There's relevance
everywhere
and nowhere
and I don't care

It's all a hoax
and one big joke
and he's a bloke
don't have to smoke

So bide your time
having heart's a crime
in your youth sublime
Don't pay no mind

It's all indifferent
and not significant
we can all be flippant
and there is no difference

Troubled as you are
Likable star by far
when you raise the bar
You might fly to Mars

So take it all lightly
though it seem unsightly
we're all rightly mighty
when we're keepin' it tidy

In our soiled tighty whities

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?

Hummingbird-hawk-moth and honeysuckle
Dewey aroma wafts, whilst luscious colors lure
Tubes of flower half full with nectar buckle
Furred insect cares not posy’s thoughts impure
Yet lured, yes lured, to stamens ***** quite more

Fancied moth puts out its long filigreed tongue
Anthers reaching for coveted wings to dust
Objectifying prey, tempting juices corolla young
Wild waltzing flight circulating pollen in lust
Honeysuckle’s sweet sensual seduction a must

Qualities as these voluptuous encounters
Reveal to mind complex ****** intricacy
Flower employing moth as vehicle mounter
Carrying to other blossoms pistol’s ecstasy
Nature’s chance romantic dance of delicacy

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

With all this glacial melting, and our own East Coast meltdown from our latest blizzard,  I wonder how many  Neolithic mummies might be found entrapped within ice sheets floating along our Jersey shore? And could these preserved remains just be displaced homeless, men and likely women as well, whose failed luck at Atlantic City Casinos  left them in strange circumstance of frozen time encapsulation, only to become part of a future archeological find? To whom and to what advanced scientific methods, or perhaps retrogressive scientific methodology, will these corpses be subjects of, if found a thousand years from now? Can we predict no mix up of modern and long former species of man?Just say for instance, some pristine specimen of iceman 3,000 years or older is floating in an iceberg, down from Western Greenland and past Nova Scotia in a tidal melt that finally brings it to a flooded non-moppable place ignored by a present day, though barbaric governor. Then said governor is ambushed by its distressed and recently homeless victims mobbing and mopping on icebergs and struck by mop heads, just as this Neolithic berg is floating by with its' ancient hunter/gatherer Popsicle in tow. Who might know the difference? What future generation might be able to clarify the difference between the two, or might they even care?

Tap dance on girders, Ben Franklin Bridge
Jubilant prepubescent boy making mockery
Alpha doggie dodging any common sense
Step ball change and windmills free range
Little show off teetering on brink of disaster

And a dare of unabashed audacity
Stare, stare, and stare down his prey
Tap a whack tap, double time flick flack
Intensity that cannot possibly go away
Dared youth’s eyes give all hints to fear
Though no tear will come to his pride
Other boy steps and glides

Reach comes forward, disaster tap mongrel
Puppy stepper’s got to be a go-getter
Holds his hand out and comes quick the grab
Trembles a fright, Speedline in sight
This rail from Jersey to Pennsy might bite
Shaking and tapping, absurdum jacking

The slip; it’s over as you knew it would be
Alpha Dog sniffs that bridge to this day
Searching permissiveness, lost in foray
But if he hears one tap or a click or a clank
Jittery twitchiness, on that you can bank

Baby, as ancient as you are
your naivety worries me,
or is it my own? Thinking I
could ever have you again.
Oh but how I wish, pray, on knees
again to set eyes upon glory
of man named Antonio Guadi,
his Sagrada De Familia.
Is he finished with you yet?
Will he ever be? Would I want it so?
Artisans carving sanctity to sky,
what have you chisseled in my absense? Is God's work ever done?
Do, continue on forever, give me
chance to return.

Ah to bask on shore of San Sebastian,
with pollished rellics of former
architecture found in his beaten grains.
I long to melt there once more, in awe of
noon on Mediterranian Sea. My eyes
taking witness to painted Catalonian
women, *******, with holy devotion
dipping faithful fingers into your
waters, and signing the cross before
dipping into blueness. Good Catholic
girls they are. And handsome Gods about,
oiling each other and bearing wittness
as well. The ice cream boy, is he
grown now? Does he walk by open
mouthed still, where we left such
imprint in the sand for all to see?

When? If, I arrive again, will we walk
Las Ramblas, stare at human
statues, dance with gypsies, drink
Absinthe and be taken by spell of
Green Fairy? Will we then not care
that pretty pick-pockets rob us
blind? Oh, for the hallucinatory
love of it all! Hold me in your fortress
walls forever, should I ever, return.

My Barcelona Baby, take me back.

PJ Poesy

p.s. I never left you.

Scabby fixes on brick trinities
Nouveau riche social climbers
empty holes
rubbled interims' morning glories
rats jovial
Someone's been killing the cats

Three half squares broken open
Shorn wallpaper on each
Large machinery
downing old world's new world
Kickball is
only legend to internet urchins

Sitting on stoops
punching thumbs on cellular
apparatus for the ages
Doohickey haves
Doohickey have-nots

If there must be urban renewal
leave me cherry Italian water ice
at a buck a pop
I don't much care for
Cold Stone Creameries'
Green Tea and Lychee Martinis

Knowing how you were taken off guard
By spinning eyes and fast **** of my head
No wonder you burst giggles buffaloing
And how could one help, but to slyly smirk red

Caught in your allure, devil may wander
Bounced instant shakeup of total ricochet
You felt it too, and I knew this of you
Counterrevolution comes hither what may

Pausing to pull me in, slant of ellipses
Pheromones explode, ocular orbs have eclipses
Trekking wrecking of satellites in flight
Cross governing communications trip the light

Fantastic are we, as we pretend to deceive
By shucking it off as mere passing fancy
Neither taking a number and this I bereave
How I’d love to take chancy, you my fiancée

Dipping skivvies in hogwash
Pig play, pretentions and lard
Our love such panache slosh
Not choking on what's not hard
No worries, I've hardly been scarred

Constraints of Mosaic law
On me leave nothing confined
For the little curled tail I saw
Once whipped, delectable find
Oh how I enjoy my swine

This little piggy went to market
While this little piggy did squeal
None the piggies found bargain
And even more piggies did steal
For an honest piggy, no deal

Oh in squalor, am I left to wallow
Greased pig be slippery catch
This all may be hard to swallow
For one pig, does another fetch
Stop me now, as I snort and kvetch

Sad abrasions, that is how you wish to end it? If you can't carry that with you, that unholy insecurity, without tossing it at others, others just like you, how can you be expected to be admired? That way, though seemingly popular amongst outlaws who have popularity, is still a ne'er-do-well way. You're lighting your own pants on fire.

Ballsy as it may be, singed ***** is all I see.

Whistling through right ear, gusting through left
Echo cracks on augural bone; it pings
Cymbol's sound on gray matter case-hardened dings
But to detect life's ignorance, measuring oblivion's theft
Lift sums of intoxicant veils, that foggy heft

Pay no attention to whispers, as you would shouts
Know calmed speakers indicate truth
For shouters and whisperers be so uncouth
Those speaking plainly give evidence no doubt
For reality's validity needs repose to rule out

Guilty we are of attainment and forfeiture
Life lessons learned or not
And more composed freethought forgot
As always this burden lies on enterpreter
When judging please regard radius of curvature

Peering into my briefly loosened imagination, water at the mouth came and was swallowed.

Tide was taken out, and lost life preserver sauntered off to setting sun.

Culling something to discriminate between:

Poseidon erupting,

tentacled eyelashes drawing me,

or

a washing away of

any maybe.

Just then his trident pierced.

Inside I’m wet
With memory soaked
Trickling youth-filled woes
Which cause leakage
Into present
This spouts
Uneasy gushes
Visceral ejection
Out every pore
Sweat pulsing chemicals
Of that toxic touch
On place forbidden
On secrets hidden
It churns
This thing inside
What you took in stride
What I must now somehow hide
With gulp I swallow
My pride
You, my moist reminiscence

She doddered about
Watering funeral flowers
Brought home after the mass
Even the silk ones
Comfort, in it, was the same
Who could tell her any different?

Snow today, lighter
Than yesterday's, so heavy
Than yesteryear's, so deep
Seemingly lost feathers
Of newly anointed  
Divinity's messenger
Flapping heartily, resolutely
Upward, onward, on
Clear-cut, transpicuous lifting

And snow angels
Smirk tender amusement
As harbored resentments
Drift on

How I precipitate within and around
trash to steam factory's super chimneys
Ideas *******
amongst rising glow of cantaloupe colored sky
And why am I?

Beholden to a notion
of fanciful or foolish, concept of nuptials
puffing pother  
or why bother to effuse such ******* encumbrance
Trouble sweats unease

Cold feet, that can't afford proper socks
know the sludging embankments
of Camden Crick (colloquialism of creek)
As it were, a driving force of elopement
An eschewal of plastic bottle heap

Knowing fictile landscapes
with condensations murky in skies,
chance entices
Grasping for refuge
from refuse

I've tucked my dreams away in a time capsule. For certain, they will be better use to someone in the future. Though in all likelihood, they may never be found, for I have told no one where they have been buried and shan't offer a clue. In the capsule, far under the darkness of dirt, should one happen upon it, they will find obscure memories along with those dreams. Just tokens they are, recapturing happy times, made of clay and paint, spell ridden for a future discoverer.  These knick-knacks are sure to have power, as no intention I have ever had has been greater than what was formed in those whatnots. You've seen bric-a-brac shelved, gather dust, and finally find themselves wrapped in tissue paper, inside a shoebox stowed in an attic and forgotten. Then one day they are rediscovered by another generation, who is charmed by their quaintness. They are dusted off and put on a shelf again, until sadness bearing that memory requires them to be sold at some yard sale or donated to a thrift store. I can not see this for my whatnots. To me they are too precious to leave in the hands of those close to me now. I won't have them sobbed over. That is the reason they have been buried. And should a certain someone find them in the course of time, may they only know their dreams fulfilled, by a time capsule that stewed long enough to design newer wonder of whatnot.

Similar brick within trust, this stack, a wall
Quietly nestled in its like kind
How building grow ever so tall
Aesthetics determines turrets that wind
A clinker brick amongst, its unusual find

Remembering philosophy and not style
Arts & Crafts taking account natural
Movement stylizing; making worthwhile
Grace given to home by an irrational
Misshapen brick making plain more masterful

I wish to be the clinker brick
Not same as all the others
Happily I apply a quirky trick
What care I if some may shudder?
I simply exist to add clinkered color

It is again, plunk into pit of being
See it as is, truer than what is believing
Misconceiving notion was, still quizzed
Taken back to cage humility

Sterile, these tears, flush waves emotion
Devotion to you dear, causing commotion
Hardly do I go there, yet comes the missing
Insisting on revisiting the elicit

Still pouring over, drains illusion
Intrusion cruel, truth bearing contusion
Purge hid secrets kept by psyche's rule
Plant seeds in dry field's thought

Caught waiting for monsoon to wash over
Soak essence enduring, be nature, know her
Rain overcomes me, shell relinquished
Distinguished, I sprout again

And then, I remember once more
I am extinct

I see that bubble you roll around town in
and I can sometimes make out those mumblings,
calls of, "Looking to find my soulmate!"

Funny, vibration of laughter surrounding you
has not burst that solipsistic fizz and froth
Don't you hear yourself reverberating?

In your echoic encasement
Oh how you shine
In that mirrored concavity
And you love yourself so much

How could anyone else even come close
This is your soulmate speaking
Glinda, you haven't been a very good witch
lately

There are things stuck on my mind.
Incomprehensible glueing, which
befog beleaguered fitting-in.
Becoming a mishmash, realization
bugs me. What to do with the cutouts?

Pictures of life instances that can't
be reconciled, just carried on and on,
blister and bubble within. No smooth
surfaces that cleanly represent
anything wholly identifiable are
depicted on bruised brain cells. Pity
it is. Pity I have become. Pity the
nitty gritty magazine photos slapped
together,  an ugly collage called,
"Mercy Never Saw Fit."
It is an ugly art form, cutting up memories.

****, ******, survival, these themes
are hardly ever pretty. Art therapy
*****. I'd rather paint a canvas black.

Impossible understanding
All burly reasons how
Sweat and gruff groaning
Very deep inside you now

Pile on mad manhood
Smother you in kisses
Plunging tongue further
Feeling it all listless

Groping, hardening
Comfort letting go
Shocking, hocking
Swallowing to and fro

Testosterone wins
Beats against a chest
Trusting all this thrusting
The room's a ******* mess

Cognitive dissonance just might
get best of you, and even you,
should conciousness come to light

Turmoil which hypocracies own
bring awakenings, new vision,
within you, an ahem and a groan

Things once variably disliked
come to watery confluence,
streams reconciled and hiked

Win over themes to conciliate
March Hare,  a ***** rabbit
Badmouth him not, you do affiliate

Silliest bristle came over me, like a yearn to wear a negligee to church, or eat ants. I can't remember who first gave me pause in an earnest sense of how to live life justly or fully. Not sure which one I'd want more. Doesn't matter, I suppose. My morals keep becoming reconfigured. It's difficult knowing who might be heroic, or who might be manipulating mass appeal in order to boost book sales. I think I just want some new exotic flavor, that rush of tasting avocado for the first time. That really happened to me, you know. I never knew the taste of avocado until I was nineteen and moved to California. It was not common at the time in New Jersey, or at least I had never had it. Never even heard of it, really.

I landed a job as a prep cook and dishwasher at a little mom and pop joint that catered to a mostly lunch crowd from the county court house. It was a quaint little town in the Sierra Nevadas. Townsfolk consisted of artists, musicians, gold miners, hippie marijuana propagators, and lumberjacks. Mostly, at that time, there were the good old boys, Republicans who held most political offices and police positions, and the newbies, attracted to the area by some new age communes, a Democrat influx. I fit into the newbie category, though it was a girl I followed there, not a guru. And of all the outstanding romances had, through the twenty five some years spent in California, none have lasted as long as my love affair with the avocado. It's a certain jolt I feel when guacamole passes through my lips, squishes around my mouth, and lands within an empty belly. I was beside myself in wonder, that very first day such a taste hit me. Now, being back in New Jersey, but not devoid of such illustrious fruit, I wonder where it is I stand on more matters of what it is to live justly or fully? Where is after here? I even see one of those new age communes has moved in down the street. Though I have my guacamole, I'm feeling less fulfilled.

I did sleep in House of Whispers
True storm, enormous proportion
Voices heard not of lispers
Things spoken had no distortion
Sleep wrecked by bent contortion

Her breath broke in, spitting damage
Window, door, shuttered madness
Hurricane Sandy rained so ravage
Spirits moaned wailing sea of sadness
The mate looked on with ever gladness

Garbled jumble, gelatinous formation
Distinctly mocking circumstances
Sandy spoke of men lost by nation
Poet reminded how nature dances
Lives, houses, relations, left to chances

She broke trees, lifted sharks ashore
House of Whispers stood, listened
Her warnings raised tides, emoting more
Matey's  blue eyes spoke, glistened
Embraced evolved nature stiffened

His heart sings Lady Gouldian Finch
Rainbow brings Australian pinch
Of endangered colors multitude
Serenading down under longitude

Aviculturist marvels her spectrum
Heartstrings plucked by plectrum
Weaver wonder family Estrildidae
Aurora avian ambit sub Passeridae

How he adores you each and everyday
Sets his eyes towards Yinberrie Hills
Sorghum sprinkles to petite shrills
Your song, his song vivid dye fills

Certain pizzazz environmentalists thrill
Colored curtain draws on man’s will
I know a man singing Lady Gouldian
Join him now as nature’s guardian

Confused blessings with bruised memories
Delights fixated upon, rushing hormonal rage
Not all tragedies are what they seem
My time soon to be distant as this page

Terrific is my precious time with you
Falls amongst feed most unpopular post
Friends who won’t even look unto
To them, I am mere gabardine ghost

Lines will be forgotten and forged
By a mass of “who knows who” status
Emotional detectors are blinking on
Pay no attention; just more apparatus

She beckons Earth underfoot
Time for Seasons to reset
Goddess of Egyptian Spring, Renpet
Palmshoot reaching, curving, sprouting
Desires let

To fertility of world She sings
Commanding what nature must
Warmth of fresh sun dewed lust
Birth and growth She informs
Of equal trust

Datenut ***** are running slim
Provisions of winter running out
Time for Spring pea planting, no doubt
For Renpet knows and ends
A knowledge drought

Her reign is rain
And this wetness is welcome
Sprouting what just, shall come
Amending reason and truth
She'll come

Can you smell the lilac I picked for you?
It wafts over world wide web airwaves
As onliest promise of perpetual woo
Interception through an Internet of slaves
Catching this drift, shall we last eternal days?
Of finding attention, blissfully I your wooer
Atoning for on and on, or be it peculiar phase?
Flower's perfume, is it detected by viewer?
O that this lilac's aroma might mercifully mend
A nose bouquet which an infobahn can't send

The Living Said
 It seemeth such a little way to me
 Across to that strange country - the Beyond
 And yet, not strange, for it has grown to be
 The home of those of whom I am so fond
 They make it seem familiar and most dear
 As journeying friends bring distant regions near


The Dead Said
 We are here, finding little but existence
 Staring at your world of breath and air – the There
 Far past, only permitted glance of glass fence
 Seeing just cause, no viable way to share
 Hard but not solid distance, a depurative mist
 This knowledge not for you now, but does exist


© Piyali Basu/PJ Poesy 2013

I remember a lot, though there are compartments of this upper story storage house with bolted doors. There have been hours, even days spent picking at combination locks, soft clicks of medulla oblongata. From within, such malodor,  bleeds ooze and ****. Constant mopping of icky memory's seepage, trickling from underneath hatchway is unending, so I often walk away. Knowing what lies behind vaulted chambers of grey matter is indeed the greyest matter, as nothing is quite so black or white.

There is no picture attached, so serious consideration
to its validity is pondered. Should I attach one?
It's always an afterthought. Dark char wafts in
from the kitchen, while I make this consideration.
****, that was the last potato too. Not another
to grate my nerves. Breakfast interrupted
for brooding, but there are no eggs. Prices crisis,
you know. Oatmeal must do. That sappy grin on
that Quaker fella's face, can you see it? It's on a
cylindric container all red, white and blue. Daughters
of the American Revolution approved. I'd prefer
something green, like a field fresh as dawn, with some
Huckleberry Finn imagery, a boy barefoot, no cares,
******* on a sheath, all buck-toothed. Can you
imagine that?

So you're the one
who paints all the frowns
on the sad clowns
Circus life does have strife
and roasted peanuts by the pound

So you're tired of nuts
and cleaning up elephant dung
Pity, you were once
a real class act

Now reduced to ticket sales
and fame unsung

Your high wire act
turned into catastrophe
Your partner slipped through
your arms into rhapsody
No gadgetry in this galaxy
could save this fantasy

Y
o
u

h
a
v
e

n
o

n
e
t

t
o

f
a
l
l

o
n

Till    y­ou                                                 'round!
                      turn                        back
  ­                              that frown

Trembling storm door
thwacks destruction and
love of warm blankets
keeps us cuddly cozy

Pardon my saying
violation inglorious heralds
at our stoop
Now being time for our
recoiling

Observing current circumstance
shall we dress ourselves?
In church clothes
or bathrobes do we streak
to chapel of the day

My likeness in you says,  "Yes!"
We've twiddled toes enough
We shan't wait much longer
Tyrant floods come
Poised indication tells us
our love is rakish
and rallies are arising

Who knows where  this storm goes?

All I  know is,  I want you now

Playing jai alai with my heart
Your throw is amazingly good
Ricochet ****** ***** darts
Atria gushing as it would
Bouncing off wall into never should

I stand here mesmerized
By folly of your play
Leaving me somehow paralyzed
With brutal force you slay
"Hurled out of bounds," as game say

In your court I'm trembling
With sped rebound do I struggle
Propelled to dissembling
Will you hold or will you juggle?
My heart a mere pumping muscle

No immediacy to what has escaped
It's run back down hill
Sisyphus so old he can't chase
They'll be no more pushing up
Except for daisies
So plant it here
Next to me, Big Rock
We've rolled enough
And never got up that great big hill
In any case, I get nosebleeds
When I'm that high
We might just as well be happy
With the ruts we've created
Perhaps we've made it easier
For the next guy

Crawdads have a crazy *** life. There's not  
much to courtship and no real copulation. Boring  
as this may sound, it's somewhat engrossing  
for me. Likely more than any lady crawdad ever  
thought of it. I would think most women might
agree. Sadly, reminiscent of **** really. Males
act like ruffians, catching females like prey,
turning them over, and leaving a sticky deposit
on their undersides. Worm like sperms adhere
to her, which she carries with her until she lays  
eggs. I've seen this while preparing étouffée.

Not the *** act, just the worms.  

Life is a multiplex of convoluted situations.
"Please yes, oh no!" What's going on in those
crusty little heads? It seems such a foreign
lifeform. Still, eerily familiar to what I've found  
at the bathhouse. I think I'll fatten up my tail,  
wear some antennae and pincers this Halloween.

Mmmm... Étouffée.

Newly oriented to certain fragrance
Spring whiffs may never smell the same
Coming out of nowhere, like elopement
or questionless death; perfume or incense

Redolence of planting garlic cloves
Also inhalation of hyacinth gives dissimilar
but now current to what may be good
or more thought provoked with profundity

Deepness sets in and pushes out
All goes on, but different
What's certain is, baseball season has started
and batters will have whiffs

Knuckling under weatherworn predictions, the salt is down. There is a limit to preparedness and at some point, faith that the break shall come to a blizzard's infamy, must supersede. It's just fluff and slush after all. Barely, this white blanketing is made, before the brine trucks are revving, ready to tear up the sheets. Shall I slumber too long, I may miss the hush of placidity. Who will be the first to break silence? That inevitable metal scrape against cement, I dread its' brashness. Can the missies' ice morning not roll by without delusions that these snow damsels must be shoveled off? Let the winter lassies lie for briefness of their coolness brings me to a dream scene. Colleens of a cold front, you blew upon me so softly this way, how dare I snow blow you, away?

have avoided all attempts
neatly gift-wrapped box
no innocent bystander
my own shapeless crinkling

paper bags or newspapers
crunched around clumsy mechanics
a garage built go-cart racer
tie with shoelaces

rubber bands and bread twisties
bike wheels in back
forward red wagon wheel
reconverted down side shafts

coiling and wrenching
back to cab meeting
half a broomstick handle bar
tasseled dangly pom-poms

painted on sheet metal hood
1014 signifying day we met
skidding each other's hearts
last year’s soap-box derby

not a pretty package
but when you open up and see
marvelous flaming paints
spinning our memories

I hope you know
you are my burning desire
Shall we blast it one last time?
I’ll make those vroom-vroom sounds

Good way off, past blindness
trickling fingertips felt plunks.
Sedimentary stirrings next to
running brooks dipped into
for pleasure of touching
algaecide inside the head.

And memory impresses gunky
regions explored, faculty of
retaining wet sandy banks,
the murk of his adolescence.

How what was told of who to,
or who not to, or what not to,
that, was only left with more
unanswered question. Just
mire. So the feeling out had
little guidance and quicksand
became lesson planner.

Wonted informality, such sinking,
became hook, shot, and sweet tooth.
These habits took his teeth
and no longer could he chew.
Drivel and flattery became much the
same, his purging, alluvium.

Men can only spill out, what fed.
Eventually mountains' rivers carry peaks to valleys.

Harvest old love letters
Separate timid words like seeds
Save those for Spring planting
Passion's bulk pull out as meat
Provisional muscle is for roasting
Adjectives become good gravy
Stamps and envelopes licked
A dessert of dearest's DNA
This savoring of paper junctures
Recaptured affection, even agonies
Wooers of commodious cursive
Pen pushed to olden days
I relish reading your languid thriving
Though you are long gone
Reacquainting these letters habituates
Deliveries of your love

Pamper me with poetry
For it be, favorite indulgency
Send me notes with scribbled song
Join this **** verbose throng

Come to me with words of texture
Preach to me a loving lecture
Find more poets, listen, read
Favor phrasing; inbreed my need

Circuit airwaves charge this lust
Magnanimous wishes throw and ******
This family of balladry
For this bard works flawlessly

I’m a ***** for all your words
Give me seconds, give me thirds
Spit on me your favorite quatrain
Indulge my fervor macaronic and insane

Outside the borders of this asylum’s garden not much is in bloom.
Seems fastidiousness of this establishment’s gardener is derangement of decadence:

... neat little rows of pansies,
followed by neat little rows of anemones, with alternate groupings of hostas and Lenten roses behind.
All against the backdrop of viburnums,
capped with hydrangea at each end.
The airy sprays of baby’s breath and coral bells give veils of blossoms not to obscure color behind, making it all sparkle, as if some fairytale world,
encapsulated by a wall of hemlock,
like an evergreen iron curtain.

And I am certain,
I am more insane in here
than beyond that gate where
dandelions push through cracks of pavement and my shaking cold body
is not riddled with
the rainbow colored pharmaceutical
salad of this insanity.

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.

Graffiti, vestige of love
Cuts marking very sign of
How I saw you then
Vandalism's when

That old elm holds a heart
Scrabbling promise to never part
Etching yesteryear
Bleeding sap sincere

Moment scorned upon tree
Traces time that never came to be
Once ever lusted yen
Now, only invocation of then

Had I never dug knife in
Happier may this arbor had been
Creeping vines overwhelm
Yours, mine, yester elm

Raindrops plunk upon aluminum
siding and window sill
Outside, such turmoil,
yet I can only sit still
Swishing winds  interrogate trees,
causing them to drop their leaves
and pretenses
Confessions of bareness
propagate an awareness
of little mismanaged defenses
This sullen Fall charms places between suburban track homes
Places where cornstalk bunching
settles for quaint decor
When in Rome...
how it never feels like here

Navels peel great, but Valencias make more delicious juice, and more and more comparisons come up. On the morning dog walk, as we venture closer to the highway overpass, that whether-or-not feeling comes over. Do we go under? Sure, there is often creepy things there, but the dog seems locked-in, so onward under. I'm not as mulish as the dog and I can tell he smells something. Usually, it is dead, whatever it might be, but sometimes it's not, and that can be worse. It's an orange cloud morning however, and dawn breaks more nicely on the other side, so for the good grace of catching a better glimpse, I'll brave it. Then, of course, there it is, an irksome tableau, morbidly funny though. Next to the airport miniature bottle of  Fireball Cinnamon Whisky, is a turned over pigeon with his claws looking as if that bottle had dropped there from his little birdies' ***** feet. I had to giggle, as my stomach turned. Poor dead bird. Things are really bad when pigeon's are offing themselves this way. Debating to take a quick snapshot or not, time lapses, and I see the blood orange sky dripping by.

So, oh well, I'll just turn about, and not allow the dog to indulge. He's a tough tug on the leash at this point, fearless little fellow. When I return home, I peel one of those Navels. Its skin and pith roll off nicely, and as I split open the sections with my front teeth, I notice the complexity of it all. Though there are juicy parts of the pulp, around the end, it can get a bit dry and putrid. Tomorrow, I shall have to wake the dog just a bit earlier to get that glimpse of a more red to yellow moment. Something tangerine may tempt.

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Grubby am I to fanciful passersby
Sulky eye can't meet such sultry treat
For worn out shoes upon my feet
Divide us in classes; meek versus neat

Yet as stripped down across over town
Wherein tall grasses lay bare *****
Lies chance for me in barren passes
Just a prance away to lured trespasses

And in this sin I gladly engage
Deception tears off its coverings
For once men naked in their rage
Comes natural instinctive brothering

So hmm and ha, to you ta-ta
Your wares persuade not my cares
For shares of what not one wear
Shall decicide how lust shall fare

There you have it, there it is
What has been mine, has been his
When stripped down to naked truth
All men bear bearish brute