.
In a costume of conflicting emotion,
of crossing diamondic colour,
with regal posture in grief,
the Harlequin and the King,
a display of opposites
creating a composite being,
that eases her body
gently into the waiting water,
to float away serene,
on her journey to the nether.

Midnight blue and emerald green,
the regalia of ermine,
both ostentatious and humble,
robeing the aspects,
understated in crowning splendour,
the gentleman King bows,
and the Harlequin laughs,
the bi-polar reaction
to the tragedy of misfortune,
with a sting in the myth-tale.

With the dark hues of mourning,
a legend passes on her way,
across the streams of time,
on a voyage to discover herself,
carrying her Harlequin in a purse,
holding her King to her breast,
owning them both in her heart,
the medicine wheel spins,
knowing the grapes of wrath
yield the wine of spite.

The motley speckles of attire,
a starry parody of night skies,
lighting the decorated funeral barge,
gliding along the rivers of space,
worn with the mantle of sorrow,
and it sails into the sunset,
as the Harlequin and King observe,
the mandala turns,
the bier of the Queen departing,
bears their sadness forth.

The Harlequin laughs and laughs 'til he cries,
his heart grows cold, then withers and dies,
whilst the King, statuesque, memoirs his life,
lamenting the legend of a Queen, his wife.



© Pagan Paul (24/07/18)

Harlequin queen
she looks like a dream
if you count nightmares
as pleasant things

She comes around at midnight
because that's where she reigns
she's got memories in her pockets
from picking all the brains

She'll eat your beating heart
with a pulsing cherry on top
and when she's finished with the rest of you
she'll smack her crimson lips with a pop

I worshiped her as much as ideas and dreams were worshiped. Only sometimes when I met her at the passion podium wearing my true self, Harlequin with a thousand names, a shadow of my lip is lowered down her pearly neck. She sighed passionately watching my coal eyes as my breath of fresh forest moss and violets stroked her. My ideal desires turned into worship of the forest elves towards slender birch trunks. As easterly wind with words I bent the branches of her smile, touched her imagination with pictures of needs and trembled the leaves of her youth with seductive rumble. She had no chance. I chose her as a single flower, she was not mine and therefore was nobody's. Hypnotized by my silence she awaited for black hole of fate to drew her in and convert her into the shining star of my worship. She will become mine even if I kidnapped her and imprisoned as my Harem slave, I promised myself the first time her shadow fell on my path. At that point she was wolf's hunger at the buffet, she was rainstorm in the desert summer, electronic sight for the blind. She was a mountain of Christmas gifts packaged in a slight *** appeal. I thought it will last forever, that love, and hanging her picture among the portraits of forgotten lovers I watched her as last after many. With remote thought I left a little room on the magnificent wall of romantic freedom knowing that Harlequin's love is fleeting as smile on his face, transient as grimace on his mask and changeable as a form of drawn tears. Love of Harlequin is fantasy fiction story in which one woman does not stay for long.

He has the heart of a tattered harlequin
Patched and re-patched with rags of broken times that were once good.
The cloth of its chambers is worn and threadbare
Held by the shreds of borrowed nights and comical stolen mornings.

He has the heart of a battered harlequin
And regret has turned his blood to the colour of rust
Unanswered questions congeal and clog his pulse
When he is lonely and aching, time - not isolation- is his worst enemy

He has the heart of a knackered harlequin
Kept moist by whiskey and gin, and uppers and downers that he pops like candy
He has a patchwork sack of a heart
It can never be filled and often feels empty.

I sink, my feet slowly becoming part of the earth softened under the heat of my body and a shy sun rolling evenly on horizon. Lazy sun slowly extends his arms stiff from winter reluctance and expanding them into a hug. I see green meadows, still poor with colors, pale spring messengers and Harlequin's face in the glass reflection. Eyes full of ice slowly melting, just as piles of snow hidden in the spring  shadows. I sink deeper into the trap of needs. My hands have become bare spring branches and wait for your smile to bloom touches. Delicate greenish flowers and young leaves will slowly wake up your eyes from the winter gloom, gentle kisses will tickle your throat and nostrils. My hands are empowered, illusive fingers gliding over your breast. I feel the beauty of the Snowdrop and already lured with memories of Violets. You open slowly like a red Tulip. Tulips are too simple for you. I see beauty of Cyclamen bathed in dew of hidden alley and I think only of sweet kisses you give. As I dive in you the Earth is not just a lump of mud in the universe and the water  is not just a matter which makes it blue. While tears running down your cheeks you say they have decided themselves to come and not knowing why. Then, I stand little before you. The boy filled with dreams. Then I stand bigger than the Earth before you as you are more than water.

Flora and Fauna, the sisters of Season
Of Spring and of Summer
Allow now our drummer
To drum out the beat
For the feet of the sisters
To glide and to creep
Like the encroaching sleep
Which may perch on your shoulder if we cannot keep you awake
And on the edge of your seat, sir.

Now the former, sweet Flora, will finger the flute
While the other continues to glide and to slide
Like a sequined Venetian harlequin bride;
And now Fauna will mimic the movements of bird and of beast
As she graces the work of our landscape artiste
And all is completely unfeasible
Completely lacks reason
We guarantee.

Presently
In the eye of the beholder
Sweet Flora seemingly draws from the aether a lyre
And with flourishing fingers she plucks from the heavens
A song of the seasons, a pagan ode to Pan!


Behold! No aid of hoops, no strings
The vestal-******-harlot sisters sing
Of beautiful Persephone
And with unseen damselfly wings
Ascend from mediocrity
All melody forgotten
All the drums create cacophony
And you will find serenity in chaotic monotony
Now let this climaxing crescendo banish all your sorrowing!

No more that light; no more that sacred realm
Life’s door was dappled gloam; now all is black.
A man of wax with saintly, hollow eyes
Devoid of sin, devoid of love and light
That golden room is lost – you can’t turn back.
Now love has lost its lustre - lust lost joy
And coy eyes turn to watch the empty man
Struck by eternal beauty, and condemned
To haunt the broken world of mortal men;
And shrilling wind caresses empty hand.

embedded in the most tenebrous corner of my mind,
harlequin memories of serendipity,
dripping like bittersweet wine,
tantalize me,
begriming what was once an unsoiled canvas.

engulfed in my despondency,
I repose homely
until my mind's taste-buds
savor the saccharine flavors
of its own derisive thoughts.

aroused to say the least,
my mind's libido is now being satisfied.
I lie here,
welcoming all that my thoughts and epiphanies have to offer.
I am unable to disclose what's bestowed to me
but that's irrelevant.

My mind is here...
and open
and anticipating
the pleasing rush
of these thoughts that venture through my head.

The pleasure is overwhelming,
forcing my chakras open
as my ajna awakens from its long slumber.

I crave this foreplay
and I plead with the universe
to make it never-ending
but it seems my cries fall upon deaf ears
and I'm left open-minded
and unfinished.

I last saw her in Santiago
******* drunkenly in a Sub urban taverna
parading conceited pride in a twisted union
with that *******  heinous maniacal harlequin
each in vainglorious throes of their imagined septic mindfuck
Debauch celebration of collaboration of succubus and incubus

Some days she is saying Haloa in Hawaii
adorned as Sainti Maria the ***** now as Madonna
spewing words like a dove acting like a Nun in a Convent
the fiendess with two faces hiding her ****** like the ace in lace
the malignant serpent crawling in the duality of her neurosis

I last saw her in Santiago
In a sanctity of the poisoned insecures with exiguous minds
consumed with flaming fears she begs acceptance for inclusion
******* for percieved reflected glory from her fathers' jailers
The subjugated souls of chai wallah lives on in grandchildren

So when Santi Maria flirts from honey to beehive
Ready to ***** and part thighs and brain for minor pointing gun
Feel sorry for a damaged child devoid of a prime core never made
only obeisance to past rulers whose discarded cast-offs she wears
Her poems  enchants but its virulent tools she takes in her body

I last saw her in Santiago
A slaved two-faced pretender who sings like a nightingale
In sub urban dives she postrates to friendly pats and gropes
Melting creeps and hot tigers begging subs for a heady drink
Brilliant yet blindsided to **** on knees as her children will too



Copyright@LaurenceA20thSept2018Allrightsreserved.

For those among us who lived by the rules,
Lived frugal lives of *****-scratching desperation;
For those who sustained a zombie-like state for 30 or 40 years,
For these few, our lucky few—
We bequeath an interactive Life-Alert emergency dog tag,
Or better still a dog, a colossal pet beast,
A humongous Harlequin Dane to feed,
For that matter, why not buy a few new cars before you die?
Your home mortgage is, after all, dead and buried.
We gave you senior-citizen rates for water, gas & electricity—
“The Big 3,” as they are known in certain Gasoline Alley-retro
Neighborhoods among us,
Our parishes and boroughs.
All this and more, had you lived small,
Had you played by the rules for Smurfs & Serfs.

We leave you the chance to treat your grandkids
Like Santa’s A-List clientele,
“Good ‘ol Grampa,” they’ll recollect fondly,
“Sweet Grammy Strunzo, they will sigh.
What more could you want in retirement?

You’ve enabled another generation of deadbeat grandparents,
And now you’re next in line for the ice floe,
To be taken away while still alive,
Still hunched over and wheezing,
On a midnight sleigh ride,
Your son, pulling the proverbial Eskimo sled,
Down to some random Arctic shore,
Placing you gently on the ice floe.
Your son; your boy--
A true chip off the igloo, so to speak.
He leaves you on the ice floe,
Remembering not to leave the sled,
The proverbial Sled of Abbandono,
The one never left behind,
As it would be needed again,
Why not a home in storage while we wait?
The family will surely need it sometime down the line.

A dignified death?
Who can afford one these days?
The question answers itself:
You are John Goodman in “The Big Lebowski.”
You opt for an empty 2-lb can of Folgers.
You know: "The best part of waking up, is Folger's in your cup!"
That useless mnemonic taught us by “Mad Men.”
Slogans and theme songs imbibe us.

Zombie accouterments,
Provided by America’s Ruling Class.
Thank you Lewis H. Lapham for giving it to us straight.
Why not go with the aluminum Folgers can?
Rather than spend the $300.00 that mook funeral director
Tries to shame you into coughing up,
For the economy-class “Legacy Urn.”
An old seduction:  Madison Avenue’s Gift of Shame.
Does your **** smell?” asks a sultry voice,
Igniting a carpet bomb across the 20-45 female cohort,
2 billion pathetically insecure women,
Spending collectively $10 billion each year—
Still a lot of money, unless it’s a 2013
Variation on an early 1930s Germany theme;
The future we’ve created;
The future we deserve.

Now a wheelbarrow load of paper currency,
Scarcely buy a loaf of bread.
Even if you’re lucky enough to make it,
Back to your cave alive,
After shopping to survive.
Women spend $10 billion a year for worry-free *****.
I don’t read The Wall Street Journal either,
But I’m pretty **** sure,
That “The Feminine Hygiene Division”
Continues to hold a corner office, at
Fear of Shame Corporate Headquarters.
Eventually, FDS will go the way of the weekly ******.
Meanwhile, in God & vaginal deodorant we trust,
Something you buy just to make sure,
Just in case the *** Gods send you a gift.
Some 30-year old **** buddy,
Some linguistically gifted man or woman,
Some he or she who actually enjoys eating your junk:
“Oh Woman, thy name is frailty.”
“Oh Man, thou art a Woman.”
“Oh Art is for Carney in “Harry & Tonto,”
Popping the question: “Dignity in Old Age?”
Will it too, go the way of the weekly ******?
It is pointless to speculate.
Mouthwash--Roll-on antiperspirants--Depends.
Things our primitive ancestors did without,
Playing it safe on the dry savannah,
Where the last 3 drops evaporate in an instant,
Rather than go down your pants,
No matter how much you wiggle & dance.
Think about it!

Think cemeteries, my Geezer friends.
Of course, your first thought is
How nice it would be, laid to rest
In the Poets’ Corner at Westminster Abbey.
Born a ******. Died a ******. Laid in the grave?
Or Père Lachaise,
Within a stone’s throw of Jim Morrison--
Lying impudently,
Embraced, held close by loving soil,
Caressed, held close by a Jack Daniels-laced mud pie.
Or, with Ulysses S. Grant, giving new life to the quandary:
Who else is buried in the freaking tomb?
Bury my heart with Abraham in Springfield.
Enshrine my body in the Taj Mahal,
Build for me a pyramid, says Busta Cheops.

Something simple, perhaps, like yourself.
Or, like our old partner in crime:
Lee Harvey, in death, achieving the soul of brevity,
Like Cher and Madonna a one-name celebrity,
A simple yet obscure grave stone carving:  OSWALD.
Perhaps a burial at sea? All the old salts like to go there.
Your corpse wrapped in white duct/duck tape,
Still frozen after months of West Pac naval maneuvers,
The CO complying with the Department of the Navy Operations Manual,
Offering this service on « An operations-permitting basis, »
About as much latitude given any would-be Ahab,
Shortlisted for Command-at-sea.
So your body is literally frozen stiff,
Frozen solid for six months packed,
Spooned between 50-lb sacks of green beans & carrots.
Deep down in the deep freeze,
Within the Deep Freeze :
The ship’s storekeeper has a cryogenic *******
Deep down in his private sanctuary,
Privacy in the bowels of the ship.
While up on deck you slide smoothly down the pine plank,
Old Glory billowing in the sea breeze,
Emptying you out into the great abyss of
Some random forlorn ocean.

Perhaps you are a ******* lunatic?
Maybe you likee—Shut the **** up, Queequeg !
Perhaps you want a variation on the burial-at-sea option ?
Here’s mine, as presently set down in print,
Lawyer-prepared, notarized and filed at the Court of the Grand Vizier,
Copies of same in safe deposit boxes,
One of many benefits Chase offers free to disabled Vets,
Demonstrating, again, my zombie-like allegiance to the rules.
But I digress.
« The true measure of one’s life »
Said most often by those we leave behind,
Is the wealth—if any—we leave behind.
The fact that we cling to bank accounts,
Bank safe deposit boxes,
Legal aide & real estate,
Insurance, and/or cash . . .
Just emphasizes the foregone conclusion,
For those who followed the rules.
Those of us living frugally,
Sustaining the zombie trance all these years.
You can jazz it up—go ahead, call it your « Work Ethic. »
But you might want to hesitate before you celebrate
Your unimpeachable character & patriotism.

What is the root of Max Weber’s WORK ETHIC concept?
‘Tis one’s grossly misplaced, misguided, & misspent neurosis.
Unmasked, shown vulnerably pink & naked, at last.
Truth is: The harder we work, the more we lay bare
The Third World Hunger in our souls.
But again, I digress.  Variation on a Theme :
At death my body is quick-frozen.
Then dismembered, then ground down
To the consistency of water-injected hamburger,
Meat further frozen and Fedex-ed to San Diego,
Home of our beloved Pacific Fleet.
Stowed in a floating Deep Freeze where glazed storekeepers
Sate the lecherous Commissary Officer,
Aboard some soon-to-be underway—
Underway: The Only Way
Echo the Old Salts, a moribund Greek Chorus
Goofing still on the burial-at-sea concept.

Underway to that sacred specific spot,
Let's call it The Golden Shellback,
Where the Equator intersects,
Crosses perpendicular,
The International Dateline,
Where my defrosted corpse nuggets,
Are now sprinkled over the sea,
While Ray Charles sings his snarky
Child Support & Alimony
His voice blasting out the 1MC,
She’s eating steak.  I’m eating baloney.
Ray is the voice of disgruntlement,
Palpable and snide in the trade winds,
Perhaps the lost chord everyone has been looking for:
Laughing till we cry at ourselves,
Our small corpse kernels, chum for sharks.

In a nutshell—being the crazy *******’ve come to love-
Chop me up and feed me to the Orcas,
Just do it ! NIKE!
That’s right, a $commercial right in the middle of a ******* poem!
Do it where the Equator crosses the Dateline :
A sailors’ sacred vortex: isn’t it ?
Wouldn’t you say, Shipmates, one and all?
I’m talking Conrad’s Marlow, here, man!
Call me Ishmael or Queequeg.
Thor Heyerdahl or Tristan Jones,
Bogart’s Queeq & Ensign Pulver,
Wayward sailors, one and all.
And me, of course, aboard the one ride I could not miss,
Even if it means my Amusement Park pass expires.
Ceremony at sea ?
Absolutely vital, I suppose,
Given the monotony and routine,
Of the ship’s relentlessly vacant seascape.
« There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea,
And I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates. «
So said James Russell Lowell,
One of the so-called Fireside Poets,
With Longfellow and Bryant,
Whittier, the Quaker and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.,
19th Century American hipsters, one and all.

Then there’s CREMATION,
A low-cost option unavailable to practicing Jews.
« Ashes to ashes »  remains its simplest definition.
LOW-COST remains its operant phrase & universal appeal.
No Deed to a 2by6by6 foot plot of real estate,
Paid for in advance for perpetuity—
Although I suggest reading the fine print—
Our grass--once maintained by Japanese gardeners--
Now a lost art in Southern California,
Now that little Tokyo's finest no longer
Cut, edge & manicure, transform our lawns
Into a Bonsai ornamental wonderland.
Today illegal/legal Mexicans employing
More of a subtropical slash & burn technique.

Cremation : no chunk of marble,
No sandstone, wood or cardboard marker,
Plus the cost of engraving and site installation.
Quoth the children: "****, you’re talking $30K to
Put the old ****** in the ground? Cheap **** never
Gave me $30K for college, let alone a house down payment.
What’s my low-cost, legitimate disposal going to run me?"

CREMATION : they burn your corpse in Auschwitz ovens.
You are reduced to a few pounds of cigar ash.
Now the funeral industry catches you with your **** out.
You must (1) pay to have your ashes stored,
Or (2) take them away in a gilded crate that,
Again, you must pay for.
So you slide into Walter Sobjak,
The Dude’s principal amigo,
And bowling partner in the
Brothers Coen masterpiece: The Big Lebowski.
You head to the nearest Safeway for a 2-lb can of Folgers.
And while we’re on the subject of cremation & the Jews,
Think for a moment on the horror of The Holocaust:
Dispossessed & utterly destroyed, one last indignity:
Corpses disposed of by cremation,
For Jews, an utterly unacceptable burial rite.
Now before we leave Mr. Sobjak,
Who is, as you know, a deeply disturbed Vietnam vet,
Who settles bowling alley protocol disputations,
By brandishing, by threatening the weak-minded,
With a loaded piece, the same piece John Turturro—
Stealing the movie as usual, this time as Jesus Quintana—
Bragging how he will stick it up Walter’s culo,
Pulling the trigger until it goes: Click-Click-Click!
Terrestrial burial or cremation?
For me:  Burial at Sea:
Slice me, dice me into shark food.

Or maybe something a la Werner von Braun:
Your dead meat shot out into space;
A personal space probe & voyager,
A trajectory of one’s own choosing?

Oh hell, why not skip right down to the nitty gritty bottom line?
Current technology: to wit, your entire life record,
Your body and history digitized & downloaded
To a Zip Drive the size of the average *******,
A data disc then Fedex-ed anywhere in the galaxy,
Including exotic burial alternatives,
Like some Martian Kilimanjaro,
Where the tiger stalks above the clouds,
Nary a one with a freaking clue that can explain
Just what the cat was doing up so high in the first place.
Or, better still, inside a Sherpa’s ***** pack,
A pocket imbued with the same Yak dung,
Tenzing Norgay massages daily into his *******,
Defending the Free World against Communism & crotch rot.
(Forgive me: I am a child of the Cold War.)
Why not? Your life & death moments
Zapped into a Zip Drive, bytes and bits,
Submicroscopic and sublime.
So easy to delete, should your genetic subgroup
Be targeted for elimination.
About now you begin to realize that
A two-pound aluminum Folgers can
Is not such a bad idea.
No matter; the future is unpersons,
The Ministry of Information will in charge.
The People of Fort Meade--those wacky surveillance folks--
Cloistered in the rolling hills of Anne Arundel County.
That’s who will be calling the shots,
Picking the spots from now on.
Welcome to Cyber Command.
Say hello to Big Brother.
Say “GOOD-BYE PRIVACY.”

Meanwhile, you’re spending most of your time
Fretting ‘bout your last rites--if any—
Burial plots on land and sea, & other options,
Such as whether or not to go with the
Concrete outer casket,
Whether or not you prefer a Joe Cocker,
Leon Russell or Ray Charles 3-D hologram
Singing at your memorial service.
While I am fish food for the Golden Shellbacks,
I am a fine young son of Neptune,
We are Old Salts, one and all,
Buried or burned or shot into space odysseys,
Or digitized on a data disc the size of
An average human *******.
Snap outta it, Einstein!
Like everyone else,
You’ve been fooled again.

How long will our bewildered heirs
marooned in possessions not theirs
puzzle at disposing of these three
cunning feignings of hard candy in glass-
the striped little pillowlike mock-sweets,
the flared end-twists as of transparent paper?

No clue will be attached, no trace
of the sunny day of their purchase,
at a glittering shop a few doors
up from Harry's Bar, a disappointing place
for all its testaments from Hemingway.
The Grand Canal was also aglitter
while the lesser canals lay in the shade
like snakes, flicking wet tongues
and gliding to green rendezvous.

The immaculate salesgirl, in her aloof
Italian succulence, sized us up,
a middle-aged American couple,
as unserious shoppers who,
still half jet-lagged, would cling to their lire
in the face of any enchanted vase
or ethereal wineglass that might shatter
in the luggage going home.

Yet we wanted something, something small ....
This? No ... How much is ten thousand? Dizzy,
at last we decided. She wrapped
the three glass candies, the cheapest
items in the shop, with a showy care
worthy of crown jewels-tissue,
tape, and tissue again sprang up
beneath her blood-red fingernails,
plus a jack-in-the-box-shaped paper bag
adorned with harlequin lozenges, sad
though she surely was, on her feet waiting
all day for a wild rich Arab, a compulsive Japanese.
Grazie, signor ... grazie, signora ... ciao.

Nor will our thing-weary heirs decipher
the little repair, the reattached triangle
of glass from the paper-imitating end-twist,
its mending a labor of love in the cellar,
by winter light, by the man of the house,
mixing transparent epoxy and rigging
a clever small clamp as if to keep
intact the time that we, alive,
had spent in the feathery bed
at the Europa e Regina.

come to stand center stage
white garish paint on thin hand
thin black mask for a face
he stands in the fading light
dusty serene silences surround him
with deep words paused on his wooden lips
speak now oh devilish masked man in this passion play
speak to the fathers plots and treason's
folly is his candy
trickster lover saint

fathers and other clowns
pour over the construction blueprints of
better living through chemicals
while the girl in the passion play sneaks out the window
to find her song in the silence of pantomime
find her pretty face masked in feathers
so lovely she awaits her lover beneath painted moon

harlequin and the servant slap with a stick comedy
and silently chased by the policeman
run amok on the worlds stage
come children of all ages see the show
silly and sad
fun and adventure
as harlequin and his lover
regale you with the tale
tricking father and the clown to sad defeats
harlequin, harlequin where for art thou harlequin
here you fool slapping the cow on the moon with my stylish stick
folly is his candy
trickster lover saint

Wobbly legs carry me down the sidewalk, slowly treading, with trembling steps over confessioning stones polished with tears and pitted with sour smiles. Icy wind breath wanders tricky streets and breaks on my face painted with mask of unreality. Feelings fade into the background under persistent personalities, crisp white lines merged into reflective rock, polished reflection rejects smile tyrants. Gossamer web of lies covering the gloomy square and bystanders carried by industrial superstition. Shadows of electronic slaves are trailing down realistic borders of suspicious subconscious, their plastic smiles touching me. Pouring out of houses covered with leather useless wallets and paved with extinct bills. In the middle of the square of lost stands the well of career guidance. The reflection of toxic siliconised water  deceptively shows false images of an imaginary future. If I were harlequin I'd remove this mask of nightmares, step through the ****** eyelids curtain and walk on the blinding stage illuminated by the light of reality, but I am Harlequin, my mask is permanent.

Venus, when her son was lost,
Cried him up and down the coast,
In hamlets, palaces, and parks,
And told the truant by his marks,
Golden curls, and quiver, and bow;—
This befell long ago.
Time and tide are strangely changed,
Men and manners much deranged;
None will now find Cupid latent
By this foolish antique patent.
He came late along the waste,
Shod like a traveller for haste,
With malice dared me to proclaim him,
That the maids and boys might name him.

Boy no more, he wears all coats,
Frocks, and blouses, capes, capôtes,
He bears no bow, or quiver, or wand,
Nor chaplet on his head or hand:
Leave his weeds and heed his eyes,
All the rest he can disguise.
In the pit of his eyes a spark
Would bring back day if it were dark,
And,—if I tell you all my thought,
Though I comprehend it not,—
In those unfathomable orbs
Every function he absorbs;
He doth eat, and drink, and fish, and shoot,
And write, and reason, and compute,
And ride, and run, and have, and hold,
And whine, and flatter, and regret,
And kiss, and couple, and beget,
By those roving eye-***** bold;
Undaunted are their courages,
Right Cossacks in their forages;
Fleeter they than any creature,
They are his steeds and not his feature,
Inquisitive, and fierce, and fasting,
Restless, predatory, hasting,—
And they pounce on other eyes,
As lions on their prey;
And round their circles is writ,
Plainer than the day,
Underneath, within, above,
Love, love, love, love.
He lives in his eyes,
There doth digest, and work, and spin,
And buy, and sell, and lose, and win;
He rolls them with delighted motion,
Joy-tides swell their mimic ocean.
Yet holds he them with tortest rein,
That they may seize and entertain
The glance that to their glance opposes,
Like fiery honey ****** from roses.

He palmistry can understand,
Imbibing virtue by his hand
As if it were a living root;
The pulse of hands will make him mute;
With all his force he gathers balms
Into those wise thrilling palms.

Cupid is a casuist,
A mystic, and a cabalist,
Can your lurking Thought surprise,
And interpret your device;
Mainly versed in occult science,
In magic, and in clairvoyance.
Oft he keeps his fine ear strained,
And reason on her tiptoe pained,
For aery intelligence,
And for strange coincidence.
But it touches his quick heart
When Fate by omens takes his part,
And chance-dropt hints from Nature's sphere
Deeply soothe his anxious ear.

Heralds high before him run,
He has ushers many a one,
Spreads his welcome where he goes,
And touches all things with his rose.
All things wait for and divine him,—
How shall I dare to malign him,
Or accuse the god of sport?—
I must end my true report,
Painting him from head to foot,
In as far as I took note,
Trusting well the matchless power
Of this young-eyed emperor
Will clear his fame from every cloud,
With the bards, and with the crowd.

He is wilful, mutable,
Shy, untamed, inscrutable,
Swifter-fashioned than the fairies,
Substance mixed of pure contraries,
His vice some elder virtue's token,
And his good is evil spoken.
Failing sometimes of his own,
He is headstrong and alone;
He affects the wood and wild,
Like a flower-hunting child,
Buries himself in summer waves,
In trees, with beasts, in mines, and caves,
Loves nature like a horned cow,
Bird, or deer, or cariboo.

Shun him, nymphs, on the fleet horses!
He has a total world of wit,
O how wise are his discourses!
But he is the arch-hypocrite,
And through all science and all art,
Seeks alone his counterpart.
He is a Pundit of the east,
He is an augur and a priest,
And his soul will melt in prayer,
But word and wisdom are a snare;
Corrupted by the present toy,
He follows joy, and only joy.

There is no mask but he will wear,
He invented oaths to swear,
He paints, he carves, he chants, he prays,
And holds all stars in his embrace,
Godlike, —but 'tis for his fine pelf,
The social quintessence of self.
Well, said I, he is hypocrite,
And folly the end of his subtle wit,
He takes a sovran privilege
Not allowed to any liege,
For he does go behind all law,
And right into himself does draw,
For he is sovranly allied.
Heaven's oldest blood flows in his side,
And interchangeably at one
With every king on every throne,
That no God dare say him nay,
Or see the fault, or seen betray;
He has the Muses by the heart,
And the Parcæ all are of his part.

His many signs cannot be told,
He has not one mode, but manifold,
Many fashions and addresses,
Piques, reproaches, hurts, caresses,
Action, service, badinage,
He will preach like a friar,
And jump like Harlequin,
He will read like a crier,
And fight like a Paladin.
Boundless is his memory,
Plans immense his term prolong,
He is not of counted age,
Meaning always to be young.
And his wish is intimacy,
Intimater intimacy,
And a stricter privacy,
The impossible shall yet be done,
And being two shall still be one.
As the wave breaks to foam on shelves,
Then runs into a wave again,
So lovers melt their sundered selves,
Yet melted would be twain.

time glances into mystery
symbol in clear glass
eyes invite from behind
the harlequin mask
silver haired angels at sunset
my cup is a green galaxy
electric creation -  waves
garden party imaginations
ground control crawling away
proximity and true beauty in the moment
appetite in blonde boundless freedom
mad laughter and echoes echoes echoes
when the goddess gives you her cup to drink
you drink full and deep
these are the moments we live for
and they pass so quickly
ephemeral fleeting perfections
last only moments

I slept with her, my rapacious pen, took me in quiet vengeance in
full on conjugation

raken and taken, me,
her overlording me now, her authorship, so long held
in my maledom abeyance,
a kept imprisonment, unleashing at last, a tongue lashing~leashing,
de-spite my un-desirous craven lying supplications,
excuses of innocence and accident, coincidence and conflation,
ashes, ashes, denials incinerated, all fall down

she wrote/stabbed upon my heartless chest,
in the cheap crudités colors of a prisoner’s inking,
“user of words mine, all mine”

gathered up my innards of loose words,
speculative notes & titles yet to be,
born and kept hid in password protected silent back labor files,
now hers, leaving me sputtering, unable to create,
a homeless mute citizen, possession-less,
helplessly hoping her hovering harlequin might relent,
without any shelter, even a glimmering, a single aleph or bet

she celebratory cackled and clawed,
professed her reclamation ownership of all my poems predecessors,
zola j’accusing that I, ripped from her forcibly,
with no granted permission, her womanly touché of my scribing,
warning of no more global warming for my unprivileged hands,
daren’t try for pretenses of stolen legal guardianship,
warning of a new, forced caining inscription,
a tattooing of  “thief” upon my 5 knuckled right ******,
“plagiarist” boldly inked in back & blue upon my left palm

I, predator,
she, victim,
of my now self-professed, admitted confess,
she, my single victim,
of a decade long serializing criminal coverup

her parting poem a threatening,
herein issued in this very verse,
damning all who would falsely credit themselves,
to suffer shame and an unimaginable curse,
this, the newborn eleventh of ten commandments

parting, she kissing my lips, even my emptied apertures,
with warning bitings,
she knew all my
my numerous noms de guerre,
no dead scrolls caves to hid in, and to be discovered some future day,
and if ever marked as copyrighted,
’twas no tunneling escape,
the exposed truth to be over-stamped
upon all, upon each, in every language,

”copied right from the tongue of a woman!”


and she would be wright...

Magnificent blue tent is spread over my head. I look at it without a word while the audience throws unleashed cries of encouragement. "Go, go! The net is under!" . Hands holding a long pole. Providing a first step towards a string of fate, felt my face turn white as a mask on it. The sudden touch of metal wire under my feet breaks the breath from my lungs. One blink and everything disappears, my steps are steps of fate that slowly sneaks maneuvering between two abysses. My hands have grown together with rod and turned into a solid dragon wings. Through spread nostrils I am breathing in sweet smell of victory, and exhale fire of disappointments and saliva of defeat. The audience is still unleashed: "Fly, don’t you see you have wings? Fly!". I move slowly, like a white panther whose fur is embellished with blue diamonds. I walk slowly, coping with every step, feeling soothing palpitations, it was just a short-term earthquake which shook my knees, elbows and fingers. The epicenter was reported somewhere in the abdomen, waves of heat and uncertainties have slowly spread to my limbs, passing with from my skin through electrified air to the audience. The earthquake, which I've already forgotten strongly encompassed thousands of rosy faces and bright eyes squeezing out of them delighted "Ooooh," while I slowly crossed my way through streets covered with traps. Heavy load on my back, large stones of tedious requests, cramp biting my shoulders, neck and bending my spine, as if all this is gone in an instant, while I safely walk under Dragon armor down the sunny street of bravery. I arrived at the other end of the wire ordeal and with the final step I realize that there is no place for fear, nervousness, that I'm not an amateur in a professional competition, Harlequin has survived another day. Tomorrow when the load again rises to the scale of the iceberg, when again I become stray ignorant in acrobatics exam, tomorrow, if it ever comes, I'll think about it. Perhaps there is sun and melts the icebergs, might come truck and drive my loads away, I may again grow wings to bring me over the abyss.

Come fellows,
come friends,
to the circus of gnossienes,
where strikes of midnight signal our rebirth,
and from the womb of a pen,
we are ****** upon the parchment that sustains our selves,
as our hair sheds in tufts,
and our teeth dull,
we harlequin worms,
who suffer in smiles,
through geographical refuse.

We harlequin worms,
can love only ants,
who only bite and sting,
which we feel to our cores,
as we watch for the giants,
whom we are convinced,
will crush us on sight.

We harlequin worms,
essential but weak,
embarrassments to our forefathers,
refuters of shovel hypothesis,
wit is best to ignore our five hearts,
before we think ourselves human.

Harlequin worms,
proletariat of the earth,
lords of the soil, listeners of Satie,
Slaves to the insignificance of our own progress.
We shall go without want,
we will smile for thee,
the flies whom pay us no mind.

There's spring and there's summer, there's all that's in between
no listless skies of anodyne; now nature flaunts and preens

What beauty fills the hungry eye 'neath a sky of blue, serene
verdant vales soaked in sun, awash in palettes of green

There are pastels that awaken and deep shades that passion brews
created hues that trickle...sprinkled with 'chartreuse'

There's the green of 'asparagus' and that of 'artichokes'
Of 'forest', 'ferns' , of 'moss', a brush of different strokes

Fragrant plants of 'mint', then 'myrtle' and 'green tea'
'Emerald', 'jade' or 'harlequin' and 'malachites' that be

Off creamy shells, just 'pistachio', 'green apples', then of 'pines'
It lies too in 'sap' and 'teal', in 'avocados' and tangy 'lime'

There's green of the 'mantis', in 'jungle', 'hunters' and 'shamrock'
The lithe 'parakeet' fluttering and the lazy sanguine 'croc'

In blessed 'basil', ' pickle', in 'pear', 'olives' in 'bottle green'
'Gourds' and 'peas' that farmers grow in cultivars pristine

'Tis there in 'aqua' and 'seaweed', in the ripple of 'sea green' waves
In 'turtles', 'sea foam', 'anemone' and a 'tropical glistening lake'

From 'laurel green' to an 'army green' , in 'sage' ( a shade of grey )
The color of 'grass' , the murky 'swamp' , hues in array

There's 'neon' and an 'Indian green', a 'Persian' one to mystify
A 'midnight green' to bright 'fluorescent', oh, for green rainbows in the eye

Life goes on.

Like an endless spiral of frayed thread hanging from your favorite dress.

Off the flower petal of the floral pattern that blows in the wind above your knees.

I'm going to write a novel about the one time we danced alone in my room.

We sat on my bathroom floor and you looked me in the eye and I was trying to figure out what you were thinking.

It took me awhile but finally, I realized you we're trying to think of anybody else that you would rather be there than me.

And you stared in my eyes.

5 seconds.
10 seconds.
30 seconds.
1 minute.
2 minutes.
and you couldn't think of anybody.

You wanted to so bad.
You wanted to think of anybody else that wasn't me.
But you couldn't.
And you hated it.
Because you did the one thing you said you would never do again.

You let me in.

You let me into the cage of doves that encased your glass heart.
And all I did was sit and watch it.
I became a dove.
You never let me out of your sight.
You wanted to make sure I didn't break it.
Then you decided to look away.
You looked back and I was still in the same spot, admiring you.
You still didn't trust me so I gave you my wings.
I didn't care about them now that I had you.
I didn't need the sky if you were on the ground.

You smiled and I loved you like breathing in mountain air.

I took that feeling and put it in a jar.
And I watched the firefly dance.
And I watched it die from lack of air.
And I watched your glow vanish.

Now the flowers are blooming.
Petals are falling off your hips and I'm still falling off your eyes, in the same way that leaves fall off the trees in Autumn.

Somehow, a night with no sleep and a cigarette reminds me of you.

In the same way that the headlights of a car read the lines of a road, I read your harlequin lips.

And I swear on all things that are good, you were the softest thing I kissed.

Wrapped in a thin layer of ivory.

I find my watch timeless.

I drip alcohol on some nights but not as many as "at first" but still enough as "end it" and I can never feel what it meant and how I meant it was to mean it. So, for now, so far, I've been taking my rib cage and hoping the bones don't break as I expand my lungs for a fresh breath of new skin and flesh. My tongue rams the back of my teeth in hopes to slither a word in edge wise as the bite becomes a copper numbness in the back of my throat.

I hope you know what decade I lost the hue in my eyes as it turned black and white like piano keys to my heart and soul.

I sit on the piano bench with skeleton fingers wondering why the graveyard is so quiet.

I look at old pictures and photographs and I replay moments in my head that sink into my chest like a ship that's been abandoned.

Someday or sometime soon.

I hope it never ends.

And I hope the flowers on your dress bloom again when Spring comes next year.

Where are our clowns
With baggy waist-coats
Filled with promises;
Clowns wearing
Borrowed crowns.

One plucks a rose
In his white garden,
To pin on his lapel;
He's a squirter
And it shows.

One's in the square
With large red shoes
Putting on a show.
But feet don't fit,
Soon he'll trip
With tongue-in-cheek ego.

One has rhine-red ruffs
Around her neck,
Her GNP
Surpasses debt;
Her audience finds
They too get wet.
A three-ringed circus
We're wise to regret.

One in the Yuan
Has a red nose on,
A harlequin clown
Asleep in red dawn.
But tweak his nose
And the tent comes down
On the Big Top Shows.

I wish the words of my mouth
Could work like a fine stitching
Closing up the holes in your heart.

But I never have the words
To make it all go away
If anything, I just tear it all apart.

I'm not eloquent
Or tastefully soothing
But my heart beats in the right rhythm.

I try to say all the right things
Instead, I stumble and fall
I guess, truly, I am just winsome.

I watch your painful confusion
Unable to help
And we both seem to tumble into turmoil.

I wish could gracefully
Be your divine savior
But unfortunately I'm just a harlequin girl.

~
In her sulking-place
alone and naked

framed in soft sepia
—the vintage, harlequin hue

at this supposed faded hour
she sits looking back on memory

she sits and stares
into the boudoir mirror

at herself
at her embonpoint

yes, at these *******
—at their landscape

how they fall
(like Niagara)

where they point
(like a compass)

what they tell (so fondly)
when pressed together

about their time
—their work and play

towers on the precipice
of judgment

both callous and
uncharitable

if the mirror
truly be her reflection

her vision is turned around
as illusion

—a study of tonality and tolerance
for one's own flesh

the room
an invitation

or perhaps
a lockaway

where she even keeps secrets
from herself
~

Evening is the time when the shadows come alive and become crisp in a flickering light, that it is no longer yellow. White, neon, unnatural. No more it resembles candle flame. It looks like a ruthless moonshine which scatters from a ghost lantern. I wake up, not from a dream, but the reality of life and get up, not out of bed, but out of the chair of common life convict. I slip out of clothes and shoes worn by ordinary man. I released the tie, honorary sash won on vanity competition that made me tight, suffocating like a noose. It is not merciful to assassinate me in a flash, but squeezes the breath of life out of me every day, bit by bit. I put my true outfit, specially sewn soft seams on blue silk. My neck is naked, free at last, adorned by corrugated blue organza collar woven by hand, each thread is a smile and a tear streaked with golden sigh. I smeared my face with white paint to hide the traces of blush caused by shame over the living, high capillary pressure of too many emptied cups of bitterness and dark circles as a result of each conscious decision. Hiding clues of eyebrows and transforming into myself, the Harlequin. Painting white to cover the everyday life and return to the carelessness, to the easy present. With the practiced movement I put away my pomades of transformation and close spell cabinet. Last look at the silver reflection and I'm ready for a trip through the deserted streets of the matchbook labyrinth.