arise to wreak havoc on our seemingly secure isolation. Life! You are not too beautiful to be realized-you are ugly and a malicious tormentor-I am too tired to play your games any longer (but I am not suicidally inclined!)-I want nothing to do with your pomps and trappings, your icing and tinsel-your "beautiful" people and your specious promises of love!

of my I have abdicated-I have realized that love shall not be part lifeso be it. AMEN. Let the AMEN ring out, resound-it has been proclaimed. What if it reduces me to a shell, the snail knows not its protest, has no protest in its hallowed sanctuary. I can no longer live for a promise that has proved to be unattainable.

Yes-but Life, you now must make but one promise. I have foresworn your alleged pleasures, now you must abandon your tantalizing. Do not disturb me again with this nonsense and falsity. I'm much too tired to struggle . . . and I'm not suicidally inclined. Abandon me totally-it is the half-way measures that destroy.

26

klyptic thirty-three

The man you know

and the man I know

are so much different!

He's Butch to everyone else

but me...

Paul Mariah

just touch

touch me

Don't help

or give advice

or clear debris from paths I follow,

just touch me

hand in hand

and smile.

Green augusts

white novembers

barren

but for you.

Don't cry when I am sad nor drink when I am drunken,

just touch me

hand in hand and smile.

Donald C. Mitchell