Once pink now tawny wallpaper peels inside a closet, ballerina
dreams shucking off like husk. Little cartooned princesses cling.
Last holders-on from a 1950's design scheme with all good
intention, twirling memories glueyness is backed seemingly
to astound or perhaps dishearten. In "the boy's room," you
find in the closet an equally petrified, yet opposite motif papered.
It's animated baseball. I remember how quotes such as, "Never
let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game,"
did don those walls back in the day. I think it was Babe Ruth
attributed to that one. He and I were supposed to have shared
the same birthday, but I must confess, it stopped right there.

Eventually, that was all figured out, and I have no lamented
grievances for what parent's wishes were for their children's
would-be assigned roles. It was and is still popular to choose
decided decors as such. Who is to know how Bobby may envy
tiny dancers chosen for his sister's room or how Sue might prefer
basketball or even hockey? Even more politically correct
consciousness is a confusing choice. Who gets the dinosaurs
and who gets the daisies? In any case, no one papers the
closets anymore. So, when the time comes for cleaning out
old spaces and memories, future grudges might be less frequent.

Reckoning gaze, learning ropes, knotty pine encasement, knowing what the box looks like from inside is preeminent inimitable. I was so certain last year would be it. Likely even, I thought the same the year before and years before that, all whilst whittling away, planks of this coffin, scratching to get out. Sealed in a fate, this vampiric rising, doomed to eternity of night crawling. Yet, by no means has glamour of Hollywood realm flickered any sheen, this direction. Not all vampires can afford tuxedos. Grosgrain lapels, and red satin lined capes do do wonders for former stars of silver screen, but this succubus prefers his naked lot. Apparently, malignant rogues who lie amongst worms don't always have the wardrobe to go with it. New Year's resolution: a tuxedo, perhaps some tails, and somewhere to wear them.

Jingoism at its very best is still zealotry, and anyone with good sense can tell you none of that is good. Where has good gone? Narrowness is boasting ethnocentricity. The mind game of villainous blame furthers unkind possibility. Worse yet, demise of soul, to tout a right to defend, assaults a riffling on pith and marrow with no sane sense of psyche to lend. Basically then, we are told to "blend."

I cannot.

I am fanatical. My colors must be seen. This weathering of dark storm has unbiased relinquishment that must convene, upon a rainbow. With all heart and soul, given to Orlando.

So, speak of infinite love and
roll your umber eyes. It goes so
well with the way you roll your r's,
as you teach me your Castilian
intonations. Just don't fall
in that category of immersed lost
Latin loves, of mine, sunk in
wet memory.

Ah, the murk of them, an amalgam.

Each giving to a melting ***,
and me, a liquid molten fraction
of strange tensile strength
and half gold-like luster. An alloy
of allies, do I see them as? Why,
yes, of course.

Now you come. Please stand out
from the mix. Show me your
purity.

Be solid gold.

I know you like my pronunciation.
I need to know now, yours.
Mi Amor

Smell it I do, then thought of you
Presence comes, in wafts rose powder
Sweet dust, pinching, untainted, true
Nana's essence, remembrance undo
Faith's instinct couldn't seem louder
Than rose powder, temperance's you

Heightened fragrance, blooming sense
No excess, bought at dime store counter
Perhaps to ward off onion's offense
Her pierogies, life's past tense
Empyrean staircase, she, soul mounter
Origen in belief, source whence
Rose powder thence, spiritual encounter

Some are so very good at it.
Others, not so much.
Those so carefree about it,  
cheaters, who's to trust?

Swindle me, my lover.
It's happened a few times before.
My "don't give a ****," proponent
has kicked in, that's for sure.

Being nonchalant, about it,
is all that I can do.
For I've lost all trust, don't doubt it.
I'm as insouciant as you.

Is why we're made for each other,
on this we can both rely.
It frees me, from anxiety,
how we both do cheat and lie.

Diastolic memory fills mind with blood
Heart purges other unforgettable serum
Gushing in and out; valediction, invasion
Scent left on bed sheets binomial theorem

Calculus, physics computing mnemonics us
Trust not sum of it, exponents baying flux
Participles and components abject humbling
Stumbling bio discourse create sedentary crux

Stupefying brain surgeons, those of heart too
Call in mathematicians, astronomers as well
No making sense of it, linguistic doctorates few
To tell of this push-pull sensory denoting hell

Not much time to live after lungs dispensed
Entrenched questions remain to be adoring
Extravagantly historians exploring
Unanswerable examining of this imploring

Must breathe the linens till all dissipation
Your essence in the ether of our resting
Place turned into mad languid laboratory
Conjuring back moments I am requesting

You are to blame
He must fix everything with duct tape
and there is never enough
And it's your fault
What have you done with his duct tape?

Those in need need duct tape
There's going to be war
and this finishing off
needs more duct tape

You begin to wonder
if duct tape
will hold together
the hole
where memory leaked away
And somehow you're to blame

Better buy more duct tape

Where the **** is the newspaper?
When the **** did he start using the word ****?
**** duct tape

Be credulous
swallow (whole)
gulp down
Make sure he's eating enough
Buy more duct tape

That malevolence
riddled upon his face
He's winning the Duct Tape Wars

Fight pugnacity's furor
there is this figurative war
and it will be won
with duct tape

She held him like a dangling participle,
as mothers sometimes do.
Disconnected from her sentence,
he was held on but stiffly confused.
He possesses a birthright to her hard-wiring,
or is it mandatory?
Woman-datory?
Umbilical, precedence will or won't inherit addictive behaviours.
Likability of some traits but not others, wishing he wasn't.
More like her, realisations go awry.
Pattern of outstretched arms dangling that boy.
His diaper is off, and jettison's stream, so caution.
Hiking along the forgotten path, brambling overgrowth blocked his continuing.
He cuts a new path.
She cuts the umbilical.

Her name was Harmony, yet in accordance, she was not. So much so, some called her "Hardly." It seemed her difficulty to ever agree. Even upon issue firmly obvious, such as yellow sun, blue sky, or golden field, it was not her nature to assent with another. I'm guessing for sake of losing argument, old Auntie Nym could sing no hymn.

Starving for meaning, an agnostic
bruising grey and white matter,
choking on maybes and half-truths,

finds indifference too easily. Never
pushing further through, cloudbursts
condensate but never conceive rainfall.

Something and always something
more gives pause, upon bathroom wall.
Scribbled as an epiphany lightening bolts

eye-opener, and its leakage capitalizes.
Each tagger finding more prophetic
words to denounce anything mystical

or godly. So, what's being fertilized
beyond the tinkling drain of insistence,
slumps downgrade to ebb of sewage

reaching sea. There amidst flotsam,
aeon's class of power perceived become
one with Supreme Being, an ocean.

This woman I know had a fox that lived in her root cellar. She'd knock on the door to let it know she was going to enter, and the fox would vacate temporarily to allow her time to store or remove canning jars. She ceased to leave her root vegetables down there, as they would nearly always become part the fox's nesting material. The fox had raised several litters in that cellar and my friend was always certain never to bother her distinguished guest while she had pups. The root cellar was under the house which was built half off a cliff and was cattywampus. It had lots of cracks in the siding and in places was missing planks altogether. This allowed mice easy access, and since my lady friend was such a fine cook, there were hoards. This served the fox well, who would keep at least the underside of the rickety cabin free of vermin. My friend could never keep a cat because of the fox naturally, though she did try to employ several. They would never stay. I had always tried to make repairs on the cabin, much to my friend's chagrin. Seemed she had an aversion to any change she didn't instigate herself, and was quite particular about not having any modern materials come her way. Any suggestion of modern convenience and you'd be read the riot act. She liked things, "organic," and her whole lifestyle, with the exception cheap cigarettes and tequila, exuded such.

One day, county officials came and put a red tag on her house. This meant the home was not in accordance with sanitation laws, on account there was no septic, just an old outhouse down the hill past the garden. Being that my friend had little to no income really, her "lifestyle," was in sudden jeopardy of being uprooted. Some kindly folks pulled together to be certain our friend did not lose her home. She got a new indoor toilet, a septic tank, and some siding to keep the mice out. Never once did she use that toilet, always kept the outhouse. The fox left on account the mice population dwindled. My friend keeps her root cellar well stocked now and whenever I visit, we laugh about that fox and enjoy some fine pickled snap beans. Change isn't always easy, but living easy is sometimes worth a few changes.

Arteries benumbed

Reading pharmaceutical's inserts no fun

Reading your mind even worse

Print so small

Foldings such as a roadmap

Those molecular models delineated

Moods might just as well be

Translating cuneiform

You wedge-shape marks on me

Deceptive blinks cut my clayey gray matter

That mascara you wear

Like kajal on Persian Princess

Ovular pills with spider legs

How do I defend from?

Enigmatical ellipses

Narcotic exotic

I look for, but find no

Adjoining pamphlets or warnings

To all your strange side-effects

When I go into plank,
please realize this is not
my showing off yoga talent.
I am an epileptic. Please,
when I fall down convulsing
in your liquor store, which  
I only entered to buy a pop,
know I am not a drunk, so please
do not kick me in the head.
I am an epileptic. I know
how strange it seems to
watch a man go rigid, crash
wide-eyed face forward, ****  
and **** himself, make a stink
of public places. So please,
please do not scream at me.
I am an epileptic. I will
likely come to, but then
comes the *****. I am
sorry for that, more sorry  
than you could possibly be  
for me. My world is as such,
and I did not wish to intrude  
on your day. I will go away,
as soon as I gain faculties,
lift from murk some understanding
where I might be. Embarrassment
is not easy to carry, but I will
take it, stinking, slinking away.
I am an epileptic. I am
so very sorry.

He stands solidly still, a malformation
Rush hour commuters about him whirl
Arrival or departure in subway station?
Intrans intelligence, subconscious swirl
Isolated, his mind in  most violent hurl

Facing whole extent of impertinent data
Comatose commuter suffers info slow-mode
Wife, boss, kids all part in sub-matter
Too much for one brain to devour, decode
Cell phones, microchips, transistor’s overload

Components lack tactile connection
Wavelengths of broadcasts, meltdown occurs
Keeping too connected, causing mind ejection
No app for that on tablet to refer
Now stuck in commuter rut with no transfers

Today's name chosen for you, my love, is Saulė. Do you like its sound? She is Goddess of Sun, from where my people come. Where she is protector of orphans, where she casts warmth, where an enormous smith made and threw her. Call me Mėnuo if you will, as I am just a moon, circling the orphaned Earth. Our marriage is destined, and my light is yours, a reflection of your solar pulses. These legends have it, many a mix up between us. Stories do go that way. There is a shadow on me. It grows. Eventually, splits me in half. Then, you watch as I disappear. Yet, I  return and grow again in your light, giving guidance to orphans traveling by night. This is the Zodiac's grand command and as we spin about, time, other orbs and Universalist theory melds. A marriage of millennium is at hand and our master smith, with his hard hammer,  keeps the sparks flying. New stars and galaxies emerge, and shouldn't they? Seems the story just keeps getting better.

Lilies of the Valley line a possibility path
They're pushing and poking their way through
Each crack of pavement endues the math
Of lumpish lubberly feet, leaving too few
How I wholeheartedly wish them all well
And pray the clownish tip-toe around
For bright lil' bells by their own can't tell
Who might impose their sacrosanct ground
So step lightly dear wandering and happy neighbor
For Spring be for Lillies of the Valley, hard labor

Sun begins its rise, taking baton from setting moon
Freak closes curtain, sealing darkness within his room
Compulsive habits draw and push, metering this tune

Addict sees the devil, meandering wide labyrinth
Drunkard finds green fairy within precious Absinthe
Religious zeal is just a steal from place called Nazareth

Judging from the junkies, who line up on the street
Methadone clinics make perfect meet and greet
Cops are robbers, faking stats, keeping rule of their own beat

Faithful followers of god-pill-poppers do it just the same
All the people seeking steeples, much, much the same
When will devotee know a drug by any godly name?

It all goes round and in this town, martyrs everywhere
Adhering doom upon a tomb, getting closer there
What we don’t know is soon to show a resemblance of somewhere

Dust lies on piano, its lust to play a tune
Powder upon ballet slippers, in  mansion ruin
Come light through weathered window
On chair, on table, on letter marooned

Contents never read, her fear what it reads
Years it sits unopened, as felt  be no need
Come  light through weathered window
Causing illumination, on doubts, indeed

Music echoes through  its musty lingers
Memories enchanted; his long dancing fingers
Come  light through weathered window
Onto keys, sprinklings particle bringers

All this sifting silt, effervescent in the air
As her heart was so jilt, and left without a care
Come  light through weathered window
Untouched slippers, feet dancing bare

Turning up  dust, each and every day
Lady of this mansion, dancing her cares away
Come  light through weathered window
Forever in swirls of doubts, she stays

Syrian pilgrims on boats of hope
Finding no place to land
No one to lend them a hand
No Plymouth Rock to throw rope
How can Republicans cope?

They believe this land is their's
Exclusively, for a Macy's parade
A big balloon with man in stockade
Thanking themselves, saying prayers
Really just showing no one cares

Blaming it on religious beliefs
Though zealots they are themselves
Confusing truer issues as well
Where have gone the Indian chiefs?
To Mexico forced by Trump's police

I don't know who I am again
lost myself around apex
of that last orbit

Flung tumultuously around
and around

Shooting stars
unlike guided missiles
haven't a trajecting
idea where they're going

Some land on something
Others fizz out

This blip, having known that
Big Bangster Gangster
which projected each ion
on some other
had no bigger picture in mind
and is likely still
making it up
as we go along

So, I tip my hat to Milky Way
and pray for fusion
upon something
anything
freely radicalized

Hardly can I tell you how music makes me weep
Or how I turn coy at a dancer’s joy
With every beat they keep
Miraculous is motion in the human form
Charade sails cross an ocean or beauty in forlorn
Suddenly, I’m jumping and thumping become my feet
All the guitars strumming on city’s crowded street
Willing my belief that you will find in art
Purging deep psychosis and reckless lives torn part
To me this is magnificent, and truly gifted blessing
For the poet always sees and always keeps you guessing
Hardly art be messing

Lengthen, pull, pull

Wrap around it

And tie it off

Gather reason, grasp

Tug, tug, tug

When I first saw one uncircumcised

I cried

At its beauty

Its perfect Godly form

Shame came over

Or maybe a repressed

Screaming memory

Nothing is equal

And all men measure

Themselves against another

Every inch counts

For a while

The acceptance is not easy

What you did not choose

For yourself

Is hardest to grasp

Mountain ranges  evident on old coyote’s back
Legs that buckle and mange standing on end
Scrappy snarls and chattering clack
Band weary of its brother, how moons expend

Pushed from its den; old dog’s final indignity
Young competitors keep ahead the pack
What time will take; a brutal insistency
For a dying dog cards be stacked

Skinny whippy coyote your days complete
Senility your friend and nothing you lack
One last howls to death; a verse to meet
When no moon in sight and all goes black

You said you couldn't make love
to me that day
Afternoon had slipped away

Did you ever?
make love
Had you raised an arm?
in bath water
an unattainable charm

Between thumps and pushes
growns and growls and snaps
leaves turn under bushes
Invoking ritual perhaps

No memory softer touch
No yearn for less your spanks
For all this blank intention
I still give you my thanks

when slice of moon is left in empyrean
when sun does join firmament
azure is interchangeable with netherworld
darkness on opposite side of earth
jackal is dreaming
whilst hustler is scheming
broken shadow on rippled lake
lurching subject does awake
heron has found morning
with it comes turtle snack
waited all this time
for hatchlings to come back
to pond’s edge
rouse of jackal

Teddy bears, crosses, burnt candles,
wilted flowers, faded ribbons,
rain washed love notes to a child
taken too soon from these
city streets burdened by stray
bullets exploding on unforgiving
empire is a litter no one takes away.
It is only added upon.
Next to graffitied bus stop,
across from alarming firehouse,
in front of and attached to
weakening iron fence,
surrounding church of boarded windows where prayers have ascended too late,
is a mother on her knees,
feeling the burn of hell cooked pavement.

Silence will not do, but does.
Datura are in bloom below
equatorial divide,
or is it above?
Nevertheless, I smell them
just as moon rises.
That is how I know.
"No understanding of this,"
says an upside down bat,
who I've named Plato.
We enjoy our cave dwelling,
clamminess included.
Visitors suchlike the snake and mosquito down here, get eaten
by he and I.
Venturing out isn't required.
Distinction between shadows
and puppets to us are visible.
Our senses are keen.
We can turn our heads around.
Still, we stay in the cave.
For all our nutrition comes to us.

Multitude of moth
drawn to light
black of night outside window
Wings of white, a hundred score
maybe more
all wish to pour in
absorb

What are these desires?
exertion bouncing upon windowpane
some beetles eating other bugs
Easy to know their intentions

But about the bouncing spotted ones
What of this light that pulls them in?
electric fervor
Are they pulled, by some force of fascination?

No worry to the bat
being drug and tipsy winged
millions a fluttering feasts

Wish I were that bat
Wish I were just one of those moths
Wish I could fly
Into the light

Dusty universe
with sprinklings of light,
you're a magical pondering.

I wonder if you wonder back.

Then expanse hits me.
Fascination of winsomeness
in elements crashing,
forming new star clusters,
nebula unknown or yet to be
sowed, beckons an idea of
horror in mediocrity. How
should one stand out
amongst your immense glory?
Will effervescent bubbling spectrums
with spiraling arms of some
galaxy suddenly singe
any existence known to man?
Could any man guess your plan?

Earth shattering revelation,
I'm guessing there is no plan.
So I'll make my own,
and let all this revolving
and evolving
take care its' own.

Garbled voices through
walls thick, yammers and whoops
make themselves known. Intermittent
laughing adds to clues
of celebration next door. She
checks under doormat and
deep in mailbox, as she sees more
guests arriving with big trays
of film wrapped fruit
and crudités. Her invitation isn't
in sight. Venetian blinds keep
blinking peeks, all night, as others
come and go.

Cinder block fence separates.
She combs her gray greasy hair,
puts in rhinestone barrette,
wishes upon a star.

Paul Bunyan is up and at 'em
with his trusty **** wacker, slicing
through to the other side
of suburban nightmare. Zeus,
in barreling breath, holds low
his mighty leaf blower.

An American hero and Greek god,
hell bent on getting what's
greener on the other side, begin their
Battle of the Lusher Lawn.

Paul's Babe, in her royal blueness,
is star-studded and singing, "Glory Glory"
as she banners the front porch
in red and white stripes. Zeus' sister-bride
Hera, turns a goat on spit, thinking,
"these Americans know nothing about
good barbeque." Later, the two will be
promising recipes over the side fence
of their baba ganoush and ambrosia salad.

The boys will be reminiscing Gallipoli,
slapping each others' backs,
and choking back tears.

Young chicken turned into fricassee
How hot is your gravy?
Such sizzling goodness
Smells so fresh in the pan
Having a fry
Don't really know why
Cooking at such high temperatures
Makes me crazy this way
But I've got to have you frizzle
Cut tenders spitting grease about
Think I'll dice up a side of
Turnips, greens and roots
There's an unwritten law about it
Even so
Availability finds comfort in handiness
A little splash of wine on that
Ought to make it all
Come together

Not one to believe in simple silly charm
But perhaps I need one today
To big toe, see has come wretched harm
And its nail has fallen away
Say, believe with magic powers is art
Perfection of my foot as it will
So I sink this digit in make believe ****
Searching for nail upon window sill

Goes without saying, injury thine own
When stubbed my toe brought a tear
Tooth Fairy affirmed, yet is Toe Fairy known?
Placing nail under pillow I fear
Yes, come to me now, for cannot regret
Love of a fine pedicure
As toe jam so yummy, one never forget
Be more careful in stepping for sure

Met Kali today on a descending escalator at the Galleria. Her six arms juggled assorted shopping bags, purse, cell phone, three children, and a fourth in a stroller clearly not hers. I stepped down in front to help balance her baby buggy. No sooner had I reached out for the rubber bumper that I felt lash of her tongue against my cheek. It was hot and frothy, smelled like a tall, non-fat  latte with caramel drizzle, and quickly wrung itself around my neck. I was soon dangling from the precipice of an oversized potted fern where I had been perched by my assailant, high above the food court. I dangled dangerously as I saw chinks of chain giving way. The glass ceiling was begining to crack and about to cave in on me. I swung out and with all agility I could muster, landed in the Bagel Nosh's assorted schmears. Hisses and jeers decried. An angry mob of mothers chased me to the nearest exit. I almost didn't make it out alive.

My whirligig giggling and jiggling in an ever gyroscopic balancing act of spotting the to and fro, does sometimes wobble recklessly, even falls down.  Revealing, revolving, evolving windy patterns and magnetism that spin pointedly upon an axis of gender nonspecific intention, it gets back up and twirls again. Whirls again, girls again, boys again, toys again, an accelerator from beginning to end, how can I be propellant and then, marry, tie it down? Letting loose these inhibitions of how such a perfect plaything may be too perfect, too divine a contraption is scary whirlwind to put my head around. Yet, this desire to go with it, oscillate and make rounds seems truer than any boxed in version of wooden wouldn't I rathers.  So there it is, to grace a pirouette with stable partner, might be a portion of the dance, picturesque, but more ensemble pieces may follow. These too add to the brilliant ballet, and we are in it together.

Keyboard, implement of catharsis
Punch you out, pa-pow, pa-pow-pow
Requisitioning my power
I’m your rough digit dancer
Tapping it every hour
Covered with my spit and juice
Snack scraps all crumbly loose
Betwixt your buttons of alpha bits
Numbers and shift bar hits
Massaged pain through my fingertips
Into you and yes I have not been true
Scribbling at bus stop with pens
Jottings on journals or lunch bags
But I love you Keyboard
You must understand
Can’t help myself when you’re not near
All my fear pushed into you
You have been so good to me
Setting me free
But Honey
That “E” key
It’s a little quirky
And not wishing to be as jerky
As I usually am
Brought you some flowers
Which I’ll sit right here next to you
While I rub you down with
Cotton swabs and sweet lavender soap
Paying special attention to your  “E” zone
For you are my Keyboard Extraordinaire
And yes, I care

There is tale of  Kavala
which tells of hero true
simple man defyingly hopeful
would row the Aegean blue

Did this alone to save Turks
as Bulgars were encroaching
He knew the Greeks on boats
somewhere were approaching

To Thasos he rowed trough night
darkness of waves o'er sea
Only stars be shimmering guide
Long nautical miles to be free

His muscles wore desperate, weak
yet the fisherman pressed bravely on
for love of his wife and family
He gave word, but his heart was gone

By daylight the sailors returned
Man had found friend in Greek Armada
Just in time troops did arrive
and saved the burning of Kavala

Turks rushed from their homes
to embrace with joy, Greek sailors
Yet one woman knew of a man,
the fisherman who did not fail her

And though he had sadly perished
after his long tortuous journey
his family knew of shimmering star
a hero never more so aptly worthy

Her wishes are constantly
Dancing on air
Feeding on lightning bugs
Phosphorescence rubs off on her teeth
Dazzling the competition
As her twinkling toes
Bruised and bound
Point way toward
First prize
In the Dolly Dinkle Dance Recital
"Here Comes The Sun"
Sang The Beatles
Sang the beetles

We married in the back of that old Rambler in that syrupy summer. Kitkitdizze mortared under pestal of our tires and its grind made an aroma of peculiar pungency. The moon was plump as an unshelled fava and I was about to peal her. This was all the commitment ceremony we needed. Stars be our witness. Outsiders we were, and the cliffs of the Malakoff Diggins where we did our rambling. I initially met her at her wedding to him, whence she gave her away, though rumor had it she and she were once an item prior to he and she ever meeting. Still, more ****** talk spoke of them being a three. This was all good with me, being that I had had that other he who was still bound to that she who had two hims herself. Lucky gal. Notice, I'm not naming names here.

It was our life and we lived it in polyamorous faultlessness. Gurus, rock stars, poets and other worldly scholars were all in the club. As gluey as all that free love was, most became unstuck in their ways. Hot, hot, hot sticky June crooners. Man I can't wait for summer to come again. Who's getting married in the morning?

Predicament of the zero hour
enabling brave or foolish decision
Even  mélange of both
Hitting home
physical structures oppose
Unfleshly
Holy Ghost takes over,
very much also  
Divinity and arousal

Only human
perched on brink of flight
dwelling is no perception
of freedom
Apprehending bigger picture
"To judge is not to love"
or something Mother Teresa said

When Pops referred to "The Bible"
it meant, bring him the sports page
Dichotomous our separate ways
revealing conscious decisions
Tridented a third eye  
When a vision of something further
sends to sentiment beyond
Cast and flung
Stealing home plate
and called, "Safe"
Pondering what only a god
may leverage

I’m having naked thoughts
Lacking guilt or put upon
Stripping my imagination bare
Without a stitch, my vision sunbathes
**** and unadulterated
Soaking in clean, clear, fresh
On rock by riverside of mind’s eye
Tingling with musing sensation
View my in the buff inklings
Nothing naughty about it
I am pure creative power
Raw envisage
Breezy suggestion titillates
You just had to look
Didn’t you?

They say you stink. I would never.
That antediluvian odor, reminiscent of us
before the flood. And I rove the woods  

of the world (those left), scaling cliffscapes,
spelunking caves, in search of our lost love.
Just a sign of something. Proof I need

of our tender attachment. Detachment
of orphic misunderstanding drives my pursuit,
as sleeper wakens to piercing glare.

How to get you back? Yowling, beating  
trees with thumps percussing a want
of ancient ******* still stuck inside me.

I want you back my beloved Bigfoot.
Hunt I will, till I find, anything related  
to this kind, of primitive feeling.

Confusing it is
that taste between
passion fruit or **** ant

My mind is boggled
which way this is leaning

Your unsavory parts
are being completely outweighed
presently
by a tangy **** yet sweet delivery

It's just I always am bird-*******
but coming up with the wrong duck
not noticing I've brought home
the wooden decoy
until I'm already sopping wet
wearing stink of the marsh

Why am I wired this way?
Got to get out of this yard
but the lessons are hard learned

So I keep climbing the fence
and now it's you on the other side

Waggin' that **** tang!

Lordy, the chase is on.

Dragona Radic hated her name for as long as she could remember. So obviously different than the Mary Butlers, and Ginny Gormans she grew up with in Flavor Town. Even Myrtle Feinstein seemed to be given a more applicable name to live in Flavor Town to Dragona’s mindset. Life was hard for Dragona in Flavor Town. Especially, when at twelve she began to grow a moustache. Living in Flavor Town wasn’t easy for anyone really, but to Dragona it was shear torture. Susie Choo became her best friend for more reasons of default than likeability. Being the only other girl with as much a non-conformable name as Dragona, Susie Choo’s distaste for her was equal. Still, Dragona Radic and Susie Choo formed an alliance, for what else were they to do living in Flavor Town. Flavor Town was a brand of the most delightful 56 flavors of ice-cream ever made, as well as the name of their hometown. You would think in Flavor Town diversity would be celebrated as much as variety. This sadly was not so. In America, you can find all 56 flavors of Flavor Town’s delectable frozen concoctions at any Buck Shops Here grocery outlets. Yet, little may you know of the atrocities occurring in Flavor Town, and what Dragona Radic and Susie Choo were about to do about it?

Sling grease into pitch
of doggerel vowel

I'm looking for an "aooga"
sound that diminishes
as if jettisoned by speed of light

whipping sugar cane plantation
slave ghosts' utterances
     paean screams doused

How I wish to be one of the first
followers of Obama to Havana

footfall through tic of time
slow gaits toc of eon
     a Cold War's metrical decomposition

Aooga Aooga
     Rumpapa Rumpapa
          Shucka Shucka Shucka

Everyone is free
and so many of us swim
     an opposite direction

Gyrate feet, hips, Cuba's beaches
     smile, gaze upon maracas
          Shucka Shucka Shucka
     **** on raw sugar cane
      
      Freely
with great abandonment
     and greater ability

I'm eating the last cannoli. Pop's  funeral was over a week ago, and since it was the storm of the century that day, the caterer had way too many leftovers. This is the last remains of that infamous day's dessert. It's well past soggy, and smells now of the sliced onions left from the hoagie platters. Those, I'll just toss. No sense risking another death in the family. It's not so delectable, I know, but I'm eating the last cannoli, because that's what pops would do. He didn't waste a thing, symptom of being raised through the depression, I suppose. The depression, yeah, can't let that get to me, he wouldn't want it that way. I'm eating the last cannoli, choking back tears, and pinching my nose to get past the smell of this prose, and an onion smelling soggy cannoli, 'cause that's what pop would want.

Last remains, yeah, those are here too. Dad's ashes, that is. All tidy in a beautiful blue marble box, mom chose for both their internment. She mostly sits staring at the flowers sent, that are about ready to expire themselves. The strong scent of lilies in the air, helps with that odd oniony aroma. I'm eating the last cannoli, because mom is insistent I should. I wouldn't argue with her over it. Neither would pop. So, I'm eating the last cannoli.

A-Ooga Tioga
Sky, mountain and mist rise

with morning breath
It’s crisp until coffee goes in
but no bother for that
instead, searching for sun, kept out of sight
figuring which way is east
Which way is yonder?
still, more you might ponder

As you sink into the lap of Tioga valleys
cradled by ash and oaks
fields of daisy mixed with rye and wheat
spread at your feet
like  wedding dress of Mother Nature herself

She says softly:

“Pssst, hey you
Don’t put on those shoes
tiptoe way across my seedy crinolines
lie upon me
Sink in insubstantiality with me
as I draw
rays and beams, beyond
some twenty rolling hills

In our for all future time horizon
you may still be dreaming
indulge yourself in my verdant fantasies
**** up this morning with me

This is Appalachian reverie
hear me like little turkey gobbling
dance with doe and fawn
chase jackrabbit
round and round
Why, even the silos are singing
“Pour me a cup” ”

Reminiscences of our future
Things to be, perhaps nostalgically
Who is wishing star's shooter?
Presently mind altering pendantically
Subconsciously forever no honesty

Someplace we never were together
Vicariously our algorithms meet
And I in my mind, with you forever
Though self-hypnosis not complete
Perpetuum delirium I greet

Infinitely brief occurrences
How we do so, what's not sought
Repress outer conscious past tenses
Hidden innermost thought
To table, it is never brought

Who could know the unaccomplished?
You and I, sheer mystery
If it weren't, I so astonished
And you and your word artillery
Slight chance we could change this
history?

huge places along the Baltic Sea
Lithuania never to see that six year old again
rusty condensation he licks from within his floating steel chamber
crushing sounds of storage containers and ******
“Blessed” mother tells him “Labadini” you’re going to America
small buttons from her blouse
torn from his country
his traveling companion
a mouse
just until hunger hits so hard
the taste of fur stuck in his throat
comes to mind in Disneyland
Mickey and that wretched boat