A Fancy Word For A Plug    
    
     That’s how it opens, from the end ripped off, the open end. Good bread, meh. The best bread I can find
here right now.
     every afternoon someone finds everything they’ve thought they’ve ever needed in the trove of glances stalking their eyes stalking back at someone only
      five minutes ago they may have called them, stranger, but brilliantly they have hope now, or the illusion I had thinking I’d be able to please every woman I’d ever take to bed
     being fifteen years old can do that to someone who spends nights after high school smoking his father’s marijuana. It’s funny how glances and stares are all a single man needs to feel empowered by a woman
     like he’s just captured his muse in a butterfly net. This is before he learns not all lepidoptera are butterflies, before he learns to transmit his rattling indecipherable hormones to her antennae, but never to touch the wings.
     He is a stalker of wing-touches, with a fancy diet to guide him through the unforgivable minutes he tricks himself into thinking he can make anyone happy, he carves a topaz vase he hoards the few moments before any voice should trammel these moments whose preciousness isn’t foretold by nearly a decade.
      Everyone wants to escape someone to move from one silence to another, they put on a show if only to escape everyone they ever went begging eyes from in a not so distant past.
      I used to last eight or nine times a day in college, I made a collage of faces for a Freshman-studies course, as if there was no price too vain for me to expose my soaked and fleshy junk. That was until I started guilty catching stares, taking away a gaze from another’s gaze, becoming Casanova for a moment, then again it’s still hard to resist something I know six billion people are wanting to put inside or be put inside.

When she opened her  closet,
There was Jamie,
At the end of a rope.
All three twisted as the face,
With feet an inch from life.
A brown and yellow drip
Puddled the floor,
Touching the toe of a worn sock.
     If I can't live here, I'll die here.
Was pinned near the heart.
Stretching out her fingers,
Working fast for the unattainable,
Thinking speed and action
Could change the outcome
Of the hours old body,
Hanging,
Like a favorite suit
In need of dry-cleaning.

Da never bought a froggy pool;
We weren't friends like friends in school;
We never played til we showered naked.
We didn't hike and shoot the breeze,
Nor dump or **** behind the trees.
We never hit the links together,
And relieved ourselves in St. Andrew's heather.
We never streaked sorority dorms,
Or stood bare-assed in a storm.
We never stood shoulder to shoulder,
At urinals for a sneak peak over.
Swimming wasn't a thing for Da,
So we never swam in the raw.
And Da was never one to flash.

Near the end he couldn't wash,
I never gave a bed-sponge-bath;
But Clean my teeth, was what he asked.
Let me bring this to a close,
Da was always donned in clothes.
I never saw my old man's ****.
And that's the long and short of it.

he scraped his knee once,
when he was young,
and began to weep as
his blood trickled onto the sidewalk

his mother cleaned him up,
rested his head upon her ever-bruised shoulder,
stroked his hair,
and sang

     hush little baby,
     don't you cry
     it'll all hurt much less
     when you die

she scraped her knee once,
when she grew old,
and began to cry as
her blood trickled onto the floor boards

her son cleaned it up,
rested her head on his sturdy shoulder
stroked her hair,
and sang

     *hush now mama,
     don't you weep
     he's long gone now so
     you can sleep

YOUR FATHER IS DEAD
And yet you will not let that dead man rest his dry bones
In the dirt, in the grave where he belongs.

YOUR FATHER HAS BEEN GONE THREE YEARS
And yet you speak of him like he sits up north still
In his cabin, smoking his wretched lungs to flame.

YOUR FATHER WAS ABUSIVE
And yet despite every beating, every ****** attempt
In your mind he was the greatest man to ever live.

YOUR FATHER DOESN'T DESERVE YOUR LOVE
And yet even though he never told you what you wanted to hear,
In your head you make up his words: "I love you."

YOUR FATHER ****** YOU UP
And yet you tell me about the lessons he taught you like a saint;
In your life you repeat his brutalities, his learning legacy.

YOUR FATHER LIVES IN YOU
And yet you are blind to his quirks you repeat, that
In your daughter you have made a new you:

Blind, quivering, trapped, choking on tears
She is everything you were and you try to make her
Everything you wished you were
But in your repression, your denial --
When you cling to his grave and the things you made up about him
Like a leech, like a disease, like a haunting,
You let him live again in you.

And he was not a good man.
He was a hurtful man.
A proud man.
A bad man.
A killer of your precious, finite vitality.

And just like he destroyed you,
You will destroy her.

A question for you, this
is a line I read in Genesis,
Who were the sons of God? I ask,
Ethnopoetry of the Bible, the task,
And who were the daughters of Earth?
Did Gods mate with men, now a dearth,
What does 'giants' portray?
Way back when, in ancient days,
Who were the sons of God? A guess,
Did we all come from the stars, no less?

By Arcassin Burnham


I could learn a million things in the world leaning
towards my demise in the long run,

I'll Never hear another time my mom would say
"i'm pound son",

Troublesome in a world where trouble will follow
you,

Keep a piggy bank for how many times they insult you,

Life can't be all for nothing so play your part until
the end,
stay away from ******* man stay away from the sin,

This isn't reality , its more to life than you know,
No one will hand out pity anymore , i don't need it so,

I'm not trying to be a teacher,
But i could show you how to live,

You talking to the wrong preacher,
People are behind your back with a shiv,

This the world that they portray,
And we all just living in hell,

watch you feelings all decay,
And nobody can't even tell.

The leopard ...
shining so brightly
as one of the earth's
truly
most truly ...
utterly beautiful
animal
creatures,

which here we see
held aloft,
stone dead,
after being hunted
by two of
the earth's
bravest ...
oh so brave
human beings,
the mighty ...
oh so mighty,
Trump
sons,

here smiling
& self-satisfied,
holding the body
for a picture,
this once living
breathing
& utterly
beautiful
creature,

I was standing at the corner
Of Yonge and Bedlam Ave.,
When I spied a chap across the way,
The image of my Dad.

He had one thumb in his pocket,
The fingers hung outside.
His other arm craddled a book,
As often in his life.

His weight was shifted to the right,
With head cocked to the side;
He wore his cap over one eye,
Tweed jacket open wide.

He raised his head,
As I did mine,
Looked to me and nodded;
He smiled and touched
The edge of his brim,
I did the same as him.

We crossed with the light.
He passed
And went
Where he belongs;
Me, to the library,
My book was overdue.

Dad,

Where are you? Can you hear me?
Can we communicate right now?
It's your son, and I've grown older,
but still so much I don't know how.

It's just a few years since you've left us,
though for many you were ready.
I saw you fade  but to a whisper,
from a voice so strong and steady.

And though you may have thought
I couldn't wait for you to die;
Today, I stand bewildered.
I beg for one more chance to try.

To try to ask you how you did it;
be a husband and a dad?
Things I never thought to ask you,
or did not know how since I was mad.

But, they throw food across the table.
Constantly fight and misbehave,
and then my wife feels so defeated.
(You must be turning in your grave.)

I worry so I've failed my boys.
As I remember, so once did you.
Though my brothers and I, we made it.
Just exactly how, **I never knew.

The things I never saw you do,
yet, you must've done somehow.
Solving all the world's dismays.
Never failing in your vow.

You made it look so easy.
So calm and  yet concerned.
No question left unanswered.
No compliment unearned.

You always looked undaunted.
Did you ever want to run?
Where did you find the answers
on exactly how to raise a son?

I sat smugly as a young man
dismissing all you said to me.
But, sadly now I sit here
wishing for one more chance to see.