On the south side of kelso if it's there that ya choose to go
Well if its there ya go then ya just gotta know bout a man named tweaker joe
Now tweaker, he's a scrapper and if ya go down on his door
Don't you worry about wakin him up. He aint slept since 74
Well he's weird, weird tweaker joe
The weirdest tweaker in South Kelso
Weirder than a three toed frog
Stranger than a five eared dog

Now tweaker hes a scrapper and he likes his shiny things
And he likes to see what fun he has by the chaos that he brings
He got a custom BMX bike with a flashlight on the grill. He got 32 lb of brass in his pack, he got a dope bag in his shoe.

Well he's weird, weird tweaker joe
The weirdest tweaker in South Kelso
Weirder than a three toed frog
Stranger than s five eared dog


NOW Friday bout a week ago Tweaker scrappin cars. But at the end of the alley sat a cop named Thurman and ooh dat cop looked ******

Well he cast his light upon joe cuz Thurman had a plan
Tweaker joe learned a lesson bout messin with a future Sherriff man


Well he's weird, weird tweaker joe
The weirdest tweaker in South Kelso
Weirder than a three toed frog
Stranger than s five eared dog


Well the 2 men took to runnin and hes dragged down to the jail
Joey looked like a wrung out tweaker with a couple of teeth left

Well he's weird, weird tweaker joe
The weirdest tweaker in South Kelso
Weirder than a three toed frog
Stranger than s five eared dog

Well he's weird, weird tweaker joe
The weirdest tweaker in South Kelso
Weirder than a three toed frog
Stranger than s five eared dog

She does not own a fighter's body

But you can tell right from the start

That the thing they have in common

Is...she has a fighter's heart

For as long as I have known  her

A scrapper she has been

A lioness well challenged

She is cunning, though not mean

Her battle is internal

Her trophy is her life

Her body's full of cancer

She's tap dancing on a knife

She won't back down from any fight

Not this one...that's for sure

She determined like a fighter

She wants this fight...and one more

It's a battle for survival

She's as tough as old Ali

Her battle cry is awesome

"You will not be taking me"

I write this for my mother

The toughest woman that I know

And regardless of her cancer

Her pain...she'll never show.

What are you looking
for, little scrapper?

Behind these eyes
and words lies a
man you can't defeat.
His language beguiles
and deceives, like
the Opposer, and you
carry no flaming sword.

She yelled from the bottom of the stairs

"What the **** are you DOING!?"

My neighbor, Mr. Monroe with the mustache, ring on every finger and a parrot that talked, pressed his face to the glass to look down at her.

"What the **** are YOU looking at?"

Mr. Monroe quickly went back to his day time soap operas and corn flakes. He never left the house because he believed their was going to be a grand earthquake where everyone that was outside getting food, shopping or at the beach, would die. He told me he believed that his house was a fortress and that God or mother nature or what have you could never touch him if he just stayed holed up in his room with his corn flakes and bath robes and old Sunday newspapers.

"HEY GUY, LET'S GO!"

I gingerly stepped out of my place. I stared up at the sky which was blue spattered with white clouds that were inching slowly toward the ocean. It was a beautiful day.

"******* FINALLY. What were you DOING?"

"Just getting myself a little more ready then usual."

"WHY?"

"I'm nervous or something."

We were headed to a dinner with my parents. I was going to introduce them to Alice and wanted to make sure all my pampering was in order, my mother could always tell if I forgot to comb my hair or use deodorant, my father didn't care. I walked cooly and lightly down the stairs.

"Well you smell like a laundry mat people have been drinking and ******* in."

"Thank you baby."

I kissed her on the cheek, waved up to Mr. Monroe who had gently re-placed his face upon his living room window, and headed to my car.

---

"So what you are you gonna' say to them about me?"

"I'll tell them we have a lot of *** and like movies."

"Really?"

"I don't know. Why not?"

"Seems strange."

"Were strange."

"What if we get married and they say that at our wedding and its awkward and my parents get mad."

"I'm not thinking that far off."

"Well you ******* SHOULD!"

Alice opened the window and stared out at the ocean which passed by with blinking blue reflective lights, beach combers and sand dune cops. There were many surfers wading in the light blue water waiting for the NEXT BIG ONE. I thought it was funny how they could sit out there for so long, not doing anything, and call it some kind of religion. I liked the idea of doing nothing and it saving you, I wanted to join but I was afraid of sharks.

"Do you want to get married to me?"

"No."

"I wouldn't either."

We drove down the highway but hit a big block of heavy traffic. We were gonna be late.

---

By an instinct I acquired either by fate, magic or the hand of the GOOD LORD, I ordered a hamburger with curly fries. The waiter was a young kid fresh out of college with a messy head of hair and a slight limp stuck on his right leg, he said it came from a biking accident but the kid looked like a scrapper.

My mother was alone on the other side of the table while Alice intensely examined the menu. There were clouds in her eye not of insecurity but of determination for my mother to accept her and pull no punches, when she wanted something she got it, like me.

"To start I am so sorry about your father not being here. He didn't come home last night and I haven't heard from him all morning so I suspect he forgot and slept at the office to get an early start on this Friday morning."

"It's fine Mrs. Kindle. I just feel so BAD for you."

"No worries. It is sweet of you to say though."

"Very sweet Alice. Yeah, I'm sorry Mom. Dad's an *** like that sometimes."

"Yes he is."

The water was warm when the waiter brought it. I hadn't looked at the menu but everyone was ready to order. I was thinking about my father all holed up in his on-site construction office, sweating over blue print over blue print, re-examining every last comma, every last note until it was "perfect". He had tried to get me into the business but I always hated a path that had already been trampled and organized upon, I didn't see the point.

"So how did you guys meet?"

"We actually met at one of Joe and Abe's parties."

We actually had met at a hot bar with loud music and cheap drinks with the wind ripping men and women to pieces outside and the bar man said we looked like we would make a good couple but we had never even looked or talked to each other but because this one little bartender in this one little hot tiny bar gave us the idea that maybe, just maybe, we would be good for each other I bought Alice a drink and then, thinking it would be funny and how she hates cliches, she bought me a drink and we got very drunk within the dark heated bar with the people swinging back and forth with the loud quick hipster electronica madness that spun all around us invisible in the smoke and the liquor and the cigarette smoke and there, in that dark steamy bar, we talked and talked and talked until I got a little drunker then her and she took me home, which we laughed about in the morning after we had drank a couple glasses of wine and tried to have *** but were both to drunk to talk or have *** or even kiss for that matter, we fell asleep on top of each other's faces and both of our necks were twisted and hurting in the morning.

"We call it "Our Spontaneous Romance".

"Very funny."

"Alice, do you know what you want yet?"

Alice, keeping her eyes down on the menu not looking up for a second.

"Not quite."

My mother shifted in her seat, she was getting anxious because she wanted to eat and she was worried about my dad. He'd been "busy" with many "things" that he "didn't like to talk about" or was "too tired to talk about" and it made my mom shift and silently sigh after every conversation either about the subject or related too.

"I'm going to have the soup and the sandwich"

"Turkey sandwich and salad for me."

"Healthy."

"Have to be."

"One sec..."

"OK."

"No rush."

"Mashed potatoes and gravy and ribs, that's what I want."

"Very nice..."

"Very nice."

"Thank you."

Alice was nervous. She ate mass amounts of food when she was either nervous or in tight confined places where she needed to converse but had absolutely nothing to say, the large order was her scapegoat and she would later blame it on *******, anxiety and depression, half of which was probably my fault. Alice didn't want to meet the parents, she thought it pointless, a waste of time and pushing towards something that may not even actually happen. She believed being invisible in a phenomenal world was the only way to go through life and in some respects, I agreed with her but also, I knew deep down, she was a little crazy, as was I.

---

"Thank you for meeting Alice and I for lunch Mom."

"Not a worry at all, I'm sorry about your father."

"I'll talk to him later."

"It was very very nice meeting you, very nice."

Alice and my mother shook hands cooly and suspiciously underneath the 3 o'clock sun. They hadn't talked much at lunch and I honestly didn't know how it went at all, they spoke about their food and that was it. Perhaps they neither hated or liked each other, maybe they were simply indifferent towards each other's presence and what they meant to me at all. They smiled, Alice waved as did I as my mom drove away down the hot black top. Alice, still waving said.

"Horrible, that was just horrible."

"I thought it went right as it went, neither here nor there."

"We didn't talk about anything but the food."

"Maybe that's all there was to talk about, some people meet and have absolutely nothing to say to each other, happens more then you think."

"Sounds right must be right."

"Let's go."

We both walked to my car which was boiling hot inside, the kind of hot when you enter when one wishes they couldn't breathe. We quickly opened the window turning on the radio listening to an old blues station for a second. I but the gears in reverse and slowly backed out of the restaurant parking lot as Alice neatly put on her dark sunglasses and rubbed sun tan lotion on her face, leaving a small patch on the tip of her nose. I paused the car before entering onto the main road.

"Let's get married Alice."

"I was about to say the same thing."

I pulled onto the main road home, nearly getting in an accident with a road biker who shook their fist violently toward my gleaming fender. I lightly smiled, embarrassingly laughed to myself, merging on. We were off.

Who Am I?

I am a boy and a man.
I am a son, a brother, a cousin, a nephew, and a grand child.
I was a boyfriend, a fiancé, a husband, and an in-law.
I am a bachelor.
I am surrounded and abandoned.
I am a family man and a loner.

I am a homemaker and a handyman.
I wear the apron and the tool belt.
I am a neat freak and a slob.
I am an amateur contractor and a contracted amateur.
I am a dumpster diver, a recycler, and a decadent waste.
I am a glutton, a scavenger, and a scrapper.

I am a friend and an enemy.
I am fun and an annoyance.
I am a lover and a hater.
I am creepy, cruel, and harsh.
I am tender, loving, and inviting.
I have a foul mouth and tender lips,
Drenched in jagged, soft-serve words.

I am a painter, sculptor, draftsman, sketcher, character designer, photographer, graphic designer, fashion designer, kitbasher, customizer, and crafter.
I am a reader, a writer, and a poet.
I am the Jail Baby, Ryan & Lisa, The Phoenix, The AntiFather, and The HEYMAN!
I compose symphonies of visual and intangible imagery.
I bring form to thought.
I destroy,
I create.
I am an artist.

I am a geek, nerd, freak, and otaku.
I have been punk, goth, prep, white trash, and metrosexual.
I wear glasses,
But only as a sick joke.
I am beautiful and ugly,
Clean and *****.
I am unique.
I am predictable.
I have changed, but am still the same.

I am a techie,
An electronic ******.
I am cutting edge and old school.
Digitally signed and sealed.
I am analog and obsolete.

I am an adrenaline addict.
I can chill, maybe slow,
But never relax.

I am blue collar, tradesman, and service industry.
I am peon and ****** on.
Oh, but I have done the ******* too!
I have been hired and fired,
Bought and sold.
I have worn the uniform,
I have said, “**** the man!”
I am the proletariat,
I am in charge.

I am a student, dropout, and teacher.
I am class clown and teacher’s pet.
I have learned, forgotten, and taught,
But never learned my lesson.
I don’t listen to what I’m told,
But always do what I tell.

I am a genius,
I am an idiot.
I have intelligence, but often lack the intel.
I am naïve, but wise.
I am right and wrong.

I have philosophies and ideas,
But no religion.
I have desecrated and blasphemed,
Prayed and praised.
I have lusted, envied, and coveted.
I am guilty and innocent,
Pure and soiled,
Good and bad.

I am a driver and a passenger.
I am an explorer and a shut-in.
I am wild and free,
Caged and stifled.
I was warmly wrapped in my blanket,
But burned through it.

I have rode, climbed, and conquered.
I  stood still.
I jumped in.
I have fallen and been defeated.

I have been abroad,
I have been nowhere.
I have drifted.
I have settled.
I have led and been led.
I have been in and out,
Here and there,
Around and AWOL,
On the run and trapped.
But, not everywhere.

I have applied,
I have procrastinated.
I have worked my fingers to the bone,
I have slept it off.

I have fought and fled.
I have quit.
I have endured.
I am a winner and a loser,
A champ and a chump.

I am fake,
I am real.
I have lied, cheated, and stole.
I have been honest, fair, and generous.

I am selfish and selfless.
I am a gift giver, gift wrapper, and gift taker.
I am a thief and a philanthropist.

I am insecure and confident,
Confused and absolutely sure.
I am proud and ashamed.
I am complicated and convoluted,
But simple to please.

I have blind faith and guarded suspicion
I have secrets,
But lie rarely.
I accept everyone,
I trust nothing.

I have pointed the finger,
Only to turn it on myself.
I have held grudges and forgiven.
I have trusted and misguided.
I have been Judas and Jesus.

I am a maniac,
I am sane.
I have been strong and weak.
I can keep it together,
But prefer to break it apart.

I have bled.
I have healed.
I have been abused and neglected,
Coddled and protected.

I have been kissed and punched;
Hunted, wanted, and arrested,
Ignored, overlooked, and invisible.

I have loved and lost,
Lived and learned.
I am a soldier of misfortune and opportunity.

I have blended in.
I have stood out.
I have stood up.
I have backed down.
I have been backed into a corner.
I have all the space in the world.

I have seen, interpreted, and perceived,
I have ignored, dismissed, and been blind.
I hunger, want, and need…
I am satiated and content,
But never at peace.

I have been misunderstood and underestimated.
I have been put down, put up, pushed away, and let in.
I have been known,
But never entirely.

I have raged, cried, smiled, trembled, and laughed.
I have been depressed.
I have been happy.
I have been suicidal. I have felt death.
I have been lost and found.
I have been broken, then fixed,
Stitched, yet glitched,
Scarred, but whole.
I am alive.


I took the chance,
I let the moment slip.
I walked the straight and narrow,
I ran down the road not taken.
I dream; some whole, some shattered.
I go with the flow, but don’t let the waves take me.

I am shards and reflections,
Machinations and reactions.
I am translucent pieces and parts,
Assembled and disheveled.
I am the big picture still focused on the details.

I am the sum total of heredity and experience.
I am not,
I am more.
I am everything and nothing.
I am a walking contradiction.
I am human.

I tried to be you,
But didn’t know what that meant.
I am me,
It’s all I know.

Who are you?

I want to first thank all my
supporters and readership.
I will read as soon as
I have the time and I can
give your work the attention it deserves.

I've been overwhelmed.
I have to make my presents this
Christmas. But I found out I'm in
excellent company...

FROM APPALACHIA WITH LOVE

Gra'ma Annie had a mission
to help children in need
she lives up in the hills
where they grow their food from seed.

They have no running water
no facilities indoors
still heat and cook with wood
don't buy much from stores
there are folk so destitute
they still have dirt floors.

Li'l Annie was a scrapper
90 pounds if soaking wet.
But her heart is just enormous
as big as one can get!

She found out 'bout a drive
for children overseas
in Africa and Asia
Haiti and the Belize

How the people in those countries
had no presents for to give
their children at Christmas
they could barely live!

She contacted the charity
and said she'd send some toys
as many as possible
to the poor girls and boys.

Annie had no phone
so she walked far and wide
and asked all the hillfolk
throughout the countryside
to whittle and to paint
toys in which to pride!

Those people got together
and carved ponies and dolls
that had joints that moved
and real hair that falls!

They whittled and sanded
painted with rainbow hues
and when they had delivered them
it made world news!

The children overseas
who got them still recall
they kept their homemade presents...

THEIR FAVORITES OF ALL!


MY FATHER "NEVER HAD A CHRISTMAS"*

My father was a child
in a place called Isle la Monte
winter's are quite brutal
in that part of Vermont.

His family were farmers
they lived off the land
they had gardens and stored their food
they worked hard with their hands

They had to really struggle
to make the frayed ends meet
dad walked 14 miles total
through the snow and sleet
to get to his schoolhouse
sometimes with frozen feet

Every year at Christmas time
his mom would be in tears
she would never say much
but stated that she feared

there would be no Christmas
no presents and no tree
it was always the same.
Grandpa would agree.
So the children went to bed
every Christmas eve.

But they weren't sad
because they always knew
that Santa was coming
and so they weren't blue.

Sure 'nuf in the morning
they'd tumble out of bed
and in the once-bare corner
there was a *tree instead!

There were many presents
most carved and painted things
grandma got the practical stuff
no perfume or rings.

But the Christmas meal was cooking
and all through the home
the smell... that sumptuous dinner...

well. That's another poem...!

But before the feast was eaten
grandfather said Grace
and thanked the blessed Lord
and ALWAYS SOUGHT HIS FACE.


SoulSurvivor
Catherine Jarvis
(C) 12/23/2015


MERRY CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY!!!

I still have presents to make...
see you SOON!


~~~<☆>~~~

She looked at him with philia
As if she stood a chance
In her bedroom, she created a world
A dream of New York, Rome and France

All she wanted was him,
But she poetized her love on papers,
Like a child tells a pet,she wrote
"Darling,I will fight it like a scrapper."

She longed for a peek from him,
For, in him, her world dwelled
And when saw him beamishing,
All over again in love ,she fell

Then one day he went away,
Over the seas, over the bay,
She mourned ,lamented,
And finally gave way,

In her last breath she said,
**"I am strong and I could still fight,
I had regarded him as my life,
But I want to see him one last time."

A locking click
the clear is hall
a clocking tick
is hear I all
a rocking drop
the near is fall
a blocking chop
I fear the saw

a pampy crapper
I nose my hold
a campy happer
I clothes my fold
a fighty scrapper
that big is bloke
a lighty snapper
I cig my smoke!


©2011 Lyn

Perfection doesn’t exist

It’s a non-existing standard we can define by nothing more than our desperation and pursuit of completion
It’s deluding and is painful to bare, in fact letting of go of it opens up so many pores of acceptance and contentment without hindering ones ambition of aspiration

One shouldn’t go with the other
Perfection is not meant to go hand in hand with ambition
In fact the healthiest more achievable form of ambition is that which exist without the ******* of perfection in its walls and foundation

Ambition is healthy, the idea of perfection on the other hand is dangerous and so mythological that it causes a great deal of inadequacy to those that still hold on to its empty promises.

Let us produce great results, great being the profound collective exchange between good and bad, happy and sad, what is positive and what is negative

These are not opposing forces, that’s what perfection has convinced us of, they are parallel systems of reality that make and break it equally, as one cannot exist without the other in specific instance

Belief in perfection is as dangerous in a mentally ill person’s conviction to jump off a sky scrapper believing he can fly, it’s becomes more damaging the more we believe in it.

Perfection is not peaceful it is stagnant, it’s monotonous and deceptive
In fact perfection is cruel because it convinces is of a reality we seek and pursue when we can’t even imagine

It has no beginning nor an ending because that’d process and progress
Meaning perfection in a reality of progress never was and will never be but doesn’t want you to believe that, in fact the only thing that brought perfection into conception and gave it the nerve to even exist in our reality as the theory it exists on is the falsehood it’s made a home of in our hearts and in our souls, that’s why it’s hard to imagine but even harder to get rid of and eradicate.

      'You said,  
     "Someday I'm gonna break your heart",
      the first time that we met--

     Were you warning me..

     ..or just seeing how close I'd get?'

If you didn't want to exist  in the heart
of a man like me, then you shouldn't have
allowed your scrapper little spirit  
    to write the way you do.

And I was so naughty--  so very intentioned  
in all of my obscenely-truthful lies..
I told you it was all your  fault
        that you got in so quickly

         --and   it  was.

I got you back, though
I knew it the moment you let on
that you had fallen  deeply  in love..   not with me..
but with the love that had so deeply  fallen
for every-thing about you

And so,  it increased..  but at such a strange distance.
But even then,  the years only perfected  

   and strengthened..

   until lately..  
                      until lately..

     'We lay down in a lover's sigh
     As a million years of time rolled by
     How can I be hoping that it's not over yet?'

     I wasn't done, young Andi..
     no..   no..   far from it

You see.. there's this shame-thing
I wanted to flood  with light.
I'm getting so close  to finding the words
     that have never been heard  
     in this world before

    (And now.. and now.. and now..)

     'I can't hold on to the night
     Things change, ain't nothin' ever stays the same
     You're gone as far as I can see

     If you feel like letting go
     Honey, I don't wanna be the last to know

    ( I wanna hold on tight to the sweet memory
        of you loving  me)'

Better Than You

Anytime, anyplace,
I will kick you in your face.
Anyhow, anywhere,
I will leave you in despair.
You name the place, tell me the time,
there isn't a word I can't rhyme.
Not a chance, I will loose,
your words leave a mental bruise.
I'm gods gift to the pen,
you have smaller ***** than Ken.
Don't hate the player, hate the game,
by now you all know my name.
I'm not a poet or a rapper,
just a rhymer, writer and a scrapper.
I entertain you with my catchy hooks,
it helps that I have sensational looks.
You're nothing but a fudge packing **** pirate,
oh I'm sorry, was that supposed to be private.
You can't mess with the rhyme master,
what a shame you turned into a disaster.
I've taught you everything you know,
but I left out the part how to properly flow.
You were my pupil, you tried to go alone,
like Medusa, I turned you into stone.
The **** you write, no one reads,
to me everyone eventually concedes.
You're like Pepsi, I'm like Coke,
I'm an unsolvable riddle, you're just a joke.
As I stand here waiting for the duel,
the longer I wait, the more I fuel.
I see you lurking in the shadows,
you're heading right for the gallows.
This is your last chance to surrender,
I commend you for trying to be a contender.
But as I suspected, I'm better than you,
I left your underwear brown, and your ***** blue.