Like a psychotic docent in the wilderness,
I will not speak in perfect Ciceronian cadences.
I draw my voice from a much deeper cistern,
Preferring the jittery synaptic archive,
So sublimely unfiltered, random and profane.
And though I am sequestered now,
Confined within the walls of a gated, golf-coursed,
Over-55 lunatic asylum (for Active Seniors I am told),
I remain oddly puerile,
Remarkably refreshed and unfettered.  
My institutionalization self-imposed,
Purposed for my own serenity, and also the safety of others.
Yet I abide, surprisingly emancipated and frisky.
I may not have found the peace I seek,
But the quiet has mercifully come at last.

The nexus of inner and outer space is context for my story.
I was born either in Brooklyn, New York or Shungopavi, Arizona,
More of intervention divine than census data.
Shungopavi: a designated place for tribal statistical purposes.
Shungopavi: an ovine abbatoir and shaman’s cloister.
The Hopi: my mother’s people, a state of mind and grace,
Deftly landlocked, so cunningly circumscribed,
By both interior and outer Navajo boundaries.
The Navajo: a coyote trickster people; a nation of sheep thieves,
Hornswoggled and landlocked themselves,
Subsumed within three of the so-called Four Corners:
A 3/4ths compromise and covenant,
Pickled in firewater, swaddled in fine print,
A veritable swindle concocted back when the USA
Had Manifest Destiny & mayhem on its mind.

The United States: once a pubescent synthesis of blood and thunder,
A bold caboodle of trooper spit and polish, unwashed brawlers, Scouts and      
Pathfinders, mountain men, numb-nut ne'er-do-wells,
Buffalo Bills & big-balled individualists, infected, insane with greed.
According to the Gospel of His Holiness Saint Zinn,
A People’s’ History of the United States: essentially state-sponsored terrorism,
A LAND RUSH grabocracy, orchestrated, blessed and anointed,
By a succession of Potomac sharks, Great White Fascist Fathers,
Far-Away-on-the Bay, the Bay we call The Chesapeake.
All demented national patriarchs craving lebensraum for God and country.
The USA: a 50-state Leviathan today, a nation jury-rigged,
Out of railroad ties, steel rails and baling wire,
Forged by a litany of lies, rapaciousness and ******,
And jaw-torn chunks of terra firma,
Bites both large and small out of our well-****** Native American ***.

Or culo, as in va’a fare in culo (literally "go do it in the ***")
Which Italian Americans pronounce as fongool.
The language center of my brain,
My sub-cortical Broca’s region,
So fraught with such semantic misfires,
And autonomic linguistic seizures,
Compel acknowledgement of a father’s contribution,
To both the gene pool and the genocide.
Columbus Day:  a conspicuously absent holiday out here in Indian Country.
No festivals or Fifth Avenue parades.
No excuse for ethnic hoopla. No guinea feast. No cannoli. No tarantella.
No excuse to not get drunk and not **** your sister-in-law.
Emphatically a day for prayer and contemplation,
A day of infamy like Pearl Harbor and 9/11,
October 12, 1492: not a discovery; an invasion.

Growing up in Brooklyn, things were always different for me,
Different in some sort of redskin/****/****--
Choose Your Favorite Ethnic Slur-sort of way.
The American Way: dehumanization for fun and profit.
Melting *** anonymity and denial of complicity with evil.
But this is no time to bring up America’s sordid past,
Or, a personal pet peeve: Indian Sovereignty.
For Uncle Sam and his minions, an ever-widening, conveniently flexible concept,
Not a commandment or law,
Not really a treaty or a compact,
Or even a business deal.  Let’s get real:
It was not even much in the way of a guideline.
Just some kind of an advisory, a bulletin or newsletter,
Could it merely have been a free-floating suggestion?
Yes, that’s it exactly: a suggestion.

Over and under halcyon American skies,
Over and around those majestic purple mountain peaks,
Those trapped in poetic amber waves of wheat and oats,
Corn and barley, wheat shredded and puffed,
Corn flaked and milled, Wheat Chex and Wheaties, oats that are little Os;
Kix and Trix, Fiber One, and Kashi-Go-Lean, Lucky Charms and matso *****,
Kreplach and kishka,
Polenta and risotto.
Our cantaloupe and squash patch,
Our fruited prairie plain, our delicate ecological Eden,
In balance and harmony with nature, as Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce instructs:
“These white devils are not going to,
Stop ****** and killing, cheating and eating us,
Until they have the whole ******* enchilada.
I’m talking about ‘from sea to shining sea.’”

“I fight no more forever,” Babaloo.
So I must steer this clunky keelboat of discovery,
Back to the main channel of my sad and starry demented river.
My warpath is personal but not historical.
It is my brain’s own convoluted cognitive process I cannot saavy.
Whatever biochemical or—as I suspect more each day—
Whatever bio-mechanical protocols govern my identity,
My weltanschauung: my world-view, as sprechen by proto-Nazis;
Putz philosophers of the 17th, 18th & 19th century.
The German intelligentsia: what a cavalcade of maniacal *******!
Why is this Jew unsurprised these Zarathustra-fueled Übermenschen . . .
Be it the Kaiser--Caesar in Deutsch--Bismarck, ******, or,
Even that Euro-*****,  Angela Merkel . . . Why am I not surprised these Huns,
Get global grab-*** on the sauerbraten cabeza every few generations?
To be, or not to be the ***** bullgoose loony: GOTT.

Biomechanical protocols govern my identity and are implanted while I sleep.
My brain--my weak and weary CPU--is replenished, my discs defragmented.
A suite of magnetic and optical white rooms, cleansed free of contaminants,
Gun mounts & lifeboat stations manned and ready,
Standing at attention and saluting British snap-style,
Snap-to and heel click, ramrod straight and cheerful: “Ready for duty, Sir.”
My mind is ravenous, lusting for something, anything to process.
Any memory or image, lyric or construct,
Be they short-term dailies or deeply imprinted.
Fixations archived one and all in deep storage time and space.
Memories, some subconscious, most vaporous;
Others--the scary ones—eidetic: frighteningly detailed and extraordinarily vivid.
Precise cognitive transcripts; recollected so richly rife and fresh.
Visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, and olfactory reloads:
Queued up and increasingly re-experienced.

The bio-data of six decades: it’s all there.
People, countless, places and things cataloged.
Every event, joy and trauma enveloped from within or,
Accessed externally from biomechanical storage devices.
The random access memory of a lifetime,
Read and recollected from cerebral repositories and vaults,
All the while the entire greedy process overseen,
Over-driven by that all-subservient British bat-man,
Rummaging through the data in batches small and large,
Internal and external drives working in seamless syncopation,
Self-referential, at times paradoxical or infinitely looped.
“Cogito ergo sum."
Descartes stripped it down to the basics but there’s more to the story:
Thinking about thinking.
A curse and minefield for the cerebral:  metacognition.

No, it is not the fact that thought exists,
Or even the thoughts themselves.
But the information technology of thought that baffles me,
As adaptive and profound as any evolution posited by Darwin,
Beyond the wetware in my skull, an entirely new operating system.
My mental and cultural landscape are becoming one.
Machines are connecting the two.
It’s what I am and what I am becoming.
Once more for emphasis:
It is the information technology of who I am.
It is the operating system of my mental and cultural landscape.
It is the machinery connecting the two.
This is the central point of this narrative:
Metacognition--your superego’s yenta Cassandra,
Screaming, screaming in your psychic ear, your good ear:

“LISTEN:  The machines are taking over, taking you over.
Your identity and train of thought are repeatedly hijacked,
Switched off the main line onto spurs and tangents,
Only marginally connected or not at all.
(Incoming TEXT from my editor: “Lighten Up, Giuseppi!”)
Reminding me again that most in my audience,
Rarely get past the comic page. All righty then: think Calvin & Hobbes.
John Calvin, a precocious and adventurous six-year old boy,
Subject to flights of 16th Century French theological fancy.
Thomas Hobbes, a sardonic anthropomorphic tiger from 17th Century England,
Mumbling about life being “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
Taken together--their antics and shenanigans--their relationship to each other,
Remind us of our dual nature; explore for us broad issues like public education;
The economy, environmentalism & the Global ****** Thermometer;
Not to mention the numerous flaws of opinion polls.



And again my editor TEXTS me, reminds me again: “LIGHTEN UP!”
Consoling me:  “Even Shakespeare had to play to the groundlings.”
The groundlings, AKA: The Rabble.
Yes. Even the ******* Bard, even Willie the Shake,
Had to contend with a decidedly lowbrow copse of carrion.
Oh yes, the groundlings, a carrion herd, a flying flock of carrion seagulls,
Carrion crow, carrion-feeders one and all,
And let’s throw Sheryl Crow into the mix while we’re at it:
“Hit it! This ain't no disco. And it ain't no country club either, this is L.A.”  

                  Send "All I Wanna Do" Ringtone to your Cell              

Once more, I digress.
The Rabble:  an amorphous, gelatinous Jabba the Hutt of commonality.
The Rabble: drunk, debauched & lawless.
Too *****-delicious to stop Bill & Hilary from thinking about tomorrow;
Too Paul McCartney My Love Does it Good to think twice.

The Roman Saturnalia: a weeklong **** fest.
The Saturnalia: originally a pagan kink-fest in honor of the deity Saturn.
Dovetailing nicely with the advent of the Christian era,
With a project started by Il Capo di Tutti Capi,
One of the early popes, co-opting the Roman calendar between 17 and 25 December,
Putting the finishing touches on the Jesus myth.
For Brooklyn Hopi-***-Jew baby boomers like me,
Saturnalia manifested itself as Disco Fever,
Unpleasant years of electrolysis, scrunched ***** in tight polyester
For Roman plebeians, for the great unwashed citizenry of Rome,
Saturnalia was just a great big Italian wedding:
A true family blowout and once-in-a-lifetime ego-trip for Dad,
The father of the bride, Vito Corleone, Don for A Day:
“Some think the world is made for fun and frolic,
And so do I! Funicula, Funiculi!”

America: love it or leave it; my country right or wrong.
Sure, we were citizens of Rome,
But any Joe Josephus spending the night under a Tiber bridge,
Or sleeping off a three day drunk some afternoon,
Up in the Coliseum bleachers, the cheap seats, out beyond the monuments,
The original three monuments in the old stadium,
Standing out in fair territory out in center field,
Those three stone slabs honoring Gehrig, Huggins, and Babe.
Yes, in the house that Ruth built--Home of the Bronx Bombers--***?
Any Joe Josephus knows:  Roman citizenship doesn’t do too much for you,
Except get you paxed, taxed & drafted into the Legion.
For us the Roman lifestyle was HIND-*** humble.
We plebeians drew our grandeur by association with Empire.
Very few Romans and certainly only those of the patrician class lived high,
High on the hog, enjoying a worldly extravaganza, like—whom do we both know?

Okay, let’s say Laurence Olivier as Crassus in Spartacus.
Come on, you saw Spartacus fifteen ******* times.
Remember Crassus?
Crassus: that ***** twisted **** trying to get his freak on with,
Tony Curtis in a sunken marble tub?
We plebes led lives of quiet *****-scratching desperation,
A bunch of would-be legionnaires, diseased half the time,
Paid in salt tablets or baccala, salted codfish soaked yellow in olive oil.
Stiffs we used to call them on New Year’s Eve in Brooklyn.
Let’s face it: we were hyenas eating someone else’s ****,
Stage-door jackals, Juvenal-come-late-lies, a mob of moronic mook boneheads
Bought off with bread & circuses and Reality TV.
Each night, dished up a wide variety of lowbrow Elizabethan-era entertainments.  
We contemplate an evening on the town, downtown—
(cue Petula Clark/Send "Downtown" Ringtone to your Cell)

On any given London night, to wit:  mummers, jugglers, bear & bull baiters.
How about dog & **** fighters, quoits & skittles, alehouses & brothels?
In short, somewhere, anywhere else,
Anywhere other than down along the Thames,
At Bankside in Southwark, down in the Globe Theater mosh pit,
Slugging it out with the groundlings whose only interest,
In the performance is the choreography of swordplay and stale ****** puns.
Meanwhile, Hugh Fennyman--probably a fellow Jew,
An English Renaissance Bugsy Siegel or Mickey Cohen—
Meanwhile Fennyman, the local mob boss is getting his ya-yas,
Roasting the feet of my text-messaging editor, Philip Henslowe.
Poor and pathetic Henslowe, works on commission, always scrounging,
But a true patron of my craft, a gentleman of infinite jest and patience,
Spiritual subsistence, and every now and then a good meal at some,
Sawdust joint with oyster shells, and a Prufrockian silk purse of T.S. Eliot gold.

Poor, pathetic Henslowe, trussed up by Fennyman,
His editorial feet in what looks like a Japanese hibachi.
Henslowe’s feet to the fire--feet to the fire—get it?
A catchy phrase whose derivation conjures up,
A grotesque yet vivid image of torture,
An exquisite insight into how such phrases ingress the idiom,
Not to mention a scene once witnessed at a secret Romanian CIA prison,
I’d been ordered to Bucharest not long after 9/11,
Handling the rendition and torture of Habib Ghazzawy,

An entirely innocent falafel maker from Steinway Street, Astoria, Queens.
Shock the Monkey: it’s what we do. GOTO:
Peter Gabriel - Shock the Monkey/
(HQ music video) - YouTube//
www.youtube.com/
Poor, pathetic, ******-on Henslowe.


Fennyman :  (his avarice is whet by something Philly screams out about a new script)  "A play takes time. Find actors; Rehearsals. Let's say open in three weeks. That's--what--five hundred groundlings at tuppence each, in addition four hundred groundlings tuppence each, in addition four hundred backsides at three pence--a penny extra for a cushion, call it two hundred cushions, say two performances for safety how much is that Mr. Frees?"
Jacobean Tweet, John (1580-1684) Webster:  “I saw him kissing her bubbies.”

It’s Geoffrey Rush, channeling Henslowe again,
My editor, a singed smoking madman now,
Feet in an ice bucket, instructing me once more:
“Lighten things up, you know . . .
Comedy, love and a bit with a dog.”
I digress again and return to Hopi Land, back to my shaman-monastic abattoir,
That Zen Center in downtown Shungopavi.
At the Tribal Enrolment Office I make my case for a Certificate of Indian Blood,
Called a CIB by the Natives and the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The BIA:  representing gold & uranium miners, cattle and sheep ranchers,
Sodbusters & homesteaders; railroaders and dam builders since 1824.
Just in time for Andrew Jackson, another false friend of Native America,
Just before Old Hickory, one of many Democratic Party hypocrites and scoundrels,
Gives the FONGOOL, up the CULO go ahead.
Hey Andy, I’ve got your Jacksonian democracy: Hanging!
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) mission is to:   "… enhance the quality of life, to promote economic opportunity, and to carry out the responsibility to protect and improve the trust assets of American Indians, Indian tribes, and Alaska Natives. What’s that in the fine print?  Uncle Sammy holds “the trust assets of American Indians.”

Here’s a ******* tip, Geronimo: if he trusted you,
It would ALL belong to you.
To you and The People.
But it’s all fork-tongued white *******.
If true, Indian sovereignty would cease to be a sick one-liner,
Cease to be a blunt force punch line, more of,
King Leopold’s 19th Century stand-up comedy schtick,
Leo Presents: The **** of the Congo.
La Belgique mission civilisatrice—
That’s what French speakers called Uncle Leo’s imperial public policy,
Bringing the gift of civilization to central Africa.
Like Manifest Destiny in America, it had a nice colonial ring to it.
“Our manifest destiny [is] to overspread the continent,
Allotted by Providence for the free development,
Of our yearly multiplying millions.”  John L. O'Sullivan, 1845

Our civilizing mission or manifest destiny:
Either/or, a catchy turn of phrase;
Not unlike another ironic euphemism and semantic subterfuge:
The Pacification of the West; Pacification?
Hardly: decidedly not too peaceful for Cochise & Tonto.
Meanwhile, Madonna is cash rich but disrespected Evita poor,
To wit: A ****** on the Rocks (throwing in a byte or 2 of Da Vinci Code).
Meanwhile, Miss Ciccone denied her golden totem *****.
They snubbed that little guinea ****, didn’t they?
Snubbed her, robbed her rotten.
Evita, her magnum opus, right up there with . . .
Her SNL Wayne’s World skit:
“Get a load of the unit on that guy.”
Or, that infamous MTV Music Video Awards stunt,
That classic ***** Lip-Lock with Britney Spears.

How could I not see that Oscar snubola as prime evidence?
It was just another stunning case of American anti-Italian racial animus.
Anyone familiar with Noam Chomsky would see it,
Must view it in the same context as the Sacco & Vanzetti case,
Or, that arbitrary lynching of 9 Italian-Americans in New Orleans in 1891,
To cite just two instances of anti-Italian judicial reach & mob violence,
Much like what happened to my cousin Dominic,
Gang-***** by the Harlem Globetrotters, in their locker room during halftime,
While he working for Abe Saperstein back in 1952.
Dom was doing advance for Abe, supporting creation of The Washington Generals:
A permanent stable of hoop dream patsies and foils,
Named for the ever freewheeling, glad-handing, backslapping,
Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force (SCAEF), himself,
Namely General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the man they liked,
And called IKE: quite possibly a crypto Jew from Abilene.

Of course, Harry Truman was my first Great White Fascist Father,
Back in 1946, when I first opened my eyes, hung up there,
High above, looking down from the adobe wall.
Surveying the entire circular kiva,
I had the best seat in the house.
Don’t let it be said my Spider Grandmother or Hopi Corn Mother,
Did not want me looking around at things,
Discovering what made me special.
Didn’t divine intervention play a significant part of my creation?
Knowing Mamma Mia and Nonna were Deities,
Gave me an edge later on the streets of Brooklyn.
The Cradleboard: was there ever a more divinely inspired gift to human curiosity? The Cradleboard: a perfect vantage point, an infant’s early grasp,
Of life harmonious, suspended between Mother Earth and Father Sky.
Simply put: the Hopi should be running our ******* public schools.

But it was IKE with whom I first associated,
Associated with the concept 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
I liked IKE. Who didn’t?
What was not to like?
He won the ******* war, didn’t he?
And he wasn’t one of those crazy **** John Birchers,
Way out there, on the far right lunatic Republican fringe,
Was he? (It seems odd and nearly impossible to believe in 2013,
That there was once a time in our Boomer lives,
When the extreme right wing of the Republican Party
Was viewed by the FBI as an actual threat to American democracy.)
Understand: it was at a time when The FBI,
Had little ideological baggage,
But a great appetite for secrets,
The insuppressible Jay Edgar doing his thang.

IKE: of whom we grew so, oh-so Fifties fond.
Good old reliable, Nathan Shaking IKE:
He’d been fixed, hadn’t he? Had had the psychic snip.
Snipped as a West Point cadet & parade ground martinet.
Which made IKE a good man to have in a pinch,
Especially when crucial policy direction was way above his pay grade.
Cousin Dom was Saperstein’s bagman, bribing out the opposition,
Which came mainly from religious and patriotic organizations,
Viewing the bogus white sports franchise as obscene.
The Washington Generals, Saperstein’s new team would have but one opponent,
And one sole mission: to serve as the **** of endless jokes and sight gags for—
Negroes.  To play the chronic fools of--
Negroes.  To be chronically humiliated and insulted by—
Negroes.  To run up and down the boards all night, being outran by—
Negroes.  Not to mention having to wear baggy silk shorts.



Meadowlark Lemon:  “Yeah, Charlie, we ***** that grease-ball Dominic; we shagged his guinea mouth and culo rotten.”  

(interviewed in his Scottsdale, AZ winter residence in 2003 by former ESPN commentator Charlie Steiner, Malverne High School, Class of ’67.)
                                                        
  ­                                                                 ­                 
IKE, briefed on the issue by higher-ups, quickly got behind the idea.
The Harlem Globetrotters were to exist, and continue to exist,
Are sustained financially by Illuminati sponsors,
For one reason and one reason only:
To serve elite interests that the ***** be kept down and subservient,
That the minstrel show be perpetuated,
A policy surviving the elaborate window dressing of the civil rights movement, Affirmative action, and our first Uncle Tom president.
Case in point:  Charles Barkley, Dennis Rodman & Metta World Peace Artest.
Cha-cha-cha changing again:  I am Robert Allen Zimmermann,
A whiny, skinny Jew, ****** and rolling in from Minnesota,
Arrested, obviously a vagrant, caught strolling around his tony Jersey enclave,
Having moved on up the list, the A-list, a special invitation-only,
Yom Kippur Passover Seder:  Next Year in Jerusalem, Babaloo!

I take ownership of all my autonomic and conditioned reflexes;
Each personal neural arc and pathway,
All shenanigans & shellackings,
Or blunt force cognitive traumas.
It’s all percolating nicely now, thank you,
In kitchen counter earthen crockery:
Random access memory: a slow-cook crockpot,
Bubbling through my psychic sieve.
My memories seem only remotely familiar,
Distant and vague, at times unreal:
An alien hybrid databank accessed accidently on purpose;
Flaky science sustains and monitors my nervous system.
And leads us to an overwhelming question:
Is it true that John Dillinger’s ******* is in the Smithsonian Museum?
Enquiring minds want to know, Kemosabe!

“Any last words, *******?” TWEETS Adam Smith.
Postmortem cyber-graffiti, an epitaph carved in space;
Last words, so singular and simple,
Across the universal great divide,
Frisbee-d, like a Pleistocene Kubrick bone,
Tossed randomly into space,
Morphing into a gyroscopic space station.
Mr. Smith, a calypso capitalist, and me,
Me, the Poet Laureate of the United States and Adam;
Who, I didn’t know from Adam.
But we tripped the light fantastic,
We boogied the Protestant Work Ethic,
To the tune of that old Scotch-Presbyterian favorite,
Variations of a 5-point Calvinist theme: Total Depravity; Election; Particular Redemption; Irresistible Grace; & Perseverance of the Saints.

Mr. Smith, the author of An Inquiry into the Nature
& Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776),
One of the best-known, intellectual rationales for:
Free trade, capitalism, and libertarianism,
The latter term a euphemism for Social Darwinism.
Prior to 1764, Calvinists in France were called Huguenots,
A persecuted religious majority . . . is that possible?
A persecuted majority of Edict of Nantes repute.
Adam Smith, likely of French Huguenot Jewish ancestry himself,
Reminds me that it is my principal plus interest giving me my daily gluten.
And don’t think the irony escapes me now,
A realization that it has taken me nearly all my life to see again,
What I once saw so vividly as a child, way back when.
Before I put away childish things, including the following sentiment:
“All I need is the air that I breathe.”

  Send "The Air That I Breathe" Ringtone to your Cell  

The Hippies were right, of course.
The Hollies had it all figured out.
With the answer, as usual, right there in the lyrics.
But you were lucky if you were listening.
There was a time before I embraced,
The other “legendary” economists:
The inexorable Marx,
The savage society of Veblen,
The heresies we know so well of Keynes.
I was a child.
And when I was a child, I spake as a child—
Grazie mille, King James—
I understood as a child; I thought as a child.
But when I became a man I jumped on the bus with the band,
Hopped on the irresistible bandwagon of Adam Smith.

Smith:  “Any last words, *******?”
Okay, you were right: man is rationally self-interested.
Grazie tanto, Scotch Enlightenment,
An intellectual movement driven by,
An alliance of Calvinists and Illuminati,
Freemasons and Johnny Walker Black.
Talk about an irresistible bandwagon:
Smith, the gloomy Malthus, and David Ricardo,
Another Jew boy born in London, England,
Third of 17 children of a Sephardic family of Portuguese origin,
Who had recently relocated from the Dutch Republic.
******* Jews!
Like everything shrewd, sane and practical in this world,
WE also invented the concept:  FOLLOW THE MONEY.

The lyrics: if you were really listening, you’d get it:
Respiration keeps one sufficiently busy,
Just breathing free can be a full-time job,
Especially when--borrowing a phrase from British cricketers—,
One contemplates the sorry state of the wicket.
Now that I am gainfully superannuated,
Pensioned off the employment radar screen.
Oft I go there into the wild ebon yonder,
Wandering the brain cloud at will.
My journey indulges curiosity, creativity and deceit.
I free range the sticky wicket,
I have no particular place to go.
Snagging some random fact or factoid,
A stop & go rural postal route,
Jumping on and off the brain cloud.

Just sampling really,
But every now and then, gorging myself,
At some information super smorgasbord,
At a Good Samaritan Rest Stop,
I ponder my own frazzled neurology,
When I was a child—
Before I learned the grim economic facts of life and Judaism,
Before I learned Hebrew,
Before my laissez-faire Bar Mitzvah lessons,
Under the rabbinical tutelage of Rebbe Kahane--
I knew what every clever child knows about life:
The surfing itself is the destination.
Accessing RAM--random access memory—
On a strictly need to know basis.
RAM:  a pretty good name for consciousness these days.

If I were an Asimov or Sir Arthur (Sri Lankabhimanya) Clarke,
I’d get freaky now, riffing on Terminators, Time Travel and Cyborgs.
But this is truth not science fiction.
Nevertheless, someone had better,
Come up with another name for cyborg.
Some other name for a critter,
Composed of both biological and artificial parts?
Parts-is-parts--be they electronic, mechanical or robotic.
But after a lifetime of science fiction media,
After a steady media diet, rife with dystopian technology nightmares,
Is anyone likely to admit to being a cyborg?
Since I always give credit where credit is due,
I acknowledge that cyborg was a term coined in 1960,
By Manfred Clynes & Nathan S. Kline and,
Used to identify a self-regulating human-machine system in outer space.

Five years later D. S. Halacy's: Cyborg: Evolution of the Superman,
Featured an introduction, which spoke of:  “… a new frontier, that was not,
Merely space, but more profoundly, the relationship between inner space,
And outer space; a bridge, i.e., between mind and matter.”
So, by definition, a cyborg defined is an organism with,
Technology-enhanced abilities: an antenna array,
Replacing what was once sentient and human.
My glands, once in control of metabolism and emotions,
Have been replaced by several servomechanisms.
I am biomechanical and gluttonous.
Soaking up and breathing out the atmosphere,
My Baby Boom experience of six decades,
Homogenized and homespun, feedback looped,
Endlessly networked through predigested mass media,
Culture as demographically targeted content.

This must have something to do with my own metamorphosis.
I think of Gregor Samsa, a Kafkaesque character if there ever was one.
And though we share common traits,
My evolutionary progress surpasses and transcends his.
Samsa--Phylum and Class--was, after all, an insect.
Nonetheless, I remain a changeling.
Have I not seen many stages of growth?
Each a painful metamorphic cycle,
From exquisite first egg,
Through caterpillar’s appetite & squirm.
To phlegmatic bliss and pupa quietude,
I unfold my wings in a rush of Van Gogh palette,
Color, texture, movement and grace, lift off, flapping in flight.
My eyes have witnessed wondrous transformations,
My experience, nouveau riche and distinctly self-referential;
For the most part unspecific & longitudinally pedestrian.

Yes, something has happened to me along the way.
I am no longer certain of my identity as a human being.
Time and technology has altered my basic wiring diagram.
I suspect the sophisticated gadgets and tools,
I’ve been using to shape & make sense of my environment,
Have reared up and turned around on me.
My tools have reshaped my brain & central nervous system.
Remaking me as something simultaneously more and less human.
The electronic toys and tools I once so lovingly embraced,
Have turned unpredictable and rabid,
Their bite penetrating my skin and septic now, a cluster of implanted sensors,
Content: currency made increasingly more valuable as time passes,
Served up by and serving the interests of a pervasively predatory 1%.
And the rest of us: the so-called 99%?
No longer human; simply put by both Howards--Beale & Zinn--

Humanoid.

I'm a schizophrenic hypocrite
thankfully not in a medical way
i don't have to pop pills everyday
to keep an essence of danger under control
and to stop my head doing backward flips and forward rolls
to curtail bad thoughts and contain OCD
wake up and think "what's happening to me?"
but sometimes i'm full of mazey bomb blasts
and crazy contrasts,
I'm a schizophrenic hypocrite
I say work i'm not even gonna give 50% percent never mind double
but i'll stay just below the warning threshold so i don't really get in trouble,
i do see my sick days as extra days of annual leave
but my bums on my seat most of the year and at least one Eve.
I'm always ducking and diving, i hide and they seek,
but i hit my targets every week.
They can say put down your pens,
strip your pencils of lead,
you can't stop me writing in my head
But you'll sometimes dictate what time i go to bed.
I'm a schizophrenic hypocrite
Nearly every road i walk down i've got a ***** cat friend
there meowing never drives me round the bend
but if me owing then just a letter i'll send.
I’ll rescue  spiders from the bath, without any exception,
But I’ll clean their webs and evict them when I have a house inspection.
Giving up pork, on a parity with pigges at last
But then i broke my faste with bacon for breakfast
Watching lambs a gamboling there frolicking is fab,
but i'll see you on a plate later if i'm craving a kebab.
I'm a schizophrenic hypocrite.
Money and the capitalist structure baffles, no thanks, no ta
but before i go out a quick sub off Ma and Pa.
I'll pay for a taxi, i don't care about the amount,
while checking fervently the statement from my bank account.
Cash cannot be eaten it just gets you into Eton
but i'll rifle through my pockets for pennies to get an eat on
i don't adore you, i'll say your the means to an end
but then i spend some more and ask for a lend.
I'm a schizophrenic hypocrite.
I'll say anarchy  is everywhere, petition and abstain
then  read in the late edition who i think should take the reins.  
I scream smash the system without any regrets
but then start stubbing out where they deem no cigarettes.
I'll say **** big business they are always looting tons
while cutting out Asda coupons to get the soup with croutons.
i'll say **** materialism, to that i am adverse,
"ohh if you want to get me some trainers Mum can you make em Converse? "
I'm a schizophrenic hypocrite
One Saturday i found it hard to move
crying out for water, more than needing food,
stomach emptier than the packets in my pockets
Early winter scribble
spoiled by the ripple of rain,
deadened and dull
on a precious day,
the time I crave
passes through a husk
full of caves.
Each inhabitant curses
and burns
the stagnant soil under their feet,
I want something to eat.
I need to drink.
The cold slab of sink
lures flesh to rest,
unsatisfied
with retched offerings
flung from a scorched earth
so next Friday, a few beers and l I’ll hit the hay
Ten beers later, where’s the MDMA?
And my staunch resolutions go up my nose
Chatting through the night, striking a pose,
Music accentuated, stars sparkling hard
World’s discussed in magic back yards,
Focused and fraught in tumultuous thought
Ten cigs in an hour
An hours too short,
As the morning comes, I start feeling a mess
It slowly disintegrates the treasure in my chest,
Feelings of strength crumble to a feeble frame,
Spears in my head, WHOOPS I’VE DONE IT AGAIN.
You’ll stop this time, I curse and lecture,
Two bottles down next Friday etc etc,
I’m a schizophrenic hypocrite
I remember an uneventful Tuesday when i wasn't working
belly full of rice
and i saw you twice,
two times a day,
on a day in lieu,
time stood still,
smiling at you
i thought i'm gonna have to write about you,
so i park myself in a bar after a joint in Netto carpark
and start using words to build an arc
and if you you do wanna walk in two by two,
can i walk in with you?
Is it this green ride that's getting me high
or the regret i seen in the gleam of your eye
that as soon as we said hi we said bye,
as disappointed as the catcher when he dropped the rye.
If i may be so bold,
if you were cold
i wouldn't hail these stones
i'd pummel Jack Frost until he knows he's lost,
i'll leave all the lights on to hasten global warming
make Obama declare winter a season of mourning,
If you met an iceberg of Titanic  proportions
i'd cut through it quicker than the Ripper does back street abortions.
If you were in prism
i'd try to unrangle the science of triangles
so i could build you a pyramid with all the right angles,
my stomachs in knots;
the most tranquil of tangles.
Then i saw you get out of the lift
and i wanted to play you a rift
until you exposed your midriff
because you set me adrift from chains and shackles
my mind goes crazy and fills with cackles,
i crackle with lightning, my energy heightens
my heart tightens
and not cos of cholesterol
cos i think you're special
and celestial!
I got dreams from naught, my head feels taught,
i prised a lesson from your eyes,
love is the greatest prize.
But now that's gone, all things
pass evolution in transience
faces that were everything lost to balance
blue it merge
but seldom a residual surge
and your bark today was worst than your bite
it said something softly,
i sow the seeds for the sycamore trees
we can carve our names on next summer.
Under an endless stretching sky
you wrote you
and i wrote i,
the lights in our eyes don't lie
they are gateways to the suns inside,
our hearts couldn't hide from this brightening tide.
I'm a Schizophrenic hypocrite
I remember this guy from work, cooed to me
look at the **** on this page 3
he drooled over Nuts magazine like he belonged in a zoo
i bet he frequented strippers too.
He said seen this clip, it's ******* great,
it ad turn a couple of queers straight
it was these two twins with rouge lips being rude,
the way she chomped on her like food
and they defo loved it,there is  no doubt
it's just just ***** Eskimo ******* kissing snouts
and sharing with her sister the joy of getting licked out.
Wonder how they looked in the family car?
giggling about some exciting destination,
like all kids displaying a lack of patience,
“are we there yet” chorused with glee and duality,
dressed in the same clothes to ensure parity.
Ice cream for tea.
Maybe they might be way into drugs
or addled with addiction
lacking hugs
and sore from the friction.
Not liking the glare
feeling scared.
maybe?
He said nar they love it up them baby.
But then,
i have it
about 3 or 4 times a week
after the 5th time of hitting snooze,
or a heavy night on the *****,
or sometimes no beer,
even after a sonnet of Shakespeare
a sudden urge comes over me,
GET THE LAPTOP!
GET THE *******!
Then it's
Japanese teen lesbians spitting,
finger ******* wearing mittens,
****'s ******* Britions,
oap creampies
***** covered eyes
***** flicking,
extreme suction,
**** destruction,
Captain Birds Eye gobbing
Batman ******* Robin,
A ten inch plumber ******* in a kitchen sink drama
Robert de Niro unpeeling Bananarama
Marty doing the Doc
a gimped up Kirk whipping Spoc
Rita  ******* Norris
Gail licking Fizz
Sally doing Dev
and Kevin doing ki.............Kevin, get out of the room.
Back to
a **** doing a ******
a pre op pleasuring granny
two ***** one *****,
then i chuck my muck all over my tunic
flip over and continue reading The Female ******,
I'm a Schizophrenic Hypocrite,
i've gotta split.

Childhood was the greatest time for Timothy, and he remembers it that way. No disposition on the fact that his parents divorced when he was eight. Just old enough to develop a mental connection with the idea of a union. So when he was ten, his father remarried, moved to a farm in the southeast, and tried living off the land. The topic of an ecological environment had hit the internet heavier than global warming hit the ice caps. And everyone was pursuing happiness with steep drops in city living, and an up swing in rural living.
Timothy's mom refused to believe it though. She wrote about such cultural climates, the invasion of neo-british pop boy bands, the decline of football, and the hippie lifestyle clawing its way back up the columns of big city papers. So when the recession hit, and it suddenly became cool to dress like a homeless person, she saw the disgust, moved overseas and focused on the world-political spectrum.
“Societal fads be ******! I'm going to do something that actually matters.” And she did.
Timothy Glasser, age 82 looks back on that moment with pride.
“There was a sense that she had the ***** to change the world. With Russia building up Imperial popularity, it was cool to be big. America was on the decline by the word of all the heavy-hitter magazines.
“That was when I started to take my life serious. She had shown me all the would-be Bob Dylans, Lennons, Hunter S. Thompsons. She would say, 'These kids have all the brass words of a ****** who can bite down ******* the world, but they don't have the actual brass. Men who are not recognized for what they've done have the brass. Hell, women have ten more pounds of that kind of brass!'
'I would laugh, but she was serious. I think she thought I was too masculine to understand what she was saying.”
When Timothy's father moved him and his little sister, Sunni Glasser out to the backwater community of Oggta-Cornelius, there was a certain relief in his demeanor. In a matter of months the country way of living had worn down his impatience to a sluggish pace.
“Greg was my father's name. He's been raised in a similar place in the Midwest, but the slowness of that life got to him in his teens so he left for the city. I guess when he met my step-mom he found the good ol' girl that he'd been trying to cling to since he left home. And it was Sunni's choice to come with us. She always had the same kind of 'brass' Mom had, but there was a closeness she shared with Dad that adventure couldn't break. It's a **** shame too. But once the slow pace of the backwater hit Sunni, she rebelled. It was a catastrophe to watch her and Dad argue over the most petty things you've ever seen. The way our step-mom, Claire would fold clothes or how early she had to wake up in the morning for school. Five o'clock, five days a week, and sometimes Dad would wake her on Saturday just to punish her for talking back. There was always blood in the water.”
Timothy's face settles, his lower lip curls, and his eyelids clinch for a moment before he changes his position in his chair.
“Is everything okay, Timothy?” I ask.
There is a pause, almost as if he is reliving what he was just describing.
“**** has always been real, you've been fantasizing.” I hear him say. He refuses to look at me, let alone answer my question.
“Mr. Glasser?” I ask again.
He exhales suddenly, eyes watery, and lets out a sigh.
“Let's talk about Sunni. I never really talk about her much, and I think now is a good time. Don't you?”
I nod in agreement and try to give him a smile.
He still refuses to look me in the eye.
“When Sunni was in first grade, she was beginning to prove to be a bit of a handful. There was a small patch of corn out back. Maybe half an acre Dad keep for us to put up for the winter. Sunni was about seven years old around this time and she had the idea to make crop circles. Now I was out with my friends, played football in those days so I didn't have the time to be home all the time. Dad and Claire kept themselves busy with the work about the place, so Sunni got bored real fast. One day during the summer, Dad went to the store to get some groceries. A friend of his came up to him and said, 'I was up in the plane yesterday and I saw something strange in your cornfield. Like some kind of crop circle. Weird ain't it?'
“This rattled my Dad's brain for a few minutes until he got home and saw the two-by-four with rope tied to either end of the thing. Sunni was staring at the clouds and Dad walked over to her, and yanked her up off the grass. 'What are you doing flattening my corn for? Don't you know that's goin' to save us money in the long run?” She just stared at him. Not dumbfounded, just intrigued.
“That was kind of the starting point of their bickering. She had blonde hair running to the base of her skull brushed down neatly. A subtle blush in her cheek from the sun. And she always wore a dress, especially if it had sunflowers on it. She brought life to that house.
“On her tenth birthday, Mom sent her a touch screen phone, an iPhone, I think it was called with a two-year contract. It was so long ago minor facts like that seem to hang on for no reason.”
Timothy shuffles in his chair. Then clears his throat.
“Would you like to take a break, Timothy?” I ask him.
“I ignored most of the arguments Sunni and dad had after I graduated high school. As soon as fall semester started at Cornelius College I fled the backwater and started by life near the OceanFront. Oggta-Cornelius was divided into two sections: the Backwater and OceanFront. And like a sports rivalry there was always trash talk about the tax bracket you were in or how much you worked. After the first few weeks for sneaking into bars and partying on campus, the fun died down because of the arrests. I almost got caught twice, but my sixth sense for trouble tingled at just the right time. When the middle of the semester hit I was over-booked with mid-terms and reading assignments. I actually lived in my dorm then. Never really left the place. And soon fall semester was over. Nothing worth mentioning now. Sunni and I texted often, but she had become a brat and I wanted alone time to learn what I'd read. For everything literary to go beyond just test and quizzes.
“But right towards the end of the semester, one morning I was walking to an early exam and on the ground was a kid, a little older than me lying there looking up at the sky. I had the urge to walk up and ask him what he was doing, but it felt too rude so I left him. I kept walking and heard a voice call back to me, 'Hey, guy.' I turned around, 'Yeah you, come here.'
“I walked up to him, he motioned for me to kneel beside him.
'What day is it?
I told him it was a Monday.
'Really? Wow, must've fell out watching the stars with this gir--'
He reached to his other side, feeling for a body, but no one was there. He never broke eye contact with me.
'Well, with his lovely imaginary girlfriend I have. Her name's Elsie. She's a charm.'
I helped him up and he left without much of a goodbye. A disrespectful mysteriousness. And I didn't see him again till the weather warmed up in the spring semester. Which was a repeat of the fall.”
Timothy asks me for some water. I started to feel like I'm one of his grandkids. How far in the trunk of memories is he going for this information?
“Thank you. Now the next time I saw Alan was in a smoking gazebo along a walking path on campus.
'Hey, guy!” he shouted, getting my attention. I walked back to the gazebo, coughing as the smoke roughhoused it's way into my lungs. He had those circular shades on, like the one John Lennon wore back in the day. A tie around his head, a light blue button up shirt that hung loose off his think frame. His hair was long and parted, and he sported a straggly red and black beard.
'Top of the morning, ta ya.' he said, putting out a cigarette on the tray. I opened my mouth, but all that came out was coughing.
'Course, the Irish don't really say that. It's actually quite racist, but I'm half Irish so no skin of my knuckles. I'm a mutt.'
“He smiled with such pomp. The arrogance was so natural, it fit him like his face. Other people around him were having conversations about Samuel Beckett, John Irving, Stephen King, and Jimmy Hendrix tripping acid together in the great T.A.R.D.I.S. in the sky. I remember laughing at that. They were all smiling at the ludicrous actuality of it happening. And it was late evening.
'Stay! Be silly and merry with us!” he shouted. I held my breath and sat down. I never made it to the rest of my classes that afternoon or for the next week. Alan and I chilled in my dorm, burned incense and plotted a protest. The whole time I was telling him he had to be literal with the cause. It couldn't be just because the college bookstore sold shot glasses, but confiscated any paraphernalia they found in the dorms.
'*******,I say. It's hypocritical and a scam. Like police pulling you over for going two-miles over the limit because they need to feed their kids. It's a Darwin rip-off.'
“Later that week he took my phone while I was sleeping, got my number, and Sunni's too. He never asked if he could come over after that night. He just did.
'I thought it was cool since we had a good time.'
"I didn't know what to say so I let it continue. His reason for stealing Sunni's number still baffles me. He said he thought she was a girl I was into. She was my sister, he was right in his own way. It was a while before he ever texted her.
“The next time I saw him he told me, 'I feel like a clockwork man running on thousands of gallons of caffeine.' I laughed at him and told him to stop reading Burgess.”
I stop Timothy for a moment. “Anthony Burgess? The author of A Clockwork Orange?” He nods and goes back to the story.
“You know, with the Second Cold War flaring up again I don't think it's wise to be worrying about an old man like me. This has been a century of second fillings. There are still Hipsters running about. This makes me feel no better. I want to go home.”
“Alright Mr. Glasser, but can we reschedule? I need to finish this article.” As he rises out of the chair, he agrees and goes for his coat.
“One more question, Mr. Glasser. Can you give me another quote from Alan? A bit of closing for this bit?
He turns around and looks me in the eye for the first time since the beginning of the interview. He squints his eyes at me and says, “When we would hang out at the gazebo where we actually met for the first time, and after that week I got back in the habit of going to class and doing my work. As I would leave I'd say, 'Alright man, I'm off to class, to learn and stuff.' He'd moan about it, and say, 'Look at him now, growing old and dying young.' Behind that same pompous grin."

I've never had trouble with blue;
Not the kind of trouble you'ld imagine, anyway.
Blue isn't sticky or hot,
It isn't painful, doesn't get in your way.
It might feel a bit weighty sometimes,
But no more than that.
I suppose if I was a criminal I'd be afraid of blue -
A big criminal, that is,
But being only a very small criminal, and friendly at that,
I find the blue a pretty friendly place.
And if ever I have to do an honest day's work,
Which isn't too often,
Then I find the blue
Is a good place to go afterwards to recover.
You might think that blue is difficult
To get hold of, difficult to see;
But I've never found that.
When I was very small, everything was blue,
Especially other people's eyes.
Where I lived as a boy,
The hills in springtime were covered with blue:
Millions of blue bells
Clothing the hills in glorious raiment,
Filling the woods with paeans of joy.
When I was six my mother took me
Over the hills surrounding our valley,
And suddenly, there, way down over the other side,
Very far below and a long way away,
Was the steel blue sea, vast, enormous, curved, beyond measure,
Echoing the enormity of the pale blue sky above.
There wasn't any lack
Of dark blue either in my childhood:
The night sky was pretty dark blue even though
There were a million stars.
I had no grey hairs when I discovered that blue
Lay in a kind of haze around grave stones;
It descended particularly thickly, like a kind of fog,
When my grandfather died.
Of course I assumed he'd just drifted off in it.
How I wanted to fly off into the blue myself;
But my body being much too heavy
I had to wait for dream-time,
And then there was no holding me back;
I was off into the blue like a shot.
At school, I met blue in the physics lab:
There were big fat blue sparks,
And incredible blues singing out of the spectroscope.
And when I looked through a telescope
There seemed to be an awful lot of dark blue
Between me and the moon,
Which is where I wanted to go.
We had a swimming pool at boarding school
And the water and the bottom and sides of that were blue.
I never had any problems diving into that blue pool,
Even into the end where the blue bottom
Seemed a long rippling way down.
When I got a bit older and began to notice girls,
Things got even bluer.
Especially when girls were around
But even the blue absence of girls was absorbing.
I soon found that all singers sing in blue,
And it all seemed too true.
Blue was the way things were,
The way things had to be.
What wasn't blue wasn't true.
The blue vanished for a while
When my first love showed up,
But I felt so strange without blue
That I brought her a big blue sapphire
Which dangled snugly where I had intended,
Reminding me and her
Where Truth sometimes lay
But not for long.
And when I first spent the night with a girl
I got yet another angle on blue.
When I got married, blue seemed to recede for a bit,
But after a while, blue came looking for me,
As if to say "Where have you been?"
Then I began to look at paintings,
And I noticed a lot of blue in them,
Especially in the Trés Riche Heures
Of the Duc de Berry.
The blue of those paintings
Seemed to be saying something -
Singing of freedom and joy;
This was a blue different
From the blue I'd been used to.
The blue I'd been used to was kind of blue blue;
It started somewhere in your guts
And shone right through you
And everything else, every other colour
Was kind of on top of that -
Less than blue, coming out of blue, returning to blue.
I painted in blue too.
I painted blue mountains, rank on rank,
Growing fainter and fainter into the distance
Until they disappeared into the distant blue sky
Out of which they materialized again.
It seemed to me perfectly obvious
That blue was the basic colour
Especially when one day I went up Mont Blanc
And saw that even rocks and ice and snow were blue.
One day, assisted by metal wings,
I took to the sky;
How wonderful to float in it -
To float in a vastness of pure blue
So vast that it dwarfed the broad earth;
So vast that it outstretched even the mountainous clouds
And the foam flecked blue-green sea.
I went to New Zealand to see
If the blue at the bottom of the world
Was the same as the blue at the top.
It was just the same,
But when they told me there
That I had a blue aura
I began to suspect
That I couldn't be objective about blue.
In any case, the Antipodean lasses
Made me feel as blue as I had ever felt.
Is blue really real, I thought to myself one day
As I ate a bowl full of Psilocybe mushrooms.
Half an hour later my eyes were fixed
On the blue door
And I knew it to be the doorway to Paradise.
I walked through it
And the sky outside was huge, grey-blue,
Crowded with dark blue elephants of heaven.
And standing proudly in the midst of space
Was the perfect arc of a rainbow,
And I knew that my old friend Akshobhya
Was not far away.
Even the car that we drove in was blue -
A rich, dark, velvety blue.
Years later I was in the Orient;
There the sky is a blue
Difficult to imagine
Until you have seen it.
On the island of Ceylon the blue is so blue
It seems to press down on and penetrate everything -
It's irresistible, adamantine blue.
But of course it's subtle too, that Ceylonese blue.
Sometimes it's pale, so pale that you wonder
Whether it's blue at all,
Or whether it's your own mind you're seeing.
But more often it's that rich, luminous, velvety blue
That baffles the eye and baffles the brain:
Where is the blue?
Is it near or far, inside or outside?
Now, in middle age, I have no real difficulty with blue.
My blue has become deeper and more pervasive.
It has filled my head, my lungs and my heart.
Turning towards a picture of the Buddha,
I feel the blue in and around me
Is continuous with the blue in and around Him.

How comes it, Flora, that, whenever we
Play cards together, you invariably,
  However the pack parts,
  Still hold the Queen of Hearts?

I've scanned you with a scrutinizing gaze,
Resolved to fathom these your secret ways:
  But, sift them as I will,
  Your ways are secret still.

I cut and shuffle; shuffle, cut, again;
But all my cutting, shuffling, proves in vain:
  Vain hope, vain forethought, too;
  That Queen still falls to you.

I dropped her once, prepense; but, ere the deal
Was dealt, your instinct seemed her loss to feel:
  "There should be one card more,"
  You said, and searched the floor.

I cheated once: I made a private notch
In Heart-Queen's back, and kept a lynx-eyed watch;
  Yet such another back
  Deceived me in the pack:

The Queen of Clubs assumed by arts unknown
An imitative dint that seemed my own;
  This notch, not of my doing,
  Misled me to my ruin.

It baffles me to puzzle out the clew,
Which must be skill, or craft, or luck in you:
  Unless, indeed, it be
  Natural affinity.

The smile of the white bloom, in my crown
its fragrance spreads across galaxies of neurons,
none can fully imagine the scene, I haven't seen
it's stellar design baffles humans, resists exploration.

On single file pass days and nights, indefatigable
rainbows are made and unmade, making clouds
blush and hoping for  bridges across them,
why, even the universe dances to the tunes we play

Ever  at ease, I walk silently past the blue mountains,
of remembrance, mostly love created, a miracle!
At times a poet, a scientist,a  cosmologist,or a mystic in solitude
finds the need to "stand and stare"wonder, speaks in metaphors.

Looking st the fireworks sky manages, I hallucinate,
an astronaut I become, who knows nothing about time
one wished to live in timelessness for ever and when,
that dream comes true, loses within and be nothingness.

1.) You have the most loving heart. Your warmth, your gentle touch that you personify without words. Melts the supports of my heart

2.) Eyes of deep blue, that ensnare me and leave me thoughtless. How they change into everglade greens, and mystical greys. They're beautiful

3.) Few laughs may be as pure as your quiet giggle. The mere sound gives me goosebumps and a funny feeling in my stomach. You're so freakin' adorable

4.)The curves of a semi-circle aren't nearly as perfect as yours. You've worked alot for the perfect body. I simply need to ask... How can you make something that's something that is already perfect better?

5.) Spontaneous, unexpected and surprising. You keep me on my feet, keep me entertained and make me enjoy every second with you. Who knows what I am to expect?!

6.) Once upon a time, there lived to fluffy bunnies, they decided to leave their little hole and go out on an adventure. A wolf came along and bit of the rabbits head and it bled to death Its so dark, and it leaves you wondering what to think. I love your dark side. It both terrifies and intrigues me

7.) You're so intellectual. I love some of the things you say and more importantly write! You have an amazing capacity for knowledge and wisdom and you use it well. It baffles me, some of the connections you make in your essays and assignments

8.) My love you illustrate a maturity that surpasses your years. Pertaining to your ability to be responsible and reliable if and when - not that I ever am - clearly am not able to be. I think you're the one looking after me. I'm the older one, who just happens to have an 8yr old inside them~

9.) You smell amazing, but no. Seriously, you are in every way, shape or form. The most amazing, star studded, picture perfect, superbly sensational girl. I could ever have met. Yes, let the alliteration flow

10.) Because you're you, and you are *mine

How this **** fable instructs
And mocks! Here's the parody of that moral mousetrap
Set in the proverbs stitched on samplers
Approving chased girls who get them to a tree
And put on bark's nun-black

Habit which deflects
All amorous arrows. For to sheathe the ****** shape
In a scabbard of wood baffles pursuers,
Whether goat-thighed or god-haloed. Ever since that first Daphne
Switched her incomparable back

For a bay-tree hide, respect's
Twined to her hard limbs like ivy: the puritan lip
Cries: 'Celebrate Syrinx whose demurs
Won her the frog-colored skin, pale pith and watery
Bed of a reed. Look:

Pine-needle armor protects
Pitys from Pan's assault! And though age drop
Their leafy crowns, their fame soars,
Eclipsing Eva, Cleo and Helen of Troy:
For which of those would speak

For a fashion that constricts
White bodies in a wooden girdle, root to top
Unfaced, unformed, the ******-flowers
Shrouded to suckle darkness? Only they
Who keep cool and holy make

A sanctum to attract
Green virgins, consecrating limb and lip
To chastity's service: like prophets, like preachers,
They descant on the serene and seraphic beauty
Of virgins for virginity's sake.'

Be certain some such pact's
Been struck to keep all glory in the grip
Of ugly spinsters and barren sirs
As you etch on the inner window of your eye
This ****** on her rack:

She, ripe and unplucked, 's
Lain splayed too long in the tortuous boughs: overripe
Now, dour-faced, her fingers
Stiff as twigs, her body woodenly
Askew, she'll ache and wake

Though doomsday bud. Neglect's
Given her lips that lemon-tasting droop:
Untongued, all beauty's bright juice sours.
Tree-twist will ape this gross anatomy
Till irony's bough break.

By: Cedric McClester

Listenin’ to his **** tongue refrains
Only shows ******* baffles brains
Yet the fact of the matter remains
It’s more evident as he campaigns
Like Seinfeld he’s about nothing
A turkey without any stuffin’
Who continues huffin’ and puffin’
But is he for real or just bluffin’

Republicans have to decide
Whether or not he gets a full ride
But at this point it can’t be denied
That he is their rising tide
So what does that say about them
Never mind what it says about him
Chances are none to slim
That the public will vote on a whim

So what must the others do
To put across their points of view
When most of them don’t have a clue
And only wish that they knew
Meanwhile we’ll be entertained
By catch-phrases not fully explained
As he continues along unrestrained
And his poll numbers steadily gain

So far this election season
Has been without rhyme or reason
Though the rhetoric will not be easin’
Because the base needs appeasing
Now what does that say about them
Will they try to make it about him
Then proceed with words that condemn
Or spit him out like a mouth full of phlegm






Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2015.  All rights reserved.

You made me
And that idea baffles me all the time
Because you didn't make me at all.
Well it's arguable that your absence made some of me
But there's millions of people who aren't in my life too.
Has my absence made some of you?
The first time I was with you,
Half of me was swimming to my moms egg,
When we were together for the second time
I noticed I had built you up
I only knew the biology of our connection
It made me realize how disconnected we were.
We weren't that tall and still aren't.
Without you I am nothing
But without you I've been many things.
I'll meet you again sometime.
There's still time to grow.

501

This World is not Conclusion.
A Species stands beyond—
Invisible, as Music—
But positive, as Sound—
It beckons, and it baffles—
Philosophy—don’t know—
And through a Riddle, at the last—
Sagacity, must go—
To guess it, puzzles scholars—
To gain it, Men have borne
Contempt of Generations
And Crucifixion, shown—
Faith slips—and laughs, and rallies—
Blushes, if any see—
Plucks at a twig of Evidence—
And asks a Vane, the way—
Much Gesture, from the Pulpit—
Strong Hallelujahs roll—
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth
That nibbles at the soul—

.
The more I think, and reflect about life, the more it strikes how little we need to survive.
.
But then the question of my life itself baffles me still.
In the name of
Cups and Wands
and Swords and Pentacles.
How does one figure out
how one wants to ease into the world—
in what manner
what face
what costume
what identity
shall we assume
in this theatrical muse of mass-scale rehabilitation.
Searching,
for the right attire
in a tolerable personality.
To eventualize, to officiate, to become
A masterpiece—
by the hands of time
and the wheels of fortune.
So that we may be made worthy
Maybe, if you were dealt with luck.

Fortune's Fool—
How do we know which
is the correct way to go
sᴉ ǝɥʇ ʇɔǝɹɹoɔ ʎɐʍ oʇ oɓ·
in hindsight.
To hunt for a halo in the robes of glee
while you dwindle in time
Abject, at sea.

Cut the chase.
Bleed. Heal.
Await the haemorhage and its evanescence.
And when you approach the Great Finale,
Be free.
.
At any moment of time, we have one foot in the abyss while the other lapses into ecstasy.
.

Sliminess of the mermaid, makes me come alive, strange?
don't blame me for this, that you would think an aberration,
I've long forgotten the human logic, from the moment I realized,
fate has joined me with her, the mermaid, a  longing unfulfilled for long,

This sensual yearning sans prospect of consummation, baffles others
but not me, life has many dark alleyways that go nowhere. 
Aren't we illusions ourselves?  Viewing sun's intense ways and moon's
hesitant tranquilizing gaze, through water's blue buffer is narcotic.
From under water only a  cool simmer , different experiences,
fish fin caresses, guilty pleasures of carousals with masked shark beauties,
underwater world has no pains, ever heard about
stilling pain by swimming long distant nights?
*Or is it because, I don't see my own teardrops shed underwater?

The beauty of nature baffles me.,
So natural yet beautiful..
I mean isn't this a lesson enough about beauty?
Its sad how this synthetic and soon to be pathetic world of ours seems to portray natural as ugly,
God made me more important than the most beautiful flowers and natural scenaries,
So its automatic that my natural beauty beats them by far,.
Not that we shouldn't wear make up,
The lesson here is that we must acknowledge how beautiful our natural state is,
And love it.

"I age an eternity a moment,an eternity that is fleeting in a moment and you imbue the impermanence with your seraphic presence."

I am sitting under this tree whose leaves sway in circles like my memories fading into myself;
yet alone a few memories resist this disintegration,resisting the frailty of the life.one of those memories whispers your voice and how you said "father,I have a wish",the tone sweeter than the voice of the ocean,when you are about to sleep and it's your bed-time story for me,you continue saying,"I want to live in the sky and be an angel who floats on the clouds,when I want to swing I would bend the rainbow into the oonjal and with every swing I hit the clouds so hard that it becomes so ecstatic and produces a roar.when I want to come to the earth,I come like a lightening which tickles the earth....."
I love how you sleep in the middle of the story and how your voice slowly disintegrates into the silence like how you didn't say "now I take this sound and whisper it in this ear and you are going to bury in your heart, this sound that emanated from me and buried in you could resonate with billion galaxies".

Do you remember this is the tree under which we used to play with the mud,you used to pour the water in the sand and cover the leg with the mud till the ankle and staunch it immobile for a certain period and when you suddenly remove the foot,it assumes the shape of your foot which looks like igloo.I love how you break the igloos that is when you try to fit your head in to its mouth in the obliviousness that it would break because your head is too big to fit in,I love how the specks of silt get struck in the strands of your hair.

Every subtle detail here becomes enormously exquisite and with every utterance I am drowned with the memories to a point of singular abstract thought.perhaps in the next life,I wish to born as your child because I want to spend my childhood in your lap,I have to live those moments when you lift me up and put me on your shoulders and pat my head till I sleep,that is the part of my life in which I have missed you and I will claim and live it....

I still remember reading your short story and the male character in the story says something like "there is no brightness without darkness and you are the darkness,perhaps when you die,the sun,the moon and the stars would miss their light shedding upon you,but I am the one who will be devoid of the darkness that which creates the very ambience for this life,that which creates this inimitable life..."I wonder what it means sometimes and what made you to think to write something like that,that which produces an inseperable thought..and I think I am too old now to contemplate on what it means......


The tree and I sit on this light-shed early morning ,I think every particle of light which is reflecting from me now shares my memory,so I suppose I spread this reminiscence all over this place,all that is seen and unseen shares our memories....it baffles me at the very thought that every experience we indulge in reflects on the very existence itself.... I take your voice wherever I go and live,it's like a plugin to my heart and you always whisper from within me,even now,It's 6:30 now and I hear you saying "close your eyes",I close my eyes and fade into the echoes of your voice.transcedence.

"She is like a lightening passing now through me like a tickle and so do I perceive every form of limitation as a transcendence..."

O ***** king.

*****, O ***** king,
what bitter thing is this?
what shaft, tearing my heart?
what scar, what light, what fire
searing my eye-***** and my eyes with flame?
nameless, O spoken name,
king, lord, speak blameless *****.

Why do you blind my eyes?
why do you dart and pulse
till all the dark is home,
then find my soul
and ruthless draw it back?
scaling the scaleless,
opening the dark?
speak, nameless, power and might;
when will you leave me quite?
when will you break my wings
or leave them utterly free
to scale heaven endlessly?

A bitter, broken thing,
my heart, O ***** lord,
yet neither drought nor sword
baffles men quite,
why must they feign to fear
my ****** glance?
feigned utterly or real
why do they shrink?
my trance frightens them,
breaks the dance,
empties the market-place;
if I but pass they fall
back, frantically;
must always people mock?
unless they shrink and reel
as in the temple
at your uttered will.

O ***** king,
lord, greatest, power, might,
look for my face is dark,
burnt with your light,
your fire, O ***** lord;
is there none left
can equal me
in ecstasy, desire?
is there none left
can bear with me
the kiss of your white fire?
is there not one,
Phrygian or frenzied Greek,
poet, song-swept, or bard,
one meet to take from me
this bitter power of song,
one fit to speak, *****,
your praises, lord?

May I not wed
as you have wed?
may it not break, beauty,
from out my hands, my head, my feet?
may Love not lie beside me
till his heat
burn me to ash?
may he not comfort me, then,
spent of all that fire and heat,
still, ashen-white and cool
as the wet laurels,
white, before your feet
step on the mountain-*****,
before your fiery hand
lift up the mantle
covering flower and land,
as a man lifts,
O *****, from his bride,
(cowering with woman eyes,) the veil?
O ***** lord, be kind.

If E=MC squared and I am 9 stone why cant I get up in the morning?

If all things are "relative" why haven't I heard from any of you?

If nothing moves faster than light how does that cold drop of water beat me when I go to the bathroom in the mornings?

Written August 31, 2012 (the day after my birthday!)

It actually baffles me, how the human heart works. As a species, us humans enjoy believing we're the best species, we're far more advanced than any other animal, we're so much smarter, we have technology... and opposable thumbs! But in reality, though our inventions and creations are the most advanced, really we're just like animals in the wild. In the end, it all comes down to instinct. Recently, I found this fact in myself to be remarkably true. We have someone in our lives we care about, for example. Instinctually, we want to protect them, so when they do something bad, naturally we want to defend them, especially after seeing them going through hard times. Your defensive instinct skyrockets and you make excuses for them and defend their right to make mistakes after what they've been through but there comes a point when your instinct to protect yourself overpowers your instinct to protect someone else separate from yourself. Especially after finding out you had been defending them for nothing and all this changes in a couple days.

The ocean waves mislead me
The wind won't leave me be
Fire tends to lead me astray
But by your side, dear, I'll always stay
The night sky completely baffles me
The grass offers me to graze
Dirt coats upon me,
But your love washes it all away

Oh that those lips had language! Life has pass'd
With me but roughly since I heard thee last.
Those lips are thine--thy own sweet smiles I see,
The same that oft in childhood solaced me;
Voice only fails, else, how distinct they say,
"Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away!"
The meek intelligence of those dear eyes
(Blest be the art that can immortalize,
The art that baffles time's tyrannic claim
To quench it) here shines on me still the same.

       Faithful remembrancer of one so dear,
Oh welcome guest, though unexpected, here!
Who bidd'st me honour with an artless song,
Affectionate, a mother lost so long,
I will obey, not willingly alone,
But gladly, as the precept were her own;
And, while that face renews my filial grief,
Fancy shall weave a charm for my relief--
Shall steep me in Elysian reverie,
A momentary dream, that thou art she.

       My mother! when I learn'd that thou wast dead,
Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed?
Hover'd thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son,
Wretch even then, life's journey just begun?
Perhaps thou gav'st me, though unseen, a kiss;
Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in bliss--
Ah that maternal smile! it answers--Yes.
I heard the bell toll'd on thy burial day,
I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away,
And, turning from my nurs'ry window, drew
A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu!
But was it such?--It was.--Where thou art gone
Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown.
May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore,
The parting sound shall pass my lips no more!
Thy maidens griev'd themselves at my concern,
Oft gave me promise of a quick return.
What ardently I wish'd, I long believ'd,
And, disappointed still, was still deceiv'd;
By disappointment every day beguil'd,
Dupe of to-morrow even from a child.
Thus many a sad to-morrow came and went,
Till, all my stock of infant sorrow spent,
I learn'd at last submission to my lot;
But, though I less deplor'd thee, ne'er forgot.

       Where once we dwelt our name is heard no more,
Children not thine have trod my nurs'ry floor;
And where the gard'ner Robin, day by day,
Drew me to school along the public way,
Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapt
In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet capt,
'Tis now become a history little known,
That once we call'd the past'ral house our own.
Short-liv'd possession! but the record fair
That mem'ry keeps of all thy kindness there,
Still outlives many a storm that has effac'd
A thousand other themes less deeply trac'd.
Thy nightly visits to my chamber made,
That thou might'st know me safe and warmly laid;
Thy morning bounties ere I left my home,
The biscuit, or confectionary plum;
The fragrant waters on my cheeks bestow'd
By thy own hand, till fresh they shone and glow'd;
All this, and more endearing still than all,
Thy constant flow of love, that knew no fall,
Ne'er roughen'd by those cataracts and brakes
That humour interpos'd too often makes;
All this still legible in mem'ry's page,
And still to be so, to my latest age,
Adds joy to duty, makes me glad to pay
Such honours to thee as my numbers may;
Perhaps a frail memorial, but sincere,
Not scorn'd in heav'n, though little notic'd here.

       Could time, his flight revers'd, restore the hours,
When, playing with thy vesture's tissued flow'rs,
The violet, the pink, and jessamine,
I *****'d them into paper with a pin,
(And thou wast happier than myself the while,
Would'st softly speak, and stroke my head and smile)
Could those few pleasant hours again appear,
Might one wish bring them, would I wish them here?
I would not trust my heart--the dear delight
Seems so to be desir'd, perhaps I might.--
But no--what here we call our life is such,
So little to be lov'd, and thou so much,
That . I should ill requite thee to constrain
Thy unbound spirit into bonds again.

       Thou, as a gallant bark from Albion's coast
(The storms all weather'd and the ocean cross'd)
Shoots into port at some well-haven'd isle,
Where spices breathe and brighter seasons smile,
There sits quiescent on the floods that show
Her beauteous form reflected clear below,
While airs impregnated with incense play
Around her, fanning light her streamers gay;
So thou, with sails how swift! hast reach'd the shore
"Where tempests never beat nor billows roar,"
And thy lov'd consort on the dang'rous tide
Of life, long since, has anchor'd at thy side.
But me, scarce hoping to attain that rest,
Always from port withheld, always distress'd--
Me howling winds drive devious, tempest toss'd,
Sails ript, seams op'ning wide, and compass lost,
And day by day some current's thwarting force
Sets me more distant from a prosp'rous course.
But oh the thought, that thou art safe, and he!
That thought is joy, arrive what may to me.
My boast is not that I deduce my birth
From ***** enthron'd, and rulers of the earth;
But higher far my proud pretensions rise--
The son of parents pass'd into the skies.
And now, farewell--time, unrevok'd, has run
His wonted course, yet what I wish'd is done.
By contemplation's help, not sought in vain,
I seem t' have liv'd my childhood o'er again;
To have renew'd the joys that once were mine,
Without the sin of violating thine:
And, while the wings of fancy still are free,
And I can view this mimic shew of thee,
Time has but half succeeded in his theft--
Thyself remov'd, thy power to sooth me left.

My ears were ringing, the pimple on my upper lip stinging.
The words they were saying, drowned in the harsh love they were playing.
I know how lovely you are, how kind you can be.
Oh! How I want to believe.
The large weight on my shoulders made my eyes and nose run.
Tick tock went the clock, reminding me of how wrong I was.
Internally my heart stopped for a second, a second too slow.
Her wisdom baffles me all the time, his warnings ******* me time and time again.
While the rope around my neck gets tighter and tighter, the days go faster and faster.
Their advice I would take, hoping and hoping its not too late.

It was not love that struck me first.
Before anything else,
it was an arrogance that
overwhelmed my senses,
so I held my nose
to keep out the stench and
went on my way.
I ignored you and
let you exist in your
perfect little multilingual corner,
thinking it too put together and
not for me at all. It was
dull and silent and
no one could dance there.

Then, one morning,
while a foreign language
spoke in jazz in my head,
you expressed the complexity,
the utter chaos of
one molecule slipping into another
and weaving the majestic
world of science that
baffles and amazes
even the brightest of minds.
You opened your mouth
and love hit me harder
than ever before as I realized that
you,
just like me,
wanted to figure out
the math of the world and
solve the equation.
How could that not ensnare me
in an awful trap of trying
to not only calculate the world,
but to also dissect you and
determine what you are made of
and what fuels you?

After that,
you became a rush of Golden Years1,
a reminder that,
“dearly beloved, we are
gathered here today
to get through this thing
we call life”2,
an extraordinary personification
of old time rock ‘n roll3,
and an interpretation
of the love that stays
even when summer is over4.
The music danced through my veins
like never before because you
were all of those things
and more!
Anyone could ask me about you,
(Oh, dear, what is he really like?),
and I would just sing for them
and hope they understood.
How could they not?
If they really listened
to all of those lyrics and really
let the notes slip across their skin
and sink into their pores,
they could know you.

But melodies change.

Without warning,
I am held back
by your
darkness,
not because you
inflict it upon me,
but because
you shelter me from it.
You want to
save my light,
so you refuse to
let me see inside,
afraid to lose it,
afraid the demons
will take it away5.
That is the melancholy tune
that changed
your definition
in my dictionary.

You are the lesson of betrayal.
A bittersweet song
which reminds us all to realize
your savior can also be
your captor
and executioner6.
That is a lesson
you learned the hard way,
though you never really say how.
You hide it beneath
the rhyme and reason
that is senseless poetry.

Not to be repetitive,
but you are music
only I can hear.
The genre is always changing,
but you are always demanding
space in my ears, a clamor
of so much to dance to
with wild abandon.
The endless noise often hurts,
often makes me curl up in a ball,
begging for silence.
But, when it unifies...
when it slows down...
when it decides what to be,
even if only for a few seconds,
you are the
most beautiful thing
in the world to me.
Those are the moments
when you are one song
and I can see you
for just a second
before all the others
demand attention and
obscure the real music that
follows the beat of your heart.
This is when I am head over heels
and I have to beg you not
“to take my heart,
don’t break my heart,
don’t, don’t,
don’t throw it away.”7

How incredible
you really and truly are.
You are a soundtrack and
you come in different volumes.
I swear I want nothing else
from you than to just listen,
slip on my headphones
and submerge in the
raucous of sound and composition
that is you.
I can’t always see you,
but I can always hear you,
and I will listen
until the day you turn it off,
the day when silence ensues and
you are
nothing
but the shell a great ballad
will refer to
as a
cause
to
smile.8

1. “Golden Years” by David Bowie
2. “Let’s Go Crazy” by Prince
3. “Old Time Rock ‘n Roll” by Bob Seger
4. “Boys of Summer” by Don Henley
5. “Demons” by Imagine Dragons
6. “Miss Missing You” by Fall Out Boy (Specifically, the line: “The person that you’d take a bullet for is behind the trigger.”)
7. “Head Over Heels” by Tears for Fears
8. “American Pie” by Don McLean

What the hell is up with the assassination attempts towards LGBTQ+ community? what did they even do? I mean, why hate someone for being different, why try and **** someone for being gay, or, bi, or transgender? or whatever they associate themselves as? like it just baffles me how much hate and animosity this world has, if someone is different, let them be different, because we all have differences and that what makes us the same, we're human beings and should be treating each other as such, I have friends that are gay, and bi, and I'm a straight guy myself, but you don't see me treating them any different, I respect them and they respect me, at the end of the day, it's all about love, respect and character, when did we turn a blind eye towards those values and morals? it's just crazy the amount of hatred and violence this society will stoop to....

By: Cedric McClester

As the Protagonist expects
*** as a pretext
Baffles intellects
In an election context
So it’s no mystery
That he does this ya see
When ancient history
Can be so blistery

Given the nomenclature
Of its prurient nature
Clearly I would hate to
Be forced to debate you
But the Protagonist
Has long been doing this
Although he gets me ******
He doesn’t feel remiss

As long as he’s untoward
He won’t fall on his sword
And you can rest assured
That the past won’t be ignored
In any given broadcast
He can be put on blast
Because if one chose to ask
They'd learn about his past

Right down to his hair follicle
The man is diabolical  
And also quite methodical
What I’m saying is he’s horrible
Like excrement stuck on a shoe
He’s nasty and it’s also true
Like a bowl of witches brew
He’s impossible to misconstrue















Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2016.  All rights reserved.

It was a tenacity
She was emptying her bowl of pasta
As he looks unsatisfied

At what exactly?

The dim lights of the restaurant
Or his formal attire of
perfect fitted suit and trousers

Or could it be
The discontented taste of wine
or perhaps his unfinished steak

But what baffles her was
He found everything menial

A display in the trophy section
Just a casual glance in the art gallery

She was just something
He just found aesthetic

Living by ideology must be comforting.
The freedom of constraint, the security of single-mindedness.

It gives one a sense of position; rooted
Behind battle-lines, clear division.

I always thought Marxists naive,
But not in the way you might think -
I was impressed by the notion that the ruling classes
Knew what they were doing.
Subjugation is at least part of a plan.

Humanism simply baffles me:
One might as well believe in
The primacy and potential of pigshit.

Even nihilism is ideology; its comforting
Sense of community: "We believe in one Nothing."

Ideological blinkers preserve order
By blocking out the surrounding chaos.

Perhaps I should find something to cling to
Before the rising tide sweeps me away.

(Not poetry.
I've tried that;
Too unstable.)

Dear Lord,

I thank you today for this gift of food. This, was another child of yours. Abel Abel Abel. An intelligent bird. A member in its dumb chain of life, family: what is family to that insentient mass? Do they mourn when one of them is gone? Does it affect them, does it bother them, does it pain them,

As it does to us? Yes, we, the great golden yardstick against which to measure out the universe.  Dumb, may be, but dumb life with a heart. Who knows about the soul. Isn't soul that little pin-***** somewhere deep in the heart? Do I have one? Do I care, do I mourn, do I see the pain that I cause to these fellow children of yours:

But if not this, what else - a leaf that covers in fear at being plucked, a root, a bulb that in ways we cannot sense with but an instrument, cries out in pain at being uprooted, skinned and roasted live. Or a fruit, that mothership, host to a million seedling lives, every one of them that could grow out to outlive my life by orders. A stalk, a branch, name it.

Yes, this is food. This is a chain. I eat and am eaten. Terrible, this creation, that has sprung from wellsprings of love. Or is not this world the product of a loving God, but that of the evil non-God? But where your omnipotence that is screaming through the scripture hoarse?

No, I am a sinner. I have sinned, to be born in this wretched world. A dead child was washed ashore, the other day. Until then, I said, to hell with those barbarians crossing rivers and mountains to reach my land. But what of death? I boil and burn a billion little lives in my glass of tea every morning, many times over. Oh plasmodium, that I have to **** to live, oh this life that hangs to me like a necessity!

Good Lord, have you made me in your image? What is, whose reflection in spacetime appears like this visage, flesh on ribage, beating heart, pumping lung, viscera and nerve and vein, bone and nail, wallowing in pleasure and pain? That is an inverse problem that baffles our genius. It is ill-posed for certain, with no means of regularization for sure.

I must live I must live I must live. ****, that organism is small, dumb, unintelligent, insentient, it's pain is of another kind, we can't eat air, and we are atop this chain, cobra's head, that houses all the venom. This is evolution, we are evolving space suits to head to the stars and spread the Gospel to those unknown realms still sunk steeped in barbarism.

Yes, He is great, he can be heard in the voices of lunatics that some times  get recorded and transmitted across the generations. And I follow the masters, they were vile, very vile, they were chosen, yea they were chosen, so vile is virtuous, I be vile, I be virtuous, I am chosen, yea, I am chosen, I head to God, on the backs of a thousand dead souls.

Amen. Peace to all those I consign and all the masters I quote. Holy Cain!

a love like the way the ocean feels
a heart like that day you treasure with every bit of your beating heart
a face that makes you want to kiss every single freckle
a body warm like the sand under the rays of the beating sun
arms like the ocean’s waves, strong and inviting
a home like the way your bed feels in the morning

the pain that is left inside each cigarette she smokes
eyes that stare off and reveal her deep-seated loneliness
the cold and stale secrets she releases as she blows smoke out of her mouth and then inhales it back into her nose

never fully loved, she aches when she is touched
you think of all of the secrets that rest inside of her
she needs time with her hands so she can do all of the things that keep her youth

dealing with another’s touch is more of a blessing to her than it is a curse
her long and waving brown and reddish hair emits a warmth and shines bright in the light
every day she prays someone might remember her existence
forced with a beauty and flesh that is seen easier by others is difficult for her to accept and become accustomed to
the deep luster that sparkles in her perfect eyes that turn green in the sun

her head laying lightly on her pillow, she is broken and things are hard for her
she tastes times of despair in her mouth as she searches for her quiet voice
you notice how beautiful she really is not only on the outside, but more so on the inside which makes you consider falling for the gold rings wrapped tightly around her piercing pupils
but you know she won’t let you in
her eyes when she smiles remind you of a warm cup of coffee first thing in the morning
her lips are a curse in the darkest comfort of life and look as if they taste like bliss

but she doesn’t how how to picture forever and all you want to do is hold her hand as the two of you get lost in some form of nature
you feel weak as you think of her mind and all of the ideas that stay hidden in its deepest parts
you think of all of the people she has exhaled and all of the promises that endlessly resemble relentless stolen time and all of her inviting smiles that are ultimately never-ending
you can tell how beat-up but peaceful her heart is as she reaches out to no avail
you want to give her gifts and take photos of her face in frustration as her mind jumps in every single direction
you want to swear to her that you will provide endless embraces and chase her alluring irises with kisses
you want to promise her mornings of early alarms and warm company

you start to think of the sunshine that is instantly ruined with the apparent glints and bent pleasure of her daringly beautiful crescent-shaped smile
you see her as a drain, rare and spiraling, with acidic-like thoughts and emotions that disappear with the presence of a healing and loving touch
the extreme to which her deadly looks are stronger and more alluring than any flower and any paradise

you imagine her self-portrait and what she looked like with the pressure on her shoulders as she dug deep down and forced herself to acknowledge her looks and her charm
you wonder how she deals with being so tense as she tirelessly searches for reason and understanding

the stronger she puffs her cigarette the more desired are the intervals between each breath as she tries to find the right sentences and forget about how unbearable everything is
she is quiet and her face emits freckles that pop out at you as you gaze in awe at her beauty
she sits and thinks of the six prior people that have threatened her strength and ultimately left her heart broken and aching
there are newborn, salty tears that radiate on her cheeks as she mutters something under her breath in the doorway, she dreams of another dimension

her insides are constantly churning and you ache to know her habits and you ache to know how her molars taste with your tongue inside of her mouth
she is quite the commodity and you desperately want to blurt out everything to her
but her trust has been demolished and her heart has been metamorphosed and she wouldn’t know what to do as she would emptily reply “i am so sorry.”

you think of her as an enchantment and how she is really an inconvenience to your peace of mind
you rant on and on about all of the feelings that reside, and are upheld, secretly in the plethora of your thoughts that are diffident of being spoken aloud
her lifestyle baffles you as you try to contain your amazement and admiration of how disciplined she really is
and your heart aches and you feel worthless as you look in the mirror and stare at your eyes that faintly reveal exhaustion, appearing to be both passionately and tirelessly struggling to find some form of sanity residing deep within you

it is getting harder as she is loyal to what she needs out of life and what she needs out of other people
and it hurts as you think of all of the remaining endings for this eighteen year old ocean of beauty and difficulty and all of the interrupted conversations and the tingling sensation that a saturday morning brings
she is alluring as her body defines the sun’s rotting reflections that pry at her insides and the canals of her heart, possessing a revealed and evicted magnitude that could keep you in raw amazement for days
the thought of her lips, always faintly quivering, is like a weapon, as you watch her wandering about, never changing the perplexed look that rests perfectly on her face
you want to run up to her and beg her to stay
but the thought of the stress it would cause keeps you away
you try to delete her from your thoughts but that is starting to seem more and more pointless

you notice she has fallen and all of the feelings and words swell up inside of you and the thought of holding her hand causes you to run to her
but the world is mean and your teeth shatter under the pressure as you try to imagine the years you have spent without her
your heart emits a familiar warning and the sun seems dead and older and the tears start to form

you finally muster up enough courage to wrap your arms around her as you resist the urge to kiss her nose
you can feel how lonely she is and you hope to god you will be able to accept that later
you grasp her tighter as you listen to the despair that flows from the tips of her fingers that burn when she writes
her skin is smooth and her entire body is light with love but heavy with the vast amounts of pain and years of hurt that are imbedded into her skin and into her bones

you imagine her as the sea, apart from everything, but one with it at the same time
she is friendly, even as she remembers the forgotten hours of anger that used to torment her
you caress her soft cheeks and softly tell her to shut off the bad thoughts and forget those who have left her
you turn to reach into your pocket and you catch a glimpse of the moon
you feel your stomach fall as it reminds you of her; sometimes lost, part of her always hidden away, but full of strength and light and beauty
you had forgotten how much it resembles her until you look at both of them in the presence of the other

you look back down at her and notice how her lips long to be kissed and then comes the poem you will write in order to remind you of this night
you feel as though you are in the middle of a war and that you really need to sleep and everything around you is abnormally quiet, like there are blockades of passion built up and around you
you stand there, trying to look alive and say, with every piece of strength you contain, “i love you,” softly but assuredly

she looks at you like you are human and then she looks at the surrounding landscape and takes what seems to be a week, to say, “but why?”
you wrap your hand tightly around her palm and try to explain but your voice shakes and cracks and you can’t seem to find the words when suddenly a tree of courage and unadultered passion grows inside of you and you say,
“because you are beautiful and you are broken but you are trying. because you are human and you are one person and two hands and one heart. because i want nothing more than to clean your burns and bruises and make the wanderer in you build a home and stay. because looking at you feels like nothing i have ever felt and because you deserve to be loved, you deserve to be shown that another person’s love won’t turn into knives and anxiety and pain in your heart. you deserve to be healed and to be whole. i love you because you are you and there is no better way to describe you other than that. i love you because you are beautiful on the inside, no matter how many times you have been hurt. i love you because you light my insides on fire and because you never leave my mind. i love you because i can feel you, in my heart and in my bones and in every fiber of my being. i love you. i love you. i LOVE you. and i could go on and on telling you WHY but the desire to kiss your lips is so strong i feel as though my legs could give out at any second!”
you are breathing heavily as you realize her eyes have risen up to catch yours and she leans toward you
she looks golden under the moon light and the surface of her eyes are rapt with a soothing flare that burns into you as you gaze at the reflection of the moon in the circles of her eyeballs
you gaze at the beautiful curve of her body in your arms as her eyelids blink open and shut slowly as she quietly moves her lips as close to yours as they can get without touching, slightly moves away, almost like she is trying to prove something, then breaks your gaze as she closes her eyes and kisses you like you are something she has wanted and longed for her entire life

it is at this moment, as you feel her poking ribcage under the warmth of your hand and feel your body collapse, that you realize how certain and profound your love for her is
kissing her, you feel the ghosts that live inside of her, moving around as she clenches you tighter
you can smell the hurt that swells like water inside of her
there is a strong and longing presence about it and you can hear her heartbeat coming from inside of her chest, hidden underneath all of the sadness she has felt the entire duration of her life

kissing her makes you feel like you are kissing the universe, like it is a once in a lifetime chance
she pulls away and looks into your eyes and touches your face with her thumb so softly and so effortlessly that it feels as if you two have been doing this for your whole lives, loving each other
you can feel her wandering away from you so you grab her tighter and she snaps out of it and looks at you and says, “when i wasn’t there, you actually searched until you found me. no one has ever done that before. thank you.”

you can tell she is trying to forget old poisons as you read the expression on her face
she never said it back but that is okay because you know how terrifying those three words are to her and you know she will say it once she is ready

you let out a long sigh with the admittance of such a huge confession and everything is okay

you close your eyes and whisper, “finally.”

793

Grief is a Mouse—
And chooses Wainscot in the Breast
For His Shy House—
And baffles quest—

Grief is a Thief—quick startled—
****** His Ear—report to hear
Of that Vast Dark—
That swept His Being—back—

Grief is a Juggler—boldest at the Play—
Lest if He flinch—the eye that way
Pounce on His Bruises—One—say—or Three—
Grief is a Gourmand—spare His luxury—

Best Grief is Tongueless—before He’ll tell—
Burn Him in the Public Square—
His Ashes—will
Possibly—if they refuse—How then know—
Since a Rack couldn’t coax a syllable—now.

I'm very good with numbers; Always been inside my brain
They freely shift and move about; Allowed to dance and play
However, one equation baffles and confuses me
That one plus one will equal two; This is not what I see

It's people who must be confused; Wrong value they give "one"
Because the single integer alone can't have much fun
It's only with another "one" first one will come to life
With purpose, reason, starts to smile; Now feeling satisfied

The presence of the second one gives first one happiness
When one is standing all alone life has not much to give
Can not survive a vacuum; It is dark and empty space
No digit there to interact; One's value just a waste

Some people disagree with me; Say one is fine alone
And doesn't need another one for value to be shown
I don't completely disagree but my experience
That I feel most fulfilled with life when I receive and give

The elegance of the exchange; Where miracles exist
Life's greatest gift is that of love but with it there's one twist
How it takes two to tango; Love is not a solo dance
To give another all your heart is taking a big chance

But can't compare reward to risk; The blissful ecstasy
Cause "one" is more like just a half but with love it's complete

Memories:
the back and forth trajectories
the internal out-of-sync in-sync directories
of treasured moments, of pleasantries
and the reviled relived accessories of treachery.

My memory is pitted with chasms like Swiss Cheese
the phantom dreams of being hit by a car in a winters bite
the realities of unconsciousness and brain spasms
the fathoms baffles in batches and waves of breaches
disfigured features like a frosted window caked in creatures
burrowed and riddled like a parasite in the spite of night.

By the time id got to hospital id forgotten my own name
fortunately I had a gas bill in my pocket which hadn't freed itself
while being violently hurled over the red car bonnet
and it became the one and only evidence that I even existed
even though the A & E nurse insisted and persisted on asking questions:
my address, date of birth, blood type, emergency contact -
like Id have it tattooed on my body like a scene from Memento
amid the voices in crescendo and brain-damage thumping techno.

That was a few years ago, or was it, I couldn't be sure now
but some days I forget what I did in the morning
so I just have to live for the moment somehow
the memories like Swiss Cheese constantly morphing
to the piped tune of the cerebral banshee
buzzing in my left ear like a perpetual honey bee
makes me wonder though;

I am lactose and diary free - the dominant dietary preponderant
some modernistic conglomerate causing ultimate lethargy.
Does this mean if recollections are like Swiss Cheese
I am intolerant to memories?

It baffles me how
Many who preach
Pro-life choose
To eat a ham sandwich
For lunch,
Or buy a "pet"
From a *******,
Thus taking a
Life from the shelter.

Then there are those sad clowns
Who think it's funny to say
"Yum, bacon!" when you expose the
Torture and bloodshed
Of some poor animal
Produced for food.

And, we mustn't forget
The good ol’ “humane" farmers
Who raise trusting animals
From birth only to
Hang them up, slit their throats, and
Slowly bleed them out to
Turn
A
Profit.

How can we be so disconnected?
How do we not see the
Magic in every fetus?
The wondrous exchange of
Seed to soil - just as humans -
Creating a precious being
Who also deserves a life
Of liberty and justice?

Whether two legs or four,
Wings or extremities,
Fur or skin, fins or scales,
How can we not see their
Inherent worth?

Such dire disconnect!

We were created the same
Dear human and non-human
Animal friends, out of
Magic and dreams.
We both hunger and thirst,
Bleed and seek shelter, cry out
In pain, shiver in the cold,
Fear, and fight for survival.

We all begin by breathing in Life,
And we shall all leave this earth with
One
Final
Breath.
How is that not proof of our connectedness?

As tears roll down the cheeks
Doubt turns into baffles
I believe the angels lingered
I gently plead them, calm me
Seconds after…
Frozen blaze flourished to chest
Illuminating this heart to soul..
I’m puzzled in blend,
Its like captivated, hypnotized
Nerves triggering tears at ceased
Tumbled minds at eased
Crumbled emotions at thawed..
I am mesmerized..
but at soothed..