He's vulnerable,

just look at the craquelure --


over grandpa's eyes.

Grandpa is bony,

his mouth speaks clearly, even --


though he says nothing.

I flounder, hanging

over grandpa's leg, hello --


super shiny shoes!

I crawled, I stood up,


grandpa only nodded: yes --



that's how one grows up.

Sitting outside in my grandpa’s veranda,
he passed away before I could appreciate his presence;
he wished for me to come see his art;
his garden, a green maze of trees and bushes,
from marigolds and periwinkle to mango trees and whatnot.

As I lay here on the mat,
close to my grandpa, I might gladly add;
seeing the ants crawl up on the periwinkle blooms
and wild butterflies dancing overhead;
with a bulbul on a mango tree branch
and crows chattering near food dumps;
with a sweet scent of marigold in the air
and crickets chirping in the background;
with a mongoose running on the broad fence
and a squirrel eating rice that my grandma kept;
with the sun rays hitting my face through the trees
and a couple of flies hovering beside my novel;
with a moment of pure serenity,
that brings a peaceful calm to this tranquil space;
my heart feels full and my soul at ease.

As a gentle breeze whispers by,
my hair seems to be afloat.
As the fresh air clears my mind,
I feel alive like never before.
As I hear children playing nearby,
memories of my childhood days come alive;
one of the best moments of my life;
in this veranda forever entwined.
As I feel a soft breath of crispness on my face,
I reminisce about the times I had lived with him;
the village isn't as bad as it seemed.

This is the land where my ancestors lived;
and where I feel his presence still,
he must be smiling sitting on the chair beside me;
finally, content that I appreciate his accomplishment.

bad hair day, mindwise. Too much good stuff,
as the munchies ads for AM/PM mini marts said,

using the idea in too much good stuff, to lure
the fat freaks addicted to good stuff, twinkies flash

screaming yellow zonkers, wow,
America, home of many very fat freaks/ who code.

And don't read as much as listen,
multi-tasking scatters the noise, so signals are clearer.

Knowledge portal, from Terraria X-Box to Darwin's Black Box.

You bet I knew,
I bet I didn't. … irreducible complexity, manifolded protein tech.

who can lie and call life, the whole idea, all inclusive
unto the nth degree,
stuff of stars we are. Dust in a pop song.

--- stage is bare, the narrator, walks in, unscripted/

this is it, he says. The real thing is us inter-acting,

thinking in parallel, serially infectious,
ideal shape,
whistler's teeth and tongue, call in the hounds.

When one thing bleeds into another, there is a roar,
and the echo of that is no doubt maddening,

and far from that maddened crowd,
we saw a lost soul land, and say, we gotta at least try

to own this view.

I have hordes of sunset series, from this landing zone,
where we have grown news, from dry bones,

ground to the essential message in the marrow,
we are all variations on a theme,
adaptable to most any realm where a kilo is 2.2 pounds.

---------- shaken, not stirred, pretentious ***, licensed
to ****.

There's your hero boys, JFK got away from the madness of DC
in the pages of cold war confabulation, fueled by Ian Fleming's

little trick with the knack of persona-ification infection,
a cultural carrier dis-ease, trains of thought
running through the rust belt
jumped the
tracks and rederailed
that  Zimmerman kid, was it something we did?
-Times changed.
I played around, and stayed around, that old town,
too long,

now, relative, this to that,  chart of consequences,
nothing happens.
Today,
right, this now. Reader POV.
And this is the page we are on. - self query RAM

this is all she wrote. Return to sender.
I heard Zinder, all my life
I looked for Zinder, and never found I mistook the entire song.

And here is where, the dust settled.

Gabe, my readingest grandson, so far, calls, me, really,

Look, Grandpa, I got a portal, I'll show you how it works.

Back to X-box, those black boxes are dark, take a light.

Banti (ban-tee)
Such a odd name
But the name I called him
Him.
My beloved grandfather
The man who pushed me to do my best but without the pressure
The man who was always there
The man who put family above anything else
The man who was the easiest person to talk to
My grandfather
Gone.
Leaving behind the people who needed him
Leaving behind his family
Leaving behind the pain that he had to push through
Selfish.
Selfish is what I am
He was in pain and sick
He had  a whistle because he couldn't get up
This whistle is all I have left
He made his mark
A great mark
A mark that will forever stay with everyone that knew him
A mark that left his dog depressed for days without eating
A mark that left many crying for days
Gone.
Whistle.
Mark.
Keywords that tell his story in my words.
His story.
My words.
Banti
My grandfather…..
“He loved his family above all else.”  (quote from his obituary)

Where I live, you see, is the future
which nobody saw coming but me,

and I guarantee, its truth,
I consider ants sentient, indeed.

I cringe for my imaginary Jain friends,
I just smashed another dozen scouting sugar ants,

and I sang to them as I did,
hoping their tiny antennae
knew the deal,
we throw ant-edibles in rodent safe containers,
out past the edge
of the motion sensors,
ants of all common sorts are welcome.

- because our fire ants have some how mellowed
- since arriving from Texas
on waves of dread… fire ants,
maybe that kind never got here. any way
- now, we live with them and all the others
- on the edge of the eastern pacific
- super colony that has no war
- on its inner or outer edges.

But one must consider ants
as sapient sentients,
senders of signals, wireless radio,
wee-tiny antennae vibes,
to sing a song ants can translate that says,
This human says: I shall **** all you send to my kitchen.
It is a thought song, you think it, as you ****.
You might try it if, you consider
ants are not just pests, but
interesting life tools, for living in dirt
with no screens, lack so obvious it is
noticed by any with attention to antennae
as intense as
that that of Everest Pax, who in April began his sixth year…
Now, who
can hold the ant mind
long enough to imagine the queen,
with Ender-vision?
Through the eyes that watched me **** the scouts,
and signal boundaries to the Queen.

When I was little, my grandpa was my world
My world, who took me under his wing
And taught me everything I knew
My grandpa was strict and did get on my nerves
But deep inside, he knew that I loved him
We wrote letters on the floor
Drew pictures on the wall
He was there for me with my every step
But one gloomy day,
He went out
Couldn’t say goodbye
And I didn’t know that it was the last day
That I’d see him by
He went out
Fairly fine, with that warm smile spread across his face
But never did he return
Back to our home once again
From the road, he went straight to the hospital bed
Where he laid for his next three months straight
Waited for long for him to recover
Waited with hope and pain
Went to see him but not a word he said
He couldn’t smile with me like before
Nor he could comfort me with his words
As I stared, my tears;
They were pouring down like the rain.
Can he see?
Does he know?
I am here
Grandpa, please
Just look at me once
Smile at me once more
Just say that you’ll be fine
That you won’t be lonely,
Without me by your side.
I wanted him here
With me as I grow
But he was in a hurry
to get closer to god.
One dark day
I saw my mom’s face
And I knew that he left me behind
No last goodbye
No last hug
No last words
He just went
Keeping nothing but his memories
For me to grief and bawl.