Kallisti, Or, To The Most Beautiful

Kallisti

Or, To The Most Beautiful

from a female Faust

What are you like inside

What are you like alone

What do you seek to hide

What would you rather known

If I could engineer me a coincidence

So that our paths some time coincided

Would you celebrate the happenstance

Would I regret that I confided

But me I’m such as needs must tell you

Come on strong then bottom line

We all seek those fit though few

That, kin or no, to us — are kind —

So itself this gift that would, imagine, fancy, juxtapose

Were better still if it also could — quotidian — suppose

Alexander Henderson Dies Today

 

Bring Your Alibis ANNOTATED

Bring Your Alibis, Or, Well Come

(A reply to Sub Urban’s “Cradles”)

Like Content that if tasted, you'd find delicate & deep,

pimped as out as it were better stare at fire than old,

this Stranger you've a tempted reach grows diffident to keep

in secret lies you'll soon enough agree were better  — never told.

In each — our Worlds — of made belief — we doubt — we live — we guess — we dream

& despite inviting Others in, we think ourselves alone, by force of habit, still.

Able you may be to last — but no one can at last — we all run out of steam,

& when we're out & breathe our last — that's all we ever get, or will.

Even daydreams trip the wires linked to lengths of fuse unseen,

but not — unexpected: Fitting.  That resultant devastation

is all that you can think about when you are asked where you have been

is what's confronting & confusing you, preventing explanation.

All the World's in deed a glass — remembers any looking in it

to the Machine to which we well are come — & the Ghost within, our Spirit.

Notes: (line # precedes)

1-2: Sub Urban, Cradles, v.3; 3:Countee Cullen, Youth Sings a Song of Rosebud, “Since men grow diffident at last”; 4: Cradles, v3, “Honesty is a one way gate to Hell”; 4: Cradles, l.1-2 “I live in my own world of make-believe”; 4: Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, “We live as we dream, alone.” 9:Of Montreal, The Past Is A Grotesque Animal. ”But you know no matter where we are/ We're always touching by underground wires”; 11: Pink Floyd, Welcome To The Machine, “Where have you been?/It’s all right, we know where you’ve been”; 12: Aztec Two-Step, Cockroach Cacaphony, “You look away from all the thoughts & things you want & dreams you’d like to do/ But all that you can think about is what’s confronting you.”; 13 besides Shakespeare (see inset to the right), Rush, Limelight, “All the world’s indeed a stage/And we are merely players/Performers and portrayers/Each another’s audience/Outside the gilded cage”; 13: Obsolete dative construction of “remember” where that object which brings the Belovéd to my mind is said to remember the Belovéd to me. 14: Pink Floyd, Ibid., 4: Yes I am making a Dualist remark.  See figure two, below.  Also The Police, Ghost n The Machine, “Spirits In The Materal World”.  Also Sonic Youth, Evol, “In The Kingdom #19.”

 This is, a personal, yet open, communication from one poet to another, in sonnet form, by johanna Faust, for which some acknowlegement is appropriate.  Just saying.

After Life Vacation, Or, One Way One Way Trips May Be Not

After Life Vacation,

Or, One Way One Way Trips May Be Not   

a logistical observation in sonnet form

by a female Faust

“Honesty is a one way trip to Hell.”

—Sub Urban

“Those of us that had been up all night 

were in no mood for coffee and donuts,

we wanted strong drink.”

—Hunter S. Thompson

The Sunrise Auto Walk  ‘round Heaven is, despite

its good reviews on Yelp, a rarely crowded ride.

Hell’s own, again, in no pastry-coffee mood; Hell had, again, been up all night;

but they held their tickets firm as their resolve to ogle well the Other Side.

The Sunset Auto Walk ‘round Hell is a likewise hi-tech roundabout

tourist trap, complete with mugs and keychains, posters, tees:

Rock Stars, Poets, Lovers, throng, & as they roll in & roll on out

They shake their heads & pointing, laugh at what they saw — & didn’t see

In Hell, honesty gets a free ride on the Auto Walk, (likewise Lies, in Heaven):

 No cameras! Hold on to handrails! Keep hands and elbows in!

Don’t believe me? Go ask Virgil, Marlowe, Blake, or Milton,

Angels are to Devils what redemption is to sin.

The former answer honestly the honest, the latter is but mask

Hide & go seek, surely the game of choice — for souls with wit to ask.

To M.: Because (See Below), Or, Such A Short Time To Be There

 

Click here to see full sized.

Because (see below)

Or, Such A Short Time To Be There

There are so many many many reasons not to die

Some compelling, some intriguing, some distracting, if you must,

& as I live & breathe before you I am proof it is no lie:

The multifaceted incredible of everything is waiting for you — trust.

Now I know that I don’t know you well enough to grok your sadness

& without full understanding, cannot assuage it nor amend

Notwithstanding, to not max out your aliveness would be — madness

& makes me all at once want to some happy resolution recommend —

Because my opposition here is personal. I know well that disconnect

I know the strength I once derived from a certain chancéd interaction

Of course this is not relevant, but since what we do not see we oft reflect

May a somehow lasting sometime joy be happily effected by this action.

All this to earnestly entreat you to but — I don’t know — what — to say

— Except: that every day I see you becomes better still a day.

To M

from johanna Faust

because (see above)

"I don't know." (black and white digital text graphic)

  View Full Size

Heavy Handed Sonnet, Or, Please Take Care Of Your Health, If Not For Yourself, Then For Us

 Explicit Title:

(above)

Complicit Title:

On Meeting With A Dear Friend, 

Or, 

Prayer To Rouse Action To Keep Death Longer Still At Bay

Implicit Title:

Don’t Make Me Intervene,

Or,

If You Do Not See A Doctor I’ll Get A Posse Together & Drag You

Explicit Title: 

Heavy Handed Sonnet, 

Or, 

Please Take Care Of Your Health, If Not For Yourself, Then For Us

Complicit Title:

On Meeting With A Dear Friend, 

Or, 

Prayer To Rouse Action To Keep Death Longer Still At Bay

Implicit Title:

Don’t Make Me Intervene,

Or,

If You Do Not See A Doctor I’ll Get A Posse Together & Drag You

Realizing that you know as someone you know should know —

Should, & could, & would have, I’m sure, but for embarrassment of Fear —

That & pain & reticence to lose a still quite bearable right now —

A comfort slowly, surely vanishing as draws closer what is near –

All too near.  Immanent.  Certain proof of our demise —

The disintegration of the the only place we’re always found to be —

Since no hope avert this nor avoid, we must, an we be wise,

Take at least what steps by serendipity allowéd to us to see —

How much more when we consider with what gifts we have been blessed —

How much more than that to think of joys we’ve yet to taste —

How much cannot be fathoméd, can be at most but badly guessed,

But not to undertake such research is by all accounts —  a waste —

Ask anyone of us who loves you, needs you — functional — by our side —

You cannot be there for anyone you know — if suddenly — you died —

At Fuzzy's — An Afterparty Fragment

                                                                  

                                                                  

 At Fuzzy’s                          

 an afterparty fragment                                            

 by a female Faust                                                 

                                     

 a place to be & not a place         

 for a time after a time             

 strangers nonetheless together      

 not unwilling to be kind            

 better yet than but me better       

 rather symbol over sign             

 likely etchings or the weather      

 out far sighted foreign mind        

                                                                   

 4.25.2022                                                         

 by a female Faust                                                 

                                                                   

self portrait, or, still optimistic (about a f*cked-up world)

What You Will, Under Will (A Fantasy Invoking The As Yet Unmet)

 

What You Will, Under Will

(A Fantasy Invoking The As Yet Unmet)

by a female Faust

“Give sanity a longer leash, but some of us have sharper teeth…”

“Love’s Secret Domain”

Coil

Let your heart beat even in your memory, 

Let it all of them — me — you — remind

Kinesthetic extrasensory

Lightening future manifest your impossible dreams all the while

Then — of a sudden make all too real: me whispering, too close to you, just behind

A hot breath moist against your nape

No earshot to darken the echoing mile

Overpowered de facto complicit rape

If real binding, banish, but play at pleasure & find

What you will, under Will, in the depth of a smile 

I am already there in your mind, let me in:

Of the oft counterfactual I you yet remind

Becoming, once seen, the all -ways -ready seeming

Should I but inherit the prize — more than kin — I bequeath: 

An be mine, it will never have been less than kind

This moment’s confusion well I know 

As much with the civilized as delicate, best to roundly look  — beneath:

Proof. Of all that quote endquote -ing claims to show

We’re the ones with longer leashes now, you see?

It’s sanity that has the sharper teeth

  

Beware! Be thou yet subtle, strong, & fearless; you may find

Sometime love plays at only seeming blind.

The Wimp Of The Perverse

 

The Wimp Of The Perverse

Or, The Dangers Of The Habitual Rhetorical

by a female Faust

lash out at the masking

lash out at the fears

because you want instead to be asking

why the fuck no one cares

why cover up & pretend

why expect consolation

or double down & defend   

plotting retaliation

for some stranger once finding you

with your half hidden scars

for how you want him reminding you

that your ‘mine’ should be ‘ours’

$

DANCING, Or, The Eternal Moving Moment

DANCING

Or, The Eternal Moving Moment

dancing like the World is ending

dancing like the dead

dancing like the straight is bending

dancing to your head

dancing like there’s no tomorrow

dancing with the Gods

dancing to give voice to sorrow

dancing against odds

dancing is the cure for sorrow

dancing is the cure for strife

dancing never has to borrow

dancing

is

like

Life.

such a thing can not go on

— for always — or for ever —

except of course it give fresh Hope

where Reason

should persever.

by a female Faust

written at, for, & because Death Guild, 2/21/22.

To The Young Lady In Black Vinyl Pants, Or, Hopefully A Prelude

 

To The Young Lady In Black Vinyl Pants

Or, Hopefully A Prelude

by a female Faust

Like the hottest chick in vinyl I have seen in quite some time,

For no one asset, one thinks in afterthough, as wit:

Such as would eagerly engage chance introductory line

to the effect that her ass so clad in blackest vinyl cried out — indeed — for — it.

Such wit quite often is its own indeed rward

Or so most every chick has had the luxury to think

What comes to mind at once is best— plan ahead & they’ll be bored

The future best works out its self, we say, & blink.

But lo, her slim envinyled bottom soon was unherneath my hand

Southern accent straight entreating — near commanding me to strike

Were I ship, before distracted, I had now lost all sight of land

Concerned instead with what this very pressing circumstance’s seeming like.

Such is the moment made immortal as much as have I skill

Every other likewise portal, should the two of us but will.

To The Uninvited Fay (Or, Passably Perspicacious Person Presents Pretty Playful Pleasing Perhaps Persuasive Poem)

 

To: The Happy Sighting Of The Uninvited Fay

(Passably Perspicacioius Person Presents Pretty Playful Pleasing Perhaps Persuasive Poem)

From: a female Faust

Like an unexpected visitation from the Graceful Little Folk

Itself alike to tripping running into Loki at a rave

However dark your dreaming was, it now wants longer till awoke

Things lately sad, well turning to be come of a sudden happy have

Like some Færie playing Occam who makes moot my knotty bow

Or fay roleplaying Zorro, after vorpal snicker snack,

That left Evil yet believing for a moment to've escaped the blade somehow

Only to watch their front fall like dead bloody meat from off their back                                                                                            

Spitefulness & envy, willfull sloth, vanity & jealousy & greed

A prideful unacceptance so to observation disinclined as amounting to denial

If you see something but are too eager for the saying the færy folk know what you need

Sit down be quiet look & listen — to understand — your self — after a while

Everywhere the Spirit ventures likely Færies dance half hidden in plain sight

They put on such Glamour not for themselves as much so as perchance to put things Right.

Update (a poem for a friend)

Update

Or, The This That Is Just In, Should That That Be Nearly Out

My friend for so long, this is me here, to you

This isn’t meant to be heard in another’s voice

This here and now is between just us two:

Our only always way too short of a time

In not mere product of chance event so much

As it is of our conscious choice ——

History does not repeat so much

But events most certainly rhyme

& if things get insane, disjoint, out of touch

(If nothing else I hope this gets through)

Rememer that you, you, here & now, are enough,

Enough over which to rejoice ——

Every time I remember I rejoice anew.

a poem by a Faust to a friend, January 19th, 2022