midway through velvet incarceration

The boyish facade of that dynastic king

promises a pyramid of facsimile amusement,

a lame gold mask that falsely tames the rural mile,

and royally tenders the shrieking greens of spring.

What is drawn from the sapphire clouds

is also condensed in a spooky window:

a solo pine cone alone is spared in view

atop the hallowed spokes of spiral rubber.

Sycophantic circus freaks shuffle at last,

worshiping the retro karaoke of pecking divas,

at last the howls of where and squeals of when

are burst from the belly of a bulging tomb:

welcome to the threshold of banality.

Spun in a syrupy four part stigmata

odd sockets of the savior's sugary skull

have ceased to be a harmony that soothes.

Little Tina's sweet shack is barely stocked,

but emotions run high when the carny's in town.

Encounter
acrylic/fluted sbs
40"x27"

There has been a recent visitor to my house.

rain is a painter...

.

rain is a painter
--------------------- with a brush
---------------------------------------- as big as the sky

and a pail of paint
------------------------- as deep as our hearts

she wets
------------- the dry soul of
---------------------------------- our disbeliefs

and paints
--------------- the black streets
------------------------------------- with
-------------------------------------------- dot
-------------------------------------------- dot
-------------------------------------------- dot
-------------------------------------------------- of green-orange-yellow leaves


she prints
-------------- the lonely sidewalks
----------------------------------------- with the hands of
----------------------------------------------------------------- sycamores


tiny
-- ----- lively
----- ------ ---- unfamiliar
------------------ ------- ---- fingertips
------------------------ ---------- ---- ---- are
------------------- -------------- -------------- - -- galore



she leaves
----------------some rainbow streaks
---------------------------------------------on the face of the walls

and renders
------------------ a fresh aura
------------------------------------- to the hackneyed
-------------------------------------------------------------- forms of the cars


she covers
--------------- soulless
--------------------------- moving
--------------------------------------- beings
------------------------------------------------- with agitated strokes of a dove

and paints
------------- our empty eyes
--------------------------------- with
----------------------------------------- the immortal
---------------------------------------------------------- color
------------------------------------------------------------------- of
------------------------------------------------------------------------ love...

.

my calling card ~

They Say, Times 3

I.
They say,
Those who won't learn
the spirally past
are doomed to walk
its re-coiling paths
again, and I can't
argue with precedent.
I can point out,
my present and future
doubts, kneeling
down with guttersnipe
gifts and a candle
lit up to appease
history's stalking ghost.
What I really want
is to snuff it.

II.
They say,
This world's gotta date
marked expiry
and it's all set to go
sour with a big bang
or a small bust
out from the fridge
of twenty-twelve's
wintry chilling.
Lately, there have been
jumbo packs of weirdness
spilling onto
every last shelf,
but things got strange
long before the Mayans
began tying knots.

III.
They say,
you can take the brutish
and dress them up
natty, extolling
their hirsute
vices in basso
profundo voices
till we all queue
back to snatch them.
I've heard the jingle,
but I'm drawn instead
to wisdoms spoken
by officials
not officially
allowed to speak.
Their off-the-record's nice
and scratchy.

poem in a notebook found under a seat in a trailways bus, january 4, 1974

i'm special i'm not like other people i'm different i can feel it they walk around waiting to die but they don't know it they say they do but they don't really if they did why would they care about nixon or agnew or mick jagger or sonny and cher or hitler or napoleon or jefferson davis as for me i've always known i am going to live forever because life is an illusion and nothing really happens except in the eternal brain and i am the eternal brain me that's right - me i used to go to the library and read all the books when i didn't have money for the movies one day i was sitting at a table in the library reading the doctor by robert southey because it was the biggest ugliest book with the smallest print in the whole library it was raining outside it wouldn't stop i was in the mood for a little panhandling but somehow i couldn't get up i just sat there i needed the money it was time rain didn't bother me wind either so why didn't i get up? suddenly a great light flashed (it's always a great light, isn't it?) nobody else saw it because they were just people just folks but i was the eternal brain i had another book on the table my favorite astrology book, astrology and you by sydney omarr and in the sudden flash of light i realized i wasn't really a leo i was the whole zodiac i was the universe everything happens in my brain where else would it happen? joshua and the battle of jericho christopher columbus and robert e lee davy crockett and the alamo and wilbur and orville wright and al capone they all never happened except in my brain - the universal brain i'll get up and go back out in the rain i'll keep on walking and everybody else will die off one by one and then whole cities i'll walk though the old and new deserts until there is nobody left but me and i won't have my hand out i'll have it raised to the sky it's always a great light, isn't it?

one with exuberant smile

one with exuberant smile,
shield and a form of sword,

dure as baked tile, glazed,
brittle boned. worn smooth

not so by age as such born—
bred, yet still wet gilled

and scaled; embarked on marathon
crawl to marrow and a dawn.





----
hello to all FoS poets
and followers,

this is a first
attempt for me over here--
i'm honored to be included
in such fine company.

i hope this little one
is appropriate.

noxy.
----

_______righteous_______ rulers_______

.

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__________________________________________________m_e_a_s_u_r_e____________________

____________________________________________________________________t_h_e_m________

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idim
inish
likean
eraser

.

lion pause

abstract lion paws
conjoin as glyphs
in a chain

pause of a line
a stabbing
in the heart
of heraldry
certainly

a book
must enter
its shelf

jointed letters
pause to claw
and hold
one another

one another

unraveled main connections

Jenny...thank you for inviting me to your talented group!

The Unobtainable Stars

I am 7.
I decide to become a Jedi
to fight against the evil dark-side,
but the night still scares me
and I pull sweaty covers over my eyes
as my flashlight begins to flicker;
I put my faith in the force
and the fear slowly passes
like clouds over the moon,
stars appearing in-and-out of sight.

I am 14.
Girls do not talk to me,
so I try to move things with my mind:
pencils, paper weights, my teacher's
right and left breasts.
I seem to fail at everything.
I stare directly into the sun
in hopes that I might soak in the fire,
maybe obtain the power of a superman;
my doctor soon prescribes me glasses.

I am 28.
I have been taught everything
that I have ever wanted to know,
and begin to construct my own philosophy.
Some exclaim, “Magic!”
They seem to believe that I have powers,
and I become more than human
as I drink in the high praise of my followers;
I will find something new for them,
something special, something more
than simple thoughts for change.

I am 56.
I have perfected the power of knowledge
and many hang on every word I touch,
yet I have not found my supernatural gift,
my destiny to have one ability
that no one else will ever have—I want
to look up and fly over the trees,
and I need to be the only one.
Staring at a cloud covered moon,
I wait for my chance to taste
a quick reflection of the son.

Crude Person

Crude Person
Improvised Mixed Media - Corsallagh Bog, Sligo Ireland on Earth Day 2010


I consider the whole Earth Day stuff to be nothing more than superficial, corporate. political and media rubbish, as is mainstream modern environmentalism in general. So I did this more to point the finger at these armchair environmentalists and posers who think they are "saving the planet" by worshipping a hypocritical charlatan such as Al Gore. The fact that he praised the US Navy for designing a Carbon-Neutral Jet Bomber which can slaughter people in the Middle East for oil in an "environmentally ethical manner" just showed up this entire insane crusade for what it is.

Jonquils and Naught

Jonquil, the word drops

from your mouth like two weighted marbles.
They roll on the heartwood floor and out

the screen door into the front

garden where you spent the morning

writing letters to your missing brother

who was born twenty nine years ago

in the month of May, two weeks

late, and already out of breath.

Been three months since his last call.

February then, the lawn bitter, stunted,

still furious at the sun. Not much said.

You didn't press him--kept his

words achingly polished in the wet parlor of his throat Well, I... I will... soon... see you--

but if you could, you would have

reached right in, right down, right 

through that rigid duct to finger, 

just once, the word you knew was there,
unfurling like a bulb that blooms in reverse

in the darkness that sustains what is underground

The Ravens of March

Gaining a Perspective on Earth Day

She stood
thus, I wrapped fleshy
tendrils about scratchy
bark and consoled her
for all the trees I imagined,
rightly or wrongly,
were sacrificed to rusty
notions of progress
neatly packaged in
emporium form;
the saffron leaves
and peppery roots
lost to dusty
reverberations.

That's when
the crow came,
glowing eyes above
fierce wings, his caw
hinting at mockery:
"Don't flinch,
I'm here to help,
and you'll not get far
imposing such
improper intentions."

"The trick," he went on
reassuring me,
"is to always
stand apart.

"Yesterday's sigh becomes
tomorrow's squall
unless today's kept
at a distance.

"Fly up,
but not too fast, or
the only thing you'll feel
is dizzy."

And that,
without another word,
is just what
he did.

Night Reflections

Van

During the 1970's and 80's there were urban legends circulating in mostly small provincial towns in the USA and Canada of white vans being driven by clowns, which were capturing teenagers. These teenagers were always 'the good, kind kids' and would never be heard from ever again. The White Clown Van Panic caused a state of terror in parts of the Midwest to the point were state troopers lay in wait to capture these white vans. Even though none of these stories had any basis in truth.

Turning this idea upside down - here is a van I made. It has one purpose to travel across the Earth collecting the life energy of sociopaths which it uses to power itself.

As sociopaths have no souls the Van creates no pollution. It drives into a town. Collects the life energy of the sociopaths and then leaves town. The community is then free from the misery, distortion and the nonsense sociopath's create. Everyone is happy afterwards.

The Van drives all over the world crossing the oceans by driving along the sea bed until the last sociopath's life energy has been collected. Then the Van will collapse in on itself, until all its sub atomic particles are condensed and packed into the density of Neutron Star. At this point it will fall to the center of the Earth. Following this, there is nothing but happy and uncomplicated communities all over the surface of the planet.

M I double S

Lorelei,
I hear a whisper
on your breath

And the void
you left behind
is forever untying
all
my
ribbons

Down below
the confusion
is impossible to deny

But up here
reflection
is the only perspective

Dressing down,
a lesser sense of self
Faceless and hiding,
social constructs cast aside

Pressing the mortal mass together
Words uttered
from two lips twice denied

And
how can the sun dare to shine
when you are not here?

a sharp solid wail

inside the orb;
he’s framed all right but
a flat tire anyway
Frulle's sharp solid wails
while waxing a disc
the studio is murky and
contrasts mature on the exterior lawn

there are only the automatic voices
of elevators this late
chatting plexiglas doors responding
to microchips slow-moving
runways behind cobalt hurdles

(PO Johnson and Ande)


Note: Ande and I have had quite some collaboration over the net and we managed to do a joint ebook (free). He did most of the editing and selected the photos. Great job. There are some huge collaboration software tools nowadays! :)

Me and Ande also talked about if this could be something for Flowers of Sulfur, creating an ebook of poems and artwork. It is free to do this on lulu.
To top it all, we also wrote a joint poem (above).

Between Seven and Nine

Social Networking

With Ten Thousand Friends,

Nine Nine Six Nine be Hidden.

Who needs the Blather?

How We Understand Space

I slide between narrow rows of pines
crunching needles under soft feet
and note the paleness of the horizon
through green and tangled branches.

Christmas is all I smell:
eggnog, wrapping paper, chopped oak
burning a red flavor through the house.

I step past the framed columns of trees
and stand at the edge of a field;
the world looks broken from here,
caught under these dreary eyes,
frozen in shambles until the spring.

I wish I could speak of the sun—
registers shooting warm air into gloves,
the heat keeping us safe for tomorrow.

Bare fingers chilled numb by the wind,
my pockets loaded with pine cones,
I call myself the walking tree
as I step through the empty field
pushing seeds into the snow and ice.

A quiet warmth sets through my veins
as the sap and dust sticks to my clothes
and nothing is left to do but wait;
out here, memories are never certain,
but maybe I will not die alone.

Bad Water
acrylic/canvas

aprox. 4ft x 5ft

I wanted to contribute somthing to this facinating page.......
the reading and writing is unique, and holds intrest .
I wanted to thank jenny for the invite, hope to do more in the future.
you all are a tallented bunch, I feel fortunate to be included.

Urban Skyline in a Tree Stump

Discovered in the Ox Mountains, Co. Sligo Ireland at the weekend. A fitting metaphor for the collapse of rampant property speculation worldwide.

Dutchman’s cold

Absorption against
the back wall cement
smells good
the Dutchman’s cold dynamite tells me
our bond strength is
so tight
walking around the caulking compound
smoking
it’s Monday morning
a mist is imminent

The Big Fight.

no flank pink

no pug unity

i see a boxer

working out

under a mirrored cube

suddenly panels open on all four sides

mirrored panels

and out comes a lot of ivy

now the boxer

must fight

the ivy

A Proper Diagnosis

after The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters


"...the idling Spirit
By its own moods interprets, everywhere
Echo or mirror seeking of itself, 
And makes a toy of Thought."
                         -Coleridge, "Frost at Midnight"

1.
Then look again, my Dear Caroline.

The Little Stranger is outside the parlor,

clanging candlesticks against the balustrade.

She emerged in gusty soot the moment 
you scolded the scullery maid

for leaving the boot-room strewn with straw.

Fire is not a trial worth tempting.

You have a weakness, Dear, like your 

brother (now under the care of the Vicar of St. Albans).

The brandy is not this weakness; only

an amber mirror that shatters

down the throat. 

2.
The Estate was broken shortly after the War, the second, the flamethrower, that scorched the smutty skirts of London and menaced the greeny shires with invisible smoke. There was no more room for such a pile in the Midlands where rural families suddenly were in need of washrooms segmented plots. And here it must be said that an ancient home will become agitated when it's foundation is threated. Pockets of air, filled with things that have happened--like the dark space beneath the second floor landing where a small boy once bounced a pig-skinned ball over and over and over as his nursery-maid shouted for him from above--remain and beg attention in the silliest of ways.

3.
Poor Roddy was never properly
held by his mother. That must account
for his abnormal admiration for the flame.
The touch of fire is like no other touch:
a blue kiss, a digging tongue 
that rewrites the skin.
For the starved of love, a lick
of ember is the milky nipple 
never pulled.


Poor boy. How he loved that
second floor landing, dark and
tight and warm like the red-lined
walls of flesh in which he began.

4.
A skull is really a mansion, isn't it? An estate with the most complex configuration of wings: branches and barnacles off-shooting in fissured currents from plate of bone to plate of bone. And all that meat in between where our full-length mirrors reflect every instance, every occurrence from pink unwinding to grey goodbye...

5.
...and the strangers that hide behind them, 
and the strangers that move within them.

There and Here (a cleave poem)

there, come upon a greening once

in ticked and timely woulds

where all footed plantings have danced and swirled,

he takes a speculative girl

they tip-toe tentative steps of belonging

to meet, to part, join fingers and twirl

till they reach an inevitable verge

but with each successive passing

of the will to do and was not true

she grows fainter in his mirrored should and

their shy shadows wobble in recognition that

her hands can only feebly grasp at

what's lost is found, but never bound to

this fading pane of here

Haves and Have-Nots

Two bags of clothes from
the Red Cross. Hopefully a
couple of decent t-shirts since
summer is coming up. Maybe
something from Neiman Marcus.
Cut through the grass where
single-speed bikes have
made a two-inch sized trail.

Trying to cover up that
he wasn't standing at the
back of the building looking
through the bin for an hour.
The embarrassment sits on
his shorts in the form of a
mustard stain.

I hugged your son with my eyes today.
I just wanted you to know.

Sour Milk

Merry is the marionette,
almost a miniature man, who finds
his wires new-severed do flap
where once strum-tight they dictated
the when to fall octopus-limp
or to dance a sprightly jig
accompanied by silly jug tunes
he never even liked.

Stringlessness comes at a price.
On disjointed steps, Merry
would he have to make his own way
as an unprovided walker.
He sets out, philosophical
tomes in hand, for the wooded
fringes where a brook gurgles
and he'll grapple with consequence.

"I have a goodly appetite,"
Merry remarks. "I'll attack
these meaty words with fork and knife."
But the ideas do stew
and uncomfortably stowed
between Being and Nothingness,
Merry wonders whether freedom is
not what he bargained for.

Just then he's startled by the tug
of wires gone taut, and caught up
by the dangle of an enormous
eagle, its talons eagerly
trying to untangle the strings
of a new play thing. Merry
might have wept, but who could cry
over the spilling of sour milk?

Clean Slate Blues

Color and fire of new plants
Stoic edifice of bark faced trees
Sudden gifts from a silent wood.

Sun, heavy with purpose
Rough scratching the soft skin of winter
Red...
Stand in the heavy honey
Gentle winds forgetting.

A prayer from the the mouth of a passerby
Soul stirred with crisp remnants of autumn
The devilish dust, dust devils
Disappearing where dust declines

I bequeath my REM

 

sleep to you

in an envelope, licked twice

to seal with sitcom

laughter

reels, jazz standards

bleeding eyes and a whole bunch of fresh

squeezed

everything

like in the good the good old days

like in the good the good old days

like in the good the good old days,

baby.

-Hannah Miet

It was along a river that I never heard

"There are varied responses to the process of
socialization. Many acquiesce and replicate
with their children what their parents did to them.
Others do not. In clinical observation, we can oscillate
the difference."
Thorsten Heisendykker, The Bland Mirror of the Medusa Ego

i. Once more, into that pesky garden

Prickly troubled being burst forth again
along the newly spaded furrow of jaded roses,
often bubbly wrapped as a hapless thorny stem
against the rubber boots of a tame green calf,
often pitched by the sleeping wight of life
or the soiling dreams of ever-blooming black:
yikes! the concrete square is so sweaty rich
with the capillary dew of bloody aspiration.

In the swampy mist a hunkered rail
quakes in mirth as the banshees wail:

a two-clawed braid of mossy twist
with elbows blue towards bluer sky
in a heathen dance of heathered mists.

And so it ends and so it begins.

ii. Climb every anthill until you reach

From the violet calm of my omega
I saw the alpha swirl of contenders

dissipate and cease to snarl at rivals.

I had a chartreuse tiffin with twin black straps
and a plastic zipper that never stuck
to carry fruits and nuts and yogurt:

persimmons and clementines mostly,
an occasional prickly pear-
blanched almonds and pistachios,

savory with the salt of the sea.

I watched your reflection
but the sun came out
and you went in
squeaking a hinge behind,

blankly.

I parked my aqua truck in a narrow space

and solved the white brick puzzle.

Cutting the deck with every breath,

was it brave, then, to draw another?

I spun with the cirrus in a fulcrum of air,

I spun with the mud that had clumped in your hair,

I spun and my eyes were white and nowhere.

And spun and spun, spun again.

b(l)ind...

.

nuit
ou
jour
tu es
invisible
comme le vent
mais
je t'écoute

.

rebellion,

Acid chlorine bleach
between the cleaning lady's hands
she works competently
from stand to sofa
electrostatic attraction
between her hands
she kind of likes this
it's better than emptiness
foam is
between her hands
a man reading fitzgerald behind the table
interfacial tension
bleaching belly

she serves him chloride base instead of
soda water
molecules adrift now
space where time
is rotting
he drinks universal
solvent and it tastes so good

An April Fool Ends Badly

In that age of aged seasons
predating our own's four-square rhyme,
a reasonable jape was hatched
beaked but hairy to a guilt-free Hen
whose humors ran with jaw-slackening
creatures, foul and not at all bird-like.

Soon after its mixed-up cracking,
two prattle-prone Wrens hopped to spread
rumors of an un-chickity chick
and the ungodly origins
of fatherless yowls. Their tittered jeers
found welcome ears, and Mother Hen preened
her babe chased by merciless guffaws.

This Hen was not one to lay
down meekly, and a never stony
tongue rolled out its antidote myth
to a pair of gabby Gulls: "My child
may look not-much, but he's divine
engendered and miraculous born.
Sure he's messy, ah, but you'll see
he'll grow to be, much-much-more than
any feathery tykes your like did bear."

She clucked it so seriously,
who were they to doubt her? The plumed
sniggering ceased. But before another
grateful day could dawn in a hallelujah
glare of right angles, out pecking
up a snack, Mother made eye
contact with an unfortunate Fate
brandishing his lucky-gripped ax.

What of her wonder-why, joke of a boy?
Left alone at straw-pocket home,
waiting for his Hen to return,
he starved then decayed to hollow bones,
and was never thought of again.

stop me if you've heard these before

lord humphrey had a pet white mouse and when he wasn't shooting grouse he whiled away the night and day engaging the rodent in repartee in the parlor of his ancient house lets go sit in the park all day until it gets dark it it rains we won't care it's the answer to the flowers prayer and it won't even leave a mark sister sophie, a modest young nun decided to soak up some sun when her discarded habit was eaten by a rabbit she cried 'i'll be a daughter of a gun!' a temperance lady named june busted up the local saloon with her mighty truncheon she destroyed the free luncheon and the drunkards warm cocoon a postal inspector named sage was on the lookout for gage when a package came by he said, if this only contains some good spliff i could make a living wage a bear and an antelope went into the park to grope when an evil park ranger named murdock t granger sold them some very bad dope josie's kitty climbed a tree because it wanted to be free perched below the topmost leaf it looked down with pure relief at josie's weeping misery all humans are the same all humans are insane they pretend to be civilized but that is just a bunch of lies as they walk in the devils rain mary jones washed rich folks sheets and her daughter walked the streets and made more money in fifteen minutes than mary in her whole life - that's sad isn't it? listen to the rain as it beats listen to the rain as it beats on the windows and in the streets it swirls and falls it murmurs and calls listen to the rain as it beats