In escaped vernacular
Odysseus rides the train; wonders what it's like
to live in a place he can see.
The king takes the train to Ithaca;
commands no men;
wonders what it's like.

Suggested by my train ride in to school each morning, past decadent homes and deceivingly-ruined neighborhoods, wondering whether Odysseus would trade ten unsure years on the sea for ten certain ones in the slums of Chester or Eddystone.

It's a simple thought, and the Ithacan king has always been rendered in heroic verse, so I tried to make it as plain and quiet as possible. While the train is far for being a sanctuary for silence, it's still a place where subtle reflection is possible.

I'm unsatisfied with the punctuation/flow towards the end; wasn't sure if I should have used "The king tries to take the train to Icatha" or if I should have left that absurdity unemphasized; or how I should arrange things so that the last "wonders what it's like" clearly applies to the two lines before it. Finally, any suggestions for a replacement for 'place' in the second line?

//Winter Solstice/The Halcyon Days//

//Winter Solstice/The Halcyon Days//

Car-casses of rust
Salt-stained windows
Cream spread softly in the skies
Her hand stretching into the shade,
Asleep on the passenger side door.

These are The Halcyon Days.

Along the same lines as the last one. Thought to call it "Winter Solstice" in connection with the mythological "Halcyon kingfisher" bird, said to quiet the seas at the winter solstice and, but that might be a bit much and a bit too obscure and utterly lost on people as nothing more than self-absorbed bullshittery...which it kind of is really, I guess.

//Prefaces and preambles//

//Prefaces and preambles//

January fading in silence
Fading in fanfare
Half-thawed frost
A sad-slow-lowly-silent-sound.

This time tomorrow I’ll have shaken off these words
Embraced a beer

Back to a new
old
huddled
prostrate,
puking
cowardly world

Heard from the second stall,
Looking for a balance of
sweet smelling sheets and sweat-stains
between
the
desperate
heartbeats.

The prefaces to weekends
Bottles,
Innocence,
beyond reach,
beyond hope
The preambles to the weeks,

With my dreams inbetween:
A cottage in the countryside,
suckling tonic and anise.
Fairs and festivals in the evenings on the grange

And my aching waking reality:
A degree at the bottom of a bottle,
To pay for car-troubles, and collared shirts

But for now it’s a tango
three sheets to the wind
doing the dance of The Diapered Nihilists.

Either way between the desperate heartbeats
it’s ultimately a long slow sad lonely
selfish
show.

My university has a 4-1-4 system which roughly means I can do whatever I like for the month of January. For the past month we've spent our days skiing or on short jaunts, watching films, making meals, working on the side and generally lazing about and now it's coming to an end. I've realized that I probably won't get another opportunity like this, perhaps in my lifetime while so youthful, or at least for quite some time. This is a contemplation on those Halcyon Days on the university dole.

Forgive the redundancies, thought maybe you gents could advise me there, hadn't yet figure out where to eliminate them so I just jotted them down. Seems a bit long-winded too, but then January's a long month so I'm not sure. Have at it.

Winter (Safekeeping)

Winter (Safekeeping)


these days you leave your warmth at the door

the careless take it with them,
arrive stripped and breathless and blowing it
into their hands

you know it's worse
to have something stolen than to give it up willingly
which must be why last night
before you left you pressed it into my lips
full and quick
a parting gift

for all the moments we wanted to and couldn't
outside in the cold when you invited me in
but i, in my skin stretched so tight
couldn't move for shaking and excused myself,
embarrassed, left you wondering
was it something you'd done wrong

for safekeeping
for when the time comes to brave the cold
and we'll lock the doors

valentine's day comes early. enjoy!

//Ill Arrows All Awry//

//Ill Arrows All Awry//
A rose cigar end between his fingers and a thought blossoming into the brain:
“The death of a cigarette proceeds you”.
A man smokes putting his ashes into his wife’s urn,
at around one in the afternoon and
an irremissible crescent of sun shines on the horizon.

“How tragic that love between two people can never be anything more than folie à deux, déjà vu? …quelquechose, comme un trou dans le vent.

Taught nothing but enough
There’s nothing to say.”

Nicotine
Will never reach nearly the right shade of yellow
reaching through his ears like pollen kisses on his rosy way.

>>------->
Ill arrows,
all awry
<-------<<

Something I've been milling away at based on an as yet incomplete rather post-apocalyptic short story I was working on about nuclear winter in England. These are just my thoughts on an allegory of a man that the main character encounters at some point on his way across part of the country. The tone's rather noir. The last bit came to me just now after talking to James a bit about the absurdity of Valentine's day even when you're with someone.

French traduction: 'folie à deux, déjà vu? …quelquechose, comme un trou dans le vent.' = 'a madness shared by two (rare psychological condition), already seen (self-explanatory)...something (an implacable intangible something), like a hole in the wind'