The atoms' screams in quiet air

How did she survive the empty chair
the noons that inch to eventide
the atoms' screams in quiet air

a roommate's sighs the aides who stare
but none who knew her at her side
how did she survive the empty chair

while wondering at who might care
the flat smile of a photo bride
the atoms' screams in quiet air

the cards balloons the proxy fare
of not enough and will collide
how did she survive the empty chair

callous time will even wear
a stone away thus we've eroded cried
the atoms' screams in quiet air

in rooms where no one hears your prayer
yet pull you slowly with the tide
how did she survive the empty chair
the atoms' screams in quiet air

Outing a Morning by the Bard of Bat Yam (#BardOfBatYam) Poet Laureate Of Zion (#PoetLaureateOfZion) Stephen Darori (#Stephen Darori, #StephenDrus)

I.
Percolated up from wild color dreams,
Jacked on fresh ground cafe,
A string of errands on easy street.

We walk down rickety stairs under nip in air morning,
All smiles code talking syllables do just fine,
Off we go--me driving head north into town
Pharmacy first, she heads in while I finish smoking over paper,
Soon reading mags--Rolling Stone 40th anniversary issue, great interview with Dylan, Perry Farrell, Rage Against the Machine, talking summer festivals.

She buys Shampoo, nail polish in bright reds and pinks, until Scripts ready and we amble out 80 bucks lighter, slide along the roiling river swelled by snowmelt and nor’easter remnants, next stop Thrifway market for broccoli, another pack of smokes.

Churn south around the riverbend, town coffee hub, a stop for bagels and muffins, back on Main street ending the circle, she says "I know you love me, but you like me too, don’t ya." I smile and nod with one eye on her and the other on the road, non verbal knowing with a full tank of realization.
As we slide past the Country Club, all snow now gone, and hang a left into the driveway.

Up the rickety stairs, provisions in hand, I let her go first and she calls me a gentleman. 

I toast my garlic bagel, sprinkle cayenne pepper on cream cheese, soaks up coffee quite nicely.

A day in the life, a moment in time, these days of first spring are of heaven born,
Me out in shorts and long-sleeved t-shirt,

Its music time, and I’m leaning toward something symphonic, Copeland it is--"Fanfare for the Common Man" with so much of the day still before us and we are glad for the time together evermore.

So it goes on the freedom trail...with a prank in mind to go kiss her with cayenne lips, and our tongues turn to talks brushing ever so sweetly, and yes hotly from the red ochre spice, but she's tough and feigns not knowing, and I wonder if her nipple would be so resilient against my heat.

Ravel's "Pavane for a Dead Princess" comes next, textured with aural color and we wash it all out in Debussy's "La Mer," the Sea boils up on battleship gray rocks.

A snippet of morning light and life, undercoated by joy and abandon, as the buds on many trees swell in violet and lilac and deeper lavenders.

Beauty in so many forms, gifts we exchange effortlessly, May is my month and I am lucky to find her so welcoming of my idiosyncratic vision, the way the cool air lays down upon my flesh, enough air to float the universe....across the connected sky.


II.
It's my month, too, 
I have to remind him. He grabs the front
end of May, a tiger wrestling crocus buds and pussy willow into being, but I snap 
with the tail of May's whip end, 
slide us into June, snap with the snapdragons, digging the bee drone, 
I dream coconut suntan lotion
served up with my birthday cake. 

May spreads out before us, possibilities clear and limitless as a cornflower Maine sky bright with golden trompe l’oeil clouds painted on the horizon. We peer out the door, then thunder down the wood steps, and I never drive when he's around. "Just give him the wheel and he's happy" a friend of mine used to say and, my God, it's true. And I the equally happy navigator, the carryall for directions, cigarettes, lighters, sunglasses, diet coke babble as we bounce down Main Street, "we should get a bed with a bookcase headboard, don't you think? And a futon for the guest room I don't know what we'll do if the kids all come at the same time." 

He's smiling, one eye on me rubbing his leg, 
telling him the skin is too dry, he must
use the patchouli lotion I bought him. 
His other eye studies the road, his ear 
tuned to WZON, which is steadily trashing Terril Owen. 
A brief lecture ensues: 
football etiquette and Terril’s utter disregard for it. 

The day proceeds. 

We smooch goodbye even though he's just going next door 
to buy a paper and smokes. He tells me not to buy green nail polish, and I threaten 
to paint HIS toes L'Oreal Leprechaun No. 1, 
but when I find him in the magazine aisle 
I have only purple and pink for spring toes, 
and he's lost in the latest Sports Illustrated. 

It's true, we're in love,
we're in like. The best of both worlds! 
The kissing heats and cools,
heats and cools, but the conversation 
is endless and endlessly fascinating, 
these plans and details mark our days, 
each outing another brick in the home we build in our hearts, rock solid and decorated 
with kindnesses; he opens doors for me, 
I make him coffee. May stretches out before us in a line of promises we’ll keep, some solemn, some frivolous but all snuggled, treasured
in our joined warmth, a world that has grown from these words on a page, to voices, to bodies and now our oneness, joined at the soul. 
Now us, and still the lilacs waiting to bloom.

When in Life there comes tears by the Bard of Bat Yam (#BardOfBatYam), Poet Laureate Of Zion (#POetLaureateOfZion) , Stephen Darori (#StephenDarori, #StephenDrus)

When in Life there comes tears
With heart of sorrow and night
bitter rain
When in darkness of soul, or
shadowy realms of dream
you and I shall in hand
face all of life's trials and
every challenge answered.
Shall that gentle night come
swift then let shadow's quake
with the dawn shall all dark 
mirrors grow bright save one.
In my heart I shall never know
the light that brightens your
life in a glow so dazzling
as to enshroud my eyes in
death's own shadow. Without
the light you cast upon my
heart to a cold stone shall
all have become.
Why cries the night such 
Bitter tears.

Drink deep my love from my soul by the Bard of Bat Yam ( #BardOfBatYam), Poet Laureate of Zion (#PoetLaureateOfZion) Stephen Darori( #stephendarori, #StephenDarori)

I shall search for you
I shall find you
I shall lift the Cup 
of Eternal Life.
Drink deep my love
from my soul.
Shrink back not if
the taste should be bitter
or too sweet
or too cold.

A Thousand Questions by the Bard of Bat Yam (#BardOfBatYam), Poet Laureate of Zion(PoetLaureateOf Zion) Stephen Darori (@stephendarori, #StephenDarori)

What is life
What is illusion
What is death
What is reality
A thousand questions
held by a million times
a million souls.
Yet why is no answer
given back to the 
Fold.

In the mirror of your
Eyes I see my world
as it is.
Beyond light there is
Dark and beyond dark 
there is Light.
Life is a shadow game 
of gray and white.
Played by pawns with
dreams of what they 
could be once they reach
The other side.

The Misplaced English Garden in Bat Yam by the Bard of Bat Yam ( #BardOfBatYam) , Poet Laureate Of Zion (#PoetLaureateOfZion) , Stephen Darori( (@StephenDarori,#StephenDarori)

In Bat Yam is English country garden,
With flowers sweet and smells rare,
Where honey bees hum merrily
And butterflies and daddylonglegs are there.

It is misplaced Limmy Poppmy country garden
It’s near to god ( is it a woman?) they say
Where I can ponder for a while,
At the end of hot and humid Israeli day

It is the disrranged Zion country garden,
where the 32 varieties of Geraniums grow,
And the hoop oebirds are always singing
From dawn til evenings windless blew

My misplaced garden just a glimpse of heaven,
Beneath a sky of Poet Laureate ;s Zion blue,
It’s only a Garden of Eden country garden,
My sweated , grim and grimmed garden just for you