'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
the frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the maxome foe he sought-
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood a while in thought.
As in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came.
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack.
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"Has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Calloh! Callay!
He chortled in his joy.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Hot springs across the valley from the backdrop of the emerald green forest wall.
  Fog rolled in thicker and thicker with every passing minute bringing with it a stillness and a calm.
  A sharp strong beam of light cracks the night and falls against the forest backdrop.
  Little more than a slit of light really, penetrating through the fog and carrying with images disturbing of creatures great and small
  Creatures that had long sharp teeth, creatures that had heavy huge paws and fast long legs.
  Funny creatures and sad creatures too went calmly and serenely  galumphing through.
  Shadows here and shadows there shadows on that emerald  green see of forest falling before my gazing eyes.
  Puppets dancing at every command as if they were controlled by the trees them selves.  
  We see em there standing waiting in the dark knowing around the next sliver of light another will be.
  Are we creating them the puppets or is the forest really in control, of dancing the puppets we see.
  Elephants and Turtles, Bears and Rabbits, Giraffes and Ducks, Tigers and Mice around the next sliver of light.
  Oh we watched and were amazed by the shadows dancing on the forest wall and playing in the fog this night,
  Shadows made to be filled we filled full of community and strength held by a few shadow puppets on the forest.
  Shadows dancing, shadows playing, shadows pouring onto the emerald forest floor.
  Shadows lost there way again did they fall out of favor again oh no the light burned out the shadows stopped the hot springs was quiet.
  Play with your shadows remember when you made the puppets, out there the puppets where may as well been me as a kid again.
  Next time I go into the forest Im bringing my dancing shoes and Im playing with the shadows again.

Cats are Iambic Pentameter

Light-footed cats are nature’s iambics
Each subtle feline step unstressed to stressed
Across a lawn, a counterpane, a heart
As a tail-twitching cat ballet, all grace

But dogs are four-beat Anglo-Saxon1 lines
Galumphing heavily and clumsily
Across a moor, a sleeping-bag, a heart
As a tail-wagging country reel (gone bad)

Soft-footed cats are nature’s iambics
And dogs are four-beat Anglo-Saxon lines


1Old English Anglo-Saxon (approx. fifth-twelfth century). Applies to four-stress hemistichal alliterative verse, e.g. Beowulf.

- Stephen Fry, *The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within

The Hunting

The Bellman looked uffish, and wrinkled his brow.
"If only you'd spoken before!
It's excessively awkward to mention it now,
With the Snark, so to speak, at the door!
"We should all of us grieve, as you well may believe,
If you never were met with again--
But surely, my man, when the voyage began,
You might have suggested it then?

"It's excessively awkward to mention it now--
As I think I've already remarked."
And the man they called "Hi!" replied, with a sigh,
"I informed you the day we embarked.

"You may charge me with ******--or want of sense--
(We are all of us weak at times):
But the slightest approach to a false pretence
Was never among my crimes!

"I said it in Hebrew--I said it in Dutch--
I said it in German and Greek:
But I wholly forgot (and it vexes me much)
That English is what you speak!"

"'Tis a pitiful tale," said the Bellman, whose face
Had grown longer at every word:
"But, now that you've stated the whole of your case,
More debate would be simply absurd.

"The rest of my speech" (he exclaimed to his men)
"You shall hear when I've leisure to speak it.
But the Snark is at hand, let me tell you again!
'Tis your glorious duty to seek it!

"To seek it with thimbles, to seek it with care;
To pursue it with forks and hope;
To threaten its life with a railway-share;
To charm it with smiles and soap!

"For the Snark's a peculiar creature, that wo'n't
Be caught in a commonplace way.
Do all that you know, and try all that you don't:
Not a chance must be wasted to-day!

"For England expects--I forbear to proceed:
'Tis a maxim tremendous, but trite:
And you'd best be unpacking the things that you need
To rig yourselves out for the fight."

Then the Banker endorsed a blank cheque (which he crossed),
And changed his loose silver for notes:
The Baker with care combed his whiskers and hair.
And shook the dust out of his coats:

The Boots and the Broker were sharpening a *****--
Each working the grindstone in turn:
But the ****** went on making lace, and displayed
No interest in the concern:

Though the Barrister tried to appeal to its pride
And vainly proceeded to cite
A number of cases, in which making laces
Had proved an infringement of right.

The maker of Bonnets ferociously planned
A novel arrangement of bows:
While the Billiard-marker with quivering hand
Was chalking the tip of his nose.

But the Butcher turned nervous, and dressed himself fine,
With yellow kid gloves and a ruff--
Said he felt it exactly like going to dine,
Which the Bellman declared was all "stuff".

"Introduce me, now there's a good fellow," he said,
"If we happen to meet it together!"
And the Bellman, sagaciously nodding his head,
Said "That must depend on the weather."

The ****** went simply galumphing about,
At seeing the Butcher so shy:
And even the Baker, though stupid and stout,
Made an effort to wink with one eye.

"Be a man!" said the Bellman in wrath, as he heard
The Butcher beginning to sob.
"Should we meet with a Jubjub, that desperate bird,
We shall need all our strength for the job!"

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
    Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
    And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
    The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
    The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
    Long time the manxome foe he sought--
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
    And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
    The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
    And burbled as it came!

One two! One two! And through and through
    The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
    He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
    Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
    He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
    Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
    And the mome raths outgrabe.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
  And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
  The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
  The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
  Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
  And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
  The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
  And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
  The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
  He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
  Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
  He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
  And the mome raths outgrabe.

I always think of you this time of the night
When the moon glares down on my linen tomb
And a part of me feels hollow

I demummify myself and slog to the sink
Then gaze to the mirror and stare death in the face
Sunken peepers and tallow skin
So is the front of a hopeless romantic

I think about galumphing to your window
And my body longs for fulfillment
I limp silently in the moonlight
Along barren, windswept streets
To gaze upon your somnolent being

With my silhouette etched behind the curtain
I see you wake and quake with fear
My knees tremble as I nervously moan
To let me in and eat your brain

'Twas brillig and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand
Long time the manxome foe he sought-
So rested he by Tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwocky, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with it's head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves
And the mome raths outgrabe.

-Lewis Carroll

Part One: Wolves and Chokes

Children are such wolves.
A day is a fledgling lamb
That can be crowded, cloistered
And clawed.
I used to speak to you and
Run with you.
You in your red coat

And I with my white throat.
Suspect nothing.
No tooth was fear to me
For a pack does not stack
Its white edges against itself.
Yet still I must have itched
A miracle of irritation
That cannot be ignored.
In the night, my mouth
Is drawn wide.
Like a fetus, I am transparent
And cringing in black situ.
Then a bite, and then a bite.
Then you see what is inside.

A one I love the best of all
Is loath to see me live.
The bitter taste of childhood vow
Comprises all I give.

I’ve broken you, you say.
With a box of fools I never sought,
Always galumphing back to me.

You broke me first, I think.
What posturing, straighten that halo
That chokes me rightfully.

Of course there is no way
To seek out your paradise.
Not if sinners cannot speak.

Part Two: Sebastien

Your hysteria is a fine rope.
My tree stands ready at the dawn,
A line of men and my
Brick wall that chips and splits
When bodies fall.

Even the sun is watching.
No one swats the stinging gaze
Away and no one dares offend.
But I stand.
I shall try to be as salt.

Salt stands even as dust.
Salt sneers at wounds.
Salt loves only the earth.
And the earth will love me soon,
Championing me as her lover
Which is an irony too ghastly to feel.

Rain in the still air, in the sun.
Silence that grinds a heel onto wrists
That steals from me.
A second, then a heartstring.
Thousand and thousands.
Eyes and minutes.

A billion is still only a tenth.
Release.
It is the boundlessness of the sky
And a chorus stabs their shovels,
Stabs the vein with silver mirth.

god touches me.
I am touched by gods.
I am born
And slain by daylight’s pink
Hands.

Every iron finger
Every one a steely tongue
Every cut a golden affair
And the spurns too hot to hold.
I fall and fold and dim.

My hour is burnt
And still your eyes, your teeth
Go with me
To forge both of my decades with
A gilt life of ecstasy I never
Touched but saw.

I saw it in the face of god.
And heard it as a note
That echoed through the days I lived,
And every word I wrote.

He fell away with his uffish head all full
and he bought what we couldn’t buy him and
he didn’t buy what we swallowed whole
or at least he sold it back or gave it away
for vorpal heresies & novel fascinations

And just like we taught him to ride the red
a few swipes away from bankruptcy and desolation
but welcome and chortled to fail if that’s
easier for now than climbing the Tumtum tree
or trying to make it in this world
well fed - given all to eat and truly loved

It’s curious how the rain gyred down today
and stopped and came again and stopped
because the cadence of his windshield wipers
seemed to coincide with the crankier parts:
only working when there’s nothing left to wipe

We don’t even give two ***** if a Jubjub bird
falls dead and he whiffles away, sword
between his legs (though that is dangerous)
and the beast escapes. He can eat the **** bird
for all we care, but for sustenance, not triumph

But our son is still lost; he’s frabjously
writhing in the tulgey fiber of disappointment
unable to slay even the puniest of borogoves
His melancholy surpasses all comprehension
and he isn’t coming home any time soon

He’s not galumphing back.

What use is a mimsy rhyme to the famished?
How often are we warned, beamishly chastised
of the brillig peril of worrying ourselves
with feeding the slithy soul
when the body burbles, always demands to eat first
and is satisfied by no less
than the frumious flesh of the fatted calf?

Cling! Cling!
Bling Bling!
Tick Tock! Tick Tock!
Another gimmick poem from the prophet of schlock
Today I even spelt my own name wrong

Sitting under a scaffold on the mean streets
Comes the Smell of ****

Abbud sits and picks his nose behind his mustache on the first UAE space flight, The year is 2020. Cold fear creeps up his spine as he notices Sahib staring at him just as he puts another crusty snot into his mouth. Neither man says a thing but the silent judgment is made. Abbud ponders quietly, questioning himself but also the bizarre stigma as he looks through a porthole at the pacific ocean below.

Tell someone you love them today because it feels good
But you know what else feels almost as good
Hate

Gruber Classitanius peers down the path of the monkeys, the bodies lay strewn about penetrated in every orifice by the dreaded ****** spider monkeys. He remembers what the profit sphinx told him and focuses on his Iphone Shazam application, just as instructed he clears his thoughts of all else but the Shazam logo for this is the only way to avoid **** death. Out of the corner of his eye he sees the supple upper thigh of one of the **** monkeys unknowing victims and it brings him back to a night before where he lay with a women he had never met but upon falling on the bed beside her knew that he must be in love, his spine tingles with a shiver of emotion, but the pleasure soon turns to fear and he jerks his thoughts back to the Shazam icon just as the first spider monkey ***** penetrates his left eye socket skull ******* him to death like all the others.

Galumphing along the road stands the son of the jabberwocky slayer
In Psychedelic dreams of Gods speaking without words
On the brink of the next moment I forgot what I was saying
And just decided to write whatever I wanted
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasdfghjkl

‘Twas 2019 and the slithy humans
Did gyre and gamble in opuleans.
All jublirant were the influters
But the underproles outcraped.

Beware the Jabbersarscov my son!
The invisible spiky suriv:
The lungs that flood, the air that strungles
And shun the droplmist.

One, two! One, two and three.
Wave after wave and variuans,
With E. Rs on flame;
‘Twas not a virpual game.

So came three pharmers:
Fpiper, Starzen and Putnik who
Galumphing found the wocksine
And the wirld riched heard immanity a-gain.

'Twas brillig and the slavy humans
Did gyre and gamble
with panache and galore once more
But nothing was the same anymore.

the sequence is always
lurking on the tip
of my tongue:
vintage film that
tastes like bottom
-less honey
     mead.

three eight year olds hover on the front lines,
each in their own corner of forest. an older
boy throws his rusty longsword
with a frustrated, huffling yell into the
blackwater. a summer god doused in
sun dips an ear into the stratosphere
and listens through the trees, his
presence crawling through the dirt
as he watches the three children
fight lovingly against each
other.

three cousins draw a
treaty in the mud. they’re unsure on
the details. their hunched forms
murmur against the sunset. they meet between
tree forts. they hate each other a little bit still,
though they’re not entirely sure why. the sword
of the blackwater is a rusty pipe:
sleeping in liquid tar,
tangled in seagrass.

we finish our alliance written in mud.
fingers later smell of pine smoke
and homegrown moss.

three explorers linger on over
trembling planks of crimson
wood, peering through the
docks. they seek a longsword
made of backwoods and amethyst,
dozing somewhere in the murky water.

(even now
i don’t think i
could pull it out).

valiantly
(like some kind
of fantasy novel)
we tip toe across miry sand
and velvet rockweed. (small
fish probably sleep in it now).
we give up, and every summer
i scrutinize the cloudy water:
nothing there but sunfish
and unresolved tension.

before the war we swam beneath
the crimson planks and we were
mermaids, pirates, knights - all
at once and one at a time. the
years blend together and we
hate each other in different
ways. now we’re so old (none
of us taller than the sword
still). we’re never here at
the same time anymore,
and the summer god may not
have his ear to the earth
as he did so long
ago.


i hear three eight year olds
back at the docks, voices rising
from beneath warm obsidian.
there’s yelling through a dense
thicket: we’re screaming our
heads off - (they roll into the water,
turning into fish made of sunset
and memory). some summer god
somewhere rolls over in bed.
we listen in our daydreams
for another battle cry, galumphing
through shallows and ocean shores
until we surrender, making ourselves
forget about swords and tree forts
made of earth and twine.

yet i still hear three eight year olds
howling their heads off
somewhere in the back
of my mind, arguing in
sing-song voices
over who had won
the war.

i saw him once at age of four
he bade me wine to drink galore
and then again at five years old
to scribe my name in figures bold
black upon the outside bench
got spanked for that 'n left a stench
then if my memory serves me right
at age of nine on eraser white
uncomplimentary homage to my teacher
to write he bade whereupon appeacher
swift to headmaster sent me in fury
but too afraid of one-man jury
he bade me fabricate pathetic tale
of his absence when i went to jail

lies and deceit [seemed to] have coloured my years
for now in sweetest memory appears
marking of my own homework
in red paint while I duties shirk.
thus, in twilight as old i grow
i'm frightened of my grey shadow
the falsehood has become my own
part of flesh and part of bone
can i correct this wayward soul
and fly towards the divine goal?
methinks must use mercurial self
warts 'n all, angel and elf,
in ad hoc program to do good deed
and so transform this wayward steed

and comfort take in this small truth
that memory is a no-good sleuth
takes delight in remembering bad
but scarce commemorates good times had
so yes, sweet devil, you've been here,
i've done your bidding since toddler year
but higher angel i've followed you too
galumphing on in ways few knew
G-d alone will weigh the scales
for He sees the whole with all details

underneath the bridge where the trolls eat goats and the rays of the sun are rumored
to be Pisces and the world is an odd duck, galumphing along beside the other world
you’re actually in.
there are songs about the territory but-
no melodies to remember
them with.

we sleep through the screech of time
and canonize the raptures
of our complete illusions.
born in a cage of open skies
and cul de sacs… we depart from our roots
to sprawl amid the vanishing and -
all waves of endless
deep.

Like
a speck of dust on a lens
is a ziggurat
to a lens
cap.

and a condor
to an almost
Life.