Abstruse goose

Suburban adultry

The only thing saving me

I did not see my dad much after my parents divorce. One of my enduring memories of him was when he came over to help me carve my pumpkin. After he left, I lit the candle myself and set my jack-o-lantern on our porch.

I could hear the older neighborhood kids laughing from my room as they stomped it in.

That was 36 years ago.

Anonymous e-mail message to PostSecret (Week of Oct. 19th, 2008).

Tomorrow is Assumption Day

And it feels so much lighter since I met you.

"Who told you this would be easy?" she said, eyes glittering like sea-wet stones. A flush, gentle as rain, rose in her cheeks.

Nobody, nobody, the voice in his head clamored, I'm sorry, sorry, my love, it is blessed, it must be; I cannot ever deny love.

At that moment he met her eyes and it occurred to him that we live only in moments, arranged as it happens. Someday we shall live entirely in nothing but a single kiss.

Kyle Parrish

And we shall cling on tight.

In the cold
Dark winter night
Outside
Under the frozen stars

We keep each other warm
With stories of the deepest
The highest
The furthest away

As the brightest light
Shines from within
And we cling on tight

So tight
We almost burst

And
We never
Ever
Let go

A Fantasy by Marcus Edward John Cross

"I can't do either!" said Pooh. "Oh, help and bother!"

in such a  loving  voice  that
everybody felt quite hopeful again.

O human child!

Piping down the valleys wild,
Piping songs of pleasant glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:

"Pipe a song about a Lamb!"
So I piped with merry cheer.
"Piper, pipe that song again;"
So I piped: he wept to hear.

"Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe;
Sing thy songs of happy cheer:!"
So I sang the same again,
While he wept with joy to hear.

"Piper, sit thee down and write
In a book, that all may read."
So he vanish'd from my sight;
And I pluck'd a hollow reed,

And I made a rural pen,
And I stain'd the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs
Every child may joy to hear.

Songs of Innocence by William Blake

...but a whimper.

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us — if at all — not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer –

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot.

So when your time comes

I DIED IN MY DREAMS LAST NIGHT
IT WAS A PEACEFUL DREAM
I DREAMT OF TELLING YOU IT'S OKAY
AND TO NOT BE AFRAID

I SAW MY FAMILY, MY FRIENDS
EVERYTHING OF VALUE WAS NOT important
YET EVERYTHING I WORKED FOR WAS
             SOMEHOW IMPORTANT
AND THAT    LIFE WAS NOT A WASTE
      MY

SO WHEN YOUR TIME COMES
DON'T BE SCARED
YOU CAN JOIN ME IN A DREAM
WE CAN SEE EACH OTHER AGAIN

S O M E D A Y

          O

          U

          W A L K   A G A I N

          I

          L

          L

THERE IS NO ONE TO CARE FOR YOU NOW
BUT WHAT CARE I GAVE IS WHAT YOU
                   DESERVED
WHEN YOU SEE ME IN DREAMS
I HOPE THE SUN SHINES THROUGH
   THE GOLDEN LEAFED TREES
AND YOU FIND YOUR WAY HOME

indiepaws.net

And when we started, we started from there

When a man is in love
how can he use old words?
Should a woman
desiring her lover
lie down with
grammarians and linguists?

I said nothing
to the woman I loved
but gathered
love's adjectives into a suitcase
and fled from all languages.

Arabic Poetry
Poem #333, adab.com

Come with me and we'll journey to other planets.