In I came to Dublin town,
Riding one fine morning,
I spied some Johnny Bullies
And I started off a'cussing!

Leave my home,
Go on get out.
Leave the whiskey,
Leave the grub.
Tell the king
To go *******
And stay in his doe-hog hovel.

O'er glens of An Cabhán
There flew a rag of red,
I tore it off from where it hung
And ripped it all to shreds!

Leave my house,
You're unwelcome.
Leave the rope & iron.
Tell the king
To go *******,
Lest he would rather violence.

In Londonderry & Belfast,
Pleasant little branches,
We'll grow ourselves gigantic oaks
Uproot their picket fences!

Leave my home,
Go on get out.
Leave the whiskey,
Leave the grub.
Tell the king
To go *******
And stay in his doe-hog hovel.

Say the hounds are all but slept,
Yet I still hear the barking.
I think it restful pouting
Readying for a real good bouting!

Leave my house,
You're unwelcome.
Leave the rope & iron.
Tell the king
To go *******,
Lest he would rather violence.

Hard to find good honest work,
When of royal or noble;
Hard to find good honest work
If they claim you're not loyal!

Leave my home,
Go on get out.
Leave my house,
You're unwelcome.
Tell the king
To go *******,
And kindly don't respond.

Itself made evident
By the very discourse & action
In which sees your engagement.
Others around you protest,
But they are written off
Just as wrong, as haters.

There is nothing
So much as struck lightning
Or the entirety of the Earth shaking
Which could wake you from your rest,
Unpeel your eyes, of
The curtains drawn by slumber.

Whatever such natural event;
The magma already cooled,
The fault line already cracked,
The water has already receded.

It already happened.

You went exploring down a river
And ended up stuck on an island,
The boat's left adrift
And you can't remember how to swim.

Where have you gone?
Where are you?
Where have you been?

Mencius, what is that they're doing?

Zhǐ! Another immortal walked from the sea;
Leaf & cordage finely chopped,
Throughly masticated & combined,
Left to the air to then reside
And collected after dried.
How most strange & curious!

You say the nobility call this parchment,
But for humor as irony
And because of the sound made
During the process of hammering,
The craftsmen call it paper?
And, like with tattoos,
They use pastes & fluids like dyes & resins
To stain drawings, shapes, and characters?

The lesser the weight of tablets,
Well-traveled with, easily read & clearly,
Markable with ease; readily inviting change
After change, reflecting our fragileness & resilience, offering record of our thoughts & accomplishments, a chance for the more prolific scribe and the library diverser & denser?

How wonderous a creation,
How gifted the craftsmen,
How genius the inventors.


Wow. That was so long ago
Before I was born.
But then compared to much else,
This fledgling has yet to have flown
From the small enclaves it nests as home.

It's really easy to write
Like you're for the hardline right
And far-flung conspiracies.
Easy to address as a member of the left
Like you believe in extreme liberalism
And wild ideas.
And then there's a center,
Or so I've heard.
For the intellectual or versus,
For the institution or against;
For the fascist,
For the anarchic.

It's all so archaic.

If you have come to seek
Only consent & acceptance,
You will be poorly received
And denied at the entrance.
You come only to take
What you think you are entitled to,
As though it were not valuable
And as if it were freely offered.
In what you ask
There is no promise of reciprocation,
No hint that you will be grateful.
In your hunger for it,
The only guarantee
Is that you will want more.
You share no contentment,
No happy acts or jovial gestures.
The best thing for all of us
Is to deny you of our goodwill,
Perhaps it will cause you
To grow up
And be more mature.
If not,
It will at least mean the stability & security
Of our happiness & freedom.

Ivory lad,
Ivy grad;
Tell me,
Why is it that you're so slow?
Behind the times,
Stuck where
Even your parents have outgrown.
What eccentric lessons,
What bombastic professors!
To say it is one school
Would be an insult
To the whole of the institutions'
Asserted goals & aspirations.
It would be a disservice
To their alumni,
The attendees,
And those to be admitted.
Prattle off your dissertations,
I'm genuinely interested
To hear of your perspective,
But I won't hold my breath
So keep the air honest
Lest you share a foul stench
Like dioxide so sulfurous.
What hand is up your ***
To puppet the controls as so?
What stick has been stuck
Through your rear-end
Which parades you around on?
What pike has been found
Deep in your bowels
Rendering detachment & disembodiment?
From which war & what battle
Do you think you're taking part of?
Which side & which force
Do you swear allegiance?
What little league team,
What playground do you call home?
What duel with duality,
What fight with nature!
It would be entertaining
If they had only stuck to playing in the mud.

Betting on plays
And whether teams could pull it through;
Factoring rates given to the risks
Versus stats, records, and rankings,
Of losses, successes, et cetera.
Whether physical or digital,
These playful monetary mediums
Like domestic feline & bengal tiger.
Like dog as like cat,
It's a different reaction to them
And connection with them
Having grown up around them.
These paper jaguars & plush lions,
So much for the fear of adversity
When you're trying to crunch everything.
If you're always in the middle
Of working through or thinking about something,
Punching an equation,
Then how can anyone hope
To knock you off kilter?
It's just another component-
Another addition & subtraction,
Division & multiplication,
To calculate & sum.

You've gotta be in it to win it,
And you're always just one bet away
From winning it big.
Making it good
Sometimes takes all it can take,
And even then you might not
Break even.

I sense disturbance,
See some malign figure,
In your line of reason.
Yet, through our conversations,
No appeal can be made to logic.
The calculations offer a grime visage.

Play with your heart, play with your gut,
As your head will steer you wrong.
If you're thinking about it,
You're thinking too much.
Just lay it on the line,
Bet it all,
But don't bet too much.
Listen, it'll be fine.
Tomorrow we can
Recoup your loss.

The contradictions are lost,
The irony was over
And you took the under.
The spread accomplished
Chose the given
And you were taking.
If something flew
You were beneath it.