THE LIGHT ENCOMPASSES.

The Light Encompasses.

The light encompasses the whole world,

And everyone in it.  The dawn does not bend;

In it, dwells the passion like that of passionfruit

Or dragonfruit, that we eat or maybe it even eats us.

I have found something bigger than what humanity

Seeks, the durability of love, the light and the hope;

In the void, in the silence of it all, love is there,

Waving and moving in the light itself.  The Greek knew

All about love and lovemaking, and the art of it,

And how it grows bigger and bigger each time it

Encompasses the world, how there is a field of it in

A faraway valley somewhere, how the fear is there,

Shaking and shimmering, raw and putrid flesh.

I think about it often, how it wanders about the plains,

Wondering and mimicking movement, taking shape in

People, places, and things-and how, over and under,

The doubt changes, becoming a shadowy thing that

Glimmers out all fear.

These Times That Tell.

All the times I lay waiting for a miracle to happen

,

I was beginning to think I had come to the bitter end.

These past days have gone bye bye, like a clock that will

Not tell time, or a pope that will not heed to his people.

Sometimes, tomorrow comes a little too early for us to be

Thankful, and death is a little warranted, if not unstable;

And the earth is a little bit unstable and everything else is

Unstable against the running of the clock, which chugs and

Goes intermittently; and ghosts run out the minutes on your

Watch, and technology gets better but the solution gets worse;

And sometimes, you say things you shouldn’t say, and words

Get in the way, like the leaves on trees get in the way of the sunshine,

And sometimes spots of sunshine slide through ever so slowly

As the sun is waking up and the world is getting rid of the dark, the darker,

The darkest.  And sometimes you are thankful and your time is spent

Doing nothing but whining.

How to Spot the Darkness.

How to Spot the Darkness.

The streets are curved with darkness.

Night is seeking resolution.

A man dances in the middle of the street,

Feeling his way through the dark with his

Hands.  He is not tempted to break promises.

He is thirsty.  He walks to a bar and orders

A beer, and the beer smells of urine and stale

Cigarettes; someone is throwing a glance his way,

A beautiful woman who is already married.

Someone is taking his wallet from his pocket,

Not the same woman who was glancing at him,

But someone else, this a man, with a black hat

And a black walk, the blackness is all around

Him, and he is blacker than the night outside.

Since there are stars, and the stars are burning.

The Quietness of the Night.

In the quietness of the night,

In retrospective of it all,

We handle each situation as it comes,

And face the bitterness of things that have passed.

Things are situated before us, like raindrops on a page-

Or maybe a teardrop, full of rage.

Some things we cannot change, but the things that we can,

We take and hold and grasp them in a gentle grasp,

Molding them into the things that they can become.

Every bitter lie becomes a seed of truth, the truth that flies

In the universe like a night of stars.  The loneliness is trapped

In a shadow of the night, and everything is beamed back to you.

Sometimes, you trip over your own feet, and the wetness is

Falling all around you like drops of rain;

And everything is etched in pain,

Just as it is etched in morning dew.

I was in Love With Pablo Neruda.

I was in Love With Pablo Neruda

I was in love with Pablo Neruda

For many long years.

We sat side by side in a café, talking

Of promises-of great, puffy clouds that sail

Through a blue sky, of a night full of stars

That stare down at us like eyes.

I have had different loves, but none was

Quite the same as this: holding hands tenderly

As we strolled down farmer’s market,

Talking of blank pages and poetry,

Talking of misadventures of being English professors

At campuses that were not for poets like us.

He was a published poet, and I, I was not.

But still, he read my poetry with ease,

As the great ones always do, and he spoke of me

Lovingly to his sister, the one who kept his promises.

She became his caregiver, in the end,

And on the bitter nights when I was alone,

After he was gone, gone as in dead,

I would sit in my rocker at my house,

Staring into space, staring at nothing, dreaming

Of the days we spent together, over stale cigarettes and red

Wine.

The Apple.

The Apple

The apple falls far from the tree.

It clunks to the ground with a resounding

Thunderous applause.  The sky is thick with dew.

I don’t know why I built my house made of stone,

I don’t know why the grass is thick with dew.

He is the man I love, without question, without

Thinking of anything else.  My car is parked in the driveway

Down the street, someone named Sam is homeless

In my neighbor’s yard.  He is a handsome man, with curly,

Black hair and large eyes.  I wonder why he doesn’t

Have a job.  I wonder about a lot of things.  Sometimes,

People do not have enough money to make ends meat.

Sometimes, people make too much and end up throwing

Their lives away.  I calculate the reasons for this, but some

Things are not as simple as you think they are.  I wish it was so.

No one even likes apples anymore.  They like chocolate, soy,

And pizza.  I used to eat pizza every day on my way to work.

Then I got a large stomach.  Then my head grew even larger,

And I was puking on the grass.  I used to live in the middle

Of a street, that was large and tall, and the words I spoke

Were not quite so good.

The apple can sometimes speak.

These Were the Thoughts of Summer.

These Were the Thoughts of Summer.

The thoughts of summer are old and forgotten,

Like a broken sundial.

First it was there, then it was not.

It only lasted three seconds.

The sounds of summer moved me:  the caw of birds,

The ice cream trucks on the heated

Streets.

The flowers open their mouths

Towards the sun, as if summer will never end,

Begging for the warmth that was forbidden to them

During autumn and winter months.

Children play in the summer streets, sometimes

All day and all night, and the parents, they go to bed

Early still, because they have to get up and get ready

For work the next day, unless they are teachers.

A teacher has it made during the summer.

He can sit back and relax in his comfy couch,

Reading the newspaper or watching television,

Yelling at his wife for a fresh bottle of scotch.

Sometimes, children would go to the beach with their

Families, and play in the hot, warm hot sand all day,

Or swim, or chat with their friends on the boardwalk

Or go fishing with fishing rods.

Sometimes, they would go to the park and play on the swings and

Their parents would barbecue

Something for dinner, like hot dogs and hamburgers.

These are the thoughts of summer. 

This was how it all went,

And then it grew cold, and school started,

And the leaves started to turn brilliant colors,

And soon snow began to fall

On the cold, hard ground, and everything changed.

THE RAIN MACHINE A SCIENCE FICTION STORY.

THE RAIN MACHINE by Apryl Fox

            It was in the year 2156 that mankind invented the rain machine.

            It started out as nothing more than a joke.  Inventor James Smith was watching television in the living room of his apartment.  He was thinking to himself how horrible the news was and what wicked people lived on the planet.  Suddenly, it grew dark.  Clouds spilled out over the world.  Rain thrashed at the windows and pounded on the glass.  His front door rattled.  He hadn’t had time to batten down the hatches, because he was trying to earn money to buy a moped, and was thinking of something new to invent, like cereal boxes-well, cereal boxes had been invented a long time ago, but he didn’t think anyone would know the difference, because, well, it was a long time ago and no one could remember back that far. 

James loved mopeds.  He pictured himself cruising down the street in one of them, but he also needed the money for his coal supply and food. 

James didn’t have a car because he felt he didn’t need one.  Cars were for wussies, and they polluted the environment, besides.

            “What horrible, wicked creatures humans are!” he fumed to himself.  “I wish I could do something about them!”  He thought, “I don’t think we even need half these shows on television!  Tv should be for meteorology only!”

            He was about to turn off the television.  A brilliant idea popped into his brain.

            He thought, “I want to invent a television that only records the weather!  That’ll teach people to watch violent things on tv!”

            He scurried down to his basement as the rain and lightning flashed.  And, the clouds-they were thick, and black, and angry.  Steam rose up from the blacktop of the street in front of his house.  The sky was dark as night even though it was pretty much daytime, still.

            James took out his tools and spread them on a table.  Then he took out one of his old televisions-a flatscreen he bought from a thrift store some odd years ago-and started banging on it with a hammer.  Nothing happened.  He frowned, scratched his head, and tried again.  Nothing happened, still.  Maybe the rain was making him think harder than he had to.  He wasn’t sure.  His stomach growled.  He ran upstairs and started taking food out of the refrigerator.  He had bread, salami, and sandwich spread.  He made himself a sandwich.  The rain slowed down some; the clouds dissipated and the sun shone brightly through the windows.

            He forgot about his invention and went upstairs to bed.

            That night, he had a dream.

            He dreamt he was flying through the sky on a dragon.  His name was Sarvich.  He had brown scales and a long tongue and he called James “Sir.”  That made him feel nice and happy inside.  He woke up the next morning, and the dream ended, but he remembered his invention and returned to work again. 

            That afternoon, he went for a walk through the forest.  The trees were much darker than the ones that lived on the planet over a thousand years ago, back when things were a simpler time.  He watched old television shows on his flatscreen tv many a-times.  He stopped and smelled the flowers-tulips and roses and wildflowers, that tickled his nose and made him sneeze.  He came to a small waterfall and splashed his feet in the small whirlpool that foamed and fizzed and spouted different colors.  He looked up.  A dragon, exactly like the one from his dream, stood there. 

            “Why, hello!” the dragon exclaimed in surprise.  “Whatever are you doing here?”

            “I’m taking a walk, but, you see, I stopped to rest.”  James laughed, because the water was tickling his feet.  It was a nice feeling.  He didn’t want it to end. 

            “Why, you’re in my dream!” the dragon said.  “I wish you’d get out.”

            “I don’t know how,” he replied.  He thought for a minute, then said, “What would you like to happen in your dream?”

            “I want you to build me something, James,” the dragon said.

            “What do you want me to build?” James asked in a curious voice.

            “A machine.”

            “What kind of machine?”

            “A machine that tells us when it is going to rain,” the dragon explained.  “A rain machine.”  The dragon smiled.  He had rows of sharp, white teeth in a grinning face.

            “We already have that,” James explained patiently.  “It is called the National Weather Service.  It is a giant balloon that encompasses the planet and tells us when it is going to rain.”  He smiled, pleased that he knew about such things.

            “No, no, no!” the dragon exclaimed.  “I want you to make a machine that actually tells us the second it is going to rain!  The very second, and not a moment too soon!”

            “All right,” James promised.  “I will.”

            He walked slowly home, thinking about what the dragon had said.  It didn’t occur to him that dragons shouldn’t exist, that they shouldn’t talk, or know anything about such things as rain machines that didn’t even exist.

            James made a nice pot of stew for dinner.  It smelled nice.  He thought about his invention while he ate his dinner.  It had been nice all day and he hoped it would stay that way because he needed to think about how he was going to build his machine.

            He went down into the basement the very next day and gathered his supplies.  He took out the flatscreen tv he had been working on, and took out a fresh sheet of paper and began to build a design for his rain machine.  Nineteen days and nights passed, and he worked and worked.  He hired a maid to clean his house so he wouldn’t be disturbed.  She brought down his dinner every evening, and every morning, she woke him out of a sound sleep.  He didn’t have an alarm clock because he had taken the parts out of it the week before to help build his machine.  At long last it was finished.  He put down his screwdriver and admired his handiwork.  The machine was splendid.  It was a tall, metal thing with interwoven pieces.  There was a radio attached at the end.

            “At last!” he exclaimed.  “My work is complete!”  He smiled, and, with a flourish, turned on the machine.  It hummed and churned, talking to itself as it wove to life.  It shuddered once, and died.

            “Drat!  Something’s wrong with it!”  He kicked the machine with his foot.  Ow.  That hurt.  Jumping up and down, and thinking while he was jumping, he realized he was going to have to tinker with it some more.

            The next day, he went to the store and bought more nails and bolts and a battery.  He gathered everything in his arms and took it home, then pulled the rain machine from behind the furnace and began to hammer it.  He inserted the battery.  With a hum and a whimper, it spluttered to life.

            “It’s working!” he screamed.  “It’s working!”  He jumped up and down, banging his foot one more time.  The basement grew dark, and he looked up in surprise.  It was going to storm.  He went upstairs and out the front door, to wait for the rain to come.  The clouds became thick and menacing, but nothing happened.  He waited some more.

            Still no rain, but a nice, cool breeze brushed across his face.  He winced.  Nothing was going right at all.  He wanted so badly to invent the rain machine, and to be able to buy a moped, but it looked like that was not going to happen for a very long time.  Or maybe not at all.

            Then, suddenly, a quick lightening flashed in the sky, and thunder smacked against the clouds, shaking the ground in which he stood.  The entire world opened, and the rain flooded the land, the rain that was plentiful and good.

            James swelled inside.

            He had done it.  He had invented a rain machine.

            Now, he could sell it to a computer company, and buy a moped.

            He skipped back inside, slamming the door behind him.

THE END.

DEATH.

DEATH.

Death shrouds us like an island.  Sand is carved from stone.

Sleep is a brindled bull dog that does not escape promises

As dark clouds form overhead.  I talk to you from the tomb

Of the unknown, the deepest, darkest pit of despair, imagining

Edgar Allan Poe speak of the missing, the dying, the dead.

Some people need to be taken by the hand and shown the way;

Others pave the way to perfection; still, others, listen, and speak,

And listen again, and their words move on the wind.  I had taken

The time to speak of differences, I had taken the time to move

The wind, the wind that moves me as I walk outside, broken and

Shattered, on egg shells.  My wounds are raw and blistered.

I do not do anything but speak of the things that must be said,

Who is forsakened by the wind itself.  Et tu, Brute?  I say, over and over

Again, and he smiles his smile, sad and lonely, and the words

Bare no meaning.  Thoughts are lonely things

That move on the winds of time, and the birds cry to the cloud-filled

Sky, the puffy clouds moving slowly across the great bowl of daylight,

Taking time to remove its prey.

RAIN.

RAIN.

Rain gleams on the edge of reason.  I find sanity in the simplest

Gestures, the smallest things.  Partake in the necessary dreaming

Of dreams.  Go and fold softly, like bitterness in my mouth.

Don’t talk to the flowers unless they talk back.  Hatred spans

From flesh and moves with flesh and broken bones, unlike broken bibles,

Strewn about a motel floor.  She is there with him, hearing him as he speaks,

Hearing his gentle words like stones on tables.  Glass strikes against glass.

A woman screams down the street, she is being smothered by a blanket.

It is wintertime.  The woman in white is wrecking havoc again, creating

Unheard of things.  She doesn’t fall far from the tree, or the building,

Which was made from trees.  He spoke to her like he was speaking to the night,

And he was not dreaming.  Soiled worms are found in dusty sheets.  Whatever

Noise there was in the flesh, his eyes whisper in the lonely night, his eyes

That are mine and are not.

NAKED FLOWERS.

NAKED FLOWERS.

The broken and neglected world is like

A dream within a dream.

Nothing is real, except death.

The end of reason is like reason unknown,

And unknown things are grown from desperation.

Take pride in your realization.  Grows like a flower

In a seed.

Write books on paper.  Seek wisdom from Bibles.

The growth is in the knowing that tomorrow will never come.

Wisdom is in the grain of the seed, and flowers will bloom,

And trees will fall, and the bees will stop buzzing

Around naked flowers.

The broken and neglected, steels of commerce, are proud

And shadowed by grief and doubt.  The pain of love is in

Love.  Sunlight falls through cracks in windows,

And the pain speaks through, calls with voices on

The faraway wind.

Everything is etched in time, shadowed by dew on

A forgotten world.

THE OLD BARN.

THE OLD BARN

The sun is listening to the

Morning.

Like a warbled voices’ song.

Mother Nature is neglected, he walks on

Sad stilts like a clown.  A lone loon sounds

Its warbled cry across the vast lake,

Frightened of its vastness.  A flower opens

Its pedals in the garden.  There are weeds.

A man is singing in his shower as he gets ready

For work, which is basically shoveling manure in an old barn.

He thinks the barn is haunted.

A wild lily is straining towards the sun,

Near the open doorway of the barn.

A horse arches its head in the doorway of its stall,

Talking to itself because there is no one else to talk to.

Sometimes, the wind mourns sadly.

The man who must shovel the manure crawls out of his

House, and walks to the barn, whistling, carrying

A shovel over his shoulder, happy that the morning

Has broken, happy to be alive.

He Who Loves Me, Loves the World.

He Who Loves Me, Loves the World

His eyes beat like stars.  The night shines brilliantly

Through my window.  A beetle scuttles across the kitchen

Floor.  I am rising, falling with the night, thinking of

Deeper things.  He speaks to me in whispered promises,

Stroking my thighs lovingly.  He who loves me, loves

The world, loves all the promises of the night, and the stars

Are like bitter eyes that lower to the city streets.

A car backfires.  Sometimes, a cat walks across the sidewalk,

Searching for its dinner, maybe a mouse, or sometimes a bowl of

Tuna fish is left on front porches by old widows who lost their

Husbands to war.

But all the while, he is there, a ghost in the night, his words

Curving more than beauty, a mixture of skin and broken bibles,

Thoughts like stones on wooden tables.

He who loves me, loves the world, and the world with its crazy

Dreams, the craziness wrapped inside you like a vegetable burrito,

The craziness wrapped in tin foil.  A radio can be heard somewhere

On the street, in all the sheets and folded bodies in all the houses

Along the street, as the people in those houses make love, do laundry,

Do nothing.

And all the while, the world is there, creeping slowly outside your window,

And there is no tiredness there.

Strangers In Shadows.

Strangers In Shadows

My heart is like the night.  It moves and shines on the

Floor of the world.

There are strangers near and far, some we will meet,

Some we will not.

Some strangers are written in books.

Some strangers seek the darkness.

But not me, I am a gentle lover, glorious while awake,

And dream of lovemaking when I sleep.

Who talks about me when I am alone?  Is it the ghost

Trapped in the closet with the k-9?  He who wanders about

The world, exposing himself to the problems at hand,

Forcing himself to be asleep, and he dreams.

Some of these strangers we will never meet, except on paper,

And maybe that is the best thing.