...stares...16jun19...

There is no regalia in the sun light, but pomp
As you may see me
Yet I may see differently in my stare

Fantastic things
Star fields of brilliant color
That paint the vivid fields of night
Aback the costumed trees that seemingly dance
Stretching up, undulating to the rhythmic wind

Creatures that bray and chortle
in musical choir
a chorus you've yet to hear
(but even now you may delight to think what it may be)
Night birds in ancient song
lull us to simplest pleasures

By the shore
of painted waters
perhaps you are there
with languid line
your voluminous hair
and soft nape
drape to a soft arm
that, with lighted touch,
upon the merry streams
as if keys
or chords

Forgive my stare then
It may not what you think it be

Forgive want
As it may be just a memory
that can only be
in reverie

Mistake it not
for anything that
may be truth
as what a
heart's beat
may only be.

Es lässt sich nicht lesen...10jun19

Ce grand malheur, de ne pouvoir etre seul. - La Bruyere

"The Man of the Crowd" - Edgar Allen Poe

"Men die nightly in their beds, wringing the hands of ghostly confessors, and looking them piteously in the eyes - die with despair of heart and convulsion of throat, on account of the hideousness of mysteries which will not suffer themselves to be revealed.  Now and then, alas, the conscience of man takes up a [burden] so heavy in horror that it can be thrown down only into the grave."

Furtive.  That was the word the ghost of Samuel Burbage struggled for as he floated about the bed of Lawrence Count, age 72, New Shoreham RI.  Lawrence here has a furtive look about his eyes.  It was pitch in the room, but a ghost can see everything.  It was an attribute only available to the dead.  It was once a specialty to spirits, but the technology age did a great injustice with the invention of night mode.  Not that they can see everything.  Old Saint Michael had told Burbage over a game of bridge, "They may try to see the weakest of a light spectrum, but they'll never be able to capture feelings."  Burbage and a cohort from old Maryland, Tanner, watched Saint Michael closely.  "Watch how he counts the multipliers: I think he mixes clubs for spades."

Lawrence had *the* glow.  A guilty man.  A man who has to live with himself everyday.  He hates the world because he doesn't operate within it.  He cannot amend himself to life, so he makes mistakes.  He stacks guilt atop missed opportunities atop minor indiscretions.  He thinks he prays.  "He prays only to himself, he knows no GOD."  Saint Michael pointed him out and through the fog of miasma came to Lawrence.

"Why do we do this, Arch Angel?"

"All we can do is try Burbage.  If Tanner did haunt you, and you didn't repent, well, you wouldn't be here to do the same."

"This isn't a reward, Michael."

"Didn't say it was Burbage.  But it is the RIGHT thing to do."

So Burbage came to the creeping hour half-heartedly.  As Lawrence finished thoughts on the day's events, then a binge through a half-baked series on a streaming service, he started for bed.  Lawrence knew Burbage was there, even just a little, because the lights would come up in a blaze to make the trek up the stairs and down the hall.  Oh, he acted brave, but I could see the gait change, the odd periphery glances.  Burbage put his hands on Lawrence's back and he could feel him shiver.

Lawrence would 'read' before bed (if you catch my drift men) which Burbage was thankfully pulled from.  "Yes, we can see it...but, do you want to see?"  The answer 19 times out of 20 'no'.  The others were reassessed, you see.

Then the lights would go out and Burbage would whisper in Lawrence's ear, "Fluffernutter, fluffernutter."  Use words that make no sense to the living.  They hate that.  Except for fans of Sid Caesar.  Use the word 'sausage' then.  [Jonas Sinkletter was a grand writer of the Guide.]

Lawrence would grind himself into his blankets.  Burbage could sense it all in his glow: Count treated others as 'below' him, although the dissonance in that attitude is weighed in their own trappings.  Count had no real friends.  He had a wife that left him, running off with Anyman ages ago.  (Anyman had an interest and that was all that was needed.)  Count collected things and we know where that leads.  In the end Lawrence Count had little, so he expressed it in an ego so fragile it could balloon and break several times in the course of a day.  And so late in life to boot.

"Fluffernutter, dummy."


"It's not too late, Michael?"

"I didn't say that, Burbage.  You have to do what you can.  They make the choice."

"Fluffernutter, idiot."

"I'm not being graded, Michael?"

"You're already here, Burbage."

"Good.  I can't say I'm particularly good at this."

"Burbage."

"Fluffernutter."

...

The new day came and Burbage was long gone: the twilight and witching hour passed.  Lawrence Count noted his silliness at the nightly fear again.  But true rest escaped him and it did gnaw, even just a little.

Remembering the world is a bunch of idiots gave him the energy to start his day anew.

...

short: Chambersburg, Trenton, 1994

Rook rolled a gum wrapper between his right thumb and forefinger, over and again.  The Juicy Fruit had lost its flavor long before.  It was like chewing Silly Putty.  It's keeping me warm though.

He shifted on the bench at the corner of Hamilton and Chestnut.  Columbus Park couldn't be emptier.  A cold Saturday morning like this.  I stick out like a boombots.  He pulled his wool coat over his leg, he continuously shook it off.

From here, Rook could see all points.  But the boss wanted him to keep an eye out on the Pharmacy.  

"This time of morning?"  Mauro answered with a scowl.  He was being questioned dummy.  Rook quickly followed with, "I got it."

He measured the next question, "What am I looking for?"

Mauro opened a drawer and Rook instinctively shifted back, a plastic bag packed full with script bottles.  He sat back and turned his head to Chuck.

"What time does the owner come in?  We know they open at ten on Saturday, but maybe the doctor comes in earlier.  Is it even the owner that opens up?  Does he come alone?"  Chuck gave him a $50.  "Don't get picked up is all.  Don't look like a disgraziat."

I got here way to early.  His watch had 8:23.  I gotta sit here another hour?

Rook had stopped smoking a year ago.  Cold turkey.  He had a rough couple of weeks after that, made it up with fries.  "Time to quit smoking, ah."  It would be perfect now.  Calms the nerves.  It's forty degrees, no wind.  Perfect drag and then get a coffee.

Twenty minutes went by.  Something ain't right.  It was too quiet.  He scanned all points again.  Stood up and walked over to use the trees right on the corner as cover.  Nothing.  But not a good nothing.  A nothing like something was going to go down.

He left the car three blocks over, like he was told.

"You know what he should do?"  Mauro put the bag of bottles away.  "He should sit in the park, the one across the street."

"Yeah, maybe keep your car a few blocks down though."  Mauro snapped his fingers and agreed.

His chewing slowed.  It's a fix.  Rook spit the gum out and scanned the walk back toward his car.

"Shit."  Mauro set him up.  Fifty dollars.  He saw the grill about a block down from the Pharmacy, a cruiser grill shining in the sun.

Rook crossed the street toward the Pharmacy, just as the cruiser pulled out at the same time.  He broke into a run, making a hard turn around the building, jumped over a small fence and through an alley to the other side.

Think.  Can't go back to the car, they'll have another car waiting there.  Maybe.  Chuck had him out in the open, so they wouldn't have thought about the car.  Car.  His run broke wide and he met the street again.  He hadn't run that fast since middle school.

The car was not watched, at least by what he could see.  Stay or take off?  He started the car, did a 'u' and headed south toward Clinton.  If I can get to Broad I can lay low for a while.

Mauro.  He gave him up.  He meandered purposefully down the streets, making his own switchbacks, but each time trying to get to Clinton.  He thought he saw pulotti once, but going cross.

He made Clinton and then Broad, he lined the speed limit but didn't go a mile above.  Can't go back home for a while.  Have to go West or Upstate.  Rook figured to put 20 miles north until he had to get gas.  Mauro.  What do I do about him?

...

caustic homage (draft): 02feb19

A hotel room is a dangerous place
when you are all by your lonesome
Don't it feel like a cell?
esp. when the warmth of a woman has escaped it
The smell of her on the sheets
fades as the night wears on and
you wonder if she were ever there.

Picaresque restaurants close and the last
of the lonely make their way into the night
The servers are eager to hit the club 
So dishes are piled in the sink
to the anger of the breakfast shift.
The crew hold on to one another as they
head off singing a hackneyed 
"Comme d'habitude".

Memories of only the grandest of failure
despite the storied truth
reminesce in the smells of those that came before
and thought the same thing
when they lay in the bed
with a Lark on their lips
and nothing on the TV set
in a town small as this.

The boarders next door stop using the sink
And the entirety of the floor grows quiet
but the frequency hum
of televisions left to keep company

Tomorrow looks to be an unwritten failure
should we meet it
And there's the question again
again as fresh as the first time.

And so it is

Comme d'habitude je vais sourire
Comme d'habitude je vais même rire
Comme d'habitude, enfin je vais vivre

...

Philip Sidney's "Astrophil and Stella" c1580

19.

On Cupid's bow how are my heartstrings bent,
That see my wrack, and yet embrace the same?
When most I glory, then I feel most shame:
I willing run, yet while I run, repent.


My best wits still their own disgrace invent:
My very ink turns straight to Stella's name;
And yet my words, as them my pen doth frame,
Avise themselves that they are vainly spent.

Penelope Devereux c1575

For though she pass all things, yet what is all
That unto me, who fare like him that both
Looks to the skies and in a ditch doth fall?
Oh let me prop my mind, yet in his growth,

And not in Nature, for best fruits unfit:
"Scholar," saith Love, "bend hitherward your wit."

...

A chord strike and I awake
"Penelope!"
Sunlight tendrils drape her face in my dream
My heart has swelled and I'm defeated
Surrendered to her and all to her
The dream ends and the cold answer is given
Realizing in each dream
Her eyes never meet mine
It is my love to own

Unrequited to the last.

...waiting to hibernate...06jan19

intermittent rain

followed by the sun some
grey puddles
wet grass
deep pockets at Boisseranc
cut the turf
a layer of ready mud


neath yellow scrag
missing it
'A long while sick, supposed.'
he didn't look from the shadowed lap
his wiry face
his eyes closed
guilty I say


mine come in cotton shirts
and the smell of Canoe
never tugging on attention
but if I look they are
unencumbered
reminiscent

breathing deep

always there

other spirits come as lighted orbs

their chests raise and fall

but they mock 

the action

mindless

rote

lost

...

National Novel Writing Month 2018: Ashes of Parnassus

Synopsis

The decadence of the Chrome Age collapsed upon its own hubris, leaving the Worlds in ruins.  The Central government relinquished control to the state-worlds in the chaos.  Then on the verge of stability, the Ubiquity ravaged all.  Anything made with metal, all tech, broke their molecular bonds.  Humankind plunged into a pre-Bronze Age.

Space craft were saved from Ubiquity, but scattered to the edges of the galaxy, lest they succumb to the same ravages of destruction.  Worlds were abandoned, overcome by the nature that technology pushed away.  The humans left behind became animals.

On the science vessel Proust, the crew studying Ubiquity from afar believes they have found a way to process metal and overcome its destructiveness.  If they are correct, they have built the bridge that will save millions of lives across a dozen planets.

Excerpt

"The nominal level of debris surrounding any one of our dozen systems is impactful across 1.2 billion kilometers, orbital."  Teft flashed the monitors so that the historical citations firmly rooted themselves next to his data.  There were hundreds of governmental studies that cropped up on Ubiquity, effectively feeding into a single institute.  Teft was one of the last adherents to the Metallic Sciences Foundation, before it unceremoniously lapsed after the dispersion of all shifts beyond the orbital affected zone.

"There are known deviations to this.  Gravity wells.  Star corona.  These form paths, however, until three years ago, we could not 'see' these safety zones.  We were excited of course, but quickly found that they did not allow egress to most of the worlds, except one."  The image of the planet Arcārius came into view.  There was a path that brought most craft within hundreds of thousands of miles closest than any other planet.

Teft straightened his posture as he was to evoke the paper's name.  "In 2637-MSF-300837-WRIT-14-V-H, Metalurgical Stability of Transpurposed Composite, I must...we must traverse the space carved by Arcārius' star to come within 370,000 kilometers of the planet."

A well constructed animation visually walked through the effort that Teft described.  He loosened up and walked the stage, "I will need the following crew, fuel and craft to break through the effective area, assume descruction of the origin craft, land on the planet using composites as described before.  Once on the planet, I can build a fully operational facility to produce enough composite and prove out our working theory."

A hand was raised.  Dr. Philomea.  "And if it doesn't work?  We assume you are saying this is a one-way mission should you fail?"

"Correct.  The crew and myself will assume, if the collective theories do not hold true, that Arcārius would be our final home.  However, there is a bit of an out."  A new graphic showing an elliptical from the point of insertion.  "If we can prove out Ubiquity on the composite in the effective area, we have several minutes to shoot ourselves back toward the Proust.  Of course, using the correct protocols of sanitation.  If not, we would simply fly out into space."

Not even a chuckle.  Teft didn't expect one, but he half wanted to chuckle himself.

"I'll remind Senior Engineer Teft that suicide is not permissible.  You will have to prove the data to ensure us that your risk profile is low.  Lower than the mean."  Dr. Archer.  She shifted in her seat and her lips were pulled into a tight line.

Teft nodded.  "I can assure you by data my intention is purely risk adverse.  The reward however will outweigh the cost should we lose any of the two dozen lives that I ask committed to this task.  This is our best shot to save worlds and save ourselves."

He understood as he said that he had planet bias.  He did and he would doubt denying it.  The survival of the human and animal species depended on what the collect crafts could commit.

....