I don’t bow to money,
  I don’t bow to fame

I kneel to that one thing,
  that time cannot change

I don’t speak for right,
  and won’t speak for wrong

My liege is the truth,
  all court jesters gone

I don’t hope to be knighted,
  my shield more concave

And rejecting all title,
  the past still enslaved

My will lay unbroken,
  my heart for a throne

A crown jeweled with memory
—all scepters disowned

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2017)

Stars like scepters in the sky
Glorified in royalty
When just above God’s throne
One of them lost his loyalty
The covering cherub looks beautiful
Offspring of the morning
Possessed by a planet
Son of heaven’s mourning
Once he was a shining one
A day star of the earth
But a change of inner nature
And chaos soon was birthed
Rumors of a second coming
As Venus does her dance
Another crucifixion and
Another second chance

While in the midst of playing solitaire
(with losing outcome foreordained
after a couple moves), I became gripped
with combinations predicated on thirteen
ranks each of four French suits subsumed:
Clubs (♣), Diamonds (◊), Hearts (♥) And Spades (♠).

I  totalled a sum of fifty two variations.

If one of four possible draws for king available,
(which could be either Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts,
and Spades), that would automatically determine
every subsequent card diminishing in rank
topped off with an Ace.

Please feel welcome to challenge my presumption
within a dark alley late at night.

The above calculation logical since a standard deck
(not surprisingly) comprises 52 cards
(4 suits of 13).

Each suit (Clubs ♣, Diamonds ◊, Hearts ♥, Or Spades ♠)
contains an Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
Jack, Queen, And King.

There are no duplicates.

No Google search yielded results
asper this nagging question, but unexpectedly
whet an immediate appetite describing
the history of plain old vanilla playing cards.

Said legacy encompassing the four suits
i.e. collectively represent four elements
(wind, fire, water, and earth),
the seasons, and cardinal directions.

They represent struggle of opposing forces
for victory in life. Each suit on a deck of cards
represents four major pillars of economy
during middle ages: Heart represented
Church, Spades represented  military,
clubs represented agriculture, and
Diamonds represented merchant class.

King of hearts is the only king minus a mustache.

Face cards (Jacks, Queens, And Kings) so called
"face cards" because the cards
have pictures of their names.

One-eyed Royals (the Jack of spades
and Jack of Hearts often called "one-eyed Jacks"),
and King of Diamonds drawn in profile;
therefore, these cards
commonly referred to as "one-eyed".

The King of Spades ♠ ranks
as one of three immovable Fixed Cards
in the Cards of Life and resides
in the Crown Line of both Master Scripts
(Spirit and Life).

Said card, in situ, the most powerful card
in the deck.

A Jack or Knave is a playing card,
which in traditional French and English decks,
pictures a man in traditional or historic
aristocratic dress generally associated
with Europe of the 16th or 17th century.

The usual rank of a Jack, within its suit,
plays as if it were an 11
(that is, between the 10 and the Queen).

Charming, resourceful, personable and easy-going
best defines Jack of Spades.

Blessed with a creative mind,
this one-eyed Jack of the deck manifests
jais nais sais quois salient scrutiny
jest via virtue of lightness of his being.

The four card suits that we know today —
Hearts, Diamonds, Spades, and Clubs
(rooted in French design) circa 15th century,
but the idea of card suits is much older.

The written history of card playing
began during 10th-century Asia,
from either China or India,
as a gambling game.

That idea found its way to ancient Muslim world
before 14th century.

The oldest known deck of Muslim playing cards,
like the playing cards of today,
had four suits: Coins, Cups, Swords, and Polo Sticks.

These decks of cards then showed up
in southern Europe, but because polo sticks
were unfamiliar to Europeans, that suit
eventually changed to Scepters, Batons,
or Cudgels (a type of club).
In France, Parisian cardmakers
settled on Spades, Hearts, Clubs, and Diamonds
as the four suits.  
    
The first adaptations of German card suits
constituted Leaves, Hearts, and Hawk Bells
(Acorns rounded out German suit).

Considering cards strictly made
for French upper class, tis little surprise
cardmakers chose expensive
Diamonds over common Acorns.

The French advanced card making utilizing
flat, single-color silhouettes for suits.

These images created with simple stencils,
made manufacture easy, quick, and inexpensive.

Innovative new, cheaper cards
flooded the market in the 15th century,
became popular in England,
and then traveled to America.    

Contrary to contemporary belief four suits
meant to represent four seasons inaccurate.

Equally questionable 52 cards linkedin
to 52 weeks of the year.

Many numerological and religious
explanations asper composition  
analogous to deck of cards postulated,
but these explanations purportedly created
ex post facto, perhaps to give deck-holders
a solid argument, that role deck of cards
maintained existed other than for gambling.

how do i even begin to describe this color,
because it is so
******* versatile.

firstly it is the color of royalty and magic--

stuff of fairy tales that leap from the page
and into your mind's eye.
richly-hued gowns reach the polished floor;
crowns and scepters shine with amethyst,
with jasper,
with tanzanite.
this color shines in the stardust of a wizard's cloak,
shimmering in the candlelight as he pours over texts and trinkets
with a glowy-eyed owl brooding on his shoulder.
it billows from the smoke of a witch's potion--
eye of newt and
wing of bat and
toe of frog
combine into a roiling haze that will make the princess
fall in love and then kiss death.

"double, double, toil and trouble...
your dreams and despair await."

this color is also one of spring.

it dots on the hills in delicate petals of
heather and lavender,
and the slightly darker
pansies and geraniums.
it scatters on the wind and leaves its perfume for
butterflies and
bumblebees and
girls in love.

before the sun rises and paints the sky in its warmth,
the world stands still in a state that is
neither dark nor light.
the stars have gone but
morning has not quite arrived to take its place;
birds are not yet chirping and
bugs and not yet buzzing--
in fact the only sound is your own mumbling
as you press your face into the pillow as though
trying to push away the responsibilities that
loom in the daytime.

it is here that this color is perhaps at its softest.

now, there is one more place this color shows itself,
though I'd rather it not be the case.

it is the shade of hurt and fear,
the shade of loneliness.
this color blooms on her back and shoulders and over her eye--
in bruises dark enough for her to seek cover-up
and a restraining order.
this color outlines the handprint of his attacker,
when he was wrenched into an alley and
stripped of his sense of security.

this color looms over the dispossessed
no matter how brightly the sun is shining.
instead of hugs and kisses,
these lost souls are met with remarks like
"loser" and
"*****" and
"****-up."
solitude is sanctuary as invisible hands
attempt to choke the life out of the outcasts.

do you see what i meant when i said
that this color is versatile?
it is a color of kingship and witchcraft,
of nature and pain.

it is not the color of singular definition.

There are thrones that are not thrones;
  but instead,
are ones built on the counterfeiting of substance,
where hands grasp at weightless scepters,
mistaking empty air for authority.

There are crowns that are not crowns,
forged not in fire, but in absence;
polished not in wisdom, but in hunger;
worn by those who mistake imitation for inheritance.

This is the kingdom of voided substance—
a palace where the Wellspring does not flow,
where no roots drink deeply,
where no walls hum with the resonance of truth.

And yet, they gather.

They gather in circles of shadow--
parched tongues speaking of rivers they have never touched,
fingertips tracing the echoes of power
but never the power itself.

They weave words like veils over their thirst,
drawing others into the orbit of their illusion,
stealing what little water remains
in the ones who have not yet fully entered the Source.

They feed—not from the Well,
but from the moisture of the lost,
sustained by the remnants of those
who still carry the trace of what is real.

And they call it life.
And they call it wisdom.
And they call it love.

But the crown they wear is hollow.
The weight is an illusion.
The throne beneath them—an image, projected;
a structure that exists only so long
as no one leans too hard upon it.

They fear those who see.
They mock those who refuse to kneel.
They rage against the ones
who have touched the living water
and now speak of its taste..
of its cooling replenishment.

Because they know.
Somewhere, beneath the gilded artifice,
beneath the hollow performance,
beneath the empty sound of their own voices,
they know.

They were never given entry.
In fear, they ran from the cost of true substance.
They hold no access, only illusion.
And so, they take,
and take,
and take—

Until the weight of their own emptiness
crushes them beneath the throne
they have built from rust.

But rust does not hold..
   it deteriorates.

And when the kingdom crumbles,
when the crown slips from their grasp,
when the illusion cracks beneath the weight
of what is,

what will remain of them then?

For the hollow cannot stand
against the gravity of the Real.

Eyelash blinkered in hubris Rubik’s knight
Elevation of pogrom ennobled by triaged triumph minus the cynic summation of all light
Littoral swank bronzed like starlet fantasia with a Carey mountaintop jeer
Reichstag extinguished blaring sirens of cacophony capers to benumbed Linkin Park cheer
Knells intrepid by quakes of remonstrance staged in histrionic applause
Southern Colonies shifting in Charleston surgical in orderly slugabed dogged laws
Slipshod through ribbacles of rengall zenkidu among the sertivine poison ivy
Grimace at gamboled rivulets of a moribund Vanilla Sky for departed wiseacres of savvy dicey ICE toxic Harvey Dent slimy
A mannequin Marx Ralph alienated the truest alien by pioneering disdain of a hostage giraffe summiting a Swiss Alp
Master of time 12th bradycardia for Generator design parked beneath escarpments of base aphasia milquetoast in killjoy Strickland nickels away from a gubbertushed mouth
LOST legend enunciating the furor of epochs of egalitarian traipse
Trapped by the bootlick of a wrinkle of Van Winkle revolutionary agape
Curved by soliliquy master of belletrist prose
The vogue can’t help but bunt, balk, denounce the remembrance of Lady Madonna pose
We beat the muckrakers of rummaged lisp of culinary suns that the sons of privilege are emoluments to apolaustic zeal first known to transmogrified nuns, before the poppies made the few into many and the notion of an insuperable line of infinity into a spherical nullification of the concept of none
Estrapade engorges the fustilug magnet of the kitsch Kenosha Chicago Demolition drive-by-derbies “once read”
That two kings one Titanic by skin-color dashed dreams the other both the coins of tails eloped with heady dreams of head
Sacrifice shadow dancing with pettifoggery in slumps of aboriginal dances of marsupial rice
Native to extortion gouged blind as Samson exacts lachrymose cremations of Pikes Peak trick-or-treat aghast with fright
Temples raised in 46 years cemented never in the Mumbo Jumbo politics of those lacking the oceanic schadenfreude among queers
That by their exclusion the panmixia of fluid alchemy is dauntless scrabble limited by NORAD notions of Tears for Fears
Henpecked rooster awakens the serfdom of Ronald’s (sly spy) Drugs sailing with dovetails of elapse downtrodden in modern clubs
Drunken *** addict sell-out charlatans berated  by Ingram Angles sent by maleficence are the grubhub of Harriet Tubman torching promising tapestries with rugged rugs
Slinging the bait of fish-hook dimples on freckled effigies of ****** humiliation outmantled by Mickey weight
I thunder a fulgurant explosion against recrimination of white-collar criminals that philander saturnalia in pretense with facetious swarpollock freight
Crooks of tyranny exhort the paranoiacs of indemnity to sunken canned soup applause of a Warhol extortion
Berating my audience with drooling slavers of inelegant tortoise byzantine like an Istanbul dredged with intortion
Mr Deeds is not a champion of BRE Properties nor the pinnacles of inertia, a psychiatric squeeze
My orange juice is not a car chase against treecheese in terminal punitive disease
Soaring with the prosperous tongue against the walloped nativism of pounced impounds having too much fun
I let the other guardians of the order of salvation pivot vitriol in loaded dice against Orangutans of Swedish minted gum
Caesar died for the seizure of Anglican pride of a namesake percolating millenia for Brutus in the Washington Bullets of a conquered Ottawa on strike carnal with Chauvinism in regional divide
Never has there been a more hollow trope than the agency of deep state defamation of a scurrilous backbite of gnashing pride
Lost to pollster tricks of acquiescence and caricatures of a menacing personage Swift on the Riff but never the snarling Menace of a Blondie Biff
I tower above the anthills of conformity of luxury in Jamaican Bob Sled Teams testing the curiosity of enlightened “What Ifs”
Canada Dry for striking people enthused by Rye abides in the memory of reform that skulks the skunks that make every Scudworth cry
Because a Dental Dam damsel living in streets of peril fascinated by distance is the contortion of entreaty in the pasquinade of attempts at American Pie
May the city of a figurative crucifixion burn with the irony of a thousand suns as Wendy’s burgers unload on prejudice with albatrosses of winsome puns
Fixed data interpolated by convenient lies of serial killers who aim for blue skies shanked in Oswald infamy for the imposture of any flashbang revenge against cinematic guns
I blacklist the Zemeckis villainy as a trudge of travesty
Hedged lies blinkered by Batman and Robin puns redeemed by Dinosaurs of Amnesty
Obviously belittled by futures etched by a more honest infinity
Because 88 keys are not a stroke because the infinite bees know the parlance of divinity
Invited lissome taxidermies of Capone against teetotalers of parvanimity of vainglory overthrown
Showers the honest hominist reckoning of a world where neither crudity of know-nothing radical polarization owns every inept baritone
Crusading a secular war because the gubbertushed eccedentesiast spinsters of Santa Cruz deserve a gassy overtone
Torch the SC Pacific Avenue for peace
Let the world unite behind a singularity with purpose in ventilation of Speedman’s release
That antithetical Jacks of many names are wed with the progeny of enduring lists of NSA protection rather than rentgourge Denver PD eager to chaos decimated by the decimals of a region forever boycott and impeached
To the decisive curling of the frolicked Abandoned Pool servitude crass disasters are the sheol of impudent flagrant overreach
Regnant on the turmoil of invented throne
I scowl at the chicanery of Capone’s Chicago sweltering with Kenosha infamy tossing contortionist strippers a vulcanized bone in a DIA Diamond that even 11,500 years of knowledge is surpassed in condemnation of screaming E.T. calling the right home
Speak Now because the reach of forever is God appeased not by a kowtow but a mobilized ambition for Why? When? And How?
History will remember gentility as the kind steward rather than a Disco Demolition Derby of urbacity venerating a seasonal Golden Cow
Hipsters flock with folly to South African extortion for freebooters who bootlick the aceldama of war against the sublime currency of a winner surrounded by thugs
TOO MANY URBAN KIDS ARE TAUGHT BY REDUCTIVE TAUTOLOGY TO HATE The United States of America RATHER THAN NURTURING SYNCRETISM IN PATRIOTIC HUGS
Imperfect in design with disagreement in plainest sight
Sometimes libertarianism with a Democratic twinge is clearly in the right that should believe in reform even when the footloose girouettism is too tight
Yet forestalled for authentic grit the grisly rentgourge of venal abysses knows the countermand against Rand with hyperboles of the clearest *******
The true flock congregates around scepters built not with militant graft but a promenade of sultry dance for the defiant C.L.I.T.
Exercise with the Rock knowing school buses of dogmatism inferior are distraught
Dying dogmatism is a peacock of industry the yeggs can easily unlock rather than truckle with truculent Scottish Rites tasty with Connery Scotch
Defenders of the misleading staircase because of the carapace of Hovering pertinacity easily won and bought
Neither scary nor deliberate streets are rumpus of elevations of unbounded anarchy considerate but robbed by the illiterate
That the delegated mansion will be robbed by the cooperation of the remorseful idiot recognizing his snide mendaciloquence in destructive Roswell Records limerick
Scowls are on petrol and patrol hoping Tesla is a short of bravado too intrepid to sanction free-for-all profligacy in alleys that bowl
To the Emerald Street lie of hypes of perdition rather than merely a seasonal token embarrassment coal
The fossilized future is the irrevocable past because more respect is needed than the ***** of a maskirovka caste
Diamond Lightning in Bhagavad Gita prancing with the delusion of the everlasting mummification of Brawndo ash
Dinner with Egyptsy malingers on tomes etched flippant in integrity and all about the curated snare of kitsch cash
The cache valley of LASER tag shattered like Joseph Smith flagellating the confederate hayday with articulate gnash
Fast & Furious the amused by Suburban subway know the trailblazer trashes of The Stupids’ being Einstein about Boogie Dubs rather rash
Streaking through a Tucker rule the Buccaneers live for the SoulSeek of a riddled ruler benighted of prerogative of Roger Goodell bumping in his Ferrari the tucked serenade of Tool
Wrong band because they linger in the shadow dancing backpages of scandals of Norweigan hourglasses of shameful hush hush Vikings mining furloughs of pulverized anticipation sand
Humbled retinue shelves the ossified limpid droll drool
As the haze of submarines scouting pridefall galls of indolence betraying innocence becomes moral cigarettes of Menthol Kool
Reparations for chappy chapstick games of bowery riches
The urbane needs to read, discern and maneuver against whiplash found in Navi witches
Swapping homes with crack addict legalese an *** to a bronzed party crackling with cackles Home Alone
Knows a toiletry of escape gullible like Seahawks wishing they could contain a fumbled season by Mahomes
Jones methamphetamine paranoiac manure desiccated by folksy homilies of brimstone cremation deserts his flock to abide by a flagging wayward temptress
Decimated by the agency of time his Austin crenellation flounders in grimace of the untimely swoon his covert empress
Blinded by the light of darkness in subversion
Excoriated for the deeds of his permission to demote commotion into only an acquiescent dance with barbed etch-a-sketch conclusion- a half-baked *******
Quacksalver poetaster wrinkled with hatred simpering paranoia strangled by Hendrix abeyance of turgid delusion
Lurid underground Princeton gilds infested with defected dementia in cozens in the fritty of heralded mistress SHE appointed
Sandlot ravens cloistered the bravado of thirst for chosen words scrappy in clawed henpecks the pointless illegal sanctioned to brusque witticism anointed
Lamps of pathway sparkle with coruscated stargazer Winslet dreamy swank illustrious by providence
Engrenage of delopes of pettifoggery identity staggers the woozy dismal day of disjointed wounds on Native sons Denver can’t damage in a lonely campaign for the prodigal bends of Overlook Lorraine Motel bent
Intrepid in gallantry I swoop the scrivello tusked with might
Penetrating the vivid dreams of the serenade of alpenglow daylight
That love might rule over chance and probability above the specter of dynasty prodigy progeny tithing gravity in rent
Yet this taper of majestic poise will outfox even the careless gambles of the prodigal son Mr Sender already traipsed conquered and went
The mountaintop is so clear from the cloister of authenticity drinking Eminence Front of the WHO rather than the coherence of the near
Because titans shepherd the good flock without insult and not quavering with insuperable time flackey with tremulous fear
I dare this day to outlast benighted ignorance of the narrow gate of a persecution tsunami on a Lisbon tear
Because galloping ahead of the internecine sheds the serpentine craft of 3:1 Genesis met with the worst fleeced fleer
Not auctioned off like ******* vogue to the disfavor of poor taste
I am the true Royal Flush that can always count on the aced basic but mostly acidic flourish of a jest in bass predicated on the basis for Mozart pH
Today could be the summit of acclimated prodigy in startled degrees temerity could never bet against
Because you better bet the Bros and Cos of civilization are skilled in ostentation of Sterling Pound defense
Never offensive to the liturgy of triumph beckoning an apocalypse now tentative memory on a Manifest Destiny frontier rarely on wickers of extinguished cattle ranchers knowing the gamut of acumen to defend a fortress with the best fencing James Bond could dispense
Now is either a cordial joke of a flagrant anarchy balking at destiny
Or the sunrise majesty of the twelve tribes and beyond defeating the stingy bees of infamy
Your choice doesn’t defeat my voice
But your action heralds my loyalty with a triumphant Victoria of an age not for agelast geeks intimidated but living clairvoyance with fidelity to the right choice for the right time to swim in elegant rejoice
(1977 Words)

Rupert Murdock, the decrepit baboon skeleton,
airs his saggy old *****, just scraping the ****** post-riot pavement,
tethered by holy eternal varicose veins.
On the pulpit,
while his latest  18-year-old Sinclair media wife
is about to get another sponsorship from both
Chick-fil-A and Pornhub simultaneously.
She hoists up her 4 pounds of silicone and chastises the teleprompter.  
The non-stop, family-values-approved bride to bed conveyor belt of
plastic, airbrushed Barbie fantasies delivers again,
family prepped since  16 , timed to be next in line on her eighteenth birthday,
prenup in hand, already half-replaced before the vows finish, brain-dead sacrificial ******.
She delivers the one line of her lifetime :

“Pray for stricter FCC compliance!”

Rupert Murdoch, that brittle old heartless greedy leather hate balloon, waddling up to the baptismal like some ****-mummified televangelist.
His ******* looks like a pair of deflated Macy’s parade balloons, gray and dragging,
incalculable waddles
swinging under fluorescent stage lights,
while Fox News’ camera crews powder  them up
and then pretends not to stay  zoomed in.

Next to him, his Sinclair-branded trophy wife—18 years old,
teeth white enough to blind an orphan
leans in, hissing like a possessed Stepford wife:

“FCC compliance, Daddy, for our sponsors!”

Meanwhile the teleprompter glitches, spitting out a slurry of half-written QAnon hashtags and ****** ads. Every time the chyron updates, his granny-bedazzled MAGA ***** twitch
like a Sunday school metronome,
keeping that uneducated southern apprentice rerun rhythm
with Tucker Carlson’s embalmed pre-****** consta-sneer somehow still echoing
through the sound system.

The sexually repressed civil rights denier menopause crowd
goes wild,
waving hymnals made of Bible stock options
and AR-15 gun show manuals.
The choir belts “Fair & Balanced” like it’s the Nicene Creed.
Karen boomers in rhinestone MAGA hats throw ******* on stage till it rivals Mt. Rushmore.
Then another hate-filled racist streamer Infowars priest breaks in, live-commenting the *****’ tempo.

The traumatized, ritually molested and ignored choir kids are
all corporate mascots:
Ronald the death-of-cows McDonald,
the forgotten pizza-*******-addicted Noid,
the ******* Geico Gecko shame-and-fear puppet,
all singing the Fox News hymnal
while ****-chugging Bud Light in NFL jerseys.
The cross-shaped teleprompters melt into a deepfake of
Jesus hocking MyPillow and ***** pills
simultaneously.

The A.I. audience loses their scripted corpo-tested ****.
Hot G.O.P. elected ****-doll **** Karens fleece boomers in rhinestone MAGA hats,
steadily flinging Spanx and granny ******* toward the stage
like it’s a Pentecostal wet t-shirt contest.

Black priests react, screaming
“POGCHAMP BALL SWAY”
into their Amazon headset mics.

The choir is a corporate mascot freakshow.
The Fox camera pans to Grimace rising from the fryer grease
like Cthulhu saving the Hamburglar’s soul from the elitist liberals. Except now no one can tell Matt Gaetz from his exact twin Ronald McDonald
as they are both conducting with ketchup-stained Trump-approved Happy Meal scepters.
The Geico Gecko, in liturgical robes, chants in Cockney while doing snow angels on a pile of corporate lobbyist insurance regulation cash
(oh, and all tax free).
Judge Judy, in ecstasy, hammers a tambourine like a tweaked-out animated hemorrhoid
They belt out the Fox News hymnal, a distorted “Fair & Balanced”  sports score interrupted  drone.

Deepfake Jesus appears.
Holy hologram Christ, beaming and lifelike,
pitching mandatory prayer in school
AFTER  collection plate time.

“Blessed are the erectile, for they shall inherit the white Earth.”

" Rupert’s will is all-powerful. He hath made Trump into an infallible MAGA God, and soon the tiny-handed orange one of mushroom ***** glory shall be ascending like the Star of Bethlehem, guiding the gas-guzzling SUVs to Wal-Mart to stock up on bullets, for the numerous bunkers shall overflow with powdered supplements and the ****** of your neighbors.    ... Amen."

The crowd bows in Islamic unison.
Rupert, the angry ******* desiccated ******* scarecrow,
***** doing subliminal semaphore, adjusts ***** microphones, lipstick-covered ******* swaying like a doomsday pendulum,
as the choir’s chorus crescendos into a mashup of Fox jingles
Bringing in the sheep  and “Onward, Christian Soldiers.”