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

This day we lay the universe to rest:
behind this pair of eyes that lived and died
a mirror-image, faithfully expressed,
reflects a mirror-universe inside
all memories. This day we thank the Lord
for all these shining moments held within
this mind where human memories are stored.
And this shall be the moment they begin
to shatter, to become ten thousand stories
reflecting human life in all its beauty:
each smile, each poem, every sunset's glories,
that call to those remaining of their duty
to see this story speaks and never fails;
to call, recall again ten thousand tales.

Top down on a rented convertible
The directors, the tabloids,
The husband and kids— leave them
with the city traffic.

The humming of the engine
makes my toes vibrate
as I nudge the accelerator with my
size 11 foot.

I want to see
Azure skies, desert landscape
Lizards basking on rocks.

I’d adopt a coyote
He would teach me how to sing
Because he admires my long nose.

On the road, I feel the
power of abandonment—
Infinite. Priceless. Immortal.

My excitement rises with the speedometer
I would make it to Mexico City by nightfall
The birthplace of my mother.

I write her name in the sky
It waivers with humility
Condenses into streak marks
on my windshield.

Her reflection winks back at me
in the rearview mirror.
Ahead, I see dusk and
the milky colors of city lights.

Underneath this full
Moon I sit
And watch

These people come and go.
Hoping that one day we can have peace,
Understanding, and love again.
Right now this world needs help, a
Miracle---something to bring us back to
A** time when we cared about our
Neighbors and each other. Someday.

I will never love again.

Today I woke up at 7am
remembered the boy who climbed
out my bedroom window last
night after we watched Pulp Fiction.
I smiled like the Cheshire Cat
for the boy who promised he'd
never love me.

Never love me, and I promise to never love you back.

Maybe there's a parallel universe
that runs a track close and alongside ours,
where we are not commitment phobic.
Then again, maybe in that
parallel universe
you marry the girlfriend that you cheated on
with me.

I am not pretty.
But I have your virginity!
A big ugly chunk of you that I would happily throw back
if I had half a chance.
Yet, I still cling to you like a lost girl

we sit in silence and I try to show you Pulp Fiction.

But you won't stop talking
and then there's a moment of highly charged ****** tension
and Uma Thurman says
to paraphrase
"Don't you just hate those comfortable silences"
Why do we always yak about *******.
I realised I don't know you at all
and I kissed you quietly because your eyes were closed

Because that's what you do, right?

The account that follows fills me with sadness--
Sadness and anger at the same time.
Oftentimes a draconian law
Can itself be a crime.

A mother, Amber Nicole Thurman,
Because of Georgia's abortion "solution,"
Died because her doctors wouldn't
Treat her, fearing prosecution.

Unexpelled fetal tissue
Required attention--a D&C.°
Thurman had developed sepsis.
They had to move ASAP.

But because of Georgia's laws,
The doctors, afraid of going to jail,
Waited far too long to act.
Thurman's organs had started to fail.

When the doctors finally
Performed the procedure, it was too late,
Thanks to the strict and narrow-minded
Laws affecting the folks in that state.

Governor Kemp was thrilled when the state's
Abortion ban went into effect.
What other anti-freedom laws
Will Georgia try to resurrect?

Whether to end a pregnancy
Is not an easy decision, but still,
Women should have the right to decide
If it should be by procedure or pill.

Applying loaded words such as "******"
To women and doctors is simply wrong!
Some lawmakers want us to think
That we are weak, but they are strong.

In their attempts to limit women's
Choice, they think that they have won,
While Amber Thurman leaves behind
A six-year-old motherless son.

-by Bob B (9-18-24)

°dilation and curettage, a surgical procedure that involves removing tissue from the ******

it's 2am and i just finished a 10 hour shift so i'm not going to use any flamboyant language, i can spare myself this at least once...

well, i took my time - it was only about 10 years of hell
before i started living again...
10 years of being a recluse: of being misdiagnosed
as a schizophrenic - put on anti-depressants,
anti-psychotics gaining 50kg...

              and then the death of my grandfather...
the whole pandemic *******:
     i actually fed off the crisis... i came from it on top...
i guess some of us did: while others were forced
into what i was ****** into: everything anti-social
imaginable... i thrived...
                 i fed off the situation... lost weight...
stopped being invisible to the opposite ***...
                         even my grandfather's death was
revealing about my strength of character....
                       at first i couldn't mourn...
    i found it easier to bleed from my head after a night
of drinking ended with my slipping and knocking
my head on the radiator...
bleeding was easier than crying: and i wanted to cry
so bad: to find closure...
                          it must have been 3 months before the tear
finally came... what a beautiful release...
   done: now it's reality... the death-reality...

then starting a new job...
    only started last December and finally...
   i'm building up a very good reputation: haven't ****** up
once... i'm on good terms with the managers:
a real wage-y: i love the long hours i love the hurting feet...
the weak knees...
   touch wood i am yet to be confronted by the public...
unless it's for having selfies taken with them...
and now i might become a permanent supervisor of
stewards... even though i don't have the "necessary"
qualifications of NVQ level 3...
    hell... it's like the old way: gain enough experience,
prove yourself and a piece of paper is worth jack ****...
just ask Neville Chamberlain when he came back
from Munich...

truly: be out of work for long enough...
    get your confidence back in private after starting to exercise:
not to look better... that's second...
heart condition from my youth...
high blood pressure... hardly "looks-maxing":
health reasons... the looks just came as a bonus...

i seriously thought i was introverted:
  family members used to drill into me the mantra:
stop being shy... even though now: you'd think twice...
i sort of wish my grandfather was alive to see
me working... he really wanted to see that happening:
working and not working with my father
in the construction industry: to go among people
who were strangers...
                                     oh well...

i couldn't believe my luck today...
    i was signing in for the shift and one of the owners
of the company pulled me aside and said
he wanted  word with me: nothing bad...
             right, Matthew... you're going to be a supervisor...
i'm giving you 10 stewards...
my head started spinning... i thought i was constipated
too...
            humble beginnings...
at Fulham... stuck to walking around the park
before Craven Cottage to...
             pitch-side... supervisor...
i couldn't believe my luck...

i mean... security jobs run in the family...
    my great-grandfather was a security guard at a kindergarten,
and a caretaker...
one of my cousins worked as a security guard in
a supermarket...
me?!

   hmm... i was walking with this massive grin on my face...
i'm getting paid to be here...
  London stadium pitch-side...
i never thought i'd like Fall Out Boy...
until they started playing this one song and i took
off the headphones and started tapping my feet...
oh i knew of Fall Out Boy... but i was never into them...
but seeing them live?
what? song? Uma Thurman...
               now i'm listening to it on repeat...

sure... Weezer were good too...
                          and Green Day too...
      although it's a shame they finished on
All the Young Dudes... it would have been so perfect
if they finished their set Have the Time of Your Life...
right... and that was only today...
tomorrow i'll be parading my smile:
i'm getting paid to be here... and i'm watching
the Red Hot Chilli Peppers live...
i wonder who's going to be supporting them...

ha... and a pay rise... it's true what people say:
if you stick to your guns... sift through the ****** beginnings,
wait your turn... you'll reap rewards...
now i have to go through the entire setlist
of Fall Out Boy...
       Uma Thurman... ****... what a good song...

hell... and then on the 29th June and 1st of July:
Ed Sheeran at Wembley...
                                     life has become beautiful again...
for so long it was ugly... ugly a wet haggard mutt...

nope... i could never leave London,
not now... i'm part of the integral cultural backdrop
of the city... football matches, concerts,
this that and the other...
   and to think... well... i'm not really thinking...
for a boy born in a little ******* of a town in Poland...

well... it wasn't really a *******...
some of the steel pillar used in the Stad de France
for the 1998 world cup were produced
in the metallurgy industry... well Europe still
produced metallurgical architectural details...
before the industry was "stolen" by either China
or India... oh sure... the West celebrated the fall
of Communism... but towns like
Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski collapsed...
from a population size of reaching 100K mark...
it's now known as the town emeritus...
so many people fled after so many men were laid
off as Huta Ostrowiec collapsed...

but it's good i left when i was 8... if i left as a teenager
or an early adult: i wouldn't have this self-owned
hybrid new-English mentality...
because it's my own... the native population can't
really dictate its customs and habits...
since i'm also sort of native...
   an outsider-native... i've managed to "pollute" the waters
with my own interpretations...
whether it's concerning behaviour or
language application...

                          i face it all the time...
the best memories of childhood i have from Poland...
it's only 4 years worth of memories...
4 years worth which translates to about 10 concrete
memories that i preciously kept...
36 - 8 = 28.... years in England...
              happily not going to make the mistake
that other immigrants made when they didn't
entrust their mother tongues to their children:
trying to forcibly integrate...
    that sort of anti-racist pacifism or whatever you
want to call it...
i'd rather Somalis spoke Somali
than these hollowed out shells that speak English
but... you know: don't look English...
was it really that lazy to avoid creating Dutch-esque
republics... or the Scandinavian model...
the Swiss model... too hard to keep two languages?!
i kept both of mine...
   i'm better for it... if i forgot Polish i'd be a *******...
literally...
by now America could be a pristine bilingual model
of a country... English and Spanish...
but no...

well... i never understood the modern take on
autobiographies...
people live these interesting lives...
they reach a certain age and have this
retrospective-crisis... by then memory has been
eroded... and life written about that only has
these zenith events is such a boring read...
there's nothing about: this one time i made this
perfect brew of tea... for example: not really...

at least ancient Roman poets had a vague idea
about what an autobiography is like:
having X opinions aged 21... but Y opinions aged 36...
or... i'm still writing this while listening
to Fall Out Boy's Uma Thurman on repeat...
i don't think i'd be listening to it
if i didn't hear it live first...
                i don't even mind not having eaten much
throughout the day...
i was eating adrenaline: ***** and giggles...

oh man... i'm a truly lucky man...
    like Bukowski once wrote: there's no luck like
that of a madman...
      funny aside: you can't go mad twice...
you can only have one proper psychotic trip...
which, given enough time-span is probably better
than any hallucinogenic ingestion:
psychosis can't be a scary word...
               soul-osmosis... sure... with psychosis
the soul escapes the confines of the mind...
of what i can best describe as: "audible"-thinking...
Descartes' res cogitans model disintegrates:
yet res extensa is kept intact:
   auditory hallucinations?! i confined them to
the res extensa...
    and then played a trick on the symptoms with my
bilingualism... i "heard" a hallucination in English
then switched languages... weird...
i stopped hearing auditory hallucinations...

3am is creeping and i need to be up by 10am
to get ready... shine my shoes... iron my trousers...
iron my shirt... probably try to eat something...
     yeah... life is beautiful...
          people are beautiful...
                       everything is beautiful:
i should know: for the longest of time everything
was ugly... reminiscent of Ralph Fiennes
in the 2002 film: Spider...
                                         it was that bad;
but like my grandfather kept reminding me:
who do you have to thank for getting out of this
horror? guess... guess who?!
exactly: you and only you alone...
   not me... not psychiatrists, not psychologists...
you... you pulled your own weight:
i like that inversion of mea culpa into what became:

            ego vis.

My Response to Ember Evanescent's 10 Poets Challenge (incase you're incapable of reading titles I'll be momentarily redundant)
These are some of my favourite poets on the site, some of whom I know in real life (from B.H.P) others who I have discovered and come to know through the site these past few months (A.H.P.).

In alphabetical order, I'd like to pay tribute to:

A Sickening Love ~ skilled poetess and my extraordinary friend who writes heartbreakingly relatable poems. She gives me strength, always.
>> http://hellopoetry.com/ASickeningLove/

Andy ~ my first ever like and follow, I may be somewhat bias towards you, putting you here. He has such a beautiful, independent style.
>> http://hellopoetry.com/Hp/

Deafening Silence ~ the reason I joined this site. I've been poem-stalking them for years on Poem Hunter, and when I saw them on here... well, I felt prompted to join, so here I am. I am 100% in love with their work, and am also 100% frustrated because they've not been on since I joined so I haven't been able to tell them they inspire me so. (Sorry this is way longer than the others, I rambled some.)
>> http://hellopoetry.com/deafening-silence/

Gavin Barnard ~ posts work that I can relate to. He has a very passionate writing style and I highly recommend reading him.
>> http://hellopoetry.com/gavin-barnard/

Kay ~ is the love of my life. Just kidding. But Kay is my rose, she has been the peer-writer I have looked up to for as long as I can remember. She is so talented, I hope to be half the writer she is.
>> http://hellopoetry.com/dearestdarling/

konr ~ I get so excited when I see a new piece from konr. He has such a way with words that he leaves me breathless. Every. ****. Time.
>> http://hellopoetry.com/konr/

Layla Thurman ~ writes my thoughts most days. I'm not joking, she's incredible.
>> http://hellopoetry.com/walrusfaces/

Thomas King ~ is someone who, like konr, I look for his pieces and get completely wrapped up in his artistry. Utterly addicting.
>> http://hellopoetry.com/deplorability/

True Courage ~ makes a statement with each piece he writes. I am a huge fan, highly recommend.
>> http://hellopoetry.com/justin-devitt/

WM ~ is a genius. Please go read Walter's work, he is so talented. Huge fan of him.
>> http://hellopoetry.com/walter-m/

(Also, if you care, two of my favorite classics:
Christina Rossetti & W. H. Auden)