Tumbleweed
Ted Old
John Merchant,
Joan Harling
Edith Smith
David Wilkinson,
Mike Waldron
Marie Ainsworth
Ruth Bell,
Lucy Ritchie

A list undignified by death
In an instant deflated, unwound
Vibrant yet now not a breath
Missing, lost, not found

I mourn every one of their names
And all that each one implied
Merely a lifetime ago
They came, they lived, they died.

The bluntness has ruined my mood
With the arrogant stealing of life
It demanded all my attention
Then cynically wielded the knife

I'm trying but their voices are fading
As my brain's recordings wear out
And the clarity of all their faces
Is blurred with the pallor of doubt

So all I have now are some photos
Flat caricatures of their lives
Each one replacing my memory
With a past that cannot be revived

Relentless my list will grow longer
Crushing for each name a line
And my heart will grow ever more heavy
Till the last name that's added,
is mine.

Dear, please, listen to what I’m saying I know you don’t want to hear me say that I care. Sweetheart, don’t convince yourself that you are anything but lovely, please don’t let your skin become a sheet of paper but if you do, please come to me and let me see and let me hold you and let me fix it. My dear, your hair is wild, reaching up for the sky trying to fly you away but please never think that it is only prevented by the number on the scale, please never listen to protruding ribcages and Cassie Ainsworth. Darling, you do not need to love yourself in order to have other people love you, and anyone who truly loves you will help you learn to love your own sweet self. And sweetness, your kiss is like chocolate and your fingertips are like sunshine, your tears are like icicles that fall from the roof and every drop that soaks into your bedspread is like an icy dagger pressing against my chest. Baby, you put on your armor- your MCR t-shirt, your crop-top, your baggy jeans, your thrift-store hoodie, your high-waisted shorts. Put on that armor my love because nobody should ever make you feel bad for feeling good. Everything passing through that beautiful head of yours is worthy, valid, real.
everything you are is something for me to love.

We were friends of a sort, when we were young
When we grew, I thought he was weak,
Jumping at shadows in shady lanes,
At jokes that were tongue-in-cheek.
He thought that life was a trap for him
And looked for someone to blame,
He could have been so much more, I thought,
Than he was, and that was a shame.

His soul was timorous, that was true
But he seemed to attract the girls,
They’d give him a shoulder to cry on, when
He was feeling at odds with the world.
They called him ‘Bobby’, that said it all
When he should have been known as Bob,
He never grew to be Bob, I knew
But won their hearts with a sob.

He brought out the motherly instincts in
The girls that he got to know,
They would pet his hair, and say, ‘There there…’
And motion for me to go.
My sweetheart, Carolyn Ainsworth said
That he’d won a place in her heart,
I couldn’t believe she could be so dumb
But her interest tore us apart.

I watched as she moved on into his life
And catered for every whim,
He told me not to approach her then,
She was only there for him.
They moved on into a haunted house
On a plot, with a dog outside,
A wooden house with a creaky gate
Where her grandfather had died.

They married, out on their own front lawn
Then scurried away inside,
He wouldn’t let her out of his sight
But clung to his captive bride.
I never saw her out on her own
He was always there, like a freak,
And pulled her in, like a dog on a leash
Whenever she tried to speak.

I got a note in the mail one day
That was signed by Carolyn,
‘Please come and take me away,’ it said,
‘Oh, what a fool I’ve been!’
I drove on out to the haunted house
But the gate and the doors were barred,
Then she came out to the balcony,
I could tell she was more than scared.

Her eye was blackened and bruised, I saw,
Her lip was swollen and split,
I called ‘Come down!’ and I waved to her,
‘I’ll take you away, my sweet!’
But Bobby came to the balcony
And he dragged her in by the hair,
The doors had slammed and I heard them lock,
And a terrible scream up there.

I vaulted over the creaky gate
And I kicked the front door in,
Then made for the central stair, but fate
Was putting paid to his sin.
A shadowy figure had seized him there
And ****** him against the wall,
Then sent him tumbling down the stairs,
He broke his neck in the fall.

It stood there, glaring down from the top
Then slowly faded away,
I’d never have met her grandfather
If I hadn’t been there that day.
I took her home and I patched her up
But knew that my love had flown,
I see her now and again, she lives
With him in her haunted home.

David Lewis Paget

The                      Grand Canyon is      a
massive prehistoric            snooch  
[there are larger & greater snooches
below the deep green sea]             &
the Great Yellowstone    Geyser,
one     of nature's many wonderful  *****;
[spraying when aroused, hot & aromatic]
so many        volcanoes,          monsoons  
&           soft, white mountains &   puffy pink
                                                  sunlit mounds
                          tsunamis breaking
like acne during      an       ******;
ur            many wars &

massacres                      only so many fleas;
meretrix fastidio [*****]       hôr   scortum,      
                                      of a               *****
noun: a *******.   Each room is occupied
by girls like me,  girls from broken homes;
**** victims, prostitutes,  and ******...
verb (of a woman) work as a *******:
she spent her life  ******* for dangerous   men
synonyms: work as a *******, sell one's body,
sell oneself,    be on the streets
Synonyms:      noun  *******,
****, harlot, working girl, bawd,
coquotte, fancy woman      /      verb:
work as a *******,   sell one's body,
**** around
sell oneself, be on the streets;
use prostitutes,            *****
It felt good to have someone   on her side,
who didn't think she was a **** or a *****...
A ***** captivates a rich man with her
coquettish prettiness and is rescued from
a          life on the streets. Indeed,
the character of Rosemarie        Nitribitt
can be simply defined as a one-note,
gold    digging ***** and nothing more;
With dullness and utilitarianism,
they ***** themselves    out to men
who no longer find the Batman-&-Robin
                     relationship satisfying...
In a matter of decades,
Makiki's artistic focus had shifted
from the virtues of the Madonna
to the transgressions of the *****...
Most of the world disapproved of her;
calling her a temptress    and a *****;
One woman reporter, in tears,
told Weffer about being called a puta,
a *****, when she tried to enter
                  a poor neighborhood
                  wearing a press pass.
Last time she had an actual conversation
with this man,                he had degraded
her by treating her as a **** and a *****;
We are clearly type cast:           the *****,
the ******, the ***** & the gold-digger.
A girl does one thing, and is called a ****,
a *****, and all of those recognizable titles,
        while guys can do whatever they want,
and get praised & called macho,  Romeo & a player;
Blackburn magistrates heard that    David Ainsworth
was ranting and raving     during the physical assault,
calling his wife  a ‘****, a ***** and a ****’.
She fell in love with John but he attacked her
too, calling her ***** and strumpet;
she is often referred to as a *****
and a harlot, for she is of lower class than
both Desdemona and Emilia.   ‘At least I don't
have to ***** myself out to married men,’
he snapped back.    If she were to go home
and be kicked and beaten by her angry parents
calling her a **** and a *****,
      she even go to the doctor?
I was a tease and a *****, a flirt and a **** -        I was horrible.
In this particular case, however, the child born
to a ***** is named after a particular adulterer -
After learning            that his son visits ******,
**** Lung goes to the *******    &
paying her not to see his son anymore,
sleeps w/ the ***** himself.
Women have three kinds of power,   historically:
as the queen, courtesan and the *****... (              )
You could call her popular, you could
call her the head-chick,    u could call
her *****, ****, or *****,    it didn't really matter,
    as           long as u say it to her face.
She always calls       me a ***** *****
& a          ****, told me that I was ugly
and she didn't know what he saw in me...
Others see it in a continuum  of more
old-fashioned         American distaste
for the ***** of Babylon that dwells in Rome,
spinning Jesuit         plots         [Illuminati vs. Freemason]
He finally could afford      to revel in          his obsession
    with cross-eyed prostitutes
from whom           he learned                  to put Descartes
before the ******;
That's because you've been *******
      yourself so long that we're all
sick and tired of hearing about it.
Should I be worried that I've reached
the point where immersing myself
in this is more attractive  than drinking
and ******* my way around the bright
city lights of King's Lynn?
I bet you were ******* yourself
to those   rich old businessmen    & their perverted wives again.
In any case, the Cathars believed that the Roman Catholic
Church was corrupt - the ***** of Babylon they called it;
Especially when they're dressed
as if they're about to go *******
downtown after the drag         theaters   let out;
David could be the bleakest character
Allen   has played, even more so than
the pill-popping,       ******* Harriet;
Eder,   et al. found that middle school
girls who initiated any type of ******
activity were those      *******, ***** & ******...
[scarlet *****, or cheap *****]