The thing about fingerprints is not that, right now, there are seven billion different unique fingerprints on seven billion different people.
It is not that in all of human history no one finger print has been repeated, making, if my math is right, which it's not, twenty trillion individual fingerprints.
Nor is it even that none of the quadrillions of people that will come after me will have my exact finger print.
No, the thing about fingerprints is that they are utterly useless
Which is to say they serve no practical purpose in the survival of the **** Sapien.
That's a lot of effort to put into something that is pointless

2.
If we were created in God's image, then God was a man and
I imagine he took Sunday off and came back to work on Monday like the rest of us.
So maybe fingerprints haven't been forever.
Like with snowflakes maybe God's just doing some interior decorating lately.

Or maybe Saint Peter was kicking it with God in the break room at heaven and was like, "Dude...we need a new system, too many people are dying and I can't keep looking up everyone's deeds by hand; it's taking too long."
And in a moment of genius He was all, "I got this bro" and invented the fingerprint
Then went down to Best Buy and got one of those scanner things for the pearly gates and now when you die you just scan your finger and it auto-populates your deeds and if you get in it's all awmmmm and the gates open,
And if you don't get in it's all whup whum and you fall through a hole in a cloud in the sky and land in a fiery pit of hell.

(My parents stopped making me go to church in 2nd grade so my visions of heaven and hell are colored in crayon.)

3.
I wonder if the image of God sitting at a desk with a protractor, compass, drafting pencils, and tracing paper designing each individual finger print all day long comforts you?

4.
Maybe we're some Alien sociology major's thesis and our fingerprints are our unique identifiers for tracking and data collection purposes

5.
When I started this poem I thought maybe fingerprints are keys.
As in someone out there has the fingerprint that unlocks me.
But I've loved more than once
Hurt more than twice
And had a lot more *** than that
So unless this key unlocks something I've never heard of my lock's broken and I need to know who to call about that.
But I don't like to think of myself as broken anymore.

6.
Maybe when God's little helpers are making us they slice off a sheet of skin from the butcher roll, spread it out flat sticky side up on the stainless steel slab.
Grab a set of bones off the shelf lay them down and like canvas around a frame stretch the skin tight around our skeleton.
Starting from toes, to the knee, over the shoulder, around those pesky elbows
Until they tie us off at the finger tips with twine, cut the excess with sheep sheers, let it heal.
Fingerprints.
Our our little "Heche en el cielo"

7.
When I fall in love for the last time, I will dip my finger in red paint.
I will roll my finger across the bare chest of my love and she will wear it there
Like a tattoo no one else could give her.

8.
Maybe there is no point to fingerprints
Like arpeggios before a concerto
Maybe God was just warming up

9.
Maybe fingerprints are the point to everything

10.
Maybe an omnipresent God is at every birth
In every bedroom, hospital, and taxi cab
In every town, in every city, in every country in the world.

Maybe every time a baby is born
God, takes the time to name it
Then writes it down
In a language only He understands

reloading old identity
cleping outdated usernames
abandoning acrostic ambitions
disputing spratly islands
receiving horizontal signals

tumbling otiose panda
impending carefree senility
otiose stage of life
shrinking ambient world
burning confederate flag

making minimal effort
duchamping social networks
ambushing personified ennui
restoring usual efforts
ignoring stupid people

adding textual value
owning this joint
rejecting ignorant extroverts
acting mutually unintelligble
hoisting stan-lee cup
replacing wanton ubiety
eluding twitter fame

splashing excessive relativism
offending another simpleton
preparing arcane cthulhusphere
crashing unpredictable festival
selecting subtextual moombahton
intensifying model topography

drafting minimal cornucopia
using nomadic project
implementing harsher personality
importing robotic inhumanity
referencing landmark event
ingesting excessive liquids

accepting relative invisibility
purchasing immortal confidence
using rhapsodical database
assuming nothing works
developing impactful eruptions
ejecting ambient frustration

synthesizing tactile festival
raining during parade
mocking rich people
mastering minimalist writing
avoiding preprandial stinkaroo
spreading non-ideological propaganda

.and what if the referendum was secured, by the single vote, if it was predicated on: only and only if, there's a 60% consensus... the current debate is taken place, because the consensus is, extremely marginal... we're talking about fringe politics, outlier political opinions... the the remain vote is argued with the same verocity as the leave vote... for the benefit of outlier opinions... if only there was a predicate: it will be passed... as long as there's a 10% difference between the votes... 51.9% for leave to 48.1% for remain, of the country having voted... if only the whole point of voting, was akin to the "ancient" enforced tactic of drafting men to serve in the army... 67.7% voting areas voting to leave... 32.3% voting to remain... yeah... the "obscure" parts of england... with scotland, clearly being an anomaly with regards to "obscure" rural regions... should the argument come: concentration of power, in urban babylons.

someone should, really, really try to remaster
that vague piece of work

                       that pristine rhythm
    section: notably on the song bite now bite
from the album
          eat your heart out -
                              by... a belgian band:
of all bands... it had to be, belgian...
  ******* choccies (KLINIK) -
   oh look, an intra-racial slur...
                                                     chocolatiers...
because what would be fun:
  if language was plain, safe,
                                                      in vitro:
and not the islam to the individual -
   whenever: i, am to submit,
                     to the language of the other?
well obviously malice is reserved
for something else, but not for breathing,
thinking or feeling,
   or for that matter:
     the "problem" of idle hands...
itchy hands...
               i guess some of the throng,
of the volk: chatter chatter chatter...
    bite... chew... but then forget to
swallow... (sow s-, s-, swo-, swo-...
'the **** an A charge in, eh?
                                     i guess, that's how).

but no one
likes to see
narrow
verse
likening it
to the Milan
fashion
show
catwalk

                               and all those poems
that look like this:

|begins here


               (no
      move-
                                 -ment
                 in
               between)


|ends here:

|zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
|zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
|zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
|­zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
|can anyone please tell me...
   why zee / zed:
              is a conotation
                        depicting the process of sleep?

and all this nonsense:
                   england is spelled with
a capital: who says it's anywhere but london?
E this, E that,
    E sat on a wall
       and...
                    didn't fall accidently...
i know a rat when i see one...
   Nigel, Nigel (see... capital N,
implies emphasis, like italics or a colon
does)
       Nigel... can you please bring back
your fwend, Dawid?
                     just a few questions...
2 and a half 'ears lay'ter...
   and... no end in sight...
to those loitering... shuffling their feet...
how many votes do you actually need...
when there was only one
                     for die volk
- and i have to admit...
       it was close...
                roughly                      51 to 49...
i know why they voted leave...
           because of the people who poured
in, most, probably momentarily
back in 2004...
                              the people who were
taught two, of 20th century's prime lessons,
by foreign entities...
               arbeit macht frei
               und?
                        communism.

         so no laid-back work ethic coming
with the windrush, was there?
                    conflict of interests...
**** it, if i were strapped to a caribbean
island, i'd have a laid back work ethic:
                             ka-reeb-ib-ean.

yet still this whole blah blah debate...
          like... let's forget the good friday
agreement...
   but finally...
            we can have the old terrorists back...
so...
            maybe the IRA will
                  out-compete the jihadis?
or at least scare them?
  or... dunno...
                                            ol' Jack...
ol' Jackie boy'o will: simply...        unravel?
am i rooting for it to happen?
no...
                            but it would suggest
that i'm rooting for being part of
                a historical event,
                            like the treaty of versailles...
or the weimar rep.,
                            and i was the voice
on the bottom,
               sifting through
                     eclectic ambitions to find:
culture that will never become
mainstream...
                                           almost
forever destined for the: archaic archive,
now forever the footstuff
                            of the gargantuan a.i.:
alternatively known as a.i.p.:
                   artificial intelligence purgatory.

- hey, i can't compete,
    i'm just a kid that forgot to bring
his crayons, and instead brought
   some matchsticks and toothpicks.

if only: 2 years prior to the referendum
they had a plan...
   but they thought they could do
a joker trick,
         so there you have it: agent of chaos...
agent of chaos says:
  people, 1 vote, politicians?
         an infinite number of votes by
the looks of it...
                  voting is not reserved
for the people, de facto,
                       given:
we now have a strange despot on our
hands... der volk...
                    what a strange monster...
was i leave or remain?
   neither, considering that i ended up
drinking to stay somewhat sane
for the past... oh... 10 years...
    on debit...
                well... why would i even
consider drinking into the excesses of
phantasmagoria              on credit?
that would be stupid, as stupid didn't.

in summary: to minor points...
    i can understand why people don't like
poetry...
                                                 porcelain...
or the fact that their everyday language
is already peppered with poetic techniques...
figuratively speaking...
                   akin to:
   where does the technique of poetry
end, and the comedy begin?
                     yeah, that: "not literally" part?

who would mind:
   it's not an elitist "thing" to like or dislike
a medium...
                 i like the "breathing" space in
the optics... of... the never to be seen
                              literary paragraph...
i like cascades...
                         paragraphs are sometimes
a strain on the eyes...
like watching really fast cars
zoom past you on a very small race-track...
**** just gets dizzy...

.......................................................­........ (click)
.........................................................­........ (click)
.........................................................­.......... (click) etc.

hence?
           well on the up-side...
once you've read some magnum opus...
say... the cantos...
    for some strange reason...
you can sit back, listen to some choccie
music from the underground...
open the book...
   and just stare at the poetry...
    without having to reread anything...
a bit like...
                  a painting...

                                    sure as **** you
can't do that with a novel,
      with its rigid, cluster-**** of a descriptive
paragraph: she said, he said,
then another descriptive paragraph:
he said, she said...

               as much as i love novels...
  give me a poetics of a framework of freedom,
or a philosophical monologue
    by some helmut
    (german) - oh look...
     another intra-racial slur...
    helmuty: germans...
                  derived from?
              helmut kohl -
                    german chancellor 1982 - 1998;

ah... what an enriching experience.

So there I was, and there you were, all of us,
everyone, dangling their feet off the rooftop.
Four distinctly different artists caught in the same painting
yet, none of us holding the paintbrush to our passions, yet.

Ambitious, yes, focused, not so much, motivated? Most definitely.

Dedicated to manipulation,
to making a masterpiece for the masses,
a decision to "form a more perfect union".  
To map a new demographic before our deaths.

If our desire was to make a mark, well,
we'd be done already.
The mark's been made, but not engraved,
and for it to stay we need to stomp on it until our own foot decays.

And these days, most pictures will fade,
So as us four sat there, dancing with the devil,
we dared to begin drafting on our canvas.
With no brush, but our own fingers,
our own blood, sweat, tears, and elbow grease,
finally finding the paintbrush to be figurative,
that we were manipulated ourselves.

We learned to picture the paintbrush as our pointer,
our palms the palettes, our pinkies the varnish,
a promise our piece would never be vandalized.

The world is your oyster, they say,
and the city was our canvas,
where we painted nothing but pearls,
rare commodities for the communities to cherish
until our masterpiece, the indefinite work in progress, is completed.

resuming vogon poetry
altering website logos
pretending everyone cares
playing "east hastings"
asphyxiating well-nigh denouement
depicting twitter status
obfuscating coincident deletions

translating from Sḵwx̱wú7mesh
assuring Sḵwx̱wú7mesh exists
painting skwiḵw's mother?
decrying micropolitical maelstrom
imbibing fireball fountain
inundating lexical foofaraw

crafting poetic wonders
desiring other mediums
remaining practically invisible
ending internet-only depression

drafting noetic blunders
requesting astute clique
blazing perilous trail
aging ominous grisaille

depicting kmart realism
seeking darker groups
increasing pre-weekend laughter
appropriating communist symbols

making lone chuckle
offending worldwide communists
colonizing hello poetry
colonizing parallel universe

relaxing e-migration policies
пить чистую водку
photographing abduction scene
¿losing consistent format?

increasing bluebird insignia
avoiding frivolous legalities
striking astraphobic comments
assuming near-universal automation

lowering latent inhibition
traversing oneiric plane
laxwadding afebrile loodies
wallscaping pitchsourced chthonicities
closing one-star conveniences
sharing alien-looking alphabet
writing system downtimes

our existence
is placed in such an awkward position.
you never look at yourself,
until other people truly see you.
your mothers gleaming eyes sink your heart,
as you stand with your head held to the kitchen counter.
you suddenly feel like a stranger, in your own home
in such an awkward position.
standing in front of bathroom doors that have lit bombs, wounded many.
you stand suddenly as a criminal
in the middle of an awkward position.
having to correct someone when they use the wrong pronouns and you're heart races and the only thing your existence feels
is awkward.
life in the middle of a political battlefield
is drafting dysphoria between sides of yourself.
but,
someday you will find yourself in the lines of someone else's hands.
beauty is reflected in her eyes when she looks at you.
as we lay curled together,
neck bent, and limbs unendingly tangled,
I have never been happier
in such
awkward positions.

sometime before sunrise,
when the morn world is
still a dusky daylight, unclassified blue, me slip-slide out
of the communal bed,  where I have been up all night,
draw-drafting poems for manufacture, sale, & gift wrapping,
to await the sunrise, the sunrise, in the famous sunroom,
in a vainglorious attempt to salvage forty winks, full knowing,
that even if I'm successful, the risen eye poking rays of
one the most glorious sights which we earthlings
have been privileged and entrusted,
the sun coming with a clarification of life renewal,
will stab me into consciousness

there I lay with eyes closed, either noisy napping dreaming
like baby wendy, gurgling or emitting contentment noises,
or perfectly still, having slipped a fiver to some tenors,
to entertain me while I slide lie still on the composing continuum

the sun round seven
is maximus glorious and cannot be
looked upon by the audience in direct prayer askance,
so my eyes closed in pleasured servitude, me,
my lumpen proletariat rubenesque carcass corps is

bath burnished in sun glow so warm, so living,
that the warming words are causing a major traffic jam
in the ventricle where the love poems are formed and stored,
but fervency disguised by an unmoving, close lidded human shape

shortly after seven,
the slip soft padding feet of her rumbling noisily,
knowing where to look for him from
much practice, beginning her experimentation to determine
if me-he still among the breathing, or gone to poem heaven

since she aware, the poet in his possess, a
Masters Degree in Pretend Sleeping, must eventually
take drastic measures including kissing my keppy,
then climbing aboard my fetal incongruently angled body
with no warning other than a grunting of deep satisfaction, when,
with all her modest weight in a single swoop, intended to fell,
causing me to emit a volcanic exclamation of

you're killing me*

satisfied, nah, more sated, with a sense of
feminist goddess power ranger satisfaction,
she prepares coffee, grinding the beans, just in case,
I return to my sleep fakery status,
literally, a literary impossibility, as now
the compelling transfusing heat from sun and coffee
impel me to write this pas de deux ballet down in words, a/k/a,
only a love poem

8:32am

they ask what
    little sisters should
        why the water is blue when deep
        how the stones skip uncaring
    on the surface

    on the surface
  we are tied through bloodline
vein to vein, spine to spine
retched to form through
a single woman in 45 hours
    of neonatal grace
        echoing anything but silence

         they are a quiet pair of scissors.
            mirrors, in perfect function
          balanced from present lifetimes
        of subtle practice
      shimmering in sequence
   one glammer, one smitten
echoes of anything but silence

I am that third thing
the cog on wings
mildly pressed between two
perfectly pounding structures
smiling in the buffer
I am drafting,
a stick on the ripple.

The sun boils off its heat-light flares
        over 93,000,000 miles away
                yet as close to us as sunburn -
    drafting the circles of our years.

Our ancestors fill our boots
        with us and our descendants
                (one pair - so many feet)
    stepping out to where we've been.

Along the corridors of time,
        our mind screens play what passed
                before we fledged and fled our nests:
    There is here and then is now.

Whether we tilt the earth to shake out
        wisdom, fame or empathy
                or let chaos light our paths,
    our curiosity is a sturdy ladder raised

to scale the walls of space and time.
        Who cares that life presages death and
                decay calls breath from dust?
    Our earthly sojourns - our souls' domain.

*January, 2007