our lady in the dress of tulle
too pure for paint and lace;
the innocent but not the fool,
the everlasting grace!
you've changed since all those weeks ago,
since all those people fell,
but only pete and stephie know
and they can never tell.

your velvet step's still well-behaved
although your mouth's demurer;
and by your works the town is saved,
the world is all the purer!
and they can call you nerdy *****,
at least it means you're clean;
nobody mourns a ***** dude
who's murdered at eighteen.

endure the gaze of ***** heads
and lure them down your path,
to where you snare them in your threads
when you unleash your wrath!
the act may be demonic, but
through you, it feels divine —
you are the righteous angel that
they cannot undermine.

you are the wielder of the axe
of abstinence and will
you are the faith that cannot lapse,
the hands that clasp to ****
to save each persecuted *****
a kingdom in the sky.
nobody mourns a ***** dude.
they all deserve to die.

my house is scratched, my house is scrawny
it squeaks but it don’t shine
my name is Fudge the Brownie
and this fudgin’ house is mine

it wasn’t perfect when they built it
they had to patch and bodge
and they summoned this here spirit
out of every little “fudge!”
stubbed ya big toe on the landing?
****** on carpets that don’t match?
splinters on the wood needs sanding
and the gutter pipes don’t catch?
take it easy! don’t make boggarts
outta molehills made of dust,
leave me coins and nuts and yogurts
and i’ll fix it when i’m assed

our house it leans, our house it sighs
it ain’t got no level lines
but you got a Fudge here on your side
and this fudgin’ house is mine

i will fix what thing wants fixing
but don’t fix what ain’t yet broke
not my fault the sink is sinking
not my fault the speakers spoke
ya don’t see the dishes drying
i don’t put em on display
like the oil where you were frying
that i cleanly put away
******* all you ******* *****
i am like twelve inches tall
so don’t make me catch your glasses
cos you put em where they fall

just because you ******* bought it
does not mean this house is yours
you turned Fudge into a Boggart
i’m not doing your fudgin’ chore
you hurt my house? that's outta pocket
so i'm done being benign
you turned Fudge into a Boggart
and this fudgin' house is mine

he doesn’t play the piano
the piano plays itself
through the dextral treble
and the sinister bass clef

he doesn’t lift a finger
the ivories press back
the ebonies go up and down
without a single clack

he barely presses downwards
his fingertips suffice
the music plays the piano
he’s merely its device

(come on brain, think of things / come on brain, be so smart — lin manuel miranda)

with hollow bones i had been born,
so why their leaden flight?
for others have far heavier borne;
i must be feather-light

in branching paths i loved to wend,
their tangle stuck me fast.
now shorter streets have found their end;
i must be lightning-fast

i write these things to make life rhyme
but cannot see to see
and wonder, wonder, all the time
what must be wrong with me

and they say better late than not,
and better slow than still
while counting anxiously to naught
and asking when i will

i do not know! i do not know!
what little i do ken
is that i go when i can go
and do all that i can

and yet my life in shambles lies
i cannot see to see
with oceans in my tired eyes
what must be wrong with me

your finite minds will calculate
the music of the spheres,
and try to map the infinite
to guide your pioneers

but though those circles heave and sway
and through the aether surge;
i tie my fulgent secret way
not to this demiurge.

that blinding, bumbling dynamo
is but another star,
and countless others shine just so,
indifferent and far.

why let that mere proximity
endear my core to this,
when graver is the gravity
twixt me and the abyss?

no law of physics governs me,
they know not how I move,
i flitter frictionless and free
though maths may not approve

predict my orbit, if you can!
jar lightning for your gears!
i trap the spite of centuries
i burn your deity's tears

remember, child of adam, and resign:
i am the matter you will never find

Why couldn’t you just shine, and never flicker?
Why couldn’t you forget me, like the rest?
Just let me be your ****-up of a sister,
The failure that you pushed out of the nest.

You could have lived the life that you predicted:
A house, a yard, a minivan, a kid!
And I could hike the continent, contented
With what I’ve done, not caring what you did.

Whose fault was it? Which ******* here was driving
When all your glittering plans went up in ash?
How dare you break beyond hope of surviving;
How dare you die, Jane Perkins, in that crash!

How dare your number call me with no warning
That some guy’s voice would sob with tragic news?
How dare you write no checklist for this mourning,
This endless task that I can never snooze?

How do I shape a life outside your shadow?
How do I cut a path you never tread?
Why can’t I run away to Colorado,
What ties me down to Hatchetfield instead?

Of course I’m left to finish what you started;
This cruelty is all so very you —
You, accomplished, finished, done, departed —!
You’ve left me all the things I cannot do.

i am a kind of hermit-crab,
and there i found a shell,
and would have stayed, but summer passed —
the walls i had outgrown.
i kept my trinkets in my cave,
and to myself alone
that attic flat in bremen was
my home away from hell.

half-sleepy on the straßenbahn,
transport me anywhere —
the frei in freie hansestadt,
could taste it in the air!
i kept a book for sketching in,
and never felt so free —
that attic flat in bremen where
one summer i was me.