He carries her purse on his arm
without awkwardness;
His comfort shows he must have been caretaker,
for some time.
Yet awkward she does feel.

He carries her purse on his arm
as if it belonged there.
Just another parcel to be handled
with care; yet not a care
to what this stranger thought.

This old woman hobbles
ambling behind;
a footfall - thrusts her forward,
one more step.
Doesn’t he understand she wants to go forward -
no more? One step closer
to the grave,
she can sense.

The cane catching
and holding her steady;
The pain, catching
and holding her firm.
She follows his lead; always hitting the mark
with her blue veined hand
wrapped around that staff
in her grasp.

Her gait, unsteady,
wobbly at best
As he carries her purse on his arm,
She follows his lead
one step at a time

A crooked cane
her only assist for the
ambulatory impairment she bears;
as he carries her purse
on his arm.

© 2010 Marlene Dunham

The wandering hours
Create pondering towers
When instead of talking
You are always walking
Steadily ahead of me
Like you're dead to me
Like a small centipede
Walking for centuries
With the intent to be free
Yet constantly ambulatory
So we become slaves to your movement
When settling would be an improvement

You begin to freely flake
As I start to starve
You say let them eat cake
And my heart you carve
Into servings appropriate for your appetite
While I know something isn't right
But still forced to accept this plight
Of being your minor distraction
Chained by my love's infraction
Of settling on you
I shouldn't stay
But I bet I do

I wish I loved or hated you a little more
So I'd know what to do
As it stands I'm always looking out the door
But I'm unable to move
I want to stick around and see if you do something amazing
Like love me back
Instead of attack
With your acidic apathy
You mercilessly grapple me
And never decide to let go
Of love you never let show

We've been driving down this road for a while
And for the last million miserable miles
You've presented me unpredictable trials
With your nonchalant instinctual style
You've let yourself become extremely impaired
As I understandably grow more and more scared
I feel the answer is in the love we seldom share
But you're never lost when you're going nowhere
And I cannot follow your wandering stare

I fell in love with you
More accurately
I fell in love with the feelings you transferred into me
But those mutinous emotions betrayed me
The moment you did
The withdrawal from your love was too intense
I desperately needed something to replace those feelings

I always said I could run from anything
as long as it didn't involve running
But after walking with you for so long
It's hard to change my pace
The path too tough to face
Your memories fueled the chase
Until I found my escape

The kneading needles turned me fetal
Shocked my veins like eels
Fetuses aren't the most ambulatory
The race became a marathon story
Your effervescent ghost pursued me
Breaking the sound barrier to reach me
I floated vacantly in the stew of your noise
The needles touched me
The way you wouldn't
The needles bled me
The way you would

Then the race ended as abruptly as it started
Only to begin another race
...But things were different this time

Slugs waved as they passed a sprinter
Tormented by a lane filled with needles
The hostile crowd watched with pity
As a once great athlete
Was forced to acknowledge his janitorial duties
The fickle mob cheered with triumph
Upon his valiant return
He was quicker than ever before
And the masses exalted him
He ran faster than everybody
And waited for nobody
Anxious they might reveal his secret
That his speed was derived from his feather weight
After the needles hollowed out his insides

I recognized her familiar gait
As she left ambulatory care
At Bluewater Health,
Once St. Joseph's Hospital.
I knew her as a devout care-giver.
Her spring showed her hope
In the gods within,
And faith in her God without.
A surety in her higher power.
I share her faith crossing bridges,
Or waiting for autumn's bulbs
To sprout and flower.

The Sisters have retreated
To the Mother House,
Mission accomplished,
No longer caring
For the sick and worried.

The civilians marched in,
Diagnosing annuities,
Giving change.

The Sisters wait for Pentecost,
For the whosh and whirl
Of expectant miracles
They once ministered.

I write poems when I walk
which is problematic because
I merely compose in my head
then nothing is on paper and
my memories don’t have a
very good track record

I write poems when I walk so
I’m sure strangers who have
passed me by have thought
me to be the stranger one
because sometimes I say them
out loud matching the rhythm
of the syllables to my soles
taking their turns hitting the sidewalk

I write poems when I walk because my life
deserves to be composed in verse

I write poems when I walk and
find that the world has new
meaning when it’s dressed in
the exquisite beauty of words

Love’s Lexicon
 
I must make a new vocabulary.
My dear, the words I’ve used in those
Over and over descriptions, signifying all you are,
Are well and past their sell-by-date, should
End their shelf-life here and now. No longer can I
Form their letters truly without knowing well
I test love’s patience . . . and your own.
 
So in desperation’s way
I adopt a different lexicon
Offer you, my love,
a fresh taxonomy.
 
concave the slapp
pressure inbuilt
evenly glassed
held held holdingnow
but ambulatory
moons at full stretch
figuration tempering
notonce twicemore
pressure wieghedupon
beyond breath’s exhale
membraneous goldening
frecklation the hands’ fastness
eyerich sightedkeen here
gone awaygone away
bodystretched senticle
smoooth
  
A Proper Poem
 
Poised to conjure music
from the nothing air, and
with only some frivolous
verse to guide me,
I rest momentarily
to watch the screen of my mind
show your dear self to me:
the sweet flow of your body
uncovered in the shower;
that dance of choosing clothes
and dressing. I have sometimes
watched and wondered,
wondered that you could be
quite as you are.
So precious in my sight,
so very precious.

Water’s Kiss**
 
I shall only write you
very short poems of love
so you can taste them
in one gulp as you might
from a Highland stream
unpolluted, soft,
peat -filtered, cold,
and bubbled with air
from falling across stones
into your cupped hand.
My love, bring now
this water’s kiss
to your waiting lips.

i.

What sustains me is the lushness of vulnerability.

I live in pursuit of exposure, soul-baring, the practice of being what we are without apology. We are all different. No one else carries our specific memories or desires. No body is formed exactly like ours. We play at oneness, but shared experience only stretches so far. In the end, we are left with the reality of what this really is—a colony of beings, endlessly individual, utterly separate.

ii.

Sometimes, I catch snippets of the light inside us.

Maybe it’s the boy with a pegasus tattoo laughing outside in the cold. Maybe it’s the parting words of the librarian as I scrape my pile of poetry books off the counter: Take care. Maybe it’s the eyes of old woman at the corner of this street and the next, so clear and penetrating, like an elephant queen’s. Maybe it’s as simple as the wisdom offered to me by a friend, as quiet as the man tipping his face toward thin, Decemberish sunshine.

I hunt for it. I await its presence. Where is it, I wonder? Where’s that throbbing openness I covet so fiercely? When I am feeling especially aware, I see it everywhere. Beneath these layers of makeup I apply to my skin. Behind the gloss of sitcom utopia. Under the practiced apathy of all of us, under our coats and scarves and skin, curled up over our hearts, in tangled love with our veins and aortas. A luminous octopus, a sort of eight-limbed love.

It’s there, yes. Indubitably.

iii.

Tell me what shakes you.

Tell it to me like you would tell someone you are in love with them. Be trembling and slashed-open. Be frightened. Stop holding your facade together. Don’t clutch your persona so tightly. It cannot contain you. Let it pass away.

Tell me what elevates you.

Is it the warm burn of your favorite song? The tin-gray feathers on a starling’s belly? Bonfires in autumn? Say it now. Quickly. Without pausing to make it coherent or acceptable. Be as jagged as you like. Give up the dream of normal. You’re dirt and madness and screaming beauty; normal is never going to fit you. It pulls on you already, pinches your elbows and upper back like an old ill-fitting sweater. Loosen your fingers. Let it fall.

Tell me what moves you.

What climbs into your cells and bones and tells you to inhale, to make something of your precious time here? Speak it. Speak it, and it will wash over you like a great light, and it will feel good, better than you knew possible. It will feel like being alive, which is what you are. Not flawless or bad or worthy or weird. Alive. A deep continual sweetness of breath.

iv.

I’ve fallen in love.

I’ve spit words onto pages I later tore and tore away. I’ve run into the ocean in mid-October and shouted at the cold pooling around my ankles. I’ve cried at the death of a dragonfly. I’ve taken a fine edge to my flesh because I could not bear to be the person I am. I’ve said ridiculous things. I’ve walked beneath ambulatory stars and felt great, expansive joy at the fact of my existence. I’ve pinched the wobble of my upper thighs, the places on my body that are round and soft, been ashamed of it. I’ve written things that will never see daylight, because they are too indicative of the darkness I carry with me. I’ve been very loud and very, very bright. I’ve longed to tell people how I feel about them, how my heart swells or shrinks in their presence. I’ve bled. I’ve changed. I’ve danced so hard I thought I would die, and laughed afterward, laughed and laughed.

I am a creature of unearthly peculiarity, and I will not pretend otherwise.

This is my power.
This, too, is yours.

v.

It feels like hell, I know.

Nobody ever likes saying I want you or I need you or I am afraid or I love you. In the moment, the fear is nauseating. In the moment, we are small as children, and just as breakable. But you have to trust in the majesty of vulnerability. You have to trust that even though your throat is a vice and your heart is jumping like hell, these things you’re admitting—they are reaching through. People are listening. Their souls are shifting into resonance with yours, and you are there, standing together in your realness, all the armor gone, all the light rushing in.

Fully ambulatory with
onanist wrists,
neither whig,
nor tory,
nor communist,
he's loose lipped
loose hipped
quite well equipped,

he's bendy n trendy,
he's buff, n ripped.

not quite castrato
and gives good vibrato
to choirboys mulatto -
with belly button fluff.

Obi.

Morbid!
Morbid!

Slowly, the morbid dragon coaxes its slow but
precise ambulatory apparatus.

Deep from within the primal mind,
We all exude marvelous exhortations, excretions and exhibitions.

Yet as his glassy, languid, beaded eyes
fix upon our hapless hero,

So is our innocence consumed.

Today you were

anguished, with what ordered sentence to fray
  into organization. Shimmering splendid thigh

of noon numbered, overtakeless I peering
   through a gray eye of storm. Ambulatory motors

whir double ballasting ground / AC Cortez was nothing like any other held captive loosely frolicking

the summer gone through a bat of an eye
   reimagined, engraved into / what for is this

inheritance but a dangling stucco of a home. Else
   the newfangled man will have skin ripe to borrow

denying  the  statement. I could no longer raise
   tomorrow and fall for, a form broken in

by a crossing of the river I smell turpentine
    bearing the casualty of paint because color when

seen as absence of something, a thing worth
    mooring to where we were and kept

for the next docile minute, mourning what but
    a closed preserve drowned by a hand

deep between what was once just once and
    a continuing strangeness, one's own rearview

but insatiable affront. Today you were
    spoken of, not to, once again this weather

is here heavy with debris, less than ash fit for
    return curious as perfume clinging to

soiled collar learning every breath a crevice the
   body seeks to fullness feeding on some sense

of abandon -- today's news gasp for clearing
    which you weighed in today as you were

        again and again and again just as sound is
   but a remainder of a tremendous leftover.

.hey, so much for jack kerourac's on the road... but i have found this most pristine tour-guide... as that h'american hobo... "7 years later" duping the tourists down in Amsterdam... h'american... what else? well it's hardly the Nepal you were looking for... or those grand sand of Arabia with a Lawrence: better suited for a... what do "we" call them? androids... david... citing: the trick is: not minding that it hurts... stoicism or some otherwise weathered down, other... point of (a) queue? and yes... red hot chilli pepper's song: warm tape... off the album... i forget... is underrated... in between the salvos of... those lyrics based around a "narrative"... but when the chorus comes in? melted butter in a thick spludge of crème fraîche.... yes... i want to love like a john frusciante... but i know i never will... i see too much economics to: "bed the pardon"... ****... "beg" the the pardon... the girls i once loved have probably forgotten me... moved on... the prostitues "in-between" were always "her" tailor of best arranged hair via - gay riddles of "the cut" via never having to mind a barber... and all those manicures! mein gott! there was a time and a place to squeeze in politics of the "fathomable" populace... and a "perhaps a chance" to raise children? dire consequences... to no avail of... the otherwise prior mentioned: straits... there were times in my life when i felt in love... that i could give give give and never ask for anything in return... lucky for me i started to age and not perform the portrait gray act of stay-young-forever-young-vampire... i clinged to love, once... it was such a beautiful spring... a spring that could last within its season a spell of over 5 years... then... reality and autumn and a need to dispell delusions... she probably still "loves me"... with someone else... cameo cinema of memory? where, am, i? love, oh love, what a burden, a hurdle, a responsibility... it's never this quickened escape ease of breath lodged into fiction... somehow always constricting, somehow always burdensome... somehow and somewhat always... never the homeless cherry picking of mutt that made it to an elevation of being under the christmas tree! why would i have children "these days"... well... there's no history i'd be allowed to teach them... and modern day-old journalism? i thought the people were only willing to fudge bulimia down the throats of their "listeners"? i still want to love like a john frusciante... perhaps that's the mosti can offer... best sentenced to a riddle escaped with at a bechance of keeping distance.

being a video-tourist with roosh v:
the sort of h'america i always wanted to see...
like... gaining another 50ml shot
of whiskey under the belt and notches...
is like... imagining *******
ava lauren in a 1970s italian ***** movie
style... when even *** in a pornographic
movie feels: sensual...
joel osteen... an iron maiden gig
looks... just the same...
when the skin becomes a sterile experience
of leather: when wearing shoes...
and a belt...
when this worn skin becomes
this most adored leather...
when the exhausted "beauty"
of prostitutes becomes: something
equivalent to... working out the mandible
artifact... akin to the chew and jaw...
the old continent seems to sigh...
i once missed Handel's Messiah for a night
at the brothel with the Bulgarian harem...
the grand-orchestra of the acronym:
U! S! A! U! S! A! seems so vague and...
bewildering... i'd love to be an atheist in
h'america... so... ridicule prone and
the high-end sort of bag-full-of-counter-virtues...
but i just can't be...
i like being a god-fearing man...
skin... ****, i need to tend to my german:
wann haut wird leder...
akin to: when **** cheney half-had
a neu-herz...
we do come most humble...
we are, oh the most pristine: wenigkreaturen...
ZAMAR-ZNIĘTY... frozen... (he)...
unless... you see that R-Z outside of deutsche...
in the fwench: je, je SUIS! form...
hard to keep those two 'uckers together
in a rz-eton... (Ż)eton casino...
orthography... who am i to preach to a people
so... so figured out with their metaphysics
that orthography, quiet simply,
doesn't, concern them?!
i'm still thinking about ava lauren and
all that 1970s italian *****-sensuoso *******...
why not to forget? pontius pilate clause
akin to louis XIV paranoia:
the power lies in how "it" is perceived...
lying... i don't mind hearing about hog-mucking...
i just mind when it's don juan
mucking up a nun: that's not a nun...
i don't like hearing about:
the goat in sheep... in the mouth of a wolf...
i can stand metaphor...
i just don't like curtains made from iron...
or burgundy tinged silk...
or some other: BLATANT lie...
the one blatant focus for puritanical "superstitions"
of: third eye blind of the other is...
this... bogus f-ck-wit of an underbelly...
there really was a time when i wanted
to see little-life everyday-sort-of h'america...
how the... whittle people lived...
then i figured... no more and no less whittle
from where i'm sitting...
maybe i should be standing?
but at least i come from a continent where...
(a) a striptease is... like the slipped ****** pill
no one wants...
(b) the ****** don't bring their cameras
and film you while you're at it...
(c) and a (d) and an (e) that i will not even
debase myself with...
perhaps we do speak the same language...
but... that's as much as
relates shoeshine to a shoe
as it relates mewwy ol' england to this...
grand posturing that's the u. s. of... a.
perhaps i need to see the sights of: Moldova...
or... Switzerland...
last time i heard being land-locked is the new
best thing... given aeroplanes...
i did want to mid-west ****-hole h'america...
from england... eh... m'eh... all i need is to go east
of Germany... if i find myself in
the West Warsaw coach station...
i'm practically in Ukraine...
everything reeks of this... sediment of roach bathed
in rust... a perfume of mud,
concrete, and lazy metal...
and of course the doom and gloom of the skies...
like 25th of december in Chernobyl...
you just want to start aiming for sparrows
with a pellet gun and break your teeth
on sifting through dirt and haemorrhoids...
and by these standards?
punk will never bother to re-invent itself...
not with pink... and "pronoun concerns"...
or whatever you these days call a f-cking mullet...
and yes... because even if i could...
the white picket fence...
the 3 brats worth of a brood...
the gene patriarchy drive...
the alcoholic / neurotic spouse...
the dog name Bono...
and... each saturday a: bonfire of concerns
for my children's schooling...
sober: but the alternative is no better...
personally? as an "atheist"?
i'm not really thankful...
i can't be thankful for all of this...
last time i checked...
some people in this world are required
to have an omni-litany ruling over their ***-lives...
they want to feel: *****...
why would i even be an atheist?
to speak out something, snarky?
to be prone to... too much ridicule?
there's only so much comedy you can invest in,
before you realise: oh ****...
i'm not a stand-up!
this monologue has no stage...
no audience... it's going to eat me up
like any other solipsism without any escape
into a soliloquy!
atheism is a "thing" in h'america: no wonder...
who said it...
they're a bunch of puritans in public...
but in private? citizen porky?
you know... pig rubber masks and spandex
and s & m and... yawn...
a striptease is so condescending...
6 weeks of celibacy...
nothing: excuse me... *******?
i'm excused with the personal-relief...
yes, the line is drawn... once given the snip
but not the kippah?
em... **** galore: up in their air...
rotating toward... Mecca...
with the prayer...
like... i have the scalp to scratch my head
and ponder...
imagine if a circumcision was akin to scalping...
personally... do we even need ears?
i could be the first to say:
but not really...
a matrimony begins with...
the snippet... which transcends the symbology
of rings... i might as well see it as...
for a woman: she is to offer her virginity...
for a man? he is to offer his *******...
problem solved! Libra rejoice!
she gives up her virginity - which she will lose...
he gives up his ******* - which he will lose...
i can almost see Aaron making these
Levi demands...
what am i thinking...
i will never get to see ****-hole mustard seed
h'america... i'll sooner see Kazan...
but i still don't see the point of making
the loss of a woman's virginity to be equivalent
to a man losing his *******...
after all... prior to the snippet...
he'll *******... a woman will *******...
but... em... what the arm will not do:
the "oyster" will quench...
an i am a gentile figuring out the proper ways
of the monotheists...
speeded up eventuality of apes watching
the descent of dragons and dinosaurs...
bound to the noble profanity of swans...
and widow and widower swans...
brid-brains! of noble emotions!
huh?! no! not us!
i can see the point of male circumcision...
when it is brought with the virginity of a woman...
being circumcised with one woman
is much more than putting on a ring...
un-lucky for me... two protruding veins
like the caduceus worn into the skin of matrimony...
it's not simply that i won't:
i... can't...
hence my infernal tongue.

__________
one can only begin with: Б and В -
and then the nuance:
whatever "nuance" there was,
to genesis an adam and eve -
apple and: pears to combine
for the image of Иосифа лестница..
                  ц - ß - צ (tsade)
                   like one might begin with
something along the greek:
P and Π - amputee R...
rolls... rolls... past the goal-posts...
            the fwench hark
the english tarantula bitten
tongue-numb do not never will trill!
never mind:
       ščypta - szczypta - a pinch of salt...
wikipedia is so ******* wrong...
   щypta... it's a siamese grapheme!
thus shown... cisza: silence...
                       ciša..
ciШa...
                       you can rewrite ščypta /
szczypta in russian...
                     avoiding the щypta...
you can write: ШЧypta...
                     but given: щ (šč / szcz)?
                                    who's to argue?
here's my "revenge" against
organic chemistry's theoretical
electron migrations of schematics...
how about diacritical migrations?
more like electron ontology:
waves one minute, clouds the next...
czyszczoh...

https://www.google.com/search?safe=active&client=firefox-b-d&channel=trow&ei=vf84XaHyIMWHhbIPhtOPqA4&q=czyszczoch&oq=czyszczoch&gsl=psy-ab.3...750080.759383..760300...1.0..0.247.1771.0j9j2....­2..0....1..gws-wiz.......0i71j0i67j0i131j0j0i131i67j0i30j0i13j0i1­3i30j0i13i10i30.wqdfvbgw6Ck&ved=0ahUKEwjhxKfi787jAhXFQ0EAHYbpA-UQ4dUDCAo&uact=5
(8 goodle results, nearing a -whack)...

Czyszczoń:
                     čyščoń:

                  interlude: Ђ? in cyrillic? isn't that a hindi letter?
via a mirror akin to Я ?            

czyścioch:
                 ШЧ / Щ -ypta - pinch...
      ЧyCЬKIOX...
          someone pedantic about staying clean...

                           :
  if you ever became riddle by pure
chemistry theory, and never walked into a lab:
that also employed you,
wasted years: performing electron bogus
schematics of "electron migrations"
in organic chemistry compounds...
in experiments...
          university as that extended waste
of time period: beside heavily politico
mickey mouse concerns of the dept. of
the humanities...
  sociology et al., well then?
you're right where you belong!
    
how about: the migration of diacritical markers,
orthography before naked english...
how's that?
     english the adam and ever...
all other languages attired
in the niqab worth a god...
__________

as i sit perched on my folded foot on the windowsill,
having a ms. amber cocktail with ginger ale,
smoking a cigarette, i gravitate to the empty
standing rack of shelves...
  what remains on it, as the paint dries?
a tub of wall paint: fine rosemary,
       tissues, sunglasses,
                  a game sheath: chess and backgammon
in one... a c.d. walkman,
      20 copies of my curricul vitae,
a 1:26000 ratio map of Warsaw...
                                  heidegger's ponderings VII - XI,
a thin book of poetry:
    Πoετιc Oπτoμεtρy - by some vague unknown
semi-anon. Mateusz Conrad...
          i'm hoarding about 200 copies of this work,
perhaps this lazy sod will finally get to
send this printed copy, some raw manuscript
pieces and a covering letter to
          Austin Macauley Publishers:
sounds like a good deal...
  they accept any manuscripts, with or without
an agent, published or not published,
expect a 3 week wait...
a letter dated 16 April 2019 for an appointment
at the Community Outpatient Cardilogy Clinic
  (Dagenham RM8 2EQ)
               with Anamaria Lunca...
24h ambulatory blood pressure monitoring
   (aged 33? not bad... <insert a snigger>)...
Plato's Theaetetus,
               Man-Bat: part 1 of 3, 1st. part,
DC comics, chuck dixon, flint henry,
    eduardo barreto - Feb. 96 - two $2.25...
Doctor StrangeFate, Amalgam Comics,
      #1, Ron Marz, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez,
Kevin Nowlan, April '96,
                                         $1.95...
Littlewoods F.A. Charity Shield:
Manchester United v Newcastle United
Sunday August 11 1996 Kick-off 3:00pm
Official Machday Proramme £5.00 -
venue? the old Wembley...
inside? another matchday programme...
West Ham v Manchester United
Barclays League Division One
Wednesday 22nd April 1992 kick-off 7:45pm
£1.50 for the programme...
- the mask returns: john arcudi (story),
doug mahnke (art),
      titan books, first edition October 1994...
Czeslaw Milosz - Zniewolony Umysł
     "Culture" Paris - 1953...
- Bartman: the best of the best 1st edition
January 1997...
- a few figurines...
   a porcelain tortoise: WADE - made in england,
a Kenyan shamanic totem -
a figure with a bloated belly and only one eye,
a polish clay cockerel,
           London's China town red figurine:
standing proud on coins of wealth roaring...
1986, my year, moderate wealth -
well... given this list... i had to move all
the books i own that are supposed to be on
these shelves into the hallway, some onto
the windowsill and some into the box room...
the paint has to dry...
          a boomerang...
                     a Wawel dragon figurine...
(hell, in the west the dragon is associated
with wealth... Smaug... in China the tiger
is associated with wealth... didn't know that)...
some amitriptyline 25mg tablets...
    tom waits: glitter and doom (live) -
seriously - there are only about ten albums
in this world where the live performance
outstrips the studio version,
notably? going out west...
                   a pencil and a piece of paper...
where i scribble my braille tally
to teach me how to drink sensibly
my two ciders and the banquet of whiskey:
currently standing at 4... ****...
oi! tender hands that never worked or
played the guitar, giv' us'us the braille
count to show you have no more fingers
than that tender index of yours!
                           ⠁⠃⠇⠧ ⠷ ⠿
                 it's working... 'nuf' said...
- virgil's the aeneid,
- h. p. lovercraft: against the world,
    against life - by michel houellebecq,
- NewScientist - 50th anniversary special
   (1956 - 2006)
- Bolshoi Ballet, Royal Opera House programme,
i won't be dropping names...
****, i will:
           karim abdullin - soloist,
        maria alexandrova - principal,
artemy belyakov - leading soloist,
yulia stepanova - soloist,
                igor tsvirko - leading soloist,
- three letters from a Magdalena
Wielgołaska -
handwritten letters and all,
a pen-pall i managed to pick up a conversation
with in Edinburgh when she was
working a b & b for the summer...
         very self-conscious about her
height... well... she did play volleyball...
- old notes from university:
history essays... all a solid 2:1 grades:
    matriculation no.: s0458467
   tutor: kirsty chatwood (canadian ****
who became pregnant, great sense of humour),
e.g. why were there so many rebellions
in Europe in the mid-seventeenth century
(word count: 1,991),
   how and why did Napoleon succeed in
establishing French power over so much
Europe? (word count: 1,956)... 2% shy of a 1st...
so... no, not even i can answer this question...
since i also own copies of...
a traffic management copy of
my organic lab schedule:
   synthesis and acetylation of ferrocene,
preparation of 7-trichloromethyl-8-bromo-Δ-p-pinene
by free radical addition of
   bromotrichloromethane to β-pinene,
the photochemical interconversion of trans-
and cis- azobenzenes,
witting synthesis and photochemical
   cyclodehydrogenation of 1-styrylnaphthalene...
silyl enol ethers: a directed aldol reaction...
i used to do this sort of "stuff"...
but the pièce de résistance while i moved
my private library from these shelves?
ahem...

                 E. O. Richter & Co.
                 Präcision
                 Kopernicus IX set...
                 das prazisions-reiszeug

i.e. the most pristine instruments for technical
drawings... the sort of technical drawings used
in metallurgy, engineering, architecture...
people would conflate a hoarder with me...
me? i'm a connoisseur...
             i respect the sort of materialism that
transcends that shallow form of materialism
that equates itself with immediate gratification
not as a per se: but as a tool to attract...
unwanted attention...
  flimsy materialism, gluttonous materialism...
a materialism that occupies space
and short-attention span gnats...
    materialism of a temporal rather than
a spatial nature? now we're talking!

   and here's to toasting this day...
tomorrow i will erase that fateful day that
coincided with me painting my room
crimson - the Bataclan Massacre...
fine rosemary pale hue will replace
these blood soaked walls that have become
my gallows...
                    a shade much less the green
of my own eyes... and perhaps...
my mind will rest with a mild lapse into
a curiosity of a serenaded mind:
         i'm not even looking for serendipity.

it really didn't occur to me with regards
to the state of h'america...
  once upon a time any european would
look toward h'america as this unified
continent of sorts...
  prime cultural export juggernaut...
now? with the cracks showing,
  with individual americans making youtube
videos?
   clearly "we" europeans were lied to,
well: "lied" to...
          i would never have thought that the states
were so divided...
that even moving from one state to another
can be deemed as supicious...
maybe that's heavily reliant on the fact
that we're talking about a federation...
          in Europe they call it nationalism
what in H'america they call patriotism...
and populism is just the glue in between...
like that whole: ex-pat is not an immigrant...
but i love the h'american approach
to us old continent boyos...
styxhexen-... about the europeans:
'like we're enlightened and ****'...
         that really sums it up....
             notably, compiling the above list?
i almost forgot what i was going to write...
-hammer666 did enlighten me...
  i would have never have thought that
h'american "soccer mums" and goody-two-shoe
ruby-slippers christian folk would ban
children from reading 'arry Potter...
     well of course i knew of the satanic panic
music, and the gaming: thing...
but i never heard of 'arry Potter books being
banned...
     enlightened and ****...
      if Nietzsche was going to brag about reading
Stendhal... did him in my teens...
nothing to brag about... after all...
i did see a movie adapation starring
ewan mcgregor as julien sorel... and rachel weisz
was in it too... the first book adaptation on
film that spurred me to read the book...
if only the lord of the rings did likewise...
alas... not to be!
      no thanks to my scottish english teacher...
sure: of the g.c.s.e. curriculum?
i'm the king of the castle was the only
book of depth...
       yes, i'll give him this:
he did introduce me to jazz music...
   ben webster's how deep is the ocean...
   no other sax player as ben webster...
but: 'we're enlightened and ****' as an american
might put it...
   same teacher... on a trip to Glasbury-on-Wye
(Powys, Wales) -
oh god, i was dying to go on that trip for ages...
we were first supposed to go aged 15...
year 11...
  but the outbreak of the madcow disease
prevented us... so a year later it was...
    great place... caving, canoeing, horse riding...
and just in general the great outdoors...
any teen's dream living in the outer
east end of London...
              anyways... so the teacher inquired...
'what are you reading',
  he walked into our dorm while
guys my age were... snorting sugar dust
through their noses...
      fizz wiz space dust... yep... down the noses
it went...
   i was reading a book looking at them
like a gorilla might look at a human...
                       'mr. bunce? what am i reading?'
so i handed him the slim copy
of Marquis de Sade's groundbreaking short-story:
******...
          now, if you ask me...
the Marquis would have been the emblem
of short-story writing, he was the best as short-stories...
all those long repetitive regurgitations are...
well... 120 days of *****...
but Insect is where he shines,
the story is succinct in a citrus fruit sense:
i.e. piquant.
   succinct and piquant: such lovely
words could only have originated from
French and have to be treated as: loan-words.
besides: i find h'american criticism of europe
a wee bit funny...
     sure: an honest critique of the states
and the union, grandiose politics cogs and
all the labyrinths' worth of bureucracy:
like anywhere - same ****, different cover...
but when it comes to social norms and their
taboos... h'america is very truly backwards
when it comes to what culture its citizens
are allowed to ingest...
       me, in europe, reading marquis de sade
aged 16...
the equivalent of me, in h'america,
being prohibited to read: 'arry potter for
****'s sake!
sorry... on the level where my opinion
might or might not matter...
             americans are backwards...
those puritanical roots do not do them much
favors... esp. with their extravagant
punk-esque tropes signifying a rebellion
that never seems to occur;
christianity truly undermines the idea
of america...
                     if not bound by shackles,
then shivering under the burden of the shadow
of the cross: which none of them wish
to carry... the mere looming shadow frightens
them... and... mind you? american neo-atheism?
boring as sunday's midday sun.

since becoming housed here since this year
july first two thousand and seventeen,
   tubby more precise where
with thee missus, amidst bucolic environs,
   (one could don underwear

Schwenksville, Pennsylvania  
   trees abundant with leaves of grass spare
zip cone: one nine four seven three,
   this resident doth not find queer

disproportionate amount of time,
   he spends never to overhear
the mostly soundproof walls
   inside apartment b44 assigned midyear,

one bedroom living social space
   gives ample opportunity to assess linear
ratcheting asper elderly folks inch along
   chronological space/time continuum
   fragile as jasperware  

many experience diminution
   of vital sensory organs, and oft time cannot hear
even without television blasting away,
   no doubt harboring anticipatory anxiey sans,

   grim reaper's unannounced visit they fear
their non verbal body language
   (when aye espy and stride-rite past,
   an old lady or man riding shot gun

   securely strapped in wheel chair,
   shuffling back where buffalo used to roam,
   or trudging to common
   all purpose gathering place)

   speaks volumes analogous to a frightened deer
when caught blindsided
   within bright lights of an automobile 'ere
unsure which way to go, and dashing out in the thick
   of evening rush hour traffic,

   lacking notion, the figurative coast not clear
subsequently doe ting bucks killed, where birds of prey
   thence loftily circle gracefully  
   gliding within upper atmospheric air

upon scrutinizing what doth appear
as a hollowed out existence induces me to de clear
to maximize utilizing each precious moment 'ere
before each major metaphorical cog and gear
frankly zaps, this dude looks like a lady,

   cuz ah ma longish bedraggled
   hydrogen peroxide tinted hair
me haint give a rats ***
   what rumor mongers relish, and behind me back jeer

Since old people lack for purposefulness tis unlike to leer
that one day (fast as snap of fingers),
   lack of being ambulatory t'will be near
and upon limitation in physical functionality,
   aye aim to app pear
motivated to partake of mental exercises
   just sitting on me rear.

My brother and I explored a ravine
in our younger years. A wooded
labyrinth where the auburn
mist of fallen leaves
covered the floor
like a Burmese
tiger pit.

My brother
and I discovered
a lake, which became
a creek, which became
a swamp. I must've found
something exciting, because
I began sprinting homeward in a
juvenile fervor. Penetrating the
leafy shroud with my eager
feet. Unaware of traps
set subtly for those
tramping  through
the wilderness.

A nail,
I stepped
on a nail in my
recklessness. My
tennis shoe armor proved
futile against the steel weaponry.
Completely exposing my vulnerable
sole, the spiked interloper sank
its lone fang into me. The
pain shot through my
foot until ambulatory
abilities all but
vanished.

I didn't watch
where I was stepping
and landed on an inadvertent
weapon.
I should've
known the pollution of man
would stab me in my
outstretched hand.

A lesson was
learned about
paranoia and why
it exists. Even if I watch
where I'm going, polluters
will slit my wrists until the findings
of the swamp are forgotten in favor of scars.

Perched on a tree high
wave,
a moon was talking long
to me.

A live-in partenership
was in vogue. We always
loved each other ******* apart.

The weather was changing.
A plane load of tears would
disappear without a trace.

From somewhere a benign
lump explodes, making night,
a brilliant dream of
sleeping sky.

The hare jumps on the moon,
to ****** away the ambulatory
age, browsing around the death.

Alex Smith is a quarterback
more importantly a husband, son, and father
who is cut no sort of slack
in a sport of slaughter.

West coast offense
almost always softens
someone in the pocket
used to quick tosses.

A deserved demotion to backup
made his life increasingly harder
all of the mistakes and bad luck
called for a new start for the starter.

Washington by way of San Francisco
he wasn't high up as far as the list goes
Alex Smith got his wish though
and was back in the fishbowl.

Alex Smith was used in
a game against Houston
and was rolled into a compound fracture
from a double defensive back compactor.

His trip to the hospital
wasn't quite optimal
and it kept getting worse
opening the door to a hearse.

The doctors detected
the wound was infected
Alex had become septic
with bacteria interjected.

Blood pressure dropping
and a fever rising
you know he wasn't flopping
by the way he was writhing.

The leg was turning black
and developing huge blisters
the knowledge they lacked
to heal the maimed mister.

His wife was worried
so were the physicians
to surgery they hurried
on a life saving mission.

The doctors discovered the issue
was necrotizing fasciitis
infecting skin and muscle tissue
like a black King Midas.

Daily debridement
helped with askew alignment
but the bone still looked like a trident
and the infection was the only assignment.

Should they take the leg while they can cut below the knee?
Is wanting to live your life a form of greed?
Does a steed consider its ambulatory needs?
Alex just follows the doctor's lead.

Eight debridements leave the tibia completely exposed
but the necrotizing fasciitis is gone
yet once one's legs explode
how can they move on?

Replacement skin comes from the quad
despite the risk of failure
the doctors took over for God
as epidermic tailors.

Intense physical therapy
is better than sitting scarily
or holding onto life barely
so Alex proceeded merrily.

Eventually healing
getting back to wheeling
this game didn't end in kneeling
when there was extra time to be stealing.

He was told he wouldn't play anymore
he was told he'd lose his leg
now the doctors have nothing to say anymore
and he's only looking ahead.

Playing with no team name
it was definitely no dream game
two teams that were three and seven
but for one quarterback this was heaven.

Two years after getting injured
Alex beats a divisional opponent
something no one would've inferred
back in that pivotal moment.

Ambulatory but surely I can't run away from this.
Because, even when I feel like dying,
I know I've just got to keep on trying,
because,
no matter how steep the hill,
no matter how high the climb,
no matter how heavy the weight.
Quitting is not an option.
When you start to feel like nothing,
just do something,
because failing,
is better than giving up.
I may never reach the stars,
but maybe, my feet will leave the ground,
and maybe, I'll achieve that weightless feeling.

Thankfully wife as helpmate available,
when yours truly feels unswell
her tender loving care can spell
relief afflicted which she can hopefully quell
but spouse of mine, he doth not aim to oversell
nevertheless counterpart valued
as once me Matty Mattel
prized boyhood toy unfailingly and unstintingly
reflected, mirrored and kickstarted mood to kvell
and encapsulate impossible mission,
thus now grown lad with sincerity does impel
to communicate how thoughts gel
regarding how the missus tries to expel
his physical displeasure
while sequestered within B44 prison cell
as dark shadows creep along the edge of night
surreal as ghosts made manifest
courtesy fratricidal brothers Cain and Abel.

The charming primary physician
at Patients Matter Always (Doctor York Yang)
prescribed Amoxicillin 500 MG Capsules
one capsule three times a day.

Two days since visit with
aforementioned medical practitioner I went
and thus far, no reduction
to swallow without great strain,
hence crafting reasonable rhyme I vent,
which lame endeavor
marginally alleviates torment
rendering swallowing painful
despite depending
on above pharmacological medicine
synthesized courtesy countless
top notch star students
upon landing dream job
able, ready and willing to pay rent
at pricey residences
with regal names such as Kent
Village Apartments, Kent Place Residences,
versus drab Highland Manor
which costs me one hundred ninety red cent
every month, no doubt a bargain
yet absent amenities
most every tenant here would assent.

Although prone to experiencing chills
still slight drawback extra frills
case in point on site medic clinic
would be grand for folks
long in the tooth
regarding being old, yet over the hills
and far away Teletubbies come to play
attempting to draw out child within
once garden variety Jacks and Jills
unfortunately many youngster
plucked by steel mills
decades later in their dotage
heavily rely on magic potions and pills
to facilitate basic ambulatory skills.

Morbid,
Morbid!

Slowly, the dragon coaxes his slow but
precise ambulatory apparatus.
Deep from within the primal mind,
We all exude marvelous exhortations, excretions and exhibitions.
Yet as  the dragons  glassy, languid, beaded eyes
fix upon our hapless hero,
So is his innocence consumed.

Courtesy Goofus and Gallant
who began their broadly-drawn
moral plays in the 1950s,
initially depicted as identical twins,
but later on, editors for Highlights
indicated the two were brothers,
but not twins, and by 1995,
they simply existed as two unrelated boys.

Analogously, ineptly, and uniformly juxtaposed
slipshod verse best flushed down toilet
or slid down into the behavioral sink
of garbage disposal,
yours truly presents the following
worthless trademark worded poem.

Since this then year
July first two thousand and seventeen,
tubby more precise where
with thee missus,
and I dwell amidst bucolic environs,
shuffling back where
buffalo used to roam,
one sandy randy
handy dandy chap could don
“I hate boys” underwear
Schwenksville, Pennsylvania  

trees abundant with leaves of grass spare
zip code: one nine four seven three,
unmotivated to partake of mental
exercises just sitting on me rear
this resident doth not find queer
disproportionate amount of time,
he spends never to overhear
lack of being ambulatory t'will be near
the mostly soundproof walls
inside apartment b44 assigned midyear,
one bedroom living social space

gives ample opportunity to assess linear
ratcheting kvetching asper
elderly folks inching along
chronological space/time continuum
purposefulness tis unlike to leer
that one day (fast as snap of fingers),
me haint give a rats ***
what rumor fishmongers relish,
and behind me back jeer
since old people lack
for fragile as jasperware

before each major chord din hated
since becoming housed here
and oft time cannot hear
even without television blasting away,
no doubt harboring
anticipatory anxiety sans,
frankly zaps, this dude
looks like a lady,
while making love in an elevator
cuz ah ma longish bedraggled
hydrogen peroxide tinted hair

many experience diminution
grim reaper's unannounced visit
metaphorical cog and gear
of vital sensory organs,
they capable of inducing fear
their non verbal body language
speaks volumes analogous
to a frightened deer,
when caught blindsided
within bright lights
of an automobile 'ere

unsure which way to go,
as a hollowed out existence
each precious moment 'ere
induces me to declare
to maximize utilizing
and dashing out in the thick
of evening rush hour traffic,
lacking notion, the
figurative coast not clear
when aye espy and stride-rite past,
an old lady or man riding shotgun

securely strapped in wheelchair,
or trudging to common
all purpose gathering place
subsequently doting bucks killed
upon scrutinizing what doth appear
and upon limitation in physical
functionality, aye aim to appear,
where birds of prey,
thence loftily circle gracefully
analogous to
rocketing fame of Aerosmith  
gliding within upper atmospheric air.