#procedure
Closing checklists are bridles.
The door locks on a timer.
Once, sweeping the parking lot,
I found a pair of women’s black underwear,
abandoned in the night.
I had no story to lend them,
or the weight of some metaphor.
Just evidence left behind
when someone kept moving.
I keep moving.
Let timers do their work.
Past the skinny boy
playing harmonica on the bridge,
collecting tips in his shoe.
The man, five paces west,
jaw chewed raw,
liquor stamped into his face
like a punch clock
about to roll midnight.
I learned early
what stays safest is sealed.
Doors shut.
Windows covered.
In artificial light I did fine,
my childhood room tight as a toolbox,
from step-mother, father,
and the extremes of their weather.
I worked paper the way men work wire.
Fold, crease, press flat.
No guessing.
Follow the lines even when they weren’t there.
Angelfish.
Swan.
Dragonfly.
Held their shape,
once you taught them how.
They stayed boxed under the bed,
layered in dust,
my childhood stored like spare parts
waiting out a flood
no one talked about
until it passed.
Out here nothing seals.
The bridge holds.
The world follows slow,
just behind me.
No walls to press against.
Open water. Open air.
Feb 7
Feb 7, 2026 at 2:35 PM UTC
My own Personal Playground of Persistent Pandemonium
Pisssing People off Passionately,
Playing more than just a Part in their Problem
Picking Particular Pieces to Pack this Prolific Poem
Pulling off a Perfectly Perceived Premise
Until your Placement becomes your Permissive Prison
Poetic justice, I've got a Poetic license,
Permitting Primitive Primate like Procedures
Possible only because Perplexed Principles Prematurely, albeit Permanently, Pick Pungent Practices
Primarily Planning Precarious Peril, Priming Painful Predicaments
Publishing Print on Paper
Pent-up Paranoia Pushing Profane Prophecies
Probably Protruding Past Popular Perception
Preventing Pint sized Pea brains from Polluting People who Ponder their Planetary Purpose instead of Perfection
Parallel Planes Pairing Probable Permissive Propaganda
Providing Precision on Par with Polaroid Picture Panorama
This Pricey Psyche showing Persistence Prevails
But can't Press Pause
So Please hear my Plea,
Pretty Please,
Permit me the Power to Permanently Purge the Piercing Pain
To Ponder no longer the Placated Pointlessness of the Puzzle and Put away Pandora's box
To Promptly Procure my Place beyond Purgatory
As Promised
©2024
Apr 4, 2024
Apr 4, 2024 at 2:20 PM UTC
_'Now, make sure you've sterilised those instruments well. I want no complications with this one,' I say to my rookie assistant.
I carefully lay out the gleaming stainless-steel blades and check that all is in order. We're waiting on a last minute ***** donation to complete the procedure and although the timing is unorthodox, I'm confident of success. The pleural resection should be reasonably straightforward. If anything, it's the closure that bothers me...and the possibility of problems further down the line.
From outside comes the sound of a vehicle screeching to a halt. Then the kitchen door bursts open. 'Mommy, Mommy, we got it! The last one.' My six-year old holds the bag of chicken giblets up triumphantly. I smile at my father as he appears with the rest of the Thanksgiving groceries and passes them to my son. 'Right, so who's going to help me stuff this bird?'_
Nov 28, 2019
Nov 28, 2019 at 1:28 AM UTC
Tomorrow makes its way into the history
of my heart – always a mystery to me
it is full of people, music, feeling, and strain
a morsel of ache and moments of drain
it has taken me
walked and run
from rising to setting sun
from shame to grace
from a lower to a higher place.
This old heart has filled me with tears
of sadness, joy, faith and fears
awe and anger, glorious heights
lowly dark and bruising disgust
love full of passion, pain, and trust.
Touched by victories over incredible odds
moved from darkness to cirrus gods
from squalls and brawls and angry shouting
snatched me from moments of demons and doubting.
Heart to beating heart in warm embraces
football in sandlots and youthful races
fearful greetings and tearful goodbyes
falling in love with her big brown eyes
heart to heart in evenings of sharing
from being apart to coupling and caring.
And so tomorrow I and my heart
go again for another new start
in the hands of healers
and angels from afar
whatever comes from this
if all is well or it goes amiss
I fear not whatever the course
for I have been - and will be - in the hands of the Source.
Apr 10, 2019
Apr 10, 2019 at 1:55 PM UTC
Where was I before my Birth
Who brought me? In this life
Some say My Parents
Gave me my Life
I think they only Ate
The Forbidden Apple
They just performed their basic Karma
And received me as a gifted Product
I was shipped without any User Manual
And without any Standard Operating Procedure
My parents worked round the clock
Gone through all the other manuals
At last they applied their mind
And prepared their own Manual
They also defined their own
Standard Operating Procedure
And I was handled and serviced
As per their Manual and SOP
Now I think, I am grown up now
But the question still remains as it was
Are we all only Products?
If Yes, Who Manufactured Us?
Where are the Original User Manuals?
Where are the Technical Manuals?
Where is the Standard Operating Procedure?
Why I was shipped to this mother Earth?
Some of my friends suggested a simple answer
'God made us and You too. But you are moron'
This answer posed other questions to me
Who made God? God Made God?
Or the Humans made God for their own purpose?
Where are the temples of God made by Insects?
Suppose If God made us? Why he is so greedy?
Like the capitalists of proprietary companies
Why we are a strict proprietary Products?
Even proprietary products are supplied with Manuals
If God can't make us Open Source, At least he should
Supply the Manuals, Supply the Standard Operating Procedure
Or He is also too much selfish like each one of us
Mar 9, 2019
Mar 9, 2019 at 9:46 AM UTC
I threw up all over the floor at Planned Parenthood
Waiting for this ******* mammogram
This routine procedure
That could tell me whether or not I have cancer
Whether or not I have to cut off my cleavage
And find another source of sexuality
This routine procedure
That could casually change my life
And royally **** me over
This routine procedure
That kept me up through the night
Tossing and turning and bawling my eyes out
This ******* routine procedure
That I've been waiting 20 minutes for
Surrounded by other women
Who are probably getting the exact same thing done
And they're totally ******* fine
Nobody else is retching like a ******
Because this is a routine procedure
And I have nothing to be worried about
Aug 9, 2018
Aug 9, 2018 at 1:20 PM UTC
We institute procedures as a tool to obtain substance.
We design metrics as a tool to track and ensure that substance is obtained.
But then, the tool becomes holier than its own purpose.
When we value procedure over substance,
we sacrifice substance for procedure.
Feb 23, 2015
Feb 23, 2015 at 11:48 AM UTC