If I told him once I told him a million times. I said to him, " Manny, this is not a magical kingdom and your name's not Mickey. So, get out!" You think the message would sink in but noooo. Manny being the stubborn sort just kept ignoring me. Well, a good couple of months have passed and I'm nearly at wits end with him. Rotten little rodent. I tried spring traps only to find the bait cleanly removed and no spring sprung. I put steel wool in every conceivable crevice and notch he could possibly enter. Somehow that mouse would find his way. Now my flat happens to be a three story walk up and it's no easy task for me getting up those stairs, I just can't figure how a short stubby grubby little grifter like Manny might manage it or even bother. There's plenty more morsels to be found down at street level, especially with Sister Dawn's Soul Food next door. Yet Manny seems to always have a hankering for whatever I might be stirring up on my stove top. Can't say I blame him after the two times I've eaten Sister Dawn's greased grime. I guess I really only have myself to blame for the second plunge into that gastronomical wreckage. So, how could I blame poor Manny for wishing to elevate his senses for more refined dining? Not that I see my own sorcery in the kitchen much finer than Sister Dawn's, it's just it is. In any case, I'm pretty sure Manny might have been pushed out of an all too overcrowded family affair next-door anyhow. I certainly wouldn't want him bringing in any others. His gal Ethel Vermen and his cousin Ratzo are no more welcome than Manny Mouse himself. So I remind him daily, this not being a magical kingdom and all business. Got some glue traps and upped the ante with peanut butter for bait. Does he bite? Well, you know Manny, too clever to be caught he is. Until, that infamous night of revelry, when no creature is silent, and the music is maddening, and the drunks are drunker, all awaiting that New Year's babe to be born. And after months of chasing, after months plotting and planning, keeping the cupboards under lock and key, after midnight raucousness chasing a furry grey bitty beast from under the fridge to under the stove then under the sink, turning over tables and chairs, stomping like a madman, finally Manny and I come face to face. There he is run into that glue trap he managed to avoid forever seemingly snickering as he always got away, but now I had him. His head cinches between the double-ended prongs of my Ginsu serrated twelve inch knife. Finally Manny will pay for all his pilfering. There he is looking so woeful as his beady reflective eyes sear a plea of mercy into mine. I draw back the curved ergonomically designed handle of my Ginsu blade and with a fast flit of one prong slit cunningly into his ribcage. The squeak is short. I see his chest swell, a tiny heart pumps its last two beats. It is over. It is a new year for man.

Today, I do not die
for in our time we have seen too many taken
Waken in me are their souls

Today, I will not die
for Frank, for Russell, for Betty June
too soon, too soon, my friends

Pay attention, I cannot cry
for Jeffrey, for Paul, my first kiss named Ray
They, who left amidst it all

Would not wish me to shed a tear
Be here, be here and know their names
James, and Donny and Danny, the twins

Great possibilities gone forever
We, hardened more as each dropped off
check off each name and know

Nelson and Dean, Tony and Roy
Arturo, whose own survival story was cut short
Stuart, who never had his proper farewell

Toned down tears may well up
Still, do not give up for they watch us now
How could they be forgotten?

For Trashina with her unbridled moxie
for John whose brilliance matched how foxy
a paradox, never understood

Whoever you've known
Whoever you've loved, give undying respect
as wrecked were their lives for ours to survive

Out-and-out trials they saw
Shall have my most undying respect
My undying respect for them all

Trying to expediate the process in which
another man’s pain is relinquished can  

only happen in two ways; (a) drugs or  
(b) leaving him to it. There is a third

but that involves trickery of a rather
sorted questionable ethical suspicion.  

Fishy as this all may sound for the
sake of trepidation alarming itself

within one, must only come from within.
Other academia or institutionalized

theorizing shan’t ignite the inner lamp
or give levity to situation. Trust of one self's

own recognition in this be the path.
So, take it or leave it. Your choice.

Umpteen Gods control me
and Zillion brethren alike
born of scads of clans we are mutts
Howling at a moon yowling back
guttural vibration echoing, veering a tempo
towards a tempest tempting temptation itself

These windstorms hailing on a juncture
that infinity will not allow to stop
boggle me into complete
Unrestingly humble obedience
Until I’m not
and a Zillion others follow in suit

Trust me like a kitchen utensil passed down from your grandmother
I stir the same way she did
Either lightly or beaten to froth
Depends on the ingredients and what the recipe calls for