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PROLOGUE:

“’We must stop this brain working for twenty years.’” So said Mussolini’s Grand Inquisitor, his official Fascist prosecutor addressing the judge in Antonio Gramsci’s 1928 trial; so said the Il Duce’s Torquemada, ending his peroration with this infamous demand.’”  Gramsci, Antonio: Selections from the Prison Notebooks, Introduction, translation from Italian and publishing by Quintin ***** & Geoffrey Nowell Smith, International Publishers, New York, 1971.

BE IT RESOLVED: Whereas, I introduce this book with a nod of deep respect to Antonio Gramsci--an obscure but increasingly pertinent political scientist it would behoove us all to read and study today, I dedicate the book itself to my great grandfather and key family patriarch, Pietro Buonaiuto (1865-1940) of Moschiano, in the province of Avellino, in the region of Campania, southern Italy.

Let it be recognized that Pete Buonaiuto may not have had Tony Gramsci’s brain, but he certainly exhibited an extreme case of what his son--my paternal grandfather, Francesco Buonaiuto--termed: Testaduro. Literally, it means Hardhead, but connotes something far beyond the merely stubborn. We’re talking way out there in the unknown, beyond that inexplicable void where hotheaded hardheads regurgitate their next move, more a function of indigestion than thought. Given any situation, a Testaduro would rather bring acid reflux and bile to the mix than exercise even a skosh of gray muscle matter.  But there’s more. It gets worse.

To truly comprehend the densely-packed granite that is the Testaduro mind, we must now sub-focus our attention on the truly obdurate, extreme examples of what my paternal grandmother—Vicenza di Maria Buonaiuto—they called her Jennie--would describe as reflexive cutta-dey-noze-a-offa-to-spite-a-dey-face-a types. I reference the truly defiant, or T.D.—obviously short for both truly defiant and Testaduro. T.D.’s—a breed apart--smiling and sneering, laughing and, finally, begging their regime-appointed torture apparatchik (a career-choice getting a great deal of attention from the certificate mills--the junior colleges and vocational specialty institutes) mocking their Guantanamo-trained torturer: “Is that what you call punishment?  Is that all you ******* got?”

If, to assist comprehension, you require a literary frame of context, might I suggest you compare the Buonaiuto mind to Paul Lazzaro, Vonnegut’s superbly drawn Italian-American WWII soldier-lunatic with a passion for revenge, who kept a list of people who ****** with him, people he would have killed someday for a thousand dollars.

Go with me, Reader, go back with me to Vonnegut’s Slaughter-House-Five: “Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time . . .”
It is long past the Tralfamadorian abduction and his friendship with Stony Stevenson. Billy is back in Germany, one of three dingbat American G.I.s roaming around beyond enemy lines.  Another of the three is Private Lazzaro, a former car thief and undeniable psychopath from Cicero, Illinois.

Paul Lazzaro:  “Anybody touches me, he better **** me, or I’m gonna have him killed. Revenge is the sweetest thing there is. People **** with me, and Jesus Christ are they ever ******* sorry. I laugh like hell. I don’t care if it’s a guy or a dame. If the President of the United States ****** around with me, I’d fix him good. Revenge is the sweetest thing in life. And nobody ever got it from Lazzaro who didn’t have it coming.  Anybody who ***** with me? I’m gonna have him shot after the war, after he gets home, a big ******* hero with dames climbing all over him. He’ll settle down. A couple of years ‘ll go by, and then one day a knock at the door. He’ll answer the door and there’ll be a stranger out there. The stranger’ll ask him if he’s so and so. When he says he is, the stranger’ll say, ‘Paul Lazzaro sent me.’ And then he’ll pull out a gun and shoot his pecker off. The stranger’ll let him think a couple seconds about who Paul Lazzaro is and what life’s gonna be like without a pecker. Then he’ll shoot him once in the gut and walk away. Nobody ***** with Paul Lazzaro!”

(ENTER AUTHOR. HE SPEAKS: “Hey, Numb-nuts! Yes, you, my Reader. Do you want to get ****** into reading that Vonnegut blurb over and over again for the rest of the afternoon, or can I get you back into my manuscript?  That Paul Lazzaro thing was just my way of trying to give you a frame of reference, not to have you ******* drift off, walking away from me, your hand held tightly in nicotine-stained fingers. So it goes, you Ja-Bone. It was for comparison purposes.  Get it?  But, if you insist, go ahead and compare a Buonaiuto—any Buonaiuto--with the character, Paul Lazzaro. No comparison, but if you want a need a number—you quantitative ****--multiply the seating capacity of the Roman Coliseum by the gross tonnage of sheet pane glass that crystalized into small fixed puddles of glazed smoke, falling with the steel, toppling down into rubble on 9/11/2001. That’s right: multiply the number of Coliseum seats times a big, double mound of rubble, that double-smoking pile of concrete and rebar and human cadavers, formerly known as “The Twin Towers, World Trade Center, Lower Manhattan, NYC.  It’s a big number, Numb-nuts! And it illustrates the adamantine resistance demonstrated by the Buonaiuto strain of the Testaduro virus. Shall we return to my book?)

The truth is Italian-Americans were never overzealous about WWII in the first place. Italians in America, and other places like Argentina, Canada, and Australia were never quite sure whom they were supposed to be rooting for. But that’s another story. It was during that war in 1944, however, that my father--John Felix Buonaiuto, a U.S. Army sergeant and recent Anzio combat vet decided to visit Moschiano, courtesy of a weekend pass from 5th Army Command, Naples.  In a rough-hewn, one-room hut, my father sat before a lukewarm stone fireplace with the white-haired Carmine Buonaiuto, listening to that ancient one, spouting straight **** about his grandfather—Pietro Buonaiuto--my great-grandfather’s past. Ironically, I myself, thirty yeas later, while also serving in the United States Army, found out in the same way, in the same rough-hewn, one-room hut, in front of the same lukewarm fireplace, listening to the same Carmine Buonaiuto, by now the old man and the sea all by himself. That’s how I discovered the family secret in Moschiano. It was 1972 and I was assigned to a NATO Cold War stay-behind operation. The operation, code-named GLADIO—had a really cool shield with a sword, the fasces and other symbols of its legacy and purpose. GLADIO was a clandestine anti-communist agency in Italy in the 1970s, with one specific target:  Il Brigate Rosso, the Red Brigades.  This was in my early 20s. I was back from Vietnam, and after a short stint as an FBI confidential informant targeting campus radicals at the University of Miami, I was back in uniform again. By the way, my FBI gig had a really cool codename also: COINTELPRO, which I thought at the time had something to do with tapping coin operated telephones. Years later, I found out COINTELPRO stood for counter-intelligence program.  I must have had a weakness for insignias, shields and codenames, because there I was, back in uniform, assigned to Army Intelligence, NATO, Italy, “OPERATION GLADIO.“

By the way, Buonaiuto is pronounced:

Bwone-eye-you-toe . . . you ignorant ****!

Oh yes, prepare yourself for insult, Kemosabe! I refuse to soft soap what ensues.  After all, you’re the one on trial here this time, not Gramsci and certainly not me. Capeesh?

Let’s also take a moment, to pay linguistic reverence to the language of Seneca, Ovid & Virgil. I refer, of course, to Latin. Latin is called: THE MOTHER TONGUE. Which is also what we used to call both Mary Delvecchio--kneeling down in the weeds off Atlantic Avenue--& Esther Talayumptewa --another budding, Hopi Corn Maiden like my mother—pulling trains behind the creosote bush up on Black Mesa.  But those are other stories.

LATIN: Attention must be paid!

Take the English word obdurate, for example—used in my opening paragraph, the phrase truly obdurate: {obdurate, ME, fr. L. obduratus, pp. of obdurare to harden, fr. Ob-against + durus hard –More at DURING}.

Getting hard? Of course you are. Our favorite characters are the intransigent: those who refuse to bend. Who, therefore, must be broken: Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke comes to mind. Or Paul Newman again as Fast Eddie, that cocky kid who needed his wings clipped and his thumbs broken. Or Paul Newman once more, playing Eddie Felson again; Fast Eddie now slower, a shark grown old, deliberative now, no longer cute, dimples replaced with an insidious sneer, still fighting and hustling but in shrewder, more subtle ways. (Credit: Scorsese’s brilliant homage The Color of Money.)

The Color of Money (1986) - IMDb www.imdb.com/title/tt0090863 Internet MovieDatabase Rating: 7/10 - ‎47,702 votes. Paul Newman and Helen Shaver; still photo: Tom Cruise in The Color of Money (1986) Still of Paul Newman in The Color of Money (1986). Full Cast & Crew - ‎Awards - ‎Trivia - ‎Plot Summary

Perhaps it was the Roman Catholic Church I rebelled against.  The Catholic Church: certainly a key factor for any Italian-American, a stinger, a real burr under the saddle, biting, setting off insurrection again and again. No. Worse: prompting Revolt! And who could blame us? Catholicism had that spooky Latin & Incense going for it, but who wouldn’t rise up and face that Kraken? The Pope and his College of Cardinals? A Vatican freak show—a red shoe, twinkle-toe, institutional anachronism; the Curia, ferreting out the good, targeting anything that felt even half-way good, classifying, pronouncing verboten, even what by any stretch of the imagination, would be deemed to be merely kind of pleasant, slamming down that peccadillo rubber-stamp. Sin: was there ever a better drug? Sin? Revolution, **** yeah!  Anyone with an ounce of self-respect would have gone to the barricades.

But I digress.
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2018
a television interview, Oct. 2018  with Sir Paul McCartney

~for all of us, forever~


<•>

**** you Paul, old man
you trying to make us all look bad?
guess you’re just another
‘miner for a thousand years’
or more,
cause we haven’t seen a reason why the vein should run dry,
for the stolid earth resupplies endless old metal and the liquid veins
supply the need, the urgency of a warm gun of composition,
a drug nonpareil

and the things that provoke,
still provoke once more and again,
love and need, even memories,
petri dish cell regrown,
breathing atmospheric nutrients in the hotheaded hothouse air
of the human farm

‘tis why I paean you at 4:25am understanding full well,
better than most, for once I wrote,
it’s always the next one, that will be,
the flawless poem,
that will permit the laying down of the pen, the guitar

but even flawless is not
“good enough yet”
for all of us, forever


for “yet,”
even more than forever,

is the most unlimited word we share

~

5:02am 10/17/18
Stevie Ray Nov 2015
I'd grab a knife and let it tear through my flesh
to rip out this inner strife if it wouldn't lead to my death.
My soul shivers he beats on his chest in fact that's why I breathe
on this ****** to try and relax. My mind is stretched to the max
my head needs to detach, my soul needs to eject.
Hotheaded armed with an icepick.
Hacking away at this ice that my spine grips.
My thoughts are confined in a space as small as my iris
and I'm behind iron bars of anxiety that I constantly have to fight with.
I've become a mass murderer, locked in a psychiatric ward as I **** my parts within, erasing my kin, the ink from the teardrops darkens my skin.
Fallen to sin. My world in the dark. A void shaped like a heart.
Yet this Tinman retaliates against the wizard of Oz!
My torch an everburning question mark
answers? That's the past but Life throwing hooks so I HAVE to dodge.
Hits exit Pause-my-world which I create so I can spit back in the face of God!

You awoke a sleeping giant, a savage beast, a lion
My soul roars everytime you see me sighin
I won't ignore these tidings
A frozen force is rising
Close to war my broken core redefines defiance.

So I will stand my ground and fight
go bar for bar with life.
Proudly wear these battlescars
you'll be astounded by my might
A star upon my sky
My reach is long and wide
You see I'm strong you're weak and wrong
I no longer hide
Because I don't have a mind
I am guided by the light
my sight set on my rage
replace my blood with hate
bleed and rust and easily crush
this tyrant in my cage.
Jordan Frances Dec 2014
Some people define 'feministing' as
"Girl, you crazy."
"You really think you can change the world?"
"Tough ****."
Or
"Nobody's ever gonna love you"
"Because of your fat body and fatter mouth."
Well, contrary to your opinion
I am fighting to be more than just a body and mouth.
A body because men do not have the right
To use it as their own personal welcome mat
And a mouth because I refuse to swallow them up
To be an opening in which they find their home.
My mouth is for more than pleasing a man
My body is for more than pleasing his eyes.
'Feministing' is not me being hotheaded
Or hating all men
No, I hate the men who feel they are entitled to use me
Who feel they can retreat into my breast
Into my womb
As if to mimic their mother's
Just because I came out a woman.
I hate the men who derogatorily call women
*****, *******, prudes
Just because they have too much ***
Or refuse to have it with a particular person.
Just because you came out a woman
Don't you know that it is your sole purpose
To give up autonomy over your own body?
Your own body is no longer your own
It is a maple tree that lovers carve their names into
He scratched his name into your bark
Labeling you as his
Labeling you as the government's
Labeling you as someone else's
Because you, a little girl
A helpless woman
Cannot be trusted to know yourself well enough
To own yourself.
I hate the society that instructs little boys to be entitled
And teaches little girls that
Just because you have a body
Just because you are a woman
You are asking for it
Your cleavage is a stamp that says you want him
And should you say the word "no"
You are inherently leading him on.
Should you say "yes"
You are a disgrace
A pariah
An outcast.
You, girl
Should not be ******
You, child
Should not be independent
You, woman
Should not be.
How can I be?
We, women
Do not have the option
Our voices are lost in the static noise around us
We cannot live
Because we are systematically shut down
When we try to be who we are.
So, next time you complain about 'feministing'
Give me a feasible alternative
About how to be who I am.
storm siren  Sep 2016
Tell me
storm siren Sep 2016
Tell me you love me,
Tell me you want me around.

Tell me I'm all the things
You've ever desired.

And I will show you
A steadfast commitment,
A hotheaded opinion,
And a stubborn will to do my best by you.

Show me that you'll love me for forever and day,
Show me that you want to keep me around.

Show me that I'm everything
You've ever desired.

And I'll tell you
Of my being loyal to a fault,
All my passionate opinions,
And of my headstrong way about sticking around.

I don't give up,
It's never been for me,
So tell me
Tell me you're the same,
And we'll show the world.
Tell vs. Show (Kind of like Show and Tell!)
(Any resemblance between said title,
as told tummy by ya finch,
and commander in chief,...
not accidental, nor a cinch
buttock hum posed on behalf

of these bottom ming out
fifty states, plus Puerto Rico inch
ching, donning, and clamoring
desperately for fluffin ***** pinch)
hitter to aright "FAKE"

government even a cameo by David Lynch,
would pilot ship of state with nary a flinch
bucking creative enterprise winch
cha ya know
as writ by this average Joe

brainstorms offbeat ideas
caw king like a black crow
boot probably relegated
to same fate as dodo
bird long extinct,

asper could also be woe
full destiny of this poe
whit (wannabe), plus aspirant
aiming, mulling, vying,
et cetera tubby
next presidential bozo

and thwart further ruses to hoodwink
by subterfuge, treachery, unethical...brink
man ship, Capital One citizen bankers
to re: captcha how to MAGA,
and avoid pitching country

slipping into behavioral sink,
which White House bumstead "FAKE"
golden blond dee antics even entice pink
panther to **** sitter entering 2020 elections
amidst what promises tubby hang nail biting,

knuckle cracking, hair pulling - each kink
Putin on brakes against
collusion, sans frightful - link
king voter bribery, disenfranchisement, fraud...

calling joint efforts of Captain Nemo,
Captain Kangaroo, Captain America...ink
kin, a pact (minus any imp) potent fink
power hungry, money grubbing, apprenticed
tan hatt man spinning wheel of misfortune

beady barren eyes that never blink
immodest, impertinent, impudent,
et cetera hyperlink
to flesh eating, debauchery,
bacchanalian web pages
kickstarting naked lunch high jink.
I'm not as cool
or as lame
as some would lead you to think
I'm not as calm
or hotheaded
as most people would say
I'm not as lost
or as focused
as I'd claim to be
I'm not as sad
or as happy
as the person I play

I'm just me
and I'm ****** good
at being
what they want me to be.
E A Bookish Mar 2016
Young Sade

I am:
Combustible
Volcanic
Excitable
Fractious
Perverse
Hotheaded
I­mpatient
Convulsive
Agitated
Passionate
Alonebutnotlonely
Animate­d
Secretive
Tempestuous
Imprudent
Enamoured by the opposite extreme of everything,
Easily exhilarated
And when despondent, profoundly so
A minimalist who wastes words on purpose
And harbours private contempt

BUT I AM NOT MURDEROUS
Nor of savage intelligence
Though I am of disorderly emotions

I am a libertine
I am a socialist
I dine with Marie Antoinette and execute her also

I am in love with my own contradictions, and have no shame.
I do not fear failure, because when I am beaten I will become
Brecht’s Hero
I am wise enough to value ignorance
Even as I spit at it when I find it in myself
I love the divine in the mundane
I am a pitcher, and a catcher
I am innocent and evil
An immortal child

I love cats and blasphemy and 1000 and one nights of debauchery
I believe that nothing is forbidden by nature.

I am a mellow atheist, shrugging my shoulders at spiritual enlightenment
A PERSON WHO THUS FAR HAS NOT BEEN REDUCED TO GROVELING LIKE AN ANIMAL BEFORE THE ALTER OF COMMODITY FETISHISM AND PROFIT-
And I do not intend to.

I could eat the world
Hold it all in a deathly grip
Whatever paint with which my heart is brushed
I become a superman and prince
And raise the bar of feeling great
And I admit my mistakes
If only to the dark-
But I bear my teeth
And smile like I’m crazy
Posing for the portrait that they’ll carry past my grave.
kairos  Aug 2015
When it was gone
kairos Aug 2015
i thought it was gone,
please tell me it has gone.
for the darkness fills
the empty void
once the light is gone

leave me be
the thoughts
leave me be

no rest for me,
no peace for the hard working?

i tried so hard.
harder than the sun.
and when i wanted the rainbows
i created the gray.

was it so bad
to be in love?
when u let go of the string
it stung
so
hard

thank you.
for bringing the rain.
to see all my flaws
and the holes in my life

u opened my eyes
to the darkness of the world
thank you
to let me see the darkest corners of the room

i thought i was cured
i was laughing.
i was happy.
i loved the sunlight and the warmth
the waves resisting against my hold

i was wrong
its back
chasing me
nowhere to run?
no where to escape?
with a single push,

its, back-

the dark beast of my nightmares
consuming from inside
the flames around me
makes me
hotheaded

i cant go on
cant cease to exist
when i go to sleep
i want to never wake

you can find me above the rainbows.
where i'll be peacefully sleeping
don't wake me up from my dream.
it's the best i've ever had.
Mark Penfold  Jan 2017
Untitled
Mark Penfold Jan 2017
For those of us who recall the reason why we wish to leave this existence and for those of us who have just given up.
The time acts still until the moment some chancer fills himself with gusto and decides " this is his time".
But what young ones should learn and are never taught is to never cause trouble with the quiet slow walking ones with dead black eyes.
They may appear as vulnerable but this is simply how they stalk their prey.
Talk to and learn from these, you will be surprised, as you find they are not all they seem.
For I was you, hotheaded once, and was nearly installed in a stream.
Rae  May 2018
Untitled
Rae May 2018
It started out as heaven
so how did it turn into hell
We knew dysfunctional oh too well
We had many differences
Too much to count
We had many arguments
Too much to count
We both would yell
We both would fuss
We both would cry
Then look at each other and ask Why
How
When
Did it fall apart again ?
You were my twin
We were both each other beginning and end
We would amend and start over
Put ill feelings in the past
Try to salvage this thing we called a relationship
Make  it last
But like a broken record playing over and over again
Its the same result
We always crashed  
Miserably
The fool couple
Both hotheaded
Both sensitive
Both aggressive
I was selfish
He was possessive
Yes quite a duo
It was an impossible love from the start .

— The End —