If the moon smiled, she would resemble you.
You leave the same impression
Of something beautiful, but annihilating.
Both of you are great light borrowers.
Her O-mouth grieves at the world; yours is unaffected,

And your first gift is making stone out of everything.
I wake to a mausoleum; you are here,
Ticking your fingers on the marble table, looking for cigarettes,
Spiteful as a woman, but not so nervous,
And dying to say something unanswerable.

The moon, too, abuses her subjects,
But in the daytime she is ridiculous.
Your dissatisfactions, on the other hand,
Arrive through the mailslot with loving regularity,
White and blank, expansive as carbon monoxide.

No day is safe from news of you,
Walking about in Africa maybe, but thinking of me.

Righteous monoxide filled the lugs of apartheid
Read the palm, explained what could be
Read the psalm for breathless trifling  

Redefine
Recognize, please
Rewind

Barbiturate is one of the few drugs capable of killing you painlessly, so of course the state has banned it. Instead we get paracetamol, a ****** over-the-counter painkiller that leaves you in pain for up to five days while your liver and kidneys shut down. Suicide prevention is a ******* joke. Secular appropriations of Christian values that assume life is worthwhile, whether you desire it or not. It’s long been known that rates of suicide rose dramatically with the birth of modernity—techno-scientific paradise for the middle-class which stresses efficiency over existence. New forms of automation, the human body disciplined into repetitious acts, the partitioning of workspaces so that no single worker could operate the whole—so that any worker could be fired and replaced with the minimum amount of training necessary for capital to continue circulating. The body is individualised, scrutinised, and punished by rich kids playing panopticon, so that any mass agitation is coerced into silence through the threat of destitution.

Slitting your wrists barely succeeds and more likely than not leaves you with tendon and muscle damage. Catalytic converters in cars now convert carbon monoxide into harmless CO2 and H2O. Drowning is one of the most painful ways to die. You cannot escape. The state places helpline numbers around suicide spots to treat life after the fact, rather than at the source of suffering. Vocal band-aids, ****** ******* aphorisms that seek to revert you back into a happy state-serving commodity. Things will get better. Life is worth living. Think positive. Alienation is omnipresent. Neoliberal discourse requires you to be subservient to the greater system of capital and the easiest way towards this is the instilment of comfort, of pleasant nullity, the circumscription of emotional capacity and reflectivity. Suicidal thoughts are abnormal, because life is worth living. Eat your packaged food item and watch Netflix.

For a drop into water to be fatal, it has to be 250 feet. Try to aim for your head to maximise brain injury. The most prominent suicide spot around here has a drop of 100 feet. They cordoned it off anyway. Your life doesn’t belong to you. The first time I tried to suicide my mother asked ‘why would you do that?’ as if it was the dumbest thing in the world. The second time, the doctor looked at me in an exasperated manner and prescribed me lots of drugs. Geettt bettterrrr. Nobody cares about you, they simply want you to return to normal. Normality as in serving your parents, serving your friends, serving the state, and serving the market. Normality as in not questioning social norms and institutions. Normality as in get a stable job (i.e. compete against other workers in an exploitative, undemocratic system that values and inculcates self-serving desires), get married (preferably to someone of the opposite *** who is middle-class and imbibes European culture), get pregnant/get someone pregnant (but only once or twice, because anyone who has more children than that is backwards), invest in housing (those students and lower-class families need to learn how the world works; really, it’s a benefit to take their money), watch sports (to instil national pride in your children; no son, we didn’t colonise the Pacific Islands, keep watching the man with the wooden stick hit *****), eat out every week (preferably exotic restaurants), go see the world (preferably exotic locations, so you can be served by exotic people, take in exotic sights, then leave without considering where any of your money has gone to, whether any of it has reached the slums, whether the beach you lay on is accessible to the people living there, or whether it has been privatised by the tourist firm so that only rich tourists like yourself can lie on it), join a club (those capitalists were innocent, it was the indigenous folk that were making a ruckus over the new golf course; it’s not like we’ve been colonising their land and culture for the past three centuries), donate to charity (but never any charity desiring systemic change; that’s crazy), consume, always consume (keeps the economy going; why question the desire for infinite growth in a world with limited land, resources and markets?), replace your phone every year (those poor workers in Asia need our help), repeat to the point of nausea.

The most successful method to suicide is a shotgun to the head; high calibre, slug rounds. Of course, with all these methods, the chance of failing may leave you disfigured, paralysed, mentally disabled or physically crippled (spinal damage, broken limbs, failed organs), with no guarantee that your family, or even your state, will allow for euthanasia. After all, the popular discourse paints suicide as selfish—an irony, considering liberalism places the self first and society second. It is viewed as sinful regardless of context—deontologically detached from anomie, alienation, material deprivation, social pressures, psychological affectations, any cause or structure. Life is worth living. This ignores that the subject is situated in existence. The subject moves through existence to live. Life, then, is the totality of the subject’s interactions. It cannot be universalised into a single state or judgement that merges all subjectivities into a catch-all worthiness. Worth is dependent of the subject.

I don’t know why I’m writing this. Maybe I just want everyone to **** themselves, because the world is ****** and the majority of people are ******* it worse. Most people think being nice makes them good. They turn blind to the systems of oppression they partake in. A while ago my mother was asking if I’d heard about the mass suicides happening at Foxconn, the largest electronics manufacturer in the world. This year she showed me her new iPhone. I don’t ******* understand. I don’t understand how people can be outraged at humanity abuses, yet do ******* nothing to help or change their ways. Yes, market solutions are ******* ****, but these commodities are still coming from somewhere, and while capitalism is in place, our money is still flowing back. I don’t understand how people can be concerned about ecological issues, then pour dishwashing liquid down the sink every night, dissolving the gills, eyes, and organs of fish in rivers and oceans. I don’t understand a ******* thing. I feel physically sick most days. I can barely function outside of university, because engaging with real people, in real systems, just reminds me of how careless, worthless, and disgusting they are. When I first turned vegan, my dad simply said plants are living too. Well no ******* **** dad, why didn’t you ask me my reason for turning vegan, rather than simply repeating the dumb **** everyone else says? If you were stuck on a desert island. Well I’m ******* not. I’m stuck on this **** world filled with nice people who don’t give a **** about anything. I’m stuck every week walking the same roads, to the same university, where I become more and more distanced from reality through abstract philosophical theories that no one else cares about. I’m stuck walking through the supermarket every week, to purchase overpriced commodities produced by transnational corporations I don’t support, but nonetheless have to buy to survive. What alternatives I buy are mocked because it's so funny being ethical in our day and age. Because it’s so much more normal eating pies, and drinking beer, and treating women like objects, and affirming nationalistic sentiments of white supremacy, and making fun of ethnic minorities while they’re incarcerated, and beaten, and killed. All lives matter, the liberal conservatives cry out, while doing ******* nothing to help any cause. I don’t understand this world, and I have no desire to be in it if this is all there is.

grandeur

had brought the well outta ground the muscled men and she came upon them when they had split into teams and were rolling it and had not yet become competitive. the hands of her gone infant came back to her to see these men heave back and forth a vanishing. of her many fathers one had said ‘the deep train went even deeper and I could not wake’. he had said it to excuse his one day feat of linking unadorned toilet paper rolls to stretch a rat’s mile. her stomach had yet to go down and she was comforted by such literal remnants as thinking of the last place you had it.

libel

two white boys come outta shack each with a wrist one left one right being ****** at the mouth. their laughing I wouldn’t say manic but still not righted. like certain bible stories seem to tumble outta that book it’s the same with their eyes and ears. their heads each one shrunk so as to be united. I want to say here at least a ****** knows what it’s mocking. I only know one of’em and only as far as this thing being passed and told that he ain’t a foster but he was born in a pan and taken from the offices of the parent company his father got laid from. you think that’s the joke but had I not said white you’d have thought they were anyway. here come two girls grisly with month and I never seen two boys so quick to put down the shack they come from.

prayer

I like it best when my girl is pregnant because I get the sympathies. on her hand, she likes me drunk. at any one time, I can remember seven of our eight kids. this means of course one gets left home but also that not a one gets left grocery. I’d tell you their names but then I’d have to split this saying into parts. but I can tell you seven are boys. now and again they’ll slip on sister’s dress to **** up my math. a good joke I start with is that they take after their mother and if they take after me it’s with sticks. I change the batteries in the alarms for fire and carbon monoxide every two weeks mostly outta fear that I’ll lose them all and have to recount them to some fireman I went to school with. I don’t know if batteries are cheap or not, I don’t know anything about them, but I know I spend a healthy chunk of my portion to have. wife and I are keeping the ninth at bay the ways we know how. she don’t ask me and I don’t her. one kid a week goes with her to church and it’s up to me to remember who in my charge caught a fish the week previous. but I’m not wrong with god; no book is the bible, I believe that. at cemetery by which I am lack whelmed: I wish I had his memory.

nativity

wonder they ever told him grown, that black foster, how he'd been at three years dropped manger while crying for the congregates. straw in everything. back a throat, bottom a shoe. pop said he just about caught himself afire at work, straw sticking out his pocket. pop unable to split work clothes from churched. some wanted to resurrect a fuss about color; don’t go resurrecting a fuss and waved his hand he did that pastor ingénue. heard then I the word negress and after its saying the sayers looked about as if she would appear. this was our town after god and many were still making their own. this answers how the black foster needn’t audition. the gold I brought was soft on my thumbs and the flakes stayed in my nails weeks after. pop could tell for that time what I’d been touching so I’d cover when I could. we were quite a pair in our fooleries what with his straw and my gold. he stopped going on about the blacks and I was able to skip school with your sister the ****** mary. the town was never up for nightmares or for dreaming so I kept your share to myself until now how you seen mary fingered by a man with seven. heard him saying it's okay baby, this one's asleep.

holy ghost!

I will cut myself, Horror Film. will fidget my nethers a last time. maybe make the snow an angel with a third leg. which means I have gone outside. maybe my father will happen by you and put his beers together. but I will be gone. into the woods dragging my feet so some will think it took two to take me. I will whip branches about me and generally scuffle so the some will better convince the left. my poverty will be confirmed by your presence on videocassette. my father will hold you aloft and your tongue will droop above the depths of his hair. my father will claim a vengeance he owes on and the some and the left will follow him over the states of my angel and into the woods. when they find me I will say I had an in body experience; that the two men nearby sleep and it’s what we’re walking in.

haptics

little he knows that in holding them hoppers until they spit and before they go wing he is making hitch the upcome carriage of his *****. his future nudes are backtracking and the gravity of this has been diagnosed as your emphysema. he is your, nothing more, son. he will rub your back and worry his thumbs orphan. oh thumb; toe six. the way you deeply stand arms folded he sometimes thinks you have been replaced by a statue of his mother. it is then he remembers the fence his father built and the collective plank his father carried under his arm. you want life to be good again; your son’s low hand and the pups it could feed.

verbal abuse*

she has brought with her a shoplifted teddy bear. on a good night her age is seventeen. two days ago the voices in her head moved to her mouth. she has seven teeth that remain quiet. she fears so much how this third day will go. she has been told, and she believes, I am only in her mind. but there she is, at the sitting rock where we met, the rock I told her I could see things in. unprepared for her faith, I am unclothed. I am glad she has the bear and glad for my part in her having it.

spiders

we got some kind of plague in our toilets mama.*  that’s my dad calling her mama, my mom. that’s him declaring another plague. week don’t stop until a plague has been pieced together by this man so named Paff Snull on the subscription stubs of any number of unread magazines mom uses to swat dramatically at imaginary flies and wasps and locusts depending on the week. this time though I’m ******* because when dad cracks his knees and ***** himself to fetch mama from silence, I look in the toilet up and it’s true and in the toilet down and it’s more. spiders grey and black and off white. with our low water pressure, spiders having a ball. mom and dad they get tents and tell me twice to get inside mine once it’s on the front lawn. I get told things twice because I was born thick and I haven’t the heart to tell them that after the first saying the saying of it is diminished. I mumble to myself in corners, sure, but it’s the same mumbling. our dog gets a separate tent and I sneak into it when dog allows. seven nights so far outta three weeks I haven’t. mom says it’s because of my acne dog don’t recognize me sometimes. ******* bit the meatsy of my right hand a month ago and my handwriting got so neat I was sent from school for cheating. it’s most of my summer and the house is still spidery. the dog has gone to the river to drink and seems okay with it. mom, dad, and I **** in the backyard in shifts. mom ain’t swatting anything, she doesn’t have to on account of the spiders. when right now I mess up my shift I find myself next to dad and he’s just some guy telling me them glass-full people got the joke on them because the water is contaminated. he’s so happy it makes me think I’m the devil to be grinning so big. long wasn’t the reign of Paff Snull.

Diving into bath salts, raving flue that is as sicking as math, at least that is what I conclude from my findings presented to the court. Objection, objection, sir I don't see the connection, maybe your rhyme scheme needs perfection. Maybe it does, but ***** it, I'm blessed by God; baby please sit down and take a chill pill and just enjoy this buzz. Busting off, so back off, bout to prove my case like I’m Ace Attorney, oh and I know it’s off topic but if I lived in America, I would’ve voted for Bernie. What the **** am I on? Came to save the digital world you can call me a digimon, you bet I’m a champion! Serendipity dear deputy; I’ll be typically wittingly searching for some tranquility. What is the validity of this vicinity as I only accept notability and won’t let this become a liability!

Pathologically paraplegic hypochondriac with insomniac who be popping poems profusely perfect; while whimsically worm's try to be strategic, but sadly choke and lose it. Miles set apart; it certainly is not a strut in some park, but everyone has to start somewhere before they engrave their mark. Don't reside yourself to just being a silhouette, nor be one to toot your clarinet. Two sides to every person like Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde; be careful to not let your pride turn into carbon monoxide. For pride will always lead to your downfall, so please take off your iron curtain and tear down your Berlin wall. Improvident incongruous incredulous confidence; underwhelming astonishment of such fundaments of these heinous and callous acts of deceitfulness. Trickery of thy decadence; why art though jittery when you are full of benevolence? So used to getting what you want I bet; well this situation can not be fixed by dough, so I see why you are in a cold sweat! Fake confidence won't help you here especially when one lies; you made a mistake and will face the consequences and I am not one quick to forgive no matter how much you apologize.  

Don’t have time to consider your sensibility, because my life is going a twitter with too much hyperactivity for me to deal with your stupidity. Befittingly that I’ll be building up the intensity, to infinity and beyond goes this creativity of this anomaly. Not going to prolong this phenomenon, I’ll be going off like a Molotov over this intercom, yeah you better not ever underestimate this underdog. Lackadaisical are these other rappers; they’re so replaceable and incapable to be educational. Incomprehensible is this loop of hip-hop now a days, why can’t we be inspirational or is it to late because we left morals and substance back in the olden days. Can’t afford to be anchored anymore, I’ve poured in too much time to be just be locked behind some door. I refuse to be ignored and be left ashore; I am not worried about going into the storm; because you are bound to come across some things that need some work like chores. Spinning the wheel, reminiscing of how it felt when I no longer concealed who I was and my self-image had been healed.

Used to be reclusive & convinced myself that I was a duffass, but now I’m exclusive to being a smart ***. This is the new era, this is a new fire; it’s time to spice things up so better pull out the sriracha. Leading the revolution like I’m Che Guevara, I’m light as feather whatever the endeavor even if my life story doesn’t end up as pristine as Cinderella’s. Why so infatuated by worldly wants? Why so decorated when you can't hide the fact that you're the same basic *** font? Trying be something else, striving to be someone else, wanting to be anything else. You are who you are, if you think it will make things better you cucu, because in my eyes you are really a star. You have to expand your interpretation and perspective of life, you have to demand without hesitation a piece of that collective pie; because I believe everyone should be equal in this life.

Calculated bullets that go straight through my cranium; manufactured outlets that show great things but have also turned us into brainless aliens. Complicated hookups that grow irritating and become as unstable as uranium; what was once sacred has become as spontaneous as going to a gymnasium. Confiscated trinkets cast away and leaves those affected very irritate; while also simultaneously making apathetic souls that have gone through the same thing be able to understand, help or relate. Cultivated rebellious culprits that don't take the memo of being cooperative, instead they choose to be provocative and opposite of the other conglomerates. I’m so fascinated by this fabricated segregated supposedly liberated and sophisticated community; where-as some so foolishly stupidly amusingly think that everyone has the same equal chance at opportunity. Moderated, regulated and orchestrated where some are situated; if you don’t think that it has something to do with be affiliated to a certain demographic then maybe you never got educated in the affairs of those discriminated. It’s a good thing then that class is in session; so viewer or listener  please use discretion when taking time to witness or hear my position. Deafening out all ill whims; wrestling with these unsettling menacing fears and guilt from all of my sins.

Yeah no need for hallucinogens, all I need is two hydrogens and one oxygen. Rocking in my moccasins; so you can bet I am not one to drop my promises. Native honour who is also a innovative scholar and who was created not to falter. I may not be good with numbers, but I'm good at making sure you never slumber on my words; because I work on them day and night in my 36 chambers. Beware the pretender, they are manufactured by the vendors to keep us from being together. Defend your heart; be wise who you befriend and who you pick for your counterpart. There will be hurt and affection can be perverted, so know your worth and never ever let yourself be distorted. It is not your fault, it is not my fault, so then who is at fault? Is it just life in general? Is it because of the being who lives eternal? Is it all of the above? I don't know, but we shouldn't judge and instead choose to accept and love!

Pardon me Martin, but if this class were a prison I’d be the warden. I make the rules here and I took the tools given to me to get me here. So listen, please listen to my lesson that I have to present to you as class is still in session. Loading yawl with ammunition to be able to transition to be able to complete your goals or missions. No I’m not tripping, I’m driven  by a higher force to break away the old ways of thinking such as division. This is not the prohibition anymore, so please open your minds and join me on this expedition. Going into the unknown, so here’s to hoping you get through this, as time goes on and be able to look back at it we may feel like this was no more than a tiny but important milestone.  Achieve, believe, conceive, receive, intrigue, and succeed because I think you are unique. You are the only you in the whole galaxy, don’t let agony turn into tragedy; ***** anxiety; yeah and never let your dreams just be some fantasy.

Outro: Sit down class ain't over yet, forfeit those frowns or fake faint or try to jet. Lastly remember what transpired today; don't go hastily and forget about it on December break okay? For though class may be over, more days or years to come until its finally over. Though education ends, one never stops learning even on vacations with family or friends.  I hope you can look back with fondness, I hope you can stay on track in the future if you truly take the time to just focus. Is there truly an end or is this just the beginning to a new bend.

imagine retiring before you're 30,
with the great european disneyland
in switzerland waiting for your desires,
god... i stopped celebrating my birthdays
deliberately, so that each day is like
a birthday before the day i die:
motto: oh ****, here again, *******!

so i started brooding on the concept of
monism, dualism and trinity
in chemical terms eradicating theological
impetus to salvage from one (e.g. the buddha,
the christ, the moses without a surname like jesus)
the multitude: mostly fishermen and tax officers
and thieves... jesus... what a selective society you
knit and picked, huh?
i was thinking of carbon monoxide
(C≡O)... so when counter-structures on the
elemental level become coupled in a scenario
of being identical, bypassing non-super-imposable'ness
(disregarding chirality), they can spawn
exponential growth named cancerous economics!  
and methane (C and H x4)
ethene (H2C=CH2) and ethane (H3C-CH3)
trinity's degenerate nature... oh right, so you're playing
dumb but not farming, you're the required
audience in front of the digitalised combine of colours
in a shady room? plato would call that coloured shadows
where no messages are deciphered given the doubt
that they're even passed for the excommunication
of corrupt politicians and the clergy... you know:
french / russian revolution *******.
oh i want a thinking embryo not attached to my body,
i want it so bad that i can compare myself
to elijah's command: execute the priesthood of baal,
because they can't conjure anything,
just paedophilia and mumbles and sugar puffs at breakfast.
well there's all that, what was i talking about?
rambling on many cobwebbed talking matters later
it might appear like Alzheimer's... right the active
ingredient of cigarettes: carbon monoxide,
(C≡O), not like carbon diaoxide (O=C=O),
a trinity in one person creates a fourth dimension,
imagine the interstellar (movie) capsule of quantum-space
of humanism interpreting the crucifix wearing
a cosmonaut suit rather than adam's fur...
it's like that... so apart from carbon monoxide providing
the suffocating dizzy carousel of the cigarette dragged
quickie high, you get the nicotine i thought was
actually a placebo substance, a palette of tobacco akin...
still alice* was a bit **** to be honest,
she was trying to salvage her strongest areas of
personality, she specialised in linguistics,
in phonetics and what not (etc.),
if she suddenly changed course with her interests,
rather than retreated into the laziness of:
all consciousness and thinking is about memory and
memorisation, she was challenged by schooling's
expression of memory: the times table: 2 x 2 = 4, 2 x 3 = 6,
and personal memory, the imprints on other
people, rather than civilisation's imprint on
the person in question: civilisation = the existence of money,
tribalism = you scratch my back, i scratch yours.

I am the prodigal daughter
of Hestia--
Goddess of hearth,
warmth,
embers that do not fade,
for they glow as softly
as lightning bugs.

But this time,
I will not be returning home.

Don't you see?

I've burned it down already.

Perhaps there shall exist no redemption
for my pyromanic sins.

They could not save
Sylvia Plath
as she ****** her head into the oven,
carbon monoxide stealing away
her last strands of breath.

(Sadness climbs up my throat in
stalagmites of flame,
rises from the chasm of my soul like bile,
like a phoenix reborn.)

They could not save
Joan of Arc,
whose flesh screamed out among
the ringlets of fire
and threads of cinder
that consumed it
so mercilessly.

(No, I am not a witch--
just a demi-goddess,
just a dangerous woman
But, unlike Joan of Arc,
I am no Saint either.)

They could not save Pompeii
whose inhabitants lay
victimized
asphyxiated
stolen
by the magma regurgitated by
the Almighty Vesuvius

(I cannot decide who I am
more similar to--
the inhabitants of Pompeii,
or the lava itself)

Perhaps then,
there is no saving a woman like me--
a woman forged from brimstone,
Hell's very own Femme Fatale.

I wear lighter fluid
atop my collar bone like its fragrance;
braid singed ribbon into my hair,
its ends charred and
curling upwards like tendrils of smoke;
rouge my lips with gunpowder.

Kiss me and
bite the bullet, darling--
make love to me
and you will combust.

But oh!

How these men will  bite their lip
at the thought of
******* me,
of dipping their fingertips
into the molten pools
that dwell between my thighs
similar to the way
a mere girl
(I, 16 years old)
is fascinated by the prospect
of baptizing her own melancholic
hands in candle wax.

(Who's the real ******* here, Baby?


Sincerely,
your Filthy Pyrophilliac.)


I am a
shadow charmer,
arsonist
the  Siren
of this Inferno
(wanted for her crimes).

Perhaps I was never the epitome of darkness,
perhaps I simply
lured the darkness towards me
(sorrow and the devil too.)

It's funny now that I think about it,
how the stars too reside in darkness,
how, when I wish upon them,
I am really only wishing on fire.

And where there is fire,
there is destruction;
it's no wonder all these dreams--
those of
love
magic
poetry--
have shuddered to ash.

Still, l I find myself making
snow angels in the ashes,
stick my tongue out,
let the remnants of desire
scorch my taste buds.

Here I lie
like an extinguished cigarette,
my use fulfilled and discarded.
But that's just fate,
stars ain't too fond
of nicotine, ya see,
ain't too fond of me
even though the very atoms
that comprise my being
are made of the stuff of galaxies.

But, oh, how these galaxies
have escaped my brooding grasp.

I do whatever it takes
to re-ignite what has been
lost--
chew on matchsticks,
let the splinters sear themselves
into my tongue;
lap at the iridescent gasoline puddles
that wade along
lonely streets corners;
howl beneath paper lanterns,
for both the sun and the moon
have forsaken me.

I do whatever it takes
to remember where I come from--
a state of limbo,
wherein I am simultaneously
angel (falling) |and| demon (the fallen)

What am I without flame?

Flame--
they could not save me from it,
from burning.

But perhaps the peril was never in burning;
perhaps it was in  burning out;
perhaps it was in disintegrating.

What is this, behind this veil, is it ugly, is it beautiful?
It is shimmering, has it *******, has it edges?

I am sure it is unique, I am sure it is what I want.
When I am quiet at my cooking I feel it looking, I feel it thinking

'Is this the one I am too appear for,
Is this the elect one, the one with black eye-pits and a scar?

Measuring the flour, cutting off the surplus,
Adhering to rules, to rules, to rules.

Is this the one for the annunciation?
My god, what a laugh!'

But it shimmers, it does not stop, and I think it wants me.
I would not mind if it were bones, or a pearl button.

I do not want much of a present, anyway, this year.
After all I am alive only by accident.

I would have killed myself gladly that time any possible way.
Now there are these veils, shimmering like curtains,

The diaphanous satins of a January window
White as babies' bedding and glittering with dead breath. O ivory!

It must be a tusk there, a ghost column.
Can you not see I do not mind what it is.

Can you not give it to me?
Do not be ashamed--I do not mind if it is small.

Do not be mean, I am ready for enormity.
Let us sit down to it, one on either side, admiring the gleam,

The glaze, the mirrory variety of it.
Let us eat our last supper at it, like a hospital plate.

I know why you will not give it to me,
You are terrified

The world will go up in a shriek, and your head with it,
Bossed, brazen, an antique shield,

A marvel to your great-grandchildren.
Do not be afraid, it is not so.

I will only take it and go aside quietly.
You will not even hear me opening it, no paper crackle,

No falling ribbons, no scream at the end.
I do not think you credit me with this discretion.

If you only knew how the veils were killing my days.
To you they are only transparencies, clear air.

But my god, the clouds are like cotton.
Armies of them. They are carbon monoxide.

Sweetly, sweetly I breathe in,
Filling my veins with invisibles, with the million

Probable motes that tick the years off my life.
You are silver-suited for the occasion. O adding machine-----

Is it impossible for you to let something go and have it go whole?
Must you stamp each piece purple,

Must you **** what you can?
There is one thing I want today, and only you can give it to me.

It stands at my window, big as the sky.
It breathes from my sheets, the cold dead center

Where split lives congeal and stiffen to history.
Let it not come by the mail, finger by finger.

Let it not come by word of mouth, I should be sixty
By the time the whole of it was delivered, and to numb to use it.

Only let down the veil, the veil, the veil.
If it were death

I would admire the deep gravity of it, its timeless eyes.
I would know you were serious.

There would be a nobility then, there would be a birthday.
And the knife not carve, but enter

Pure and clean as the cry of a baby,
And the universe slide from my side.

From 3 p.m. Monday to 3 p.m. Tuesday
<h2>Police calls
<h3>LA CROSSE
3:39 p.m., Hit-and-run, 4400 block of Hwy. 16
4:11 p.m., Theft, 3700 block of Hwy. 16
4:41 p.m., Hit-and-run, 1100 block of State St.
5:37 p.m., Domestic disturbance, 1000 block of Charles St.
5:42 p.m., Theft, 2100 block of Liberty St.
5:59 p.m., Fight, Fourth and King sts.
8:08 p.m., Theft, 2400 block of Rose St.
8:08 p.m., Domestic disturbance, 400 block of Sixth St.
8:37 p.m., Domestic disturbance, 1000 block of Fifth Ave. S.
10:14 p.m., Domestic disturbance, 1600 block of Adams St.
11:32 p.m., Domestic disturbance, 1400 block of Avon St.
2:38 a.m., Domestic disturbance, 900 block of 16th St.
8:25 a.m., Theft, 3300 block of Rosehill Place
8:25 a.m., Theft, 1000 block of Ninth St.
8:26 a.m., Theft, 500 block of Main St.
8:26 a.m., Theft, 1400 block of Johnson St.
8:34 a.m., Theft, 400 block of Seventh St.
9:24 a.m., Entry to dwelling, 1600 block of Caledonia St.
9:51 a.m., Theft, 400 block of Liberty St.
11:01 a.m., Fraud, first block of Copeland Ave.
12:16 p.m., Entry to dwelling, 1000 block of State St.          
<h3>ONALASKA
6:06 p.m., Animal bite, 2600 block of Midwest Drive
<h3>WEST SALEM
7:40 a.m., Vandalism, 3400 block of Hwy. 16
12:13 p.m., Theft, 900 block of Hwy. 16
<h3>BANGOR
9:24 a.m., Theft, 1800 block of Commercial St.
<h2>Fire Calls
<h3>LA CROSSE
3:01 p.m., Accident with injury, Fourth and Mississippi sts.
4:11 p.m., Accident with injury, 4500 block of Hwy. 33
4:26 p.m., Accident with injury, Hwy. 16 and 157
5:45 p.m., First responders, 700 block of Oakland St.
6:18 p.m., First responders, 1800 block of Pine St.
6:40 p.m., Accident with injury, Main and Fourth sts.
9:27 p.m., Natural gas odor, 700 block of Ninth St. N.
10:16 p.m., First responders, 1600 block of Adams St.
10:20 p.m., First responders, 900 block of Vine St.
1:54 a.m., First responders, 4100 block of Velmar Court
8:34 a.m., First responders, 400 block of Seventh St.
9:01 a.m., First responders, 400 block of Seventh St.
10:41 a.m., Accident with injury, Ninth and Vine sts.
10:45 a.m., Carbon monoxide report, 1500 block of Main St.
10:46 a.m., First responders, 400 block of Gillette St.
11:04 a.m., Accident with injury, 1300 block of Rose St.
11:10 a.m., First responders, 1500 block of Rose St.
11:14 a.m., First responders, Fourth and King sts.
11:31 a.m., Accident with injury, 16th and Main sts.
12:05 p.m., Accident with injury, 200 block of Pearl St.
1:12 p.m., Accident with injury, Hood and Miller sts.
2:26 p.m., Accident with injury, 21st St. and Park Ave.
<h3>ONALASKA
3:30 p.m., First responders, 1000 block of Westview Circle
5:09 p.m., Accident with injury, 1200 block of Hwy PH
8:02 p.m., First responders, 300 block of 12th Ave.
8:43 p.m., First responders, 300 block of 12th Ave.
8:50 p.m., First responders, 200 block of Oak Forest Drive
9:47 p.m., First responders, 200 block of Carol Lane
6:12 a.m., First responders, 1000 block of Frances Court
10:41 a.m., First responders, 7200 Northshore Lane
11:27 a.m., Accident with injury, Grant St. and Hwy. SN
11:35 a.m., Accident with injury, Commerce and Abbey roads
11:53 a.m., Accident with injury, 300 block of 11th Ave.
12:14 p.m., First responders, 5500 block of Commerce Road
1:08 p.m., First responders, 400 block of Kimberly St.
1:42 p.m., Accident with injury, 600 block of Second Ave.
<h3>HOLMEN
9:59 p.m., First responders, 1500 block of Viking Ave.
10:50 a.m., Accident with injury, Sand Lake Road and Laurel Place
1:32 p.m., Accident with injury, 1400 block of Main St.
<h3>WEST SALEM
8:53 a.m., First responders, 500 block of Elm St.
11:09 a.m., First responders, 300 block of Franklin St.
<h3>MELROSE
1:21 p.m., First responders, 9700 block of Hwy. 108

The old man living next door to my rented shoebox

told me that the hospitals are slowly draining the humanity from the city

and that the country is just animality rationality fictionality

and that at least when there was a king, everyone had food.

now his wife can’t pick things up because her hands hurt

so she throws things

constantly

and at least in India, he knew where he stood.

"My granddaughter on the fifth of July will be coming into her ninth year of life. She wants the world, though."