all the things I see in Budapest,
but nothing I see is bigger than myself.
but let me try, I'll take you into my world,
this place I temporarily call home,
this place where my see ya, is goodbye
but their Czia (see ya) means hi.

That time when I walked down Rakoczi,
with the awkward smiles they gave me,
it must be the sneakers I wear,
or the hijab on my head,
but I will never know,
because I do not speak their language.

That time when I took the train to Deak Franc
where they have stations with yellow lamps,
and every letter has dots and dashes,
how was I to know tickets should be validated,
well, my existence here wasn't.

That time when I thought rolled up pillows
are quilt,
and that time when I close up
from people without guilt.
I tried, smiled once smiled twice,
smiled the third time but nothing- still closed.

That time when I found the vegan Goulash,
while I was trying to find the vegan Goulash,
Paid 4 dollars in a 4 star cafe,
But she smiled at me just the same,
Although I was thrifty and left them none.

The fingers I rub over the smooth nub
of the newel post weren’t always like this.
When they were rubbed red and raw,
they picked up splinters more easily.
The wood I touched was not as smooth and
silky as the wood the other maids touched;
I was taller then. But now, I find where I
touched; clearly I left a mark.
I follow the trail I made so long ago,
touching it some, but mostly, I know
where it is.
The floorboards, wide and swaybacked,
creak exactly where they used to—hop,
sidestep, the laundry cart is not where it once was.
The bustle in the hallways has calmed; I can no longer
feel the bounce, bounce of the other girls as they
jog past where I could just reach out and touch
their brawny arms, smell their sweaty hands and foreheads
and hear their jangling laughs.
The sun still pours through the windows of the upper
hall, between the offices and the outside, touching the wood and
lighting the incense of pine.
It’s gentle and feels like the touch of the kitchen woman
Mary, who always guided me through the
difficult corridors.
But the kitchen no longer holds its warmth, not
that it had since I tripped over Mary’s body, where she
lay in a slurry of goulash after falling on the stove, and I
had to pull myself upright using
the tangible smell of cold, scorched flesh and tomatoes and onions and
I don’t eat pork anymore.
Avoiding the area where she fell so long ago, I navigate
the low, old room, feeling along the cluttered
remains of a renovation long since abandoned,
and I found the narrow maids’ stair.
Steep and skinny, it folded back on itself at every
floor as it hugged the walls up to the attic
where our beds were shoved together so tight,
where I could run my fingers over the girls’ heads
touching their soft, oily hair, their curls, their braids, and find my way.
I knew that I could not make it up the steps now,
I could barely make it then, but
I could still touch them. The treads worn so deep that
they were like wet clay marred by a huge thumb,
the chaotic scuffling, constantly chugging over the worn
boards. Sometimes the girls slipped on the rounded, clumsy,
silken steps.
Sometimes the sooty, acrid oil lamps on the walls leaked.
The wood felt so familiar under my dried fingers,
each neat grain lying in plane with its sisters,
every step, a family.
Except for the lower three steps, where the lines of wood
remained untouched, save for me, because I could never make
the respectful leap over them.
I kneel now, and stretch my fingers
towards the scratchy corner of the riser and tread
and find the crudely carved letters that say:
Katie died here.
I wasn’t here then, but the girls, the older girls, said
that the man, the fat man, had come with the soot-hauling boys
and taken her to the basement, and they were quiet.
The girls weren’t, but they were just the girls, and
it was a long time ago, when splinters were fresh
in young, sensitive fingertips.
Sobering and straightening, as much as I could, I left.
They would level this station soon, and
I just wanted to touch it again.

I had invested thousands of dollars into my
next door neighbor's renovation.

Patience and promise of a hard earned vacation
were mentioned and that presupposed the notion
that every evening I had since boiled away hadn't been for nothing.

Nodding as I exited out the front door cradling the exterior of my shameful severance package had only applauded

the stewy ingrates and laid laurels and lauded all the lazy baffoons,

who instead of working, had eschewed a barrel of monkeys,

boiled their bones, placed them in my lap, and then had the audacity

to ask me to throw them away.

i did so much weird ****
in my lifetime
that i don't even have a bucket list

i saw pyramids
and eiffel tower
and empire states building
flew a plane
rode a buggy car in a desert
flew on a trapeze
spent a night in prison
hosted a booth at a **** convention in vegas
was on tv
dj'ed on a radio
waited tables
acted on stage
moved to another country
donated blood
saved a life
pushed two humans out of my body
had ice cream in rome
and goulash in budapest
and surströmming in stockholm
drank guinness in dublin
and ***** in siberia

...rode a rollercoaster
danced on a street
swam in an ocean
floated in the dead sea...

but sometimes it feels like
i'm in a bathtube of that hotel
in hurgada
and all my life was just my brain hallucinating
on the final cocktail of noradrenalin and serotonin
i'm now waiting for the dopamin
to kick in

I thought goulash was on the archipelago but it turns out that it's not.

Mistakes are what we all make.

I make apfelstrudel, but once, I thought that was the name of a travelling minstrel, see how easy mistake are to make?

I attribute being a grown mad scientist
linkedin with tacit approval of parents
(both long gone to the smoky afterlife),
and donned wizard trumpeting magic spells
while dark and stormy night
(one week before Halloween),
which usher nostalgic memories
encapsulated within the following poem
initially drafted quite some years ago.

Both parents possessed pedigreed panache
(but especially my father – renown Chemist
B.B. Harris and to slightly lesser extent
late culinary cuisine queen Harmit Harms
Kuritsky - gal whose troth thy then still
livingsocial nonagenarian widower papa
pledged, while holding some bubbling
sinister looking flask in hand while both
donned trumpeting finessed affianced
doctored formula to marry, when both
partook of blind date.

This combustible transunion link analogous
to their representative first electric kool aid
basic laboratory litmus test date), which
took place without a hitch, and telepathically
encouraged begetting retinue of revered
sons and daughters, whose ken hopefully
burned with passion KRISPR incubated,
inculcated, and incurred genetic outlook
ideally transmitted to prolific brood
of begotten babes.

This kid felt embers crackling, popping,
and snapping with yen that burned from
within and without buns sin burner of this
cingular earthlinked son.

No matter a bit tentative to experiment
*****-nilly (wonka like) with rather
explosive materiel, I received truckloads
of ammunition (in tandem with benevolent
benediction) to foster dare devil and
derelict pyromaniac precocity.

Those initial awkward formative forays
assaying, assessing and carefully calibrating
this, that or other liquid or powdery substance
found me meticulously measuring and
weighing the substances using kitchen
midden malodorous kid gloves.

Frequent disappointment arose from
yours truly as well as momma and papa
when net result (of these early attempts
to blend powders and/or liquids) merely
fizzled and self extinguished
into near inaudible ****.

Continual daily practice (would lead way
for me to enter Carnegie – Mellon ---- Hall)
after countless travails, trials and trolls i.e.
uber vaporous wisps to lyft yawping banshee
like holograms, or equivalent of 10,000 maniacs)
eventually bore successful fruit in the form
of near perfect results.

Success in hotly contested field Pyrotechnics
requires striking resemblance
to any other vocation.

One must be able, eager, ready and willing
to maintain burning passion no matter any
unforeseen setbacks or heat from an
objectionable source.

Yes, there would be an errant conflagration
(sometimes set purposely by adjunct professor)
as object lesson to master usage of fire
extinguisher/fighter, a vital piece of equipment
and evenhandedness for getting hold
instantaneously jetting kickstarter live matches)
to contain any runaway flame.

I do sheepishly admit to (ahem) you
on occasion the outcome went awry.

Nonetheless, they prided their potential
fire branded wizard in the making with
kudos and praise with DYNAMITE.

Practice from indiscriminately creating
unpredictable concoctions, these lethally
marshaled nonchalant opportunities
provided quintessentially random results
though usually very wimpy in tandem
with totally tubular nerdy, geeky, freaky,
and dorky beastie boy.

As proof positive and proud testimony, they
proudly pointed (upward) to the kitchen ceiling.

There such handiworks practically covered
entire ceiling with variegated splotches.
These scorch marks keepsake frescoes to show
kith and kin unspecified years into smoky future.

Quite accurate to assume
father and mother coached,
goaded, and nurtured
exploratory ambitions and
tried not to stifle
(at least consciously or deliberately)
my early stage ambition
toward scientific artiste bent.

As homeschooled and to some extent self taught
chemically romanced muralist, I grew up (not
surprisingly) in Unitarian household paid
close attention also adhered to the pioneer spirit.

The near limitless boundaries of life, liberty and
pursuit of understanding
an underlying credo, which
allowed, enabled and provided near endless
experimentation even at the risk of life and limb.

Aside talking head
nearly burning down the house
amidst talking heads practically in dire straits,
an instinctive reflex found me immolating myself,
occasionally singeing the canine fur of Lady,
Schultz, or Socrates, et cetera no frightful
catastrophic outcomes occurred thru milieu
of mixing deceptively harmless looking
inert raw materials.

Trial and error (quite successful with latter)
via blithely cooking dicey elements forming
goulash hiccupping laboratory mishmash
practically eliminated any pained regret to take
daring risks (such as getting married – ha)
in later life.

Despite favorable and lovable upbringing,
my mother (ever the protector and/or proctor
of our family and an excellent chef boyardee
to boot) still managed to insinuate (gently
as possible) the necessity to be careful when
igniting flammable materials lest
some uncontrollable conflagration ensue.

She (mom) did frequently confess to feeling
ever so slightly jittery and uneasy with my
slapdash amateurish homebrewed pyrotechnics
and much preferred to steer my attention toward
safer hobby such as the edible objets d’arts i.e.,
the much more drab field per how to present
and aesthetically appealing and nutritious meal.

Fondness to prepare food and pretend to be
faux renowned cook (this confession admitted
rather baldly and obviously deduced) actually
competed for my most favorite avocation activity
and spare leisure time.

In other words, this chap did relish designing
his own recipes mainly from leftovers in tandem
with unpronounceable multisyllabic organic
compounds filled numerous sized dishes
and aged apothecary bottles respectively.

Without question though, the passion plus
less riskier factor to combine and potchka
dry and wet ingredients together did rank
as considerably safer medium that still
allowed, enabled and provided me an equal
opportunity to test reactions, than those
earlier iterated potentially explosive hazards.

Nonetheless, my cavalier crusading overactive
appetite, hunger and thirst to discover causative
outcomes (even with purportedly innocuous
looking household cleaning supplies or easily
acquired inert materiel) nearly witnessed an
apocalypse at three two four Level Road
on one particular nasty occasion.

I anticipated our domicile would become
rent asunder, and reduced into a black
and decker ashen funeral pyre, yet for
grace of some divine force no family
members nor pets succumbed
nor got asphyxiated from choking acrid air.