The chicken baulked, "Phaulk!"
Before Latin chose to roll around,
And the "Librarian's sound, it"
Has been through pursed lips
Oedipus was clapping cheeks,
Long before Middle English clapped any,
When lions and tigers and bares
Were the prime predators
Even in The Garden,
Snake said as,
As snakes say as,
Where the language of choice I know,
Not to be English.
And if your dainty, sky-locked eyes soul and mind,
Remain unfazed by kid killers, or rampant rapers,
But try to censor my ******* ****?

black girl
burnt fingertips on blunts and radio knobs
singing along to the words
pretending to fall in love
black girl
stuck with scratches
ashes
burnt skin
a taste for
female friends that benefit
black girl
can't hide her DNA
as easily as her true colors
black girl best friend
back girl white for a black girl
black girl lives on the north side
has a side ******* the south
black girl plays blues
bumps Kings of Leon
and Future
wondering which of the two
will be her future
black girl
never cusses in front of her sister
even though all she says is
'**** it'
black girl white car
black girl no license
black girl speeds
black girl art school
black girl need scholarship
black girl raps
and forgets the words
black girl gossip girl
black girl breaks cigarettes
black girl never laughs at me when I think she will
black girl psh
black girl so much better
than who she thinks she is
black girl can't take a compliment
won't take credit
black girl so beautiful
black girl never pays for drugs
but gets high every night
black girl sometimes makes me jealous
sometimes I want to make
black girl jealous

Bobo's kitchen

in the kitchen
icebergs rampage from the freezer
burying pizzas and waffles
in a glacier jungle
Bobo swings forks and knives
at the ice until the maintenance man
cusses in Polish
gallons of water
dripping downstairs
sizzling Bertalina's soul
the fiery bilingual single mom
living in fear
below his fear
of noise complaints
she sends tape recordings
to the landlord in her
cute red faced anger
loud people! and bongos!
guitars! stomping! laughter!
nightmares for her boys
who think they hear ghosts
her tight black spandex
drives Bobo mad when she runs
drifted scents of her food
sift in through his windows
knocking him out
in hungry frustration!
¿Como estás? he asks her
I speak ******* English! she barks back
back up the stairs Bobo goes
to his own kitchen where
the mice crawl out the stove tops
and potatoes grow tree roots
clear through the window
toward another life

Jake Mahaffey

Copyright (c) 2013 Jacob Mahaffey

there's a man inside of me
that forgets he isn't a girl
he cusses when he
wants the touch
and not the blow

he writes letters
to invisible people
in disappearing ink

here but not here
there but not there
you are going through something
like the atmosphere

i dress him up sometimes
in sunless tanners and jangling bracelets
i pierced his ears, not to hide him, not to doctor him up
but to make him more audible
because if he is going to keep on talking
he might as well be understood

there are problems
he probably likes the sweatstains
more than the bathrobes
(but no one else likes either one)
he is too concerned, but he cusses through it
as if no one will ever be on to him

i talk in his voice sometimes
just because it sticks around
sort of like how you can't shower off
the smell of last nights *****
come morning

not that i drink very often
but i talk just like him
i stink just like him
according to those
who are long ago and far away
and remembered as if they were ever close
because my other voice
just sounds fat and lazy and useless

Sitting in class
In front of the blank white math test I was in the process of failing
That I had skipped first period to study for
And instead just smoked my final final cigarette
I had a grand realization
I'm an idiot
I don't know how I hadn't realized it before
Between breaking my new phone to try and prove to my friends it was unbreakable
And sitting on my roof cardboard wings duck taped to my arms
With plastic shopping bag parachutes strung about my neck
Or when I asked I girl I hardly knew to a dance I hardly wanted to go to
Or at the dance, when I ditched her to laugh at the kid barfing in a stall
From the *** cookie he had just eaten
Honest mistake, I did it my first time, too
Eating acid turned out fine, though
Mushrooms, almost made me **** downtown
But hey, Shiva's in the walls
I love an audience
And I know they love my cusses
Once I put my arm around the wrong date
No just kidding,

I don't date

On vacation, I got stabbed between my small toe and the next
With a pencil
Now I'm afraid of wearing flip flops
I biked over the same patch of broken glass in the street
Three days in a row before I finally got a flat
I put duct tape on the frame of my new bike,
It looked cool,
And cutting it off with a kitchen knife
I sliced my wrist and nicked a tendon
Shot myself in the thigh with a BB gun
To prove it didn't hurt to people that didn't care
Twice
Shot my neighbor, too
I told her parents it was an accident
Statistically plausible,
but not this time
Got in a fight with my best friend
And made a Facebook status about how boring it was being suspended
Broke a sprinkler when I was bored
Blamed it on raccoons
It didn't work, the neighbors had caught on to me
Love poems don't come easy
Which is weird,
They're always better when no one loves you back
So I have a surplus
And apparently they say,
Giving that stuff away for free
Is a bit of a crime
Like trying not to rip my already ripped pants
or
Putting a sticker on my cello I couldn't peel off
Climbing over barbed wire to get high
by the octopus tree
I should of checked the penal code
Hiking at night is a crime
Ranger D. Heimer wanted me to tell you
It's okay, he's an idiot, too
September is not the eighth month
The handwriting on the citation isn't half bad, though
In the last three months,
I've had four flats on my bike
I haven't learned yet
The wheel still sitting in the hallway
I lost the repair kit
You think it it would of sunk in before
I failed my fifth math test in a row
I went to a party,
And I didn't do blow
Because I was tripping too hard
The white line looked too weird,
And my nose was still burning from the last line.
I dropped my ipod in the toilet
Then I dropped my dad's, too
Talked to gutter punks
(that's not the stupid part)
And shared a pipe with the sickest of the trio
Yeah, I'm sick now
Got angry at my mom,
But of course, I'm an angsty teen,
Decided to bike to the top of the greatest little hill around
And gave up three fourths of the way there
At least I gave one of my friends the chance to see me in that state,
His house was on the way,
And they say that bliss comes in two ways,
In ignorance or in enlightenment
That's too many choices for me
So instead I elected myself martyr
And grew my hair out to look like Jesus Christ
But now I just look like Charles Manson
I was going to do no-shave November
But I started too early
And ended even earlier
And that was before I realized I couldn't grow a beard
Fool me once, shame on you
Fool me twice, shame on me
Fool me thrice, and the fourths for free,
I make my own omens,
Then happily misread them.
So it might be starting to sink in,
But I don't think it matters much
Being stupid is a **** good time
Next Saturday, you're all invited.

"29 October 1888 -- this letter was sent to Dr. Openshaw, who performed the medical examination on the portion of kidney received by George Lusk in conjunction with the From Hell letter."
_____

Old boss
you was rite
it was the left kidny
i was goin to hoperate agin
close to you ospitle
just as i was going to
dror mi nife along of er bloomin throte
them cusses of coppers spoilt the game
but i guess i wil be on the jobn soon
and will send you another
bit of innerds

Jack the Ripper

O have you seen the devle with his mikerscope and scalpul a-lookin at a kidney with a slide cocked up.
_____
The letters of Jack The Ripper set to poetic formation. Part the 5th
__
With appreciation to Casebook: Jack The Ripper, the largest public repository of Ripper-related information.
http://www.casebook.org/

Shuffle
Skip
Repeat

He played his usual game of pretending to consider the palatable array of music which graced his iPod before settling for an Arctic Monkeys song, as always, just in time for the 7AM school bus that revved up the road with a satisfying crunch of gravel. The morning had a deliciously crisp quality to it, with swirls of fog swathing the trees in mild ambiguity while the sun danced a waltz in a rose and custard sky, the colour of cakes sold in Pastéis de Belém, the best patisserie in Lisbon.

He realised he hadn't eaten breakfast just as he boarded the bus.
Ah, well. **** it.

The sun skipped between the spaces in the leaves, playing hopscotch with his imagination as he dazedly looked out the window, lost in his music. Although the people on his bus were nice, he didn't exactly like them. The boys wore low pants and branded caps, the girls caked on makeup and tittered vapidly at everything the boys said. A few others quietly occupied the back seats like him, engrossed in their own world. He felt a stronger connection with these people, although he'd barely spoken to them before.

He lapsed back into his reverie while looking out the bus window, lazily tracing patterns in the cracks of the broken walls of the empty restaurants and hotels that passed by. The economic crisis had rendered hollows of places previously choked with people, now haunted with the after image of busy commerce and make-believe vignettes of scenes occurred in these skeleton remains. They were darkly beautiful, modern bones of the city that held a history too close to his own.

He forcefully snapped out of his running internal monologue just as the bus pulled up the driveway outside school. The distance of a block stood between him and school, a block fraught with danger, for he'd been robbed on a previous occasion (not that his school bag had much else besides lunch money and books). At least they hadn't nicked his iPod. He'd be helpless without it.

Music was his poison. He drank it in like the alcoholics of the night drank scotch. Every drum beat was a ricochet echo of his own heart, every guitar string picked was a twanging of his veins.

And music got him through the day. The last bell had already rung and school was over. The kids rushing out the hall blurred into an exquisite pointillism of neon clothes and benevolent cusses at each other. He picked up his bag and walked to the bus, lost in the sleep deprived haze of his thoughts.

On the ride home, he wondered where he'd be in a few years. He wondered if he'd find a place in the cascading chaos of a society ruled by the anarchy of physics, and the fear of inevitable oblivion. He wondered if he would be remembered, if his footsteps would have an echo.

But for now, he thought, his microcosmic life in Lisbon would do. There were dark alleyways to explore and museums to visit and pastries to eat. Somewhere, a waiter put a tablecloth on a dinner table with a flourish, where two lovers would later dine. Somewhere, a boy ran down some abandoned train tracks with his dog, laughing at the summer sun. Somewhere, a girl with auburn hair picked seashells from a glimmering beach as the waves crashed around her fragile legs.

Somewhere, in his heart, a flicker of nostalgia coursed through his blood.

The next song on his iPod came up.

Shuffle.
Skip.
Repeat.

Heart's been broken
The story ended
On how a misspoken
Word cannot be translated.

I couldn't say that I loved you first
Nor could I say that I loved you last
And now I'm planning things I shouldn't do
Like saying, that I hated you too?

So, just ignore the bad words here
My mind is already ****** up
The cusses were once holy too
But the people kept messing things up.

So I never had the time to say:
"I'm ******* in love with your demon soul"
I was craving for pleasure
Begging for blood, more specifically.
I said I was in pain! No, no. I am the pain

So just die in a hole
Let the worms eat you
Let me touch you
I wanna be alone
I want you to be here with me
I want you to die
I want you to kiss me
I want you to fall, hardly.

*I want you to stay.

Family hate that's just great
Aunt cusses out a persons morals
Not believing but full of it
Questioned actions because of th wrong
Turned into a feud like this battle meant to happen
Bros fighting not talking
Got physical before the wall of silence got built
Mother who instigates hates on others happiness
All perfection ruined by one pointed flaw
Sister talks big but cries her way out of trouble
Grandmothe verbal abuse generation to generation and the next cycle of crazy
Alcohol empowers the weak
Drugs to stimulate fake emotions
Sobriety stuck in the war doing good judge like evil coil do no wrong

i don't appreciate the stairs i walk on every single day. sometimes, i complain that point A to point B is too far for me to walk. i don't appreciate the rain that suddenly comes after many sunny days. the water wets my shoes and leaves my socks soaked. sometimes i walk around campus and wonder what i'm doing with my life. i always feel so lost. i look around and see unfamiliar faces. faces holding all types of emotions. i find that beautiful. i also find it beautiful that every bystander becomes part of your life, because for some reason, you and them are in the same place at the same time. it's even more beautiful when it happens in the most natural way. As if, it was meant to be. how crazy is it that two worlds can cross paths to become one? but there are worlds that keep on moving parallel to each other. I look around and see life. I see that i need to appreciate more. Appreciate the elevator that takes too long. The professor that cusses at 8 o'clock in the morning during class. Appreciate those who smile at you when walking through crowded hallways. Appreciate the idea that everyone is living so complex, just like me. Appreciate the hustle. Appreciate the process. Appreciate the unknown. Appreciate whats in store for me. Appreciate knowing and not knowing all at once. Appreciate the growth. Appreciate the balance that appears after the unbalance.  Appreciate me. Appreciate another day. Appreciate life.

I am a result
Of not two people
I am a result of advertisements
Of politicians
Of company's
Of ideas drilled into my head, by constant repotion and threats from authority figures
I am a result of headlines that scream the words ****, death, racesim and terror.

I am a result of built up hopes.
The countless movies that show us heros that conqure the impossible, while slowly walking away form an explosion.
The comic books that boldly display abilitys we then dream of.
Expectations we are forced to have that someday we will save the world.
I am the result of reality hitting you full on like a world saving superman punch,
I am the result of relizing, that there is a 99.9999999999% chance I am not the "chosen one"

I am the result of an enviroment where I have to hold my breath to not let the toxins in
The overdose headlines
The children I see inhaling away there future and when I walk by blowing it in my face
I am the result of an overdose that ripped away my uncle
A world filled with misery and we find this the best way to "cure" it.

I am a result filled with images of diffrent family's breaking apart, leaving broken children behind.
A result witnessing the hurt, homeless and heartless walk on the same ground but don't awknoladge it
The veterans thrown to the streets
The gay pride rainbows coverd in the dark clouds of pregiduce this world is shadowed by
The sour taste of racesim lingering on individual tongues trying to break through a wall of common sense
The weaponising of wonderful wise wishful young children around the world to creat a fearful, fierce, fiery killing machine
I am a result of this world, the mistakes we all make, the suffering we all take, the lives these mistakes put at stake, these wounds that ache, the cusses that spin in children's head thanks to drake, these politicians people see as lying snakes, this earth that quakes, that brings us awake
I am a result, in a world of results
Of hope that one day we can push these fears away
I am a result of an army of dreamers
A horde of lovers
And a croud of carers
I am a result of two people who tried hard enough to make a difference
They are my sheild and my sword equipping me to fight this poisend world
We are what's left we are the dreamers the workers and the lovers and once were done fighting away the hurt, evil,terror and pain,
We can look out on this world and call it
Our result