refrain in a planed vein

'is the pain retained,
as it's plainly ingrained
in our plaintive, waning strains?

does it plumb the depths
to encumber their lumber?
splinter their cinders
or hinder their tinder?

does it trouble the murdered
listless flowers
in their glassy,
stilted repose?

and must i explain
though lifeblood has drained,
lying here helplessly,
achingly missing the rain

what it felt like
to be embraced by
sun-dappled birds,

and the hope spun in nests,

and the confidences laid up
in scurrying
surreptitious scratches?

faint echoes shimmer
in the weave of grieving leaves,
rustling empathy
for their stories.

like the call of
phantom branches
i never stop feeling,
keening from that
unabated hunger
to give them shelter

from which they'll
forever abstain.

in quiet mornings
i think i hear
their trilling songs
and something inside me
seems to shudder.

who decreed these
inconceivable,
irretrievable gifts
should be squandered
by those who
can't even see them?

and what of weathered seasons,
and the constant,
ineffable yearning
in that
oh, so infinite reach?

has it all been in vain?'

"that's what i hear,"
she said
as her fingers lingered
on the unexplored,
heartbroken surface
of vetted and fretted,
life-indebted wood.

* **** * *** * **** * *** * **** *
- Evan Hawthorn, the 30^th of June, 2017

a Pondering on Ponderous Pilgrims * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * (a Preposterous Celestial Lament)

conflicted by his
orbiting affections,
tending towards shyness
rather more than he ought
whenever he's pulled
into Earth's opposition
our second cousin Saturn
is inclined to be distraught.

the arc of revolution
sends him into a spin,
where ringing with conjecture
he's crossly overwrought.
thus frazzled and bright,
he stays up half the night
but finds himself unable
to resolve a single thought.
* **** * *** * **** * *** * **** *
- Evan Hawthorn, the 17^th of June, 2017

our mother's other children * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * (a canticle in search of compassion)

beyond the scripted,
convoluted ken
of the zombie army of corporate operatives;

outside the profit-ridden
failure of imagination,
with its sanguinary conceit
of imaginary borders;

past the putrid, narrow confines
cast by racistly conscripted,
patriotic glasses

our broken hearts connect
with frail human hands

so easy to recognise
(even in their hundreds of "inessential" millions)

by their humble aspirations
and fears for their children;

by their unexpressed longing,
unsuspected courage,
and soul-wrenching grief;

by their faults and their spurnings,
and their weary,
thankless trudgings;

in the stunning resilience
that radiates its question
in the stony, deadened face
of a centuries-old,
disparaging dis-empowerment;

in the fleeting, bracing glimpses
that grace those daring eyes
with an angelic vision
of their ebullient best;

in the secret, private callings
that breathe a billion beckons
from the numberless weave
of empowering paths;

in that spin of the ineffable,
incomprehensible kaleidoscope,
shimmering its facets
wrought entirely from dreams
and precious,
unique gifts.

these are the hands
of our mother's other children.

these are the strands
of our grandchildren's hopes.

they would bring us past the breach,
within compassion's
sweetest reach,

where our brothers
and our sisters
genuflect their careworn mirrors
that bathe our ancient yearnings
in the earth's resplendent peace;

where each of them harbours
a splendid, tingling piece
of our
ever so lonely,
oh, so human
selves.
* * * * * *

- Evan Hawthorn, the 4^th of June, 2017

ode to an unbearable air

if the irony weren't
dripping from a bloodbath,
one could almost laugh
at the Times and the Post,
and the rest of the right flanks
in the establishment's stables,
lined up like so many
conscience-less zombies,
their collective karma
in an overwhelmed coma,
more dead than their millions
of abetted brown corpses,
their 'free speech' banners
as hollow as Trump Tweets,
the burden of their collusion
haunting the fetid breezes
where Democracy might
have actually rung.

**** * * **** * * ****

- Evan Hawthorn, the 25^th of May, 2017

the hitherto unexpected, miraculous discovery of dark influence

when compared to the astonishingly consistent,
hundred percent subservience
to the Machiavellian wishes of Israel and Saudi Arabia,
evinced in the election-resistant
slightness of light
between the establishment's firmament
of right and righter parties
(notwithstanding those bulging curtains
and shuffling sandals that loom in the 9-11 mists),
Russia's unprecedented,
heinous and nefarious, Godzilla-rearing influence
must be a preternatural thing indeed.

going only by the sold out crowds
for the resurrected re-ascendance
of nationalism and patriotism,
by the strange sightings of McCarthy's ghost,
lurking with his war profiteer bedfellows
at the head of the goose-stepping ranks
of the Party that isn't Democratic,
joined at the hip as they suddenly are
to "Democracy's friends" at the CIA,
spontaneously sprouting from neoliberal pods
as a redefined species
of born again regime changers,
speaking in their suspicious,
fifties tongues,
just loud enough to be heard
by the listening devices
their souped up cell phones
so willingly surrendered
to one of their folksy own,
sounding on their righteous trumpets
a clarion call for the
infotainment freedom of regurgitated speech,
while sharpening pikes for the heads of Wikileaks
and shading the right sides of elephants' hides,
brandishing their subscriptions
to the woefully persecuted
John the Baptist scribes and channellers,
those Prepare-Ye-the-Way-of-War serial criminals
at the Times and the Post,

this inconclusive, and stubbornly
elusive influence,
thinly veiled and eagerly,
unanimously assailed,
would have to be a sort of
hitherto unimagined dark matter,
a reverse-acting, negative-exposing,
history-and-reality-reinventing,
circumspection-circumventing,
menacingly-clever-yet-obtusely-clueless,
conveniently-refocusing,
repackaging and recriminating,
self-inflicting-with-demonization
type of 'influence',
equipped with a malice
uncannily similar to our manifestly predestined,
projected intentions.

those very same, never questioned,
mythic intentions
we're forever hearing all those accolades about,
that are in fact the stock and trade
of every American politician,
and form a kind of religion
in and of themselves,
prompting us
(and oddly, no one else but us)
to surround other people's countries,
especially the independent ones,
with eight hundred state of the art
military bases.

those very same, ever so profitable intentions
that naturally allow us to excuse ourselves
whenever we happen to murder
a noticeable number of "other" people,
which happens whenever an angel rings a bell
and the stocks go up.
the sputtering, Democracy-splattering intentions
that gushed from a string
of proudly appraising presidents
who eyed Cuba as the "jewel" in their "necklace",
glinting with promised riches
in their gated and whitewashed
Latin American "backyard".

the beacon-beaming, exemplary intentions
that the peasants and pack animals
in Southeast Asia
are still reeling from,
and so many refugees are trying to escape.
the "good" intentions that are buried
with the "bad" Indians' freedom.
unfailingly masked by the
pornographic fiction of colluding Hollywood,
and the dependable deflection
of our directionly disabled, looking glass media.

and yet
as if to prove our legendary lawlessness
and our stunning dearth
of sentient, functioning journalists,
they are brazenly flaunted
in the bedazzling light of 'America's day'
in Bill Clinton's celebrated
declaration of piracy
and the Sainted Obama's smooth assertion
that "full spectrum dominance"
is the "overriding goal"
of our "exceptionally indispensable"
foreign policy.

meanwhile,
i expect the uniformly reputed rarefied niche
of Simon Bar Sinister's
retroactively ricocheting, reasonless influence
will one day be explained.

it's the sort of thing one might hope to find
in the special features of a Doctor Who DVD.
perhaps in that lost episode
where he stumbles over
the invisible weapons of mass destruction
and ends up accidentally
spreading Democracy™.

** **** * **** *** **** * **** **
- Evan Hawthorn, the 22^nd of May, 2017

the spectre of unnoticed absence

the relief that our left bank colonial flank
is safe in the reassuring arms
of "Centrist Neoliberalism"
echoes like the quaking knell
still hemorrhaging
for our substance-less "Democracy".

it washes up in trending waves,
raising the death-rattle spectre
of Jacob Marley's chains,
resounding with the reflectionless ring
of emotional appeals,
like the congregational tide of shocked indignation
which is itself,
in its with-us-or-against-us
relentless resistance
(to undoctored history),
and blithe indifference
to the dauntless dearth of choice,
the very essence
of the unnoticed absence.

this haunting is made complete
with the myopic visitation
of Fascist unwanted posters
summoned by the unholy communion
of donkeys, profiteers, assassins and spies,
unfurling from virtual woodwork
in a focus-stroking shell game,
much like the "Democrats" themselves,
or journalism's jugglers,
hooked with green IVs
to the Powers that Own.

for they dish out many isms,
and before enamoured eyes
installed the creaking floorboards
beneath the bulging, bloated clown,
that deftly played distraction
who could hardly accomplish,
left to his own narcissistic devices
this decades-long descent,
let alone the perfectly executed
Ayn Rand Strangelove's
homeopathic cabinet
of all-consuming decapitation.

the Bully in Chief,
that one-man travelling brand,
the bleached whale poster child
of Wee Willy Syndrome,
is opportunity's opportunist,
incapable of creating anything,
leering from lurid curtains
when times and rubes ripen.
the biggest baddest wolf
at the Protection Racket's revolving door.
the demon head on the flipping, counterfeit coin,
bedazzling the preening flock
of endangered, lopsided, ill-informed eagles,
pinioned by their surplus
of righteous right wings.

like the slickly conflicted corporate menus
the demented beacon's atrophied citizens
and reassigned consumers are saddled with,
the French electoral circus
doesn't furnish off ramps
from the lockstep, bipartisan,
rapaciously exceptional,
paved with rampant "interests"
and "inessential" corpses,
24-7, highway to hell.

**** * * **** * * ****

- Evan Hawthorn, the 11^th of May, 2017

the denouement (the final stanzas of my novella-poem, "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons")

in the disgruntled wake of sidestepping mushrooms

not harming a twig or a tuft of grass

the cottage untucked in opaque prisms

its ponderous baggage of unassuming mass.
the cedars and willows that midwifed the housing

had scooped with their roots a well-watered place

so their prodigal cousin could swathe his wounds

in their weave of greeting and swaying embrace.

winding down flights and wafting rafted lovers

the flurry regifted its ambient glow

settling blush like a sigh on the hollow,

re-sowing roses in drifts of fragrant snow.

a bevy of rainbows sampled iridescence

on unforeseen hues in patches of sky

enticing dartings to shimmering pastures,

setting fleet jewels in the blink of an eye.

though the nannies fussed at the fledgling's landfall

and reignited love arrived on its knees

the deftly clambering acclimatizing vines

docked the outcrop with astonishing ease.
dangling their jangle of sapphire bells

sprinkling contentment on the petal-dusted breeze,

their curious twinings folded foundlings

in amity lapping from the resonant trees.

eschewing projections of paucity

slanting the presumption of a bipolar beast

the sun and the moon mingled perspectives,

like tolerant deities at an Asian feast.

owing perhaps to this lack of exclusion

streaming from celestials sharing a sky

Chester's appearance developed the features

the reason prefers to infer for the eye.
yet the chisel of his facets never stilled,

convening his visage in a restless dance

while trembling arcs spilling dark ruby embers

proceeded from his coruscating glance.

in lieu of his transitory twilights

clairvoyance floated in on the clear clouds of night,

a roving infection of strolling passersby

with incisive preternatural sight.
Pally and Nate set the mirror by his side

sparking a fusion of rainbow-fractured light.

hence the ripples in their dappled conversation

reflected depths from a dazzling height.

and the echoes of the children abided,

decanting in Pally an urge to rejoice;

regarding occurrence with a buoyant delight

from the margins of his generous voice.

on Mock's extensions reeling past the limbs

tugging the willow to compassion's new bower,

a riot of color had just broken out

from myriad buds coming into flower.
emerging from the spookhouse trailing his pollen

like a shuffling incarnation of spring

he seemed of a piece with the cosmic mushrooms

scooting about in their psychedelic ring.

tripping on the train of his traipsing garden

while stooping to pluck a most promising weed,

Rashful stuffed his pipe and wryly observed

"and to think this started when Sappy went to seed."
crouched nearby in the creeping juniper,

sniffing out the instincts of the spindly Dame

Sleazy cradled his delicate burden

on the fall-proof boughs of an ever-growing frame.

reacquainting their subtle discernment

with the tenanted vessels escorting their friend

Pasty's familiars discovered in silence

the caress of the trees in the sheltered bend.
and the brush of antlers and scenting of glands

infused devotion in the welcoming blend

that was braided in a sanctuary circle

and slung like a charm at their journey's end.

once everyone funneled through the gaping entry

past the lumbering bears pawing the floor

Sappy gawked at the dearth of fallen branches

and absence of lintels for framing a door.
Guanyin, in the midst of freeing a cicada

from grief-stricken drops of languishing sap

said "i wonder if it's worth more bother."

her eyebrows lifted as she ambled through the gap.

* * * * *

and the empath hadn't seen it coming
when Gropey laced his arm in the jingling vine.

but the nimble minstrel did without prompting,

clasping his too in that cleave of breathing twine.
the menagerie observed a solemn silence

yet the handfasting was wrought without words,

expressed in the rustling of sapphire bells

and proclaimed by the rhapsodizing birds.

as communal welling joined the avian throng

an ineffable miracle occurred.

for each of them voiced a unique calling

in the most complete sound that had ever been heard.
their croaks and howls and warbling trills

were requisite tones in a half-remembered chime,

strands in a fabric that hallowed the hollow

in space unplaced by the vagaries of time.

a bittersweet chill rifled through Pally

for Lumpy's faint touch possessed the hairs on his arm.

curled, crumpled hands and jagged valediction

raised in phantom welts like auguries of harm.
yet such was the stuff that fused their bonding

in the rational breach of dimensional shelves

where glimpses were burnished of what was within

on meeting the mirror and finding themselves.

"this luscious lass has something to tell you."

said Lumpy, overruling a lump in his throat.

Trixie mingled blush and blinked back a tear

while picking at frippery he'd sewn on his coat.
"your beau's right ripping.  and suited to you too,

seein' as you're both so bad at hidin' hearts.

the gang of pale stand-ins chompin' at the Gait

will never replace our dusky Queen o' Tarts.

in case i find i can't live without you

try and keep a candle lit on Aethelwort's Eve."

"we've plenty of room, Trix, and you're welcome as May.

are you ever so determined to leave?"

"the old man'll be terrible lonesome by now.

and what would 'e do without me advice?

you know how 'e frets, left on 'is ownsome.

'e wants for guidance on the crooked trail o' vice."

somewhere behind them a query was lofted.

"can you give her a lift?" inquired Guanyin.

spotting blithe nodding on a sea-green countenance

made Trixie almost jump out of his skin.

then Solomon's skull popped from its socket

and rolled along the ridges of an outstretched arm.

from there he considered the barmaid beauties,

widening his grin to waylay the alarm.
but Trixie wasn't wooed by his winsome smile

or skill skimming skulls on their wobbling tread;

failing to be gripped by clutching affection,

adeptly evading a pat on his head.

  

since Mary swooped in and scooped them both up

with flowing sleeves bowed like a sepulchral trowel

hopes for détente were fraught with conjecture,

eternally flapping in a midnight cowl.

"well, i must be off." she curtsied to the mage.

"take care of Mercy, my flighty, far-fetched gnomes.

your house is a peach.  such self-possessed delving.

unravels premises wherever it roams."
and though they'd had seats for her snappy entrance

when the banshee unfurled from sizzling crepe

as the atmosphere singed and cackles crackled

they nonetheless stared, with their mouths gone agape.

once Sylvana succumbed to Sable's sprucing

Mock tucked in his pleats, ramping close to Sludge White

quipping "what hath our ladyship to do with tears?"

but tenderness cracked and leaked through the bite.

falling in with his stems, she shuddered like their leaves,

clinging to the moss where bare shoulder poked.

"i just saw my mother."  the mirror went dim,

appalled by the anguish his talents provoked.
yet the agile quiver of Guanyin's fingers

awakened the harp strings of empathy's well,

resurrecting the scent of bygone protection;

encasing ache in perennial spell.

hedging the ancient, sympathetic magic

for channeling loss into reticent thaw

Chester's supple plying of ion desire

eked out the monkey's tranquilizing paw.
snug in the mingling Elsbeth settled softly

where Sylvana reattached to her post.

when Squint's cheeky tug at last tickled trickles

the shadow had passed from the hem of the ghost.

it was then that Pally rediscovered Gramps,

flickering persistence and translucent sheen

immersed in conversation with the otter

on a plump, plush toadstool of shimmering green.
in a heartbeat he was snapped up in tendrils,

surrounded by elation and awe-swept grace

while the empath glanced aslant at his familiar

and wonder made a beacon of his face.

the bard knelt by Squint.  "are you in on this?

those times you snuck off, were you teaching him to speak?"

his tail flapped with pride.  "that's only the half of it.

we alternate verse in primate and squeak."

as the roving deities pooled their velvet drapes

and sequins peeked through fading rainbow eaves

Gramps traced a pattern of infinite fondness

in the ceaseless murmur of his seedling's leaves.
"i've been pondering rhythms of reason,

the lure of legends, the sorrow sown in laughter.

for only mirrors composed in reflection

pose the terrain that ripples Ever After.

separation lies like the thief of time,

a buttress to balance the weight of tradition.

the space of emptiness cannot be filled

no matter how matter provides imposition.
the point of focus gives rise to the myth

that perception presides astride a position.

yet the prize that bides in compassion's sighs

by its nature cannot writhe in opposition."

the vine he was clasping curled around his wrist,

smitten with the branch that sprung its grafted friend.

"well, don't look so ruffled, me clever darlin'.

how else did you fancy our revels would end?"

* * * * *

and the wind was quite naturally taken,

clapping the curtains in a spirited guffaw.

stilling again, it asked for another.

and a quickening Mercy rushed into my paw.

* * * * *

- Evan Hawthorn, the 13^th of March, 2017