The cultural filters are all in place
And truth, some say, is past its sell-by date
Weak hymns embalmed by hippies, and lost in space
Where time is always 1968

A poison-green tattoo on a fleshy back
No incense, but the Purell’s pretty strong
A ten-year-old gobbles his comfort snack
During Communion and a three-chord song

Our bishops quack and honk in flocks and herds -
We need a starets
                                           but all we get are words:


Intensify the Dallas Charter accountability focus accountability exclusively accountability collegial collective accountability responsibility address theme encounter dialectic collegiality variety universality unity flock dealing topic difficult reasons unexplored differences crisis difficult for bishops enable abusers gravely irreparably failures governance responsibility question engage conversation point brother problematic behavior cultivate culture correctio fraterna enables offending other recognize criticism opportunity to tasks related willingness personally mistakes to each other feeling maintain fraternal relationship cases we damaging weakness anecdotal parenthesis to his speech encounters course ministry recollection forgive counseling for healing discussing matter rationally headway realized psyche of the person measure semblance justice inability forgive his  apparently perplexing consternating remarked noting changed personality of person realize humility mistakes learn mistakes better question unanswered unaddressed mistakes allowed consequences mishandling cases gathering conferences participants and journalists effective concrete measures combat scourge scandal technical theological sense term list reflection points adjunct secretary special portfolio combatting meeting chief architects roadmap for our discussion very, very concrete understatement seriously utter understatement things discussed follow-up meeting continued model of reform the so-called intensify the Dallas Charter metropolitan model metropolitan investigating disciplining wayward ecclesiastical provinces briefing responded you have to read the footnote disgrace investigations systemic coverup dismissed briefing expressed hope report position power prominence leadership structure report findings influence broader jurisdictions Accountability focus accountability exclusively accountability collegial collective accountability responsibility address theme encounter dialectic collegiality variety universality unity flock dealing topic difficult reasons unexplored differences crisis difficult for bishops enable abusers gravely irreparably failures governance responsibility question engage conversation point brother problematic behavior cultivate culture correctio fraterna enables offending other recognize criticism opportunity to tasks related willingness personally mistakes to each other feeling maintain fraternal relationship cases we damaging weakness anecdotal parenthesis to his speech encounters course ministry recollection forgive counseling for healing discussing matter rationally headway realized psyche of the person measure semblance justice inability forgive his  apparently perplexing consternating remarked noting changed personality of person realize humility mistakes learn mistakes better question unanswered unaddressed mistakes allowed consequences mishandling cases gathering conferences participants and journalists effective concrete measures combat scourge scandal technical theological sense term list reflection points adjunct secretary special portfolio combatting meeting chief architects roadmap for our discussion very, very concrete understatement seriously utter understatement things discussed follow-up meeting continued model of reform the so-called Metropolitan model metropolitan investigating disciplining wayward ecclesiastical provinces briefing responded you have to read the footnote disgrace investigations systemic coverup dismissed briefing expressed hope report position power prominence leadership structure report findings influence broader jurisdictions accountable faithful promises episodes  accountability supportive talking collegiality obligation misbehavior failures circumstances reputation representative discreet inquiries interview expression concern geographically confronted reported matter subject investigating disciplining malfeasance proposal wrongdoing explained carefully considered matter alternatives remarks paragraph  rehearsed alternatives footnote 6 of text speeches delivered sessions briefing spoke involvement laity lay involvement transparency transparent offending other recognize criticism opportunity to tasks related willingness personally mistakes to each other feeling maintain fraternal relationship cases we damaging weakness anecdotal parenthesis to his speech encounters course ministry recollection forgive counseling for healing discussing matter rationally headway realized psyche of the person measure semblance justice inability forgive his  apparently perplexing consternating remarked noting changed personality of person realize humility mistakes learn mistakes better question unanswered unaddressed mistakes allowed consequences mishandling cases gathering conferences participants and journalists effective concrete measures combat scourge scandal technical theological sense term list reflection points adjunct secretary special portfolio combatting meeting chief architects roadmap for our discussion very, very concrete understatement seriously utter understatement things discussed follow-up meeting continued model of reform the so-called Metropolitan model metropolitan investigating disciplining wayward ecclesiastical provinces briefing responded you have to read the footnote disgrace investigations systemic coverup dismissed briefing expressed hope report position power prominence leadership structure report findings influence broader jurisdictions accountable faithful promises episodes  accountability supportive talking collegiality obligation misbehavior failures circumstances reputation representative discreet inquiries interview expression concern geographically confronted reported matter subject investigating disciplining malfeasance proposal wrongdoing explained carefully considered matter alternatives remarks paragraph  rehearsed alternatives footnote 6 of text speeches delivered sessions briefing spoke involvement laity lay involvement transparency transparent intensify the Dallas Charter…

so it is, so it be.

life granted me a boon, come to me, the honey.

not the merest of coating, but a power enrichened,
capable of driving out the slow acting, daily killing,
poisonous venom.

makeover, coverup of tears of ancient marriage-madness,
black swan hate disguise, her lies, venom injection of
coffee blood staining love pretense, now just scar tracks  for a
new boulevard.

the slow pour,  the golden russian amber intertwined tones,
tongue tasted, inside me now, revealed in slow exiting, beauteous,
mellifluous tears.

you dance with the stars, I watch you watching,
clueless that my thee-flavored tears, dance and pour down
my face.

destitute, nearer my God than thee, god blessed this child's life,
love gifted from sweet bees, late in life, flew from my computer screen and sonnet-stung me with antidotes of
love n' honey...

Polka dotted dress fit tightly across
full hips with a ribbon pulled firm to shape
her frame. A mirror and a husband reflect
the white betweens of violets and yellows

and blues trapped in circle-from, spinning
frozen over washer-friendly cotton. And
blonde hair trimmed above the ear and pearl
earrings to match the whites of

cold skin and eyes. With black flats and baby-toes
underneath painted pink that would curl
when her groom came in bed. But a sadness
in her chest when she had taken off the

dress and after the dinner-party with ham
fresh and red wines and business friends
of the man (her husband). A sadness searing deep
within her, in bed, after her husband came

and her feet didn't curl  and he would roll over
and she would be awake. Insomnia
is when you wake reoccurring in the
night (the husband would say.) But she

wouldn't ever sleep, for months, she covered
the black bags under the blues
in her eyes with makeup from macy's
while the husband went to the firm in a new

cadillac and came home every week to steak
or ham fresh without noticing the lines beneath
her eyes. Every sunday she would cook
more food for the business

partners and cover more bags and black
sags with more makeup until macy's changed
their inventory so she drove
father away to find more flesh-colored coverup.

If you are Christian
And ashamed of your body
Listen to Jesus
And pay attention to what he
Said about the issue
Of tissue around your bones
And how that makes you
Evil and some kind of crone.

Find where he says
Abomination is your own skin
And where he says
Shame on the shape you’re in.
Since that came from God
And by your teaching God is right
On everything he ever did,
Why this turning off of the lights?

And, if not Christian,
Isn’t it all really the same thing;
Covering up, a masquerade,
Posing, pontificating, pretending?
Why the hiding and lying
About who and what you are?
Why treat your healthy self
As if you were some big scar?

Isn’t it really that society
Has made you think badly of you,
And when the truth is told
It was not about something you do?
It’s more about what others
Think and feel and see as shame.
So quit thinking they are right,
And by all means quit taking blame.

The onion, now that's something else
its innards don't exist
nothing but pure onionhood
fills this devout onionist
oniony on the inside
onionesque it appears
it follows its own daimonion
without our human tears

our skin is just a coverup
for the land where none dare to go
an internal inferno
the anathema of anatomy
in an onion there's only onion
from its top to it's toe
onionymous monomania
unanimous omninudity

at peace, at peace
internally at rest
inside it, there's a smaller one
of undiminished worth
the second holds a third one
the third contains a fourth
a centripetal fugue
polypony compressed

nature's rotundest tummy
its greatest success story
the onion drapes itself in it's
own aureoles of glory
we hold veins, nerves, and fat
secretions' secret sections
not for us such idiotic
onionoid perfections


Wisława Szymborska, translated from the Polish by Stanisław Barańczak & Clare Cavanagh

Why are you so tired you just had two extra days off of school**

The thing is though,
The tiredness I feel can't be relieved.
There are not enough minutes, hours, days, months, or years of sleeping that could cure the tiredness I feel.
No amount of sleep will get rid of the weariness I feel.
You see, although I do not sleep much because of the never ending nightmares.
I am more worn from having to drag myself out of bed every morning.
Paint on the smile.
Pile the coverup on my wrists.
My heart feels so heavy.
My mind is overwhelmed.
You see, no amount of sleep could cure the tiredness inside me.

I slept with her, my rapacious pen, took me in quiet vengeance in
full on conjugation

raken and taken, me,
her overlording me now, her authorship, so long held
in my maledom abeyance,
a kept imprisonment, unleashing at last, a tongue lashing~leashing,
de-spite my un-desirous craven lying supplications,
excuses of innocence and accident, coincidence and conflation,
ashes, ashes, denials incinerated, all fall down

she wrote/stabbed upon my heartless chest,
in the cheap crudités colors of a prisoner’s inking,
“user of words mine, all mine”

gathered up my innards of loose words,
speculative notes & titles yet to be,
born and kept hid in password protected silent back labor files,
now hers, leaving me sputtering, unable to create,
a homeless mute citizen, possession-less,
helplessly hoping her hovering harlequin might relent,
without any shelter, even a glimmering, a single aleph or bet

she celebratory cackled and clawed,
professed her reclamation ownership of all my poems predecessors,
zola j’accusing that I, ripped from her forcibly,
with no granted permission, her womanly touché of my scribing,
warning of no more global warming for my unprivileged hands,
daren’t try for pretenses of stolen legal guardianship,
warning of a new, forced caining inscription,
a tattooing of  “thief” upon my 5 knuckled right ******,
“plagiarist” boldly inked in back & blue upon my left palm

I, predator,
she, victim,
of my now self-professed, admitted confess,
she, my single victim,
of a decade long serializing criminal coverup

her parting poem a threatening,
herein issued in this very verse,
damning all who would falsely credit themselves,
to suffer shame and an unimaginable curse,
this, the newborn eleventh of ten commandments

parting, she kissing my lips, even my emptied apertures,
with warning bitings,
she knew all my
my numerous noms de guerre,
no dead scrolls caves to hid in, and to be discovered some future day,
and if ever marked as copyrighted,
’twas no tunneling escape,
the exposed truth to be over-stamped
upon all, upon each, in every language,

”copied right from the tongue of a woman!”


and she would be wright...

Why Men Like to Load the Dishwasher

We are the artists of shape and configuration,
puzzle masters solving riddles of physics,
worshipers at the altar of labor saving devices,
this is a love poem of sorts, a Bazinga salutation,
to men and their undying love
for **** machines.

were it in my power
all cups would be handle-less,
the dishwasher time-space continuum
would be non-interrupted by black holes
where handles pointlessly protrude,
requiring endless rearrangement,
a soul destroying exercise.

bowls of any sort should have bottoms that retract.
indeed, the capacity increase, a visible fact,
is so enviro-friendly, eminently sensible,
that the loading for mechanical scrubbing
is deserved of a wing in the Smithsonian.

perhaps the budgeteers of Congress
should be tutored in this artistry,
how to make any limited resource,
better used.

the rub, as the bard would have writ,
is that this roaring tempest-tost,
our love for hard labor lost,
secret sacrificed behind a locked door,
of a Sanctum *******,
is entirely due, all glory to,
the secret society of fairies who
hide-reside inside,
freeing us to write more poetry.

in so many ways that I cannot reveal,
less the other gender members squeal,
men live to love to load the dishwasher,
for the ingenuity challenge, and of course,
the side benefit of the excusing coverup,
"I helped clean up," a relationship saver,
proof positively that the dishwasher inventor,
was surely a brilliant woman

tabitha all grown up, meeting the 120 year old ** ** the clown



tabitha was busy seeing people interested in their previous lives before this one

and ** ** the clown, who was having delusions, through his sudden memory loss

one minute it’s as bright of day, the next it’s gone, and then he would pick up a tabithat doll

and as he held it, he would remember that day, where he favoured tabitha more than the other kids

and wanted to find the family, but didn’t want to be a bother, so endora came into his dream

to walk away from the nursing home and all the care he is given, to travel to sydney australia

to pay a visit to tabitha, and it took him 7 days as he touched down in sydney to find out

wherte tabitha is, and then went into a house, which said tabitha’s den, and saw this attractive twenty something

and thought to himself, he is in the wrong place, but asked, i am looking for a tabitha stevens, the girl

that was the inspiration to the tabitha doll, and at first, tabitha was puzzled, but it came back to her

when he said he was ** ** the clown, and he is now 120 years old, and wants to know tabitha’s secrete

on staying young, and tabitha, said, being a witch can do things to you, and ** ** the clown said, your a what1

tabitha said, a witcortal, well, my dad’s advertising firm hired you, i was just favoured because of my grandma

and this made ** ** really excited, and said, can you tell me, was this doll, a cute little doll meant to talk

and tabitha said, no, it was a coverup, so daddy doesn’t lose your account, it wasn’t daddy’s fault he lost the account,

it was grandmas, but she hates the idea of a witch marrying mortals back then, you should see the other clients

that were trapped by witchcraft, no, you were under a silly spell, and ** **, left and went back to his hotel, and

endora came into his room and put a spell on him, to never have him wake, ever, he will reincarnate into something else

and then endora said to tabitha, yeah i remember that day, when we made you into a doll, but i just killed ** ** the clown, ok

he believes in reincarnation, he won’t suffer, and he will realise, that you did the wrong thing, because, now he knows tabitha

death happens, and i didn’t want ** ** being the mortal out living the witch’s and sam and darrin popped in and tabitha said

how is adam, and adams side was expecting another baby, due in 4 months, and tabitha told one of darrin’s old clients ** ** the clown

the whole truth, which made grandma **** him, to reenter his next life, full of happiness, and darrin said, how old was that kodger, and

tabitha said 120, and went to his hotel to die, grandma said, and darrin said, i might be a warlock now, but i show a bit of compassion

and endora said, do you believe in god, well god is your mother in law, me, and i did all that to you, to bring on your sense of humour,

sam knew, but hated the plan, but it was my job, ok, ** ** the clown was too old, and feeble, so i made him escape the nursing home

and find tabitha, hex the house and doll with memories of that day, put a weeny spell on tabitha to spill the beans, so he will die peacefully

and he did, and the stevens family had a meal in new york, to celebrate the life of ** ** the clown, even going to his funeral, larry was forced

to go, and there was a big party, as tabitha, was asked to get rid of the tabitha doll, and zap it out of those kids homes, after a man, said, were you

the inspiration to the tabitha, it was flattering, but freaky, so tabitha zapped all the memory of the tabitha dolls, to leave the world with ** ** the clown

and everyone left, and tabitha went back to work, to tell this 45 year old man, he is ned kelly, cause of a dark lobe, and that is the end of ** ** the clown.