Canto I. Long ago and far away...

Under the bridge across the Kankakee River, Grampa found me. I was busted for truancy. First grade. 1946.

Summer and after school: Paper route, neighborhood yard work, dogsbody in a drugstore, measuring houses for the county, fireman EJ&E railroad, janitor and bottling line Pabst Brewery Peoria. 1952-1962.

Fresh caught Mississippi River catfish. Muddy Yummy. Burlington, Iowa. 1959. Best ever.

In college, Fr. ***** usually confused me with my roommate, Al. Except for grades. St. Procopius College, 1958-62. Rats.

Coming home from college for Christmas. Oops, my family moved a few streets over and forgot to tell me. Peoria, 1961.

The Pabst Brewery lunchroom in Peoria, a little after dawn, my first day. A guy came in and said: "Who wants my horsecock sandwich? ****, this first beer tastes good." We never knew how many he drank. 1962.

At grad school, when we moved into the basement with the octopus furnace, Dave, my roommate, contributed a case of Chef Boyardee spaghettios and I brought 3 cases of beer, PBRs.  Supper for a month. Ames. 1962.

Sharon and I were making out in the afternoon, clothes a jumble. Walter Cronkite said, " President Kennedy has been shot…”. Ames, 1963.

I stood in line, in my shorts, waiting for the clap-check. The corporal shouted:  "All right, you *******, Uncle and the Republic of Viet Nam want your sorry *****. Drop 'em".  Des Moines. Deferred, 1964.

Married and living in student housing. Packing crate furniture. Pammel Court, 1966.

One of many undistinguished PhD theses on theoretical physics. Ames. 1967.

He electrified the room. Every woman in the room, regardless of age, wanted him, or seemed to. The atmosphere was primeval and dripping with desire. In the presence of greatness. Palo Alto, 1968.

US science jobs dried up. From a mountain-top, beery conversation, I got a research job in Germany. Boulder, 1968. Aachen, 1969.

The first time I saw automatic weapons at an airport. Geneva, 1970.

I toasted Rembrandt with sparkling wine at the Rijksmuseum. He said nothing. Amsterdam International Conference on Elementary Particles. 1971.

A little drunk, but sobering fast: the guard had Khrushchev teeth.
Midnight, alone, locked in a room at the border.
Hours later, release. East Berlin, 1973. Harrassment.

She said, "You know it's remarkable that we're not having an affair." No, it wasn't. George's wife.  Germany, 1973.

"Maybe there really are quarks, but if so, we'll never see them." Truer than I knew.  Exit to Huntsville, 1974.

On my first day at work, my first federal felony. As a joke, I impersonated an FBI agent. What the hell? Huntsville. 1974. Guess what?-- No witnesses left! 2021.

Hard work, good times, difficult times. The first years in Huntsville are not fully digested and may stay that way.

The golden Lord Buddha radiated peace with his smile. Pop, pop. Shots in the distance. Bangkok. 1992.

Accomplishment at work, discord at home. Divorce. Huntsville. 1994. I got the dogs.

New beginnings, a fresh start, true love and life-partner. Huntsville. 1995.

Canto II. In the present century...

Should be working on a proposal, but riveted to the TV. The day the towers fell and nearly 4000 people perished. September 11, 2001.

I started painting. Old barns and such. 2004.

We bet on how many dead bodies we would see. None, but lots of flip-flops and a sheep. Secrets of the Yangtze. 2004

I quietly admired a Rembrandt portrait at the Schiphol airport. Ever inscrutable, his painting had presence, even as the bomb dogs sniffed by. Beagles. 2006.

I’ve lost two close friends that I’ve known for 50-odd years. There aren’t many more. Huntsville. 2008 and 2011.

Here's some career advice: On your desk, keep a coffee cup marked, "No Whining", that side out. Third and final retirement. 2015.

I occasionally kick myself for not staying with physics—I’m jealous of friends that did. I moved on, but stayed interested. Continuing.

I’m eighty years old and walk like a duck. 2021.

Letter: "Your insurance has lapsed but for $60,000, it can be reinstated provided you are alive when we receive the premium." Life at 81. Huntsville, 2022.

Canto III: Coda

Honest distortions emerging from the distance of time. The thin comfort of fading memories. Thoughts on poor decisions and worse outcomes. Not often, but every now and then.

(Begun May 2016)

Truancy is a ***** with ***** stamps and skunky hair
her constant need to blow smoke up the ***** of those trying to try
is inconvenient at best, irresponsible at worst,
maybe amusing in the eyes of the elders.
Been there, done that
she rolls her eyes and pouts
slits her wrists with carnival glass
so she bleeds the multi-dimensional colors imperceivable to  human eyes,
an entirely different color spectrum,
ultraviolet, super violent,
tasty and warm.
This young lady is no lady at all
just a little girl,
vulnerable and scared
and a total ****** *****,
grabbing her ankles and thumping in dumpsters,
pretty little thing,
with scabs and gin
and cute little *** stains.
Leave her be,
this street walking angel
she never learned her lesson,
too swag for education.

Lack of balance.

The scales are tipped,
but to who's favor,
I cannot tell.

The energy and love I put out
has been matched by you
for the better part of six years.
Six years is a long time for any sort of relationship,
but more so for the likes of ours.

After six years the energy and love I put out
are not being matched by you.
It started off gradually
but i was too ****** up to notice.
Too many drugs and drinks
will do that.
But after a word from you,
and help from a friend,
and a few failed attempts
I kicked the monkey off my back.
I banished the demon OPIATES,
can you say the same of your demon.

And then I noticed.
Like a teacher looking up from his computer,
I noticed you were truant.
And i asked you about it,
I confronted you about it
and you said,
yes, I have grown distant, but I'm going to fix that.

And oh god, I've tried and i've tried and i've tried to fix it
but you are unwillingly to put forth any effort
and so I give up.

I want to give up,
I want to be happy about new friends
and sobriety
and that girl you told me was too good for me that I've been talking to.
I want to be happy about these things
but I can't
because the last thing I think about before I fall asleep is you
and the first thing I think about when I wake up is you
and ******* it, I am ******* terrified of losing you
and you don't care.

now, I will try to abandon time and space
in this form of truancy.

what is this abandonment trying to measure?
  the abeyance of presence.

what is the measured variable trying
to dissect? the impossibility of absence.

a poem aspires to be something concrete. a poem
   is what is real and imagined in the same context.

I try to invoke Abad -- what is imagined is most
   real.  this shall be its leitmotif.

now, i imagine the horizon as a point

of origin, or a template to some familiar projection,
  or a tagebuch summarized into a fine line
of allegories and denouement.

what this line tries to prove is that

an enjambment is a mimesis.

acknowledge the sublimity of a
  creation. notice that the sequence that will
be promised is diegesis of absence as form
     but not a poem as in a poem that enshrines
lucidity -- but the lack of it.

there is only the photograph of horizon
   as hypothesis of perpetuality. this now

is a subject, a speculative undertaking rearing a
   poem -- writing as preparatory for absence,

finishing a line as pursuit of thesis, gravity of
    its heft as tabulation of emphasis, or
verbosity, which may be telling of meaning or chronology.

a poem that is not a poem,
  But poem as a form of absence

that aspires to be a poem.

what is transpiring now is that i am assuming
   an utterance: utterance as being here,

and perhaps voice as sound of becoming but not finality
   of presence, and sound as disappearance

post-peak. its point-source silence and formation
   of thought, and then a poem is written as

evidence of disappearance in deep and close
   contest with a vision coming from another

audience as an objective supposition or
   reaction that may propel an exchange

but only when silence is entertained does
  silence happen, and so this may be dismissed

as a monologue among dialogues insofar as
    only to pinpoint this arrogant feat:

i may be speaking glossolalia, or in tongues,
  and that i seek no reprieve nor vestige,

all the more response -- intone of voice
   stilling itself in the tense setting

of being gazed upon, glazed with coherence
  of senses from one identity to another say,

you hear me speak as in speaking
as baring sound.
   but now that i have spoken, i have already undone

  the quiet to stir volumes and amplitudes
to attest sound-fade as vital component of absence,

whereas this poem produces ample sound
  if you pay close attention to yourself reading

in the lull form of reading (your
breathing will have intensified here,

your reasoning will have made so much
  noise here) as i continue to whittle

away in form of verse, verse not as poem,
  verseliteration not as occupancy of space,

but all in all, a body of work
that is a visage of movement - or a trace of absence, physics of space and kinesis of departure.

a delineation of a thing that was once
   thriving in threshold accompanied

by its tendency to wane: sound may be an
     analogue of unheard, as sound is impervious
to quietude but quietude conscious of sound
     and its potential,

that quiet coheres to its inclination to consummation,

this completeness so emphatic,
this allegory as
  absence the somatic, axiomatic,

indefatigable machinery of a presage,
   or continuity -- this poem that is not a poem,

but an excess of sound, a body that
   deserves end,  a punctuation.
     verity of this argument in basest form.

this body of work as absence
  and its completeness, volition

of its enigma: is this the end
  of sound or your silence summoned?

to drag it back, its recalcitrant body,
   is form of revision, then possession

of an absence, a recollection that will have granted
   seamless entry and translation

which passes on from its origin to
  a new clause -- to end it here, now and pass

over as readable only in the background that is
   an embellishment of absence amongst

things in exclusive continuity, to have this produced
   in space as empirical of absence,

and to punctuate this, a mystification,
or say, acceptable fabrication,

to read and extricate as acceptance of an absence
   as form: this poem that is not a poem but

only a physicality delimited -- to speculate
and study
as disbelief, and to have done such simply

demystification of its transition.

Why ... Oh WHY ... ???
Would You ... " Turn A Blind Eye " ... ?
To Things That ... " Could " ... ?
Affect ... Your Life ... ?

MP's ... Do it ...
ALL The Time ... !!!

But It's An ... English Thing ...
So I'm ... NOT Surprised ...

As The Saying ... Goes ...

" Until It Happens To You "

You're ... Living In A World ...
WITHOUT ... Sherlocks' Clues ...

I've ... Written A Piece ...
Called ... " What Would You Do ? " ...

To ... SHOW People ...
NIGHTMARES Come True ... !!!

New Orleans ... Sri Lanka ...
And ... Texas TOO ...
Are ... Places Now ...
With ... Living Proof ...
That ... ANYONE ...
Can LOSE Their Roof ... !!!!!

EVEN ... The Rich ...
Are ... Having To Move ...
And ... Leave Behind ............................................
" Expensive Shoes " ...

What Would ...
You ...  Choose ... ?

LAVISH ... Things ...
Or ... " Food and a Roof " ... ?!?

FORGET ... The News ... !!!
You'd ... Better Be Shrewd ... !!!

Cos' When ...
DISASTER STRIKES ... !!!!!
It Just ... TAKES LIFE ... !!!!!!

Black or ... White ... ?
Say ... What You Like ... !!!

But ...
REMEMBER These Words ...

" Goodbye and Goodnight " ... !!!!!!!!!!

Turning A ... "Blind Eye" ...
REALLY ... Ain't Wise ... !!!

Cos' ...
One Day .... YES .... !!!
You'll Be ... SURPRISED ... !!!!!

And Find The Time ..............................................
To ............. " Analyse " ...............

What You Have Done ...
Within ... " Your Life " ...

Have You ... " Done Wrong " ... ?
Have You ... " Done Right " ... ?

Have You ... ???

Tried To ... *** - ide  ... ?
Or Were You ... QUICK TO UNITE ... ???

Have You Shown ...
... RESPECT ... ?

And Been ... " Polite " ...

Or ... Have You Done ... ?
WHAT THE HELL YOU'VE LIKED ... ?!?

I Can ... Say This ...

I've ... Tried To Write ...
And ... Use The Mic' ...
To ... Make Some See ...

This World ...
AIN'T RIGHT ... !!!!!!

From ... " Race-Based HATE " ... !!!
To Those ... WITHOUT ...
A ... Food-FILLED Plate ... !!!

Sometimes ... YES ...
I Get ... IRATE ... !!!!!!!!!!!!

Because of ... " Those " ...
Who ... WILL NOT Face ... !!!

The Problems of ...
The World ... Today ... ?!?

Yesterday ...

and YES ... Tomorrow ... !!!

They're Simply ... " Hollow " ...
and Willing To ... Follow ..........................................................
Bend Over ... And SWALLOW ... !!!

ANY OLD Thing ...
Officials ... Say ... ?!?!?

But That's ... The Way ...
Most People ... " Stay " ...

"Ignoring" ....................................... FACTS ..........
About ..... Axe Attacks ......

And ... Economies Working ...
To .... "RESTRICT Blacks" ... !!!

Since Bombs Have HIT ...
London's ... Tube Tracks ...

How Many Blacks ...
Have Got ...  " The Sack " ... !?!
Or Faced ... THE PUSH ...
Out of ... " Backdoors " ... ?

I'm ... " Not Sure " ... ???
Who's ... Keeping Score ... ???

New Orleans Has Shown ...
How Those ... " In POWER " ...
Ignore .............................................. " The Poor " ............... !!!!!

And ...
Leave Them To ... DIE ... !!!
Whether ... Black or White ... !!!

OPEN ... Your Eyes ... !!!!!!
INSTEAD of ... Your Thighs ... !!!

Children NOW ...
Are ... Compromised ... !!!

Because of .... WHAT .... ?
NO ... " Fuel Supply " ... !?!

Truancy Now ...
Is Running ... RIFE ... !!!

TOO MANY ... "lows" ...
And ... NOT ENOUGH Highs ... !!!

DON'T BE A Fool ... !!!
Things ... AREN'T Right ... !!!

I Write These Things ...
To ... OPEN Eyes ...

If You ... Have A Child ...

DON'T ... Let Them Buy ...
Kate Moss's ... Clothes ...

Because ... What Comes Next ...
Is A ... Coc' FILLED Nose ... !!!!!

THIS Is ... Simple ...
Use of ... Prose ...

To ... WAKE UP Those ...
Who ... CLEARLY CHOSE ...
To Think They'll ... " NEVER " ...
Suffer .... WOES ... ?!? ...

So ..... How'd You Like ...
These ... Lyrical Blows ... ???

It's Time To ... END ...
REALITY ... Shows ... !!!!!

and REALISE ...

It's Just ... NOT WISE ... !!!
To Do ... THIS THING ...

" Turn A ...... Blind Eye "

The Watch
The watch kept right on ticking, as if nothing had changed. It was like a sixth person at the little round marble table. The stone was cold on my arms. The funeral director pushed it across the table. "This was the only thing on him." My aunt took it graciously, set it by the folder full of everything ever recorded about Donald P. Baca, and from that moment on, it drew the eyes of everyone there, irresistible as a corpse, and as gruesome. tick tick tick as if nothing had happened. I found myself thinking that if he were my brother, I would keep that watch ticking forever, change its batteries, a type of insignificant immortality.

Funeral Homes
The air of calm in funeral homes has always disturbed me. It's cloying, somehow. Too strong. Like the overwhelming scent of peony flowers if you put them in a vase- it darkens your whole house with sweetness. I think I resent knowing that my feelings are being influenced by soothing beiges and classical music. A tissue box and a little bottle of Purell sit on every surface big enough to hold them properly. I find that the anticipation of my "needs" as a griever... offends me.

Survivors
Funerals are not for the dead. They are for the survivors.

Tears
Death is not about trying not to cry. You have to hurt yourself with it to heal from it. There is no shame in funeral tears. They, like death, are inevitable and natural. (My own dry eyes, they shame me.)

Looking In
That is the problem with us writers- every private, gauche little moment of impropriety is fuel for our art, and we must record it. (Intrude upon it.)

Paperwork
1953
***: Male
Color: White
How different it was then.

Grown Up
This is the first time my aunt, whose respect I have always striven for, has even asked my opinion on something "grown up". I thought I'd want her to, but I no longer care. Maybe that means I am finally "grown up".

Absurdly
My aunt gives her email to the man across the table: her name, first and last, no spaces, and the number 1. I find myself wondering irresistibly, inappropriately, absurdly, if anybody ever sits here with a "FaIrYpRiNcEsS4963luv4eva" and has to dictate it to him like that...

Mourners
There are 5 of us here. We are all different, in grief. I am on the outside looking in, an observer, offering the perfect hug or well timed touch of the hand because I feel emotions like room temperature, but not like fever. I look in on tears, silence, on the grip like a vice: on the propriety of being personable to a man who knows your brother has just died, as if that- even death! - gives no permission to be less than polished. And one of us is absent entirely, his truancy a palpable response, just as present as my mother's strangled tears. Her shame frustrates and saddens me- I admire the sincerity of grief, especially when I cannot reach it.

You're Here With Me
The funeral director answers his cell phone. He has the same phone as you, ****, and having seen you answer it yesterday, my mind overlays the images strangely, like a double exposure photograph. It should disturb me, but it only makes me miss you- my mind seeks to erase his image and leave only yours.

Age
Everyone looks older, right now- sunken collarbones and wrinkles weighing down faces. As if they age in sympathy that my uncle is finished with that.

Fishhook
My mother struggles against tears like a worm on a fishhook, and it is agony that ****** my arms, in the air and sliding along the walls. It clashes oddly with my aunt- like a still pond- her polished charm and practiced smile don't feel forced, which only makes it all feel more wrong. I know she is struggling inside, too.

shakin like a bacon eater
takin down a bird feeder
cedar creatures rollin up a doobie
they be suing me for truancy
I shoo a flea from chewin me
a wrap of lettuce fed us
said us fellas sellin head amounts of coke
we oughtta **** a bowl of hope
my soap and rope fill up my closet
I deposit positively. Stop to mop it
cropping photos,potting soil,oil spotting
wrapping lettuce wraps and leftovers in foil
I'm American and spoiled

A ... "hidden agenda" ...
goes with a ... " Pretender " ...
and also goes with ...

..... " THOSE " .....
" Gangster " ... Fellas ... !!!

I'm a ... " Different " ...  
... GOOD FELLA' ... !!!!!!

"New Age " ... UPSETTER ...
and ... " LIE " ... Detector ... !!!

In FACT ... I'm This ...
A ... " Truth Collector " ...

"hidden agendas" ....
are ... " Locked " ... in cellars ... !!!

If you don't believe me ...
Just ask .... " Marcellus " .... !!!

" Pulp Fiction " ... Visions ...
Need ... NO DESCRIPTION ... !!!!!

Agendas are ... "hidden" ...
by Lawmen ... YES ...
and .... " Policemen " ...
and those who ... Run ...
Our ... " Governments " ... !!!!!

" They " .....
Choose to ... Confuse ... ???
by .... " Distractions " ....
Agendas ... They Have ...

ARE NOT ... " Well Meant " ... !!!!!

False arguments ...
that cause ... " Bloodshed " ...
while peace is ... " Used " ...

to leave ... Children ...
WITHOUT ... " Parents " ... !!!

Agendas ... They Have ...
PROTECT ... " Their Friends " ...

and ... YES ...

" THEIR Wealth " ... !!!!

Their agendas give ...
" The Poor " ... NO HELP ... !!!
and ... DESTROY LIVES ...
through war with ... STEALTH ... !!!

" Bombers " ... " Choppers " ...
"Corporate " ... ROBBERS ... !!!!

They Live ... by the motto ...

"No One's Gonna Stop Us !!!!!"

That may be ... TRUE ...
But ... Nature now ...
Keeps Giving ... " Clues " ...

" CAN'T' BUY ... God off ... !!!!! "

So what they ... " Gonna Do " ... ?
When nature ..... " MOVES " .....
Towards .... " Their Roof " ....
and then ..... DEMANDS .....

.... Their ....
" Last Breath " ... too ... ?!!!?

I'm saying to you ...
Do you think it's ... " Shrewd " ... ?  

to do the things ...
These People ... do ... ?!?

Don't be ... A FOOL ... !!!
just look ... around you ...

Do you have ... " Friends " ... ?
within .... " Your Crew " ....
Who you ... " DON"T TRUST " ... !?!

Agendas ... " They have " ...
May ... make you ... " CUSS " ... !!!

and may ... " Make You " ...
Resort to .... " Stuff " ....
that ... makes for ... things ...
Like ... " Loss of Blood " ... !!!!!

These days ... it seems ...
that ... words like ... THESE ...
Won't make a .... Difference ....

On Our ... Streets ... !!!

Agendas and Fiends ...
RUN ..... " Poetry " ..... !!!!!

How can this ... BE ... ?!?

The scene now seems ...
to be .... " Unclean " ....

I guess that's how ...
It's ... ALWAYS BEEN ... !!!!!  

Well ...

CREEPS who ... "sneak" ...
WON'T STOP .... Big V .... !!!!!

because like ... Chuck D ...

I'll ... ALWAYS BELIEVE ...
in ... " Freedom of Speech " ... !!!!!!

" FREEDOM " ... To Be ...
" FREEDOM " ... of ... ME ...
" FREEDOM " ... to find ...

Some sense of ... " Peace " ...

It seems that our ...

" Complacency " .....

Has left us with .........
No-one ... to ... LEAD ... !!!!

Well Me ...
I'm choosing ... NOT TO FEED ... !!!

Off ... Their Lies ...
and ... "secrecy" ...

What they ... PREACH ...
is ..... FALLACY ..... !!!!!!!!!

My Poetry ...
DEFIES ... " Their Breed " ... !!!!!

I'm NO ... " Guy Fawkes " ...
But ... DEMAND ...

" STRAIGHT TALK " ... !!!!!

These ... Government Types ...
Have tongues like ... " Forks " ... !!!!!

Words that ... THEY SPEAK ...
Divert minds with ... SPEED ... !!!!!
to places where ... Agendas ................................ "aren't seen"

Forbidden and ... "hidden" ...
From .... " Public Vision " ....
and spoke of ... in ... " Private " ...
Where ... MASSES ... " Can't Listen " ... !!!!!

Planning ... " ***-is-ion " ... !!!!!
and ... NEW WORLD ... " Conscription " ...

Agendas ... They're Building ...
IMPOSE ... " New Restrictions " ...

The Problem is ......

It's .....
NOT JUST THEM ... !!!!!

From armies with soldiers ...
to .... " Street Policemen " ....

Right down to the people ...
Who teach ... " Our Children " ... !!!!!

Agendas are .... RIFE .... !!!!!!
"within" ... Education ...

and have ... RUN A MUCK ... !!!
Since ... " Way Back When ........... "

Right up to ... " Todays' " ...
Modern schooling ...
... " Systems " ... !!!!!

The ... " NEW WAY "...
They ... CLAIM ... !!!!!!!!

is ... " Selection Based " ...

This is ... " Nothing New " ...

It's been ... THAT WAY ...
Since ... " Back in the Day " ...

They've ... ALWAYS USED ...
How children .... Do ....
to ... QUICKLY MOVE ... !!!!!!!

The ... " Wealthy Few " ... !!!
into ... " Premier Schools " ...

while ... " Poor Pupils " ...
Will ... SURELY LOSE ...
in ... " Second Rate Schools " ...

Educated by .... FOOLS .... !!!

" Agendas " .......
They ... " Choose " ...  

Should be ... REFUSED ... !!!!!!!!

But .....
Moves like these ...
are just ... PUSHED THROUGH ... !!!!!

to breed ... " Young Clones " ...
for .... " Corporate Thrones " ....

and to leave ... " The Poor " ...
to fight for ...... " Bones " ...... !!!!!!

MANY ... of you ...
May Not ... " AGREE " ... !!!!!

Well ......
I suggest ...
You walk ... " The Streets " ...  

What you'll see ...
Is .... " Truancy " ....

Some youth ....
Now ... " Choose " ...
to ... " Rob and Steal " ...

and some now ... " DEAL " ...
in drugs for ... " Wheels " ...
or ... Wielding Weapons ...

Made from ... " STEEL " ... !!!!!

Agendas like this ...
Aren't ... Good for kids ... !!!!!!

because ...
some then ... " Choose " ...
to make ... " Dark Moves " ... !!!!!

The ... " Daily News " ...
Keeps ... Giving Proof ...

Agendas ... like these ...
Breed ... " EVIL DEEDS " ... !!!!!  

I'm wondering when ...
People ... WILL SEE ... ?!?

Agendas ...
are ... THE SAME ...
as .... " Policies " ..... !!!!!!!

What's in a ... " Word " ... ?
What's in a  ... " Name " ... ?

When ... " Policies " ...
Bring Masses ... " PAIN " ... !!!

Whose policy was it ... ???
to sell ... " ******* " ... ?!?

Let that ... " Question " ...
STRAIN ... " Your Brain " ... !!!

The ... " Poetry Scene " ...
is ... FILLED ... with teams ...
of Girls ... and ... Fellas ...

Who Use ... Agendas ...
for their ... " Means' " ...

and ... Don't Believe ...
That ... men like me ...
should get to be ...

On the .... " BBC " .... !?!

" Too Black !!! "
" Too Straight !!! "

" Too quick to claim,
He should get paid !
and have his name,
take, centre stage !
Who is this Big Virge ?
..... ANYWAY ...... !?! "

I'm a ... " Poetic Dude " ...
Who's ... much to ... " Shrewd " ...
to join these ... " Hidden Agenda Crews " ... !!!!!

I guess ... this means ...
I'm bound to ... " LOSE " ... !!!!!

Well ... ACTUALLY ...
That's ... NOT ... Quite True ... !!!

I'm ... STANDING FIRM ...
and ... WILL NOT ... " Squirm " ...

Like ... " Poetic Pretenders " ...
Who ....... " Fall in Line " .......

with ... "hidden' ...

..... " Agendas " .....

You leave me stranded like years made up of moments and vacuum hickeys and Asian milk toast mean nothing.

Train tracks remain on my timeline like a seam opening the spine of an old diary with nothing written over and over inside.

You say we will be playing scrabble on the floor of your living room someday when we are old, just as your mother does next to us with her friends listening to Adele as we plot out our lives together on a collage atop your dining room table.

You hurt me

We are dinosaurs
Strutting for the fist time in glory down seventh avenue as people wonder who we are and we think of fun to be had with friends to be met.
Park ***** spread out before us paved yellow with fly paper.

Holding my heart in your hands as it is broken for the first time, i cry but know you will be there to turn those tears to glue for our friendship until you are not.

Years made up of your boyfriends that come and go and come and go and I miss you. And I want to strut down seventh avenue with you by my side feeling powerful and new again.

I want to feel fresh running down a beach of asphalt and trash; the whole world ahead gilded with possibility, and eternity resting gently on the horizon of city smoke and traffic lights. And I feel old now. But I suppose we always did.

I miss you

I still remember **** bought from boys with blonde hair and loving blue eyes hidden in camera cases, and smoked under thick trees that kept us safe from the turning of the earth. Elevators lifting us up to the 35th floor ticking like time bombs on days occupied by truth or dare marked red upon truancy calendars our parents would never find.

Why did you get so old? mature. I remember once together we vowed to remain silly and young and do all we could to smother the sound of the ticking clock removing our innocence,  silencing our songs, and slowly turning us into those who we were made by.

My sister is grown. Where are you now?

Beautiful the world looked from a Brooklyn balcony at 16, the skyline smiles with the mirage of possibility and smirks with a wicked knowledge of things to come and years to pass. Would I go back to that balcony now, and stay there with you forever.



If I needed you would you come

i'm just the one that says words that all sound like blah blah blah... i don't mind... i sometimes ease into a swagger and tickle avalanches into sounding like nursery: blah blah black sheep... i have to belong somewhere... even if my love is a communist leftism of the missing forearm, i still have to be an aware plantagenet gardener missing my normandy and my aquitaine... (tulip and jasmine respectively).*

where man speaks, there
lies the gods' onomatopoeia
akin to creativity
the plank of wood, the burning
coal in amber,
the twinkle toes of nursery rhyme
acquiring stars,
there too the shuffling bud of keratin
bundled to suitor the execution
of the banged uvula in
spare skull named metal for cranium
and brains;
ah multiplicity of tongues for a brain,
and no multiplicity of brains for a tongue...
let the one-eyed speak... i feel
i write with an avalanche cherub
swinging my gravity to the east of my central left...
let the tongue speak...
love said: love's not there!
faith said: god's not there!
existentialism said: "i'm" ~not "there,"
i.e. i wasn't
there... mind if i am?
mind my politics *******, i mind you
politicising while i sing my big lebowski soprano:
the elitist sure care for the palette of the caterpillar tongue...
and they care more if the fun is done free...
there's a messiah among
them thus... free ****?! we got them scolded...
butterflies are awry and suo gan beatified:
iron heated burning the skin load of cover...
we'll drive these ******* out till next november...
and next november we'll have the boxing match
before boxing day...
then we'll ku klux **** the turkey into
the burning cross and wait for the jew...
if the jew don't come we'll burn the cross anyway....
and say our messiah was a nigerian with
appropriation from lady madonna the pop **** of
15min ****** warhol...
then, should we feed being displeased,
we will gather the wood bearers
and ignite the ****** wood on affirmative spin
initiatives for politicisation of non-political affirmatives...
lest they come... party-to-the-last-one-hooded-one,
we'll wave the confederate flag like a 12" **** of a ****** hanging
to displease us...
frankly my dear... i give a ****...
all those cosmopolitan one-night-stands
that gave my marriage a hats' off trombone,
i was there, when
the treaty was sound and written down -
here i return to the vulture of culture in reprimand of tastes,
here i return to eagle eyes and hyena fangs,
here i return with the mole-sight or the arching stalinist
kissing the shovel...
here i re-enter with the prickly detail of eyesight external
of the hedgehog giving me guidance / giving me vectors to
spike and incisor the plum that missed the bruised eye /
here i re-enter with the skin-headed vultures of
sunken dystopia lived in a state of atlantis
below the coaled mark of signature
in watershed hours of exempt moralism testified
as a truancy - here the skinhead vulture
heeded prior to the lion's feast.

between a bottle, and a woman... i'd always take to the bottle quicker than might suggest a care for a wife, and had i the mind to mind, i'd think quicker: but then again thinking was never a "mind-game" worth of sprinting to a horizon of known oblivion.

a response to intelligent response:
seems hard then the audience are forced
to laugh...
   how hard to bully an audience into
laughter, how staggeringly similar and
the thrown into the argument:
you're as imperfect as all all of us!
       perhaps:
    but not as ******-up as you'd like
me to be, akin to you.
           i still hold unto the stronghold of
a two parent family: you?!
     a disregard in the convention of
the bootsales of divorce: hope you're well:
in that magic act of making your
grandparents your parents,
  and leave me in custard foam
to attest the mud... of a fool's fair share
of cradling the auschwitz innocents.
the auschwitz survivors seem not to matter,
only those who make the image:
the ones mingling the friction of reality:
with the smothering of fiction...
           the unsaid being said,
the said being unsaid...
       i am the perfect forged from the thought
of being perfect...
      the response to "intelligent" comedy
in response = a nervous laugh...
              the result of a nervous laugh:
truancy of authentic laughter -
              comedy is unto laughter what
tragedy is unto crying...
             true comedy comes
with uninhibited laughter: it doesn't
come with canned laughter...
that's cheap... that's really cheap,
and sad... sad beyond wanting to cry...
          the comedy you speak of
is that of inhibited laughter:
  a one of a doubled-up nervousness -
smart comedies and intricacies of
drama spell out the same conclusive
columbo diagnostic;
oh **** me, have the *****,
i have as much attachment to it like
i have to acknowledging
a tissue...
           take this ******* near me and
i'll tell of your "motherhood"...
                 no, i don't acknowledge
an "intelligent" comedy...
drag me back into the rabble...
    the mob rule, the theocratic dream of"
man has no law above the quake,
no law above the wave, no law
above airy twirl dance, no law above
the forest fire, man is included to state
his sensual distaste, but with
the elemental per se: cower my dear,
into a pill shaped box...
                        the response of
intelligent comedy = a nervous laugh...
the laugh of the inhibited -
   never the laugh of the free-fall uninhibited...
and such a shame...
that it should be excused as comic -
to riffle nerves and somehow "laugh"
is no laughter at all...
  a man ought to laugh uncontrollably -
but to make joke into nuance
so that he might laugh controllably -
what's the point of telling the joke,
in the first place?!
    i want to laugh uncontrollably -
than nervously -
   because even though there's a "joke",
i'm half as serious about the "joke"
being a joke, as i am in attesting:
this is worth more a nervousness
in choking on a laugh,
with attempt, than
the uncontrollable lack of effort
that leaves me in paralysis...
        i'm not supposed to excuse myself
at this point, but i am apparently
having to muster up an apology
for comedy, and the comic strip of
of *lee evans doing the goose strutting...
it's still comedy, but not really,
monty python was clarity in
pig-head ******* cameron phelatio
in eton: outside?
can't be smart: you're not an insider:
it's an insider's joke:
they're not funny, they're eton.
     next time i find them funny
i'll be making the most perfect:
poached egg.
             americans take the **** out
of ***,
the english take the **** out of ***:
the subject matters of:
either - we have enough of the former
and lack of the latter,
or we, have enough of the latter
and lack of the former...
        to say that english humour is
funny is to also say that shakespeare didn't
exist, like jesus!
                     who knows,
give it enough time, enough
*****-akin historiological define-
     (definitive moment) -
   and that being?
is history a convict in the prison of space -
or is time a convict in the same space?
by comparison, is history a medium of
artefacts, with history the one owning a fingerprint,
and time, without one?
      it's silly to talk of an afterlife,
given that we live our lives with the same
impetus of *****: a tsunami barrage of
constant refraction and reflection -
        man in a microcosmos is the totality
of man,
                  man exists in a microcosmos -
what man is in the macrocosmos is what
we deal in terms of the misnomer attache akin
to god...
         it's good to have forgotten
one's original point, having written
such dribble...
        time is only linear in history -
but what are the truer dimensions of time?
if space has its 3...
    then as einstein suggested:
time be squared -
                        i only wanted the first
few words...
  nervous laughter is the response to
"intelligent" comedy...
      but saying that:
        i'd prefer "dumb" comedy
and allow myself uninhibited laughter
than "smart" comedy,
   and only allow myself *inhibited" laughter;
as i'd prefer imagining ***** flicks
than imagining myself welsh,
counting sheep:
   does arithmetic really beat insomnia,
**** me, too bad for the efforts of
the chemists:
  so we did all these experiments
to craft the pills, for general practitioners
to reach for the tarot cards of
       astrological readings?!
              **** it, sign me up for a cave.

My mother only had one son
But it ain’t enough

I’ve paid all my dues
It ain’t enough

Oh no
Rolling on to ruin
Gluing quarters to the roof
Make a dollar, it’s the rule

Used as a man, seen as a boy
This is all
Am I moving too slowly?
Does anything move?

Roaming over love until noon
Rapid rivers look brand new
Licking scabbed wounds

Overlook my truancy
As if you’ve never known
Looking for nonexistent proof
Looking over cratered moons