In the stands, down 35-3 with two minutes left in the fourth,
Fred Carson picks at the sticky, white remnants of a Coke bottle's label.
He leans over to me,
"Do you mind if I talk to you again?"
I don't, and haven't since kickoff.

"You know, I played running back on this same field."

"Oh yeah?" I say, allowing the story to commence.

"Started all four years. Rushed 1,000 yards as a freshman."

"Wow."

"It took five guys to bring me down by my senior year."

"That's insane."

"I probably still hold the record for most rush yards,
but I doubt they keep up with things like that."

He takes a sip from his drink. It's half empty.
His hair -- greasy, most likely on its third unwashed day --
parts to the left and clings to his skull.
He's wearing a long sleeve, plaid dress shirt.
The shirt is buttoned to the top.

"Hell, that was back in 1968," slows, "I graduated in 19-68. Jesus."

Fred retired from the post office six years back.
He claims he's never missed a game of Blue Jay football since 1970.
The high school band starts playing in the section next to us --
a misshapen cover of "Louie, Louie".
Fred raises his voice,

"You know, I've been to every football game since 1970."

"Yeah, you mentioned that last week."

"I apologize. Yeah, if it wasn't for that first year of college.
I got a scholarship to play ball at Florida State.
Couldn't be there and here at the same time, you know? Kinda hard."

He runs his big-knuckled right hand along his khaki'd thigh, checking his pocket.
He checks the left thigh -- nothing.
Reaches into his shirt pocket and reveals a lighter.
Then a soft pack of Marlboro Lights emerge.

"You know, I ran the fifty in less than five seconds."

To the dismay of cheerleader moms sitting behind us,
he lights the cigarette.
He stares at the Bic lighter with some NASCAR driver -- number 88 --
I don't recognize.
The cutout of the NASCAR driver's scraggly face
sits atop a navy blue and spiraling purple backdrop.
He starts to scratch at the label on the lighter.
A screech from a clarinet rises above the rest of the band,
Fred grimaces, takes a drag, continues,

"The coach at Florida State said I was the fastest boy he'd ever seen.
He said I was going to go pro. Sure thing, he said. I rushed for nearly
300 yards in the first game my freshman year. After the game,
the coach was like, see boy, I told you. You are going to tear it up
this season."

The NASCAR decal comes completely off. Under that purple and blue label,
Fred uncovers a white lighter.

"Would you look at that. I wouldn't have bought the **** thing if
I knew it was a white lighter. That's bad luck, you know. Hendrix and
that--uh--Janis Joplin lady both died with a white lighter in their hand.
Bad luck. A white lighter is bad luck."

"What happened at Florida State?" I ask.

"Well, we were playing Notre Dame during the second game that season.
Down by five with three seconds left on the clock.
We were on our own thirty, and the coach of Florida State was like,
run the hail mary play. But in the huddle, I look the quarterback
square in the eyes, and I say to him, captain -- he was team captain --
I say, captain, I'm hungry for that ball. He knew I could do it.
He took the snap, the receivers rushed down field, and I bolted toward
that line of scrimmage, took the handoff and I was gone, baby."

The crowd begins to cheer as the Blue Jay quarterback throws a long pass
to a wide open receiver. Fred freezes mid-story.
The cheer blurs into a silence, as each person in the bleachers
watches the ball ascend.

For the first time all night, the band lowers their instruments from their lips.
Just a ball floating.
The buzz from the stadium lights becomes audible.
One person gasps.
Then like dominoes the stadium follows suit.

The high arc of the ball betrays the distance,
and the pigskin plummets sharply.

"Interception!" the announcer cries through the speakers.

"That's a **** shame. I thought he was going to have it.
What were we talking about?" Fred asks as he drops his
finished cigarette into the nearly empty, naked Coke bottle.

"You were talking about Florida State. You were down five and--"

"That's right. So, I break up the middle. I dust that noseguard.
I stiff arm a linebacker. I looked like a Heisman trophy in motion.
I travel 69-yards down the field. I'm slowing down at the endzone,
thinking nobody is around, and sure enough -- plow -- the cornerback
dives right into my leg. I broke all kinds of bones and tore all kinds
of muscles. The doctor told me, he'd never seen anything like it."

The band plays the fight song as the clock winds down and the Blue Jays lose.
I try to disappear in the sea of blue and silver exiting t-shirts,
but Fred slows me down,

"It sure was good talking to you. I'll have to tell you more about Florida State
next week. Be sure to sit by me."

"I will," I say as the band director, Mr. Morton, steps in front of me.

"Hey, Fred," Mr. Morton says. He looks at me, then back to Fred.
He's trying to decide whether or not I'm of relation.
"Son, I went to Seminole State Junior College with Fred here
when we got out of high school."

"Really? Did you guys play football together?" I ask with innocent inquisitiveness.

"No, we weren't really into that. Though, we were at all the games.
We were in band together. Until Fred's wild streak got the best of him,"
Mr. Morton laughs, "am I right, Fred?"



The fight song came to a close.
With a lowered head, Fred walked into the silver, blue crowd
with a plaid dress shirt buttoned to the top.

you might only grasp this sentiment, within the framework of in extremo's song melancholie.

for many night i've sat, and thought about
it: for in the night, there come several
questions, namely:
  why is the moon so inconsistent with
respect to the sun,
as in: you see the sun, either with clear
sky, or with the dulling english grey
of overcast, every, single, day...
while some nights, remain devoid of sighting
a moon?
  that glittering scythe of death,
and the eternal sleep?
    why?
           i don't want a scientific answer now,
numbed by fact,
  i want the first generation fruition of
inquisitiveness, of the plague of doubt in
giving the "wrong" answer,
  i want to know as to why:
each & every day we see the sun,
but not in the case the night:
to see moon also apparent as the constellations...
some night, i howled, and didn't see
a moon...
         then again i did see a moon at noon
in the wintry season at noon...
****** did a quantum trick on me...
******? which brings me to language disparity...
gender *neutrality of pronouns,
does, not, exist!
     i can't believe i'm currently living
in a mental asylum...
  but i am! and so are you!
   play the mad-man's game!
play it! pronouns do not allow "gender"
neutrality... they never will!
what's at stake is noun-genderism...
in a language, far far away:
the moon (księżyc) is male...
the sun (słońce) is, female...
  pronouns are irrelevant in terms of
"gender neutrality" as if ascribing
conjunctions, articles or prepositions with
a gender bias...
you want gender "neutral" pronouns,
i want you to learn french!
go on, ******, learn french for me!
****-****-cat-fiddling-cross-dressing-junk!
learn french!
you want an assault on orthodox grammar
with your "catholicism", go on!
please understand that certain languages
have certain laws!
in polish the moon is male,
in english luna is female...
   while the sun is female -
while in english it's: louis XIV...
you can't attack pronouns with gender-neutrality...
they're already gender-neutral you
****-tards!
    why didn't you notice the ****** nouns?!
why?
   oh wait... 'ere comes the, ******* asylum
brigade with their nag hammadi dictate...
gentlemen! applause!
you can't come around dictating
orthodoxy of a language with your
lunacy!
    try the idea of:
spotting the ******* moon once upon
a night in summer... believe me:
you'll chance to live through a moonless
night!
       unlike a day without the sun!
grrr.... yi ha ha ha ha!
    i'm going to wake up the graeae and
tell you a fourth secret, once you take
to the crucifix being replaced by
a cannibalising cauldron!
     grrr... rattles of branches shaken by
a wind, and the scuffling footprint of brushing
against fallen branches that become twings...
imbeciles! imbeciles!
    english nouns do not possess
gender!
     you can't call a table either a he or a she!
english doesn't have this "luxury"!
  in french or in english you can
attest to the moon being a he,
and the sun being a she,
in english?!
  o.k. i'm so ******* berserk in my observation
that's beyond making an
"objective" injunction:
  moth on my keyboard, the trinity of
0) -_ and p -
  i don't mind attacking religion,
but when it comes to grammar:
   this is probably the worst attack "imaginable";
it's *******! english does not permit
gender distinction to nouns! esp. inanimate
nouns!
     gender "neutral" pronouns conceptualisation
if a lunatic asylum... sorry,
but these people require a safe space,
and a strait-jacket!
you can't reconstruct the "unconscious"
foundations of a language: well,
you can, if you're north american...
      english already has a "gender neutral"
medium: it has gender neutral nouns!
  how can you make pronouns "gender neutral"?!
you already have a gender neutral
pronoun... it!
           just like you have a "noun neutrality"
of thing!
just like you a "neutrality of pensiveness" -
nothing!
  given the current year:
    forest gump seems, quiet the bright fella'.

This is who I am and it will always be ILLOGICAL, IRRATIONAL and above all, STUPID.

I miss you.

You don't understand me. Its not feasible. Everything won't work. You won't work. I won't work. We won't work. You can't reason your way out of this. Not enough time. Not enough time for me. Not enough time for us. It would've ended anyways he tells me. I tell myself this over and over. Convince yourself, I AM INDEPENDENT. I will vitalize and intoxicate myself by myself. Thats what people do everyday. The issue being, I am not a genuine person. I persuade and assure myself I can handle this role and it satisfies my craving for normalcy. I'm not a gifted actress. I lose more and more social contacts due to this complication. I must learn from the independent ones so I can stop breaking apart these silly boys limb by limb.

You must stop making them care for you. You are not a whole person and therefore cannot be an authentic concern of others. You are imaginary. You are empty. Two opposite minds, insanity and sanity, fighting over the same body is an immense misadventure. Insanity wants to ******* boys, intently watching the peculiar escape routes they design. She sneers as they try and try, withered by a constant sense of defeat, each of them exhibiting exciting, unique and new qualities. She forces the body's muscles into a terrifying object. Then she denies his superiority complex of its primary function as he realizes that this damsel is in a permanent brand of distress. Sanity, however, is fleeting. Sometimes, she truly gives a **** about others. She is the pure example of meek, anemic and decrepit aftermath. She is selfless for selfish reasons. She wants them to adore her. She will exceed expectations, impresses and astonishes them. The product of this relished humanistic quality, acceptance, nourishes her. She savors boys who tell her she is strong and capable. Lies lies lies lies lies is all they speak. Its been too many years. She's forsaken by insanity.

Never enough time for this. Nobody has enough time. Who will give me the time? These days the clock shows seamless progressions to worse and worse. Sleepless nights remind me of night after night after night of our restless, unsetting and ineffective dialogues. Lets just go in circles for a little longer. Why not a little longer? Where do I find someone willing to linger with insanity? Just give me more time. I need a few more moments with real people to feel okay. Let me practice my part with you. Coach me. Tell me what to do next. I'm craving a sense of reality. I trusted you with it. Give it back. Give it to me. Let me have it. Feed it to me. Now.

I kid myself. If you get to know me a bit further I might let you peer at my Dali-esque picture of the present. Wonderland has me descending head first down the rabbit hole. Alice found herself stationary, bruised and filthy with temporary madness years ago. I've kept plunging for decades after and suddenly I'm gaining speed. Momentum, its all about physics. They throw ropes, then yarn, then thread to me. Once again the thread brushed my skin and I found possibility. The sensation of active nerve endings engaged my curiosity. I search for the sort of matter that could interrupt this regression. One faint wonder to what could have been is met by pathetic and pointless conclusions.

You are so associated. Everything and everyone is marked by inclinations. What affects you is the fact that you are now aware of it. You recognize that I see something different in you. I see something unusual. I see a habit. Nouns are consistently becoming verbs. You are not beneficial to this at all. I allowed you to be my unhealthy. I linked you to infection. Is that why I need you so badly? Is that why I want you back? You gave me composure from your expectations.You raised questions and I gave you the appropriate answers conjured from my ideals. I store a list of rules that are rarely followed. I let you in on every ***** secret so I had to abide by constructs of sickness. I had no other choice.

Will I ever be able to do this? If this is me and I am me forever who will swallow it? Who will take responsibility for my downfalls? Faults that are too confusing for explanation are menacingly sweet if you hold inquisitiveness, in place of a heart, on your sleeve. I can't understand. You can't understand. There is no more on and off switch somewhere in a dark basement. I'm not twelve anymore. I can't blame mommy and daddy. Its all my fault. I got myself here. It's my transgression. Don't you dare blame them. Recognize my liability. I ****** up this time but I found an oddity; I found perfection in this imperfection. It's something of a conundrum.

Computer science is fruitless thinking. I AM NOT A MACHINE. I am not a computer, not a mechanism, not a problem. I am not a riddle to solve. I am contradiction in every sense of the term. Its broken, shattered and pieces have gone missing. They were outdated and oppressive. They were thrown out, burned, buried, and forgotten. Once treasured, they became cumbersome and then dropped along the way. With them, logic vanished beneath my feet. Its gone now. I'm gone now.

Weightlessness necessitates a higher being than the imperfect human. It requires me to remain underwater, letting go of the compulsion to meet the surface for air. These ancient seas compel me and draw me further down with their loveliness and passion. I am mesmerized by the mania involved. You won't spot me in the engrossing waters. The black surface holds many afflictions.

RUN. FAST.

my younger sister
never allowed fun
to limit her imagination.
at a mere five years old,
she decided she wanted to become an ice cream truck driver
at six,
she wanted to save the world.
seven,
she wanted world peace.
eight,
world peace.
nine,
world peace.
ten,
love.
eleven,
a boyfriend.
twelve years,
nine months and three days,
lighter skin.
i remember her
questioning days in pre-school
what color am i? she’d ask.
and her inquisitiveness
never allowed black to be accepted
as a proper answer.
Ruthie, we share the same color
but not the same complexion.
too much melanin, not enough skin.
the people in your pigment are waiting for a prayer
to be prayed back to the hands that once found
power in praying.
let not the lashes of historical context blind judgment.
they oppressed our kind.
feared the golden in your flesh
so they bore a color wheel of acceptable shades
and suggested brown be bad.
she laughs at black jokes, but don't be one.
and somewhere between spanish sailboats
and slave ships
you lost the strength in stride.
you let them white-wash your worries
and bury your woes in waste.
they beat her blue until she bled acceptability,
not blackness.
But
pale isn’t perfect
and black isn’t bad.
embrace the dirt in your darkness
for what could explain the foundation
that fertilized your fancy
better than you?
your people stomped on grounds
they called home
and sprouted seeds of
brown
black
beautiful
babies,
you.
she questioned God’s existence today.
she questioned why her skin tone was
the color of disease,
but she knows not the shade of ailment.
our culture brought freedom
to a situation where we could only see *******.
I want to tell her to not hate God,
not even close,
not even a little bit,
not even at all.
that our black is not rooted in shame.
that she should not feel ashamed,
or silenced,
or transparent.
I want to tell her to
enjoy the diaspora in her Africa.
she's thirteen today.
Nourish your plateau sister.
Find the strength in your coffee,
and never ever let the brown in your *** stop dancing.

Clogging real life,
lost in the Great Barrier Mind.

It's attacking,
Again.

Never seen,
Never touched.
Yet this affection,
Grows stronger.

Everyday.

Inquisitiveness
Of his whereabouts,
Appearance,
Temperament and
His love of religion.

Who is he?
Descendant?
Age?
Every detail,
Unknown and
Unseen.

Yet I profusely yearn.
Yearning for his bejewelled devotion.
Yearning for his inimitable self.
Yearning for his yearns for me.

That is
If it subsists.

Bring on the media bombardment
of personality based self-help
groups and
get connected to the electricity,
eye meditating, colorful journey.

A ****** cliche and innuendo  
to repress your inquisitiveness.

Responsible figures on the Black show;
White ***** on the other.

© S. Wesley Mcgranor

And why then, should I not?  I am not below most and if nothing else am equal to many here with relevancy to being philosophical while writing poetry.  The two may be related and maybe it's just personal preference that I try to separate these but it's not without reason or logic.
To write philosophically shouldn't there be few guidelines?  Shouldn't thought and inquisitiveness be themselves and without metaphor and emotion?
To write poetically, isn't it more about feeling, grace, and beauty without questioning these?
I understand things change and definitions separate, disperse, die, and are born which is why I'm going to say that the two ideas of contemplation and beauty are inextricable to a certain extent and I'm open their junction.
In the end maybe I'm split on this.
Maybe it's contradictory.
Maybe I'm wrong and it's due to past circumstances that're relatable only to myself.

my my, ain't it June?! Juno, why have you given these poor people snowballs?! it's June and my central heating is on, it's close to 10 degrees Celsius, Bavaria is flooded, people embraced Einstein's relativity of the collapse of the = sign using a parabola, forgetting the basic Newtonian: cause & effect - the moment i coupled Socratic abhorrence of moral relativism, i took to dislike relativism kindred of: claustrophobia and agoraphobia... at some point Einstein's relativity equates space as time, rather than what Newton would suggest trans linear: algebraic squared, Newton still resides in cause & effect, space = ~space, given: 1 = millimetre, kilometre, and any other division... likewise with time... 20th century fashion being the perfect crop of quantum plagiarism, although in the 21st century the dance loop jumping between decades, back in the 20th century a linear expression, an evolution; quantum physics doesn't deal with linear excavations necessarily repeated, it's just repeats what is unnecessary. global warming and the mini ice age, June's here, Einstein too, Newton too, relatively speaking we're aether imprints... speaking via causality we're leaving a carbon footprint - well, **** me, two plus two... it's still scientific negativism, dietary requirements of modern man overshadowed all the scientific progresses in the field... never mind the cure for cancer! never mind that! as long as we can dress a diabetic in Lycra for bariatric surgery - never had i had i heard of such gastronomy, should it have been a pork chop smoked using zyklon B.*

we are living in the age of scientific negativism,
atheism a third limb
and our existential concerns reduced to
hamsters, calories and treadmills:
the basis of all modern inquisitiveness /
Aristotelian awe reduced to rubrics of dieticians
rather than theologians: at least with the latter
we could see the simple mind, hunched
in prayer... with the former we are experiencing
robots repeating the daily 2000 Kcal intake requirement
for a flat stomach... honestly, i prefer the praying
type, than the type regurgitating facts concerning
their diet - at least the former state of affairs
kept them shut up and mumbling, gesticulating
a type of shadow boxing while befriending
Jacob wrestling with an angel - at least that!