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Mateuš Conrad Jul 2018
.wow, i never thought it would ever be possible,
i'm sorry, i have no empathy for these youtuber "creators",
any idiot can regurgitate the news,
venture into vulture journalism,
  then again: gone are the days of closely associated
with people like Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein...
they are really gone: what the hell was gamer-gate
compared to watergate? gate after gate,
and all i'm hearing is response videos,
it should have never come to this,
whereby journalists are as untrustworthy as politicians,
and of what remains, come the saturday and
the sunday editions, when the petty bourgeoisie
come out of the woodworks of a week,
album reviews, book reviews, t.v. reviews,
restaurant reviews: real, real journalism,
all the grit you'd expect from a warzone...
           journalists forgot they were not kindred spirits
of politicians: but immediacy historians...
the front-line history chroniclers...
i find... these days, esp. these days...
    you know why i like heidegger so much,
and forget the fact that he joined the **** party?
in 1938 he was already disillusioned by it...
so the ad homine fallacy bites the dust...
   even a **** deservers a redemption...
but i find that these days, of all days...
   man, as a historiological creature has to bow
before the unshakeable facets of the biological man,
esp. in the english speaking world...
    in terms of history and biology:
     history has all the fun stories,
and a sensible "concern" for time,
   well... if not "concern" then at least a bearbable
time-frame...
                  after all, i am the one who said:
all the great deserts of the world,
akin to sahara? they were once great
mountain ranges... you already know where
to look between a mountain range akin to the alps
and a desert... bound to h'america...
   monument valley: utah...
  a mountain becomes a rock after a while...
while the desert expands...
    ayers rock (uluru)... but monument valley (utah)
is a transition period between a mountain range
and a desert, if we're going to stand outside
of all space and time, and look back in...
we have plenty of time to catch-up on...
           just like i believe that black holes
are actually 2-dimensional objects:
   that spin really fast, giving an impression
of them being 3-dimensional objects:
as usually represented by a gravity dip associated
with them pulling matter into themselves...
i think that black holes are paradoxes...
since how can a 2-dimensional object
actually exist in a 3-dimensional space?
   that depends on the size of the "3-dimensional"
object / space... the universe is a medium,
it's defined as a "space" but to me...
      it's beyond space... it's only space on the grounds
of isolated time, 365 days,
the time and space it takes for the earth
to orbit the sun... which is an isolated example,
outside? well: there's atmosphere on earth,
outside? vacuum!
who's going to prove my theory wrong?
               not anyone in my lifetime -
besides the point with these youtube content
"creators": where credit is due, credit is due,
but once might have cared for their vulture
journalism... two old farts akin to felix (black pigeon
speaks) and sargon of akaad talking about how:
the youth are congregating to youtube to listen
to music: that's what i've always done...
  i discovered these youtube "creators" by accident,
i just wanted my jukebox back, man,
i wanted my algorithm back, my imprint back,
now that the devil's dozen scenario took hold
of the platform: 1 video playing, 12 back-ups...
and they're all the same, unrelated, *******...
        talk all you want, please, just give back
my algorithm imprint, where i can discover new music...
again... i never thought i'd see another
compilation video, 173 videos bound to one...
and, mind you... after finding about 6 googlewhacks
(googlewhack? when you use the sort of
language that provides you with only one search
result on the behemoth platform of billions
of results, 1 is grand, but 6? it's becoming too
predictable)...
                        so here's what i found
   (band - song):

wooly mammoth - mammoth bones / kyuss - space cadet,
rainbows are free - last supper / grand magus -
                                                mountain of power,
zed - lies / om - cremation chant I & II,
    smoke - hallucination / weird owl - white hidden fire,
orchid - son of misery / witch - seer,
               unida - you wish / black mountain - old fangs,
b.r.m.c. - ain't no easy way /
              jack daniels overdrive - ****** to death,
shrinebuilder - blind for all to see,
                   datura - mantra / the heavy eyes - voytek,
the machine - infinity / clutch - the regulator,
   colour haze - mountain / maligno - son of tlalocan,
dozer - twilight sleep / gomer pyle - albino rattlesnake,
blockback - dead mans blues / greenleaf - witchcraft tonight,
cactus jumper - right way / borracho - bloodsucker,
alabama thunderpussy - motor ready,
                    earthless - sonic power,
my brother the wind - death and beyond,
   zaphire oktalogue - carrion fly / siena root - reverberations,
unida - slaylina / pothead - toxic / sungrazer - mountain dusk,
   rotor - costa verde / blizaro - it's in the lighthouse,
planet of zeus - woke up dead,
     kongh - pushed beyond / ufomammut - smoke,
high on fire - to cross the bridge,
              the secret - bell of urgency,
      unida - wet pussycat / dozer - big sky theory,
cavity - chloride / brutus - swamp city blues,
the grand astoria - something wicked this way comes,
sasquatch - the judge / pharaoh overlord - skyline,
baby woodrose - love comes down / kamni - **** of satan,
lay with me - the flying eyes / cowboys & aliens  -
                                                out of control,
sons of otis - liquid jam / hainloose - recipe,
    ridge - rancho relaxo / bongripper - ****** sutherland,
skraeckoedland - cactus / grails - satori,
    lo-pan - chicken itza / five horse johnson - people's jam,
blind dog - don't ask me where i stand,
     wiht - orderic vitalis / hisko detria - nothing happens,
liquid sound company - leage for spiritual discovery lives,
   goatsnake - black cat bone / gandhi's gunn - rest of the sun,
the egocentrics - wave / propane propane - it's alright,
heliotropes - ribbons / mother mars - price you pay,
che - the knife / annimal machine - condenado,
   earth - tallahassee / the whirlings - delirio,
orchid - heretic / maeth - horse funeral,
siena root - rasayana / graveyard - longing,
           tia carrera - hell / hainloose - recipe,
      burner - five pills (and a bottle of whiskey),
dala sun - guilty for ****** / vulgaari - lie,
        slo burn - muezli / stonehelm - zombie apocalypse,
smallman - evolution / spiders - fraction,
         shakhtyor - e. jaspers / earthmass - lunar dawn,
evoke the lords - dregs / colour haze - silent,
     sutrah - el septimo viaje...

  

who are "these" people,
who: "supposedly" live for the future...
they always cite it,
as the one motivational
momentum of the present -
it's as if they've never seen
a bull itch the ground
with its front hoofs -
   imitating building up momentum
before a charge...
or how a slingshot,
or how a bow works...
   to these people,
the ******* sideways movement
of a bow against a violin...
sometimes...
      you do not retreat into
the past, to hide, to amount
to nostalgia...
     sometimes
the only reason for the reflexive
affirmation, confined to maxims
and aphorism, nay: even poems!
is to look back...
     to reap what was once
sowed, rather than sow blindly,
and reap: what no one wants
to reap...
    drunk? getting there...
       it felt so relaxing paying off
a 100 / 250 part of a debt
i owe her...
            while buying a russian
standard liter,
   asking for a 100 cash-back
of the supermarket cashier,
- the limit is 50,
   but if you buy something else,
i can give you another 50...
- oh... ok...
   so me went to and took a bottle
of shveedish cider...
   rekorderlig...
   mind you? the swedish,
what they perfected fermenting
better than what the the irish claim
to fame is?
    sorry... magners:
               irish? stick to the guinness...
(it's actually the only cerveza
i'd go into an english pub to
drink from the tap... bottled? canned?
not the same)...
     but with such swedish delights
such as the above mentioned,
  ålska and K  ö   nigsberg
                            *œ
?
no competition... the suede(s) just
do one thing grand...
    cider...
- what was i talking about?
  ah... the "dreaded" past...
     the people who say:
  but you can't live out a life,
   holding onto a private past,
a memory...
    so... these other ******* were
allowed to implant a false
past, unrelated to me,
teaching me whether it was
Newton, or Leibniz who first
invented the infinitesimal calculus
method?
                i'm betting on Leibniz...
after all... he took the position
of a ******* librarian...
   and he wasn't buried with pomp
& circumstance at Westminster Abbey...
sometimes...
         one person can't have it all...
but if the education system
is a system that is indicative for
the erosion of memory, esp. private
matters... and juggernauts in
with these selective rubrics of science
and history...
fair enough the basic
implants: numerical arithmetic,
and lettering arithmetic -
    and then... lessons in mental
entertainment... when applied
           to menial labour...
memory is: supreme...
          i can't give my memory up...
that's what: killer proteins
eating the fat tissue of the brain
like starvation in reverse
        of a case of Alzheimer's?
memory is: cameo cinema -
    however distorted it might be,
although i beg to differ on
whether time per se,
  is not the better psychedelic
component
when coupled with memory -
esp. the cinematic aspect of memory...
there was never a "living" in
the past -
      there was a point about memory
to sharpen the edges of
    "dasein"... all speculation and
questions regarding consciousness,
as championed through
a chimpanzee's *** are somehow
pointless:
    given there's a higher tier of
conceptualization -
   working from dasein...
            hierjetzt -
      or in english?             presence...
- because why would i treat
a personal memory,
like some inorganic entity of
a schooling system,
under Catholic measures,
  that made it necessary to include
Pythagoras... but not Horace?
that's inorganic memory...
and unless i turn into some
inorganic entity -
   the organic aspect of my psyche:
my past, my cameo cinema?
   that's going to be a leech,
attached to me...
  and i'm not going to give it up,
just like... when i walk about
my door, and enter the england
that i know on the peripheries...
i'll speak the lingua franca -
     but with my privacy?
    you'd better cut my tongue off
before i stop speaking
my western slavic heritage...
    and it pains me...
when certain groups of immigrants...
don't know the POINT
where immigration becomes
insensible... self-lacerating...
           i once hated their approach...
now i just pity them...
anyone ****** can juggle
     two oranges rather than three...
p.s. old school cure for a cold?
forget the pills...
   glass of warm milk,
  an egg yolk,
     and a good scratch of butter...
  (on the rare occasion,
  milk infused with garlic)

mixed together...
before bedtime...
  if the ****** won't sweat out
the bacteria during the night...
     well... stick to the synthetics...
i'm pretty sure i know why i drink...
certainly not to: PARTY PARTY PARTY...
i always aim for
the one safety net of "pharmacology"...
ssssssssleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

p.s. so much for children loving their
parents...
        in vitro and the whole
m.g.m. debacle:
so, sweet little *******,
       no *******, no chance for your
for a quickie satellite launch date from
Tehran, under all the weight of
monotheism turned secular...
christianity: the only "monotheism"
with overt tinged of polytheism,
lutheran, baptist, catholic, orthodox...
just today i opened my door twice...
once to a confused curry house delivery man:
did you order some food:
i too replied with a confused look
and the word: huh?! no.
then a black woman with a a white ol' granny
came by with a leaflet...
the jehovah's witnesses were on my trail...
lucky of my grandfather,
   the profanity brigade of the hebrew name
i will not dare utter came by...

  and if you have lived a good enough life:
memory? memory beats hollywood
technicolour and CGI...
at least in the cinema of memory i always
get to play the cameo (role)...

oh i get the youtube creators:
   living with his parents... still. aged 33...
funny that i don't mind them,
since they're getting older they're settling
into their solispsism,
        annoying as ****, but i stand them,
thank god the protruding caduceus veins
on my phallus protected me from
a circumcision...
  i can ******* like a girl with a web-cam...
no scented candles:
the no. 1, 2 & 3 on the throne of thrones...
the toilet, simultaneously masaging my ****
and prostate...

men were not exactly supposed to derive
pleasure from ***: they were,
supposed to give pleasure,
and in giving pleasure to one outlet,
they were subscribed to finding out what
best pleases them: ergo?
women would always derive more of
the people from *** than men would ever...
*** is not a story of bragging about
a harem... the woman lies flat...
the man pumps her...
after all... she is the one burdened
to carry a child, why wouldn't she be
the one deriving more pleasure from *** than
a man could ever?
72 virgins! ha ha!
   ah ha ha!
             what's the ratio?
   last time i checked... a 3 hole caravan...
of a woman's worth...
   mouth, ******, ****... and man?
only two points of entry, well...
"entry"...
                    seems that the tomatoe,
really is a fruit, but is treated like a vegetable
nontheless!
homosexuality in the 1960s...
william burroughs in Tangiers...
                    when Islam was quiet radical...

well... i cook, i clean...
                what are my other options of continuing
to write and living the ed gein "lifestyle",
i tried getting social housing in england,
but, i'm not a somali with two wives and a dozen
kids...
              rent, in london?
extortion...
                   housing shortage...
                 well there's me hating my parents,
the outside world just needs to see
an ed gein imitation...
               or there's me living off acorns
in the woods, or rummaging on the streets,
making the N25 bus from oxford st. to ilford
my own personal mobile hotel as a homeless
man in london...

   i think it's time to succumb to your
parents prejudices, if only for the jokes,
no point in making ethical high judgements
to fit into a zeitgeist narrative surrounding
yourself with people: you'd never eat a meal with...
that's how i define the highest form of respect:
if i'll eat with you: implies that i respect you...
i drink alone...
a high school fwend once thought he could
bribe me with his company,
that i "had to" drink with him...
      no... not really...
          i much prefer drinking by myself...
these days you're not expected to honour your
mother and your father,
i.e. make them proud...
               honour is a double-edged sword...
just don't be ashamed of having
a mother or a father...
not that hard: given western divorce rates...
i.v.f., frozen eggs... yadda yadda yadda...
lucky me in having went to university...
oh... really? so much cooler in a cosmopolitan
environment with your contemporary
flat-mates?
               get the picture?
                 paying rent while literally living
in a diguised cardboard box?
i can't help the fact that poetry doesn't pay...
that there are economic factors beyond
my control in play...
   maybe if i was the grandson of my parents,
born in england, and not elsewhere,
there would be some sort of + leverage...
for a bricks and mortar start-up...
plus... i hoard...
         books and music...
                     mind you:
neither of my parents spoke english as their
mother tongue...
  neither did i...
they didn't teach me this tongue:
i had to teach this language by myself:
for myself...
           aged 8: thrown into the deep end
of the pool: now swim ******, swim!

i just feel sorry for the immigrant parents
who gave birth to their children into the *****
of the land they immigrated to...

two days ago i found a heartbreak,
a romanian couple, with a child...
the father was stubborn in teach his daughter
his / her native sprechen...
romanian... but she was already speaking
perfect antithesis of accent kindergarten english...
and almost non-responsive to her tongue
alligned to her biology...
    clearly she was born in england,
but her parents were both romanian...
i've had that conundrum in my head
for a long time...
   what if i married an english girl...
and i was unable to teach my offspring
my native language,
what if i had to silence my native tongue,
"forget" it, or only speak it by myself,
via reading a book in western slavic?
what if the woman i married:
wouldn't see the benefits of bilingualism,
outside of the mainstream economic
mantra of ensuring your children
learn either german or mandarin or arabic?
that worried me...
          oh believe me, i enjoy my lapses
into english: since i am providing the groundwork...
but in the case of having offspring...
e.g. teaching them the western slavic tongue
so they could speak to their grandparents
(i.e. my parents)...
       even my grandparents lament
the scenarios when a woman would marry
an austrian... and she wouldn't teach
her children her native tongue,
and when the grandchildren would visit their
grandparents... they'd be speaking
a crude variation of braille, morse,
   sign-language: na migi...
               i know that my mother is alive
in me even under this veil of english...
because she's more than the womb,
the genitals of my conception, the breast fed off...
she's also the Atlas of my vocabulary
of the "hiding" tongue beneath this one...

i already knew the "game" was rigged from
the get-go... i've seen how one hindu woman
suffered being married to a scouser...
she never managed to pass on her language
to her children,
she bought a library, thinking her children
would succumb to learning: however poor
they might end up being...
but she was suffocated by the english
tongue of her husband...
and her children didn't express even the most
vague of desires to learn their mutterzunge...

that's what worried me to begin with,
marrying an english woman i was afraid
of the ignorance that someone bilingualism
was en route toward a psychiatrist disorder
i was diagnosed with: schizophrenia...
this anglophonic ignorance still scares me...
like: everyone is expected to speak the revisionist
globalist lingua franca: this anglo lingua...
if i didn't meet a bilingual / polyglot woman,
i'd return to rearing idiotic children...
anglo lingua was only supposed to be a middle-ground,
a "no man's land"...
             a language of trivial economic transfers...
a language primarily orientated around usage:
rather than an ethno-centric basis for "englishness"...
to **** with: god save the queen...
the british grenadiers' fife & drum...
                 old scot dragoons': auld lang syne...
those where my forever anthems...
see...
        what gave birth to a jihadi john?
his mother "forgot", his father "forgot":
his "mother" forgot, his "father" forgot to speak
the "ancient" tongue...
there's a point to integration of the immigrant,
an immigrant is a forgetful creature,
an ever pleasing creature...
never to mind himself as an ex-pat...
you ****** forget your mutterzunge...
you'll be speaking in cockney accents
with broken affairs of arabic beheading people
for zombified reasons of grandeour!
*******...
          you, you: you are to blame!
you were so ashamed of your parents that you
delved on honoring them to the point
of thinking giving pride unto them was very
much akin as keeping shame away from
their girdle of the wedlock of your own existence!
death has not made your a martyr...
i guess you deserve those 72 mishaps,
those 72 annoying voices...
and i pray to god that you receive your reward!
i hope that among the 72 you will never find
a chance a repose to find your: self!

integration is one thing,
pandering to the "elites": plebs who think they
are kings among the plebs,
is quiet another...
plebs who go places and think english
is a universal tongue: just because
uncle sam says so...
of those i respect:

y cymraeg: pwy dal eu tafod...
an gàidhlig: cò fhathast bruidhinn an cuid teanga...
i nawet moim: co ma mówić
to nawet tyle: co znaczy tak niewiele!

there are boundaries... learn the customs
of the natives, but ensure you retain the customs
you were born with...
a child, born in a foreign land,
ought to ensure his parents teach him
the words to speak to his grand overseers...
complete immersion,
this cultural abortion,
this cutting of the umbilical chord
from: i have never met a people so
content at having been subjugated outside
the indian sub-continent,
cricket... for ****'s sake...
       as to demand other europeans
to treat them as superiors,
when sitting alongside an englishman...
****-bud-bud, the **** are you on about?!
once again: england has become the circus
for the grounding of what began
with engels and marx...
   wasn't communism born from
engels and marx observing english society?
sure... first experimented en masse in
mongolia... but its origins?

   so of course i had problems finding a suitable
mating partner... i was afraid that my nativ-zunge
would die a slow but solemn death...
that an english bridge would not consider
the worth of a bilingual child, or a polyglot,
or that she would repress the chance of my
"biological continuum nuance" to respond outside
of the anglo lingua refrain of: beside the english language?
there are quiet a few one might want to learn...

it's not easy being a first generation immigrant,
esp. if you moved aged 8, mute as a wolf
to a domesticated dog's barking...
but hey, no jihadi john in me...
           jihadi john should have been raised
bilingual... i wouldn't be the one speaking broken
tourist arabic while beheading someone...
jihadi john spoke tourist arabic...
the dichotomy of the mind to the biological
reality, beside the current, western,
"biological relativism" debate...
      clearly darwinism was "wrong"...
man is, these days, left with neither a biological
reality, nor a historical reality...
              but there is a historical reality:
but it's so knit-&-picky...
come on... philip augustus of the capetian
dynasty?
                 casimir III...
                        jeremi wiśniowiecki...
konrad I of masovia...
                           kuno von lichtenstein...
alles ist gott: und gott ist alles -
  gott mit, uns!

              mit eine leben wert leben:
    erinnerung ist die nur kino
             wert sehen eine film beim;

hell... could be worse:
   i might have translated some latin
of horace into pig-trough comfort food.
Justin S Wampler Dec 2021
We were a trio.
Gone together,
mentally alone.

90's alternative had been playing for maybe
three-quarters of an hour, and at this point
we were all mostly toasted.
A shot of beer a minute.

Talking ****, shuffling the deck.

Nick laughed, Luke mocked.
I cheered them both on.
In that moment we all lived in the golden light
of youthful ignorance and concrete friendship
that can only be fully grasped by a drunken trio of guys
in their mid-twenties at 2:00 AM on an idle Thursday night.

We all cracked fresh cold ones and lit up fresh cigs,
and I raised the burning tobacco in a toast:
"To friendship!"

Luke matched my pose, left arm outstretched.
We caught each other's eyes, and without missing a beat
his right hand plunged the cherry into his left forearm.
I looked down and saw myself doing the same,
yet felt no pain. We stayed that way until our embers died,
and relit the remaining smoke off of a shared flame.
Nick never matched our level of commitment,
I doubt he even bears a scar these days.
My scar still itches from time to time.
I wonder if Lukes does, too.

Eventually
I started seeing tunnels
and soon, gravity took me.
Horizontality was my fate.
I was the first to fall,
the first to succumb to gratuitous consumption.

...

Birds chirping, deafening in the late morning.
The angry sun cast slotted beams
through the still-lingering twines
of cigarette smoke from the night before.
I watched it slowly twirl and stir through slitted eyelids.
My eyes hurt, and my neck creaked as I looked around.
Nick passed out beside me, I figured Luke got the top bunk.
In the daylight I could always see the apartment for what
it really was.
An escape.
One room, bunk beds, and abject emotional destitution.
I rolled over on to the floor and steadied myself with
closed eyes and a palm planted on the ***** carpets.
My phone was on the desk in the corner, I grabbed it
and headed towards the bathroom.

**** cascaded, and through the open bathroom window
I could hear it echo off of the buildings lining New Street.
My hand floated up to the back of my head
and picked at something. Something hardened.
There was a thick layer of something
on the back of my scalp,
down the back of my neck.
It felt like wax.
We were burning a candle last night.
They must've dumped it on me
since I was the first to fall asleep.
I quit picking when I was struck by a sharp pain in my arm,
my left forearm.
A bit of my hair had probed an open wound,
a round burn mark.
I sat down on the floor and remembered for a bit.

My phone turned on with a melodic series of beeps,
it had been awhile since I turned it on.

One new voicemail.

I dialed the number 1 while picking wax from my hair,
put my passcode in,
and listened.

Mom called me last night, she was crying.
I was used to that sound at this point.
"Otis wont get up, I think he's dying Justin."
A brief pause.
"Please come home."






I'm sorry Otis. I loved you.
More than a dog, you were a canine brother.
Raised alongside me.
Raised by the same parents.

I didn't come home,
at least,
not then.
Seven years.

I still think about that night,
That morning.
That mourning.

My scar itches.
if i was a pearl i’d feel itchy scratchy stuck inside an oyster shell if i was a tree i’d  be a big fat redwood fantasizing about Julia Butterfly Hill living and peeing around me if i was a dog i’d be a Catahoula hound if i was Italian i’d be Sicilian if i was pasta i’d be spaghetti if i was Icelandic i’d be Bjork if i was a rock star i’d be Elvis Presley Bob Dylan Jimi Hendrix Jim Morrison John Lennon Bruce Spingsteen Maynard James Keenan if i was i writer i’d be Herman Melville Mark Twain James Joyce William Faulkner Thomas Bernhard Yukio Mishima Naguib Mahfouz Phillip K. **** Gabriel Garcia Marquez Annie Proulx Lydia Davis if i was a poet i’d be Walt Whitman Sylvia Plath Ted Hughes Gwendolyn Brooks Pablo Neruda  Heather McHugh Carl Sandburg Robert Frost Arthur Rimbaud Dante Alighieri Homer if i was a painter i’d be Leonardo Da Vinci Michelangelo da Caravaggio Johan Vermeer Rembrandt van Rijn Paul Cezanne Marcel Duchamp Jackson ******* Mark Rothko Ad Reinhardt Anselm Kiefer Susan Rothenberg if i was a photographer i’d be Man Ray Ansel Adams Edward Weston Diane Arbus Robert Mapplethorpe Sally Mann Helmut Newton Richard Avedon Annie Leibovitz if i was a philosopher i’d be Socrates Plato Aristotle Jean Jacques Rousseau Sören Kierkegaard Immanuel Kant Karl Marx Georg Hegel Friedrich Nietzsche Henry David Thoreau Ralph Waldo Emerson  Jean-Paul Sartre Jean Baudrillard Michel Foucault if i was a singer i’d be Woody Guthrie Otis Redding Grace Slick Bob Marley Joni Mitchell Marvin Gaye Johnny Cash Patsy Cline June Carter Patti Smith Chrissie Hinde Nick Cave P J Harvey Beyonce if i wa a band i’d be Velvet Underground Ramones *** Pistols Clash Cure Smiths Joy Division Uncle Tupelo Pixies Nirvana Nine Inch Nails Madrugada Sigur Ros White Stripes Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra Justice of the Unicorns if i was a boot i’d be Chippewa Frye Ariat Red Wing Tony Lama Wellington if i was a shoe i’d be Christian Louboutin Jimmy Choo Kedds Chaco Chuck Taylor p f flyer if i was a dress i’d be Channel Dolce & Gabbanna Giorgio Armani Marc Jacobs Comme des Garçons if i was a cowboy shirt i’d be H bar C Rockmount Temp Tex Karman Wrangler Levis Strauss Lee if i was a hat i’d be a Stetson Borsalino Stephen Jones if i was a fruit i’d be a mango apple banana blackberry if i was an scent i’d smell like fresh perspiration jasmine sandalwood ylang ylang the ocean if i was a doctor i’d be a gynecologist neurosurgeon if i was a flower i’d be a hibiscus rose orchard if i was a stone i’d be a sparkling ruby diamond opal if i was a knife i’d be a k-bar switch-blade machete if i was a gun i’d be a Remington Winchester Beretta Glock AK-47 if i was a car i’d be a Lamborghini Ferrari BMW Saab Volkswagen GTO Ford Mustang Dodge Challenger if i was a  TV show i’d be Law and Order if i was actor i’d be Charlie Chaplin Humphrey Bogart Steve McQueen Robert De Niro Ed Norton Shawn Penn if i was an actress i’d be Marlene Dietrich Ingrid Bergman Natalie Wood Audrey Hepburn Marilyn Monroe Helen Mirren  Meryil Streep Brigette Fonda Robin Wright Julianne Moore Angie Harmon if i was a female comedian i’d be Gilda Radner Lily Tomlin Nora Dunn Joan Cusack Sarah Silverman Tina Fey if i was a  football player i’d be Sid Luckman George Blanda Walter Payton **** Butkus Mike Singletary Joe Montana Jerry Rice Payton Manning LaDanian Tomlinson  Drew Breeze if i was a celebrity i’d be Charlotte Gainsbourg if i was a rapper i’d be Tupac Shakur if i was a movie director i’d be Sam Peckinpah Robert Altman Stanley Kubrick Roman Polanski Werner Herzog Rainer Fassbinder Louis Bunuel Alfred Hitchcock Jean-Luc Godard François Truffaut if i was a bird i’d be a eagle hawk sparrow bluebird if i was a fish i’d be a dolphin shark narwhal Charlie the tuna if i was breakfast i’d be a French toast pancake folded in half with 2 strips of bacon in between if i was a cold cereal i’d be snap crackle popping rice crispies shredded wheat cheerios oatmeal if i was tea i’d be Japanese green matcha Irish breakfast Tulsi Thai holy basil Lapsang souchong Luzianne Lipton if i was a soap i’d be French hand milled ayurvedic Avon Ivory Dove Pears Aveda  if i was a man i’d be a football basketball baseball tennis swimmer athlete if i was a woman i’d be a track star runner writer painter gardener doctor nurse yoga mom i'm just scratching the surface and the beat goes on lahdy dah dah
Jessie Jan 2016
Page 1 The first time I met Duke, I was tripping on shrooms. In fact, it was the first time I dabbled in psychedelics as well-- just don’t underestimate me in the marijuana department. The moment I can recall vividly comprised of the walk from the music hall which brought us to underneath the Moody Towers residential buildings, where there is wind and benches. A square of dirt rests behind the two benches facing one another; the distance apart from the benches being just far away enough to notice the gap of distance when conversing with someone on the other side. There was a main square of dirt, consisting of hundreds of butts twirled within the earth, scraggly weeds, and one relatively low sitting, yet ominous tree. This tree often glowed during the segments of the day in which the sun found itself to gazing down on the towers and its delinquent inhabitants. On many occasion during these occurrences you could find me, or perhaps Duke, basking in the serenity of the simplicity of the slivers of light breaking free through the emerald green mass of the tree. On this particular night I’m recalling, it was nighttime, causing the yellow of porch lights to dim the other color palettes. Except the sky was royal purple, and the grass in the distant hillside was writhing and crawling and breathing-- according to the mushrooms. Half of the bodies there that night were standing, half sitting, and there couldn’t have been more than a dozen of us. Here is this person in my indirect line of sight, and I couldn’t quite pinpoint the gender, but cute regardless. My guess of girl pursuing boyhood turned out to be correct. Small, almost delicate frame like mine, only he attempted to conceal his when I had long ago grown out of that. With a plaid button down and the collar poking outside of his oversized dark casual suit blazer. It was tied off with baggy khaki pants and clunky black sneakers similar to the ones the chefs in the cafeteria wear with a sense of longevity.
Page 2 His hair took inspiration from the typical pubescent teenage boy, straight and shaggy, and nearly covering the ears and eyes with a combination of strips of platinum blonde, ***** blonde, and light brown wisps. His almond shaped almond colored eyes were framed with black, square and thick glasses, but they seemed to help compensate for size with the natural petiteness of his face. Pink snakebites resided beneath his bottom lip, emphasizing the common nature of his lips that often formed a tight line, even when speaking. I only saw him from a distance that night. We didn’t introduce ourselves to each other until the next day, at that same location. There were less people now, and I was no longer in an altered state of mind. Well, to be honest, I still most likely was, but it certainly wasn’t shrooms. I don’t remember who began the introduction first, but I know his was accompanied with an abundance of compliments on my outfit and level of cuteness. As masculine as his mind was, he could still have an appreciation for the arts, for unique style, as any natural born writer would be so inclined. So there, underneath moody, I met him, within a social circle so new to me yet so familiar within the ebb and flow in the air of cigarette smoke, sometimes so pungently thick and keen against the tide of stimulating conversation. I felt a sense of belonging new to me.
Page 3 And there again and again, I saw him. The central station of our friends. There I slowly got to know him. I learned he lived about an hour away from Houston, he was a creative writing major, he was a freshman just like me and lived in the same building as me. We were both INFP’s on that Meyers-Briggs personality test. I had never met another INFP. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more his general profile seemed familiar to me. And then I remembered. RoomSync, an app the university had us use to select a random roommate. I remember considering someone’s profile that possessed all the qualities of Duke, before my current roommate reached out to me, unfortunately. Duke might have been my roommate in another reality-- remember the Multiverse Theory. I wonder if that would have even changed anything. But that thought process is futile. Once, in the initial stages, Duke had been rambling about modern horror and the author of the fight club, and where the two converge with the product of a gruesome short story. Not many accepted Duke’s invitation to read the short story, but I volunteered. But that is when I remember the beginning of Duke’s admiration for fight club. The concept of it. In fact, one of the first nights, I remember vividly as the Fight Club Night. Where Duke insisted on starting up our own Smircle fight club sometime, what what better time to do so, he thought, then right at that moment with his buddy Otis while drunk on ****** life and four lokos and *****? They were both at least eight shots deep in their sorrows when they ended up disappearing for what seemed to the rest of us like mere seconds. When we found them, we had ventured that way due to the need and ability to smoke a bowl behind the dumpster a few steps nearby. And when we found them, only one was standing. In the recounting later, Duke had apparently taken a nasty blow to the stomach after slamming a few hits in himself.
Page 4 As he lay there, sprawled face-down on the pavement, disoriented and disheveled, for a solid eight minutes at least until he determined he wasn’t going to puke. The remainder of the night was spent accompanying the rest of the group with Otis, forever refusing to let go of the moral dilemma that had just been established by this pseudo-fight club on which it is incorrect on all accounts to punch a drunk person in the stomach, because they are, in fact, drunk. This might appear annoying after a while, but the radical and lively energy that would radiate from the banter of Duke and Otis made this situation anything but.

Page 5   And so were my first stories of Duke, and so it was for many stories to come. Our stay at this place began to feel more permanent as our bodies would steadily adjust to the ranging, sporadic temperatures outside and as our eyes took in absorbing the physical evidence of the seasons. As it was, at any time throughout the day, my route would take me down to our spot underneath Moody, where Duke might or might not be there himself, shmoozing around with cigarettes and doodles on pen and paper noteworthy of Tim Burton. I got to know Duke. He seemed to have mastered the skill in which I prided myself most in, and that is the warmth near him that urges someone near him to just open your heart and reveal your thoughts and secrets-- that blind trust. Duke had a way of getting to exactly what was on my mind. And in exchange of me sharing, out came the stories of Duke’s life, the sad, ****** up, abusive stories. I heard those the most, for they were also the most compelling, and most exciting, and ******* sometimes Duke could even make them funny.

These days, Moody feels empty. Just because of minus one.
This is a short story I wrote for a dear friend I met my first semester in college, and this dear friend committed suicide before Thanksgiving in 2015. The page numbers stand for the pages in which I wrote the original copy, on fragmented pieces of notebook paper. It’s a very rough draft, but I wanted to put it out into the world. You will be severely missed, forever and always, Duke.
...
Is that as bad as you are to me?

I relented
not because I'm tired

but because I believe that you're the best friend ever

disappointed ...

after seeing what you did
once you know how the actual
once you're comfortable with your new friend
and then I forgotten?

how poor I am

I'm not mad at you
sure
but
in fact you make me disappointed

disappointed
very very disappointed

disappointed with what you've done to me
disappointed to state that you've given me

but one thing you should know
I'm still here
and will always be here for you
my friend
my enemy
my dearest
my sister
my teacher
my favourite
my buddy,

otis
boyo
suganda


*yuni tamara
word can't explain how much I really miss you,
can we like it used to be?
Hal Loyd Denton Nov 2012
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.
Joshua Soesanto Jun 2014
menelan secercah jejak, jarak.
ku banting kembali kepala
terlihat senyum..
bergeludak

kopi brewing cerita blues
harmoni harmonica pecahkan riak malam
rasa cafe pinggiran kemang
hanya berpandangan, memungut senyum yang terbuang

hentakan arus 3/4
pikiran berbicara pada otak
rangkaian sajak mulut berteriak..
kata-kata pembuka, ledakan!

setelan 60'an, rokok ditangan
seruput pelan-pelan, hey fancy! kenapa sendirian?
bandana rock n rollan, Otis Spann berkumandang
hisap rokok asap dibuang, mata terkadang melihat keluar

halusinasi kafein kalimantan
sejenak melihat lesung tipis
menunggu sendirian
sesosok yang tak kunjung datang.
Larry McDonough Jan 2013
I am numb
Numb am i
Numb we are all
Numb nuns
Numb nuts
**** nuts
*******
****
****
****
**** my ****
**** my ****
Until it is numb
Crumbs
****
Drum
Hum
Numb
Stuck in gum
Or ***
Or drool, ****, wine and glue
Like me stuck to you
*******
**** me
I’ll watch
And use both hands
To tell the time
A crime
Committed
Omitted from books
Like cooks and crooks
****
Numb
I am numb
None
Nom nom nom
Numb
Succumb to my ***
On a street corner
Begging for change
It can’t stay the same
Someone might notice
Notice Otis?
They’re *******
**** *******
They must be numb
We’re all numb
Numb nuns
With guns
And **** puns
To **** tons
Ones and sons
Under one sun
A numb sun
Like god
God is numb
Dumb founded and *** pounded
Until it is numb
No feeling
No ceiling
Just sky
High
****, smack, *****, and ***
Up my nose
**** my nose
With a hose
Like one ***** hoes
No one knows
They’re all dumb
Numb…
what doesn't **** you makes you stronger
you'll never know unless you try
face your demons and live longer
if you don't you'll surely die

Susie wilkins had some problems
tried to keep them all at bay
kept her secrets deep inside
but sometimes they would want to play

If you've toasted with the devil
he'll get your soul with just one glass
drink with him, he'll find your weakness
he'll get your soul, with just one glass

Susie thought she'd beat the needle
many years, the scars were healed
but, just one lonely drink with our dear devil
and all her demons were revealed

Susie, went back to her trailer
Another drink and then she'd try
One more needle couldn't hurt her
Her secrets out, and so she'll die

Otis Watson was a coward
Hit his wife for him to please
No one ever really wondered
Why she always wore long sleeves

He got his fill from all the torment
But, in the end  he needed more
A simple punch would not appease him
To him, she was a cheating *****

If you've toasted with the devil
he'll get your soul with just one glass
drink with him, he'll find your weakness
he'll get your soul, with just one glass


A little man with many demons
A simple drink with you know who
His inner issues had now surfaced
The devil now would get his due

He came home drunk his wife was waiting
She knew the beating that what would come
He came in hard his fists were flailing
As he met her brand new gun

There'll always be another bottle
And there will be another name
Just sell your soul and tell your demons
Just drink with him, it's all a game

Life is not a game of simple
It doesn't take a lot to lose
But if you're drinking with the devil
To him your demons are old news

If you've toasted with the devil
he'll get your soul with just one glass
drink with him, he'll find your weakness
he'll get your soul, with just one glass
Hal Loyd Denton Jan 2012
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.
a polar vortex
swirls eastward
on Siberian Tiger paws
bounding over
Appalachian Highlands
gobbling geography
gelling Great Lakes
spawning Erie blizzards
sculpting Wabash ice floes
clogging commerce all
along the Ohio River Valley

this voracious
juggernaut’s wide maw
bears icicle teeth
laughing as it swallows
Pittsburgh, Little Philly,
and a Big Apple, before
gorging itself on
generous portions
ladled into
simmering crocks
of steaming
Boston Baked Beans

growling
blue arctic
air blasts roar
bursts pipes
savages the heat
of blasting furnaces,
bubbling boilers, hot
belly stoves frantically
drinking oil, flaming gas
burning wood and
burping soot

the blistering
jet stream claws
screech a slashing
stratospheric hum
as Frigidaire blasts
swallows breath
brittles limbs
chafes cheeks
gnaws earlobes
crystallizes tears
nibbles nostrils
cubes snot
numbs toes
bites digits

diving sub zero
gradient subdues
batteries to
deaden states
delays buses
derails trains
cuts power
constricts veins
preys on
vagabonds
and animals

get the homeless
off the street!
bring the animals in
check on your
elderly neighbors
don’t get caught outside
and shut the **** door!
do you own stock
in the Public Service?

beware the polar vortex
and next months heating bill


Sonny Boy Williamson
& Otis Spann
Nine Below Zero

Oakland
1/6/14
jbm
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2013
Yeah I am young once more morn late,
Call it the year of somebody's lord,
Call it nineteen sixty eight,
Hair to my shoulders
Makes me see better,
Parted down the middle,
The older black ladies,
On the new.york city subway,
One and all, bless me cause this Jew,
Looks just like Our Lord
In them Renaissance picture-books.

Ironically, that winter time,
I wear a white sheepskin jacket,
Purchased in the Old City of
Jerusalem, but don't tell'm that,
Cause they would have marched up to Harlem,
No telling what might've happened next...

Next summer reality intruded,
Money in pocket aid and ain't not enough,
Riding the bus on Euclid Ave.
To go downtown Cleveland, the Flats,
Drag racing and watching,
The river Cuyahoga burn,
Kinda of a bus drag, but very very, kinda cool.


Summer next,
Worked in a Republic Steel mill,
They called me the Macaroni Kid,
Cause stoopidly I told them that is
What I et,, with ketchup Heinz sauce,
Desert, a heath bar!
Cause I was saving my pennies,
This college kid they loved to hate,
Caused he bicycled to work and
Wasn't one of them.


Put me, little ole wiry me,
In the boxcars,
Loading and loafing the
Rebar, twisted and straight,
Came it, sent it all over,
Me, black as a
Pennsylvania coal miner,
A San Fran homeless man.
To this day, can't get my
Fingernails really clean.

At night, me and the boys on the porch,
Gettin ******, ****, music and a view of
Cleveland East, the sirens rushing around,
To the houses on fire, the next ******.

First freaked us out,
Coming to get us,
Then it became the best, finest ***
"That was so stony cool" light show.
The girls looked like Joan Baez,
And if they didn't,
We still took 'em to bed,
Pretending it was Janis,
If Joan was busy
In the dorm room next store.

Hey babe,
Wanna come back to my dorm room,
And drink wine, listen to Blood Sweat and Tears,
Make some of our own,
Cause my roomie gone down to Canton,
To visit his cleaning lady mom.

I loved that guy liked he was the first
Real person I'd ever met.
On my first day, without asking,
Ran his hands both all over my head,
Looking for the horns on the Jews head,
According his parish priest, we all had'em,
God's official representative on the consecrated earth of
Ohio.

In those days, I applied to schools
Farthest away from home,
That the student discounted airfare was no more than
59bucks which I could afford so I could go back to
NYC, and find out what was really
"Happening" man.

The summer next, worked in the East Village,
Summer Office Boy for a big corporation
In a part of town where you could buy
Leather fringed vests and the headshops sold
The paraphernalia to get hookah high,
And if you hookah lookah right,
That wasn't the thing they sold for cash money.

Took my steel mill blues money,
Bot me a '65 red mustang car,
That needed to be jumped to get started,
Courtesy of the Cleveland special hell called
Midwest winter.

That car, the floor was made of cardboard,
The four cylinders were bolted to the car,
So when u opened the hood, you saw mostly
The pavement of the parking lot,
Some tiny engine,
In between holding on for dear life.
Always kept extra brake fluid in the trunk,
In case the leak got bad on the Heights.

Needed to do what I needed to do,
So I wrote a resume of whom I was,
And whom I ain't, so I could get me a
Real big time job.

More on that someday,
When the resume is resumed,
Getting updated, that will be kinda funny,
Cause it will run about 500 pages long.

Right now, strange,
I am hard by hard by the Frisco bay,
The Ferry Building and the tripartite
Disposal systems of three garbage cans,
And who should appear, but
Otis and Sara B., (live from the Fillmore)
Singing to me about a dock on this bay.

Got me those 'high flying blues,'
The kind that say;

"Lord, look at me here,
I'm rooted like a tree here,
Got those sit-down, can't cry,
Oh, Lord, gonna die blues."

Missing that dock of mine,
In the picture next to my invisible head.
You want to know my face?
Maybe when back east,
I'll find that photo of that long haired college boy,
Leaning in on, so proud against that red Mustang.

Right now all I got these here old vignettes,
True stories one and all,
Making me miss my dock, my shelter,
On that old adirondack chair,
Where my **** aches, and my mind fevered
With poems of love children and a life that
Tho dim recalled, I see it all so well.
Seems the Frisco water still "energized,"
Cause here I am every morning burning
A hole in my back, writing memories,
I never tole my family while working
The wriding shift that starts at 4:00 am.
-------
See: Nat Lipstadt · Oct 5
True Stories #1
--------
River burning,
See
http://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/63
-------
Sara Bareilles

Mar 12, 2011 -
Sara Bareilles, live at the Fillmore -

► 4:57► 4:57
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLHB-LqvvxY
Feb 6, 2011 - Uploaded by Axel Noor
Sara Bareilles, live at the Fillmore - "(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay".
-----------
To many notes take the pleasure aaaway.
The stories spun from the threads of my life.

"The crazy painter from the streets,
Painted crazy patterns on your sheets,
And it's all over now baby blue
The universe mocks with
Emmylous and Junes
but there are things far greater
than what rises with the moon
jeffrey conyers Feb 2013
You were more than  a clone.
You more then anyone kept the Temps' rolling along.
Without your sound of sounding like Kendricks.
The group would have faced many questions.

You was the masterpiece needed to keep the puzzle together.
And even now, when we look around.
We can't find anyone better,

Came into the group as Damon.
When you was an Otis too.
You still hold the honor of being the youngest.

You made "Papa" get notice besides Dennis.
And when we take a look around concerning you as a member.
All fans can say you done plenty.

No, you wasn't apart of the Classic Five unit.
But you was apart of the Classic Five seventies unit.
Who could dance just as good as the originals?

From the Young Tempts to being part of the Temptations.
You became apart of the legacy.
Even upon your solo song Funday.
You decribe love in a variety of ways.

Yes, you had an impact on the fans to this day.
And you will have one in heaven.
Otis Harris Jr.  a.k.a Damon, you done well.

We fans bid you farewell.
Edmundo Apr 2021
Little coffee cups in the little round table
For you I will always be grateful
Rain making our little window cry
I can’t help but wonder how and why
You and me early in the morning
Thunder and noise as a warning
But always safe by your side
Watching the sun rise and hide
Coffee, rain, clouds, thunder as company
Most importantly
You and me
Thomas Crone Dec 2012
With a hint of Otis I say:
"Sittin' on some steps by the...ocean,
"Watching the people of today,
Puttin' on that lotion...
Couples walk by
Never say hi.
Pondering the meaning of life,
Woah! My god, look at that girl!
I really like her...shirt.
Wow my sunburn really hurts.
Ah, the beach. What a soothing feeling
The ocean can reach...when one can
Hear it over screaming kids. Parents
Smoking as they push the cribs.
Foreigners ...Probably judging us Americans. Finding
Importance in life by being more tan.
Hey look there's a seagull. So free
To fall in the air. It's just not
fair. I wish I could steal fries from
Strangers and get away with it.
Just made awkward eye contact
With a runner. She was cute
But what a ******; I couldn't
Catch her if I tried. There's a
Rent-a-cop. He may yell, "Stop!"
But a nerf-gun can only do so
Much. What a job. Authority and
Such. This boardwalk is repetitive.
Needy kids and whiny parents.
I might need a sedative...there's
A choir of noise in the background. Arcade
Schemes...games...some bells, the ocean and
The screaming kids that are yet to be tamed.
Smh @ r generation.
So I found a "poem" I wrote while sitting by the bathrooms at Rehoboth waiting for a storm to finish its course (It didn't). Eventually my boredom got the better of me and I decided to write an improve poem about what I saw. I asked my friend DJ for some paper and received what appears to be our reservation paper for Killens Pond State Park, one of the handful of parks we stayed at while biking to the beach. Anywho...
Hal Loyd Denton Apr 2012
Soulful Mention                                                            



Beautiful white women I’m asking you to stand down this time your well noted in the cool cats book of
Love you electrify and defy all true description as all magic does and native American woman copperas
Skinned you bend and lend yourself to the exotic natural wonders your long black hair moves along the
Prairie grass up over the foot hills into the mountain wilds with a sight that is spellbinding you go so far
And when you can go no higher than the powerful eagle carries you aloft where sight is lost and you
Cause faith to enter because otherwise it’s unbelievable the effect you have on me no this is for the
Ones that their voice was first heard among the lions roar who else could have the power and courage
To endure such injustice and burdens dark like your ebony skin it would take men like Sam Cook and
Otis Redding with raw emotion and deep soul to travel out of Georgia through the dark store fronts and
Neon club lights of Harlem flow through the big Easy take your current at flood stage through
Birmingham Mobile the projects of St Louis on through the gateway to the west Kansas City where you
Pick up speed and the drawl is covered by the sprawl through it all your name is being called slow down
Baby turn and stop within those songs and voices your glory is resounding your life goes unbounded the
Honey drops it causes all males to stop you’re in the presence of true ladies they can be soft as cotton
Candy or have an edge that is smoky bluesy best referred to as a trumpet blast that can also smolder
Drift down city streets the horn is sounding oh how appealing the girl has got her groove on listen your
Being called by the most brilliant voices of our time Zelma heard and for a time lived an immortal dream
The transference of sorrow would extend extol these women into heartfelt heroes you truly can’t
Create such ignorance and grim circumstance without creating the rarest black Rose stone walls laden
Fields plantations was their birth place they are the one point that our race has been raised to
Exemplary Character
Rebecca Nov 2020
A contest for an added section of a children's book, Thelma the Unicorn.

https://allpoetry.com/contest/2741918-Thelma-the-Unicorn


Thelma's Response To Otis

I’m not. I’m not perfect.....

How dare you, my friend!
I am deeply offended!
Perfection is boring,
and flaws are splendid

I am a mosaic.
A broken masterpiece,
an abstracted rainbow,
authentic and unique.

My blemishes are mine
They’re what I want to be,
perfectly imperfect,
whimsical and free!
https://allpoetry.com/contest/2741918-Thelma-the-Unicorn
victor tripp Sep 2013
Little RICHARD the proclaimed self architect of rock and roll sang out high pitched about GOOD GOLLY MISS MOLLY you sure like to ball when your rocking and rolling can't hear your mama call OTIS REDDING sang about SITTING ON THE DOCK OF THE BAY while RICHIE VALENS played his guitar singing LA BAMBA and FATS DOMINO found his thrill on BLUEBERRY HILL than MARVIN GAYE crooned through the mike that  I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE and IF I COULD BUILD MY WHOLE WORD AROUND YOU PAT BOONE related to pioneer DANIEL BOONEspent  his day WRITING LOVE LETTERS IN THE SAND THE  COASTERS sang about that lazy CHARLIE BROWN  JOHNNY RAY sang about THE LITTLE WHITE CLOUD THAT CRIED  as GLADYS KNIGHT AND THE PIPS about taking THAT MIDNIGHT TRAIN  TO GEORGIA and IF I WERE YOUR WOMAN meanwhile THE FIFTH DIMENSION  sang about ONE LESS BELL TO ANSWER  one less egg to fry one less man to pick up after I should be happy but all I do is cry CLAUDE MCPHATTER in true rock and roll style  sang WHITE CHRISTMAS and RICKY NELSON sang POOR LITTLE FOOL AND TRAVELING MAN when I heard about THE BEATLES I  thought they were coming over the water to eat up our crops but they had  A YELLOW SUBMARINE sweet and wholesome CONNIE FRANCIS asked WHERE THE BOYS ARE some CHAINGANG and CUPID draw back your bow and let your arrow go straight to my lovers heart for me ALLAN FREED an unknown disc jockey tagged the new wild music ROCK AND ROLL DEAN MARTIN sang AIN'T THAT A KICK IN THE HEAD and somewhere  along my musicial journey  I heard the great piano mover and confess  I watched all of his films  MARIO LANZA formed and shaped my love for opera with BE MY LOVE for no one else can fill this yearning ,I went out and brought an album of the wonderful singer actor activist HARRY BELAFONTE and freely admit that during that time I was a teenager with limited funds but saved up the money just so that I could hear  BELAFONTE sing SCARLETT RIBBONS  and the infectious DAY O sunlight come and me want to go home come mr  tally man tally me bananas and than QUINCY JONES known as Q  wrote the theme for SANFORD AND SON and produced THE FRESH PRINCE OF BELAIR starring WILL SMITH ,WE ARE  THE WORLD AND OFF THE BLOCK ISAAC HAYES black tall barechested  draped in gold chains won an OSCAR for singing and composing SHAFT which was before he acted in TRUCK TURNER  IKE also sang I STAND  ACCUSED of loving you to much and I hope that you don't mind PAUL ROBSON in deep bass  sang OLD MAN RIVER in his career he was a lawyer actor scholar outstanding athlete singer  finally THE BIG BOPPER sang CHANTILLY LACE and a pretty face and a pony tale hanging down he died to soon in a plane crash along with RICHIE VALENS and BUDDY HOLLY who sang THAT WILL BE THE DAY
J J Aug 2019
I contemplate
the inevitability of
                   Death
                          Over the course of a
Cigarette
As Otis Redding plays.
                         I should really stop smoking...
My last cigarette and my last poem for a little while.
A tough
guy still
his place
relives Spanish
Inquisition and
gossamer upwind
only prorogue
yesterday with
those Oxfords
on shoes,
shirt and
Otis for
trusty returns
easily now
a ghost
ware of
his Aberdeen.
James Otis an Amercan Statesmen known for revenue impose in Massachusetes.
Hal Loyd Denton Jan 2012
The Edge of Darkness and BeyondBlack Heart Black Door Black Future
I have spoke about chains of darkness The Kingston Trio had a song the reverend MR Black it is special
To me it was what God used to start me back to church at seventeen after the loss of that blessed life as
A child I was standing in the bedroom at Wafford’s house right next to the small record player on the
Dresser and the song was playing the reverend MR Black was holding a meeting this giant of a lumber
Jack walked up to the reverend with a great hand he slapped the reverend the reverend didn’t say a
Thing you realize this is three part harmony and the reverend cut him down when he said you got walk
That lonesome valley you got to walk it all by yourself as the record spun around a spear flew off that
Turntable and went right into my heart I have been walking with God ever since not always continuously
But still walking the song ended and the Reverend MR Black is my old man well this tells another story of
My dad he had a call to preach he could tell a story you missed out when he used to tell about Dillinger
And the boys but as related before he listened to the siren call of a stag that was made like not unlike
Other brews made in Milwaukie finally this apatite and following it gave him this title from me at least
You have to salvage what you can he went from the king of kings to being the king of the drunks his
Name was Otis James the James from I was told was for Jessie and Frank James in some parts he
Honored there family name not this time I’m sitting here holding an old butcher knife that survived
Through the years back when most people struggled together the blade is dark with spots it was an item
I kept after my mother passed away but this opens a window in real time and shows how far you slide
When you leave the sure footing of God’s house I was still the magic five out at my mom’s mothers
House her sister and brother and law comes in come on we have to go up town and see your mother
Now the black door were already in the black heart for the life of me I will never understand why they
put me in this crucible setting pana jail down stairs they called the it bull pit the biggest blackest scary
steel door scary but not as scary as what was on the other side I heard a wild animal’s scream then drop
to a plaintive whimper then more screams and loud crying then they opened the door the horror was
complete with hair filled with weeds torn dress this creature set convulsing before my eyes my mother it
seems this former loving husband and man of God pulled out a butcher knife just like this one down the
road past the turkey farm a new spirit not the holy spirit would have killed my mother but she broke and
ran saving her life but that was all that was saved fast forward to twelve the housing Christmas eve
Another drunken beating in the bedroom I picked up a ball bat to go to my mothers aid the fact that dad
Use to throw and stick these same kinds of butcher knives in the door with accuracy didn’t stop me all
The bad drunken times and all that happened he would stop and tell my sister and me that he loved us I couldn’t
Raise my hand if he had only beaten me he would have been dead or close to it I just set down and
Listened to our sounds of Christmas this isn’t for everyone I know maybe someone had similar
Circumstances that it will help if you’re walking with Jesus God bless you if not know the one that rules the
World works these dead and broken lives you can’t win alone first you need a true mirror of the spirit
That will show imperfection and dangers Satan is the great illusionist if you think everything is alright
and your not ready to meet God very few use to throw caution to the wind and not check for trains at
railroad crossings the big long black train has us on its schedule don’t meet it with out Jesus.
I miss Buffalo Bill and Jersey Lil'
Jesse James among other names
Like Hopalong and Big John Wayne
Cooper,Cagney and,
What's that Indians name?
Oh yes
Cochise.
The man of war, the man of peace.

Jimmy Dean and Johnny Ray
Otis,Sammy and Doris day all yesterday
And yet
I bet there's no one quite like them
Not like Borgnine,Heston or Glen Ford.
Rememeber West and Ward
The caped crusaders
Or Roy Thinnes and the Martian Invaders?

I miss them all
The magic of the casting call and Lucille Ball.
Where did they go?
Moved on no doubt to another show and more greasepaint
Ain't life dull Without it full
Of these great stars.
50%
half a dead pigeon
has indented itself in the gravel lot next door
and every day at dusk, when i run my sacred shower,
(with the lights off and windows open
and otis redding echoing through the empty house)
i have to watch the black static tide of flies
swim around one of it's upward bent wings.

the first time i saw it my jaw dropped and repulsion choked my throat closed-
disturbed by it's total disgrace,
i slammed the window shut
and preferred to gaze at tile grime to pass the time.
but from the days that followed,
i managed to muster up respect
and acknowledged that this
battered half of a bird
was now a variable in my scenery
(praise be to impermanence)

and now
the sunset drowns everything in it's hazy blood orange
and the wind floods the trees and fills the underside of the bridge with sound,
and i stand naked in the warmth,
singing boldly out of key, twisting hot water out of my hair,
as the summer breeze politely invades my privacy.

so i salute the pigeon, say i wish you the best.
and embrace the weight and fullness of my happiness,
and know well i am more than body and voice,
and watch it sink further into the arms of the earth each night.
grateful to know that death doesn't end life.
jeffrey conyers Feb 2013
Bryant, Williams, Ruffin, Kendricks, Mcgilberry, Davis and Harris.
All are apart of the legacy of Temptation's forever.
And now they are rockin' in heaven.

One with a spin.
One with a grin.
One with a smile surrounded by a heavenly choir.

The sun got brighter.
As the cloudy day faded away.
With the Saints of the Sanctuary marching to the gates.

One with spec.
One  with a double breasted suit to the microphone.
With the choir of harmonizers singing along.

And they get inducted into the halls of Rock and Roll heaven.

The audience is supplied with starts.
We see Curtis Mayfield's will his guitar.
And Elvis ready to join in.

In Rock and Roll heaven, they all are musical friends.

Even Johnny Taylor and Sam Cooke and Otis Redding is ready to sing.

And Bobby Hatfield's ready to go upon a solo.

Oh, they must be rockin' behind close doors.
Ready to greet a Staple's singer through the holy doors.

God welcome only a select few.
While we upon earth debate about who?
In truth, only He knows, who He will bring?

And they all don't have to see.

If you've been touched by a song they sung.
Then you're aware of the bells that's been rung.
God, has placed his heart upon everyone.
Especially, his selected choir.
Don't need some professional at a rehab center,
because these strains of infatuation go on and on.
No one can be paid to change the fact that
I wish I didn't miss you.
What'd I say?
I meant, I wish I didn't keep missing things.
Otis keeps telling me that a change is going to come.
But you can't be my lover and that won't change at all.
If you really want me... never mind.
I didn't write a song for you, but I listened to one.
And the entire time I pictured non-existent home videos from the past.
You wanted me ten minutes ago, but will you still want me tomorrow?
Probably not, because desires will be something different tomorrow.
And my body and my soul will be something different tomorrow.
You can't make me feel a desire that I can't see,
because I can't go for that.
Is this all desire really is?
Something I have to take happy pills to get through.
Well you lost me last night,
and all I was thinking was that soon we'll be found together in a different place.
I was 93 million miles away from you when you were just outside smoking a cigarette.
We're hanging from the Edge of Glory, trying to hoist ourselves up with string bean arms.
Kida Price Jun 2014
Waking thoughts
Lyrics to a song
Shuffle through the playlist
Find the perfect one.
Too many can describe
My mental alibi
So I just take a little time
For the lyrics to fill my mind.
Growing up there was no blue sky rhyme
Metallica, pink Floyd and the cure
Were the ones to describe my youthful shrine.
Older plays
Took some blues away
How is it that I wasn't born
In the Woodstock age?
The doors, temptations, Jim Croce
Carol king
God! It's so godly when they sing.
Then I had to hit that puberty
Like a brick to the face
Picking out my own musical taste.
Adema, korn, Dresden dolls, tool.
Stone sour, shinedown, nine inch nails
Stone temple pilots and more as well.
Give me lyrics that could scream
All the screaming out of me.
Little did I know that in my scene
I thought my music was defining me.
I'm not music. Just flesh and bone
Maybe I should expand my treble tone.
Throw some chicks in there, you know?
No one should have a song on repeat
And have that be the song you hear when we meet.
So I searched for some musical relief
I enjoy a good scream sometimes
But that's not all I breathe.
Some motion city, say anything,
Yeah I like akon, lady sovereign,
A perfect circle and deftones
Classical Mozart and Beethoven makes me feel right at home.
Silver mt Zion, some Phillip glass,
Michael nyman, now I've achieved some class.
Pink when I feel like pop or brass
Punch guys in the **** cause I'm a chick
Hell yes!
No not really. The **** part, I mean.
But I actually really do like pink.
Jon Bon jovi or Otis redding
When I want to think of this guy that I'm loving.
I might have lost track of the lyrics I was originally thinking
But with my selection I'm derailing
With musical tasting.

— The End —