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  Aug 5 touka
Madalyn
My little lover,
Honed steel wielded to my flesh
As your hands restrict
Mar my skin,
I implore

My little lover,
I beseech my lifes water
To know the folds of your tongue
To ******* lineage
After it has bred with your saliva

Oh my little lover,
Not all is of sword unto sheath
Though your seed could flood my gardens;
Not all is of drowning
Or of blooming

Oh God,
My little lover
I beg for that which is wielded
To whiten my flesh
In the silhouette of your name
  Jul 24 touka
Julie Butler
I’m waiting
Wanting to swim in the mouth of Summer
I’m waiting

**** out the roots too
pull everything out like you mean it
Return me to space
or wherever I was before this
Return me to my body

I’m ready for sweat
I’m ready for barely

I can’t feel it
but I feel it
Like Deja vu
smells like afternoon & salt
butter it up
stay awake tonight

I’ve been reading this book
the entire time
I’ll underline it for you

Tell me everything you haven’t yet
and I’ll kiss it quietly
be my weekend & my Wednesday

shut me up with another one
still & stuck
do me a favor and
don’t do me any

keep me like a charm
it’s going to taste so much better
warm
  Jun 20 touka
Still Crazy
it’s just me…funny like that…

~for touka, just because…~

my foibles are little pretty doilies,
all dressed up in preparation for
getting stained, as is their due,
their birthright, for they wait in
service for the slippage and the
crumbly stains of strange lyrics

wait! this poem has. gone astray,
my intention to make confession
about my quirks which are more
than numerous, repetitious, and
a little crazy, which is why my very
few friends delight in homaging me
”still crazy after all these years…”

‘tis truth, for better or worse, I’m
not superstitious but don’t step
on cracks or any lines between
the in between, always retrieve
pennies on the street, cause the
Benny Franklin about a penny
earned makes smile because
he stole it from someone prior,
and it goes with friends in the
tip jar at my corner bodega,
where they save me
a raisin scone,
knowing full well, i may not appear
till quite late, or never on bad days
when the poem urges kick me out
of bed, and inspiration is a 3am
pastry…

make me repetitive cups of java all
de day long, wander around from
zoom
to room doing odd-jobs, thisnthats,
never recalling where my muggle is
sojourning till I hear the call of the
microwave “here,  here ye old man…
where else would I be so lovingly
reheated?”

put my wallet, watch, spectacles &
testicles (an old rhyming) on the nite
stand in prep for the next day, but oh,
the keys have their little own ceramic
cup lest they scratch the ochre stain,
and I catch holy hell, so ipso-facto, I
am more often than not locked out…

we won’t talk about the too many times,
my phone has gone astray (1j many
countries where recovery was hardly
assured, but have never suffered its
loss, or consequential identity theft,
but then again, no one seems to
want to steal my name, till Paul Simon
up and done it, after sitting next to me
on a Redeye flight from LA to NYC.(1j

it drives me nuts when pompous men
pontificate on the obvious but forget
to pull their tie up to mind the gap tween
knot and the top button, making their
words look..how shall I say it…sloppy,
and my shouting out at the television
at the sartorial stupidity of news “anchors”
for naughty

Making to do lists is my artistical métier,
which only grow longer with age and the
wisdom that their purpose is to taunt me,
my failures to face the difficulties that
reverberate in my guilty conscience, so
that when I remember something to do
and actually do it because the deadline
has passed and I fear her wrath of and
disappointment
which is worse than
disapproval
which I can often
dismiss
with a historical, practiced, “easy peasy”

and if said item even doesn’t appear on my
lists (plural), I add it and derive copious pleasure,
when I cross it out with great
red inked celebratory deliberateness…

ok, okay, (you choose) I’ll wrap and rap it
up, as I go on too long as children oft tell
me when I’m being regaling with my stories,
(is there a point to this story?)
well because…it’s

just me…funnily like that


(1) somewhere on HP is the poem/story
  Jun 4 touka
Donall Dempsey
CENTAUR

Hiding in the hay
me a terrified little boy
& my uncle like a terrified little boy

the voices in his head telling him to be afraid
of all strangers...changes.

He’s been like this
since the day his Dad(my unknown grandfather)
died.

My Aunt’s voice
searching for us...searching us out.

Her shouts like bloodhounds
hunting us down

her words angry & cruel.

Her angry voice slurring us into:
“DonallSeanie! ”

as if we had fused into one being
a metamorphosis of us.

The hay cooks us
and we swelter in our hidey hole

A chicken sits on top
of my uncle’s cap

as if his mind had
materialised into this shape.

He rocks himself
and rocks me.

“Shhhh...boy...shhhh! ”
comforting both him & me.

“Don’t leave me! ”
he clucks

the words scattered around him
like newly laid eggs.

I settle into his silence.

My Aunt’s threats freezing us
in this terrible heat.

His chest hair
tickles my nose.

The cut on my left big toe
throbs through the open sandal.

My uncle cries in fear.

I wipe away the tear
with the ***** edge of my sleeve.

We escape to
the West field

me riding his shoulders

transformed into
a legendary creature

that only exists in myths
fleeing from the realness

...of reality.
  Jun 4 touka
Donall Dempsey
A BRIEF HISTORY OF A LITTLE GIRL

she's a mere three
demands to know
"...the history of me..."

well, now I say
that was a long time ago
"...try to remember..." she pleads.

I remember when you
first came out of your shell
hatched into a lovely little girl

you were my duckling
everywhere I went
there you were

I could hear you cry
even before you cried
you made me a good daddy/mummy

your dreams
staining the blue
pillow with golden curls

every night the moon
would come to our window
just to take a peep at you

one day your name
perched upon you
and never flew off again

you were a fairy story
I had never heard before
and wanted to hear more

once when you fell
you hit the road
"Naughty road for falling me!"

"No I never!"
she squeals
"Oh yes you did!" I tickle

"Is there any more of me?"
"Oh loads...loads more
but I too old and tired!"

"Well..!" she tells her dolls
"He tells a good story but
shhh...it's not all true!"

the dolls gasp in disbelief
having drunk  down
the dregs of every detail
  Apr 24 touka
Dave Cortel
nagugma ak sa imo
i remember you once told me this
as we lingered on a riverbank
for the sunset

how can i unlove my mother tongue
when it sounds like a tune
that emanates from your lips
  Apr 19 touka
kat m
thick fog starts lifting, slow but sure
the horizon shows off pink and orange
earth gratefully sinks into gentleness,
a familiar face forgot for far too long
the timid smile of hope peeks out from the clouds

cool air billows, the calming waves
breathe away the aches and pains
bright sun kisses gently, warm
eyes lifted to the heavens
body lighter on the ground
battered, bruised, and bleeding, but
roots find their balance
push forward through the soil
confident, start remembering where to go
shy petals show their faces, soft and fragile
at first it's all blinding, with eyes the sun forgot
but bright color swells and they are beautiful again
the flower idly sways, in unfamiliar bliss  
its petals, roots, and leaves drink in
the golden honey rays of warmth
almost thankful for the winter's harsh and bitter brutal
torture
now spring is so much sweeter
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