I’ve decided to follow Horace
after you,
Dear.
So I’ll try to remain
a little bit here
in the middle
in order to return
the favor to my
cloud-hidden future
that will come
off the mountain
when it wants to,
when it wants,
when IT wants to.
Sudden or slow.
And
remember
that, my only heart.
(Note: There plenty to be thankful for this week, including a full week of new work from Co-Editor Dale Williams Barrigar. He is truly an encouraging and talent person, and I’m certain that readers will agree–Leila)
Twirling
around
around
around
like falling
your naked arms
fly down
to your
bare toes
almost as if
you
were
really there.
(Sir Andy Hisster)
Andy knows the truth
He keeps it in his bended ear
He rattles my cage and shakes the key:
“Poor human, guilt gives you unnatural fear
Cats and Dogs don’t make up demons and gods
That look like the fool you see in the mirror.”
(Alice. D. Doe)
Alice D. Doe is both kind and wry
She enjoys ivy and never asks why
She keeps her nose to the wind
And ears on alert
She’s all right with the birds
But Bluejays are jerks
(Skully before)
Skully the skell put his girl through hell
He laughed when she pulled out the ax
(After)
Skully has laughed his last
Thanks to a boney lass
i
Nikky Smonnicks is a ghost without a host
No one died to make him
Some say not so, they say he lived and he was a cabin boy from the Barbary Coast
But that turned to be a corsair lie told to stake him
To the mirthless earth of self made men
So say they who long to be the flesh Nikky had forsaken
ii
Any ghost can be a special spirit
Human beings seldom get near it
Ghosts are burned clean at life’s end
The quick must unshackle from liens and wills and dishonest trusts before they are completely all in given
iii
Nikky Smonnicks it seems never lived nor was a stillborn child fitted with a shell common in both heaven and hell
He began as a ghost completing a journey never begun
How can this be, someone like he, a song finished yet neither written nor sung?
It matters not in the end even non-events can be considered done
iii
So welcome to the afterlife without a before, the angels and demons hope you are fun
You are an unlikely hair on the head of time
A Zombie in reverse
A long running show never rehearsed
And the reason why The Book of the Dead
is off by one
The Amoral: One needn’t live to be successfully dead
i
ignorance is profuse
ignorance ever ‘mounting
ignorance sounding clues
to vacant armies surrounding
ii
ignorance knows squat about karma
ignorance does know jokes about yo mama
ignorance shrill and vile
it exists to sicken and spits verbal bile
iii
ignorance like wine spilled on a fine table cloth
ignorance sees no irony in a pastel goth
ignorance only wants to win
easy, jig, ignorance lets the air in
iv
ignorance is sesequipedalian
ignorance is mainly mammalian
ignorance is an ever spreading disease
like evil, the second concept of being
It was not supposed to end like this
A parking garage over the abyss
Wall-eyed Bob used to cogitate
From his stool in 19-something-and-8
he’s dead
like Viv and Tom
and that
other Bob
and that
Robin so ugly
save for blue eyes
and that
weird little guy
Who sang like Merle Haggard
On Karaoke Night
Glaciers creep down mountain faces
No one alive will see the changes
An inch a year means not ten feet to lives
Whose times were measured by Saturday nights
i
How far are you willing to fly
To find a vicar to shine your mind
What insult will you bear
In grace for a ten percent share
ii
Who’s gonna to serve your mass
Now
That you’ve departed the blue ball of
Vow
Indulge your sins and pledge your soul
To me
The Pope of Alpha Centauri
iii
The universe is an endless second chance
But everywhere it is still a dimebag a dance
Open up and for a tiny fee
You can be an angel wild and free
Courtesy of me
The Pope of Alpha Centauri
iv
Pain is the same inside every skin
And the losses still out number wins
Take four years at the speed of light
Everyone in hell loves the night
Endless and without memory
The Pope of Alpha Centauri
i
The billigits flew a loopty loop around Heathcliff
“poor fellow, lucky in land yet poor in love
we know you long for sweetness’ fair lift
follow us to the wiccan meadow and you will soon praise the above”
ii
“‘Tis you wee bastards a-now and again,
Who fritter my feelings on strange dames
Love is nothing except heartbreak and pain;
Far as I care you can feed hell’s flames.”
iii
This was not the reply the billies were obliged to get
So that’s when snow fell on where it was sent
They ushered frozen Heathcliff to Eira’s abode
Some fellas are doomed to do as told
iv
Now we have reached the forever after
May it be marked by progeny and laughter
But as anyone who deals with people knows
We keep the lament and throw out the rose
(We hope that you have enjoyed the Springs first dabble in epic poetry; ‘tis for the rabble and in-the-know-etry)
i
The wee billigits draw energy from an orgone cube
Housed inside an ancient phone booth
Three made jokes about superman
The fourth wee one didn’t understand
ii
“clark kent changed to superman in a phone booth
i cannot believe you are so obtuse”
to which the offended billie put up his little fists
and said “watch me change your face to a bruise”
iii
billigits three and four had seen enough
time is wasted by those who play rough
“have you fellas forgotten we were launched into the sky
by the witch with love in her eye”
iv
The four billigits got on the same page
And decided to find a good guy to sooth Eira’s rage
That’s when they saw hapless Heathcliff strolling across the moor
An idea appealed to the wee four
i
“Make it rain to drown the pain”
The junior Witch said again and again
The billigits are churlishly mellow
They whisper what you want to bellow
ii
“madam fair yet so au contraire how will you employ us
to find you a lad not a cad beyond the surface
but you can make it rain to fill every cracked surface
we wonder are you seeking love or something to plug the orafice”
iii
Eira was enraged by the little orange knights’ audacity
She placed the four billies into a catapult
“Across the moors with you tiny bores
You should know the score by the time you hit Cincinnati”
iv
But Eira had forgotten that billigits fly
And upon reaching the highest sky
They orgone rayed the clouds
And the rains came hard and proud
Saragun Springs 