There is, one supposes, a certain nobility
In simply carrying on with the whole **** thing,
Though that assumes some epiphany,
Some clawing toward grace, or at least common decency.
He had, in some once upon a time,
Cast his lot with a better class of people, so to speak;
It had not ended well, though,
In line with how such things are resolved,
His fall not a spectacular, tempestuous thing,
But a gradual, veiled affair, not a fiery spectacle
With metaphorical medals cut away, epaulets stripped,
But a shaded silence, a shrouded yet palpable shunning.

And so he is here, in this fading little city
Perched forlornly on the banks of a nondescript little river,
Having taken an apartment above a pair of offices
(One occupied by a seemingly ancient and disinterested lawyer,
The other by an ostensible private investigator)
Which is sufficiently large and reasonably warm
Come the seemingly perpetual winter.
He lives, if not in such a manner
As he was once accustomed to, comfortably enough:
He has his practice, and an adjunct position
At the little cow college down the road in Alfred,
And there are the occasional women,
Sad divorcees marooned in this hill country,
Dewy-eyed undergraduates unable to discern
Suit coats that are a bit shabby and somewhat passe
(There is a haberdasher in Buffalo whose garments
Are in the neighborhood of up-to-*****,
And he could certainly manage a trip
Down to New York for better tailoring,
Though he would be traveling in places and circles
Where he is not remembered fondly.)
Stepping outside, he encounter snowflakes,
Light and unprepossessing,
But he studies the sky anxiously, apprehensively
(One learns that he must pay Nature its due fealty in these climes,
And give into the primal, the instinctual)
For he knows what can transpire
When the wind blows off the big lake out west just so,
Turning innocuous flurries into a malevolent blankness,
Making the landscape inscrutable, alien, utterly terrifying.

in school they told me to keep politics and cursing
out of my poetry. from elementary education
to post-graduate work at the university,
no one really cared to teach me how to write.
certainly not the pretentious prats
who'd somehow forgotten
our words are swords
in the flesh of the State.

they told us flowery metaphors
were welcome, but critiques of the systems
that would eradicate flowers from planet earth
were choked by the weeds
of existential philosophies,
too much
for the average reader
to comprehend.

i was taught to keep polysyllabic words like "neoliberalism,"
"xenophobia,"
and "corporatocracy"
out of rhythmic verse
because the bourgeoise
want to read something ****.

witness the revolt of the proletariat.
i'm embracing a literacy
anointed in Angela y Davis's legacy,
"i am changing the things i cannot accept."
i'll fight like hell and bleed
the imagery from every stanza
if that's what it takes to show
that all art is always already resistance.

to be an anarchist
in the twenty-first century
is to refute practically every vestige
of contemporary society.
to embrace paradoxes and be skeptical,
practicing critique, an endeavor
Foucault termed "reflective indocility."
liberty and equity in equal measures,
an individual amidst a community.
hopeless, but still fighting.

the answer to the ills afflicting us
are available if we avail ourselves
immediately, parting ways
like divorcees,
finally severing all ties
with this American sham
of false democracy.

the answer is neither on the left
nor the right. we've peeked behind the scenes
and seen the corporate-state is held
on a short leash by the oligarchy,
bound and gagged, nothing but a plaything
satisfying the master-slave binary.

if we're to triumph over the bigotry
rising like seas bloodied by refugees
fleeing the endless wars the U.S. has instigated,
we'll have to get creative again.
dare to dream utopically, living
as if we're already free,
seeking liberty, equality, and solidarity.

so consider this a manifesto of sorts:
until i go to greet death as an old friend,
happily released from daily suffering,
i'll sit at my typewriter and bleed
for the least of these,
then climb to my feet and fight
to take back the ******* streets.

a shore is pushed back--

into its raring cutoff.

its lungy dunes, flounder

on their relative sides.

castle walls keeled even.

fishtailed, as glassy calms--

sparkling with the tidal floods

they down.

--do ripples betray oceanic age?

no.

a flower girl that suddenly tears

out a beach umbrella--does.

she whirls it till a beatdown desert,

throws off its color scheme.

there, there are people--which notice:

sand-sea-sky...become divorcees of

Blue.

There are roses in the road
tear soaked tissues
torn up pictures
with letters on fire.

They are the breakup play-list
for hang overs
and scratches on the hood
from relationship status updates.

The secret poems
in songs of heartache
and paintings thrown in the trash.

A fingerless engagement ring
unworn wedding dress
and a honeymoon for one.

The divorcees still wondering
and the mothers and fathers
who didn't quite make it

There is never knowing
and always wishing
but never seeing it.

Not to mentioned the ex
you can't forget
and the unfortunate person
who can't afford to leave.

all the widowed wives
who are forgotten after death.
and solders with no one
to return home to.

But all the while
a broken chord
amid the misfortune
and sorrow of the world
could not escape the
thresholds of inevitable ends

you know what's more intimidating beside speaking of a personal detail in the life of a person you know? speaking of a universal truth; there's nothing more intimidating that giving reference to a common fact of referencing life, one limb of the triad crumbles into a suckling squid... revealing the sparring partners you get to: well, you juggle with three *****, you puppeteer two.

i could understand english humour -
sure, the black comedy "tact" -
but then the anglophone world was
overtaken with comedy -
the last tier before the final bow of
downfall - the one prior comes in
the form of a "fascination"
with culinary escapades -
   prior to the last resort of humour
comes the culinary escapade -
i once understood english humour,
more than was worth since it was
reinforced by canned laughter -
but there was something to be had...
these days? maybe english humour
imploded: and it attacked its worst
ally: ***.
   make fun of ***, you're making
fun of life...
     and how isn't english humour
not peppered with too-overtly
sexualised jokes? jokes by children
of divorcees...
  tell you what: life's short,
you're *****, see a ******* before
you see a psychiatrists...
cheaper, and you get the full
workout... after all, vietnam made
the war zone pocket sized...
            i don't understand english
humour... it's beyond political satire...
these people are pushing the absolutely
wrong buttons...
  i remember watching this
video in trafalgar sq., these two white
kids, bouncing a basketball -
      then one bounces the ball
off the head of a black guy,
and the white boy is so "jokingly"
apologetic...
                  what happens next?
the black guy smashes a glass
bottle over the white boys head...
the white boys is hit unconscious:
**** me, that was funny!
            the anglophones have
really ******* the genre of comedy...
i can call them anglophones -
  speaks not good english,
but he overshadows about 100+
anglo boys in his roofing job...
     my father...
    the english are slackers in
the industrial industry: which is why
it's filled with slavs and romanians,
but at least they do their job
and never bother going to the gym...
the english ponces?
do a ****** paper-fiddling job
and then hit the gym...
            horse-hoof lickers.
          i was once acknowledged
as speaking spaghetti english:
yes, but when my father questioned me,
he didn't mind me not having
learned the full alphabet:
what am i, a trained puppy?!
         now he lives with his father,
with his father having divorced his mother
and living with a thai ****** breeding
chickens...
        guess my loss in the "friendship"
case of "affair".
            the english have actually
exhausted the genre of comedy,
they're not funny anymore...
    they're pathetic...
         i'll joke the next time i sucker
one's head off the clock into
the unconscious minutes...
          the english overdid comedy
by a mile, they're as about funny as
a donkey-riding rider alongside the
remaining three-horsemen...
slouching toward jerusalem...
                   the fact that the english
are telling are joke: reiterating that they
are: seems rather troubling.
   i don't want to know its a joke unless
i actually laugh, a comic telling me
"it's" a joke is rather troubling...
             why have the english changed
from a culinary fetish to a joke
fetish over a decade?
         ****** food makes for a good joke...
oh yeah, me, beta-male,
  when all the best restaurant cooks
are male...
                    i still will not get an english
joke: the so-called *nuance" is
only a *nuisance -
     there's a threshold of acceptable
nuance in comedy, after a while it's like
lying: thinking you'll get away with it...
it's called: "being" subtle...
when in fact you're a vermin nibbling
on the edges of peoples' patience...
  after all you stop excusing the self-excusing
comics who want to catch themselves
excusing themselves and retire with
a backlog of canned-laughter lax.
                   no point in comedy:
if someone laughs for me.
          what's the point of comedy if
i am not the one to spot the self-imposed
prompt for a laugh?
   what am i? a ******* windowlicker who
laughs when taking a **** holding
his pecker?!
                      you conniving little
******* wanks...
                              i have to say:
the big laugh comes prior to the creeping
weep...
              no, i forgot you being "intricate"
in "nuance" -
  nuance is gone, baby, nuance is gone,
we're dealing with subversion,
and the last word ascribed is "nuance"...
i always said the english as perfecto
two-faced actors: they lie telling the truth,
as they tell the truth, while lying.
        next time i trust them with a hamster
i'll ask just more than a vet nurse...
and i don't mind pakistanis -
i just mind the english pakis -
the anglo pakis - pakistanis are fine with me,
i event managed to grit to an invite
by one muhammad to admire his
crocodile farm in kenya -
  anglo pakis? hate them like i hate
my acne skin... i'm thirty and at the ends
of puberty, yet still: the explosion of
hormones... might as well be a down syndrome
kid: l'oreal should look into extracting
down syndrome genes to make the face cream...
******* never age:
mother's aged 80, and he's shy of 35.
            n'ah, the english did comedy once,
they did it well, they didn't have to ****
off canned laughter obstructing me from
laughing at what i found funny...
   they took the complacent communist rule of:
****** laugh when all other idiots
ought to laugh...
that black guy in trafalgar sq. smashing
a glass bottle over the white guy that bounced
the basketball off his head was funnier
to watch...
         comedy these days is not
nuanced... there is no nuance:
what you hear is what you get:
   and the english way of a dog curling up
its tail between its legs and running away
is not gonna work...
                     what you said is what you
meant: given that blah blah bi bi blee boo
was intended to translate into:
         can you get me a tonne of glue?
the origins of comedy are not based upon
excuses of nuance: comedy can only
be excused by canned laughter:
not nuance.
               politics is nuanced:
if you drag comedy into this cesspool of
nuance: you're not exactly riding
a horse fully shoed into the sunset of
laughter...
   politics is nuanced:
you can't expect comedy = politics -
    to thus express: oh, we're just misunderstood
akin to politicians: nope, we're just lying
is not going to cut it...
          the best jokes are from a people
who say jokes the least:
after all, the omnipotent psychology says:
the most nervous person at a party
tells the most jokes...
    guess western society has had
its turns...
                    first they make comedy
intelligent, then they make cooking mundane,
then they make comedy excusable,
then they make wacky dishes,
     then they make comedy "nuanced",
then they get a glass bottle smashed
over their heads...
          then they make a case for
the microwave...
           and then the once ha ha become an aah...
     that sigh of relief...
         watching this spectacle:
slayer's behind the crooked cross -
   not the jews, but the greeks invented
sado-masochism of the northerns -
the greeks painted the jews as irrational -
   even though the archeological findings
disprove the greeks' little "messianic" story...
i still find english humour naked, lacking,
you can only push nuance to a certain
sisyphus moment in time,
  before sisyphus decides to give it a rest,
and toils no more, and never allows
the stone to roll up the hill,
   and interludes with pondering...
        after all: thought is never a medium
of futility... it being: the ultra-verb,
it being the omni-limb...
                             these days we know
that the englishman is no longer funny...
because his jokes are overtly plagiarised
by "excusing" himself with giving
a nuanced explanation: rather than a punchline:
comedy has a limit: on how intelligent
is can become... children laugh at calamity
short-scripted:
    do you think adults ask for a long-scripted
"base" for giggles, when the narrative prior joke
ends up being so mundane,
to be only backed up canned laughter?
euro trash, sure, but what an island of trash
to back it up...
      i love intelligent tragedy...
the english invented "intelligent" comedy:
people laugh at this sort of crap
by a mimic format: everyone knows its not
funny: then again: by laughing at it
it's peacocking to impress...
                   there's no intelligent comedy...
people who laugh at "intelligent" comedy
are bystanders, eaten up by canned laughter.

He was too young for me.
I should have just walked away.
But God is no so kind to divorcees
close to the age of forty with a
lot of dissolutionment with urban life.
My husband cheated on me
with his secretary.
Tell me you haven't
heard that before.
I met him at a family get together.
a BBQ with awful food
and cheap wine.
it was his youth I think
it glowed like freedom.
All the emotions yet to happen.
not all those that had already been.
He dumped his girlfriend
when he saw me.
I don't know why
she was pretty and perky
and so very young.
not like me at all.
He caught me looking at him
but I did not release my gaze.
That was cruel he was a just a boy
I found out later he was Twenty two
he gave me all I needed at that time.
All the things my rat ******* husband
had never given to me.
I admit I used him for his beauty
and his life that shone from him.
But I did not know
I was falling in love with him.
he stripped me with his eyes or smile.
I could not wait to undress for him.
My mother so wise
said let him go honey.
but I didn't.
He moved in to my urban nest.
the few hundred square feet
that was mine where the world ended.
I was miffed he did not have a job like I did.
that he sat around playing Nintendo all day.
But then he kissed me
and said I love you baby.
and I melted for him.
I got angry when he was drinking
with his friends.
in my apartment
when i got home from a hard day
and I threw him out.
I told him he was never going to be what
I needed he was too young.
He moved into his buddy's place.
and called nme ten times a night
Then I saw him again
it was in the local delli
I moved a can of caviar
and he was buying steaks
on the other side.
I took him home to my place
undressed as usual
he would not wear his ******.
He said I want you to have our baby.
I wish he had just ****** me.
All of a sudden
I saw his vulnerability
his youth his inexperience.
I knew it was a trap for him.
A trap I could not set.
so I opened the cage
the door left wide open.
and he flew out into
the wild rarified air
above the mountains.

a year later

The night was cold
snowfall had covered the old tired
grey streets of new York.
I was with a group of old friends.
Still single in the resteraunt
where we aways met.
he was walking by and
used his sweet warm breath
to melt the ice from the window.
he was looking at me.
I stopped mid sentence.
I thought I saw tears
in his eyes.
but they might have been in mine.
as the frost regained control
and he walked away
into the winter night.

Here, there's no such thing as being bare.
It's less than rare.
It's nonexistent.
It's only fair.
Humans just don't possess that kind of care.
They're not capable of handling such truth.
Of cherishing such intimacy.
In this world it's weak to be naked.
It's frowned on, where it should be sacred.
It's made fun of & wasted.
Turned from & degraded.
Maybe if it wasn't, more would be vindicated.

But we're not.
We're medicated.
We'd rather be sedated & faded.
Then be invaded.
But why does it have to be an "invade"?
Because you're so scared of being a cliche?
How dare everyone have the same band aid.
Or the same problem.
You think that'd create a bond.
Where havens could be spawned.
Where emotions wouldn't be yawned.
But maybe you could look beyond.. yourself.
And see where you both correspond.
It's called a "bond"..

But, of course, that's a dream.
An unrealistic theme.
Not even your spouse will let you see a tear gleam.
Will let you hear their scream.
But would rather teeter on a mental balance beam.
Because this is our theme.

This is our way.
Keep every feeling,
Every thought at bay.
A way to push away.
Say "I'm okay".

Rather than be transparent.
Rather than it be apparent.
That all this suppression,
Is why we're so incoherent.. to each other.
Why we don't understand one another.
Leaving each other.
To find another.
Another who has the same issue?

It's not an issue.
It's called life.
It's natural.
But we're made to feel it's not.
"Stop being crazy", it's what we're taught.
"You need to see someone", a lie we bought.
Therapist are making quite a fortune off our emotional blood clot.  

All I'm saying is expression might help.
Expression might be the key.
Maybe there'd be less shootings.
Maybe there'd be less divorcees.
Because you'd be surprised how much can be mended with a listening ear & a small amount of empathy.

He wasn't use to complements she would flirt with him and would wonder what's the catch. He thought there was a connection but there was a hidden agenda. He could never say how he felt for her because she would probably get weirded out living him alone. He thought about dating but the selection was very slim. He didn't have kids or want to raise anyone else's. He also met divorcees that weren't over the divorce or heartache they couldn't get over. He wasn't interested in getting married but did seek a way to be connected to another person. He never understood why people who are unhappy stay together using their kids as an excuse or because this history they don't want to let go of. Why do people cheat if they claim to love a person? How can people be so selfish and hurt others the worse is trying to justify it just own up you're in the wrong so it's not right. His mind raced with questions for failing couples living in the bubble of denial.
He did get lost in his work since he was getting paid, he worked hard for every cent while others did nothing for 8 hours collecting a paycheck doing nothing to deserve it but that's on them and their conscience if they had one. He gave his all at work but everyone pointed out the regardless of all the other corrections he made. They finally gave him a thank you and told him he was doing a good job. It was soothing to finally feel appreciated. Most don't take pride in their work but he would give his all and not afraid to try. He didn't use people or take advantage of others even though would grind him to the bone.