The 9.6 million followers who tune in to watch Miranda Kerr having her hair done on Instagram — for this is how models spend most of their time — were treated to a rather more interesting sight last Thursday: a black and white photograph of a whacking great diamond ring.

Across it was the caption “Marry me!” and a twee animation of the tech mogul Evan Spiegel on bended knee. Underneath Kerr had typed “I said yes!!!” and an explosion of heart emojis.

A spokesman for Spiegel, founder of the Snapchat mobile app, who is 26 to Kerr’s 33 and worth $US 2.1 billion to her $US 42.5 million , revealed “they are very happy”.

At first, the marriage seems an unlikely combination: a man so bright he founded Snapchat while still at Stanford University, becoming one of the world’s youngest self-made billionaires by 22, and a Victoria’s Secret model who was previously married to the Pirates of the Caribbean star Orlando Bloom (she allegedly had a fling with pop brat Justin Bieber, leading Bloom to punch Beebs in a posh Ibiza restaurant).

Perhaps the union indicates that there is more to Kerr than we thought. More likely, it reveals something about Spiegel — and the way the social status of “geeks” has changed.

Since Steve Jobs made computers cool and Millennials started living online, nerds are king. Even coding is **** enough for the model Karlie Kloss, singer will.i.am and actor Ashton Kutcher to learn it. Silicon Valley has become the new Hollywood, as moguls and social media barons take over from film stars and sportsmen not just on rich lists, but as alpha men.

Being a co-founder of a company is this decade’s equivalent to being a rock star or a chef. And, if their attractiveness to models and actresses proves anything, then being a Twag — tech wife or girlfriend — is a “thing”. Sources tell me Twags are also known as “founder-hounders” because they like to date the creators of start-up companies.

Actress Talulah Riley was an early adopter. She started dating the PayPal founder Elon Musk in 2008. Riley, then fresh from starring in the St Trinian’s film, met Musk in London’s Whisky Mist nightclub after he had delivered a lecture at the Royal Aeronautical Society. I interviewed her shortly afterwards and she told me they had spent the evening talking about “quantum physics”. A month later they were engaged. Their on-again-off-again marriage lasted six years before she filed for divorce again in March. Currently Musk, worth an estimated $US 12.7 billion and focused on Tesla cars, is said to be “spending a lot of time” with Johnny Depp’s estranged wife, Amber Heard.

Model Lily Cole dated the Twitter founder Jack Dorsey in 2013. Later she had a son with Kwame Ferreira, founder of the digital innovation agency Kwamecorp. Actress Emma Watson is going out with William Knight, an “adventurer” who has an incredibly boringly sounding job as a senior manager at Medallia, a software company. Allison Williams, Marnie in the HBO television show Girls, is married to Ricky Van Veen, co-founder of College Humor website.

Could it be that these women are onto something? Dating a bro certainly has its appeal. They are innovative: how else would they invent apps that deliver cheese toasties or match singles based on their haircuts? They are risk-takers who must be charismatic enough to inspire investors and attract crowd-funding. They may not be gym-fit, but they are mathletes who can do your tax bill. They are animal lovers: every start-up is dog friendly. And they are fun: who would not want to date somebody with a ball pool in their office?

There is a saying about dating in Silicon Valley: the odds are good but the goods are odd. Nerds are notorious for peculiar chat-up lines and normcore clothes. Still, if geeks can be awkward, that is part of their charm. Keira Knightley, complaining that Silicon Valley was all men in hoodies and Crocs, described how one gave her his card, saying she should get in touch if she wanted to see a spaceship.

One Vogue writer recalled a Silicon Valley man messaging her via a dating app, in which he noted: “In 50 per cent of your photos you’re holding an iPhone. It may interest you to find out that I invented the iPhone. More accurately I was an engineer on the original iPhone . . .”

Most promisingly, some guys are astoundingly rich. It is suggested Kerr’s engagement ring is a 2.5-carat diamond worth around dollars 55,000. She has already moved into Spiegel’s dollars 12m LA pad. Between his money and her Victoria’s Secrets bridesmaids, no wonder sources claim they are planning an “extravagant wedding”.

It might rival even the Napster founder Sean Parker’s $US10m performance-art bash. He married songwriter Alexandra Lenas in a canopy among Big Sur’s redwoods decorated to look like an enchanted forest. Some 350 guests wore Tolkienesque costumes created by The Lord of the Rings costume designer Ngila Dickson. They sat on white fur rugs and were given bunnies to pet. Presumably rabbit babysitters were on hand when the disco started.

If such fantasies inspire you to become a Twag, the great news is you do not have to be a supermodel to be in with a chance. Such is the dearth of single women in Silicon Valley that one dating site, Dating Ring, crowdfunded a plane to fly single women to Palo Alto from New York.

Be warned, though: guys are single because they are married to the job.

No wonder most meet their partners at college or work — the Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg met his wife, Priscilla Chan, at Harvard.

The Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom met girlfriend Nicole Schuetz at Stanford. Melinda met Bill Gates when, in 1987, they sat next to each other at an Expo trade-fair dinner. “He was funnier than I expected him to be,” she said.

Kerr began dating Spiegel in 2014 after meeting him at a Louis Vuitton dinner in New York. You can bet he was networking. Shortly after Louis Vuitton showcased their cruise collection in a Snapchat story. Last season Snapchat went on to become the biggest new name at NY fashion week.

If you want to meet tech guys, you might catch them at Silicon Valley parties, which is how the Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick met his partner, Gabi Holzwarth, a violinist hired to play. Or they might be schmoozing clients downtown in a swanky Noe Valley club in San Francisco or a boring Union Square hotel in New York. In London you find them around Old Street, aka Silicon Roundabout, in bars, at hackathons, or start-up meet-ups. In the day they are coding at Google Campus or practising their pitching in a co-working space.

Some tech boys date the old-fashioned way: on Tinder. Airbnb founder Brian Chesky met his girlfriend of three years, Elissa Patel, through the app. When I interviewed Instagram co-founder Systrom he admitted that when he had been single he had signed up.

Dating agency Linx — presumably a play on operating system Linux — is dedicated to making Silicon Valley matches. Amy Andersen set it up in 2003 after moving to Palo Alto and being “flabbergasted” by the number of eligible men. She claims her clients are “extremely dynamic and successful individuals’’: tech founders, tech chief executives, financier founding partners of large institutions and “tons of entrepreneurs”.

Andersen says tech guys make “fabulous partners”. Romantic and chivalrous, they write love letters, plan dates, “even proposing on Snapchat!” If you want to marry a tech billionaire, she says, “you need to bring your A game.” Her clients look “for women who are equally, if not more, dynamic and interesting than he is!”

There are drawbacks to dating tech guys. Before Google buys your amore’s business, he will be living on *** Noodles waiting for the next round of funding — and workaholics are dull.

Kerr says Spiegel is “25, but he acts like he’s 50. He’s not out partying. He goes to work in Venice [Beach], he comes home. We don’t go out. We’d rather be at home and have dinner, go to bed early.” Which might suit Kerr, but is not my idea of a fun.

You had also better be prepared to share your life. When Priscilla Chan miscarried three times, Mark Zuckerberg wrote about it on Facebook, while Chesky used a romantic trip with his girlfriend to promote Airbnb - uploading a picture of her in bed, with a note saying “f* hotels”. Besides all of which is the notorious issue of Silicon Valley sexism.

It has a chief exec-bro culture that puts pick-up artist/comedian Dapper Laughs to shame. Ninety per cent of women working in the Valley say they have witnessed sexist behaviour, 60 per cent have experienced unwanted ****** advances at work, two thirds of them from their boss. Whitney Wolfe, a co-founder of Tinder, took Justin Mateen to court for ****** harassment. Her lawsuit against the company alleged that Mateen, her former partner, sent text messages calling her a “*****”.

Spiegel has tech bro form. He apologised after emails from his days at Stanford emerged: missives about stripper poles, getting black-out drunk, shooting lasers at “fat chicks”, and promising to “roll a blunt for whoever sees the most **** tonight (Sunday)”. After one fraternity Hawaiian luau party, he signed off emails “f*bitchesgetleid”.

No wonder some women are not inspired to become Twags. Especially when you could be a tech billionaire yourself. Would you not rather be Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook, than married to the boss?Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/evening-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/black-formal-dresses

The radio alarm is a bit too strong
for his afternoon hangover taste.
He goes downstairs, sets the coffee to brewing,
rubs his hands through the hair on his face.
As he sits and he smokes, he can't quite think of the joke
she once told him about wooden eyes.

The coffee is ready, his hands are unsteady
as he pours his first cup of cure.
He tries to be happy he woke up today,
but whether being awake's good, he's not sure.
Outside it's raining, but he's gallantly straining
to keep his head and his spirits held high.

As soft as the flower bending out in its shower,
fiercer than hornets defending their hives,
the memories of sharing her secrets and sheets
run him through like sharp rusty knives.
He decides that his cup isn't quite strong enough,
takes the ***** from the shelf, gives a sigh.

He goes to the porch to put words to the torch
he still carries and knows whiskey just fuels.
Thunder puts a voice to his hammering heart.
Through ink, his knotted mind unspools,
writing of butterflies and of how his love lies
cocooned under unreachable skies.

From teardrops to streams to winter moonbeams
to a peach, firm and sweet, in the spring,
he writes of pilgrims and language and soft dew-damp grass
and how he sees her in everything.
He rambles and grieves, and he just can't believe
how much he has bottled inside.

He writes how the leaves, when they whisper in the breeze,
bring to mind her warm breath in his mouth,
how when walking through woods he loves the birdsong
when they fly back in the summer from the south
because she would sing too and he always knew
he wanted that sound in his ears when he died.

He writes even the streetlights, fluorescent and bright,
make him miss the diamond chips in her eyes,
how the fountain in the park plays watersongs in the dark
when he goes to make wishes on pennies
and while he's there he gets hoping
there will be some spare wishes
but so far there haven't been any.

He writes that the cold makes him think of the old
hotel where they spent most of a week,
lazing and gazing quite lovingly,
and how he brushed an eyelash off her cheek.
The crickets and frogs and all of the dogs
sound as mournful as he feels each night.

He writes about chocolate and fun in arcades,
he writes about stairwells and butchers' blades,
and closed-casket funerals, and Christmas parades,
then sad flightless birds and tiny brigades
of ants taking crumbs from the toast he had made,
and political goons with their soulless tirades,
old-timey duels and terrible grades,
strangers on  buses, harp music, maids,
the weird afterimages when all the light fades,
the pleasure of dinnertime serenades,
sidewalk chalk, wine, and hand grenades.

He writes of how much fun it would be to fly,
and saltwater taffy and ferryboat rides,

sitting on couches, scratched CD's,
pets gone too soon and overdraft fees,

the beach, the lake, the mountains, the fog,
David Bowie's funny, ill-smelling bog,

jewelry, perfume, sushi, and swans,
the smell of the pavement when the rain's come and gone,

and shots and opera, and Oprah and ***,
and tiny bikinis with yellow dots,

stained glass lamps, and gum and stamps,
her dancing shoes on wheelchair ramps,
that overstrange feeling of déjà vu,
filet mignon and cordon bleu,

bad haircuts at county fairs,
honey and clover, stockmarket shares,
the comfort of nestling in overstuffed chairs,
and her poking fun at the clothes that he wears,
and giraffes and hippos and polar bears,
cumbersome car consoles, monsters' lairs,
singing in public and ignoring the stares,
botching it badly while making éclairs,
misspelled tattoos, socks not in pairs,
people who take something that isn't theirs,
the future of man, and man's future cares,

why people so frequently lie
and bury themselves so deep in the mire
of monetary profits when money won't buy
a single next second because time's not for hire,
and that he sees her in everything.

Then unexpectedly, unbidden from where it was hidden
comes the punchline to the joke she had told him.
He laughs -- it's too much and his heart finally tears
as a blackness rolls in to enfold him.
The last thing he hears is birdsong in his ears --
the sound brings hope and is sweet as he dies.

Delicately pink hearts gently unfurl
From nests of lively minds;
There is nothing weak about Southern women
We are supposed to wear ugly dresses,
Enamel bugs,
French scarves that wrap around and
Tie us all together from the inside out
Football and sassy new haircuts might not make faces look younger,
But they can lift spirits
And just because you spend all day advising others
Of their secret trials
Doesn't mean that you can hold your family in a cage,
Golden and happy though you may want things to be.
Remember that if you feel new, an outsider,
Your personal tragedies seeming too much to bear,
You will always find comfort in laughter
Especially if laughter through tears is your favorite emotion.
You might not pick up boys or money,
But friendship steeps in small salons
Like sweet tea.
Prickly sarcasm and pessimism aren't always the hallmarks
Of a heart devoid of caring,
It's just a natural response after two deadbeat husbands and
Three ungrateful children; somewhere in all of it is a promise
Of hope.
And even in a barren womb new life is discovered,
And even in death joy is found,
And even through pain,
Sisterhood blooms,
Delicate steel petals enveloping grieving hearts.

eye did.   As my prejudices expected, the odd assortment of "characters"were all present and not to be unaccounted for...a romantic comedy on a good Friday, attracts the believers, the well wishers, the ones who think if only the world was.. and I was not re or so tired of life, unemployed, lonely, damaged in some manner of being...

not too many young, just a few... theater darkness is a masque, with a risqué chance of oh no, I've been witnessed by the non-believers.

the infirm with their mobile caretakers and paraphernalia were there.  Odd couples, were there.  If there was one unifying common characteristic, I selected this one.  We all needed haircuts. eye don't know why but it made me think about going to get one's haircut, and the rituals that requires....and it is and is not a bit like being in a almost totally private world inpublic, where you, the individual and some outside force majeure, hairdresser, movie screen engages and temporarily transforms you.  That is why, I, went to the movies on a Friday afternoon, to be transformed and not reformed, in public, in private...

I had a haircut, I read it cuts off feelings.
I forced myself to smile, my mama said it heals it.

I met some people who I’ve never ever met ,
My friends ensured me it has to help.

I started drinking stronger liquor,
Tequila was the best, it worked the quickest.

Some time has passed, I thought I am feeling better,
I have moved on and I became independent.

My under eyes stopped needing so much make-up,
And I thought to myself: f*ck, yes! I made it.

Until a day that I received a text:
“New haircut looks great, I need you back.”

A very long one minute later I replied:
“I’ve never left.”

has anyone said anything to the LGBT movement that,
ahem, it is also a pronoun? i can't believe people are
getting dragged into:
                a. not only being taught
a secondary vocabulary that's "political", well, let's just
say democratically fascist - but that
b. a theological argument
based solely in the pronoun category is pointless -
i know point b. isn't really big,
or relevant, and to think
that St. Thomas' gospel once rejected
by the Church came back and
reigned in so much havoc that
it could have sparked the Syrian
civil war, and in general:
well... better edit Jesus from the bible...
at first it was the imitation of
the Kippah and the Tonsure -
in between the peacock and the pig,
religion resides - how you juggle
that field is up to you...
i tend you approach it as: well, whatever.
but this is really the best to be alive,
you can laugh in the night like you'd
never imagine laughing before -
i mean - who the hell would think
it wise to attack someone who sees
grammar use and wonders: but that's
also a pronoun, the changed Freudian
that (scalpel probing utility), later
popularised as it - or the complete
objectification of unit, aliases involve:
thought, self, personality, character, etc. -
well it's catching on like a ******* virus,
this unearthed grail of the Egyptian
desert - yes, they did travel to Egypt,
and look what came back...
perfectly fits Josephus' account of things,
which is literally two sentences
including the words: Mt. of Olives insurrection
deposit - i'm literally showing the easier
way out... most people took it too literally...
the existence of demons turned allegorical
altogether, but the existence of the words
inscribed as: make the outer the inner,
and the male the female: just shows you a lack
of both grammatical knowledge, and
poetic knowledge - the literal approach throws
you into the maggot pit of bullock -
and that's how it's going to say...
people took it too literally, that's the first
wave... taken as a sign of guilt from
a colonial past - they call the Visegrad
the new goose-stepping surgeons of thought,
this idea of a free and open society
has no boots on the ground in Anglophile
society - they fake being arrogant by
being courteous - being courteous is a sublime
version of feeling one owns a moral
superiority, which one doesn't...
and can you actually imagine yourself
being dragged through the filth of a discussion
concern pronouns? learn to build up a
subconscious of pure grammar association...
the unconscious, who Jung discovered
to be a hive you can't control,
i once suggested the idea that the collective
unconscious would resemble a society
where plumbers didn't know they were plumbers,
and no one knew what they were doing,
but incorporating the individual i see
the point of finally rationalising the individual
via the collective toward the unconscious -
the great free ***** debate -
primarily though, the particular use of language
will never reach a universal use of language
that isn't fragmented into a pseudo-arithmetic
of grammar - but it would do you a greater
good to endorse and implant grammar spectacle
to see past the fluidity of casual language use,
i.e. spot the ****** debate and say: hyphen!
down the middle! it! after all, we were children
once, and we played the game: you're it!
and ensure there's laconic appropriation while
people become forceful addicts of the flesh
to provide the weight to the categorised words
due to their change, and you're all airy fairy
with just the worded explanation,
still with the required genitalia and 2 billion Chinese;
but it's true though, look how horrified
the church is... the old geezers are not getting it,
they left the Egyptian shepherd unleash hell
on both Christianity and Islam...
the revision of the kippah was the monkish
tonsure - but this bit about ***-changes?
once again, blow-bubbles-through-your-lips
by motorising them and move your index finger
up and down... hey presto! a mongolian harmonica -
i can't believe so much intelligence was wasted,
and so much incorporated, and so much lost,
over a piece of skin that wasn't even categorised
as cartilage - it's a joke, right?
well, if it ain't, why the **** am i laughing?
if you learn grammatical categorisation of words,
you learn the insulating method of using language,
if whatever is offensive, becomes inoffensive,
someone will spend a whole life arguing the
transition from she                   into                 he,
with the haircuts and other adjustments,
while you'll be there, calling it neither he or she
(the end and the original result), but call
the individual accepting the transition by
the act of transition - incorporating the past
and the future via the transition period,
it! that's the laws of grammar, grammar in
psychological terms is the subconscious:
Freud tapped into the unconscious with dreams,
i managed to censor dreaming and sleep,
hence i tapped into the subconscious by
exposing grammar as, well, yeah: subverted language:
or language submerged by universal laws -
               in context you can understand
everything i write, in content? probably not -
again the boiling point is not 100°C - it's
universals and particulars - that's the 100°C of language -
via the thesaurus you get similar d.n.a. strands
(i just hallucinated a smiling face, but not too vivid) -
i.e. via synonyms and worded cleansing of antonyms
   off the respective suggestion as zenith-conundrum
                                                                               of Socrates:
       if something is universal it's evolved or translated
   into context - the context? using the alphabet and
words... (time references to coordination aren't necessary,
   well, something has to be unanimously expressed
  even if via dyslexia) -
                    what's particular is what's rigid in terms
of evolutionary adaptation - verbiage, i know!
   inescapable! what should i do? gauge my eyes out?!
again, dittoed paraphrase, shortened self-plagiarism:
     if something is particular it's independent or non-reciprocatory
  within boundaries of context-out-of-context: content,
   which means a b c d e f g... but arranged to a self-proclaimed
deviation (let's call prefixing the self- to a word provides
    the whole mechanism of deviating non-universal
automation, mildly put: eccentricity) -
                  in summary, you ever wonder what's
related between the list of phobias such as arachnophobia
and xenophobia? apparently the term Islamophobia
was translated into Greek as: god is one, and Muhammad
is his test subject... the sum of all little fears -
         oddly enough phobias are spontaneous and are
rarely instilled, they're lightning strikes...
i see a big spider, i recoil - it's not a permanent setting -
i stand on a ladder 3 metres off the ground, sure:
acrophobia -                    i sit in a crowded tube train,
yet again: claustrophobia - but these phobias are
a sort of antidote to the maxim: the thing to fear is
fear itself... phobias are reflex reactions to being conscious,
how people managed to translate them into reflections
is beyond me... i happen to come across phobias
all the time... but in a reflexive way: a ****, a spontaneity
surrounding them... there's nothing to be reflective about...
it's not even a phobia when i tell you a similar
reaction: suburban street at night, beer, cigarette,
walking, eyes not concentrating on anything...
~suddenly two women sitting on a low cement fence
in front of their houses startles me... the immediate
reaction is a nervous shock... who the **** would
think of that as being a phobia worthy a category?
no one. which is why i don't understand
the concept of Islamophobia... it's weird...
i don't get the same nervous sudden **** of seeing
something that isn't supposed to be there
when i walk down Oxford street and see a Burqa-clad
woman... whoever invented this word,
had a really ****** time at school and transcended
all laws of etymological construction:
i.e. on basis of really claustrophobic syllable constructs,
Islam is way beyond syllables, it's a noun,
as if the suffix / affix phobia - or little fear,
no, not sigma fear, fractional fear.

I once had a lover that on the most ordinary of days
Out shopping for underwear
Looked at my reflection in the mirror and said
I love the boy in you
And I love the girl in you
And everything in between

Later they asked me what love is
And I said I think that's what love is
Seeing everything in between the reflection
Seeing somebody clearer than they see themselves
I said tell Me you love every piece of me
The skin I shed
The skin that hates this chest
The “it's a boy” they never said
The “I love yous” they never meant
I've spent so much time trying to find the in between where there's no haircuts
Or funny ways of dressing
Or anything confusing about my chest
I'll just keep choosing to ignore the way they say
You're so beautiful
In the same breath as potential
As if it's a credential for my anatomy

Instead tell me I'm the cutest boy you've ever had in your bed
Tell me my body isn't woman it's just the wild
Tell me flesh is nothing
I'm made of light
Tell me my light is beautiful
Touch my soft
Touch my belly button but not like they ever touched me
Touch me like I'm the kind of soft that can turn hard
A tin roof against the rain
Beating a thunderstorms refrain into music
They told me I have too much bark
Too much bite
I'm too pretty to fight

So tell me instead I'm the softest pebble you've ever skipped across your body
And ripples are born of my feathered fists and my hammering heart
Tell me softness has no gender
Tell me our body's never knew what gender meant
I want to be gender bent over till it breaks
And takes the freighttrain words of haters
But don't you cringe under the jagged teeth of their stares
**** my love into your body and hold it there
Always write a poem in my body
And use the words they spit at us
But instead infuse them with a welcome song to tell my body it's found home
Everything we do rhymes with ****** rhymes with **** rhymes with queer
These labels belong to us
The fear in these labels does not belong to us
I'm here to witness you try to live in a body you call home without trying to run away
I wish my body was made of clay so I could fit it into the box labeled
“I love you no matter what”
Will you love me no matter what

If I want you to bend me over backwards until I break the reflection the mirror tries to make of me
And find it's just glass
Like my see through skin
Try to see through my skin
Tell me you see me
I'll see every piece of you
Soft
Hard
Apart
Together
Girl
Boy
But never in a box
I'll take that box labeled “I'll love you no matter what” and I'll break it down
Leave that truth around your bones
Until you believe it can't break

That truth will be our home and we can live in that between because that's where love is.

Sights and sounds of the sixties

Soon you will be going to the class reunion I over exaggerate as you head for the door I think my kids
Think I not only read ally Oop in the comic strip they act like I knew him personally. Here is what they
Don’t know let’s start easy when you’re setting in the country club and there is a lull listen with your mind
It not that far to the end of the golf course from the west south corner to the first road that is an eighth
Of a mile every hot rod man or girl already knows that. Play the song GTO in your head going to shut
Them down GTO. Listen to Jims engine howl he had it stroked and bored out in Taylorville you can do
that when daddy owns a bar to bad howl will turn to sobs really. Glen’s driving a dodge cornet with an
automatic on the floor sixty six factory line job you wouldn’t know it by looking Glen blew him away
coming out of the hole never touched or came close at top end Glen was a lone well I told you what Jim
was doing.
Strain a little more you can hear a fifty five chevy leaving the Dog & Suds headed for Elvers Skating rink
he floors it finally he lets it back off what a sound as that glass pack muffler rips the night air see any
Dinosaurs got rid of that old feeling yet. Out on the street here comes the bad with a capital B Lee miller
Is driving his fifty five Chevy burnished brown all the chrome plus the door handles are gone inside and out it is a
Dream are you getting it yet I’m talking about your achievements. Kenny Krivage is over at Rocks burning
cigarettes through five dollar bills on his arm before he was just a good looking kid then the sixties got
Him you were either at rocks or hiding from those that went there. Lot safer drinking cherry coke with
Janice at the hometown cafe even Karate didn’t protect you at rocks the Neece kid even taught it but
when you got a fist of fives coming at your head it not time for theory its time for action. Who can forget
the pied piper Jim Handy was the shortest guy in town unless you were in the first grade but the gang of
six foot behemoths that were his constant companions were hard to miss it must have been how the
poles felt when they saw the Germans on the march. They had a menacing sound long before they laid a
little love on you, your life’s last moments filled with terror until you realized they turned the corner and
went another way how selfish you felt as you sang someone else is going to die today give me a fire
breathing dragon any day. Poor oh pop sinnard never got any business just one kid drinking a vanilla
shake his special thin hamburger I bet that guy could get a hundred burgers out of a pound of ground round
well the pin ball machine was wide open I guess the kid got even for the hamburger there was a certin
Song on the juke box something about eighteen miners scrambled from a would be grave there he stood
all alone Big bad John. Let me tell you Pop knew it he heard it every day I think he stated crying for the
miners one day or was something else on his mind.
Well I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you about what was going on in the other part of the country west
coast on 101 going to Frisco going south 101 on the other side Jan and Dean the Beach boys came a live
for a mile and a half every blond guy and girl and all the hot rod chromed out zooped up cars of every
Description was headed to Laguna Seca to the races all the while we were in a Volkswagen bug military
haircuts civies on we looked like a bunch of confused narks like were going to fool any one in that car
And garb we were wearing not to worry hippies are not long on thinking especially when they stood on
the corner in the height and Ahbury in broad day light selling *** for a nickel a lid slang for five bucks you could get
small glad bag of Royal Gold hashish or do what the winos do get a bottle of thunderbird or ripple what
ever know this Wolf Man Jack is blasting the air waves from Mexico since he violated the rules our hero the
man could talk jive and if you were high you thought he was divine I guess you surmise I wasn’t a
Christian at this low point in my life but the Monterey Pop festival was in full swing. The line up Janis
Joplin Jimmy Hendricks mama and the Papas Otis Redding of Dock of the Bay fame and a cast of
Thousands of hippies you couldn’t find a bare spot down town Monterey sidewalks grass the kind you
walk on doorways every where a hippie and not a bar of soap among them. Know this you have been
tamed by time and age but to duck your head forget it this world won’t see your kind again.

Stardust weaves down her hair
      and
         c l i p s
             it’s wings when it’s halfway there.

Under the legs of giraffes falling in love by being licked to buy a deer deer licking giraffes Gareth Pugh transforming signs pigs that can't **** but **** bricks in the tea cups personal Hispanic designers transforming into anorexic girls tornadoes in Pennees that buildings can't stop where pro-skateboarders take millions of dollars of drugs that are crystals and mugs and improve haircuts to make mugshots better who go to bathroom the stress says this transvestites in British airways first class airplane ride bathrooms **** **** ******* ******* **** in and list ***** used who's spending money and and aunt uncle and uncle gay and lesbian **** show putting faces in the toilets and wedding the water stopping at rest stops work carnival junkies pay tolls and gas station attendants charge super fees going to grocery stores to buy cream soda likes Sprite flavored train send peanut butter cup chocolate **** sores and send aunts uncles and uncles undulates and pigs passing by signs changing words miss read words changing over and over again passing through Stardome popularity celebrity. Rachel Lynch by skinny victory over and over groups of people lost in bathrooms starting outs in the story telling each other being wet by Harry Potter. In the beginning their hair was wet eyeballs were sore they took drugs text transform them into night sweats and their minds ate breakfast as they arrived at the circus storytelling they wore black costumes and shrunk like Alice in Wonderland having to **** and **** and eat but they were silent until the drugs came back into their systems and then they remembered each other. My father's brother Jim's son was lost abandoned me inside a marketplace in Colorado roadrunner was treated having a disease rather than being a drunk and given medication while lost in the end of the world's apocalypse. Symphony after symphony lost and returned and lost an overturned enveloped in the mall or people in different sections provided different offerings like curiosity giving oral *** or rubbing ankles or kissing on heads or **** ******* each other to death. Moving through security checkpoints falsifying drugs by providing sticky chewing gum pulling it from their mouths while Hispanics were extradited to other South and Central American countries. Oh my God insanity bliss favoritism chocolate peanut butter cup Carnival riding red neck necking car crash crashing insanity. Goblins introduces lighting fuses of other uses oxymoronic hyperbole of onomatopoeia and sounds raking the ears, breaking Pap smears in the vaginas of men with penises of early surgeries. Michael Gottlieb as a hog, tigers and dynosaurs, Jim Morrison poisoned, Transformers rising to the Chicago skyline TIE interceptors of cellular structures musing youths. Hallucinations of blasphemous miniature creatures giving faith to words transforming to the name of this movement this movie: The Shīt Shūw.

doing either one and
we dream of $8 haircuts
and no plans of anything
but watching the routine
of life unfold in front of
prying eyes through
venetian blinds
as singles mothers
prep their child for the
education of death
as dogs walk their masters
as fathers choke on neckties
and stress in traffic
as the mailman makes
his rounds
and someone is being born
and someone is dying
and someone is dead
and worst of all someone
is dead before they die and
money is made and money is spent
and someone is lubing themselves
with comfort and convenience to
make getting ****** by the world
a little more tolerable
and a little less raw
and I am here
eating walnuts and
drinking Spotted Cow
and listening to Sonic Youth
on this delving day
while the rest are scouring
through another day of
intolerable hell but we never
stop and think for a moment
to ask ourselves who we are,
we just enable them to run our
lives and tell us who we should be
because when they got you at
childhood
they
got
you
f
o
r
e
v
e
r

And they are doing white
Cars,
Nice haircuts and,
Broad Boulevards,

They are doing slick radio Ads,
Smooth charcoal voices,
And Western music,

Gliding with thoughts of Cashmere,

Air-conditioned Kaftan's catching the breeze just so,
Dark glasses like reflective buildings
Perched on tight noses,

Moving forward with morning talk shows in,
Gleaming white cars,

Fabulous fingers prodding perfectly balanced power buttons,

Opulent mechanisms,
Fabulous manoeuvres,

In Dehli they are moving swiftly,
Their stylish Sari's, airborne.

Sights and sounds of the sixties
Soon you will be going to the class reunion I over exaggerate as you head for the door I think my kids
Think I not only read ally Oop in the comic strip they act like I knew him personally. Here is what they
Don’t know let’s start easy when you’re setting in the country club and there is a lull listen with your mind
It not that far to the end of the golf course from the west south corner to the first road that is an eighth
Of a mile every hot rod man or girl already knows that. Play the song GTO in your head going to shut
Them down GTO. Listen to Jims engine howl he had it stroked and bored out in Taylorville you can do
that when daddy owns a bar to bad howl will turn to sobs really. Glen’s driving a dodge cornet with an
automatic on the floor sixty six factory line job you wouldn’t know it by looking Glen blew him away
coming out of the hole never touched or came close at top end Glen was a lone well I told you what Jim
was doing.
Strain a little more you can hear a fifty five chevy leaving the Dog & Suds headed for Elvers Skating rink
he floors it finally he lets it back off what a sound as that glass pack muffler rips the night air see any
Dinosaurs got rid of that old feeling yet. Out on the street here comes the bad with a capital B Lee miller
Is driving his fifty five Chevy burnished brown all the chrome plus the door handles are gone inside and out it is a
Dream are you getting it yet I’m talking about your achievements. Kenny Krivage is over at Rocks burning
cigarettes through five dollar bills on his arm before he was just a good looking kid then the sixties got
Him you were either at rocks or hiding from those that went there. Lot safer drinking cherry coke with
Janice at the hometown cafe even Karate didn’t protect you at rocks the Neece kid even taught it but
when you got a fist of fives coming at your head it not time for theory its time for action. Who can forget
the pied piper Jim Handy was the shortest guy in town unless you were in the first grade but the gang of
six foot behemoths that were his constant companions were hard to miss it must have been how the
poles felt when they saw the Germans on the march. They had a menacing sound long before they laid a
little love on you, your life’s last moments filled with terror until you realized they turned the corner and
went another way how selfish you felt as you sang someone else is going to die today give me a fire
breathing dragon any day. Poor oh pop sinnard never got any business just one kid drinking a vanilla
shake his special thin hamburger I bet that guy could get a hundred burgers out of a pound of ground round
well the pin ball machine was wide open I guess the kid got even for the hamburger there was a certin
Song on the juke box something about eighteen miners scrambled from a would be grave there he stood
all alone Big bad John. Let me tell you Pop knew it he heard it every day I think he stated crying for the
miners one day or was something else on his mind.
Well I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you about what was going on in the other part of the country west
coast on 101 going to Frisco going south 101 on the other side Jan and Dean the Beach boys came a live
for a mile and a half every blond guy and girl and all the hot rod chromed out zooped up cars of every
Description was headed to Laguna Seca to the races all the while we were in a Volkswagen bug military
haircuts civies on we looked like a bunch of confused narks like were going to fool any one in that car
And garb we were wearing not to worry hippies are not long on thinking especially when they stood on
the corner in the height and Ahbury in broad day light selling *** for a nickel a lid slang for five bucks you could get
small glad bag of Royal Gold hashish or do what the winos do get a bottle of thunderbird or ripple what
ever know this Wolf Man Jack is blasting the air waves from Mexico since he violated the rules our hero the
man could talk jive and if you were high you thought he was divine I guess you surmise I wasn’t a
Christian at this low point in my life but the Monterey Pop festival was in full swing. The line up Janis
Joplin Jimmy Hendricks mama and the Papas Otis Redding of Dock of the Bay fame and a cast of
Thousands of hippies you couldn’t find a bare spot down town Monterey sidewalks grass the kind you
walk on doorways every where a hippie and not a bar of soap among them. Know this you have been
tamed by time and age but to duck your head forget it this world won’t see your kind again.

September 8.17am

Awake still not knowing

The time or hour even of the day

The light as bright as a new

Clear sky intimates to me the

Approximation of open shop time

Even so the streets are quiet

It is not open shop time until 8.30

There is time


At 9.30 the open shop is no longer open

Though all the street is busy

The lights flicker through

Their pattern of the day

And the light fades and quickly

Returns through the brick-built shadows

It is time


At 10.30 maybe the day will start


At 11.00 the start of the day

Is over and the streets

Calm down to a hustle and a bustle

Of tourists sightseeing

And cyclists out-driving

The constant hubbub of motors

The sights they are seen

And the coffee is served

To a mutter and a mumble of lunch and


At 11.35 when the light

Is as bright as the glass on the corner

The brollies pop up over tables

That prop up baggage of merchandised habits

And chequebooks and cards pay the bills


Round noon the young girls trip round

The young men tripping round

The tables and chairs of the fat

And the fortunate few


Two minutes past one.


1.30 A missing hour or so before

A leisurely stroll through

The shops and the inns of any

Old street in town

For the tourist a nap beckons

His hotel calls him for dinner

And his tickets for the evening

Pre-booked


1.45 The pubs spill out until two

In the suits

In the laughs

The haircuts and the ****

The boxes and boxes and stepped

Upon stubs of American brand-named

Tobacco the half empty glasses and

Unfinished plates betray an ennui

Boredom and short sight


2.30 Swept away by the staff the world

Is an oyster for the titbits that go to the dogs

Even the boss and his immediate help

Don’t leave the inn until three

And at five-thirty they’ll be back for

A pre-lunch meeting with dinner

And a bottle of wine


Outside on the street

The tourist who isn’t picks up

An unfinished smoke and sits down


At 3.30 he is asked if he would

Care to move on

For fear of

Upsetting business

He juggles his options

Decides against the train stations

Instead settles

For a seat in the sun


And at 5.30 returns to the smog

Of the street in the hope of

A *** or some fodder

The City returns its money-making

Machinery to the cafés and the bars

And the trains and the belt

Of the green that England is made of


At 6.35 the lights are alive and

The moon will arise in the day

As the tourists flood back in their numbers

A show

A show

A film

A play

Some serious art up the river

The life of an entertainments

Manager is as hectic as he cares to provide


At 7.30 the evenings begin

And the tourist who isn’t

Notes the pubs and the inns and

The food on the plates

Somehow do not beckon to him

Instead he will sit and look at his pint before leaving

For he knows not where

Somewhere

The people are not

All strangers to him

Somewhere

The people will know he is there

Somewhere

Other than here

In this trap for the tourist who is


The tourist who is and who will

And who can and who wants to experience it all

The tourist with the plastic in his coat and

The bag in his hand that say to him

And to his wife

Or his girlfriend

We’ve got power


At 8.45 a creeping on nine

The mulling of ale settles in

And the tourist who is and

The tourist who isn’t share an ashtray

Of fingers and butts

The boss behind the door and his boys

Who he pays to help him out

have left and will drink on

At home or in clubs until late and

Regretful in the morning return




© scribler 2010

There isn't much to be said
About the day time-
Hour after hour, we beat on
Against the ticking clock
Of complacency,
Until before we know it-
We're ****** into the realm of
The halfway living.
Awake past midnight,
Processing the happenings
Of 9-5,
As if draging them out into
Language
Will increase their potency.

There's nothing more moving
Than yesterday,
After a night of fermenting in
Our desperate minds.
Often too late to be felt
Before 10pm.

Reality is too much with us.
Pushing up against
Our trembling palms,
As we reach out
To ******
The manufactured idea of
Happiness. Prepackaged
And with an expiration date
Beyond the next year.

We try to find our fate in tarot cards,
Palm readings, grocery market bargains, expensive haircuts where they only take an inch off but you still cry, second rate ballets and strip clubs, the words of others, and Sunday services past 12 where the hangover isn't as dreadful.
Experience junkies,
****** fiends,
Attention addicts,
Compassion parasites,
We **** the marrow from the earth
And prescribe her with Ritalin
And 3 months of sick leave-
The placebo effect has never seemed
So enticing.

Is this what it's like to talk to God?
Newspapers from last week
Find their way into the warm,
Sticky floors of the subway:
They have no purpose here
In this cool, indifferent future.
Bold headlines prophesying drought,
And lamenting those already dead,
Alongside ads for half off
A large pizza, and 25% off your biggest
Problems. Classified ads
And the sports section
Reek of ***, failure
And vulnerability-
No one cares, now.
The past is only real within the proceeding hour,
And middle school history class lessons,
Too optimistic to hold
Any reality beyond repetition.

Lifeless, we seep through time until
The pages are soaked and soggy with
Our failed ambition and twice baked
Love stories that grossed a billion dollars
For the movie theaters, gas stations and diamond companies-
Condensed into romance novels
And nonfat ice cream:
A testament to a nation
Afraid to feel anything that isn't synthesized
And discussed in tabloid magazines.

Sideline poets and actors,
We rap our knuckles raw against the railing,
Nervously counting down the seconds
Until we will be called to dutifully recite
All we know.
Waiting, we count our blessings.
The cumulation of good deads and sacrifice
That have paid the dues for a one way ticket
To the promised land.
Little children, again,
We twist the frays of our sweaters
And buckle our knees with anticipation
Of judgement day
And Memorial Day weekend.

Fowl floating and flapping across an ocean canopy.

Lightly squawking and ascending in a calm summer sky.

Waves shine and melt into the beachfront in a dull roar slowly thundering in diagonal collapsing sectors.

The top of the ocean. The point of a sphere. Its water that falls slowly to the bottom of..... Here!

Ripples and puddles and drinks full of life, the clearest the murky and bluest in light.
Mountains and palisades can be rocks that reach skyward. God on a gravel road walking through.
The golden purple cattails glow in the sunlight like strawberry fields that fizzle on my hands in the wind that can dance. The vinyl green stem leafs sit stagnantly silently awaiting the moon.

Hoppers crescendo in a frozen moment singing in stillness that refuses to relent.
The trees around them bask in the energetic massage from the moving sections of recently called air vapors.

The Hi- C haircuts that nature reminds me it inspired bobble from the vectors.  

This climate ecology scenery breeds the moments religions were made for me.

a parade of haircuts, chosen clothing
we talk small talk at a distance
waltz around filling our baskets
the weather is mentioned, often

This small talk kills me
when once it was so easy.
I remember when I
was the favorite.

This was before her first car
and sixteenth birthday,
movie dates, weekend sleepovers,
and high school crushes.

This must be how old toys feel,
played out, aged,
traded for the new and bright.


On a sand dune,
we sit shipwrecked,
stranded,and talk carefully
like strangers do about
sea birds pecking for food,
dead jellyfish,
and the innocence of sand castles.

Dark glasses disguise
my quick views of bikinis,
fitness thighs, and smooth dark tans,

mask her sneak peeks
at young muscle, flat stomachs,
and cute boys with fashion haircuts.

She burrows her toes into the sand
to pass the time.
I try to think of jokes
to make her laugh
but no punchlines come.

We share a fancy grilled cheese sandwich,
shy giggles,
and a pink lemonade
before she can no longer hide
the boredom in her eyes.
I know its time to leave.

She reclines her seat back
and sleeps the drive home,
leaving me alone
with miles, empty highways,
and whispers of classic rock
from the radio.

Somedays I don't feel like writing
and it worries me because
'Writers write everday --
real ones, at least.'
I fear being ordinary,
which is tasteless because
maybe being ordinary
is what I need.

The appeal of snapbacks
and hipster haircuts
is starting to make more sense.
Blending into a crowd
might suit me better;
to be invisible but
to no longer be insecure.

Rap lyrics make more sense,
even though I can't relate;
these words are my sedation,
these clothes aren't armor
but marketable camouflage.
My words have been said before,
but that might be okay because
I'd hate to torment myself
wondering about my relevance.

So, to move on, I write,
and I write, and I write
to pander and to conform.
Substituting thought for
appealing diction and
strong imagery, afraid
to show myself because
maybe you're too much
like me, which, surely,
would eat me alive.

I love him. I've loved him since the time he tied my left skate in March 2013. And it's a love that aches and hurts and explodes. But it's also a love that sings and twirls and laughs for no reason. It's a love that has you crying in the bathroom on a Saturday night but its also a love that has you dancing in the shower on a Monday morning. It's a love that's left me with cramped fingers, dry ink pens and full notebooks. It's a love makes me feel like a thunderstorm. It's a love that makes me feel like a sunset. He's not a home, he's a person. A wonderful one. And sometimes people say things like, "why would you forgive him," or, "why don't you just let go." And I smile. I used to get mad but out of all the types of love this is, it's also a love that's flexible. It's not a love that waits or chases but a loves that's there. It's a love that shares shoulders and stories. If I've learned anything about loving you it has been that if I cannot love you as a lover, I will love you as friend. I will love you messy handwriting, always asleep first, bad haircuts and all. Our love is flexible. Our love is patient. Our love is what happens when you rub your eyes. It's a love that bruises and bleeds and scabs and heals. It's a love that asks, "how was your day?" And would wait patiently forever for your reply. How was your day?

¬The trouble stems from the branches bursted from mean tantrums of the heated Johnny Appleseed’s handgun. held me for ransom but in as much as he trusts his land lock planned spot he must remain unplucked or  ****** with stuck with the function of patiently waiting to branch out and touch something. Turn the pages on the famous channel changer cuz this cliff hanger is upsetting the readers’ digestive systems. Howdy stranger maybe don’t strangle and erase the angle their plato fated brains are facing and they’ll be no problem when the mad-man-made stage caves in. Oh ancient aliens, save them from the cavemen take them to your leader they’ll meet her and she’ll tame them. Train them to fly all unidentified like and fight flickering lights that “look pretty nifty when they’re perfectly aligned all nice like that right”? **** pay attention their coming in hot with a heat seeking mission! Fully equipped with infinite wisdom and phish records skipping they’re insisting you’re a loose end who’s been missing from planet prison. You planned it didn’t ya? The way you resisted being apprehended by those animals. You’re intangible that is to say untouchable to these cannibals. Until they snuck back and struck fire when inspired to stuff the sling shot with cannonballs. ****.. terrible.

That tragedy outlasted the whited out new paper pages for nearly half an eternity. You know, internally I feel pretty empty about the incident cuz theirs a hollow feel in my gut which leaves more room for my heart to bang its head against it. Its like the old tricky ticking ******* wanted to burst his branches out of his old standards and habits of doing the laboring favor of keeping me alive. Which to be fair I completely understand where he’s coming from. I went 50/50 with him on a bet, both of what’s left of our chump change life savings. No pun intended. Threw it all at the odds of the abstract fast track approach to finally get up and move away from this place because we don’t like the crooked looks of it. No more straight edges making us circular patterned people look like were cutting corners. We were taking these squares down in their own home court advantage. They had flat feet man. A good solid stick in the mud demeanor if you know what I mean. They wouldn’t budge. Until the they jaggedly and abruptly branched out to spread their seeds and infect most of the infantry into agreement. I still remember them yelling “stick with me”.

The trouble stems from the tangents tearing the seemingly handsome devils by their new haircuts. Bare-butted phantoms prancing shoulder to shoulder  roll over on the motive to hold boulders or shotguns in his holster. But hold up, he was sold a handgun by a man who scammed him to run as rampant as a rabbit can run to tear up the lack of land with demands to “get in the family’s tree trunk”. And thus we sunk. He was Much more of a cold shoulder of a quote unquote soldier in his old days. Don’t **** the messenger lest you lessen his lesson from his letter, hope next time the handgun writing is a little bit better. In a nutshell, that Johnny kid has a tremor. He’s just a teenager in between the brain and the thinker. Thinking more meaning is a synonym for meaner. No more lingering in this trunk-stuck scenery, he leaves her. Makes a deal with the real inside of reality and magically adapts to their ragged jagged jackpot actually he quite liked the lack of quiet he’d suggest you try it if he didn’t die happily when he tied a tight neck tie to his promised-landslide. Tragedy.

i swallowed the
bathroom mirror whole
threw an entire bag
of lemon drops
into the highway and
danced on someone else's grave
in a failed attempt at
self-acceptance.

it's hard
to shatter the
saccharine sweet
taste of personal hate
sticking to my hands
like half melted wax.

i've almost
given myself permission
to fail
but not yet.

hasn't it been
stovetop memories
a couple haircuts
and one hell of a year?

scratch the back of my
neck
in a halfhearted attempt
to forget
and i'll take up burning
aluminum pillows
like i took up
loving myself.

For I to cherish soaked in sunbathe dream of freckles on cream and strawberries
For you to see and sigh and fill with warm fizzy pink water too sweet to contemplate 
For you to see and sigh and long for long sleeved sheathed in jealousy spilling out in bright red syrup

For I to paint faces with my utterances fanciful making ugly alluring curious mysterious attractive

I can take my nose to be strength clever seducting wicked men and women to listen to my describes or look upon papyrus sheets

I can make my jaw a naive child stricken with blue veins translucent skin clinging papery like wings to brittle bones under eaves ready to snap

I can write my eyes wide innocent in first time headlights first time frosted firsts filled with empty antecedents of unclasped things and fifty fifty longings

I can make the ugly striking like a stinging snake cruel contemplating lashing smarts or make it sad sorrowful quiet longing new to life love mature but still a child

I can add grace poise to my stretched out neck make it stand tall of pride training because it's ladylike to do so and so I must and say my prayers every night too as I powder over my faintly drawn freckles

Boyish humour uncaring to my generous brows a baseball mitt bubblegum cards and a fetish for goths forever unrecognised as spit flies and at home haircuts compose a flyaway life

Embellish the hollows collarbones and detract the too-broad shoulders make the frailty proud and small shrink it down to fit in a girl big brothers to gentle and lovers to rough pinned wrists that near snap

With my words I reap the benefits of my own mindly kindling I wander through half made times in history and finished times two seconds right now 

I can create myself and so I do my thirst to be is insatiably insatisfied like my attraction to bad grammar and lilts when you talk so I do I become each and every one 

I create myself and it's addicting

I avoid writing poems about flowers  

I don’t need to tell you that roses
Bright, blood red, placed perfectly atop a broccoli-green vine,
Existing solely for the purpose of atheistic pleasure
Is something that is beautiful

Put a white background behind anything and it becomes beautiful

Flowers are more than a hyped-up beauty pageant queen that those old white women grow to fill their voids with

They sometimes manage to grow in my neighborhood too

Once prominent Victorian homes now squalid and neglected
Weathered wood, dirt embedded in the sea-foam green, navy blue, eggshell white paint they were once coated with

Trash thrown in front of their faces
Like their appalling forms granted validity for those who passed by to toss their gum wrappers, soda cans, and cigarettes without hesitation

It’s an age-old tale

Ugly things deserve ugly treatment

I’ll always spot a savage grove of mutt flowers
Amongst the trash cans and recycle bins
Struggling to make their way to the surface of these rejected homes
Acknowledging them, coddling them, interweaving themselves along their battered walls
Ignorant to their repugnancy
Eager to decorate and give them an evanescent glow
Sad too,
Sad they didn’t grow in front of some rich family’s home
Where they would’ve been given weekly haircuts and fertilizer containing only the best **** on the market

They wilt a little
They have no direction,
No will to live or to die

They exist and sit there until a bike runs them over
And takes them out in one swoop

Or until those stray dogs **** and **** on them until their weak
Frames fall staunchly onto the grave sidewalk

Exquisite wild lepers,

You do more for society than I ever could

You’ll sit there with a dutiful posture
Harboring old McDonald French Fry boxes
Eating the sewer-infested dirt that you laboriously grew from
Constantly breathing air swarmed with smog

Beautiful because,

Despite it all,

You don’t hate them

You’ll peek at me through your prison of trash and give me a flash of your purple and blue skin

And

My eyes feel your love and serenity

And for a moment,

The world is nothing but a kaleidoscope of warm skin and heartbeats

I want to go home but I don't have a home.

I live in the middle space between where you're driving from
and where you're driving to.
I live on backseats and inside large purses.

I live in vending machines
and beds you used to sleep in all the time
but don't sleep in anymore
because you moved away.

I live on driveways that got redone while you were gone,
and new haircuts you couldn't see because you weren't there.

I live on promises that we'll do something.

I live in those cool new sunglasses you got,
but they broke,
and I never got to see your wear them.

I live in the little space between you and your lover,
the one that feels like "I love you"
but really means
"I love you, but I'm not in love with you."

I live on unsatisfactory naps
and the island your friends put you on when you finally said what you'd been wanting to say.

I live under the rug when you complain about people behind their backs
because no one really knows how to tell someone they don't like them
for who they are...
as a person.

I live in every spare shoebox that isn't filled with notes
and gets jealous of the other shoeboxes that are filled with notes.

I live on the top bunk
and I've never fallen off

but I'm still kind of scared that I will one day.

I live on the laugh that lets me know you're still listening.  

I live where I never wanted to live,
but I live here,
because I choose to live here.
And you live there because you choose to live there,
even if it doesn't seem that way.

I'm here and you're there.
I'm here for you and you're there for me,
even if it doesn't seem that way.

This is where I live.
You should send me a letter some time.

Men are doomed, Carla told me,
It’s your eternal haircuts, she continued,
How can you sculpt a life from a single shape,
One look,
Every mirror an impersonation
Of the initial version of one’s self,
Each day reduced to a child’s calculation,
You wake up, only older, grayer, a withered rasp,
Ever more discouraged by the unfairness of things.

Carla exhaled a dragon’s torrent
White jet streams unfurled out of both nostrils,
A waft of my father’s morning scent.

With a flick of her thumb,
She snapped the ash
Off the end of her cigar.
A sharp hiss as the ember sizzled and sank
In the shallow of a pavement puddle.

It had cold rained most of the day.
Over a pause, the sky roiling with indigestion,
We bundled up in autumn clothes,
And trudged uptown,
Our chins tucked deep into our chests,
Our squinty eyes glued to our shoes,
The wind had a slap to it.

It isn’t war you should fear, she continued,
It’s robots.
Soon we won’t need you for anything,
Carla jabbed her lacquered fingernail at phantoms as she spoke.
Women have been fornicating with machines
For over a hundred years, she said,
The transition for us has already occurred.

Weld and solder us a pleasant replica,
One that can shine a toilet
Sterilize the dishes, **** us brilliantly,
And recite Shakespeare at will-
Believe me,
Soon we will barter for your *******,
Exchanging bitcoins for the innate,
With no intention of ever attending your funeral.

No the war is over and men have lost, Carla repeated.
She walked ahead me,
Her hips a sashay as she spit a loose bit of tobacco leaf
Onto a lamp post.
I could not persuade my eyes to look away.