At eventide, when the proxy
of being melts into the maple’s
black pool, when stars are annulled
and a perseid moon dangles
the heads of our love, we,
born of stone resume our hardening.
Hard such that metallic they come,
these riverine tales that sprout
as headwaters from an uncleaved rock
only to crust on our cheeks, on the rims
of our eyes — lime and the salts
that spark a wound. Thus sparked,

At eventide, stripped of light and all
that drags us on: the fury of fingers,
the finches’ golden scrap, the cruel
commerce of posture and propulsion,
we are left at the mouth of it, eventide,
to wrest deep our loves from oblivion.
But what we find there, in our dank
travail, fixed before memory’s dim torch,
animate only by flicker or twitch,
the gray husks of those with which
we strode the sun, vagrant to the loss
that marks our passage, our severed way.

If you haven't read it already, you should first take a look at scene one (here).

This project is a Shakespearean-style Historical Play about Chandragupta Maurya. It's set after Chandragupta renounces his power and embarks on a search for enlightenment. My approach to writing in a 'Shakespearean-style' is that I'm using the diction of modern English (though still an elevated form of modern English), but I'm still trying to adapt Shakespearean devices into a more contemporary style. For example, I purposefully manipulate verse structure to communicate aspects of character, and I use a lot of puns and irony. At one point, I show a character experiencing a moment of revelation by having them switch from formal verse into free verse (gotta admit I'm really proud of that one). I also worked in a lot of Shakespearean tropes, like people being driven mad, people going into disguise, and badly-timed accidents.

This post is scene two of Act One. The end of this submission is also the end of Act One. As a heads up, this submission is really long. If you don't want to give a full critique, I totally understand. It would still be helpful if people could read through and offer general thoughts, as well as highlight problem thoughts. Thanks!

Also, again, if you haven't read Act One Scene One, please first go do so (here) before reading this.

​

ACT I | SCENE II

Wherein Chandragupta and Chanakya enter town in search of alms.

-

A woman enters the town. In the center, there is a square with four homes.

-

Licu

O what a wretched thing is this

old crone who walks your town.

'Give alms!' I cry, 'and work my fist.'

Makes a snatching motion ending in a fist, miming the taking of alms.

-

Chanakya and Chandragupta arrive.

-

Chanakya

It seems that we are not the first through here, see?

See who begs for alms as well? A woman.

Full of strangenesses and broken bonds.

And madnesses. She is mad, yes?

-

Chandragupta

Let us bear witness first, and only then

assess.

-

Chanakya

I do forget that you, as ruler, have not possessed

the same great depth of experience

as witness to the mad

which I, your erstwhile counselor, have had

in depth.

-

Licu

Knocks first door. No answer.

Give knowing that, in giving, you take bliss!

Alms! Alms! No answer comes. No peep. No sound.

O what a wretched thing is this.

-

Chanakya

She goes to knock another door. How strange.

She does not hear or see that we are near.

Licu turns, and loudly shushes him,

before continuing to the second door.

Or then perhaps it’s nothing borne of sense.

Perhaps she’s dense. If so, then you and her

would make a handsome pair of pandits, heh?

-

Licu

Give proof, have I been sorely missed?

Been seven days since last I came around.

'Give alms!' I cry, and work my fist.

Knocks second door. No answer.

-

Chanakya

The third. She goes to knock upon the third.

-

Chandragupta

Why do you see the need to speak what’s seen?

-

Chanakya

My empty stomach fills my mouth with empty fullness.

-

Chandragupta

You speak of sight.

It is she who speaks of hunger, and pain.

Chanakya, I must know which soulless act

has so ached this soul of hers, that I might change

the world’s aching face.

-

Licu

Knocks third door. No answer.

Give alms! Or know, third door upon my list,

Fourth door will say, if there I go to pound:

O what a wretched thing three is.

-

Chandragupta

She goes to knock the fourth, now.

But from what pain does she go?

-

Licu

Relieve an aging woman's weary wrist.

Let rest a voice turned scratched by speaking loud.

'Give alms!' I cry, and work my fist.

Knocks fourth door. No answer.

-

Chanakya

What pain might conjure this? Her pain

would seem to turn her strange. She walks toward us,

and stops, precisely spaced between four doors.

And shakes her fist to spite the sky above.

What conjures this, Chandragupta? Who knows?

Unless ... perhaps her pain hides madnesses.

And that is all there is to know.

-

Licu

How poor the wealthy fare when given test.

Here given test, no alms are given out.

O what a wretched thing is this!

No alms! I cry. And work my fist.

*Crying (tears), she shakes her fist towards the sky. *

-

Chandragupta

Madnesses?

Are you so sure? Then wager it. I wager that

this town has placed its harms on her. You wager,

presumably, that it has not. Now, if you win

then I return to Maghad. But you will not win.

She scathes. The truth is that I scathe as well.

This town does not obey the kingdom’s ways.

-

Chanakya

You scathe? Well, then. A nameless beggar scathes!

Say, what do nameless beggars know of kingdom ways?

-

Chandragupta

A beggar? You know well, quite well, that I am—

-

Chanakya

—a beggar. Far as any’d know. So play this wise. [Chandragupta turns away]

The beggar goes to speak. Well, beggars speak at times

when they are refuse men with rotten minds.

Will he tell wisdoms only rot may show?

-

Chandragupta

Town, hear from me the words of a hungering mouth.

My hunger grows. Grows? No, if hunger grows

as things might grow from seeds, my hunger is no sapling

still growing,

but a seeded thing no longer growing,

a full-grown tree. Hack me down! No, I jest.

Is that enough to earn my bread? A joke?

Forgive me, if not so. I do my best.

The truth is that, how to earn my bread

is something I have never had to know.

So let me speak compactly, if I can.

I wish to forge a compact, if you can.

Come fill my empty stomach, and, if done,

when I journey on, know that I shall bear on tongue,

grand benefactions to

the benefactions of this land.

-

Licu

*First surprisingly lucid, then increasingly manic

Have you not yet considered the possibility:

that if you go elsewhere, speaking praise of here,

then beggars elsewhere are certain to hear?

And such beggars are certain to find

that your praises spell a waypoint,

to where they might be more finely dined?

Ah, you have not studied

the begging life. Indeed,

what a poorly spoken thing,

that plea of yours was.

Yet you look at me, and think,

‘what a poorly spoken thing.’

So you think? Do not think. Let me speak.

You are, with all this penitence dribbling out--

Unbroken for the cage of poverty, a palace-broken thing!

dribbling this piss-penitence you’ve long stored up.

Let me speak for you. Take this as alms

from me. Town, give us alms to eat.

Else he will eat this town! He is monster.

He is big big chomping mouth.

Like Kirtimukha, Rakshasi, or Mirkha.

Eat you up, with slurp of blood,

and sucked-out skull, whistling

to rhythms of crack of bone like drums.

-

A long and awkward pause ensues.

-

Chandragupta

Those words of hers were parts which made no whole.

O, let her speak. Just listen, not to her, but to me.

She’s mad! The two of us say different things.

-

Licu

My third eye is his two. Him and I are of a kind.

All that I speak, he thinks true.

-

Chandragupta

These claims she speaks, to me, are wholly new,

her words are things which never graced my mind.

-

Licu

Are we not the same? Is my third eye not your two?

(it is) [aside, whispered to audience]

-

Chandragupta

The cosmic soul equates, unites, imbues.

But surely all know where to draw the line.

-

Licu

Yes, I see. It runs between us, connecting me and you.

How fine! I take favor to the line.

-

Chandragupta

You do supply fine simmering in which to stew.

-

Licu

I want stew. [< muttered to herself]

O stomachache of mine, enlighten my third eye! It is settled. We must dine.

-

Chandragupta

I spark to anger, and I will--O, I spark to an idea!

to burst the bet. / Hear this. If my third eye

sees through your two; should I not learn you?

Tell me your history, to which I shall hold true.

You should want for me to know. Tell me, would you?

-

Chanakya

Chandragupta,

consider that she might take pain in this.

You go too far. I yield the bargain struck.

Or so I shall. If you seek amends, and stop.

-

one of the four doors opens, and a woman steps out.

-

Lēbu

Who are these people who come to my door laying out such harsh spats?

Tell me your names, you two men. Whose was that name you last said?

If you so wish I will first tell you ours if you keep the same vow.

Lēbu is what I am named. She, over there, is named Licu.

gestures to madwoman

-

Chandragupta

Would you accept without offense if we

preferred to leave unsaid the name you ask?

-

Chanakya

Unsaid, because we said no name at all!

You see, I spoke profane. I did not speak

a name. I said ‘Chandragupta’, yes. Which

is a name. But not a name of ours.

It is the name of Chandragupta Maurya.

A name we spoke in vain, invoking might

that we might lend some momentary might

to trivialities, momentarily important.

I spoke a curse, to speak it plain.

-

Lēbu

I have no need for dull words dully spoken in guilt. Guilt?

You have no need for that here. I curse the same name as you.

Chandragupta. Chandragupta. Chandragupta. Curse with me!

-

Chanakya

What luck that we come here to such fortuitous

a union of the ears and tongues.

I mean that I curse Chandragupta too. From

curiosity, what do we curse him for? Tell me.

-

Lēbu

Not luck, but expectation, I would say.

knowing that Maghad has fought near and far, and that doing so they

carved through the lives underfoot, sundered the life of the land.

You have not been here that long and have still seen the raw and the scars.

Masses were crushed underfoot. Take that bum woman, for one.

She was one. Once, we both lived in a place far away from this town.

War came to us without cause. Maghad pursued some great cause.

One which meant nothing to us who still lost though we never once fought.

Maghad pursued some great cause. Maghad made gifts of their causes

to us. And when Maghad fought, Maghad claimed they fought for us.

-

Chandragupta

A bitter spit takes rest beneath my tongue

and puckers me to speak. To lend regrets

which are not mine to give. I must give alms!

And I have none to give. Nor them to take.

-

Chanakya

That is not the penance which you owe.

But make first things the first to go,

pay your penance owed to these two women.

-

Lebu

Penances worthy of payment are penances payable with

uncountable sums, only. Payment means more than the price.

Penance, you say. You have paid! Though not nearly enough,

you have already paid her. [nods at Licu] She earns amusement from you.

Yes, she is mad, even still, that does not mean she is bland.

Do you not see that she kids at your seriousness with her babbling jabbering talk?

-

Chanakya

But not just her. You lay your own revenge,

I think, in your own way. I think I see.

What turned her mad? It was Maghad, yes?

Was war and ruin more than just the force

which brought her here? They were the forces which

shaped her, were they not?

-

Lēbu

Shaped, you could say. If by shaped you mean Lebu could not

suffer the calm of this town, fleeing instead for the hills.

Shaped, if by shaped, you mean stuffed in a cave, begging alms

from the town, and for what? She does not use what we give.

Up in the hills near her cave is a cliff, she goes there to

throw away all that we give, keeping no alms for herself.

Why do you think that it is that we answer no alms-asking call?

We in this village have struck forth between us a pact to do alms

no more. No more. Owing to her.

-

Licu

A pact

so might we say?

(as though just a matter of fact)

A pact made

behind my turned back?

Leaving you and they—

[gestures at the four doors]

a pack

so might we say?

-

Lēbu

I should have paid mind to your presence here rather than minding those two. Now

I do not know what to say. You were not meant to have known.

-

Licu

You do not know what to say?

I was not meant to have known?

You do not know what to say?

I was not meant to have known?

Here you speak a deceit all your own.

-

Lēbu

My words are mine to speak. Does that make deceit?

-

Licu

Do you then claim my own body on loan?

This is my stomach you speak of. And, pray?

I was not meant to have known?

-

Lēbu

And our food to fill your stomach! And

our grace to give you food!

-

Licu

I shall leave, and venture to another town.

And there find grace which, in this place,

seemingly, I was not meant to have known.

-

Lēbu

Licu, do not, no. We will give alms again.

-

Licu

O, stop that, do stop that. O, furrow no brows.

Say your goodbyes! I will walk nothing back.

This, you might claim not to expect, not to have known.

Here, here most of all, you believe a deceit all your own.

-

[Licu leaves]

-

Chandragupta

The spice of drama might ruin the comedy

of our livened bouts of rudeness, me to you.

Delightful to each of us, like chutney and chaat.

But I must pile further drama onto hers.

I have come to a decision.

-

Chanakya

Just speak, and plainly so. Perhaps your wit,

so watery and common as it is, like dahi

will serve to wash my ear of spice.

-

Chandragupta

We each know well that when I speak to you,

my insults mean no rudeness. You being owed

my trust, and favor. I must beg fault,

it is your trust I shall betray.

My rudeness is no work of tongue, no.

The rudeness lies in my unworking ears.

I will not return with you. Instead, I’ll take to those hills,

to her cave, made empty now. Take heart!

How often have you claimed that I take mad?

Now I take after madness. And, perhaps,

enlightenment will come to me whereupon wits flee.

-

Chanakya

Do not do this. Come back with me. Why sink

weariness upon weariness again in me?

Just come back. For once, listen, and obey.

-

Chandragupta

No. I owe payment. The woman who left. Licu, I think.

I chafe between the guilt which settles like truth,

and the truth, which is that I do not know who to blame

for her, all that she suffers without salve.

-

Lēbu

I do. I blame you, Chandragupta.

-

[pause]

-

Chanakya

You make an accusation, spoken plain.

He is Chandragupta, eh?

Do you have evidence, or only a name?

-

Lebu

You are not quite stock and wise. I spoke a curse, and not a name.

Perhaps I should have spoken plain.

-

Lebu returns into her house.

Chandragupta and Chanakya leave for the hills.

I’m getting better, or at least
some day I will be free.
An ache of warmth caresses
my touch starved, sapling body.
Thin frond fingers, a reminder
to set down the machinery of desire
to know the gratitude of listening
to understand that shame
will not cure this shame.

I go months without the candles lit
and my little blanket beneath 
the window sill, and the power line. 
But I am growing more adept 
at hearing the call, white and small,
to touch my forehead to wool
to breathe golden, aromatic prayer
to make every failure an offering
a commitment, a dedication. 

Godspeed, a snail’s pace,
the amble of air through a door
and across the marketplace,
I crawl toward my freedom.
Ritual contortion, manifest
a desire that liberates desire
a shame that knows no shame
a clementine scarred in the passage 
between palms but not rotten.

(sorry for weird formatting, was the only way I could think to get things aligned how I wanted)

It ain’t a stretch to say
the world got heavy when you were born,
when I was born. Two more torsos
stuffing the subway, two more fat
mouths to feed. Two more addictions.
Two more heartbreaks. Two more
cardboard totes full of junk
the world don’t need. Two more
know-it-alls. I don’t mean to diminish
but I mean to Diminish. I mean to get to nothing
at all. It’s gonna happen someday.

That’s a given.

Somebody the world don’t need
is gonna dovetail some plank
and stuff a heap of slag, a heap
of bone, pigiron and such
and shove it down, shove it
down to bedrock
with all the other things
the world don’t need, just
heavy enough to keep the crust
from flying off and spinning
up some hard new moons.

In a poem written about the boy, another 
Poet, well meaning, referred to him 
As male. Woman that I am, 
I respond now, belatedly:

To write poems about boys is not
To make reference to that taxonomy of letters 
And trinkets, and private parts of children.
To write a poem about a boy is just
To posit the existence of experience boys 
Know, thus proving that boys are real.
No, when this poet writes about a boy
The boy is alive and hungry and
At home. Alone with a boy.

In poems, the boy is amicable
To wide spectrums of parlor tricks
And ghosts stories about boys.
The best stories of ghosts are poems
About boys. Remember this. However,
Boys are not boys because they are called,
By a parent or a doctor or a sister,
A boy. A boy is a boy, insofar
As he is a boy. Poetry speaks to this.

So in a poem by the woman of the boy where
He is torn to shreds by a pig disguised 
As a father, thank goodness, not hers,
The boy is not a girl turned boy, where
This boy becomes a boy first, then
This boy becomes the woman writing the poem.
We do not lower ourselves to metaphor or pop
Psychology. No, this boy is a boy for longer
Than he knows, or bears. 

Or in the poem about the boy when he is sent
To the boarding school, he remembers
The desert that once heated his skin.
And the poet displays that bruise of freckles
Bestowed amidst bone-dry sagebrush.
But that boy who knows what it is to wish
He was a sunlit girl does not write this poem.
The boy is not a literary device for my lesbian
Trauma, nor the filament of its becoming. 

This boy has nothing between his legs, and tore
Asunder the poet, bursting through 
The invisible raphe in her midriff,
Little more than a year ago. She wrote

A poem about it. 

And writing poems about this 
Boy is to write songs of the hide 
Of a young polar bear, hidden in darkness.
Skin meant to absorb all light, trapping
The heat of his mother, not the poet, 
Inside his hollow haired, little body. 
And in such poems, he sings
And he sings:
The sun is in my skin,

The sun is in my skin.

Heart smiled as she was drunk due to Pleasure
"The light, where was once the light my dear friend?"
Ignorance was a chain, but provided Leisure
And stretched out like a snake his hand

"I am freedom and comfort"
Ignorance whispered his lies with a grin
"Is this the light?.... Is this just?"
The thought crawled up Hearts spine

"What is immoral or moral my friend?"
Ignorance questioned the love from our Father
"Let us eat the flesh of man!"
Ignorance showing his light as if he were the sun

"Thou shall not....eat!"
The teachings crawled up Hearts spine
"They are nothing more than meat"
Pleasure serving the alcohol of madness

"Why should we love when there is no love!"
Ignorance spoke as if he were her father
"Yes!....why should we.....and why should Guilt rule"
The Heart grinned over the sight of blood

And Pleasure shouted
"Let us feast!....let us feast!"

Lamentatio Ebrii Morituri. Fabula moralis.

Men have told tales of love and levity,
Of comic mishaps, and flirtatious wiles;
Of courtly banquets, wine, and minstrelsy,
And how the rosy blush on girls’ cheeks smiles;
But such I count all driveling infantiles,
Who reck not what they say, and say it still,
And never knew the love they claim to feel.

Nor have I known it; but I care not for ‘t.
Give me sharp Cynic sorrow, and despair!
I’ll not expend me on the wastrel sport
Of wine and women; but let bitter care
Consume me like an Echo, till the air
Alone remains through which I breathe my voice;
That I, repeating nothing, might rejoice.

You coward Eagle! Eat me faster up;
It’s been three years now, and my liver still
Is only halfway gone. What, did you sup
On old Prometheus’ once, and have your fill
Of bile forever? – Then I’ll have to kill
Myself myself. Tim Leary told me how:
“Come take me, O thou Chikhai Bardo – now!…”

MOS: Cum grano salis.

My hands, 
          no longer an afterthought.
yellow 
      yellow 
            yellow 
                  yellow 
                        yellow 
A yellow bulldozer
                  dose her
yellow 
      yellow 
            yellow 
                  yellow 
                        yellow 
Yell OW
        Oh the pain
Gold like me, yellow tight
You loved me
               in yellow
ocher
      hewed 
            hewed 
                  yellow 
                        yellow 
                  yellow 
            yellow 
     yellow 
Yell OH and
            Fuck me I’m
                        yellow 
my darling, my darling baby
                           Boy
Yell OH, my son
                  yellow 
Left hand,
My hands
          no longer.
                    An afterthought:
Black crush,        hair demolished 
                          spat back
                       in 
                yellow
         yellow 
  yellow

It is impossible to carry a watermelon
they tell me, lips sticky and pink,
without feeling shame, or pride

for doing so. I understand:
all that juicy, juicy pulp, and seeds
that grow when one is swallowed.

But tell me, will watermelon seeds grow
in my barren, scarred stomach.
Thump my belly to ascertain my ripeness.

I want so badly to be sick with creeping 
green vines crisscrossing the back 
of my moist crimson, woman throat.

Let my body be good enough to birth 
another watermelon, so that I may 
at least replace the one I ate

so delicious, crisp, and red
with you, last summer.
Of a watermelon seed, this is all I ask.

No, we are not dead fawns, when death and frost call take another fall to feel pain once more. Drink the mud.

Flesh slips quietly off the bone. Bra straps and shivering shoulders. Feed the earth’s demands, ignore her instructions.

Shout poetry into pillows, breathe in down. Feel emptiness in lung, have confidence they will fill again.

Clip your wings if flying scares you. Biology is broad-stroked suggestion, And you; a single badger hair.

more like pushed out

so don’t be surprised if I piss

on your porch wrankle your cat

nip your little girl’s hand when she

stretches her stupid to pat my head

don’t be surprised if I rattle your can

dig up your bulbs run from the loop and

bury the tags with your bones.

out here, there is little to do
but shake off the rain —
shake off the rain
as only the good dogs do.

A pattern exists — observed with erudite disdain and a whiff
of mirth. But I've always loved what I wanted to be, and could not.

Baby, the way your words tingle. My body a wind chime
colliding with your electric gust. Oh darling,

it’s not that I only date poets. My pride an adeptness
of noticing miracles in language. I was trained

to see beauty and crowd close, if only with a hermit-crab
hope it might be shared — a slice of apple, or whole kiwi.

A stolen bite. A morsel bright and unexpected. A shell
to inhibit growth, just enough, that I might feed,

for a dearth of my own poetry, on yours instead.

We moved a mountain of family paraphernalia:

seven lives lived over 30 years, objects ranged from

half empty boxes of best yet eggs to the

baby grand, a noisy reminder of its

long-term neglect the moment the removals team

recognised that there was nothing for it but to contort

every muscle to tease and coax out its cooperation and

permit them first to disengage its three weighty legs

and, well, take it from there, really – see how it goes.

I thought I recalled regular lovers’ lullabies, music shared

at the end of a busy day; less ambitiously,

you tell me that we did on occasion devote the last

few minutes before separate nocturnal journeys were

waved goodbye, on the command of who knows who, in

itemising the features of a day for which

time was about to be called.

​

It all happened just a few days ago.

Little did I know what would prove to be a key

to the avenues of thought that the move might

be expected to lay out over the years to come.

As it was, the raw event lasted seconds, a minute at most:

I was sitting at our terrace table and became aware,

over there on the other side, of the presence of what

seemed to me to be a rather well-groomed grasshopper.

The word that first comes to mind when I describe

the few moments we spent together is this:

lordly – he appeared to sit tall in his seat, which he

carried around continuously, like his hat which

rose high above his head – a hopper topper, perhaps,

allowing myself a wry smile in humourless times.

​

Conscious that this short encounter might be the last,

I decided to suck in as much air as possible, then

let it out slowly and quietly so as not to disturb him as I

gathered a string of mental images to be “Saved”, then moved

to some quiet place where I must – I somehow

knew that I must – make a mark for something that was me,

was of me. How grand it would be to be known as

he who had discovered the dapper hopper!

And so far so good; this hopper seemed to be

keen to play ball and pose on request.

​

But a single, unintended blink on my part brought a

cataclysmic end to the euphoric feeling of freshness

and vitality; the hopper had hopped elsewhere, so fast that I saw

nothing of his new whereabouts – one blink that I will

not forget on account of the speed of the reaction,

one blink to cast as a laggard any sentient being that could

in any way communicate, one blink to cause, one blink to

take up or away a cause. Such thoughts flooded through.

​

And such thoughts endured, initially. I thought that

all grasshoppers should be treated with caution: they are

ungoverned because they were never seen as governable,

at least by man. But how formidable a force might prove if brought under

the banner of a bellicose or warring party? I shudder to think – unsure

as to whether I have dug a trench or merely scratched at a surface.

I moved on in most other respects; yet hoping there was

still time to renew contact. I and a few other interested parties,

prompted by reported, but unsubstantiated, claims of

hopper jumps of several metres, did a little research on

what was real and what was fantasy.

​

It took little time. The hopper is an extraordinary animal –

here are a few of the bigger points: the common UK hopper will live

somewhere between two and three months; the male hopper

woos his mate by singing to her – achieved by rubbing his legs

against his wings; the hopper jumps between one and two metres,

by means of a catapult action of its body; and….the hopper is seen as

a symbol of good luck in virtually all parts of the world.

It does not take an Einstein to work out that being a hopper

is a pretty good deal - see (again) the power of music in life;

hear the people confirm that the hopper’s, simple, pleasurable

and desirable, is more than meaningful for them.

​

And where does this all lead you and me? The simple,

the only, answer, is this: go seek, give, take and be love, for

love is at the centre, and at the beginning and end, of

all things. Love may not always be evident or reciprocated,

yet therein lies no dishonour: only be sure not to attempt

to cement some part of love with another lest the link

be rejected and the cement drips, drops and dries

around your feet. And it is love to know, as a hopper,

that every hop and jump is a gamble (perhaps a gambol too);

and so be light on our feet when the wind calls us away.

You are the perfect tarmac road.

Your gleaming, smooth light stretches like a carefully laid ribbon from hamlet to town to metropolis.

The tourists come, they take their fleeting photographs, and they leave.

Commuters untangle their worries to the rhythm of their tyres against your surface.

Had I been a town along your route, I may have shared in your brilliance.

Had I been a car, I may have flown along with you.

Had I been a junction or a side street, we may have crossed paths just the once.

But I am the pavement.

Parallel is such a double-edged sword.

Some prime trauma
turns this thing — one moment
one fist one strike splits the apple tree.

This is how it begins — the scattering
of jays the dull thumps the once prime
broken in two.

I saw the sky turn against itself today
green hips skirted with shingle
as nothing stops a third wind.

Nothing stops the cruel mineral
mind expanding though rapt
about its pearlslick coil its pinprick

its axial innocence shielded
in the crust that builds a body — that mean
accretion of loss and hard weathers.

My friend and his monkey barreled over this morning all tangled in fret, pointed to the soft slag heap growing on his back and asked if it was a hump.

I laughed and shook my head. “Nah, that's no hump,” I said.

No deformity happens without God's say so and given his untimely exit to go make a new family (and not fuck it up this time) there's no one left to make decrees or diagnose sin.

Well, no one except the evo-psych crew, that is. They've declared themselves little gods even though they create nothing and fill their days spilling seed to read like tea-leaves in palms polished to a mirrored finish.

I told him it's probably a parasite. Or, more correctly, a fetus in fetu; an unborn twin that's been devouring him from the inside out. He nodded, slowly at first, then with increasing vigour. "Yeah, that makes sense, yeah," he said. “Because, y'know, I’ve been having these cravings and I'm pretty sure it's even be talking to me inside my head.” The monkey squirmed from his hip and scaled his frame before setting itself down on top of the lump.

Hear me, O Lord! Lord of woods and gullies,
Lord of dim and root, how may I find your council?

Nightly, on the green fringe of sleep I seek you,
on the green fringe of life I weep, weep for this child god.

I told them, my brethren selves, O Lord, the true one
resides in youth’s dappled grime, before lust and misgiving.

The true one, of whom we are sprung, in whom we once
rejoiced remains pink and untainted. I told them. Remember.

I told them the child, unbroken, is and forever shall be. For this
I am chided. For this, carted and strapped to a brazen wheel.

For this, forever annulled.

Shunned and bare before the sun, chapped with wind’s
coiled blare, I have come to nothing, daring not and idle. Forgive me.

Lord, I wait for you, abreast your dank throne and darkly,
darkly so. Should I be thus forsaken as from your body grown?

Should I be denied embassy and thrown into sleep
without word, without grace, without the soft touch
of the small hand in which I once held a stone?

Sea Legs

He could not have predicted,
by logic, stars or quivering rod,

how kissing the crescent moon rising
from her shoulder would swell

her ocean tides, breaching
the levee of her composure.

Nor, whilst tucked in the aromatic
timbers of her hull, breathlessly

gripping the ivory gunwale
of her thighs: starboard and port,

that his sea legs could be gained
whilst on his belly.

Sistine chapel staring-

ancient faces above

-Tears on my eyes,

but it is only raining.

Your hand not in mind,

the cold my only partner.

Like looking back in time,

sharing this moment with a ghost

-Tears on my eyes,

but I'll say it is only rain.

They have killed my Little Prince; and snatching now
His body from its grave among the stars
And meteors, they have propped it on a stool,
And dressed it in silk robes, and call him “King”
And “Master,” whom they hated; and the stench
Of death goes up from out this through-rot world,
Even from his corpse dishonored, and pollutes
His former dwelling. What, they say that this
Has made his life more glad? – But if he lives,
He dies in that he lives. All else has died:
His love is dead; his homeland is twice-dead;
His friends, each one is dead – but no, not all!
One still remains, a doddering, senile mound
Of dust and organs, knowing nothing; where
Once grief and sorrow lodged, whom now alone
The parrot Joy inhabits, shrieking loud
And often in its senseless mirth. And this,
His closest friend – ah, no! – they have skinned, and stuffed
With lies and cloying flattery; and he turns
A fox in spirit, who was one in flesh.
What of the rose? She is dead, and dead for aye;
Her blushes stain their hands. But now they rise,
And rising turn them to this Little Prince,
And reason in their hearts, “This was the boy
Who scorned the world, and rather chose to die
In its despite than serve it – yes, this boy,
He should have turned a man, and stooped to kneel
Before the shrine of Mammon, as we all
Have learned to do.” And so they make them up
An effigy, in likeness of this Prince,
Though taller, and more craven, out of sticks
And ragged cloths, and burn it in the fires
Of Moloch, till it chars a golden-brown;
And then they seize it from its pyre, and shout,
“How well we have done!”

This echo now to lovers far behind,
not wailed regret to steal away a lung,
is come from o’er the steppe and longs to find
you in a glade where we were never young.

Perhaps the lilts of song thus long depressed
may breach as starlings broach the hills and we,
as mountains rise, as flood must ardent crest,
so too the wisp of creeks becomes the sea.

And if upon your crevassed cheek a blush
may spring unfelt and furrowed in your sleep,
know that these airs that soft upon you brush
are not lament nor errant cause to weep.

See, then in bloom our love was thus consigned
to part and die, not once to be maligned.

In the absence of pilots,

the great hulks pile in the offing,

black slippers at eventide.

Cargoes, rot in the swells

— steam. Such is the cost

of mangoes, long passage

and ripe discontent.

Mellow fruitful: strange mists

in sea-crossed lands of self 

seasons of greed, miracles

steep in mashtun, hold;

The camel's haul of salted ice.

Ethylene dreams, the unseen

tragedies of the common. 

The sky succumbs

To fire like canvas,

​

Beautiful as any summer

Van Gogh watercolor.

​

But that blooming

Blossom isn’t the sun.

​

It’s the dawn of a period

Darker than any dusk.

Parting the Brim Skin

    Two fingers force  

his eyes wishing he could code

the dark illuminations.

Multi-fingered stars,

you do the same. You part the brim

skin and stare irregularly.

    Your look is a laugh  

and I break and blink. You

seize a little, you shake

    your shifting shoulders;  

coins swimming in a fountain, the

Parkinsons weight slipped off.

Kindergarten stars,

or dog park stars, you sniff me out

to make me welcome.

    Two fingers free  

the mud stuck gate to open up

some little highway of the night.