Crystal Ball

If only we knew. . .


the next
step


It can't be healthy
just gazing your life away
Yet how do we tear our eyes
from those lurid flashing depths

To execute our own uncharted destiny

Flogging Molly

I want to believe in myself once again
So I dream of a man whose hopes never end
To kiss with a girl who's as lovely as you
I'd give you my heart, if you gave me the truth

And for every tear that is lost from an eye
I'd dig me a well where no man could destroy
I want to believe in a freedom that's bold
But all I remember is the freedom of old

This mess in my head is a mess getting out
Ya drink too much coffee, I drink too much stout
But after a while, when my mouth's not so dry
I'll dance up a storm, sure life's looking fine
But as darkness falls, I return to my bed
Don't ask me more questions, don't fuck with my head

I've been down in this world, down and almost broken
Like thousands of people, left standing in their shoe
I've been down in this world, down and almost broken
As thousands they grieve, as the Black Friday rule


'Cause every dog has its day
Like every woman, she gets her own way
And if there's a ship that sails tonight I'll captain that too,
just to be there with you

Shine On. . .

Are they calling for our last dance?
I see it in your eyes. Same old moves for a new romance.
I could use the same old lies, but I'll sing

Shine on! Just shine on!
Close your eyes and they'll all be gone.
They can scream and shout that they've been sold out,
But it paid for the cloud that we're dancing on.
So shine on. Just shine on!
With your smile just as bright as the sun.
'Cause they're all just slaves to the gods they made
But you and I just shone.

And when silence greets my last goodbye,
The words I need are in your eyes, and I'll sing.

Shine on! Just shine on!
Close your eyes and they'll all be gone.
They can scream and shout that they've been sold out,
But it paid for the cloud that we're dancing on.
So shine on. Just shine on!
With your smile just as bright as the sun.
'Cause they're all just slaves to the gods they made,
But you and I just shone.
Just shone.

Here, I swear, forever is just a minute to me.
I'll take everything in this life.
I'll join everyone when I die.
'Cause all men die, 'cause all men die. . .

Just shine on.

-James Blunt

Better Together

There's no combination of words I could put on the back of a postcard
No song that I could sing but I can try for your heart
Our dreams, and they are made out of real things
Like a shoebox of photographs with sepiatone loving
Love is the answer, at least for most of the questions in my heart
Like why are we here? And where do we go?And how come it's so hard?
It's not always easy and sometimes life can be deceiving
I'll tell you one thing it's always better when we're together

Mmmh it's always better when we're together
Yeah, we'll look at the stars when we're together
Well, it's always better when we're together
Yeah, it's always better when we're together

And all of these moments just might find their way into my dreams tonight
But I know that they'll be gone when the morning light sings and brings new things
For tomorrow night you see that they'll be gone too
Too many things I have to do
But if all of these dreams might find their way into my day to day scene
I'd be under the impression I was somewhere in between
With only two - Just me and you
Not so many things we got to do or places we got to be
We'll sit beneath the mango tree now

But there is not enough time,
And there is no, no song I could sing
And there is no, combination of words I could say
But I will still tell you one thing
We're better together.

-Jack Johnson

Continue

Please place me unimaginably beyond

Doubts
[Flames to dust]
Consumed one moment
Abandoned the next
Left corroded
In the half-engine still churning
Make that step
Irretraceable
Take a faltering leap
Into a more than controllable
Future
Grasp the reigns as they slip
Demand more than satisfaction
More than meekly jolting along
AS IT WAS WRITTEN
There is no wrong answer
Only wrong motives
There is no wrong decision
Only wrong paths
Irretraceable

Midsummer

How happy some o'er other some can be!
Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;
He will not know what all but he do know.
And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes,
So I, admiring of his qualities.
Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste;
Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy haste.
And therefore is Love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.
As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
So the boy Love is perjured everywhere.
For ere Demetrius looked on Hermia's eyne,
He hailed down oaths that he was only mine;
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
So he dissolved, and show'rs of oaths did melt.
I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight.
Then to the wood will he to-morrow night
Pursue her; and for this intelligence
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense.
But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
To have his sight thither and back again.

Word Vomit (v)

po·et·ry (n)
1. The art or work of a poet.

2. Poems regarded as forming a division of literature.

3. A piece of literature written in meter; verse.

4. Prose that resembles a poem in some respect, as in form or sound.

5. The essence or characteristic quality of a poem.

6. A quality that suggests poetry, as in grace, beauty, or harmony

Expression of the inexpressible the helpless feeling of involuntary words uncontrollable violated movement in meter then leap into a rank spewing of emotion unknown unacknowledged before beating on hollow shields to destory the regions of consciousness that form and society construct blast threw with the torrent -

Escape.

XXXVIII

First time he kissed me, he but only kissed
The fingers of this hand wherewith I write;
And ever since, it grew more clean and white.
Slow to world-greetings, quick with its "O, list,"
When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst
I could not wear here, plainer to my sight,
Than that first kiss. The second passed in height
The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed,
Half falling on the hair. O beyond meed!
That was the chrism of love, which love's own crown,
With sanctifying sweetness, did precede
The third upon my lips was folded down
In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed,
I have been proud and said, "My love, my own."

-Elizabeth Browning

Bones

Come with me. We took a back road. We're gonna look at the stars.
We took a backroad in my car. Down to the ocean, it’s only water and sand
And in the ocean we'll hold hands.
But I don't really like you, apologetically dressed in the best, but on a heartbeat glide.
Without an answer, the thunder speaks for the sky, and on the cold, wet dirt I cry.
Don’t you wanna come with me? Don’t you wanna feel my bones on your bones?
It's only natural.
A cinematic vision ensued like the holiest dream. It's someone's calling?
An angel whispers my name, but the message relayed is the same:
“Wait till tomorrow,you'll be fine." But it's gone to the dogs in my mind.
I always hear them the dead of nightcomes calling to save me from this fight.
But they can never wrong this right.
Don't you wanna come with me? Don't you wanna feel my bones on your bones?
It's only natural.
Don’t you wanna swim with me? Don’t you wanna feel my skin on your skin?
It's only natural.
I never had a lover. I never had soul.
And I never had a good time.
I never got gold. Don't you wanna come with me?
Don't you wanna feel my bones on your bones?
It's only natural. Don't you wanna swim with me?
Don't you wanna feel my skin on your skin?
It's only natural.

-Killers

Canceled Crayola Colors: an exercise in humour.

Hemoglobin

Frostbite Blue

Soap Scum

Springtime Pollen for the Severely Allergic

Gingivitus

Emo Black

Duodenum Purple

Diaper Green

Cut-Me-Crimson

Dark Alley

Orangelo

Mucushiny

Dandruff White

Hairball

Red-light District

Transvestite Mauve

Smog

Oil Slick

Cubic Zirconium

Putrid Flesh

Pepto-Bismol Pink

Mildew Montage

Not-Quite-Virgin Cream for the Honest Girl

Iron Fist

Mullet

Gandalf Grey

Bile

Farmer's Tan

Monkey Poo

Seaweed Stew

Corpuscule Yellow

Clear

-mostly Anna Crabtree and Kait Rich

About the Man Who Began Flying After Meeting Her

When he met her and they liked each other a great deal, he heard things better, and in his eyes the lines of the physical world were sharper than before. He was smarter, he was more aware, and he thought of new things to do with his days. He considered activities which before had been vaguely intriguing but which now seemed urgent, and which must, he thought, be done with his new companion. He wanted to fly in lightweight contraptions with her. He had always been intrigued by gliders, parachutes, ultralights and hang-gliders, and now he felt that this would be a facet of their new life: that they would be a couple that flew around on weekends and on vacations, in small aircraft. They would learn the terminology; they would join clubs. They would have a trailer of some kind, or a large van, in which to hold their new machines and supple wings folded, and they would drive to new places to see from above. The kind of flying that interested him was close to the ground - less than a thousand feet above earth. He wanted to see things moving quickly below him, wanted to be able to wave to people below, to see wildebeest run and to count dolphins streaming away from shore. He hoped this was the kind of flying she'd want to do, too. He became so attached to the idea of this person and this flying and this life entwined that he was not sure what he would do if it did not become actual. He didn't want to do this flying alone; he would rather not do it than do it without her. But if he asked her to fly with him, and she expressed reservations, or was not inspired, would he stay with her? Could he? He decides that he would not. If she does not drive in the van with the wings carefully folded, he will have to leave, smile and leave, and then he will look again. But when and if he finds another companion, he knows his plan will not be for flying. It will be another plan with another person, because if he goes flying close to the earth it will be with her.

-Dave Eggers

Collins, times three

Vade Mecum

I want the scissors to be sharp
and the table perfectly level
when you cut me out of my life

and paste me into that book you always carry.

---------------

Man in Space

All you have to do is listen to the way a man
sometimes talks to his wife at a table of people
and notice how intent he is on making his point
even though her lower lip is beginning to quiver,

and you will know why the women in science
fiction movies who inhabit a planet of their own
are not pictured making a salad or reading a magazine
when the men from earth arrive in their rocket,

why they are always standing in a semicircle,
with their arms folded, their bare legs set apart,
their breasts protected by hard metal discs.

----------------

Aristotle

This is the beginning.

Almost anything can happen.

This is where you find

the creation of light, a fish wriggling onto land,

the first word of Paradise Lost on an empty page.

Think of an egg, the letter A,

a woman ironing on a bare stage

as the heavy curtain rises.

This is the very beginning.

The first-person narrator introduces hirnself,

tells us about his lineage.

The mezzo-soprano stands in the wings.

Here the climbers are studying a map

or pulling on their long woolen socks.

This is early on, years before the Ark, dawn.

The profile of an animal is being smeared

on the wall of a cave,

and you have not yet learned to crawl.

This is the opening, the gambit,

a pawn moving forward an inch.

This is your first night with her,

your first night without her.

This is the first part

where the wheels begin to turn,

where the elevator begins its ascent,

before the doors lurch apart.

This is the middle.

Things have had time to get complicated,

messy, really. Nothing is simple anymore.

Cities have sprouted up along the rivers

teeming with people at cross-purposes—

a million schemes, a million wild looks.

Disappointment unshoulders his knapsack

here and pitches his ragged tent.

This is the sticky part where the plot congeals,

where the action suddenly reverses

or swerves off in an outrageous direction.

Here the narrator devotes a long paragraph

to why Miriam does not want Edward's child.

Someone hides a letter under a pillow.

Here the aria rises to a pitch,

a song of betrayal, salted with revenge.

And the climbing party is stuck on a ledge

halfway up the mountain.

This is the bridge, the painful modulation.

This is the thick of things.

So much is crowded into the middle—

the guitars of Spain, piles of ripe avocados,

Russian uniforms, noisy parties,

lakeside kisses, arguments heard through a wall—

too much to name, too much to think about.

And this is the end,

the car running out of road,

the river losing its name in an ocean,

the long nose of the photographed horse

touching the white electronic line.

This is the colophon, the last elephant in the parade,

the empty wheelchair,

and pigeons floating down in the evening.

Here the stage is littered with bodies,

the narrator leads the characters to their cells,

and the climbers are in their graves.

It is me hitting the period

and you closing the book.

It is Sylvia Plath in the kitchen

and St. Clement with an anchor around his neck.

This is the final bit

thinning away to nothing.

This is the end, according to Aristotle,

what we have all been waiting for,

what everything comes down to,

the destination we cannot help imagining,

a streak of light in the sky,

a hat on a peg, and outside the cabin, falling leaves.

--------------

-Billy Collins

Trite

How can I convey
what is nothing new under the sun

reprint

of what they've all said before (cycle, cycle, recycle)

and it being a four-letter word
I don't wish to be vulgar
when I say it for myself don't be scared or disgusted
buck up - write - squeeze it out-
breathe.

Love.

(Merely a gentle twist of heart to release that high-strung emotion
convulsing to the sky like a slender wounded dragon
a flash of red
and death.)

To the Poets

I read you all closely
feverishly turning the pages
breathing in line after line
like an intoxication
words I refuse to pen
words I forbid to say
a meaning too intricate
dont' say I'm shallow
it would break my heart
the terror of admission is too severe
while savagely repressed
I read you all closely
you allow my feelings to
explore emotions my will does disguise
the indulgence of your sonnets
free some inner chord
yet I recoil and snap
- how can you say that with such fervor?
word love is too fragile to toss around pin down
and you say love dead on
how can you be so intense?
I am frightened to write such words
I might regret
later laugh at my foolishness
yet you all continue to say the
words I refuse to pen
words I forbid to say
with such addictive force my barriers weaken
you demand: does the mellowing of love
discount the reality of its present experience
I reply: never
you demand: if feelings later change should
you scoof upon the words penned in the
present earnest sincerety
I reply: never
word love is too fragile to remain caged
don't say I'm shallow
it would break my heart
just take and guide my hand oh poets
let my pen experience unrestraint
and show me how to be
unashamed and love

[10/2/06]

Eros

The sense of the world is short,
Long and various the report,
To love and be beloved;
Men and gods have not outlearned it,
And how oft soe'er they've turned it,
'Tis not to be improved.

- Emerson

Insomiac

The night is only a sort of carbon paper,
Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of stars
Letting in the light, peephole after peephole . . .
A bonewhite light, like death, behind all things.
Under the eyes of the stars and the moon's rictus
He suffers his desert pillow, sleeplessness
Stretching its fine, irritating sand in all directions.

Over and over the old, granular movie
Exposes embarrassments--the mizzling days
Of childhood and adolescence, sticky with dreams,
Parental faces on tall stalks, alternately stern and tearful,
A garden of buggy rose that made him cry.
His forehead is bumpy as a sack of rocks.
Memories jostle each other for face-room like obsolete film stars.

He is immune to pills: red, purple, blue . . .
How they lit the tedium of the protracted evening!
Those sugary planets whose influence won for him
A life baptized in no-life for a while,
And the sweet, drugged waking of a forgetful baby.
Now the pills are worn-out and silly, like classical gods.
Their poppy-sleepy colors do him no good.

His head is a little interior of grey mirrors.
Each gesture flees immediately down an alley
Of diminishing perspectives, and its significance
Drains like water out the hole at the far end.
He lives without privacy in a lidless room,
The bald slots of his eyes stiffened wide-open
On the incessant heat-lightning flicker of situations.

Nightlong, in the granite yard, invisible cats
Have been howling like women, or damaged instruments.
Already he can feel daylight, his white disease,
Creeping up with her hatful of trivial repetitions.
The city is a map of cheerful twitters now,
And everywhere people, eyes mica-silver and blank,
Are riding to work in rows, as if recently brainwashed.

-Sylvia Plath

Exercise: A New World

30 minutes
Alone
Public place
Observe

Lonely Soul

A turning tide, lovers at a great divide
Why d'you laugh when I know that you hurt inside?

And why'd you say
It's just another day, nothing in my way
I don't wanna go, I don't wanna stay
So there's nothing left to say?
And why'd you lie, when you wanna die, when you hurt inside
Don't know what you lie for anyway
Now there's nothing left to say.

A tell tale sign
You don't know where to draw the line.

Well for a lonely soul, you're having such a nice time
For a lonely soul, you're having such a nice time
For a lonely soul, it seems to me that you're having such a nice time
You're having such a nice time.

-Keane

Miniature Disaster

I don't want to be second best
Don't want to stand in line
Don't want to fall behind
Don't want to get caught out
Don't want to do without.

And the lesson I must learn is that I've got to wait my turn
Looks like I got to be hot and cold - I got to be taught and told
Got to be good as gold
But perfectly honest - I think it would be good for me
Coz it's a hindrance to my health and I'm a stranger to myself.

Miniature disasters and minor catastrophoes
Bring me to my knees.
Well I must be my own master or a miniature disaster will be
It will be the death of me.

I don't have to raise my voice
Don't have to be underhand - just got to understand
That it's gonna be up and down - it's gonna be lost and found
And I can't take to the sky before I like it on the ground.

And I need to be patient and I need to be brave
Need to discover how I need to behave
And I'll find out the answers when I know what to ask
But I speak a different language and everybody's speaking too fast .

Miniature disasters and minor catastrophoes
Bring me to my knees.
Well I must be my own master - I've got to run a little faster
I need to know I'll last.
If a little miniature disaster hits me it could be the death of me.

-K T Tunstall

Love Has Reasons . . .

The smoothness of my soul brushing yours is faint and golden
Can this be understood?
I want to throw my messy, incoherant love at your feet
But against all inclinations - refrain
for your sake, for my sake.
I am too young and you are not ready.
This could be a peddling infatuation
and this affection only as genuine as the moment allows.
I'm terrified
for your sake
for my sake
Ripping dissappointment and lacets of regret
might be all that remains with one false move.
I prize you higher than myself and never want to make you bleed
-so refrain
for your sake/mine.
These are my reasons which love does not understand.

Apprehend

One day
there may actually be something worth saying
there may actually be someone who knows

Until then
I'll spin these long-weathered trite words
I'll spin these cookie-cutter kaleidescope thoughts

(just shake and serve)

while the present now holds his breath -

O Holy Night

O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of the dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining.
Till He appeared and the Spirit felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!
O night divine, the night when Christ was born.

Led by the light of faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.
O'er the world a star is sweetly gleaming,
Now come the wisemen from out of the Orient land.
The King of kings lay thus lowly manger;
In all our trials born to be our friends.
He knows our need, our weakness is no stranger,
Behold your King! Before him lowly bend!

Truly He taught us to love one another,
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother.
And in his name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
With all our hearts we praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we,
His power and glory ever more proclaim!

His power and glory ever more proclaim!

-Placide Cappeau de Roquemaure

Portrait of a Lady

Thou hast committed--
Fornication: but that was in another country
And besides, the wench is dead.
(The Jew of Malta.)

I
Among the smoke and fog of a December afternoon
You have the scene arrange itself--as it will seem to do--
With "I have saved this afternoon for you";
And four wax candles in the darkened room,
Four rings of light upon the ceiling overhead,
An atmosphere of Juliet's tomb
Prepared for all the things to be said, or left unsaid.
We have been, let us say, to hear the latest Pole
Transmit the Preludes, through his hair and finger-tips.
"So intimate, this Chopin, that I think his soul
Should be resurrected only among friends
Some two or three, who will not touch the bloom
That is rubbed and questioned in the concert room."
--And so the conversation slips
Among velleities and carefully caught regrets
Through attenuated tones of violins
Mingled with remote cornets
And begins.
"You do not know how much they mean to me, my friends,
And how, how rare and strange it is, to find
In a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends,
(For indeed I do not love it ... you knew? you are not blind!
How keen you are!)
To find a friend who has these qualities,
Who has, and gives
Those qualities upon which friendship lives.
How much it means that I say this to you--
Without these friendships--life, what cauchemar [a nightmare]!"

Among the windings of the violins
And the ariettesOf cracked cornets
Inside my brain a dull tom-tom begins
Absurdly hammering a prelude of its own,
Capricious monotoneThat is at least one definite "false note."
--Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance,
Admire the monuments
Discuss the late events,
Correct our watches by the public clocks.
Then sit for half an hour and drink our bocks.

II
Now that lilacs are in bloom
She has a bowl of lilacs in her room
And twists one in her fingers while she talks.
"Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know
What life is, you should hold it in your hands";
(Slowly twisting the lilac stalks)
"You let it flow from you, you let it flow,
And youth is cruel, and has no remorse
And smiles at situations which it cannot see."
I smile, of course,
And go on drinking tea.
"Yet with these April sunsets, that somehow recall
My buried life, and Paris in the Spring,
I feel immeasurably at peace, and find the world
To be wonderful and youthful, after all."
The voice returns like the insistent out-of-tune
Of a broken violin on an August afternoon:
"I am always sure that you understand
My feelings, always sure that you feel,
Sure that across the gulf you reach your hand.
You are invulnerable, you have no Achilles' heel.
You will go on, and when you have prevailed
You can say: at this point many a one has failed.
But what have I, but what have I, my friend,
To give you, what can you receive from me?
Only the friendship and the sympathy
Of one about to reach her journey's end.
I shall sit here, serving tea to friends...."
I take my hat: how can I make a cowardly amends
For what she has said to me?
You will see me any morning in the park
Reading the comics and the sporting page.
Particularly I remark
An English countess goes upon the stage.
A Greek was murdered at a Polish dance,
Another bank defaulter has confessed.
I keep my countenance, I remain self-possessed
Except when a street piano, mechanical and tired
Reiterates some worn-out common song
With the smell of hyacinths across the garden
Recalling things that other people have desired.
Are these ideas right or wrong?

III
The October night comes down; returning as before
Except for a slight sensation of being ill at ease
I mount the stairs and turn the handle of the door
And feel as if I had mounted on my hands and knees.
"And so you are going abroad; and when do you return?
But that's a useless question.
You hardly know when you are coming back,
You will find so much to learn."
My smile falls heavily among the bric-à-brac.
"Perhaps you can write to me."
My self-possession flares up for a second;
This is as I had reckoned.
"I have been wondering frequently of late
(But our beginnings never know our ends!)
Why we have not developed into friends."
I feel like one who smiles, and turning shall remark
Suddenly, his expression in a glass.
My self-possession gutters; we are really in the dark.
"For everybody said so, all our friends,
They all were sure our feelings would relate
So closely! I myself can hardly understand.
We must leave it now to fate.
You will write, at any rate.
Perhaps it is not too late.
I shall sit here, serving tea to friends."
And I must borrow every changing shape
To find expression ... dance, dance
Like a dancing bear,
Cry like a parrot, chatter like an ape.
Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance--
Well! and what if she should die some afternoon,
Afternoon grey and smoky, evening yellow and rose;
Should die and leave me sitting pen in hand
With the smoke coming down above the housetops;
Doubtful, for quite a while
Not knowing what to feel or if I understand
Or whether wise or foolish, tardy or too soon ...
Would she not have the advantage, after all?
This music is successful with a "dying fall"
Now that we talk of dying
--And should I have the right to smile?

- Eliot

Progression

A stealth-like intertwining of souls with growth in spurts
A timid creep towards another's delicate fibrous heart
(considering every move
safeguarding every thought)
while gently feeling testing maturing seeking asking

"Is this. . . "

Peace, child.

So deeper still, inward on.

Comments on Poetry

"There is no such thing as a perfectly adequate poem, because a poem into which some strange and surprising excellence has not entered, a poem that is not in some inexplicable way beyond the will of the poet, is not a poem. [. . .] The truth is, sometimes poetry is embarrassingly easy to write. Just about every poet admits to some simultaneous feeling of helplessness and unaccostumed power in writing of his best poems, some element of mystery. "If you do not believe in poetry," Wallace Stevens once wrote, "you cannot write it," and indeed this is the chief "difficulty" in poetry, that it comes so infrequently that it remains beyond our will." - Christian Wiman

"But even the most dull-witted author was obliged to realize that his freely associating the work of art [informal poetry] - proudly meaningless, although really meaning everything - would have no readers unless it had its moments. Whether in a formal poem or in an informal one, everything depended and still depends, on the quality of the moment. Formality and informality are just two different ways of joining the moments up. The question will always be about which is superior, and the "always" strongly suggests that neither of them is. Whatever kind of poem it is, it's the moment that gets you." - Clive James

Soapbox, part 1

They say this is the hardest language
perhaps second only to the orients far east.
The words never mean what Mr Webster says
but are pliable to context, nuance, overtones, and bias.
In addition is modern connatation that can turn
even the most puritan phrase into slanderous flilth.
The rules never apply to more than one incident
and generally contradict one another at every turn.
The intricate webbing of "'I'-before-'e'-except-after-'c'"
and "When-a-word-ends-with-a-short-vowel-and-consonant
the-last-consonant-is-doubled-before-adding-a-suffix-that
begins-with-a-vowel-but-only-while-wearing-purple-lingerie,"
is complicated beyond reason.
Take into consideration that the identification of a compound
double predicate would force a weathered english instructor to weep,
and the layman's abuse of the apostrophe is - at minimum -
enough to produce the gnashing of teeth in the sternest grammatician.
In short, what is produced is a world-wide classification of
life-loving persons who are TERRIFIED OF THEIR OWN LANGUAGE.

And so they should be.

. . .
What is called for is the massive reconstruction of the world's English language.
Or the decimation of mankind.
It's our choice.

"Dear Ms Truss:
I understand why
such woes cause all
stickler's premature greying.
Not the least of which is
the infamous comma, splice."

Rebellion

I pray you drown admist the self-induced doubts
about my beliefs - standards - behaviors - existance
and why I press the boundaries until one of us
snaps into the vaccuum of accusations
while complaints of
misinterpretation
misrepresentation
misquotation
mistakes
and misguidance
fly as fire darts in the void.
The gagging stifles of expressions:
lift of cocked eyebrow
movement of judgmental finger
exasperated sigh
catch of slow blink -
force me to shudder
look away
breathing forcefully and praying peace.
I abhor this clutching guilt and loathing of self and it's inadequacies.
I sojourn toward a stoic heart
pulsing emotionless
coursing calm
flying unburdened as a crest on a wave
in this mortal spindle-drawn life.

Afterglow

Just when the days start getting colder
I walk the streets I never knew
And there's some words I never told you
The sound rings out like the truth

And if you could see what's come over me
then you would know.
Cause I'm walking free
the wind at my back
Bathed in afterglow.

And as I sit here in this dark room
All I seem to feel is light
And I see color, I see the maroon
In the blood of this life that's ours

Watch the sun paint an orange sky
Lay me down and feel the days gone by
Just when the day Just when the day
Oh...Just when the days start getting longer
I walk the streets I never knew
The sun comes out for you.
And if you could see what's come over me
Then you would know
Cause I'm walking free
The wind at my back
Bathed in afterglow.

-Vanessa Carlton

Mending

A wise woman once made
a delicate needle of the sharpest kind
of tempered gold looped with a crimsom silken strand
to pierce
and thread
and tug together
the ripped shreds of the heart:
gashes of abused trust
and false words
and exploited affection
and searing misunderstanding.
So I traveled far and wide - searching
for her darkened cabin beside a hidden wood -
and hesitated under lengethened moonbeams
to cross the mossy threshold and undergo
the meticulous reconstruction of my ravished heart:
which a wise woman once remade.

Fear Of Fearing myself....

Why is it fear that is considered a threat
I fear that I fear myself
That I regret
What is fear a curse, or a gift
My mind's stuck in Neutral
And that's something I can't shift
The old,hard of hearing and yet I don't care
What I hate the most is it's me that I fear
I fear that I began, middled, and ended
That I fear of fearing myself
which no one comprehended
I hate that you fear all the small things in life
Like hating your parents, and losing a life
But what I fear most is the last book on the shelf
My biggest fear, is of fearing myself
I fear of fearing myself
Now asleep in clouds it was me on the shelf
I no longer have a fear of fearing myself

-Edgar Allan Poe Jr.

Dear Reader

Baudelaire considers you his brother,
and Fielding calls out to you every few paragraphs
as if to make sure you have not closed the book,
and now I am summoning you up again,
attentive ghost, dark silent figure standing
in the doorway of these words.

Pope welcomes you into the glow of his study,
takes down a leather-bound Ovid to show you.
Tennyson lifts the latch to a moated garden,
and with Yeats you lean against a broken pear tree,
the day hooded by low clouds.

But now you are here with me,
composed in the open field of this page,
no room or manicured garden to enclose us,
no Zeitgeist marching in the background,
no heavy ethos thrown over us like a cloak.

Instead, our meeting is so brief and accidental,
unnoticed by the monocled eye of History,
you could be the man I held the door for
this morning at the bank or post office
or the one who wrapped my speckled fish.
You could be someone I passed on the street
or the face behind the wheel of an oncoming car.

The sunlight flashes off your windshield,
and when I look up into the small, posted mirror,
I watch you diminish—my echo, my twin—
and vanish around a curve in this whip
of a road we can't help traveling together.

-Billy Collins "The Art of Drowning"

With love:

I never want to become
another hole in your heart
another memory to be forgotten
another regret on your lips
another burnt-out infatuation
another ignored pain in your past.

Sincerely -

P.S. Is it possible to become the one who
brings you happiness
helps you progress
blesses your life
makes you smile always.

A Letter

Dear God:

I want you to be my only refuge
my only master
my only guide
my only comfort
my only focus
my keeper and first love.

Sincerely -

P.S. Whatever they see in me - will you let them know it is all and only you?

Breach

Daily I sink deeper thicker farther away
your soul no longer touches mine
the burn of inflicted self-consciousness
hindering the being of me
I cannot force my thoughts ambitions dreams
outside you expected criticism
it is impossible to endure
your relentless sneering dissappointment
I flinch and hold
waiting for the lashes and cuts -

So please
just take me out
swift and painless
don't let me feel
you brand that
everlasting stamp of
dissaproval
onto my heart.

(?)

-You think you are so generous and strong
to give me what is your (heart)
Do you not know I could kill you -

This is How I Disappear

Go -To unexplain the unforgivable,
Drain all the blood and give the kids a show.
By street light this dark night, a stance down below.
There's things that I have done, could never, should never know.

And without you is how I disappear, and live my life alone forever now.
And without you is how I disappear, and live my life alone forever now.

He walks among the famous living dead,
Drowns all the boys and girls inside your bed.
And if you could talk to me, tell me if it's so,
That all the good girls go to heaven.
Well, heaven knows -

Can you hear me cry out to you?
Words I thought I'd choke on figure out.
I'm really not with you any more.
I'm just a ghost, so I can't hurt you any more,
So I can't hurt you any more.

You wanna see how far down I can sink?
Let me out! Sinking, I'm sinking,
I'm so far away from you. I'm sinking.

And without you is how I disappear, and live my life alone forever now.
And without you is how I disappear, and live my life alone forever now.

-My Chemical Romance

Anonymous

While passing a trash bin
I spotted your love
crumpled and bleeding
underneath shredded bills

I pulled it out
smoothed it down
read it through

Stained a crying red
it told me the story
of how you have loved
and lost

(a familiar tune)

It had wide margins
and several tear stains
I added some notes
and pain of my own

(I hope you don't mind)

While passing a mailbox
I dropped in your love
folded and healing
on top packaged bills

The visit

Enter and immediately it smells of
feeble bald salivia jilting death
Receptionist: Yes? Oh room number 52 on left.
Walk ignore muffled screams cheap pastel wallpaper bulletin boards
glance up see him pace the halls fly unzipped hands groping rail
will anyone save his soul?
avert gaze don't stare at the helpless dying no ones
labeled door medication clipboard is all that identifies another living corpse
they were once loved
find the number it was on left breathe deeply
step inside her mechanical bed next to another
curtain partition two dressers calender clock mounted needlepoint "Jesus"
she recognized me the wide gaping mouth and raccous moans indicated
flailing her one controllable arm she envelopes me in an embrace
my face presses into the pillow that smells of
end shampoo tears plastic resignation
communication commenced of wild gestures toothless smile chuckle groan
-Yes life has been good since I saw you last sorry it's been so long to visit but
you know how life gets away from you-
Clear eyes gaze into mine in response that yes life does get away from you if you allow
the scream of humanity to drown you in its insatiable relentless
-And the family is well and sends their love youngest is now in first grade going to school
boy do they grow up fast-
Expression pitying says that yes they do grow up fast and why don't you quench
your greed of self indulgence and invest into his life loving kindness understanding
-Certainly nice to see you after so long must go now I'll sign the guestbook-
She watches as I take the small spiral bound notebook and make my mark
next to the precious few others who hell took their time to drop in these seven years
snore like a rifle shot from the sleeping dying no one in the next mechanical bed
a nurse enters with a tray of pills painkillers laxatives stimulants insulin death
another embrace clasp and desperate arm about my neck
then pull away she pours into me an appeal come back again come back again come back again
step into the hall with down cast eyes glimpsed him still pacing
determined despondant mere purposeless
where is his soul?
ignore the smell of the
end
shudder through the press of hidden minds forgotten thoughts masked lives
only function mere form
they were once loved
Receptionist: Have a nice day
Hell.
Outside strikes the full terror of abondonment
please God don't hide my heart from me
please God take me now don't let them keep me a living corpse

Exit and immediately it smells of creation.

Brighter Than Sunshine

I never understood before - I never knew what love was for.
My heart was broke, my head was sore - what a feeling.
Tied up in ancient history - I didnt believe in destiny.
I look up you're standing next to me - what a feeling.
What a feeling in my soul
Love burns brighter than sunshine
Let the rain fall, I don't care - I'm yours and suddenly you're mine
Suddenly you're mine
And it's brighter than sunshine.
I never saw it happening I'd given up and given in
I just couldn't take the hurt again
I didn't have the strength to fight - Suddenly you seemed so right
Me and you - what a feeling
Suddenly you're mine - It's brighter than the sun
It's brighter than the sun, sun, shine.
Love will remain a mystery - but give me your hand and you will see
Your heart is keeping time with me
What a feeling in my soul
Love burns brighter than sunshine
It's brighter than sunshine Let the rain fall, I don't care
I'm yours and suddenly you're mine.

-Aqualung

all which isn't singing is mere talking

all which isn't singing is mere talking and all talking's talking to oneself (whether that oneself be sought or seeking master or disciple sheep or wolf) gush to it as diety or devil -toss in sobs and reasons threats and smiles name it cruel fair or blessed evil- it is you (ne i)nobody else drive dumb mankind dizzy with haranguing -you are deafened every mother's son- all is merely talk which isn't singing and all talking's to oneself alone but the very song of(as mountains feel and lovers)singing is silence -ee cummings

Current Status Taken

I'm busy
Not now
No thank you
Not interested
Rather not
Take a hint -
I'm unavailable

Return (Square One)

Everyturn a contradiction
have I not moved
from this concrete earth
burned alive in repitition
a plot of cycles
revolutions per second/day/year
disgrowth within mummification
of ageless repeats
again
again
again

Brutal

Crashing down to earth
solid and reproaching
Why did you leave me
for your castle in the air?
Come back to me, child,
to harshness and to truth
clasping their iron arms
about your mind -
Do not let it wander again, naive one.
There's comfort in unforgivable facts
in unmoving absolutes
in square corners
in rigid pathways.
The disinllusionment of your imaginings
will break upon the night
exposed to mechanic reason.
Your heart will balk
at it's improved, pristine surroundings
that will protect you from
silly fancies, evocative music, flighty poems
that will only hinder the march
of progressive realism.
Welcome home
close your thoughts
muse no more.

[Random] Phone in

Welcome. Today we have on our panel our resident psychiatrist, a psychiatrist who isn't resident but staying with the other one because he can't bear to go home, and a psychiatrist who lived with the first one and who when the second arrived felt alienated and has since undergone a total personality change.


Mother: Ah! Mrs. Knickerbaker exploded!
Son: Good thing too.
Mother: Ah! She was my best friend!
Son: Oh mother, don't be so semtimental. People explode everyday.
Mother: Yes. I suppose so. I don't know - I didn't like her really.


Some things in life are bad. They can really make you mad.
Some things just make you swear and curse.
When you're chewing on life's gristle - don't grumble!
Give a whistle! And this'll help things turn out for the best.
And - always look on the bright side of life.
Always look on the light side of life.
If life seems jolly rotten - There's something you've forgotten!
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
Life is quite absurd and that's the final word.
You must always face the curtain with a bow.
Always look on the bright side of death -
Just before you draw your terminal breath.
Life's a piece of spit when you look at it.
Laugh's a laugh and that's the joke it's true.
You'll see it's all a show - keep 'em laughing as you go.
Just remember the last laugh is on you.
Keep on laughing as you go.

-Monty Python

Untitled

I stroll upon the foremost page of your mind:
You are wondering how that little girl grew
and why she demands the world. You're dismayed -
you've done everything yet nothing.
Chided, consoled, disciplined, loved - fruitless!
Mold, compress, harness, restrain - desperate!
And why she demands the world.
You don't know it was offered in that first breath
of earthly living air and that
every morning it is a promise renewed -
offered again -
unholy and tainted
the incense of strife and success
and of adulthood and heartbreak
and of death and rebirth
Crisp origamis of lives on display.
People arrayed in all their 3 dimensional pain.
That is offered again - renewed -
tantilizing and unreal
borderless.
You are wondering. You've done everything yet nothing.

Vow:
Not until maturity crushes this tender promise
(complete with aspirations of a child)
will I cease to feel the joy of wanting the world.
Of yearning, desiring, striving, begging, wrecking, deceiving
for the world.
For it was offered in that first breath of living air
I want the world.

Surrendering

You were full and fully capable
You were self sufficient and needless
Your house was fully decorated in that sense

You were taken with me to a point
A case of careful what you wish for
But what you knew was enough to begin

And so you called and courted fiercely
So you reached out, entirely fearless
And yet you knew of reservation and how it serves

And I salute you for your courage
And I applaud your perseverance
And I embrace you for your faith in the face of adversarial forces
That I represent

So you were in but not entirely
You were up for this but not totally
You knew how arms length-ing can maintain doubt

And so you fell and you're intact
So you dove in and you're still breathing
So you jumped and you're still flying if not shocked

And I support you in your trusting
And I commend you for your wisdom
And I'm amazed by your surrender in the face of threatening forces
That I represent

You found creative ways to distance
You hid away from much through humor
Your choice of armor was your intellect

Self protection was in times of true danger
Your best defense to mistrust and be wary
Surrendering a feat of unequalled measure
And I'm thrilled to let you in
Overjoyed to be let in in kind

-Alanis Morisette

Disenchantment

[To Sarah, this is dedicated to you with a blessing: May your suitor get a clue. Soon.]

You failed to bring that debonair spark
I missed your sudden gleam when you entered -
there was no flash.
Maybe next time you'll do better.
[Next time]
Well, maybe not.
Okay: readjust my expectations that perhaps I'd set to high
Yes I knew you were mortal
I'd just forgotten
It got scrambled in that late-night calculation
when I also forgot you faults.
Surprising, you have quite a few.
Never noticed you cracked your knuckles
and clear your throat everytime you say "Heillldengaaard".
But of course that's fine - we all have our qurks
and physical flaws like your unusual ears and bow-shaped nose.
[Pause]
You never mentioned you are obsessed with Oprah
And that your kitchen floor has never seen a mop.
Your classic, careless wardrobe is beginning to look grundgy
(have you ever taken those pants to the cleaners?)
The half-lidded, smoky look that made me swoon
looks daft in broad daylight.
Sorry I didn't call last night [first time in two weeks].
No, not tomorrow. Maybe later [maybe never].
See ya.

[Sheepish laugh]

Whew.

That was close.

Black Horse & The Cherry Tree

Well my heart knows me better than I know myself
So I'm gonna let it do all the talking.
I came across a place in the middle of nowhere
With a big black horse and a cherry tree.

I fell in fear, upon my back
He said "Don't look back, just keep on walking."
When the big black horse said, "Hey lady!"
Said, "Look this way, will you marry me?"

But I said no, no, no, no-no-no
I said no, no. You're not the one for me
No, no, no, no-no-no
I said no, no. You're not the one for me

And my heart had a problem, in the early hours,
So I stopped it dead for a beat or two.
But I cut some cord, and I shouldn't have done that,
And it won't forgive me after all these years

So I sent it to a place in the middle of nowhere
With a big black horse and a cherry tree.
Now it won't come back, cause it's oh so happy
And now I've got a hole for the world to see


Big black horse and a cherry tree
I can't quite get there 'cause my heart's forsaken me
Big black horse and a cherry tree
No, no, no, no
I can't quite get there 'cause my heart's forsaken me

- KT Tunstall

A Solitary Triumph

[Statistics show that the number of criminal women is considerably less in proportion than that of male criminals.]

OH, the progress of Woman has really been vast

Since Civilization began.

She's usurped all the qualities which in the past

Were reckoned peculiar to Man.

She can score with a bat, use a rod or a cue;

Her tennis and golf are sublime.

Her aim with a gun is uncommonly true,

But Man beats her hollow at crime.

The strings to her bow are both varied and quaint;

There are maids who can work with the pen,

There are maids who can handle the palette and paint

With a skill that's not given to men.

There are ladies who preach, lady doctors there are,

MPs will be ladies in time,

And ladies, I hear, practise now at the Bar --

But Man holds the record for crime.

So it's hey for the jemmy, and ho for the drill,

And hurrah for the skeleton keys.

Oh, to burgle a house or to rifle a till!

I am more than her equal at these.

She may beat me at home, she may beat me afield;

In her way I admit she is prime.

But one palm at least I compel her to yield:

I can give her a lesson in crime.

-P.G. Wodehouse

The Accursed

Is this rediculous tune playing again?
What in hell -
Do you think you will hypotise me
insych with your reality?
Spewing the innards of this song
daemons, sloths, worms and spirits
convort onto this psuedo-nightmare of a dream
Do you believe I will fall for this
deathlike-pantomime?
My hope is deeper than your ocean of ruination
So play it again
So play it again
What in hell -
Do you think you will hypnotise me
insynch with your warped reality?
You existence is ephermeral
and this battle is supernatural
I will not buy into this death-like pantomime
An eternal being:
(living for more than merely today)
Should never buy into this death-like pantomime
(if only because there is life everlasting)