Unknown Variables


The phrase pokes me the eye,
demanding obeisance and a
poem,

My compliance is required,
not demanded, but required,
for the “unknown variables”
conundrum, roots around in
my brain cells necessitating a
cleansing,

Walking down the street is
fraught, unknown variables
everywhere, popping out like
cutouts on a law enforcement
shooting course, requiring
instant delineation between
killing not good guys and only bad guys,
no hostages, civilians and no them,
poets,

Can you test for unknown
variables?

Of course not.

Unknown is a condition,
that you cannot drop in
to ascertain what condition
your multiple conditions are
in,

Then there is you.

You,
reader, are an unknown
variable, ripe with nearly
nuclear reaction potential,
you are fissionable material,
capable of destruction of
my explosive
creation,

Assessing the poem,
do you conclude,
keep/discard, remake?

now,
poem a known variable, asking
that it becomes a parcel of
your multivariate inputs,
a familiar variable, that can
charm, destroy, mislead, or
even, fulfill a need, make a
reckoning, modify your brain;
all those dangerous things
that are permissible when
first you read a newly constant
known variable,
a perpetually reborning
poet?


my name is brandychanning

Retro Morn: Re-Reading Jenny (1.) and Her Purple Hat, (2.), Listening to Vonda Shepard

I am a beautiful woman, and reliably informed so,
by handsome. men, lustful fools, and one too many
sideward glances

in a difference place, musical needs call me out to retro smooth me
away from the waves of nausea of news repeats ingested, the lesser
qualities of human beings basic basest nature, I inhale subdued

Jenny’s defiance of life’s expectations and Vonda’s voice
smooth my discordant emotive candles that won’t stay lit,
add in a touch of melting Joni & Divine Ms. Bette,
gets me slow kickstarting

and I have not reached
the lofty plateau of
twenty five years of age

but my mom, the  Queen Regent, reminds me royalty possesses
very old souls, which Is why I’m caught out listening, dancing
awake to the music of her youth* and hear her discreetly humming the tunes, even though the phone connection broken minutes earlier

she signed off with a practised Elizabethan airy disturbance royal wave of her hand, instructing this raining (no, not reigning)
Queen to  “darling go write a poem…”

don’t we all listen to our mothers?

my name is brandychanning

*music inhale subdued kickstarting a poem

sitting in LA  traffic,
feeling very traff,^
unsurprisingly,,
dream-haze to SF,
now, every doorway
is an entrance/exit
to the Matrix

the movie is all about
concentric circles of reality
intersecting, when I emerge
in Chinatown, me and naturally,
Neo too,
(older and cute, and edible, like my fav flav)
who finds me equally irresistible,

He asks am I real,
sore disappointed,
for earlier, making love,
there were no harpsichords,
just  The Zombie’s breathy vocals,
singing prophetic these songs  
“She’s Not There” and
“Tell Her No.”

my then reality was in no doubt,
but nearness breeds suspicion
as much as trust, and Neo
is a worrier, I foresee not
much future for him & me

other men have called me Shylock,
for the betrayal probability is nearer
to 1, and these words, a reality test,
a forewarning to all in my bed sojourn,
are framed, resting above my pillows:

“If you ***** us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we not laugh?
If you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”

tear stains, some from loneliness,
others from being held to tight,
some from my own scripts reread,
some from you, you don’t even know

when they stay over, I give them
one of two matching robes, both
Barbie pink,
those that laugh and grab it on,
they’re the keepers, they are for real,

just like me

by the way, so many of you have drunk
my crazy words, it’s inexcusable that I’ve
not thanked you yet, individually like the
Queen Mother teaches, repeat reminds,
preenly informs, nothing  better than
a hand written thank you note, so
considered yourself served and appreciated!

am I for real?

the very question I ask myself daily,
to my morn mirror who magic replies,
more than real, crazy unique special, so so
different, otherwise I wouldn’t stick around,

and I thank the mirror with a lipstick kiss,
and it blushes from the love so real, and
cracks
a smile and says you be careful my genteel,
lady princess, your pale skin is exposed and
the California sun is a burning torch and it
touches your perfect body like all the others,
whose fingerprints evaporate in time, so husband
your love, give it slow and precious, for you are
more than mere real, after all,
**you are Brandychanning

that is what they come seeking.
yet, when I tell
them--pretending--Boy Scouts-to-be prepared!


for the burning,
they gulp saying ok,
but the higher heat of the
fear feted in their eyes, 
them instruments
that never lies,
so I send them home,
unscathed,
and
scathed
just enough that
they’ll never ask
twice.

I’m so easy to please.


brandychanning