After years of aimless wanderings
Leaving behind the cities of midnight revels
And the fevered journey in metro rails,
I am back at the land of my people.

Wherever I went,
Under which ever roof I slept,
I had carried my land,
As a jewel in a casket
And ensured it rested safe
Ever under my pillow

As I moved with aliens
Unable to merge with their cultural mores,
I saw my land glimmer in darkness
Like a dew drop on a moon blanched leaf

When I sweated in the blistering sands
A patch of green landscape, like an oasis
Wafted me in a cool embrace
Then dreams poured in like star light
And I wandered in the meadows of my youthful love
My heart struggling to forget old longings
And memories lashing upon me like tidal waves

Pursued by that inalienable shadow
Suddenly being born in flesh and blood
I hastened to the streets of my youth
With hopes galore and plans vivid

But alas! There is none to recognize me
Oh! I am a stranger here
An unwelcome stranger among total strangers
Now I wonder which is truly my land?
The one left behind or the one just landed in?

Oscillating between these two worlds,
My fractured identity looms large
With worms of memories wriggling in my flesh
And a myth suddenly dying in my brain

I'm always drawn to the ruins
Opting for the unlikely
For love where there's none
Life, where death hunts
Beauty in ashes
And for calm in the storm

But, Like attracts like
They say...

(This is by no means an attempt at poetry. It is, instead, a piece of satire.)

Making Adultery Great  Again
Make America Groan Aloud
Making Americans Greedy *******
Male American Grandiosity Association
Many Americans Grabbing *****
Mediocrity Actually Grows Annually
Men Acting Grossly Asinine
Masculinity And Grossness Amalgamated

Meanness And Greed Acceptability
Megalomaniacs Abrogating Government Accountability
Mostly ******* Getting Aggressive
Masking All Government Aggression
Miserable Atrocious GOP *****
Mad Animals Getting Angry
Making America Grow Antisocial.
Misanthropic Association Gutting America

Mistaking Accuracy, Growing Artless
Misery Accompanies GOP Analyses.
Misquoting Anybody Gains Approval.
Misspelling Anything Good Anytime.
Magic Ain’t Gonna Appear
Maybe All GOP Avoid
Meanness And Gouging Anytime
Money And Greed Always

ME MAM’S MIND
(in memory of my mother Ita)

“If you fall
off that wall

& break both
your legs

...don’t come
running to me! ”

Could never understand
my Mam’s mind

& how it
worked.

One moment
she 'had half a mind

to come up there
&' get me off that wall.

Then she 'was in two minds
about' whether to tell me to stop.

“Go ahead...go ahead
& **** yourself

...see if I care! ”

“I’m warning you child
if you fall off that wall

& ****
yourself

I’ll personally
come up there

& **** ya myself
so I will! ”

I used to watch the words
climbing out of her mouth

& fly around the room

looking for a place to land
in my mind.

Never cared
whether she gave out.

I just loved
everything she said

the music of her
& how

she made the words
behave.

I came down
and kissed her

kissed her worry away.

'I'm sorry Mam'
I told her.

And she cried.

I'm ******* with Robert Frost
And the guy who wrote Paradise Lost.
I ain't happy with Aristotle,
And especially John, the weird Apostle.
Don't mention, please, Shelley or Keats,
Blake, Byron or Yeats;
Each and every one you see,
(if you're ready for some truth)
Took their themes from me.

Don't look aghast,
Don't tsk and titter,
Their thievery's left me
Mean and bitter.

Just because they said it first,
Doesn't mean I find it just.
It doesn't give them ownership
Of my themes and authorship.
I write of Roads, Good and Evil,
God and Satan, love and leaving.
I know I'm internally bleating,
But I can't abide this metric beating.

Although they're merely dust and bones,
They don't have the right to own
All the great lines I have sown:
The best laid plans of mice and men.
(I said that before Robbie Burns).

Let me make this poeticaly clear;
If I was there, or he were here,
I'd sue the *** of Will Shakespeare.