It was a day trip out
to some seaside place
arranged by the Gospel church
for kids whose parents

were poor
and having got on the coach
you sat in a seat
by the window

and waved at your mother
standing on the pavement
along Rockingham Street
and she waved back

then this girl sat beside you
who you didn’t know
and she smiled and said
all right if I sit here?

sure
you said
and looked back out
at your mother

and waved again
and she waved back
and you thought
who is this girl?

and why is she
sitting next to me?
and she looked at out
the window

and waved to her mother
who started talking
to your mother
and they both waved back

to you and the girl
and you said
do you want to sit
by the window?

and she said
ok yes that’d be nice
and so she got out
and you got out

then she got in
and sat
by the window
and you sat

down beside her
and then the coach
started up
and drove off

and you both waved
at your mothers
until they were out of sight
and the girl turned

and said
I’m Rachel
this is my first time
to the seaside

and you said
you can walk around
with me if you want to
and she said

that’d be good
I don’t know
anyone else here
and so she did

all day
walked around with you
along the beach
and on the sands

making sandcastles
and in the cafe
where they took you all
for a meal

of fish and chips
and she talked
and talked
and smiled  

and laughed  
and once she took
hold of your hand
and it seemed

for a while
that she was happy
at least it seemed so
by the width of her smile.

Living by ideology must be comforting.
The freedom of constraint, the security of single-mindedness.

It gives one a sense of position; rooted
Behind battle-lines, clear division.

I always thought Marxists naive,
But not in the way you might think -
I was impressed by the notion that the ruling classes
Knew what they were doing.
Subjugation is at least part of a plan.

Humanism simply baffles me:
One might as well believe in
The primacy and potential of pigshit.

Even nihilism is ideology; its comforting
Sense of community: "We believe in one Nothing."

Ideological blinkers preserve order
By blocking out the surrounding chaos.

Perhaps I should find something to cling to
Before the rising tide sweeps me away.

(Not poetry.
I've tried that;
Too unstable.)

peach cobbler, that's what you remind of
the sweet, southern staple that everyone loves

but when the pom-poms fell from your hands
you told the girls in the van on the way to fun mountain
"I can't do those stunts anymore."

I still laugh at myself for my inappropriate and abrupt,  
"WHAT!?!?"
but your collected calmness collected me
until i saw in the back of your eyes the collected fear
and realized the daunting fact,
that even though you were nearly 9 months my younger
in 9 months
you were going to have to be years older than me

we were raised to plan
but planning doesn't determine how life occurs
cause you never really plan to fall down
i know there were those who showed you love
but i'm sure being named "pastor's daughter" and labeled "cliche"
didn't do you any favors in the judgement days
and i'm sorry i only made you a dress to hide the bump
when you deserved a cape
to soar over that injustice
that no one has the right to serve

what its like to inhabit a body that is growing beauty
i don't know, but watching you
i have seen it can be ... a change
which, i'm sure, that doesn't even remotely explain ... does it?
no it's ... a Life Alteration of Volcanic Proportions
cause I'm sure, at times, you feel as if standing in the wake of an explosion
and sometimes the earth spews fiery filth at you

but i believe mothers are fire proof
cause they know they have beauty that grew inside
and when you look at that doe eyed, preschooler son
remember that love strengthens you
heaven is powerful
and you are both beautiful

Autonomous talking faces
Blathering on & on about
Endless government *****

Like a perpetually new iPhone
There's an App for every view
Install. Use. Reboot.

Multi-dæmon robocop
Seduces his sci-fi fans
With tales of grandeur & success

A printer spliced with a vacuum
Pay it with ink; have it print what you want
It'll **** you good

And then

Late at night in the quiet of a Sunday moon
The zeitgeist peels off his human suit
Plugs itself into the wall
And has cybernetik ***
With its self-aware CPU.

A Few lines etched where no words give weight.

Good riddance say the veterans
Of a nation gone sour with grief
Like a lemon slice evaporating onto the tongue of the sick.
But when the young yearn for White Nights,
The old claim they are blinding lights to the cold sugary substance
That supplants an easy path.
The bullithole rush of renewal and lonliness and progress thwarted and abandoned,
Inertia seeping through
Into a cold summer's day.

Between the cursing slant of sleek paved roadstrips,
And the burning briars that thresh the border's haunt,
What is picture postcard emerald
Is in that same instance soviet architect gray.

These are the sleepers bereft of the dream
whose twenty-five stories high
or ghost estates
are domes to cast out the howling banshees,those suffrage of the real
to be re-thought as mere props which surround the haloed glowing screen.

So sheen the Motherland glows in untarnished eyes
Familiar solely with glass behemoths parading with their reflections
In grey water-drizzled streets,
Only to be replaced by iridescent rainbows that foster a hope.
A hope that was packaged and sold two decades back
Since it was not worth carrying into the New World.

The water-trough delving where the electric line banishes,connects a spike,
"rejuvenate the breakfast table"-some far-off God reports, Hades still waiting,
Intel-chip Blue, epiphany at the gates.