274 Etceteras
left behind orphans, moms, widows et cetera
who cares et cetera what their names are?
for they're Heroes indeed, Martyrs now et cetera.
**** happens et cetera, "it's common". Why surprised?
I'll give you some examples; China, England et cetera
That's the way the cookie crumbles.
Hope you're safe and sound et cetera
in your warm, cozy et cetera house.
WE et cetera are used to cold stones and mines.
though not stone-cold hearts.



mosquitoism

there are so many places to hide,

in my home at 17th and South screaming death threats at my roommates laughing diabolically playing  videogames and Jeopardy cooking quinoa stretching canvas the dog going mad frothing lunging  spastic to get the monkeys or the wookies or whatever random commandments we issue forth  drunken while Schlock rampages the backdrop,

at my uncle's row house on 22nd and Wallace with my shoes off freezing skipping class to watch March  Madness unwrapping waxpaper hoagies grimacing with each sip of Cherrywine or creamsicle  soda reading chapters at my leisure,

in the stacks among fiberglass and eternal florescent lima-tiled and echo-prone red-eyed and white-faced  caked with asbestos and headphones exhuming ossified pages from layers of cosmic dust  presiding benevolent,

in University City disguised in nothing but a name infiltrating Penn club soccer getting caught after  scoring yet still invited to the pure ***** joy of hell and heaven house parties of ice luge jungle  juice kegstand coke politic networking,

at Drexel's nightlit astroturf with the Jamaicans rolling blunts on the sidelines playing soccer floating in  slo-mo through billows of purple till the early morning or basketball at Penn against goggle- eyed professors in kneepads and copious sweat,

in the shadow tunnels behind Franklin Field always late night loner overlooking rust belt rails abandoned  to an absent tempo till tomorrow never looking behind me in the fear that someone is there,

at Phillies Stadium on glorious summer Tuesdays for dollar dog night laden with algebra geometry and  physics purposely forgetting to apply ballistics to the majestic arc of a home run or in the frozen  subway steam selling F.U. T.O. t-shirts to Eagles fans gnashing when the Cowboys come to town,

at 17th and Sansom in the morning bounding from Little Pete's scrambled eggs toast and black coffee  studying in the Spring thinking All is Full of Love in my ears leaving fog pollen footprints on the  smoking cement blooming,

at the Shambhala Center with dharma lotus dripping from heels soaking rosewater insides thrumming to the  groan of meditation,

at the Art Museum Greco-fleshed and ponderous counting tourists running the Rocky steps staring into shoji screen tatame teahouses,

at the Lebanese place plunked boldly in Reading Terminal Market buying hummus bumping past the Polish  and Irish on my way to the Amish with their wheelwagons packed with pretzels and honey and  chocolate and tea,

at the motheaten thrift store on North Broad buried under sad accumulations of ramshackle clothing  clowning ridiculous in the dim squinting at coathangers through magnifying glasses and mudflat  leather hoping to salvage something insane,

in the brown catacombed warrens of gutted Subterranea trying unsuccessfully to ignore bearded medicine

men adorned with shaman shell necklaces hawking incense bootlegs and broken Zippos halting conversation to listen pensive to the displacement of air after each train hurtles by,

at 30th Street Station cathedral sitting dwarfed by columns Herculean in their ascent and golden light  thunderclap whirligig wings on high circling the luminous waiting sprawled nascent on stringwood pews,

at the Masonic Temple next to City Hall, pretending to be a tourist all the while hoping scouring for clues in the cryptic grand architect apocrypha to expose global conspiracies,

at the Trocadero Electric Factory TLA Khyber Unitarian Church dungeon breaking my neck to basso  perfecto glitch kick drums with a giant's foot stampeding breakbeat holographic mind-boggled  hole-in-the-skull intonations,

at the Medusa Lounge Tritone Bob and Barbara's Silk City et cetera with a pitcher a pounder of Pabst and a  shot of Jim Beam glowing in the dark at the foosball table disco ball bopstepping to hip hop and  jazz and accordions and piano and vinyl,

in gray Fishtown at Gino's recording rap holding pizza debates on the ethics of sampling anything by  David Axelrod rattling tambourines and smiles at the Russian shopgirl downstairs still chained to  soul record crackles of antiquity spiraling from windows above,

at Sam Doom's on 12th and Spring Garden crafting friendship in greenhouse egg crate foam closets  breaking to scrutinize cinema and celebrate Thanksgiving blessed by holy chef Kronick,

in the company of Emily all over or in Kohn's Antiques salvaging for consanguinity and quirky heirlooms  discussing mortality and cancer and celestial funk chord blues as a cosmological constant and  communism and Cuba over mango brown rice plantains baking oatmeal chocolate chip cookies,

in a Coca Cola truck riding shotgun hot as hell hungover below the raging Kensington El at 6 AM nodding soft to the teamsters' curses the snagglesouled destitute crawling forth poisoned from sheet-metal shanty cardboard box projects this is not desolate,

at the impound lot yet again accusing tow trucks of false pretext paying up sheepish swearing I'll have my  revenge,

in the afterhour streets practicing trashcan kung fu and cinder block shotput shouting sauvage operatic at  tattooed bike messenger tribesmen pitstopped at the food trucks,

in the embrace of those I don't love the names sometimes rush at me drowned and I pray to myself for  asylum,

in the ciphers I host always at least 8 emcee lyric clerics summoning elemental until every pore ruptures  and their eyes erupt furious forever the profound voice of dreadlocked Will still haunting stray  bullet shuffles six years later,

in the caldera of Center City with everyone craning our skulls skyward past the stepped skyscrapers  beaming ear-to-ear welcoming acid sun rain melting maddeningly to reconstitute as concrete  rubber steel glass glowing nymphs,

in Philadelphia where every angle is accounted for and every megawatt careers into every throbbing wall where  Art is a mirror universe for every event ever volleyed through the neurons of History,

in Philadelphia of so many places to hide I am altogether as a funnel cloud frenetic roiling imbuing every corner sanctum sanctorum with jackhammer electromagnetism quivering current realizing stupefied I have failed so utterly wonderful human for in seeking to hide I have found

in Philadelphia

I hate how the words
"Lesbian," "Gay," "Bisexual," et cetera
Are thought of as bad words.

It's like, oh, no, don't teach your little sister the word lesbian
Don't tell her there are some girls who like other girls
How inappropriate!

It's like, oh, no, don't teach your little brother the word gay
Don't tell him there are some boys who like other boys
How disgusting!

Don't let anyone under the age you deem appropriate know
That there are people who aren't heterosexual
Why?
I can't possibly understand why.

There is no reason for homophobia, not really.
I saw a metaphor somewhere that went something like this:
"I was in Subway, and I bought myself a ham sub. As I was paying, the man behind me bought a different sub than me, and I was immediately offended that he got a different sandwich."
This is what it sounds like when people say homosexual people affect them.
How do they affect you?

Just because they don't love someone who is of the opposite ***
Or just because they like both
Or something else
Just because of their ****** preference, no matter what it may be
You think that gives you reason to hate them? Really?
Just because they're different than the 'normal' you're used to?
Normality is relative.
You can't say it's not "normal."
That is not a justified nor sensical argument.

What is wrong with those people?
Can't they just see past all their biases and realize that we're all people
And we all deserve the same rights no matter who we're attracted to
No matter who we kiss
No matter who we touch
No matter who we have *** with
Is it really that difficult?

We're all humans when it comes down to it, and we all deserve the same rights.
Everyone should be able to see that.

And you know what I wonder?
Why are we voting on whether people deserve rights or not in the first place?

And then there's people who act like homosexuality is a disease
People who act like anyone who is anything but heterosexual is broken and needs to be fixed

They're not broken.
They don't need to be fixed.
They are who they are, and the government shouldn't tell them what they can and cannot do
Based simply and only on who they're attracted to.

"You can't get married because you aren't straight."
Do you realize how shallow that is? Do you?
"You're disgusting because you aren't straight."
Why?
Why should it matter to you who they're in a relationship with?
It's their life, their decision.

No one ever asks heterosexual people why they're heterosexual.
No one ever says, "Hey, when did you decide you were straight?"
It's just ridiculous, and I'm fed up of it.

"If gay marriage is legalized, more people will become gay."
Oh, yeah, sure, of course, that will totally happen.
Just like when African Americans were given rights
Everyone decided they wanted to go out and become African American.
Just like when women were given rights
Everyone decided they wanted to go out and become female.

People of all sorts of sexualities and preferences have grown up
With mostly straight media everywhere
It didn't "turn" them straight.
So gay media won't "turn" anyone gay
It won't hurt anyone if there's a gay couple in a commercial.
Or a TV show.
Or any other form of media.

It makes me sick to think that just because of your personal opinion
My friends who are not heterosexual would not be allowed to get married
To the person that they love.

Do you know what will happen if gay marriage is legalized?
Gay people will get married.

Why can't you just understand that it doesn't matter?
Why should you care what they do?
Why should you care who they like?

It doesn't affect you.
It doesn't change you.
It's just giving LGBT people more control over their own lives.
It's just giving LGBT people rights they should have had in the first place.

**Why?