It was a hot summer morning in late August. The brick building in front of her was daunting. This was it. Her first day of high school. Her long brown hair swayed behind her. It brushed gently against the small of her back. Her heart pounded excitedly in her chest. A new adventure awaits her. An adventure filled with many smiles, and many hardships. This is the story of a girl in high school, with long brown hair.

-

Freshman year was fun for her. She made new friends, along with keeping a few of the old.  She met 3 people in her life who had a strange impact on her life, both good and bad.

One of these 3 was a girl. She was *****, and had different style, which enticed the girl with long brown hair. They were put in the same group, and began to talk. Soon after they became close friends, and had their first sleepover. It was the first sleepover of her high school year which wasn't with a friend from her previous school. She enjoyed it very much, and truly valued her new friend.

The two would often be seen together, and even made friends with two others who were like them. The two others were boys. One boy was a bit of a nerd with floofy hair and glasses. The other boy was a punk guy with long hair and darkened taste. The four would go to the mall together, and became inseparable.

The girl with long brown hair really liked these new friends. They were so much like her in so many ways, yet she also had others whom she enjoyed just as much. Freshman year went well for her. She was happy.

Sophomore year rolled around. Her confidence was high, and her relationships with her friends strong. She had made new valuable friends, and loved to do choir and theater.  She continued to make friends through her extra activities, along with keeping close to the ones from freshman year.

The ***** girl in her little friend group had met someone. A girl. They were in love, but the girl with long hair didn’t mind. They were still best friends throughout it- although the ***** girl drifted away as she was occupied with her partner. The boy with long hair and darkened taste told the girl with long hair that he loved her. She was scared, and told him she didn’t feel the same. He accepted it, but became depressed. Time passed by. He was always sad. The girl with long hair became closer to the boy with darkened taste. She wanted to fix him. She wanted to help him. He told her he loved her. He asked her to be with him. She hesitated out of fear. A little time went by. He asked again. She said yes.

-

They were happy. She made him happy for the first time in a while. He made her happy too. One night, the punk girl invited the girl with long hair and the boy with darkened taste to sleep over her house with her and her partner. They agreed. The four went to the beach. The night was foggy. The air was warm; the breeze cold. The boy with darkened taste and the girl with long hair fell in love.

Time passed. They were happy together. One night the girl with long hair had a terrible feeling. She had a panic attack. The boy with darkened taste was busy with a class he was taking. The girl called her best friend to panic. She calmed down.

The boy with the darkened taste called the girl with long hair. He yelled at her. “Why didn’t you come to me first?”.  He exclaimed. “You were busy. I didn’t want to interrupt you. I was panicking.” He scorned her. She cried the whole night. The next day, she didn’t eat. The school hosted a mass. The girl with long hair heard murmurings throughout the choir. Her best friend had gotten in a severe accident. Her car rolled over. She panicked. The boy with darkened taste apologized to her for fighting. He promised to not do it again. She believed him. He asked for forgiveness. A little time went by. He asked again. She said yes.

Junior year began. The girl had one friend left. The summer was fun for her, but not in a way that was healthy. She had stayed with the boy with darkened taste. She thought she loved him. She thought he loved her. She was wrong. The beginning of the year was rough. He yelled at her a lot. He didn’t trust her. He would often take her phone to read her messages. She wasn’t allowed to talk to other boys. He made her delete her social media. She wasn't allowed to talk to other friends. She threatened to leave him. He threatened to **** himself. She was stuck. She was scared. She was sad. They fought. He grabbed her. He wouldn’t let her go. She tried to yank her arm. He held tight. She wanted to leave. He wanted her to stay. He asked for her forgiveness. A little time went by. She said yes. This happened continuously. A short while later, they fought. She was used to him grabbing her. She was used to him forcing her. She tried to get away nonetheless. Then he hit her.

-

The girl with long brown hair was sick. She did not eat. Her friends whom she  cut off were worried. Her weight dipped to an unhealthy level. She thought the worst. She thought she couldn’t escape. She was wrong.

The end of junior year was her time. She escaped finally. She was not unscathed. The girl with long brown hair cut it all off. She needed a fresh start. It was symbolic to her. It helped her.

    The beginning of Senior year rolled around. The girl had healed a good amount, but not entirely. She had cut off communications with the boy with darkened taste.

He saw her in school. He spoke to her. He asked for forgiveness. The girl forgave him, although the wound was still fresh. He asked her to be with him again. A little time went by. He asked again. She said No.

Now the girl is a different person. She was wisened by her experience, and was able to forge some of her friendships with the friends she loves. Some relationships cannot be forged. She tries still. Nothing will be the same. She realizes that. She moves on. She is happy. Her weight is back to normal. She is healthy. She was no longer the same girl, with the long brown hair. She is a different girl. A more happy girl. Only now, She is the girl with short brown hair.

me grandad was a ******
he had an old ships gyroscope
that he would spin up
and set in the palm
of his open hand
dis ere has seen every dock
an point inbetween
dis world has to find
he would say
a mantra maybe
then he would sit it upon
the tip of my trembling
outstretched finger
holding my wrist
proving his point
steeling the tremble
balance in all things
he would say
to my mesmerised
widened whitened
crying out to be wisened eyes
and let go

balance

then he would set it atilt

I am wisened by my wounds.
My thirst is sated by monsoons.
Scars teach me lessons.
Fighting for peace is my weapon.
Every memory changes a sliver of me.
Through time, i've turned into a motley pinata.
Pieced together haphazardly.
But i know what its like not to be afraid of taking a swing
and i know what its like to fly
because baseball bats give me wings.

to hide, to lie
to string dangling participles
along on metaphors

use poetry
where lips won't work
and mind can't find
The Way

let crystal crimsom flow
from serrated wrists

obscurity allows for
solshimmers of the ineffable
so don't eff it in the a
like a persie Snap channel

in the event that may potentially be a thing possibly occurring perhaps I dunno and I don't know what I don't know but it sureasshit would be nice to because me and truth are like this [crossies] and on occasion it comes and knocks on my door so the Uni bringeth and I laugheth all the way to the wet sodium facepalm speaking of which I don't like the taste of that **** I like my truth rare and still mooing would you believe I'm a vegetarian tho but still **** ******* like it raw crunch munch nom noms even though I slurp soup like there's no phoking tomorrow also down af for digressing and running onward and sideways stories from where the sidewalk never ends and I really don't think ours does plus it sure is the weirdest neatest thing ever did you bring the proper shoes darling I sure hope you can keep up in all the ways and FYI my door is not blasted off the hinges it's wisened and slightly ajar and I'm standing over threshold with eyes wide and slightly red because I waved goodbye to sunsets left for mf good but never got to see our light rise so just know that these wrung hands are actually open palms crippled from reaching and being singed on handles that seemed oh-so cool from my limited optical view like a mountain of honeycombed Dixie Crystal dust knees that you had been on yours praying for but gave the **** up on long before he walked in and changed EVERYTHING and I am so grateful but I am sad and I am hurt and I am confused but I am not scared like I once was of you and All our tea leaves foretold but scared I am of never really knowing you and the accompanying truths so please give it to me dagger deep I meant what I said and I said what I meant I like my men sharp and penetrative 100% and if you can't handle being earnestly struck by your own syntactic constructs direct in the ******* whinging outta my sometimes salty sacrosanct then me and you just won't do since that happens to be my forte as it were and maybe you're not up for the uphill to heaven with this mystical inferno but if you think perhaps maybe your life will never be the same without me in it someway somehow then let's fill the grey unnamed with a foundation of friendship where all is safe and found and all that means to me is everything so if you trust me to know the things about love a.k.a. the holy mystery which you ahem did as I recall with glowing warm curled around my formerly shaking cold then don't worry about getting back to it there's no such way to a thing it's there - always was, is, will be - it's just we're having this hooded entourage over for dinner first and honey I don't know if we have enough chairs but I'll sit on the floor with you and we can laugh and cry and eat sixteen courses of humble pie until the holy ghost enters the room which she undoubtedly will do and leave periodically only to return when we get all cozy and still or maybe upon the exodus of tears when all the walls have been torn down and we finally see clear through that one room has indeed been forged from two

or whatever

Enraptured by the glories
And wisened by each sin
I drink in every story
Written by many a pen

I find myself afloat
In seas of ink
Adrift without a boat
Into the words I sink

Immersed in their pages
As many men and women
Dance across as many stages

I find solace beneath the black waves
Bound betwixt two covers
They bring me so much joy
And always brighten my day

I back track my steps until once again i feel cold pavement on my heels and the dewy grass has retreated to once again stretching to receive the sun. I bump into the same glass door, the *** still warm as though i had just let go if it, it jabs me in my side forcing me to acknowledge my collision as I face the transparent barrier to what I once thought was home. Its so smoky in there that I can hardly recognize the countenances of my old friends; greed, lust, hate, ******, drugs, envy. I shake my head squinting to read their name tags but the air is too thick for oil stone to sharpen and they're so busy till I realize they don't see me right there. staring. I want to say hi, tell em' the world is cool they shoulda' wisened up like me. All I did was tell a lil white lie but if you're like me, and you wisen' up, you too my dear friend may smell the crisp scent of the greener side. And boom there I was back with my crew. Formerly known as lies, my tag clearly now says pride.

Follow me, me, me,
I shall lead you
to the parting of the seas,
I shall be the one

Day and night,
fluffy clouds of living wool and ticks we are,
not in the sky, but grounded in green grass around,
We follow you,
You I have never known, never seen,
but leader by seeds of my ancestors sown,
I have grown with the herd, all I have known.

The shadows are watching,
Wolves across the darkened prairie,
Awash in the milky white of moonlight,
They hunt by night,
These wisps of fright.

You Leader, Oh most Invisible one,
at the front of the run,
wolf-wary and toiling under the sun,
And moon.
The wolves are always looking to the sky,
I wonder why ?

Then so did I.

For the first time ever a sheep has never
Has actually looked up high,
Into the starry hea’ens,
studded glimmers on a wolfs black coat,
the wisened old hunter, the cunning wily,
a secret of the cut throats long known,
peers down on me, their stories, older than my oldest me.

For the wolves know, my leaders head is low,
That we move into the fields, there by the northern star,
And there will be a gathering,
A feast of lamb to behold,
For the collection of wolf covens of old,

Our pastures of peace lie to the east,
By my reckoning of the stars,
But my leader follows the reckoning of old,
A forgotten past,
A legacy that goes to our death every year
To feed the wolverines that costs us dear.

I

-dulcimer clatter opens the sun, first fruit-

timber fathoms/crystal veils
on all steps, crossing all human borders

untethering wood
from forest, until only the green element remains
to purify the soul

   an alpine afterimage, shadow-display
(creature of Earth, moss-backed & yowling thru the chaotic sleep
of October, you see it's symbology in your tea, sharpening its
obsidian hands against the seastones,
imprinting loveliness into the rock, to be worn by tides,
replaced by death absolute)

The fabled Black Horse (shadow-self) waiting solitary at a
gas station, an imprisoned dreamer inside
its gaping jaw/saturnine, coldness
of daybreak, clouds at their Atelier, my head
feels a pressure, been awake too long,
breathing in through the nose/out through
mouth, monastery of the mind in need of clearing.

II

Soft/soft/skin/fury
embrace, catharsis, collision of
two individual energies
pent-up and cast/release
like a skeleton net::onfire
(kissed, consumed
elated, recurrance)

closeted eternities
cycling back into the
wind (hanging willow)
calling to the seeker, gold,
purification & lightness/mouthcurl washed in silence
(your own body, rising tide)

welcomed crucible of chilling air
& my black and
white vessel,
  electricity spirit-
whispers
        “valley swimmer, elude me”
FLASH OF LIGHT


III

…. The widewaking world
unspun-
                            theatric elucidation,
emergence of a great snake
a wisened flower, sprouted from exile

blissful rejuvination of
the ivory leaves, at once!

I wrap my throat in a Munich scarf
(pattern-blue)
   walking upon the softness of
Grötzingen (angel's eyes speaking)
an orchard, where the last gardener's tireless
work lay like a dreaming ossuary

All at once change arrives and swiftly,deftly...  alters all.
Unprepared and caught off guard we struggle not to fall.

And facing the unfamiliar instills us all with fear.
Not knowing to expect a smile or to expect a tear.

And the things we held so close to heart and believed would never go,
Are now nowhere in our sight or reach, for change has made it so.

Yet we are still expected by society and nature in kind,
To plod ahead courageously, uncertain what we'll find.

And so the sun rises yet again, another morn, another day.
And we must rise right along with it, and head about our way.

Grasping out so carefully, for things, which we believe,
Time itself can never change, and things that will not leave.

And we hold them tight with iron grip, as close as close can be.
But once again change arrives and rips them away.... so easily.

And once our years have wisened us, we learn to take this heed:
Change can alter any moment and truly nothing is guaranteed.

the children
      they dance with their death carelessly,
      take it by the hand to the river
       and let it swim free

the men and women
      they grapple with their death angrily,
      duel with it in a meadow
      and wrestle it into a pocket they can't see

the white-haired wisened
      they smile with their death peacefully
      walk as old friends
      down the autumn road to the sea.

Where has the wind gone?
To find new sails,
Stitching their own of parchment.

Where has the wind gone?
In every man burns warm a fire
Hearths that only need be stoked.

Setting off into the blue.
Currents warmed by sunlight,  
In the night grow cold.

Settle and you may find warmth,
From each dying ember,
Convinced the sun will never set.

I can only speak of sparks
Where once the flames burned brightest.

That when the wind did not shift,  wisened.
And set fire to the parchment.

My skin it burns and scorches
These twisted Seven Suns
It reeks, it's caustic
These curséd Seven Suns.

You loathsome orbs
My malice for you unbounded.
You wicked sons of Apollo
May the cities shun your name!

My hands they crack and sizzle
'neath these Seven Suns
These fruits they wilt and shrivel
'neath these Seven Suns.

The wisened ropes they wither
On harshly laboured waists
And ancient stones they crumble
Before masons lay to waste.

I beg the seasons of mercy
"Grant Icarus his revenge!"
Let them rain their naked blessings
And deliver me your end.

You'll scorch the earth that stays me
and clench the air I breathe
But come the fall of night
I'll dance upon your wreaths.

"You curséd sons,
You devlish pests,
No more, no more!"

I'll rejoice in your relief
Pay tribute to your demise
As the moonlight it embalms me
And the darkness clothes my eyes.

Now Nyx's reign commences
Her air so cool and pure
The slender fingers of night
Beckon nocturnal dawn.

Porcelain lamentations,
Further from that fountain.

Where she dipped her foot.

There,
Into the darker wood
Where the wind whistles between the trees

A wisened oak tree spoke to me
It said with its foreboding presence,

"One day, you will be like me
And you will see from a great height
The virid saplings
Saying hello to the ancient light."

New Year's Day and I hope for you a great one.
Mine, was not the beginning I envisioned. My adopted Mom, Marge
I rushed to the hospital at twelve.
She looks like me at 6 am after my binges. Red eyed and a little smile
of I don't care anymore on her 72 year old tired face.
I got back home, not drunk enough,
and found tiny, a sweet little black kitten who strived through thinness and
stumbled around for the 10 weeks of her life, cold and still.
She still lays there.
I guess her suffering has ended.
I am still drinking down the courage and liquor to go dig the hole in the backyard. I will cry, and need the strength I find in a bottle to prepare.

My adopted pops, 82 year old cad who took people all his life, took me into his heart. He is not a red man's father except by heart and caring. He is looking so old and tired. He took me to see Marge in the ICU. And consoled me as a priest would with wisened words of time and need.

If this New Year's day is a sign of what 2015 will be like,
after three more drinks, I think,
I will go out back and dig a  hole big enough for me to crawl into and hide, until next year.

O karmic master
Wisened by lifetimes
Sharpened by experience
I bow to thee
You, the mentor
I, demented
Do your dance, lure me in
Cast a spell
Penetrate me with cunning
Fill me with intellect
Take the reins
Show me the ropes
Maybe you can be the one
To tie me down
and teach me a lesson

Lightening forking the sky
Dazzling spray of dissonant cues
Crackling, mesmerizing
As the thunderous clouds
Bellowing, rumbling in cry
After the screech of the light
Wind spark, whipping a tempest
Never to have behold before
A dancing feat of grace and defeat
Trailing entrails of vivid wonders
Across the night, the dusk descending
Warfare of gain and spell, transcending
The terror in beauty and rolling nolstagia
Of the silly pouring rain mantling sails
To whisk a soul to another world
Like when you press a hand against a window
And it's cold so that your warmth
Shroud and condense, dew drops
Leave a trail of words, rhythm to rhyme
A flutter of ghostly syllables
And warm intentions, like fingers strumming a guitar
A single string or a flood of
Pressed strings reverberating in the belly of plywood
That takes not wisened girth
Only the way to make your words and music
Weep and laugh with that of the tempest
Brewing outside

I had nothing but hope,
That undying hope,
Pure magic.
I was in darkness,
I was bent and broken,
My difficulties had doubled,
My hurts had increased,
I carried my worries under an umbrella of fear.
But I have a stubborn heart,
I had faith and a basket of beliefs,
"No" word was not in my dictionary,
I started to live under the roof of hope.
My sufferings gave me strength,
My grief softened me,
My colleagues  betrayal wisened me.
I started to stay positive and confident,
I opened myself to criticism,
Above all, I infused myself to hard work,
At last my optimism  paid off.

Love is in the air,
I breathe without a care.
My humble life is fine!
I'll always cherish her devotion
As the years go by.

Hearts swept in emotion,
Joyously filling oceans,
Nothing could go awry!
I'll always cherish her commotion
As the years go by.

Now we're old and wisened,
Our romance is still rising
Way up into the skies!
I'll always cherish her cries of love
As the years go by...

If I could,
I would call upon you
and tell you that the reasons why you are beautiful

As yellow meets black, turns night
                  We gaze in wonder at the city beneath the heath

As amber leaves branches, fall ever near
                  We crunch and repeat with our feet to the beat

As cracked hands cup coffee in shelter
                  We nod flick leftover shrapnel to them.

As wisened minds, ask us for guidance
                  We bravely seek to give the help they crave.

I would remind you that this is why life’s worth living.

I will conquer the world for you, my dear.

My mother has sewn silver linings into every sky
Hands weary with the weight of the world
And I realize I have always seen Atlas when I stare into her wisened eyes

Is it strength knowing only struggle?
Is it sorrow to be bone tired in a graveyard of all the butterflies you never set free?

How do we save the ones who never ask?
How do we save the ones who cannot save themselves?

I have watched every stitch across a starless night
Every regret and dark thought displayed before  me
Like a pool of shadows

Atlas spent eternity with the world chained to his shoulders
Sometimes I wonder if the forgotten gods come again in the hearts of the lost

Who new a piece of paper -
Could carry the weight of my woes.

I was but a child when my heart first spilt,
Words in the back of a notebook,
There was no media back then,
Only paper and pen,
No one to show,
But it wasn’t for show,
I wasn’t  aware it was even for me,
So i missed the first time ....... that my feelings could see.

I filled that notebook with haste,
Poems of a younger self,
25 years ago,
Back then I didn’t know,
Didn’t understand the point of those feelings,
I had now idea that  those poems were healing.

Then I entered a time of release,
I wanted it all,
For years I rebelled,
Nothing withheld,
........But I didn’t write,
Lazy days and party nights,
Everything felt alright,
There was no need to write,

But those days were short - looking back,
Now i know who I am,
These years have wisened my mind,
It’s a quieter place I find,
Writing keeps an order,
Creates a silent border,
Between whats real and what could be,
Im indebted to what it gives me,

The healing of the act,
From thought to write to read,
Is such a positive impact,
That helps so much be freed,

If only that young boy had realised,
All those years back then,
The strength of his piece of paper,
And the power of his pen.