Today I decided to go to my crib.
I then invited my homies to bid
that Lamar is goin to bring his kid.
So while I'll be chillin here popin some lids,
I noticed none of my homies have come to my crib,
not even Lamar and his kid.

So I tried actin all cool,
until I saw a small red pool.
I soon found myself a fool
by following that pool.

I found two brothers who were smothered in red.
One was dead,
and conceived a decapitated head.
It was Lamar who was stained red.

The otha brotha seemed to be a kid.
I said, "Why would you do somethin like this."
He said, "you will never find the otha bodies I hid."
I soon found my homies did make it to my crib,
Every single one of them were hung by the head.
They were all there except for Lamar's kid.

[Intro: Big Sean]
I look up
Yeah and I take my time, *****
I'mma take my time, whoa
Power moves only, *****

[Verse 1: Big Sean]
Boy I'm 'bout my business on business, I drink liquor on liquor
I had women on women, yeah that's bunk bed *******
I've done lived more than an eighty year old man still kickin'
Cause they live for some moments, and I live for a livin'
But this for the girls who barely let me get to first base
On some ground ball ****
Cause now I run my city on some town hall ****
They prayin' on my *******' downfall *****, like a drought, but
You gon' get this rain like it's May weather
G.O.O.D. Music, Ye weather
Champagne just tastes better
They told me I never boy, never say never
Swear flow special like an infant's first steps
I got paid then reversed debts
Then I finally found a girl that reverse stress
So now I'm talkin' to the reaper to reverse death
Yep, so I can kick it with my granddad, take him for a ride
Show him I made somethin' out myself and not just tried
Show him the house I bought the fam, let him tour inside
No matter how far ahead I get, I always feel behind
In my mind, but **** tryin' and not doin'
Cause not doin' is somethin' a ***** not doin'
I said **** tryin' and not doin'
Cause not doin' is somethin' a ***** not doin'
I grew up to Em, B.I.G. and Pac *****, and got ruined
So until I got the same crib B.I.G. had in that Juicy vid
*****, I can't *******' stop movin'
Go against me, you won't stop losin'
From the city where every month is May-Day at home, spray your dome
****** get sprayed up like AK was cologne for a paycheck or loan
Yeah I know that **** ain't fair
They say Detroit ain't got a chance, we ain't even got a mayor
You write your name with a Sharpie, I write mine in stone
I knew the world was for the taking and wouldn't take long
We on, tryna be better than everybody that's better than everybody
Rep Detroit, everybody, Detroit versus everybody
I'm so ******' first class, I could spit up on every pilot
The city's my Metropolis, feel it, it's metabolic
And I'm over ****** sayin' they're the hottest ******
Then run to the hottest ****** just to stay hot
I'm one of the hottest because I flame drop
Drop fire, and not because I'm name dropping, Hall of Fame droppin'
And I ain't takin' **** from nobody unless they're OG's
Cause that ain't the way of a OG
So I G-O collect more G's, every dollar
Never changed though, I'm just the new version of old me
Forever hot headed but never got cold feet
Got up in the game won't look back at my old seats
Clique so deep we take up the whole street
I need a ***** so bad that she take up my whole week, Sean Don

[Bridge: Kendrick Lamar]
Miscellaneous minds are never explainin' their minds
Devilish grin for my alias aliens to respond
Peddlin' sin, thinkin' maybe when you get old you realize
I'm not gonna fold or demise
(I don't smoke crack, ******* I sell it!)
*****, everything I rap is a quarter piece to your melon
So if you have a relapse, just relax and pop in my disc
Don't you pop me no ******* pill, I'mma a pop you and give you this

[Verse 2: Kendrick Lamar]
Tell Flex to drop a bomb on this ****
So many bombs, ring the alarm like Vietnam on this ****
So many bombs, make Farrakhan think that Saddam in this *****
One at a time, I line them up
And bomb on they mom while she watching the kids
I'm in a destruction mode if the gold exists
I'm important like the Pope, I'm a Muslim on pork
I'm Makaveli's offspring, I'm the king of New York
King of the Coast, one hand, I juggle them both
The juggernaut's all in your jugular, you take me for jokes
Live in the basement, church pews and funeral faces
Cartier bracelets for my women friends, I'm in Vegas
Who the **** y'all thought it's supposed to be?
If Phil Jackson came back, still no coachin' me
I'm uncoachable, I'm unsociable, **** y'all clubs
**** y'all pictures, your Instagram can gobble these nuts
Gobble **** up til you hiccup, my big homie Kurupt
This the same flow that put the rap game on a crutch (West x6)
I've seen ****** transform like villain Decepticons
Mollies'll prolly turn these ****** to ******* Lindsay Lohan
A bunch of rich *** white girls looking for parties
Playing with Barbies, wreck the Porsche before you give them the car key
Judgment to the monarchy, blessings to Paul McCartney
You called me a black Beatle, I'm either that or a Marley
(I don't smoke crack, *******, I sell it)
I'm dressed in all black, this is not for the fan of Elvis
I'm aiming straight for your pelvis, you can't stomach me
You plan on stumpin' me? ***** I’ve been jumped before you put a gun on me
***** I put one on yours, I'm Sean Connery
James Bonding with none of you ******, climbing 100 mil in front of me
And I'm gonna get it even if you're in the way
And if you're in it, better run for Pete's sake
I heard the barbershops be in great debates all the time
Bout who's the best MC? Kendrick, Jigga and Nas
Eminem, Andre 3000, the rest of y'all
New ****** just new ******, don't get involved
And I ain't rocking no more designer ****
White T’s and Nike Cortez, this red Corvettes anonymous
I'm usually homeboys with the same ****** I'm rhymin' with
But this is hip-hop and them ****** should know what time it is
And that goes for Jermaine Cole, Big KRIT, Wale
Pusha T, Meek Millz, A$AP Rocky, Drake
Big Sean, Jay Electron', Tyler, Mac Miller
I got love for you all but I'm tryna ****** you ******
Trying to make sure your core fans never heard of you ******
They don't wanna hear not one more noun or verb from you ******
What is competition? I'm trying to raise the bar high
Who tryna jump and get it? You're better off trying to skydive
Out the exit window of 5 G5’s with 5 grand
With your granddad as the pilot he drunk as **** trying land
With the hand full of arthritis and popping prosthetic leg
Bumpin Pac in the cockpit so the **** that pops in his head
Is an option of violence, someone heard the stewardess said
That your parachute is a latex ****** hooked to a dread
West Coast

[Verse 3: Jay Electronica]
You could check my name on the books
I Earth, Wind, and Fire’d the verse, then rained on the hook
The legend of Dorothy Flowers proclaimed from the roof
The tale of a magnificent king who came from the nooks
Of the wild magnolia, mother of many soldiers
We live by every single word she ever told us
Watch over your shoulders
And keep a tin of beans for when the weather turns the coldest
The Lord is our shepherd, so our cup runneth over
Put your trust in the Lord but tether your Chevy Nova
I’m spittin' this **** for closure
And God is my witness, so you could get it from Hova
To all you magicians that’s fidgeting with the cobra
I’m silent as a rock, ‘cause I came from a rock
That’s why I came with the rock, then signed my name on the Roc
Draw a line around some Earth, then put my name on the plot
Cause I endured a lot of pain for everything that I got
The eyelashes like umbrellas when it rains from the heart
And the tissue is like an angel kissin you in the dark
You go from blind sight to hindsight, passion of the Christ
Right, to baskin' in the limelight, it take time to get your mind right
Jay Electricity, PBS mysteries
In a lofty place, tangling with Satan over history
You can’t say **** to me - Alhamdulillah
It’s strictly by faith that we made it this far

My dad and his friend driving out to the pasture to sit in the pickup truck and talk about what?  How the cows are doing, the upcoming hunting season, growing quail, fishing, the state of the country.
I don't know what these men talked about but they spent hours together.
While they were out talking Eunice and Marie sat smoking in the living room, discussing stuff. I could sit and listen to them for hours, but don't remember what they talked about. Maybe Marie would get out one of her poems or show my Mama some of her ceramics or paintings.
We girls would dance together the bop to the latest 50's music or we would ride our horses through the pastures and at night we would play Scarin' with their brother-a hide and seek game in the dark.
We spent every weekend together, eating greens, fried cornbread and chicken.  I always thought I was Marie's favorite because she was always so kind to me. She was a kind of Earth Mother, quite different from my own Mama.  Sometimes Sonny, the boy, would get in trouble because we girls would tell on him for throwing corncobs at us. Then Marie would go after him with a skillet, a switch or a paddle, whatever was handy.
Lamar had been in WWII and had been too close to a grenade. He developed terrible skin cancers which left horrid scars on his face. When I was 15, he died and Marie started working in the Catholic School so the three kids could still attend.
Here we were the Baptists (us) and the Catholics (them) never realizing that our friendship in rural Mississippi was a bit unusual.  Mama would lend her Bible to Marie because the Catholic church did not allow the people to read and interpret for themselves at that time.  
When we were really young, the family lived in an old unpainted two-story house with Lamar's Dad-Cap'n-a strict old grumpy German who we tried to stay away from.  We would come up from Louisiana when I was four and spend the night for the nine months we lived in Louisiana.
Saturday night baths were in a tub-four girls first, then Sonny last-he was a boy and the dirtiest.  No running water and a two-seater outhouse. Those were the days...

Cloud nine, Kendrick Lamar, uh
I take a sip of Hennessy and then get pissy drunk
I ain't a drinker, I'm a thinker, call it what you want
But if you turn your back, know that you just missed your chance
to witness the realest **** that's ever been told to man
I found myself losing focus at a Sunday service
Embarrassed so I started questioning God, what is my purpose?
He say to live the way he did, that's all he want from me
Spread the word and witness, he rose on the first Sunday
I said alright, enthused that my Lord gave a listen
I opened my bible and searched to be a better Christian
and this from a person that never believed in religion
But ****, my life is so ****** up man, I can't help but give in
I'm giving testimonies to strangers I never met
Hopped on the pulpit and told 'em how I was truly blessed
Felt like I'm free from all my sins when the service was over
Walked out the church, then got a call that my homie was murdered
and lost my faith again

[Chorus: BJ the Chicago Kid]
What am I gonna do? Gotta have faith
Life is too much, understood? Where is your faith?
Oh, faaaaaaaith...
All you need is the size of a mustard seed

[Kendrick Lamar]
Single black parent from Compton raising children of four
That's four innocent *******, cause papa they don't know
Her day consists of working back and forth with babysitters
Can't find no one to watch her kids so she pay her sister
Her baby daddy ain't bout ****, that ***** ain't bout ****
Spent his daughter milk just to cop a new outfit
She pray to God every night hoping that he'll mature
and maybe one day his kids, something that he'll live for
Baby wanna go back to school but she need some help
because it's hard tryna pay the bills when you're by yourself
She thought about credit card scams till she heard a voice
that said the Devil is a lie, make a better choice
And so it's back to McDonald's and every month dealing
with them crazy *** people at the county building
Looked to the heavens and asked 'em to make a better way
Then got a letter in the mail, lost her section 8
Then lost her faith again

[Chorus]

[Punch]
Kendrick, I appreciate the opportunity to vent my *****
This about how faith works, yeah, murk it...
I had dreams of holding a nine-milla to raise Killa
Ask him why as my eyes fill up
Each day it gets more realer, orangutans bang like gorillas
It's jungle when the ****** ensue
The rat's lurking, vulture's circling the serpents
Cats lying through they teeth, my ***** didn't deserve it
I flirted with the idea of caressing the steel
to make karma come faster than she normally will
It's ill, to see my faith try and leave me
It's so hard to get it, to get rid of it is easy
I'm tryna reach cloud nine, that's what my ****** bout
But it never rain in California 'less them pistols out
Until then, my feet planted on the ground
Shadowboxing my conscience till my faith start responding
And if I get no answer, just know I tried
I should have never looked into his son's eyes
Ray Charles voice

[Chorus]

[Kendrick Lamar]
This for my people that stressing whenever times is hard
Your mind's slipping, wondering is there really a God?
Knowing you shouldn't think that way and tryna freeze your brain
But whenever it's pain, that feeling forever remains
We can't believe what we can't see and reality seems stronger than prayer
cause you tried to change your life, and now you live in a wheelchair
And your son was born with cancer and he live in urgent care
at the tender age of twelve, and you feel that no one cares
Searching for answers, that's human nature, you ain't in the wrong
Just know, when you feeling that way his spirit's in the room
I watched people I know pray and catch the Holy Ghost
and wonder why I ain't never caught that feeling before
Maybe they know him better, or I don't know no better
But what I do know is that he's real and he lives forever
So the next time you feel like your world's about to end
I hope you studied because he's testing your faith again

I'd rather not live like there isn't a God
than die and find out there really is, think about it

Liturgy in Time of War

I will go to the altar of God
To God who gives joy to my youth

ENTRANCE ANTIPHON

The dawn (evening) is coming, another hot, filthy, wet dawn (evening).  Let us arise, soaked in sweat, exhausted, to speak with sour, saliva-caked mouths, to meet the deaths of this day (night).

GREETING

In the name of Peace in Our Time,
For the Hearts and Minds of The People,
For the Land of the Big PX
For round eye and white (black) (brown) thigh,
I greet you, brothers.

PENITENTIAL RITE

All:

I confess to almighty God
And to you my brothers
That I have sinned through my fault
In my thoughts and in my words
In what I have done
And in what I have failed to do,
And I ask Blessed Mary…

But how can I ask Her anything now?

My brothers,
Pray for me to…

But how?
Priest: (But there is no priest)

KYRIE

Lord, have mercy
Christ, have mercy
Lord, Lord, have mercy on us now

Have mercy, Lord, on a generation
That sits smugly in college lecture halls
And protests endlessly in coffee shops
The war they hear, see, on T.V., for free
Justice and peace by the semester hour
Like, y’know, peace, love, Amerika sux
Play the guitar, ****, apply to law school

Have mercy on us
Who crouch behind sand bags
And clean our weapons
And protest nothing
And **** in the heat
And die in the hear
And throw ham and lima beans away

GLORIA

Glory to God in the highest
how many bodies yesterday?
And peace to His people on earth
Vietnamese? Or us?
Lord God, heavenly King, almighty God and Father
ham and lima beans?
We worship you, we give you thanks, we praise you for your glory
Doc, I can’t go home to my wife with this clap
Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father
cigarette, canteen cup of instant coffee
Lord God, Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world
******* magazine
Have mercy on us
relief behind the sand bags
You are seated at the right hand of the Father
i rot
Receive our prayer
i want to be clean and dry
For You alone are the Holy One
clean and dry.  just once.
You alone are the Lord
why do they chew that?
You alone are the most high
you mean the betel nut?
Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father
incoming!
Amen


PRAYER

A

Father, you make this day holy.
Let us be thankful for
The many little joys of
This day, for life, for
The chance to worship
You.  In the end, bring
Us to you, so that we
May be cleansed of mud
And sweat and filth and
Guilt, and live with you
In peace forever.

B

Father, just get me through
Another day of this mess.

LITURGY OF THE WORD –

FIRST READING

From the Intensive Care Unit, NSA DaNang

A twilight world
Of neither peace nor battle
And of both

A man world
Embracing life and the grim death
Both

Peering into infected wounds
Night building shiver
Down from the black sky flares float

Broken bodies from the war somewhere
Eyes of a shattered nineteen-year-old Marine
Staring at the door to Yokosuka

PSALM

A Song of Descents

I cast down my eyes
Into the mud
Into the blood
It seems cleaner than death and drugs and casual ***
Drink Coca-Cola

I turned my eyes away from you, O Lord
And made this
Build this
Came to this
Samantha and Darren on Bewitched

Have mercy on…but how can we ask?  How dare we ask?

SECOND READING

Old Man, Viet Nam

Old man, a dog is barking at your heels
Old man, with the tired, weathered face
Are you afraid to turn around and deal
This dog a kick, to put him in his place?

Or is it, old man, that you’re just too tired?
Just too tired to turn and show anger
Just too tired to have your temper fired
Beaten by years of contempt and danger

Where are you going, trudging so slowly?
What are you thinking, behind those tired eyes?

Probably not about ham and lima beans

GOSPEL

In the Cold White Mist

After an all-night run on the river
Our boats arrive in the village at dawn
Dawn is never cold along that rive
Along that steaming, green, hell-hot river
But the mist is cold, the grey-green dawn mist
And after the engines are cut – stillness
Foul brown water laps at the mudding bank
Sloshing softly with fertile, smelly death

In the cold white mist

The boats are secured, and watches posted
We step off the boats and onto wet land
And follow the track into the deep mist
It becomes the street of a little town
A dairy lane along which cows slopped home
And where dogs and chickens and children
      played
Bounded by carefully swept little yards
And little wooden houses with tin roofs

In the cold white mist

But some of the houses are burnt.  The smoke
Still hangs heavily in the whitening mist
The lane is littered with debris.  A lump
Resolves itself into a torn, dead child
Across a smaller lump, a smaller child
Their pup has been flung against the fence, its
Guts early morning breakfast for the morning
      flies
We smoke cigarettes against the death-smells

In the cold white mist

Beneath a farm tractor rots a dead man.
When they – they – had come at sunset
He had hidden there.  And they shot him there
A man with bare feet and work-calloused
      hands
His hair is black; his teeth need cleaning
They shot him beneath the village tractor
His blackening blood clots into the mud
And our lungs choke in the white mist of death

In the cold white mist

White mist.  The path disappears into it
Smoky skeletons of little houses
In which there will be no tea this morning
No breakfasts of hot tea and steaming rice
No old widows to smile in betel-nut
No children to mock-march alongside us
Pointing at our ******* boots, and laughing
At us, for wearing shoes in the summer

In the cold white mist

They are dead and rotting in the white mist
On the edge of the jungle on the edge
Of the world, here along the Vam Co Tay
And the people pour out of their houses
To greet us on the fine summer morning
A corpse across a doorway, another
******-doubled across a window sill
Still another strewn down the garden path

In the cold white mist

The other patrol doubles back to us
And they tell us that the Ruff-Puff outpost
Must have been overrun the night before
He had heard their radioed pleas, and had
Run the river at night to get to them
And the ARVNs had fled through the village
And the VC had stormed in behind them
And it was knife-and-gun-club night in town

In the cold white mist

A little girl is the lone survivor
She looks may six.  Cute, except for the
Bubbling, *******, bayoneted chest wound
We patch her, and tube her, and use suction
Sort of like fixing a bicycle tire
And in the wet, gasping heat take her back
With us downriver, where a charity
Hospital leaves her on the steps to die

In the cold white mist

It will be our turn again tomorrow
Not a one of us died today.  Today.
But a village is gone, burnt and rotting,
Soon to disappear into the jungle
Along the green Cambodian border
Up some obscure river.  Up there.  Somewhere.
A few hundred people.  Their ancestors’ graves
Will fade with them untended, forgotten

In the cold white mist

Radio Hanoi might blame it on us.
But maybe not.  We made our report and
Nobody really noticed; no one cared
The talk is of the VC battalion
And where it has gone, and where it might go –
Maybe into death under an air strike
“And you guys better get in some sack time,”
Says the C.O. as he turns to his maps.

In the cold white mist

HOMILY

I’m scared, and I want to go home.  I don’t care any more about justice or fighting Communism or winning the hearts and minds of the people.  I can’t think about all that right now, because I’m scared, and I want to go home.
I don’t care about truth or loyalty or bravery or honor.  If Miss March were here she wouldn’t get cold, but she sure would get sunburnt.  And in a few days her skin would start rotting.  Then nobody would want to see her in the **** anymore.  
I’m scared, and I want to go home.
Up the Vam Co Tay, everyone is scared, everyone is tired, everyone is sick, everyone could die: sailor, soldier, officer, priest, farmer, fisherman.  Everyone rots in the wet heat.  The skin bubbles and flakes and peels, and is pink again, to bubble and flake and peel again.  
I’m scared, and I want to go home.
I’m Doc.  I’m a scared, stupid kid with an aid bag and a few months’ training.  But I’m Doc.  I’ve got to fake it.  I’ve got to be cool and calm because this other kid with his guts hanging out will probably make it if I don’t ***** up and if the dust-off from Saigon can get out here now.
I have an old dog at home, and my folks write and tell me she sleeps outside my window at night, waiting for me to come home.  Someday we’re going to run and play in the woods and fields again.  She’ll bark and run wide circles, and dare me to catch her.  I will laugh under the autumn leaves.  But now my nights are glaring darkness, fits of sweat-soaked half-sleep, then sirens and falling glares and falling mortars, and then the Godawful racket of all our engines of destruction.  There isn’t any use in all this.
I’m scared, and I want to go home.

And I don’t want any ham and lima beans.

CREED

We believe in the Land of the Big PX
In presidents in suits, and generals,
In makers of economic strategies
We believe in flak jackets and .45s and peace

We believe in swing ships and dust-offs, yes
In the dark, green omnipresent Huey
Eternally begotten of technology
Blades to rotor, windscreen to machine guns
Made, not begotten, one in being with us
Through it all things are transported to us
For us men and our hunger and our hope
It comes down from the skies
By the high power of technology
It was born of the long assembly line

For whose sake are we crucified today?
Who suffers, and who dies and is baggied?
And on the third will arrive back home
To be neatly packaged in stainless steel

But not in ham and lima beans

LITURGY OF THE EUCHARIST

Preparation of the Gifts

Celebrant:

Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation.
Through your goodness we have this cheap Algerian wine to offer,
Fruit of the vine and work of human hands.
It will become anaesthesia for our souls.

People:

Blessed be…we just don’t know

Celebrant:

Pray, brothers, that our sacrifice may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father, to somebody.  Maybe.

People:

May the Lord, or the baggies, accept the sacrifice we offer with
our own burnt hands
For the praise and glory of…of what?
For our good, and the good of all His Church.

PRAYER OVER THE GITS

Little green cans, and I don’t care
Little green cans, and I don’t care
Little green cans, and I don’t care
Air cover’s gone away.

EUCHARISTIC PRAYER

Preface for the Monsoon Season:

Father, all-powerful
And ever-living God,
We do well always and everywhere
To give You thanks
Through Jesus God our Lord
Even with diarrhea
thanks
When the mail doesn’t come
thanks
When we rot
thanks
When the heat ***** at our brains
thanks
When the mud ***** at our boots
thanks
When the horror ***** at our souls
thanks
We’re alive
thanks

SANCTUS

Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of power and might
The bunkers are full of blood and death.
Hosanna in the mud.  Blessed is he who comes with the mail.  Hosanna in the mud.

EUCHARISTIC PRAYER

The Kien Tuong Province Canon:

A sailor is silhouetted against the dawn
Along a steamy river
Mostly helmet and flak jacket
Above dark plastic gunwales

The sailor has lost his New Testament
But there’s a ******* around somewhere
Naked, willing women –
Miss March wants to be an actress

He also carries an old plastic Rosary
To touch occasionally
While whispering a hurried Hail Mary
He hopes She understands

Those who in bell-bottoms and head-bands
Fight Fascism
In Sociology 201
Will never forgive him

A sailor is silhouetted against the dawn
This day he is to be elevated
His body broken and his blood shed
For you and for all men

OUR FATHER

Our Father, who art in Heaven
this ain’t it
Hallowed be thy name
Thy kingdom come
this ain’t it
On earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day…
not ham and lima beans
And forgive us our trespasses
as we shoot them that trespass against us
And lead us not into ambush
But deliver us from evil

SIGN OF PEACE

Peace on you.

AGNUS DEI

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: have mercy on us.

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: have mercy….

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: grant us peace.

Priest:

(But there is no priest)

People:  

Lord, I am not worthy to receive you,
But only say the word and I shall be killed.

COMMUNION ANTIPHON

They ate, and were not satisfied
They killed, and were not without fear.

PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION

Lord,
If we do not get out of this
Make some sense of it to those who remain
May we go home.  Home.  Or if not,
Take us unto you, in mercy.
Home.  Where you reign, for you are Lord
Forever and ever.  Amen

BLESSING

May you walk on grass that does not explode
May you sleep without rot
Without fear
May you never see or smell ham and lima beans again.
May you live
May you play with puppies
May you find forgetfulness
May you find peace
In the Name of Him who took your death for you

DISMISSAL

This is to certify that____is Honorably Discharged from the____on theday of____.  This certificate is awarded as a testimonial of Honest and Faithful Service.

CLOSING HYMN

Old men, smoking in the sunshine
Exiled outside the doors of life
Old uniforms, old pajamas
The chrome of wheelchairs, shiny, bright

Inside, polished wooden handrails
Line the hot, polished passages
Something to cling to on the way
To the lab, to x-ray, to death

And more old men, shuffling along
In a querulous route-step march
From Normandy, from The Cho-sen,
From the Vam Co Tay, from the deserts,
Past the A.I.D.S. ward and the union signs
On waxed floors to eternity

Portions previous published:

“Closing Hymn” is from “Outpatient Surgery – Veterans’ Hospital,” Juried Award, Houston Poetry Fest 1993

“In the Cold White Mist” is a Juried Award, Houston Poetry Fest 1991

“Old Man, Viet-Nam,” was published in Pulse, Lamar University, 1982

A Lamar Original

Honey, I know that times are hard
And the moments like these are tough,
So let me reassure why we shouldn’t be apart,
And allow our future be dictated by love.

Baby, every night before I sleep
On bent knees to God I pray
For the hearts we have to not leak,
Because he has brought all this way.

We can succeed if we give this a chance;
I can see us growing old and grey,
Looking back on this very day;
We made it beyond our own recession romance!

Honey, I know that at times you feel alone,
And the world can be such a crazy place,
But that doesn’t mean you have be on your own,
I just hate to see the stress on your face.

Baby, everyday after I wake
With closed eyes to God I pray
For the hearts we have to not break,
Because if it’s his will, together we’ll stay.

We can ascend if we give this a chance;
I can see us with laughs and smiles,
After all the tribulations and trials;
We overcame our own recession romance!

Even if we have little money, little work,
All I need is you, honey, for what it’s worth...

I imagine, this is what I’ll trademark
The impossibly early morning commute
I’m still drunk
It’s 6AM
And I’m still wearing my shoes

My phone sings with an urgency
It ferries the exhausting burden of responsibility

It’s 6AM
I’ll keep reminding you
Or myself
Because I have to

sigh

****

I have to make The Commute

6am

My body hangs from my brain
In a disjointed way
A detached manner
Like a consciousness manifesting through a coma

If I could forge the willpower
Gather some strength in my arm
To push my phone off of the desk
And silence the alarm

I’ll regret it in some way
Not even a second thought considered
It wasn’t even a hard decision

7:20am

As I inhale, and sigh
For maybe the seventh time
I’m suddenly aware
That in this very moment, I’m being held prisoner
I’m being forced to make a choice
I’m being forced to consider

My mind is awash in the buzz of last night
And the fade of this morning

Austere
Varying shades of whites & greys
Ohio in December
Ohio, the way I’ll remember

This is bleak
Wearing all of my previous evening
Inside and out
I feel like sandpaper
I smell like 3am
Friday night
Saturday morning
It’s Monday morning
And its a dreary 7:30

7:32am

I’m wearing this to work
This is how well I wear exhaustion
I’ll flaunt it in a professional setting
In a professional manner
A white collar show & tell

I’ll groom the bare minimum
But I MUST shave my face
Just to save face
So it doesn’t look like I have a drinking problem
Because I don’t
I just like to party

I treat my body like a machine
It’s regarded like a car I can’t afford to keep gas in
But I can afford to drive to New York at night and explore

A special kind of neglect

7:35 am

A single apple
A bowl of cereal
A bag of chips
Some energy to pursue The Commute

Literally, running on fumes
Literally, every morning
Between 6am to 1pm
Literally, running late
Everyday

Responsible living escapes me

7:41am

GO! GO! GO!
I hit the basement
I braced my knees
I covered my hands
Adjusted to bike the streets

Covered in gear
Drunk and exhausted
The idea of just staying here
Is so attractive and real

I can ******* doggedness
I can still taste the air in my bedroom
While I’m in the basement
I can also taste….unemployment
So, I go.

7:45am

Bleak
Varying shades of whites & greys
Ohio in January
Ohio, all the time really
Atleast it has the feeling
Biking in the elements

The air I breath stings something awful
In my chest
Ice cubes
In my breath
Snowflakes

The blue collar effort
Two feet of snow
And its still coming
This workout//THE COMMUTE
For a white collar job
Dealing with billing disputes
The upkeep of my finacial cause

I’m a pest
The snow is deep
Almost up to my knees
I’m a menace
I’m an obstacle among perpetual obstacles
And we’re all just trying to avoid each other

MARKET//MAIN ST.

As I start to pick up speed
My body begins to adjust
My senses waken up
And narrowly avoid
This, assaulting Mack truck
Speeding on a 10speed
Down the wrong side of the street

Whoops.

I’ve got no choice really
I can’t see or hear what’s behind me
Behind my own panting
And Kendrick Lamar’s ranting
So down the opposite side of the road I go
Around Mack truck smoke & mounds of snow

I reach the edge of the street
And depending on the day of the week
And how generous those patrons are, of St V
I could exercise the sidewalk

No such luck,
So, **** it
I’ll fight traffic
I’ll keep to the streets
And dogde the fleets

This is the real challenge
This is the adventure…
Side to side with traffic
Hand in hand with danger

Car horns & headlights
This lifestyle might really **** me

7:42am
Oh, hey look
Another *******
Middle aged driver
Righteous anger
Righteous motorist

STOP!
It was on Old Main St.
At 7:47am
I was almost on the news
This is a stanza of dediction to the man in the grey Toyota
I’ve developed wonderful instincts
I almost died
This man sped through the incorrect traffic light

So I stopped!
Or else I would’ve been on the news
At roughly 8:38am
Vehicular manslaughter would probably be the charge
Probably a hit and run
I would not have stopped either
I’m this ******* in the middle of the street
On a bike
I’m an early morning, urban menace

I hit the pavement

Desolate
Varying shades of whites & greys
Ohio in February
Ohio all the time really
Atleast it has the feeling
Sprawled, laying in the elements

My mind is awash in the buzz of the night
Before
And the fade of this morning

*******!
I’m shouting now
On the ground, at the sky
In the snow, to the ice
At these ******* motorists, at my ******* bike
A special kind of entitlement

I was born in the wrong state, in the wrong place

I hit the pavement
I skinned my knees
And scraped my hands
Numb & exhausted
The idea of just laying here & giving up is so attractive and real
But I can’t…because bill$

I treat my body like a machine
I regard it like a toy I can’t put down
Even if I choose
If afforded the chance, I wouldn’t know what to do

Dreary
Varying shades of whites and greys
Ohio in March
I won’t even ******* start

8:01am

I show up to work
Half drunk and overworked
Sleet and snowy down my side
And rehearse this white collar ritual
After my blue collar effort
I’m so ******* tired

Living on the edge has this embrace
Like something most people couldn’t stomach
Most people aren’t built for it
Most people aren’t meant to

Don’t take this as a challenge, gentle tweeter
Or take it as one
I’m not saying it can’t be done
I accomplish this, twice a day, four in a row, and roughly an odd fifth one.

Priti Patel's quote on EU migration - whatever it was...
list of common surnames: cropper, cross, crouch,
dabney, dalton, daniels, eads, easton, eccleston,
fairclough, farnham, fay, gardner, garey, garfield,
haight, hanes, hailey, ibbott, irvin, isaacson,
jack, jackson, jacobs, kay, keen, kelsey,
lacey, lacy, lamar, macey, mann, marchand,
neal, nelson, neville... sure pati japati patel -
i'll be an albino in Gujarat
if your play the sitar in a sari;
but your name sounds a bit migrant
revealing, what a weird 'back of the bus'
you seem to stand on -
you want the Mongolians resurrected?
i swear we were being ousted in line
of what Queen Sheba said to Solomon:
'olive skinned throughout the geography
and the unwelcome green men on
sponged-knickers creaming for an ******
a french dessert...'
yes pretty prior, you found home on a
continent when half of the european nations
didn't practice colonial antics -
i guess it's easier to pick on them.
but with a Patel surname you sound british
already, the great experiment worked
the anaesthetic of former colonialism
numbed via recreational Ketamine use
really numbed the skull and jaw mandibles -
i hate, i hate being conscripted into
post-colonial affairs of "why it all failed"
what a waste of the urban hubs of
Manchester or Liverpool -
where once artistic expression thrived -
i hate these post-colonial societies,
it's as if they were castrated en masse,
and they're wondering why no one has a permanent
suntan in scandinavia - maybe the raw herring diet -
cinnamon up your ***, magician's trick with
space between fudge of digestion, disappearing trick
but then the cough that blinds you sweetly -
i guess post-colonial nationalism wanted to
listen to non-colonial nationalism -
a former migrant like pretty plated smell
olive skinned exploited inversion of angers
but dunked a footstep into a trip-up
with non-colonial nations -
a bit like the greek bail-out - pretty patel
is a name least likely associated with migration;
you teasing the beast out?

A Lamar Original

I owe an apology to you
Not just any apology, but one from the heart;
Sincere and so very true,
That I was nothing without you taking part,
Part in my life, part in my world;
You are more than a woman, my lady, my girl;
You mean more now to me than life itself;
Your voice seizes in my soul like a web;
As it reverberates in my mind,
How could I leave that behind?

An entire world that I longed to see,
A complete woman that belong to me;
Baby, I saw losing you hurt me worse,
Because my world revolves you, Miss Universe.

I owe you an explanation or so,
Not only one for you, but for each lady,
Who have sacrificed their hearts and souls,
As you devoted your all to men so shady,
So shady your feelings, to your essence,
I took for granted the value of your presence;
What a fool to think that I had it all, boo,
But I realize now that my all is you;
As it echoes in my heart
How could we truly part?

An entire world that I longed to see,
A complete woman that belong to me;
Baby, I saw losing you hurt me worse,
Because my world revolves you, Miss Universe.

Sometimes we like to do something for the story
we’ll tell afterwards. Buy a ’58 Pontiac, climb
a mountain in the dark. Lamar tells ***** jokes
with class, knows how to wait awhile, bend
a syllable and savor the laughter. We go on

with our absurd work, building a fence miles long
waste of steel and strong straight lodgepole pine
but even I don’t opine against it anymore. We’re
self-acknowledged children, fence is play and
livelihood also, but something cheerful as sunshine

for all the death it costs. There is so much life
a little death doesn’t matter. We stretch our muscles
the men feel like men, the women feel good too.
We stand around, watch a young rabbit one morning.

For seven days
We lived
But we were
Told that we
Could only rest
For three nights
Each could choose our
Own nights
For the first three
Days we enjoyed
this new life
Then Marie
Died
Another day
Thomas and Juliette
They died together
After finding love
Next day
Alex died
I'll miss him
Halfway between days
five and six
Three more died
They died
Screaming
For life
There's so few of us
Left
Just me
Lamar
Mira
And Jackson
At sunset on the sixth day
Mira tripped
And fell
Into the river
Lamar jumped in
To save her
We never saw them again
I am scared
Because I can't
bear to be awake
Any longer
If I don't rest
I will past out
That will be
My final night of rest
Tomorrow
I will die
I know it
But what of Jackson
He has rested
Only once
Will he live
Past our seventh day
The sun is rising
on my last day
of life
Jackson holds me
As the last of
The life
Leaves me
I'll see you tomorrow
he whispers