[He asked concerning preference, dawn or sunset?]

The sun rises quietly; only a whisper of wind to say: "I am coming; I approach." And in the greying light-- the aura of presence-- the loon cries across the water, geese take flight from nesting, and the rushes beat against each other like hands in applause of a rising curtain. The day begins.

The day ends, a shrouding curtain drawing across the earth-- velvet blue and mauve-- dimming the too sharp images of day, softening their lustre. And with the last gasp of breeze, like the crying out of a child that doesn't wish to fall to slumber so soon, too soon. Or perhaps, like a lover breathing on your neck in parting embrace. "I will return."

Which would you prefer?

AngelPie_Mouse (JB) © Copyright, 1999

"You will remember this." A self-injunction to rehearse unrelenting sorrow that knew not what joy should be. Smiling was a thing only half recalled as something that passed, was flattened and pressed not as flowers in a book for remembering, but beneath the blows of words and slights and the laying on of hands that should have had better occupation. How old were you when you realized you didn't own the anger? The child face was then almost still visible, cheeks run with tears, still asking "why?" At twenty, you felt pity for the self that had carried you so far.

The face of twenty in the mirror stares in accusation. The older visage smiles. "Child, you do not know what sorrow is yet. But you should know, there are better things to remember."

-- Angel-Pie Mouse (March 5, 1999)

AngelPie_Mouse (JB) © Copyright, 1999

Let me not entice you with visions of Ophelia tearing flowers from the sod before their bud has blown. Strewn in the frenzy of love's madness, their beauty is wasted. And everyone knows: Love unrequited is love unknown.

Life begins anew. We hear its shrill bleating dinning on the ear, too loud. We see it painful on the earth, a wound too raw, drenched in partum blood, too fresh from the pregnant Winter, All we want is just to survive the never-ending mud.

-- Angel-Pie Mouse (March 5, 1999)

AngelPie_Mouse (JB) © Copyright, 1999

It rained last night and this morning, the pavement still glistens with slickness and a small riverlet runs the gutter of the street, runs a clear and trickled progress beside the street, a grey intrusion on this narrowed reality.

A single leaf is caught in the flow, brown and gold, reddening at the center. It's edges are upturned, a bright cockerel boat swirling in the eddies round a pebble and drifting on to be caught by whatever current may be.

It lies so lightly on the water; were a breeze to bear upon it, it might become a flame bird or butterfly, taking flight until the wind tired of this plaything. But the breeze does not come.

I watch the leaf making lazy arcs upon the water. Thinking on it, it might become a fairy boat yet that could carry my soul to where you are. Could it but carry my soul to where you are what welcome would there be?

But the streamlet that runs the gutter goes not so very far as all that, no where near as far as all that. It merely flows to the grate at the corner where the leaf will drown and become so much debris.

(for Michael, 09/20/97)

AngelPie_Mouse (JB) © Copyright, 1999

For a moment, the goldfish merely floated in the too white porcelian bowl, then it went swirling round, filling me with a necessity to recall my own mortality. Tumbling, threatening not to go quickly into the away of silence that runs to the sea to the origin of life. Is that my end as well? A matter of convenience?

AngelPie_Mouse (JB) © Copyright, 1999

The fists of wanting children beat upon the table of hunger. One mother feeds them all and prays the money to pay for it will come tomorrow. Sometimes, god answers.

The bodies of wanting children lie crumbling in the dust. One mother weeps, but her tears do not feed them. The milk of her breasts suckle the lips of those who touch them soonest. For the rest, she turns her back.

You do not get to choose your mother, nor how to love her.

Response to Telescope 03/14/99. Angel-Pie Mouse, 1999

AngelPie_Mouse (JB) © Copyright, 1999

A cup of coffee A fresh baked coissant A small bag containing a single skein of DMC310 "I think you said you were almost out."

A single perfect rose A package of Bigalow's tea And a paper of assorted needles he bought from the disabled veteran outside the grocery.

A glass of red wine A hug while you're doing the dishes A leather thimble dropped on your dinner plate "because I like holding your hands."

AngelPie_Mouse (JB) © Copyright, 1999

In his shaking hand, grasped in trembling tips of fingers, bitten, it is a dull steel rectangle, thin, edged bright. He has a fascination with it tonight, his sacrificial dagger from Gillette.

He lifts the t-shirt that he wears and prepares for the ceremony of elegant sorrows.

The little ceremony, prefaced with the mantras of his woes, unloved, he is no longer child, not quite man. And there is none to stay his hand, to hold him, and say: "I understand?" Would understanding ever be enough?

Small lines of thickened self-healed flesh, too fresh, he must not cut where nerves no longer feel.

The long thin cut, straight and clean and not too deep, reddening, a Christmas ribbon rushes from the spool, the shivered chill of pain that reminds him he is alive again, when living dead has become too much.

She will cut her ankles, or he, his thighs, not suicide, but the death of a thousand cuts.

The little death, hidden beneath the brush of clothing, masked. No one must know this worship has passed. With a secret smile, he closes his eyes, preparing the justification of lies should anyone ever ask, they never will.

And the angel, who constant vigil keeps, weeps, impotent in the corner.

Written by J.B., May 7, 1997.

AngelPie_Mouse (JB) © Copyright, 1997, 1999

Wet cocoon struggling, born new for a transitory illusion of days, warm sun and shivering ice blue moon, both painting your wings in a camoflague against the predator birds. Aloft, in effortless sweep, you take my soul skyward to where the angels weep.

AngelPie_Mouse (JB) © Copyright, 1999

In the morning, cupped in the palms of her hands, she brought him an orange.

AngelPie_Mouse (JB) © Copyright, 1999

When I do not plumb the depths of my own passion, I am seeking to scale the height of your contempt; the paradox of giving one's heart unwisely increases the disparity between our positions. You are forever unreachable and unreached and I am forever in the shadows of a wall unbreeched. Were love meant to be so hopeless? Could I but turn from you I would find myself on level ground; In a cratered landscape of other lovers lost. Ah, but here is no pity where there is no heart; there is no mercy where there is no soul; there is no beauty where there is no joy; and there is no joy. You are alone on your parapet aching for those qualities you have never owned; The paradox of never giving one's heart unwisely the signal fires from mountain top to mountain top can not be kindled without a spark.

Written by J.B., May 7, 1997

AngelPie_Mouse (JB) © Copyright, 1997, 1999

Season of sorrow, 5 old wounds are remembered; 7 I hold my friend's hand. 5

(for Telescope07; April, 1999)

AngelPie_Mouse (JB) © Copyright, 1999

"You do this to me." His voice came in a hoarse whisper hot breath rasping on her ear the whisps of soft baby hair puffed on her neck. His hand fit her smaller one to a place between his legs, hard and swollen and trapped in serge trousers. "You do this to me."

She wriggled to escape his lap. He groaned that she made it worse. Visions of the growing thing growing ever longer, larger. Would he have to tape it to his leg? Could he walk that way? Would it continue until it emmerged from the cuff of his pants, dragging on the ground beside his shoe and getting all dirty?

No one knew to explain this anatomy to a five-year-old. She was afraid to tell.

Metal tables, lights, and rubber gloves-- Dr. Killdare would come; Ben Casey would shake his head sternly; and kindly Marcus Welbee, M.D. would show concern. They would have to cut it off, make it short again. Why did this idea please her?

Written by J.B., April 7, 1999

AngelPie_Mouse (JB) © Copyright, 1999

We do not always stand upon the precipice of being all or being nothing at all. The whimsy of the fates owes more to caprice; than Human mind owes to the fall. We are not doomed to be seeking-self exiles, transfigured within the shadowland of dance-- admirers of our own reflections and our wiles, which little coincide with our experience. We are instead a mix of the material, sensual sensing forms that touch and hold, and also of something far more mercurial, the flicker in the flame words cannot enfold. Adam's curse makes life far more mundane. It does not follow that Eve's makes profane.

AngelPie_Mouse, April 20, 1999

Copyright, 1999 © All Rights Reserved

Be as it seems right to be. Let not the sentiment of others dictate to you. There is no shame in tears, if tears come, but if tears do not come, let them be unshed.

Be not ashamed to laugh, if memory of how he or she would look upon this circumstance brings laughter. Only you know the bitter absurdity of this moment.

The maudlin will betray you with cliche and cliche; Words you have said yourself on another day. Do not berate yourself for having said them in the past. The past is past. And regardless of your resolve you will say them again tomorrow.

Be assured, your ache will never pass, your pain will never heal, your sorrow will bloom fresh when you expect it least, but it will lessen and ease each time it is experienced anew and you will find fresh anger in forgetting her voice in the memory lost of his tred upon the stair.

Be kind to yourself. Forgive yourself and accept that gift of love as if from your son or daughter for surely, if they could take back one moment of the day for goodbye they would touch you.

AngelPie_Mouse, April 25, 1999

Angel-Pie Mouse (JB) © Copyright, 1999; All Rights Reserved

Weep not for the angels passing for they weep not. They were not made to express sorrow for wrongs in this life; Even before they had opened their eyes to the world, their tears were dried by kinder hand than we living may know.

Rage not for the angels passing for they know not anger. The scales that balance fair and fair were yet even for them, And before they could hear the sound of an angry word, their ears were filled with a sweeter music than we living may know.

Let go the pain for the angels passing for they feel none. Pain is the grievance of worldly flesh in the tumult and rush of being, And before they could bruise a foot or mar a finger, their pain was assuaged, better healed than we living may know.

Ask not why for the angels passing for they question not. Enthralled in the rapture of the Holy Spirit all things are known, And before they had words or thoughts to comprehend, the question why was answered more fully than we living may know.

Take comfort, then, for the angels passing for they would comfort. Untainted and unstained by man's needs and desires they never knew, they learned God's rule before any other lesson of the soul and they claim your hearts' ease more completely than we living may know.

AngelPie_Mouse, April 27, 1999

Angel-Pie Mouse (JB) © Copyright, 1999; All Rights Reserved

I am the white hot wash across the midnight sky, stars so close together it is impossible to distinquish a single light but a blur of brightness that fills the spaces in between removing the dark to some other distant part of the universe.

I was born before men counted millenium or knew to number them before there was individual conscious when all there was and all there ever would be and all that lay in potential only resolved to a single thought.

I danced among the three sisters and knew the fiddler's tune on the dark meadow before they turned to standing stones, before the Druids worshipped them and called them gods. And all their power of taunt and song is about me, is in me, is me.

AngelPie_Mouse, April 29, 1999

Angel-Pie Mouse (JB) © Copyright, 1999; All Rights Reserved

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