He sat down at his desk
With his face buried deep into it
His sweatshirt road his broadened shoulders
Something about this guy interested me
He was new, fresh slate at a new school

We exchanged hellos
We exchanged names
I threw out an invite to chill
And he politely and happily accepted

There was something odd about him
In a good way
Offbeat
Offbeat boy
I gave him a nickname because his real name was to plain for him

I introduced him to my circle and they didn’t like him at first
But over time they became as thick as thieve
We all were
New bonds were made
Bridges built and doors opened

The things he would say
So random
So off base
So hilariously out of place
I loved it
I always looked forward to what he was going to say next

He was a true friend
There was no lying, no evil in him
He was pure, a pure person

He loved nature
His love was Mother Earth
Shedding at tear at environmental ignorance

He was socially awkward
He couldn’t talk to girls, or anyone that wasn’t one of us
He would get into fight we would have to talk him out of
The confusion he gave to the teachers and frustration he gave to the entire student body
He didn’t know any better

Writing a funny speech about what he would do if he was voted for class president
Then having it being taken as a threat against the school thus getting him suspended and having the police search his house for weapons

The complete disbelief of his guidance councilors
And the flabbergasted administrators were all gut busting comedies to us

As we approached graduation news of him going into the navy came about

And we were all in disbelief
But it was true
A boy who couldn’t life a five pound dumbbell was going to serve our country

Good for him

Even now I can recall our adventures up to that point
Staying out late and wandering the streets in the middle of a cold winter night
Cat calling at the mall, trying to pick up girls
Breaking things
Invading private properties
Avoiding police entanglements
Detentions
Suspensions
So many laughs
So many memories

When he left it was as if the once bright aluminous room we all shared was a little bit dimmer
But we were full of pride
We knew he would shine on else where

From Michigan to Texas to California for boot camp and training he went
Our friend went on a journey, his own journey

One year later, we all await his return

He is back, oh the change is overwhelming
He shines brighter, he’s witty
He’s mature, bold and confident

He’s become a man, he found himself

He has claimed his long sought after love

The one who has been walking a difficult path and strides in beauty

He made passionate love to her last night
He woke up from her house and came to mine at 5 AM

I awoke to find him sipping coffee in my kitchen; he had a smile in his heart that was bigger than the stupid grin on my face
I sat and talked to him, chugged my coffee and got dressed

No we were going on another adventure, two weeks
Two weeks with him was all I have
Then he’s being deployed for two years
He speaks of oncoming war with Syria and North Korea
His views have changed
He believes in war
My, my I’m astonished
This is my friend?
The awkward, soft spoken dude in my history class?
Now I wait to see what happens next
With one of my dearest friend, Chives

early, the crowd came to see

yellow, the famous arch .

laburnum.

i came to see the kitchen garden,

seeds growing, chives flowering.

humble plant sprout small mauve flowers,

bees come early.

yesterday mostly yellow and mauve then.

bodnant garden.

sbm.

Somebody who should have been born
is gone.

Just as the earth puckered its mouth,
each bud puffing out from its knot,
I changed my shoes, and then drove south.

Up past the Blue Mountains, where
Pennsylvania humps on endlessly,
wearing, like a crayoned cat, its green hair,

its roads sunken in like a gray washboard;
where, in truth, the ground cracks evilly,
a dark socket from which the coal has poured,

Somebody who should have been born
is gone.

the grass as bristly and stout as chives,
and me wondering when the ground would break,
and me wondering how anything fragile survives;

up in Pennsylvania, I met a little man,
not Rumpelstiltskin, at all, at all...
he took the fullness that love began.

Returning north, even the sky grew thin
like a high window looking nowhere.
The road was as flat as a sheet of tin.

Somebody who should have been born
is gone.

Yes, woman, such logic will lead
to loss without death. Or say what you meant,
you coward...this baby that I bleed.

The other marjoram and the clothes
Are chimes inverted for her story,
What if we had chives, asparagus?
And what, asparagus, if we had chives?

Why did all that rain fall
All day in the grounds
And on the bird feeders,
And through the clearing?

The neatest patrons are back,
Their statue tortured by your autumn sweater.
Then there is the storm of receipts.
The salad bowel needs sanding, but not this

Fall. Scatter the remaining marjoram like dust.
Sweet peas from melancholy gardens
Sautéed over her faux tofu.
Fruit flies like a banana.

Grown beneath the sun,
Holding the occasional rain drop,
Surrounded on all sides by companions.

Snip!

Cut off forever from nourishment,
Collected with a few companions,
No clue what the future will hold.

Moving swiftly through the air,
Higher than ever dreamed, but
Fearful of sky diving without a parachute.

Misted occasionally,
Attempting to maintain appearances,
Despite being starved of food.

Enduring more body-jolting aerial swoops,
Drowned in a swift waterfall,
Losing companions that did not maintain their appearance as deftly.

Chop, chop, chop!

Sliced into innumerable bits,
Wondering if life is over,
Now that one’s shape is forever lost.

Perfuming the air with a distinctive aroma,
Blending it with those already in the air,
From other small bits of greenery.

Fears realized at last:
Falling from a great height to the ground,
But falling on a soft cushion.

Smothered with white strings,
Rolled up tightly in the soft cushion,
No escape route possible.

Dying in the heat,
Spreading into the gooey whiteness,
Wondering what the point of it all was.

Eventually cooling down,
Being exposed to air once again,
And hearing (if it were only possible):

This is the best herb cheddar bread I’ve ever had!

Was the result worthy of the chives and Italian parsley’s sacrifice?
All who partook of the savoury goodness certainly believed it was!

Green peppers
Red peppers
Onions
and shallots
Get ready for some intense flavor to hit your pallets


A splash of vinegar
Salt
Chives
And garlic
Your tongue will dance for joy and actually seem to frolic

Epis
Sos Pwa
Rice
And baked chicken
The taste buds in your mouth wont know what hit them

Four hours later and I've enriched in my culture
I'm almost like a new woman
Because today I learned to cook food from my parents native nation
The time and effort was so very worth it
And now I feel a little bit more Haitian

i've moved through several "mentors" in my life, i obviously started with someone like Milton, seriously, on poetic matters, i didn't start with Shakespeare for the sonnets, i found then too... too claustrophobic, rhyme in general is claustrophobic for me, it's such a lesser expression, i much prefer playing squash, squash over tennis, every single single, playing it... id est, obviously watching a tennis match is rather enjoyable, a bit like watching a magnolia tree bloom in spring, or any spring blossom when taking a walk at night: it's great watching it... but the practicality of playing tennis "goes missing" when you turn from spectator to player... let's face it... there's a football team's numbers' worth of aids... let me count.... dot dot dot: 6 ball girls / boys... an umpire... 6 vertical line judges... 4 horizontal line judges... what's that? **** me... more than a football team of assists... more like a rugby team... i started with this mentor... that soon passed... Bukowski... Will Alexander... i did a whole year of Ezra Pound and opera... why bemoan the trans-Atlantic slave trade?! any jazz... coming out of Africa... can you envision a world whereby music was explored as it was explored... by African-Americans (****** conjunctions, just the "retards", plough-labourers sold by their own tribesmen to instill a fervor for up-keeping their high status polygamy... mind you... no white girl can compete with this sort of Calypso... a Harley Dean... nope... not ever... car-nage)... can you? any new jazz coming out from Nigeria, or just the same, similar, ethnic *******? that's being overlooked... jazz was never ever to be born in Africa's *****... the antithesis of classical music... it required Africans to be forcibly moved to the "newly discovered" continent of America for jazz to be given birth... painful: like most original births are... but... we had the reconstruction of classical music through jazz which opened / paved he way for all the "other" / subsequent music genres... if i had any black fwends i'd tell them: **** it up... you don't realise what you gave us... compensation? for slavery?! oh sure sure... the Jews got their compensation payments for the Holocaust... and what did the Polacks get?! as, ahem... compensation? communism! we, "we": received diddly-squat! ******* and your "compensations": "reparations": ******* with your Marcus Garvey or otherwise: shut the **** up... this new born Christianity of the African continent is somehow sickening... no! i will not shut up... it is what it is! pranking supremos... grifters! spindlers! can you imagine? people have so little interest in music that they have to resort to talk-radio... they need to be talked to... and then they return: en masse... as a public decry of government policies being shuffled in shadow... beautiful world... a world so beautiful that it only requires one to **** a ******* to level the playing field... i keep myself intact: i focus on what's to be loved: first... id est: children and animals... that's it... it's not a sinking Titanic motto of women and children first... no... nothing's sinking: children and animals first... women... 4th... what's 3rd? male on male camaraderie... drunken men at public events tell me all the things women tend to "forget" to tell me: i do... although some... i have three tiers of women... the wedded ones, clearly bored... still doing: whatever... Lolitas and... prostitutes... obviously i champion the last of the three because the rest are too timid and by too timid i'm looking elsewhere... charm a totem... a fox... let a fox feast on your leftover food from dinner for a month: not a dog... but... maybe... either he was run-over or he figured out a "thought" of: well... isn't this weird... running drunk with deer... a harem of deer... that created a traffic conundrum... can i just be blunt? women aren't mysterious... they're just a ******* drag... drag... boo-ring... i watch married men pandering to their wives' demands and i'm thinking: not all fools are horses... some are just ******* donkeys... me? i tried... i failed... i tried i tried... i failed i failed... that's the beauty of rejection... there must be a chemical formula akin to adrenaline whereby you stomach rejection all the more easier... it's sort of on a whim... a: eh?... whatever... you start gluing your eyes on that Zeno paradox race between a turtle and a hare... or... reimagining... what if horses had to compete with camels... or... what if.... man tamed the bull and not the horse for battle?! hmm... the world is truly my oyster... but no... i don't do rhyme i don't do haikus... i think i'd find writing a haiku very: unsatisfactory... perhaps it's a relief to read... but writing one? no conversational overtones?! none of the blah-blah effect?! what?!

i never write from a source of "inspiration": forever the mu dane "rezoning" of me (N - ease honing: of reasoning)
i never write from a source of "inspiration",
reading the Latin classics taught me this one
"thing".... to never reiterate a square
of -ing                            -ed




    -ed                              -ing

first come the children, second the animals,
3rd the camaraderie, 4th, the women,
to un-stiffen: myself....
hell... if Walt Whitman could get away
celebrating himself... i guess i can too...
let's dance... facing the music...
to hell with tired old men writing poetry
once upon retired, salvaged.... "happy":
SAFE: yes... now is the ripe time...
the time to craft banknote meanings...
  whisper to the ******* wind!
i need myself in my youth:
in an element of brute!
      free! freed from ever having
ever stolen or murdered or otherwise...

children, animals, camaraderie, women....
a bit like women....
  Lolitas, wedded women...
prostitutes... the rest?! pass...
  seriously, pass... i rather be chasing deer
drunk in the night...
timid is not not mystifying...
timid is just boring...

  but in terms of language...
                the ancients knew a thing or two...
sure... they lived in a world governed by
geocentricism... but...
they could figure our minute patters in
physiognomy without making
a ******* science out of it!
of making an -ology: authorities on:
the reminder of the recluse super-intendant:
*******! seriously...
****-off...

if you were to give Atlas the weight of earth
by...
tectonic... shrapnel...
rather than the whole globular...

dead-weight... stones...
imagine carrying a dead-weight...
compared to... alive-weight...

same distinction between mass
and weight...
gravity... is dead? is dead? gravity prone?
***... imagine filling up a skip...
of stones...
then imagine...
  ******* a *******...

i have bruises on my arms
as if i were over-shooting too much ******...
goddess...
i peered at my shadow trying to
to unpeel it into nothing...
watching it... merge
with the shadow of trees: disappear...

i'm not a god... to hell with the Olympians:
i'm a TITAN!
i can see the pulsating blood in my protruding
veins as i liberate Sisyphus from
his slumbers... as i irritate:
wait a minute...
if the ancient Greeks deplored the Titans...
and invited the gods...
what did Christianity do...
if not make angels into saints?!

  i hate Christianity...
              it's a hatred with a passion that
leaves me... unable to find a girlfriend...
"unable"...
to hell with it... i can cook, i can clean,
i know how to iron shirts...
i do most of the d.i.y.
  and by then... the ones that are available are?
single mums... ****** is ******...
i'm not getting any replicas...
    so... so... as far as ancient customs go...
i'm not a Tiberius Caesar...
  ha ha... no no...
        fostering ******* is not on the menu...
although...
fostering... what's the equivalent of
a daughter born out of wedlock?

    me? i have a healthy mind... a keen mind...
that's what happens when you read Stendhal
and Marquis de Sade in your teens
and leave Ovid till your 30s?
******... "******"...
            i'm not investing in anything beside
an idea... a succulent thought...
something that's beyond a mere squeeze...

dość! enough!
      but no ść in Russian...
akin to šč
    i.e. szczypiorek - green onions...
chives even...
ever smell chives in bloom?!
bothersome addition of a "comma"
to the already defeated epsilon
  щ...
            or... strict woe woe Woe...

the most beautiful letter i ever came across?
Plato... Theaetetus... SO...
not in katakana... not in Hanguel...
in the near extinct Glagolitic Slavic scriptum:

M: Ⰿ
too many ******* vowels!
that's my reply?
the Germanic "question" regarding Slavic
languages employing "too many consonants!":
you people have been ****-hurt over
an Afghanistan-likeness inclusion
into the Roman Empire for for long
that all you get to say: too many consonants...
i say? i say?! you use too many vowels!

but i'm nice in person...
that's why i've decided to to this job...
i want to hone in on my crowd authority
"skills"...
**** knows... one day i might feel like
i want to perform!
i need good target practice!

i just woke up at 7am: the skip was supposed
to arrive between 7:30 and 9:30am...
i have "tattoos" on my arms from the dead-weight
i was lifting...
it's a bi different when you're making yourself
mandible during live-weight sessions of ***
with a "proxy"... *******...
i don't see the problem Jack the Ripper had a problem
with...
last time i checked?
prostitutes?! most hygienic creatures
there are... almost **** about it... like i'm
a **** about hygiene..
i seriously don't care who you sleep with but
at least i don't need to care about
having unprotected *** with one...
  because that's the best *** there is...
          and just imagine:
  when you can build-up such mutual trust with
a perfect stranger:
she judges your hygiene... and you judge her hygienic
standards: you meet on common ground...
an immediate trust bond ensues...
              it's oh so lovely than with some random
stranger picked up in a nightclub...
after all: she probably lives with flatmates
or still with her parents...
  and you still live with your parents because:
you're sort of good friends and the whole mother / father
son relationship is a bit post-modern...
but... well... the brothel is the middle ground...
you're not there to work in the garden
or cook dinners or do household chores...
  or read the Sunday newspaper...
  you're in a brothel to... basically do what
a butcher does in a butcher's shop...

long gone is the mentality of a Jack or
  for that matter Samuel Little...
                      why would i moralise women by way
of moralising them through: killing them?
at least these women... well... out of the... how many
i have slept with... only about 2 had a genuine
(nymphomaniac) love for the act...
    maybe 3... the rest were in the profession and still
hadn't managed to love the idea of ***
like the idea of *** was loved back in the 1960s...

i must have mentioned it once:
i'm not a gambling man...
but i am: when it comes to gambling with a ******...
it's more fun-tub-goochy-goo...
why take the thrill of life from life?!

she sends me a picture of herself behind
a driving wheel: no make-up...
she looks... hmm... as fresh as spring...
i send her a picture of blooming chives...
almost rosemary-like...
no... not rosemary... lavender... no!
quasi-fuschia!
most certainly fissile-like!
          that "rose" without the spines
of a mantis... the chives...
but most certainly the bishops' attire of bloom...
THISTLE! ****'s sake! THISTLE! THISTLE!
THISTLE THISTLE! THISTLE!
FA FA... FI FI... how many surds?!
fizz... isle... burg... doughnut... a load of *******!
did i, at least, get the spelling of fuschia right?!
chances are... no...
  
FUCHSIA...
                  bull riding... ****'s sake...

      but that's what it felt like: the inversion of rock climbing...
carrying these heaps of stones
from the garden into the skip...
    that's why i could never go back to the gym
and pump iron...
                    swimming, tick...
bicycle riding, tick...
    maybe i should revisit my former past-time
and hit a climbing wall in Hackney...
      
  but *** is also great exercise... between than doing
stomach crunches...
    only today i was coming back from a shift at Wembley...
late... late... just came in at 2am...
i was thinking of stopping over to see Khedra...
but then...
  oh you know... if it isn't some ancient perverted
evil of being stimulated by ******* as you groom
your female cat and she sticks her **** up
as you brush her... which wakes up a desire for a woman's
body by way of recoiling to the idea of *******...
then it's... the newly discovered "fetish" for south American
women... Argentinian women: milk-cows...
i don't think i've seen so many well-endowed women
in one evening...

  but... hmm... i can't go in for the act without untrimmed
***** fair... plus... i needed to see my Turkish barber:
yesterday...
  it will have to wait...
  plus pay-day today...
    finally! i've returned my my mental safety-net
of having the minimum £3000 in my now two bank accounts...

sometimes i walk up to a cash machine and people
print their statements and forget to take them...
my £3000 in "savings": they're not savings...
i just like to have this amount of money on the ready...
but other people?
my god... they really are living from pay-check
to pay-check... i don't think i've ever seen a statement
that read: £500+ on the account...
it's usually in the range of £10 to £200...

      on a daily basis this life is somehow worth living:
i'm being reminded of my literary diet...
it's good that i read Marquis de Sade as a teenager
and that only now i'm rediscovering Ovid...
  i think the reverse would have been...
very... very... grotesque.

I don’t want to talk to angels,
Not for me, the bleeding priest.
I want my ****** doctor
So I can find some peace.

I want a ****** expert,
Not a hippie with some tea,
Charging excess for the karma,
And no money guarantee.

I can’t take ****** ginger,
It brings me out in hives,
And you can take the Echinacea
And stick it with the chives.

I want the ****** doctor,
Tired eyes and cynic smile,
Who’s seen it all before
And has my details on his file.

Pull out your cold machines,
Test me to the hilt;
Try to find what’s wrong with me,
Before I ****** wilt.

I don’t want to wait for callback,
I’m not interested in online;
It’ll only tell me that I’m dead,
Dying,
Or I’m fine.

Clouds,
snaking silently across the sky,
the howling wind is rushing by,
a bit like life
the reason why
I lay awake and listen to Bizet.

Resistance only tires you when
the end, inevitably blue
the colours always stay the same
grey, black ruins on my window,
what's the pain you feel when
Winter comes, when
daylight runs away and
snaking silently across the day
the clouds all seem to laugh as if
to say,
We're free as birds but have no wings, we
fly and you can only pray.

The winds that blow,
the trumpet sound, the trenches we dig,
underground,
I lay and  watch the clouds that fly
to me they're still snakes in the sky
and I remain
unsatisfied,
a bit like life and
then it died.

growing well, so we took you out

the glass house in to air not expecting

thundrous rain. we returned to find you

battered.



our apologies……



we  will love you and  nuture you

again



back in the green house.



sbm.

The landlady pounds, one door left,
And my “Momma’s” chopping chives in the kitchen;
So I wince when
My black hat’s conquered wrought wool.

Right, and right out the window, the workers break,
And my “Uncle’s” feet crack, crack come the chemical grass;
So I concentrate when
My chopsticks carve pork.

“Up,” cries the baby, starved are the mice,
And my “sister” bids farewell to her soldier;
So I grasp when
My feet twitch to understand the cold, cold concrete.

Diesel cooks, so down goes the neighbor,
And the “Missus” smiles with our son atop lap;
So I admit when
I try to smile, I really do.

Herein lies the endurance, the rice paddies ancient,
And we’d all bliss ignorant, come the table we surround;
So I reconcile when
Again, I try to smile, I really do.