A quiet kid,
lonely in the rain,
fingers the nickels and pennies
in his pockets, waiting for the bus
to splash around the corner,
so he can get to work.

He lives with a demon of a roommate,
and shares snores with the roaches,
Bathing in the shower of their incontinence.

After college, he lost it and wrecked his mind
in a haze of liquor so foggy it
swallowed the moon for awhile.

He stumbles through pitch black nights
with an ugly soul and redemption on his mind;
The worst kind of late night wanderer.

Coffee and sugar keep him alive--
just like war and famine are the black angel's wives--
bringing him back into this liquid reality.

In the mornings he breathes in this world,
totally sober.

It tastes like sourness
and the milk of ***** entrapped in blue jeans
in 100 degree weather
all day.

It was the worst kind of sobriety.
All the horrors of birth.

He lives many lives:

One for his mother,
where he plants fruitless kisses
on her cheeks.
Little wreaths of future disappointment.

She hugs him so warmly.
It makes him want to suckle his .45.

One for work,
all smiles
and plumb submission.
9-5.
5-2.
12-9.
6-3.
4-12.
And if he's lucky
12-4 on saturdays.

All this in 5 dollar clothes
and a rumplestiltskin attitude;
trying to weave his own ugliness
into truth.

One for his girl,
the one who'd hurl her tongue at Appollo,
puke up her month's sugar intake,
and curl her fingers so tight that she cut the cappillaries,
making a red and white fist like a christmas cinnabon:

If he ever told her who he really was.

His love for her is secret.

One life for himself,
to keep the mirror happy.

This kid.
He's all or nothing.

It begins on those humble mornings,
Where wispy clouds linger in the sky
the color of white oak.

When the leaves collect in the gutters
and are soggy like corn flakes
and their color is markedly indistinct.

A morning for the birds to make
their shrill calls
And enhance the feeling that
you are at a low, cold altitude.

If the coffee is hot, burnt, and stale,
then it is a coronation of this morning.

On the highways
People listen to news radio with the windows cracked
and a ribbon of cold air and sweat on their faces
and know that soon
They will be home.

I make trips to the corner store, at 12 in the morning.

Calling all cars to get the **** out of the road,
I'm swerving.

Calling all lights,
blink and be gone. Streetlights,
stoplights, lamps, lighters,
blunt tips, cigarette butts,
all lights be gone.

Dear Earth, get low in the darkness.

On my first trip,
I was accosted by rabid dogs who drooled shoelaces
and I could tell they were being hounded
by the kilter of their angry maws
and sawed-off minds.

They barked like guns.

And they saw me--completely irrelevant---
popping caps off Lokos
taking sips that could **** up an Orca,
completely swimming.

I had to kick them home.

At work today,
Someone got caught stealing five pesos worth of food,
and got threatened with a felony,
but they've got some lint in their pocket,
and knew how to keep it cool.

My girlfriend operates in ideas.

I've been at work for so long,
that I yell and walk around,
like I'm in the shower.

Foolish roiling Krakken,
go back to your basin. old-timer,
No wit, no heart,
just energy enough for that last breach.

Old timer, schemin'
in the swirl,
wrapping those loose arms around me so tight.

It's hungry again, thirsty.

Krakken crackling through
all the fluid in my body
And making my lungs
howl in hatred.

I've seen your eyes in the mirror
again
not to deep below.

Hungry for oxygen.

It's like I can't even talk right now
It's like my mouth is broken
While these old kids come around
Trying to cash their counterfeit tokens
But I just look away, I don't see it
There's no reason for me to be rude
Do what you're gonna, don't give a ****
Ain't no reason for such a sour attitude
Like the patch kids we used to eat
As kids watching cartoons and playing N64
Just stay there don't get outta your seat
For some reason, I feel like I've been here before

Looking back I was always afraid to look ahead
Swerving this anxiety like I'm on a busted sled
Knocking myself out trying to do the right thing
But all by myself I could never truly bring
The things, sprout wings, sit with the kings
But hey that's why I just open my mouth and sing

our world turns all experience into test
just so we're measured each and every day
each purpose is the same to be the best

the angry and the ones who acquiesced
in the strict rules by which we willed to play
our world turns all experience into test

they said to us and we thought it a jest
until the last good choices went away
each purpose is the same to be the best

at this long game and not to be depressed
is what the teacher said and we were grey
our world turns all experience into test

with each achievement losing all its zest
once skill has turned it into just more play
each purpose is the same to be the best

so that is all the worth we may attest
while each of us has some good word to say
our world turns all experience into test
each purpose is the same to be the best

As she writes in day or moonlight
She contemplates definitions
Finding the figures televised
Are not models, but a condition
For the dead, it seems have become the dream
That man aim to worship and infatuate over
And this she find, as a woman, a girl
Is what's infecting the world like fever

Pale skin so white opposes the sight
Of her freckled, pinkly complexion
Vain within those whose malnutriton
Are posted as pure perfection
Lips of red the of which the dead
Show the blood that once flowed through vein
As Death runs his fingers through limp hair
The word "beauty” writhing in pain

And this, to the world, she also be the girl
The woman's aspiration, all in all?
This should be instead of true form
A copy, a replica, a doll?
To lie with each breath, beauty wrapped in death
To please mankind in sights of its end
Is a plight, in day or moonlight
She cannot and will not defend

Here darling,
rest your neck on my knife
and I'll cut us both a slice of peace.

she wanted to be a blade
of grass amid the fields
but he wouldn't agree
to be a dandelion

she wanted to be a robin singing
through the leaves
but he refused to be
her tree

she spun herself into a web
and    looking for a place to rest
turned to him
but he stood straight
declining to be her corner

she tried to be a book
but he wouldn't read

she turned herself into a bulb
but he wouldn't let her grow

she decided to become
a woman
and though he still refused
to be a man
she decided it was all
right


by Nikki Giovanni






S T  ..... two's-day :) 17 dec 2013