There are over a million things
To do in the name of pleasure.
Over a million more that involves
Company.
The person I could be,
The person I’d love to be,
Over a million things that could go wrong.
This thought a wave pattern found
In an ocean of sheets,
The shore of the mattress bare.
The meeting of my fingers interlocked
With yours,
The earth rotates & bends sideways.
Without hesitation we are poured
Up down left & right,
Over a million things that could go wrong.
Lost at sea in complete darkness
I cling to you to keep warm.
Lost in the earth, you blush morning.
Shedding light to infinity.
Your face a cathedral of a million things
That could go right.
Smushed & paused in excitement.
Finally.
A religion that doesn’t require
A curriculum.
The earth rotates & bends,
I am baptized in the liquid from
Your lips & like a fish I am alive,
& like a fish I can breathe without fear
That you’d be stolen & renamed
Without fear that you’d be stolen & renamed.
Robbed of over a million things
That could go right,
Between the sheets we hide.
I cling to you to keep warm, lost in the earth
You blush morning.
Shedding light to infinity.
Finally.
A religion that doesn’t require
A curriculum.
The person I could be,
The person I’d love to be,
Without fear.
I wander you freely

We’d been to concert at the Town Hall. It was a Saturday night and still early for a Saturday Night Out. So many people on the streets. The girls barely dressed, the boys bouncing around in t-shirts. Older people threaded along the pavements walking purposefully, but ‘properly’ dressed, and now making their way, as we were, for the station.

I know He noticed her because He stopped, momentarily. We were holding hands. He loves to hold my hand. That evening I remember squeezing his hand firmly as if to say how pleased I was He was here and I was not walking to the station alone. I have done this, walking to the station alone, so often. It is good to have someone close at such times, someone to talk to about the performance, the music, what is going on around us. We walked right past them.

I noticed the man first and then the child. He was very tall, very dark, wearing a black leather jacket I think. He was not scruffy so much as untidy, dark and untidy, with curly hair that did not know a comb. He was busking. He sang an incomprehensible song in a language I didn’t recognize, playing an electric guitar plugged into a small amplifier by his feat. He turned from side to side as he sang as though looking for an audience. I remember his trainers and the soft guitar case open on the pavement with a smattering of coins. Then, this child.

Over the last two days I’ve examined the scene in my memory. I’ve sought to recall as much as I can about this little girl. She was not that little I think for her age, perhaps seven or eight. Stocky. Thick golden brown hair. A sensible skirt covering her knees, a fawn jumper with some sparkly decoration. Tights or long socks perhaps. Proper shoes. I keep examining my mind’s photo. What I recall most vividly was her large smiling eyes and her expression. This is my daddy, it said. He’s singing and I’m here looking after him. I’m his smiley girl here on the city street. It’s late. Other children back home would be in bed, but I’m here smiling at the people passing.

Yesterday we talked about this couple, the little girl mostly. He brought the subject up. He’d been thinking about her too. He’d been puzzling over the two of them. As a pair they seemed so physically different, hardly father and daughter. It was the (possible) daughter’s gaze, her twinkling eyes that had spoken to him - as they had spoken to me. This is my daddy, those eyes and that smiley face had said. And she was holding a bear.

Why did I not mention the bear until now? Of course, she was holding her bear. She had both arms around her bear. She was hugging her bear to herself. It was a mild evening for March – she wore no coat. He looked a good bear, not too old or small, not the kind of bear she’d been given in infancy, perhaps recently acquired but well-loved, well-hugged. A bear that seemed entirely right for her age, for her slightly old fashioned clothes. The sort of clothes I might have worn as a child. I think of a photo of me at that age dressed in a Cloth-Kits dress, with an Alice band, with glasses and lots of curly hair.  

He said ‘I’ve been wondering about the two of them. Did they have a home? Where would they go to when it became late?’ Was there a mother? Was she working somewhere on that Saturday night and the father had to take the girl. Was she wearing her best clothes? She looked OK. A glowing, healthy face, a face that reflected the bright, coloured lights of the city street.’

Suddenly, I realised there were tears in his eyes. I thought, He is imagining a story. He is imagining a story of this seven year old who should have been tucked up in bed with her bear, like my little boy with his blue blanket. He was imagining her life., her past in some Eastern European town, where she went to school, where she had friends and relatives, where she had been born and brought up, and been loved. And now the girl was here in this not so distant city. Perhaps illegally, without the papers, smuggled in as so many are. Her father, swarthy, even a tinge of the Roma perhaps, but she so different. It was the golden brown hair. Thick hair, a ribbon tied in it. A pink ribbon.

He had thought of his little girl, now fifteen, only when she was that age, seven. Oddly similar in some ways, the thick hair, the smiley face, a different but ever present bear, an infant’s bear, not a bear she’d take with her except in a bag. A bear not to be seen with at seven, but loved.

‘I’ll call her Katya,’ He said. The girl, not the bear.

And later He did. Every few days He would mention her – just in passing. ‘Do you think Katya’s  at school today?’ ‘I was in the city this afternoon, but I didn’t see Katya.’

He wrote about her and her father. A little story. I haven’t read it. He just told me He’d written it; He’d thought of following them in his imagination. He was a little embarrassed telling me this, and He didn’t offer to show me the story, which is unusual because when He mentions He’s written something He usually does. And so I wonder. I wonder how long this memory will stay with him and whether He will follow this couple (and her bear) into the future, create a story for them to live in.

Perhaps it will bring him the peace He does not have. The peace I try to give him when He is with me at home and we sit in my little house, at my table eating toast with Marmite after I’ve been out late whilst He’s sat on my settee and read – in peace at being in my home. I know He feels cast adrift from his family and He can’t be part of mine, yet a while. Perhaps it’s like being in another country. Perhaps He thinks, at least that busker had his child with him, his shining star, his ever-smiley girl.

Yet He is thinking of his smiley girl, smiley still at fifteen, still loving her dad despite what He’s done, despite the fact that she sees him so seldom. Despite the fact that He is only occasionally with her, and she knowing I, his lover, his young woman, his companion and friend, has captured his heart and thoughts.

I think of Katya too. I think of my older girl, so loved and circled about with love and admiration by her respective families and our friends. She is so special and so beautiful, as I was special at eleven, as I think I was beautiful at eleven, just on the brink of that transformation that will take her towards becoming a teenager – and the rest.  

We were lying in bed the Saturday morning before seeing Katya and I was telling him about my childhood. He’d asked me about zebra finches. Walking in his nearby park He had admired their bright red beaks in the park’s newly-restored aviary. I told him about a parrot in a park close to my childhood home, a parrot I passed as I went to school. I described for him my walk to school, meeting up with my friends, passing the parrot. I know how happy it made him to hear me talk about such things. He said so later, embracing me in the kitchen. ’I so love to hear you talk about your childhood.’ I could feel he was moved to say this. It was important. I realised then just how deeply he loved me. That it was important. That he imagined me as a child. That He wanted to know that part of me. He’s rarely asked about the stuff in between. Of my former lovers I’ve said a little. He has said a little about his past liaisons and affaires, but knows I am uncomfortable when he does. So we leave this. But childhood, That’s so different, because it is that precious, precious time of shelter and care: when we begin to discover who we are and who and what we love.

Where is Katya now? In a messy room she shares with her parents in a house shared with economic migrants, where she has a few belongings in three plastic bags. In one, her best clothes she wears to stand on the city street on a Saturday night with her daddy. In another a jumble of not so clean clothes she rotates each day. She has her sleeping bag, her bear, her warm coat and gloves. There’s a few magazines she’s found about the house. English is puzzling. She learnt a little at school back home, and from the TV of course, those American soaps. If she was here in my house I would stand her in the shower, wash her thick hair, put her clothes in the machine, sit her on my bed in my daughter’s clothes with some picture books, introduce her to my cats, we would bake some buns. I would give her a small gift of my love to take away with her and she would look on me with her smiley face, her sparkling eyes and let me hold her bear.

And later when I saw him I would tell him that Katya had been with me for a little, and tears would fall, mine and his, knowing that only in our dreams could we make this so.

Time seems to go by,
but pause at the same time.
The earth rotates,
but why can't we notice?
The volcanoes are erupting,
but nothing comes out.
The tides are high and strong,
but doesn't seem to impact.

Soft breezes of clean melancholy
Pumped out with constant velocity
Its striking again, and colder she is

He awaits the lubrication
to ease down the ongoing friction
Bearings creaks and pushes off balance
And The fan rotates forever of today

The growing ebbs of falling tides
Now buries deep inside the highest cliff
The soft breeze ***** in with higher velocity,
subsidized adiathermic smiles react
Smells of heated tissue everywhere

And the fan rotates forever
Tiring job of being a healer
when you are damaged from forever
Clasping the final breath
The fan rotates forever of today

Deeper than the captivating shape it has,
Lies a greater purpose it stands for.
So vast and strong,
It rotates laterally
and extends at your will.

It stands strong, defying gravity
cushioning you for your comfort
and holding your pelvis still.

So appreciate it for more than it's curves;
stand tall and thank your behind
when you bend.

For it is greater than
it seems.

Grumbling engine underground
Again
Rotates and repeats.
The echo
The steamy yawn
Mellow fiend unseen
Creeps
Bearing teeth in metallic joints.

A fat snake's yawn
Blows and bellows quietly.
Uncoloured ornament at ten feet
Floats through that crawling wind
Full from everything it could eat.

***** sand in the far east
Rustic in the sense of dripping spit.
The blue walls painted over the white plain
Are scratched
White walls slain.

Drilling ripple
In the black pool
Ink
Coloured the lonely riddle.
A cold under the sun
Blinds our noses
Disguising away our senses.

Feet swill the inky ocean
black night and starlight
dragonfly mate

above the crustacean
a simplicity of darkness
the breathing tide rotates

footprints washed again and again
around my hands the world

I feel I want for nothing.

Part One

Mercury is in retrograde.
And people who do not believe in astrology
Quake in their collective boots.
Mercury enters the living room and kicks the dog,
Flops onto your couch and tells you to get them whatever they need.
You listen, Mercury is, after all, in retrograde.
They will travel across the sky backwards,
Throwing off your life in all of their
Roman god of thieves glory,
Until you give them what they want.
Mercury switches between burning loved ones and freezing them,
With a sunrise and sunset sense of reliability.
With no atmosphere to keep themselves warm.
They don sweaters in July to hide their withering orbit
And even if mercury is in retrograde,
It seems they are not moving.

Part Two

Eris rotates the sun,
Brings an apple to a wedding party
She was never invited to
The apple reads, “To The Prettiest One”
And starts the first war among men.
And Eris claims she meant no harm.
Cries on her mother’s lap,
Aging a year every 88 days.
Her mother covers her in a cloak dark as night.
Her mother is the night.
Eris rotates, stares at Mercury,
Breathes Cigarette smoke deep into her own lungs,
Blows it in Mercury’s face.
Mercury is trying to quit
Eris does not care.
Eris wants to see Chaos.
Wonders why no one asked her who the stupid apple was for.
She thinks humans are stupid.
We are, she’s never wrong.
She dresses herself in her best to come see you at work
Every Sunday like a religion.
Baggy jeans, and a not so clean t-shirt,
Makes Mercury mad that she forgets the wig every time.
Mercury does not want to see the hair Eris has pulled out after every cigarette
Like a body count.

Part Three

Mars was born from pretty.
Yet he seems to be anything but pretty.
He’s going to war with everyone,
He burned a boys shoes once,
A boy who dared to love the solar system,
To accept the sun, and every planet and satellite
Like siblings.
Mars is fighting the stars,
He wants to land among them, and shoot all of them out like light bulbs.
Mars wants to protect his solar system from the stars,
From every boy.
To keep the sun burning for eternity.
Eris reminds him the sun will burn out, eventually,
And Mercury hides behind your couch.
Mars lashes out with the sun,
Breaks the sun’s knuckles off eris’s face,
Sets your carpet on fire.
Mercury starts to cry, notices the bruising on the sun,
Tries to patch it’s sunspots.

Part Four

Venus tries to mediate.
In all of her fifties house wife,
Goddess of beauty perfection.
She tries to keep the meteors from hitting all her sun-mates.
She is tired.
She wants to live in a kitchen in front of her bay windows
With her favorite book,
Watching the sea foam and hoping it with birth her a companion.
She can not handle having Eris burning the sun’s lungs,
Or Mercury wanting to die.
Or Mars being angry,
Much longer.
They set her Sunday best on fire.
A dress with petticoats and flowers.
Her white shoes she keeps perfectly polished for tea with her mother.
Venus dresses the sun in a matching dress made of silk,
And rubs rouge on its cheeks,
Like her own little baby doll
And cries over her own infertility.
Mercury consoles her,
tells her she might not meet her purpose
Of love, and ***, and motherhood,
But that they will love her at least.
Eris tells her “Who needs that crap?”
And flicks a cigarette out on her own arm.
Mars gets angry at her crying.
Slaps her with the sun.
Singes her perfectly smooth cheek.
She cries more.

Part Five

Mars storms out, burns your shoes again.
Eris lights up cigarettes like birthdays and lovers
Off of Mar’s fires,
Venus tries to put them out with her tears,
Her bay-window-kitchen-room-favorite-book-dreams
And her battered, childless body,
And Mercury falls further into retrograde.

Galaxies, solar satellites, the very Earth and its plates.
Whatever matter spins the reality, each one rotates.
Every unique universe growing its own ebb and flow,
Same as an ocean shall pummel shores then pull undertow.
When is the time? Are you a counter of clockwork?

Backwater cementing a new variant of tributary,
Friends become fish in this river of machinery.
The roiling rubber current proves to combust with currency.
Success succumbs to numbers as the economist counts me.
When is the time? Are you a counter of clockwork?

Gingko trees employed rats until society's reaction
Assimilated this lineage and reset its traction.
A different dispersal mechanism does not merit lament,
The managed are mute within the worker's woeful testament.
When is the time? Are you a counter of clockwork?

Sometimes a quest of faith begets a set from a cartomancer,
What good would it do to bribe the tarot and fake her answer?
For doctrine to deprive a man of god's hero in himself,
To trial and tribute his death to ascend on our caste shelf.
When is the time? Are you a counter of clockwork?

Your cards at hand, as is any fact of fortune, are from you.
All around are landmarks to map your light, vibration, and hue.
A presence is an action amongst quintessential stage props,
Weathered roles rehearse their sonorous loves watching ripples drop.
When is the time? Are you a counter of clockwork?

Turbid fury has no footholds on the great movement in your mind,
Gears that we hear were once a pursuit to prosper as mankind.
To disarm the victim's rights and loosen all nooses may seem odd,
Yet Devil deviates design and is forgiven by God.
When is the time? Are you a counter of clockwork?

Cities yearn to scrape skies built on products at the world's splendor.
Though trinkets become trite as we glorify a greedy vendor.
How could one commend such a clear farce for the multitude?
Selling milk to children's bones while our livestock store false fortitude.
When is the time? Are you a counter of clockwork?

Lifespans expand within this ****** twilight of barbarism.
History obscures so we light turned pages with euphemism.
Often forgotten is that our memory is amorphous,
Generating our boldest fears and cheers to those beyond us.
When its the time? Are you a counter of clockwork?

Pessimism or optimism; are not rivals of ones structure
Secular submission denies despair's innate rupture
It is built by the hopeful to share love after given grace
To construct a profound unity above pride's titled race
When is the time? Are you a counter of clockwork?

We are taught to worry for unruly folk until weary.
Doctors like leaders treat symptoms not seeing sickness clearly.
They stress the distressed to disseminate imminent spines,
Shattering that last vestige of a will searching between lines.
When is the time? Are you a counter of clockwork?

The commandments should have demanded there always be one more,
As truth evolves in jollies or follies, being rich or poor.
Always a witness to your lemons that could squeeze a profit.
Limits can be more than second hands surpassing the minute.
When is the time? Are you a counter of clockwork?

Thus old cogs and smog of our familiar faculties rest
On the zealous peals of those who know at the hour of our best.
It is not easy to lift volition past sadness so steep.
As each day would raise a mile, we may grow to smile when we sleep
Now is the time, are you a counter or clockwise?

See the Rabbi.  See him tormented by choice.  See his people.  See them wracked by hate.  See the others.  See their anger radiate outward in glowing spokes, exploding firebrand in a tinder city.

On a night like any other, the moon at sixth house, fulcrum of pinwheel zodiac, the Rabbi, awash in lidless starlight, rises somber and makes his choice.  And when the sun is furthermost, he and three of his others gather at the murmuring riverbank where the brown clay is most pliable and begin to dig, sifting rock and root from trundled earth.  Hours spent exhuming the clay, molding it, kneading its muscles, tracing its veins, baking its skin in the starlight.  More hours spent in whispering prayer, the words bent and somersaulting over themselves like tumbling books.

See Truth drawn on its forehead, life etched from clay and word.  As the sun rises, so it does, wavering at first, but steadier, lapping at the river, and their faces move slowly across the water.  See the Rabbi speak to it, his words winding its mechanism.  See it stride past the ghetto, wade through the market, and into the borough, siege unto its own.

See the others scream for mercy from the kiln of its stare, from their flaming tenements, their crumpling rooftops.

See it wade back through the market, past the ghetto, back to the riverbank to kneel in the underbrush.  See it tilt its head to the lilt of a stranded daisy caught in a vagrant gust.   See it caught, too, and see it see.  It sees the colors of Eden in the ferns.  It hears the river churning sediment, fossils, gravel, whirling over driftwood.  It touches moss on a rock; gently rotates its hand to let a grub complete an oblivious circumference.  See it sit in silence.

See the Rabbi meet with the others, then his others.  And on a day like any other, when the sun is at its apogee, they slip down the riverbank where it still sits, still.  It ignores their autonomous logic, their homunculus rationale.  They are perversions of variety cloaked in righteous intention.  So it remains.

See the Rabbi and his others gather at the murmuring riverbank, shadow conclave in shifting sunlight, then rise somber and decided.  They pin it to the earth as the Rabbi chants, invoking the void in which forbidden knowledge spirals.  It squirms under the power of the Word, mind-forged manacle as incantation.  See the Rabbi draw to a close.  His hand is arbiter, swooping down to smudge Truth from its forehead.  What is left but Death.

See its hand crumble in its passage as it reaches for the stranded daisy.  See the colors of Eden darken in its eyes, its own body the dust that denies it light.  See it collapse into itself, the clay that was once animate spilling onto the riverbank.  See the Rabbi and his others shimmer then fade into city grey.

The daisy stands still.

Feel the heat building up inside
Steam is rising from my soul
Sweaty palms and underarms
People telling me, remain calm
I'm shaking, to break this spirit free
No one can hold me down
Don't try to stop me now
You'll never shut my mouth
Gonna take more than a bullet to take me out
You can throw me in the middle of the ocean
I refuse to drown
As this earth rotates
I push against the grain
Drenched in blood
Found strength in my pain
Now you'll see the crown I came to claim

I was underestimated
I've been underrated
This is my statement
Printed in my pages
I've been underrated
Under sedation
Locked in nightmares
Trying to find acceptance
Through somebody else's eyes
Instead of seeing perfection through mine

Doesn't it make you sick to your stomach
The feeling that we get
When we don't feel that we are getting our dues
and we've paid prices with priceless items
Laid it all on the line
In this battle of life
Hearts on our sleeve
And through the ink, I've bled
Still didn't end up dead
Sleepless nights in bed
Pen in hand
Experience my life through my writes
Through my stories, You take walks in my shoes
Fate chose me, So I chose it too
And that's how it lead me to you

I was underestimated
I've been underrated
This is my statement
Printed in my pages
I've been underrated
Under sedation
Locked in nightmares
Trying to find acceptance
Through somebody else's eyes
Instead of seeing perfection through mine

Power through perception
life lessons through direction
Emotions through connection
Love through detection
Minds were blown through comprehension
I found peace in this eternal mind
I now know that I am all that I need to be
Now I see I just need to be me
Just relax and rest at ease
They'll take you as you are
Flaws and all
Just breathe
and let them see

I was underestimated
I've been underrated
This is my statement
Printed in my pages
I've been underrated
Under sedation
Locked in nightmares
Trying to find acceptance
Through somebody else's eyes
Instead of seeing perfection through mine

©2018 Written By Benji James

Old Cowboys, forts and shootouts
Black for bad and White for good
With a spinning canvas background
And cactus cutouts made of wood
The desert sits behind them
Fifty yards away at most
The heroes don't ride horses
They sip drinks and sit and boast
About their celluloid adventures
singing songs all dressed in white
While behind them in the background
The stunt men do it right
A canvas background rotates
Through valleys, hills and streams
While the hero rides his deck chair
And the director yells and screams
Central casting fills the tribes out
With Italians, and made up stock
While our hero stops an avalanche
Of fake paper covered rocks
Cardboard Cut out Cactus
And heroes smiling in the sun
Most have never seen a cowpoke
Let alone shot off a gun
But, it's magic when it's finished
the dusters up there on the screen
All the fakery and snake oil
Are all hidden, never seen
The white hats beat the black hats
The hero sings and gets the girl
And the background on the spindle
Is still spinning, watch it whirl
A celluloid adventure
Cowboys no where close to what they were
But..watch the next show for a nickel
And don't forget your spurs!!!

your eyes are deeper than any poetry i've ever read.
i've tried to write them in six-word poems
but it can never quite capture their depth.
i've tried rhymes
and sonnets
and haikus
but i end up dreaming of them instead.

i'm lying on the roof
looking at the stars in the skies
and wish i were looking
at the ones in your eyes.

there is some kindness in the way
the earth is suspended on gravity's back.
how it
rotates on it's axis,
bound by the sacred trust
that space won't bottom out &
shake us all from the earth
like crumbs in the bed.

there is little kindness in the way
the earth is suspended
in war, in turmoil;
with handguns & machine guns
& bombs strapped to civilians-
tied to the greater majority
with the intentions of a few.

there is little kindness
in fighting fire with fire-
when our own backyards are burning
&
our neighbors are to blame.

there is little kindness in the fear
of what lies beneath a burka,
a niqab,
a turban-
a police uniform,
a trench coat
or a white robe
&
a
pointed
white
hood.

there is little kindness in the terror
that sleeps in the backs of our minds
and sets up shop in our beds
& lays low
while we condemn the third world,
the local news just confirms
and confirms
and confirms-
we were killing each other first.

there is little kindness in seeing humanity
as this side of the border
or that.
the world is more of a revolving door
that spins you dizzily
& spits you back out.

there is some kindness in the way
gravity still holds the earth
like some sick, sad science fair project;
like some ****** consolation prize.

humanity is
a bed of crumbs
clinging
thanklessly
to
sheets.

don't ever question
why the earth turns and rotates
just feel the movements

perched in a thick mess of pine trees
my head rotates three hundred and sixty degrees
scouring for the vermin I make my prey
I own the night time skies
silhouetted against a harvest moon
death is coming in my dreams
and with it comes new life
wisdom of the self
aware of the lies which cover the world in its blanket of grey snow
the owl lives in my skull

The coyote stalking the empty desert highways
looking for roadkill
looking for the weak and alone
I cackle into the dead sterile air
for every pack member lost to poachers
manic laughter for every left turn which results in dead ends
stealthy patient
hungry and haunting
the coyote treads the territory of my atriums and ventricles  

The hawk circles in the blinding midday sun
a deadly serrated dagger with wings
arrow let loose from the quiver of the Gods
impossible to tether and domesticate
finding ultimate freedom in the vast openness of the sky
lock on,
tuck the wings,
nose dive deep into the waters of the ****
a creator
a teacher
a messenger of truth
the hawk soars in the infinity of my soul

ID
EGO
SUPEREGO

You removed your delicate hand away
From your *****, and sprinkled
Stardust upon the moon tonight.

While the clouds obeyed her secret palms,
She parted them enough
For her borrowed light to shine through.

Her beams glittered cataract diamonds,
As any found within Leone’s chest;
Upon boulders centred within this field.

So I approached, aloft, pedestal-like,
And mimicking David’s marble form
Gleaming bright in the Florence midday heat,

With no less than a thousand eyes
Gazing upon his dreaming stare,
I perched and mused of my lady-fair.

While above, each star hummed
It’s distant faint tune, and twinkled
Their beat towards Earths gentle breath.

I inhaled the air freezing this night;
Into, not only my lungs,
But my heart reached over to lend her appetite.

Aided by the cool soft wind,
My voice was never the more raised
Above a lonely child’s whisper.

Thus I began: ‘I thought of how
This glorious globe, with her wondrous hue,
Is the envy of all these great spheres,

‘And to muse with the ebb
Of immeasurable times flow
Over the laments of my darling dove,

‘To relay through my mind,
All the moments I could
Have been with your willing body,

‘The many scenes I should
Have been with you. Those times
I should have said exactly

‘What I felt when you were with me,
When I possessed you
Within my gaze. I rue those chances,

‘And missed opportunities. Know that
You occupy my slumbered visions
From when sleep closes my eyes,

‘Till the birds of dawn awakens them.
And as the year closes,
Since first I kissed your smooth cheek,

‘Know humbly, within your breast,
That you were the shining beacon,
A light which guided me over stormy seas.

‘I pray, realise my words,
Softly spoken from the pages sent
To your hands, were meant for your heart,

‘And your smile, mixed with glances,
Were always a true delight
You bestowed on to me.

‘I let you bathe in my soul,
And I truly thank you,
And forever sing your name aloud.

‘I sit alone here under a chilly
Suffolk night and think
The heavens bright of you.

‘Months have fled, and ease of
My sorrow toward the sky
Is a gift I must offer for my changeless love.’

And ending, ‘Take what you wish, my dove,
But please, I beg on bended knees,
Please, do not take my memory of you.’

These words were cupped on the north wind,
While the moon spread a veiled
Duvet of polished silver over the field,

Spilling dew upon the grass
Bleeding from her sheen, moist,
Velvet sheets of liquid nectar.

Before my eyes, the grass stood to attention.
A million green-eyes begged
More from my heated pores.

Amazed; for rooted to the soil,
Adding immense weight to the ground;
They calmed their sway to my measures.

Clouds rushed over to hear, even
The rested sun-chariot peeped
Back over the forbidden western shores.

The birds of day appear, crying
A chattered song for the suns yearning.
Clouds began to weep uncontrollable tears.

As a ripple from a pond, speeds
Over the smooth surface towards
The shade of the blessed river bank,

As did a wave flow from one end
Of the field to these boulders,
And with fresh breath, these blades spoke,

And graced my ears with speech:
‘Oh soon to be spirit, we can sense
What is about to come on to you.

‘Your love, you love, with every
Drop of blood that beats
Within ones heart, we envy you.

‘Can there ever be a time,
Where eagles roar; when lions fly;
Lambs bite; or wolves graze on us?

‘Ever an instance, a time to come,
Where the moon becomes the sun,
In turn, the giver of life, the moon?

‘When the earth, herself, slows,
And rotates back along her axis?
Men born old; death at birth?

‘Hills, majestic sloping hills, iron flat?
Rivers become grain; ocean freeze over;
Skies, and air, turn to solid?

‘Science; vain in being,
Predicts too much; and beauty
Is lost forever in her words.

‘May some farm boy look through
A hole in that there fence,
And sneak a peak at me,

‘May he run to his herd and tell
The leader of the flock the sight
His eyes just bore in witness.

‘For your cries; may a sudden
Rush of blush greet your lady’s cheeks;
May her legs tremble; her hips grow weak.

‘Let the once ferocious deep blue
Calm his waves, and in his face,
Mirror the skies glorious expanse.

‘The moon; may the moon, believe
That she is not eternally alone,
Swimming in the inky black;

‘Let her study her reflection;
And fall in love with her new mate.
May the stars, count not all, shrink

‘The distance between themselves,
Place tender arms around one another,
In a much longed-for embrace.

‘Finally; may Orion, when touching
Western waters; let him relinquish his sword,
And stem the rains from the bellowing east.

‘We feel your pain!’ And they ceased.
They too, felt my joy.
For my wonderful words spun;

Mingled with undiluted wine placed in a
Golden goblet from a heart-stricken tongue;
Which lapped the chilly air while I spoke freely.

‘I knew once a sweet tender maid,’ I began,
‘And without diminishing
The daughters of this night away from you,

‘I will swiftly say she became my voice.
And as the buds burst free
From winters icy hold; and as around

‘Earths eternal prisioned orbit
Spans another of her quarters,
When the sun strikes intense onto Saharan sands;

‘I was with her, and she with me too.
She graced my songs with galloping mane
And eagle striking ***** of wind.

‘She tenderly flowed through my veins,
As any stream from high sacred fountains;
Any river that deposits into sea;

‘Any artists stroke from his brush
To canvas, that paints oil drenching
Figures of unrivalled beauty.’

I paused my strain, and glanced
At our moon, hung high; hung also;
On my every word, halting her route.

‘And with this’, I continued, ‘and your tones
You gifted to me upon these boulders,
I take this poisoned flower from out my pocket.

‘My young blood presented this to me,
Long ago; for the sun has yoked
His steeds passed four full moons since.

‘He too, my brother, calls aloft
To the tunes of music; he too,
Guides his hand to the strums of natures beats.

‘Against that aged oak, with acorns
Spread at its feet, my brother, leaning
His back to its wrinkled trunk,

‘Plucking in harmony strings which,
In his blonde presence never lay slack;
And flinging away his melodies on the breeze,

‘Spoke thus; “If any time on your travels,
A day presents itself, when you find
Yourself sitting upon those boulders there;

‘“And the moon in her glory,
Glows a frosty crystal white, and the voices
In their millions sway to your laments,

‘“Eat this; for your time has come.
One night waits for all of us and all must
Walk the path of death, and walk it only once.

‘“Look to your moon, and bade it goodbye.
Glance at the grass, and bid it adieu.
And say, above all, farewell to your lady.”
So I eat, and sing farewell my love, with a kiss.’

What rotates the wheel?
Consider kinematics
And not kinetics
The axis is the still point
Rejoice in the revolving

It is a vastness of cerulean,
A pool of blue which surrounds clouds that are strewn together.  
Tumbling, accumulating, towering formations of remarkable depth and awesome beauty.
Billows which blanket and envelop a sphere of life, turning the almost infinite and indefinite blue to grey,
Massed with the heaviness of forthcoming precipitation.
As time turns, and the big blue planet rotates, sunlight is reflected and refracted by particles unseen—painting swelling clouds with pale yellows that bleed into succulent pinks, deep reds, royal indigo, and then
The flowering violet of conceived night.
The sky portrays a huge entity, a formation of solidity and stability.
It does not contain, nor withhold from the terraces and crevices of the Earth’s surface.  
It is as close to infinity as the basic human mind can grasp,
The uttermost extension of one’s realm of existence.

To look up at the stars is an annihilation of Ego,
A humbling reminder of one’s relevance,
Of one’s fragmentation of being,
Of one’s essential insignificance in the immortal turning of the deep and everlasting vibration of the Cosmos.

Stars, barely conceivable at times,
Act as portals to the past spilled carelessly across an inky nighttime sky.
These subtle flecks, minute glimmers of incredible explosions, are billions of light-years away
Across the fabric of space and time.
The sky is an incredible portal to those things outside of mortal grasp,
A manifestation of all that is unknown, yet shared by every state of consciousness.  
A familiarity and a comforting reminder of eternity that will exist far beyond the human experience.  With its undulating formations, precipitation, protection, and sheer exposure,
It is a paradoxical beauty.

our fruiterer is a riddling prankster
who jumps up from every corner
and tray and stacks, with any old silly riddle

(1)
“Looking at apples, eh?”
he approaches Sandy
“What did the apple say to the bug?
Oh – stop bugging me!”

And he laughs at his own humor
(or lack of it)
while severe Sandy rotates
an apple in her left palm
and he ventures to the next vulnerable customer,
who is me

“How, my dear man,” he proceeds to ask
“do you fix a broken tomato?”
I shake my head, bewildered
and he unpacks his own riddle:
“Tomato paste!”
And he roars with laughter
his chilli-sharp eyes pointed
at his next customer


(2)

And off he goes with his riddles –
with his booming voice, no pause
and wrapping his answers in cracking laughs

He jumps to an old man
and he says:
“Why, do tell me, do bananas
never feel lonely?”
“Cos they always come in bunches”

And the young couple he regales with:
“Why did the tomato go out with the prune?
Oh, come on…simply cos he couldn’t find a date!”

And to an old woman he says
in  near-Oedipus style:
“What did the Dad Tomato tell his Kid Tomato?
Ketchup!”

And as in a light musical
he turns about and whoever he finds
he unleashes his final:
“How do you fix a cracked pumpkin?
Easy peasy – you use a pumpkin patch!”

Ah, our fruiterer is a riddling prankster
who jumps up from every corner
and tray and stacks, with any old silly riddle

Random Sentences

Everyday people will die,
for a moment, you might cry,
but as yourself why.
Celebrate their life, don't mourn,
think of all the new being born,
life or death, millions are torn.
Earth rotates around the sun,
just try to have some fun,
no fork in me, I'm far from done.
I have yet to get going,
like a strong wind blowing,
the future is always unknowing.
Be yourself, don't be fake,
no one likes a sneaky snake,
open your eyes, it's time to wake.
Smell the flowers, smell the coffee,
unlock your powers, don't be so bossy,
climb those towers, no need for a posse.
Nightmares used to haunt my every move,
no more fears left to prove,
my dreams are starting to improve.
No clue what I'm saying,
don't believe in any praying,
my life, I'm happily portraying.
None of us know the truth,
about how we wasted our youth,
can't remember last time, I saw a telephone booth.
No creative writer is better than me,
I even write, while I take a ***,
you're lying if you don't agree.
My haters are just jealous,
I like being so rebellious,
love being so overzealous.
Way too much pollution,
no one has any solution,
that will be my final conclusion.

When I was younger:
   I shuffled along,
to no urgent song,
didn't march through my day strong. When young and strong are the best time for planned  convictions.
There's no acting lazy, or slowing down to the crazy, unless you want to live ungracefully in this hard unforgiving world.
When I was younger:
   I lacked logic cause I didn't make clear my premise,
like a man with no plan, a sap with no map.  I wandered tither and yonder like a ghoal  without a goal, a ghost least of most,  no future to ponder.
When I was younger:
   I bogged down in metaphorical feces cause I didn't watch where I was wading, forsaking and debating, planning is for suckers, futures are for chuckers.
When I was younger:
   I did nil and stood still while the city raced around me, progress to astound thee, forgetting the earth constantly rotates 260 miles an hour- waiting for no one.
When I was younger:
   Like the Dodo bird I forgot to grow wings, was eatin by rats and things, became extinct and unlinked to a place run on business, consumerism and cash. On the rocks I was dashed.
When I was younger:
I became he who loses, with a broken compass and excuses, laying laggardly leaderless, with the snoozing and the boozing, and sold my initiative for a bag of grass.
That's when I was younger:
   I'm older than that now.  But I still remember. It's  hard being younger!!

As I watch the sky’s canvas change
I begin to think of the painter.
That one who is watching the same elsewhere,
and what he might think of such a scene.

Sitting, he would be looking out watching the sky’s stage alter,
painting gardens’ clouds, each colored different, span silver through red;
switching-- torn between red roses, white lilies, or orange tulips--
forming the garden's space, quickly. The eve’s sun dips down gently,
giving way as blue hues ascend opposite that orb’s retreat.
Envious, Sun lets Moon's beauty pull lovingly over him.
Nature’s nocturnal chorus singing, lulling its audience.
The bittersweet dark—another day, the painting not quite done,
put to sleep. The silent din engulfing his mind’s empty thought—
darkness switching on that light which calms artists’ creative springs.

“Light Regardless of its source—may it be pure
as the sun’s rays, or some modern substitute—
has some aesthetic quality. I’m not sure,
however, where from the light best contributes.
Is beauty derived by where the light emits?
Or is it enlightened by where the ray hits?”

He began mulling this thought over; turning it over and over—questions born.
A discource of such phenomena will show a thought forming--
nay, a riddle; with answers hiding, not wanting to be known:

“Is it the sunset’s orange and red that awes,
or the blueing clouds opposite that cause pause?”
The dams holding thought buckle; ideas, questions flood the bard’s mind.

“Is a smile’s worth found in its owner’s mouth,
or the ensuing grin, no longer pout?”
Plain idea, now broad. “Because a smile can be contagious…

“Is the eloquence of a speech seen as art,
or inspiration now gained to do one’s part?”
Words, an entity with power, reign over—the poet awakes.

“Is a poem’s verse the beauty of the bard,
Or diction plied with inferred worth— it’s guard?”
That ability permits the ineffable to be explained.

Eyes adjust to the sun’s speed—now energy and courage’s built--
awakes from that swoon. “The slothful lovers stay behind,” thought Sun,
“Neglect not that flight presented, which taken, betters the will:
'Brighten the world.' That dark denizen inspires warmth in me.”
The sun’s rise concludes those thoughts studied the night before-
grabbing his brush, thinks: “En Guarde stubborn canvas, my mind’s at ease.”
Vitality-- flying wild thoughts which emerge--decides
what key his baton should direct them, either the drawn sun’s source
or the face which welcome’s its colors being exemplified.

After a minute of looking I turn my gaze,
happy to leave that place .
Knowing full well in a full day
I’ll have this dream occur once more.
That daily walk, whose length directs my drifting thoughts,
rotates the sets of beauties dreamt, each fresh from a growing list long as time.

The bookbag leans
on the aluminum column.

The column is blurry,
someone cleans it
only when their are inspections.

The bookbag has been sitting
collecting the sounds
that leave the Staten Island Ferry
by foot,
for God knows how long.

When you get off,
everyone looks ahead,
but out of the corners
an entire black sea of iris'
rotates to the aluminum column.

It might be a bomb.

The girl behind the Ms. Anne's counter
is skinny almost,
but her *** is too big,
almost.

Munching on the semi-soft pretzel,
you think about empty calories
and the corners of your mouth get sticky.

The Ferry won't be back,
for another thirty or so
minutes.

Somebody takes out a guitar,
and starts playing
a little Dylan. People
form a circle around him.
This is the American Pow-wow.

You reach in your breastpocket
for the Marlboros,
but you can't smoke here,
and an official looking person
squints at you,
just to drive the point home.

******* smoking laws,
some places just feel good.

This place with all it's ringy sounds,
like the guitar,
and phones beeping with texts
and babies,
deep fathers,
and high mothers.

Just to puff and puff
and push that sugar down
with nicotine would really
up this feeling of comradery.

A guy with a gold-plated shield
on his breastpocket and a blue-button down.
Walks over to the bag.

The iris' move,
people keep talking but
they're just saying words
to make it look like they're talking.

By the time the ferry
rings in baritone,
the bag is gone;
the column is still blurry;
the man is still playing his guitar,
but there's an emptiness.

The sun still sets
and stills rises
without your "good night".

Miles away you sit
watching the same sun
but never thinking of me.

The moon rises
and lights up my room
and the empty pillow beside me.

The moon sets
making way for the sun
even without your "good morning".

I know Earth still orbits around the Sun,
because I know that your heart continues to beat on Earth
as the thought of you constantly rotates inside my head...