They put me in the oven to bake.
Me a deprived and miserable cake.
Feeling the heat I started to bubble.
Watching the others I knew I was in trouble

They opened the door and I started my life.
Frosting me with a silver knife.
Decorating me with candy jewels.
The rest of my batch looked like fools.

Lifting me up, she took off my wrapper.
Feeling the breeze, I wanted to slap her.
Opening her mouth with shiny teeth inside.
This was the day this cupcake had died.

I.
Time passes, another
batch of refugees and migrants. Cities turn into
new houses of gambling and vicious cycles.
Some say only machines can speak clearly
and most humans have lost what they have earned
throughout all this time, just right on schedule.

To own our language,
and the relationships it sets into motion,
we learn painfully, repeatedly like sunrise
and sunsets.
Claiming our own spaces and demons
hidden in our conveniences and reflex routines,
and learning the tricks that has kept peoples
from fully healing from broken promises
and betrayals throughout time.

We own up to our language and its demons
every day and night that we toss and turn
into something feasible, edible, livable.


II.
Iba ibang uri ng digma.
duguang kasaysayang binabaong buhay
binubura ang lakas at memorya tulad ng siyudad
ng Songdo sa South Korea na ang ibig sabihin
ay "city with no memory".

Ito din ang isa sa mga modelo para sa New Clark City
na tinatayo sa Luzon. Sa dalawahang mga pamamaraan
ng mga naghahari-harian, nakikibaka ang anakpawis,
nakikibaka ang kamalayan ng pagpapasya at pagwasto
sa mga pagkakamali, na paulit-ulit na sinusubukang
patayin sa iba ibang mukha.

Mula pa sa panahon ng mga lolo at lola noong 1940s
hanggang ngayon, patuloy ang mga pag-eexperimento nila at paggamit ng panlilinlang  at dahas, sa ngalan ng kalusugan, edukasyon at batas, upang ipain ang buhay sarili, lasunin ang lupang kinakain ang sarili. Kung hindi tayo mag-aaral at mag-iingat din, tayo mismo ang papatay sa mga sinisimulan. #

Grandma's in the kitchen today
With a bunch of dough and butter.
I see the dough, so there I stay,
Watching her cut the dough with a cutter.
I knew what she was making now,
A batch of cookies, for the house.
I instantly thought about the 'wows'
Which would come from all over the house.

But as I looked at the cookies,
They seemed to be square, and very thick.
"I know!", I thought with a big smile,
"Grandma's making some bar-cookies!"
So with a big grin, I sat down,
And indulged with joy, not a frown.

Whether in Montreal, where she was born and raised, or in Delhi, where her award-winning brasserie sits, the stylish chef’s love for gastronomy has always run deep. She came to India to chase her passion about eight years ago, after leaving behind an engineering career and having trained at the esteemed ITHQ (Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec). In 2014, she introduced unusual combinations like oysters with charred onion petals, tamarind puree, and rose vinegar when she became the first Indian chef to be invited to host a solo dinner at the James Beard House in New York City. Also presented there was her very own coffee-table book called Eating Stories, packed with charming visuals, tales and recipes.

In pursuit of narratives

“I am studying Ayurveda so, at the moment, I’m inspired by the knowledge and intuition which comes with that, but otherwise I completely live for stories. Those of the people around me — of spices, design forms, music, traditions, history and anything else I feel connected to.”

Culinary muse

“I truly believe that nature is perfect, so I feel privileged to use the ingredients that it provides, while adding my own hues, aromas and combinations…it feels like I get to play endlessly every day.”

After-work indulgence

“My favourite places to eat at are Cafe Lota and Carnatic Cafe in Delhi, and Betony and Brindle Room in NYC.”

Dream dish

“This salad I created called ‘secret garden’. It’s so beautiful to look at and has such a unique spectrum of flavours…all while using only the freshest, most natural produce to create something completely magical.”

Reception blooper

“Most people make the mistake of over-complicating the menu; having too much diversity and quantity. Wastefulness isn’t a good way to start a life together.”

A third-generation entrepreneur from a highly distinguished culinary family, she runs a thriving studio in Khar where state-of-the-art cooking stations and dining tables allow her to conduct a variety of workshops and sessions. Her grandfather is remembered as the man who migrated from Africa to London to found the brand that brought curry to the people of the UK — Patak’s. She took over as brand ambassador, having trained at Leiths School of Food and Wine and taught at one of Jamie Oliver’s schools in London. What’s more, Pathak is also the author of Secrets From My Indian Family Kitchen, a cookbook comprising 120 Indian recipes, published last year in the UK.

Most successful experiment

“When I was writing recipes for my cookbook, I had to test some more than once to ensure they were perfect and foolproof. One of my favourites was my slow-cooked tamarind-glazed pork. I must have trialled this recipe at least six times before publishing it, and after many tweaks I have got it to be truly sensational. It’s perfectly balanced with sweet and sour both.”

Future fantasy

“As strange as it sounds, I’d love to cater my own wedding. You want all your favourite recipes and you want to share this with your guests. I could hire a caterer to create my ideal menu, but I’d much prefer to finalise and finish all the dishes myself so that I’m supremely happy with the flavours I’m serving to my loved ones.”

Fresh elegance

“I’m in love with microgreens for entertaining and events…although not a new trend, they still carry the delicate wow factor and are wonderfully subtle when used well. I’m not into using foams and gels and much prefer to use ingredients that are fuss-free.”

This advertising professional first tested her one-of-a-kind amalgams at The Lil Flea, a popular local market in BKC, Mumbai. Her Indian fusion hot dogs, named Amar (vegetarian), Akbar (chicken) and Anthony (pork), sold out quickly and were a hit. Today, these ‘desi dogs’ are the signature at the affable home-chef-turned-businesswoman’s cafe-***-diner in Bandra, alongside juicy burgers, a fantastic indigenous crème brûlée, and an exciting range of drinks and Sikkim-sourced teas.

Loving the journey

“The best part of the job is the people I meet; the joy I get to see on their faces as they take the first bite. The fact that this is across all ages and social or cultural backgrounds makes it even better. Also, I can indulge a whim — whether it is about the menu or what I can do for a guest — without having to ask anyone. On the flip side, I have no one to blame but myself if the decision goes wrong. And, of course, I can’t apply for leave!”

Go-to comfort meal

“A well-made Bengali khichri or a good light meat curry with super-soft chapattis.”

What’s ‘happening’

“This is a very exciting time in food and entertaining — the traditional and ultra-modern are moving forward together. Farm-to-fork is very big; food is also more cross-cultural, and there is a huge effort to make your guest feel special. Plus, ‘Instagram friendly’ has become key…if it’s not on Instagram, it never happened! But essentially, a party works when everyone is comfortable and happy.”

A word to brides

“Let others plan your menu. You relax and look gorgeous!”

This Le Cordon Bleu graduate really knows her way around aromas that warm the heart. On returning to Mumbai from London, she began to experiment with making small-batch ice creams for family and friends. Now she churns out those ‘cheeky’ creations from a tiny kitchen in Bandra, where customers must ring a bell to get a taste of dark chocolate with Italian truffle oil, salted caramel, milk chocolate and bacon and her signature (a must-try) — blue cheese and honey.

The extra mile

“I’ll never forget the time I created three massive croquembouche towers (choux buns filled with assorted flavours of pastry cream, held together with caramel) for a wedding, and had to deliver them to Thane!”

Menu vision

“For a wedding, I would want to serve something light and fresh to start with, like seared scallops with fresh oysters and uni (sea urchin). For mains, I would serve something hearty and warm — roast duck and foie gras in a red wine jus. Dessert would be individual mini croquembouche!”

Having been raised by big-time foodie parents, the strongest motivation for their decision to take to this path came from their mother, who had two much-loved restaurants of her own while the sisters were growing up — Vandana in Mahim and Bandra Fest on Carter Road. Following the success of the first MeSoHappi in Khar, Mumbai, the duo known for wholesome cooking opened another outlet of the quirky gastro-bar adjoining The Captain’s Table — one of the city’s favourite seafood haunts — in Bandra Kurla Complex.

Chef’s own

AA: “We were the pioneers of the South African bunny chow in Mumbai and, even now, it remains one of my all-time favourites.”

On wedding catering

PA: “The most memorable for me will always be Aarathi’s high-tea bridal shower. I planned a floral-themed sundowner at our home in Cumballa Hill; curtains of jasmine, rose-and-wisteria lanterns and marigold scallops engulfed the space. We served exotic teas, alcoholic popsicles of sangria and mojito, and dishes like seafood pani puri shots and Greek spanakopita with beetroot dip, while each table had bite-sized desserts like mango and butter cream tarts and rose panna cotta.”Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-2016 | www.marieaustralia.com/red-carpet-celebrity-dresses

Snip
Cut
Bang
Simmer

I want a transit,  a travel against my skin, that keeps going until I command it to stop.
My mouth begged for light, to feel warmth on my face

Heat oven to 450

You laughed and tossed me,  a rag,  away from the mahogany scent of your chest to the cold,  hard floor that I am stuck to.
I miss you
I try to imagine you so that I can delude myself into continuing, but my mind strangely has already forgotten you.
I cannot remember your eyes,  or even your favorite color anymore.
Some wish for that type of amnesia, but I am solemn.
I wanted a piece of you to carry with me always.

Cook for fifteen minutes or until dark

I hear my other side in my head; She is the evil within me.
I am brunbrunette, she is red.
I wear flats--her long legs are attracted to heels.
She smiles and with a curvy, smooth voice,  much like a fiery dame from 1920:
"He has a piece of you though; you gave him your whole heart, and he only took a bite! That's alright, you don't need him or anything like him! You are a woman.... "
I drown her out with recipes,
4 cups of music and 1 cup chardonnay
(okay maybe MORE than one)--
therapy that I have made many appointments for.
Adding bits and pieces of me that I share,  and some I don't
One thing I know,  if a new one comes along,  he is going to have to be patient,
I learned my lesson from burning out on the first batch

Take out--let cool
Don't eat all at once--savor.
Enjoy a slice at a time.

I battle my identity,
As people try to label me,
My mum tries to show me the right path,
But is this really destiny?
9-5,
Zero hours,
Holiday and sick pay impossible to claim,
Expected to work for 20 hours a day,
Minimum wage,

This society makes me insane,
On the weekends I can I run away to raves,
Take what ever I can to create waves,
Not like the sea, like to much Dizzle,
Party all night society says that's crazy,

But whats crazy is the war on drugs,
Some users just victims,
Can't get enough.
Instead of giving criminal records,
Affirming our behaviour,
Turning us riot, ruckus,
snapping wires,
How about a little support?
After all how bad must life be,
That children as young as 13 turn to drugs to escape?

It's medical,
Some say medicinal,
But when your mums crying,
Her heart dying,
Because her baby boys been lying?
No one wants police at the door,
But it was gunna be the last night you swore.
A new batch, strong stuff, you didn't believe
And now your six foot under
Rotting, deceased.

But maybe this could change?
If the right support was in place,
For all those getting spaced,
People will always seek a fix,
So why not monitor, control and safe proof it.

The car will edge past the truck maybe
and maybe we'll survive this message
playing on repeat, apologies like daft lilies
and then you go ahead and tell me that you've never
learnt from your mistakes, or my mistakes.
That mistakes are only bad unless you change the order
of analogy. This experiment has been contaminated.
Now a fresh batch. Trust me, there's a point to this.
I'm counting back from a hundred and two
and you've got me standing in the middle of the highway,
blindfolded; this is what loving you felt like,
you said. But I think it was more dramatic in my head.
Nuclear fission and the seige of Dresden dressed
up playing Adagio in D minor; I'm dust. I'm dust.
I've become ash and misery and I'm trying to stay inside you
but you've been coughing a lot, and who's to say
you were holding your breath for something exciting,
I just know for a fact that at the end of this beep,
you'll know what to do and yet
you're not going to leave another message.

Once upon a time
there was a young adult
who spent time on the dark web,
Searching for the most obscure and exotic substances humanity could offer.

Late nights tracking down vendors with the most up-to-date wares:
Drugs.
Research chemicals,
Novel psychoactive substances.
Illicit pharmaceuticals and exotic materials.
Pills, powder, liquid, tabs, any material one could find.
Uppers, downers, dissos, deliriants,
Psyches, anti-psyches, stimulants,
Depressants, anti-depressants,
*** drugs, study drugs,
'noids, 'roids, and
even vitamins.

There was the standard battery of illegal narcotics,
******* knockoffs of more popular drugs,
Drugs designed to evade anti-doping tests
and then the more experimental stuff.

Suffice to say this part of the internet is a strange and lawless world.
Not like the Wild West, more like the backstreets of Seoul.

The goal was nothing more than knowledge
of this rapidly evolving-world.

One night a vendor's listing flagged their attention
and on an intuition they acquired
a batch of synthetic cannabinoids for nothing.
A few days later a letter arrived
containing several unlabeled bags of power.

It took many months to even partially identify them.
The vendor went dark before the results came in.

One compound was entirely novel. It did not have a name
so it was assigned one. It did not have a history of human use
but had entered the wild human populace.

After identification they were destroyed.
The properties of that novel compound remain unknown.

Fifteen years old and thinking I was older.
'Assistant Maintenance Man' at a Public School
Summer Camp. Billy Deitz had just graduated
High School, I thought him the coolest guy
I knew. The first week was ended, the little
kids gone home, a new batch in two days time.

We did our work, cleaned and swept, sweated
in the summer sun. Took the old surplus Jeep
over to the creek and plunged ourselves in.
Deitz had some beer in an Ice chest, I drank
one, my first ever. We shot his .22 for a while
and ate PBJs in the shade. Then we heard it.

A train horn in the mountains is a haunting
call. It does not seem to belong there among
evergreen trees and massive granite boulders.
We drove the hell out of the Jeep and found
our way to the down grade tracks. And there
she was maybe 50 cars long, snaking her way
from the summit of the Sierras out of California
into Nevada. Through the Pass over a hairpin
filled course hugging the skirts of the rock face
mountains, slowly rolling her massive load
pushing her four engines, breaks a screeching
in protest. "Click Clack, Click Clack", her steel
wheels clanging upon the rails, a rhythm like
her train heart beating.

Deitz grabbed his coat and tied it round his waist,
looped a canteen over his head, "Lets go kid!"
I did what he said, and then we were running
along beside the box cars, more a trot than a run,
"Do what I do!" Deitz yelled over his shoulder.
A flat car with some machinery approached and
He grabbed on to it and pulled himself aboard,
I copied his moves and he helped pull me up
and then there we stood on the deck of that
moving, mountain ship, with her grunting and
shaking under our feet. We could feel all her
massive weight and power vibrating up through
that wooden plank deck of the flat bed car,
entering our legs and spines. . . It was thrilling!

I had not had time to think all this through,
"Now what?" I asked some what perplexed
"Reno Kid." Deitz yelled with a grin.  

We climbed atop a Box Car, our rail bound
ship crawled out of the upper pass and we
started to descend towards Donner Lake far
below.

Looking behind and ahead it was hard to
understand how they had cut those tracks
out of solid granite rock and how the rails
maintained their frail finger tip grip on the
sheer mountain side.

We ducked nearly flat going through the snow
tunnels, the clearance was tight and it seemed
that a guy could lose his head. The diesel thick
air made us cover mouth and nose with our shirts.
Two tunnels in we noticed our faces getting
smoke blackened. We laughed at the joke.
Soot faced on a boxcar in a tunnel of wood.
Two city kids playing Hobo.

We reached the lower valley, passed the place
where the Donner Party met their grisly end.

Truckee was next and the highway grew close.
We got back down onto the flat car, hunkered
down by machine cargo, more or less out of sight.

I thought of all the down on their luck men that
had ridden those rails, not on a some lark. That
whole Grapes Of Wrath, Woody Guthrie period
of no joke, for real ****. Pushed by poverty and hope.

I must admit at that moment, I felt more alive than
at any other time in my life. I felt grown up, like a man.
Until my belly began to rumble, the speed increased
and the wind began to chill. The Click Clacks of the
wheels quickened and grew irritatingly redundant.
The loud wailing of the engine horn no longer exciting.
Now only hurt my ears.

It was dark by the time we hit Reno, we jumped off
before the train yard. Walked into town with its
bright lights calling the casino gamers to unholy service
and nightly prayer. Proceeded over by hard-bitten
dealers in communal black, with cigarettes dangling
from their unsmiling lips, possessing the empty
dead eyes of the badly used up and down-trodden.
Through the ***** windows, the people there seemed
to possess no joy in their sluggish endeavors.
Both players and dealers all losers, merely Automatons
of those despairing games of chance.

Reno was still rough-hewn in those days, a hard
scrabble place full of cigarette smoke, ******,
card tables, slot machines and not much else.
It seemed to reek of lonely desperation.

Having seen our soot ***** faces in the
window reflection, we washed up in the
cold river that runs through town.

We walked around, ate hot dogs,
Downed a Doctor Pepper.
"Now what Deitz?"
"**** I don't know kid,
first time I ever did anything like this."

"What?" My world collapsed right then,
I thought he was much more than
he turned out to be. Maybe everyone is.
I even started to get a little scared.
No money, no place to stay and apparently,
like most of the denizens there, **** out ah'
luck. I'd never felt that way before, from
mountain high to valley low in two hours.
All that excitement turned to Dread.

We hitched a ride with a long haired
guy of questionable gender, who kept
staring at me in the rearview mirror.
West, to a Truck Stop on the edge of town.
Found a trucker willing to give us a lift
back up to the summit.  Jumped in his rig
happy to find, that his cab heater worked.

Badly judged our get out spot, searched
and stumbled around in the shadowy dark,
dim moonlight looking for that **** jeep,
all that friggin' night.

When the guy that ran the camp returned
and found us sleeping at half past two,
in the afternoon in our tent, to say the least,
He was not amused.

Need I say, I felt much older that next day
and a little wiser too.

Manning up in Texas
Geldof overdose
needles at the bed stand
starlet comatose

California dreaming
killer meets demise
hurling in a taxi
puke fee on the rise

Fighting in the Gaza
Jordan's holy war
rebels on a mission
Jihad underscore

The North Korean riddle
pales in grand design
crisis on the border
planes fall from the sky

Cooking on a deadline
tempting tapenades
herbs are in the spotlight
wines that give a nod

Google maps the body
DOW at record highs
Uber comes to market
corn is on the rise

Apple on its earnings
Caterpillar dead
European sanctions
banks have **** the bed

Clippers threaten boycott
Longhorns follow purge
Lynch is out of training camp
James is on the verge

Leinart taking *** shots
coughing up a lung
lions take a licking
fans are throwing dung

Another day in Vegas
Primm from A-Z
rolling out an ankle
a flying SUV

Quiet tempting spaces
made better by design
multi color pea coat
silence fuels the mind

Stabbing in the subway
goat caught in a well
apes are selling tickets
(but leave behind a smell)

Puberty on trial
a man without a head
teachers feel alone
lets take them to the shed!

Jonah's tomb destroyed
wreckage in Mumbai
Sugar Daddy sites
Freedom 85

The immigrant debate
Russia's mounting toll
unions on a mission
heads are gonna roll

Beaches for the nudists
hotels on the cheap
the best generic brands
a list you have to keep!

Planning your estate
questions from the camp
a mansion up for sale
where once they filmed The Champ

Midwives threaten action
aboriginal act
truckers want concessions
that train has left the track

Sharks are found in Fundy
a prized but perilous catch
food we love to hate the most
an irrefutable batch

A family on the brink
I want my kids to fail!
politicians drains all hope
a ban on Israel

Follow out each headline
let the columns be your guide
all these things did happen
the day that Newhouse died

Dedication

Inscribed to a dear Child:
in memory of golden summer hours
and whispers of a summer sea.

Girt with a boyish garb for boyish task,
   Eager she wields her *****; yet loves as well
Rest on a friendly knee, intent to ask
   The tale he loves to tell.

Rude spirits of the seething outer strife,
   Unmeet to read her pure and simple spright,
Deem, if you list, such hours a waste of life,
   Empty of all delight!

Chat on, sweet Maid, and rescue from annoy
   Hearts that by wiser talk are unbeguiled.
Ah, happy he who owns that tenderest joy,
   The heart-love of a child!

Away, fond thoughts, and vex my soul no more!
   Work claims my wakeful nights, my busy days--
Albeit bright memories of that sunlit shore
   Yet haunt my dreaming gaze!

PREFACE

If--and the thing is wildly possible--the charge of writing nonsense were ever brought against the author of this brief but instructive poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line (in p.18)

"Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes."

In view of this painful possibility, I will not (as I might) appeal indignantly to my other writings as a proof that I am incapable of such a deed: I will not (as I might) point to the strong moral purpose of this poem itself, to the arithmetical principles so cautiously inculcated in it, or to its noble teachings in Natural History--I will take the more prosaic course of simply explaining how it happened.

The Bellman, who was almost morbidly sensitive about appearances, used to have the bowsprit unshipped once or twice a week to be revarnished, and it more than once happened, when the time came for replacing it, that no one on board could remember which end of the ship it belonged to. They knew it was not of the slightest use to appeal to the Bellman about it--he would only refer to his Naval Code, and read out in pathetic tones Admiralty Instructions which none of them had ever been able to understand--so it generally ended in its being fastened on, anyhow, across the rudder. The helmsman* used to stand by with tears in his eyes; he knew it was all wrong, but alas! Rule 42 of the Code, "No one shall speak to the Man at the Helm," had been completed by the Bellman himself with the words "and the Man at the Helm shall speak to no one." So remon{-} strance was impossible, and no steering could be done till the next varnishing day. During these bewildering intervals the ship usually sailed backwards.

As this poem is to some extent connected with the lay of the Jabberwock, let me take this opportunity of answering a question that has often been asked me, how to pronounce "slithy toves." The "i" in "slithy" is long, as in "writhe"; and "toves" is pronounced so as to rhyme with "groves." Again, the first "o" in "borogoves" is pronounced like the "o" in "borrow." I have heard people try to give it the sound of the"o" in "worry." Such is Human Perversity. This also seems a fitting occasion to notice the other hard works in that poem. Humpty-Dumpty's theory, of two meanings packed into one word like a port{-} manteau, seems to me the right explanation for all.

For instance, take the two words "fuming" and "furious." Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first. Now open your mouth and speak. If your thoughts incline ever so little towards "fuming," you will say "fuming-furious;" if they turn, by even a hair's breadth, towards "furious," you will say "furious-fuming;" but if you have that rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say "frumious."

Supposing that, when Pistol uttered the well-known
words--

     "Under which king, Bezonian? Speak or die!"

Justice Shallow had felt certain that it was either William or Richard, but had not been able to settle which, so that he could not possibly say either name before the other, can it be doubted that, rather than die, he would have gasped out "Rilchiam!"

CONTENTS

Fit the First. The Landing
Fit the Second. The Bellman's Speech
Fit the Third. The Baker's Tale
Fit the Fourth. The Hunting
Fit the Fifth. The ******'s Lesson
Fit the Sixth. The Barrister's Dream
Fit the Seventh. The Banker's Fate
Fit the Eighth. The Vanishing

Fit the First.

THE LANDING

"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,
    As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
    By a finger entwined in his hair.

"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
    That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
    What I tell you three times is true."

  The crew was complete: it included a Boots--
  A maker of Bonnets and Hoods--
A Barrister, brought to arrange their disputes--
  And a Broker, to value their goods.

A Billiard-marker, whose skill was immense,
  Might perhaps have won more than his share--
But a Banker, engaged at enormous expense,
  Had the whole of their cash in his care.

There was also a ******, that paced on the deck,
  Or would sit making lace in the bow:
And had often (the Bellman said) saved them from wreck,
  Though none of the sailors knew how.

There was one who was famed for the number of things
  He forgot when he entered the ship:
His umbrella, his watch, all his jewels and rings,
  And the clothes he had bought for the trip.

He had forty-two boxes, all carefully packed,
  With his name painted clearly on each:
But, since he omitted to mention the fact,
  They were all left behind on the beach.

The loss of his clothes hardly mattered, because
  He had seven coats on when he came,
With three pair of boots--but the worst of it was,
  He had wholly forgotten his name.

He would answer to "Hi!" or to any loud cry,
  Such as "Fry me!" or "Fritter my wig!"
To "What-you-may-call-um!" or "What-was-his-name!"
  But especially "Thing-um-a-jig!"

While, for those who preferred a more forcible word,
  He had different names from these:
His intimate friends called him "Candle-ends,"
  And his enemies "Toasted-cheese."

"His form in ungainly--his intellect small--"
  (So the Bellman would often remark)
"But his courage is perfect! And that, after all,
  Is the thing that one needs with a Snark."

He would joke with hy{ae}nas, returning their stare
  With an impudent wag of the head:
And he once went a walk, paw-in-paw, with a bear,
  "Just to keep up its spirits," he said.

He came as a Baker: but owned, when too late--
  And it drove the poor Bellman half-mad--
He could only bake Bridecake--for which, I may state,
  No materials were to be had.

The last of the crew needs especial remark,
  Though he looked an incredible dunce:
He had just one idea--but, that one being "Snark,"
  The good Bellman engaged him at once.

He came as a Butcher: but gravely declared,
  When the ship had been sailing a week,
He could only **** Beavers. The Bellman looked scared,
  And was almost too frightened to speak:

But at length he explained, in a tremulous tone,
  There was only one ****** on board;
And that was a tame one he had of his own,
  Whose death would be deeply deplored.

The ******, who happened to hear the remark,
  Protested, with tears in its eyes,
That not even the rapture of hunting the Snark
  Could atone for that dismal surprise!

It strongly advised that the Butcher should be
  Conveyed in a separate ship:
But the Bellman declared that would never agree
  With the plans he had made for the trip:

Navigation was always a difficult art,
  Though with only one ship and one bell:
And he feared he must really decline, for his part,
  Undertaking another as well.

The ******'s best course was, no doubt, to procure
  A second-hand dagger-proof coat--
So the Baker advised it-- and next, to insure
  Its life in some Office of note:

This the Banker suggested, and offered for hire
  (On moderate terms), or for sale,
Two excellent Policies, one Against Fire,
  And one Against Damage From Hail.

Yet still, ever after that sorrowful day,
  Whenever the Butcher was by,
The ****** kept looking the opposite way,
  And appeared unaccountably shy.

II.--THE BELLMAN'S SPEECH.

Fit the Second.

THE BELLMAN'S SPEECH.

The Bellman himself they all praised to the skies--
  Such a carriage, such ease and such grace!
Such solemnity, too! One could see he was wise,
  The moment one looked in his face!

He had bought a large map representing the sea,
  Without the least vestige of land:
And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be
  A map they could all understand.

"What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,
  Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?"
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply
   "They are merely conventional signs!

"Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!
  But we've got our brave Captain to thank
(So the crew would protest) "that he's bought us the best--
  A perfect and absolute blank!"

This was charming, no doubt; but they shortly found out
  That the Captain they trusted so well
Had only one notion for crossing the ocean,
  And that was to tingle his bell.

He was thoughtful and grave--but the orders he gave
  Were enough to bewilder a crew.
When he cried "Steer to starboard, but keep her head larboard!"
  What on earth was the helmsman to do?

Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes:
  A thing, as the Bellman remarked,
That frequently happens in tropical climes,
  When a vessel is, so to speak, "snarked."

But the principal failing occurred in the sailing,
   And the Bellman, perplexed and distressed,
Said he had hoped, at least, when the wind blew due East,
  That the ship would not travel due West!

But the danger was past--they had landed at last,
  With their boxes, portmanteaus, and bags:
Yet at first sight the crew were not pleased with the view,
  Which consisted to chasms and crags.

The Bellman perceived that their spirits were low,
  And repeated in musical tone
Some jokes he had kept for a season of woe--
  But the crew would do nothing but groan.

He served out some grog with a liberal hand,
  And bade them sit down on the beach:
And they could not but own that their Captain looked grand,
  As he stood and delivered his speech.

"Friends, Romans, and countrymen, lend me your ears!"
  (They were all of them fond of quotations:
So they drank to his health, and they gave him three cheers,
  While he served out additional rations).

"We have sailed many months, we have sailed many weeks,
   (Four weeks to the month you may mark),
But never as yet ('tis your Captain who speaks)
  Have we caught the least glimpse of a Snark!

"We have sailed many weeks, we have sailed many days,
  (Seven days to the week I allow),
But a Snark, on the which we might lovingly gaze,
  We have never beheld till now!

"Come, listen, my men, while I tell you again
  The five unmistakable marks
By which you may know, wheresoever you go,
  The warranted genuine Snarks.

"Let us take them in order. The first is the taste,
  Which is meagre and hollow, but crisp:
Like a coat that is rather too tight in the waist,
  With a flavour of Will-o-the-wisp.

"Its habit of getting up late you'll agree
  That it carries too far, when I say
That it frequently breakfasts at five-o'clock tea,
  And dines on the following day.

"The third is its slowness in taking a jest.
  Should you happen to venture on one,
It will sigh like a thing that is deeply distressed:
  And it always looks grave at a pun.

"The fourth is its fondness for bathing-machines,
  Which is constantly carries about,
And believes that they add to the beauty of scenes--
  A sentiment open to doubt.

"The fifth is ambition. It next will be right
  To describe each particular batch:
Distinguishing those that have feathers, and bite,
  From those that have whiskers, and scratch.

"For, although common Snarks do no manner of harm,
  Yet, I feel it my duty to say,
Some are Boojums--" The Bellman broke off in alarm,
  For the Baker had fainted away.

FIT III.--THE BAKER'S TALE.

Fit the Third.

THE BAKER'S TALE.

They roused him with muffins--they roused him with ice--
  They roused him with mustard and cress--
They roused him with jam and judicious advice--
  They set him conundrums to guess.

When at length he sat up and was able to speak,
  His sad story he offered to tell;
And the Bellman cried "Silence! Not even a shriek!"
  And excitedly tingled his bell.

There was silence supreme! Not a shriek, not a scream,
  Scarcely even a howl or a groan,
As the man they called "**!" told his story of woe
  In an antediluvian tone.

"My father and mother were honest, though poor--"
  "Skip all that!" cried the Bellman in haste.
"If it once becomes dark, there's no chance of a Snark--
  We have hardly a minute to waste!"

"I skip forty years," said the Baker, in tears,
  "And proceed without further remark
To the day when you took me aboard of your ship
  To help you in hunting the Snark.

"A dear uncle of mine (after whom I was named)
  Remarked, when I bade him farewell--"
"Oh, skip your dear uncle!" the Bellman exclaimed,
  As he angrily tingled his bell.

"He remarked to me then," said that mildest of men,
  " 'If your Snark be a Snark, that is right:
Fetch it home by all means--you may serve it with greens,
  And it's handy for striking a light.

" 'You may seek it with thimbles--and seek it with care;
  You may hunt it with forks and hope;
You may threaten its life with a railway-share;
  You may charm it with smiles and soap--' "

("That's exactly the method," the Bellman bold
  In a hasty parenthesis cried,
"That's exactly the way I have always been told
  That the capture of Snarks should be tried!")

" 'But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,
  If your Snark be a Boojum! For then
You will softly and suddenly vanish away,
  And never be met with again!'

"It is this, it is this that oppresses my soul,
  When I think of my uncle's last words:
And my heart is like nothing so much as a bowl
  Brimming over with quivering curds!

"It is this, it is this--" "We have had that before!"
  The Bellman indignantly said.
And the Baker replied "Let me say it once more.
  It is this, it is this that I dread!

"I engage with the Snark--every night after dark--
  In a dreamy delirious fight:
I serve it with greens in those shadowy scenes,
  And I use it for striking a light:

"But if ever I meet with a Boojum, that day,
  In a moment (of this I am sure),
I shall softly and suddenly vanish away--
  And the notion I cannot endure!"

FIT IV.--THE HUNTING.

Fit the fourth.

THE HUNTING.

The Bellman looked uffish, and wrinkled his brow.
  "If only you'd spoken before!
It's excessively awkward to mention it now,
  With the Snark, so to speak, at the door!

"We should all of us grieve, as you well may believe,
  If you never were met with again--
But surely, my man, when the voyage began,
  You might have suggested it then?

"It's excessively awkward to mention it now--
  As I think I've already remarked."
And the man they called "Hi!" replied, with a sigh,
  "I informed you the day we embar

Without worry I sit and wonder
When the next batch will come.
Dough rolled out, stretched and pulled,
Broken into pieces and stuck in the oven. Without the confines of an cookie cutter; natural in every way. An free form of emotional bliss laid flat on the pan.
I patiently wait, green plate on the table waiting for the oven to preheat.
The dough rises becoming smaller.
I only hope you understand
How lovely it is to be near someone you love.
Without the concealment of air tight bags they are free, the cookies that bake in the oven soon to be placed on a plate, devoured.
Introduced to the seduction of crumbs that come together; sweet, delightful
Before it fully hardens.
Soft, delightful.
Skinny dipping in an pool of cookie dough.
An illusion of things whole until broken apart by lips in full desire.
Drenched in saliva of deep need
Simultaneously becoming an memory
As well as a part of smiling lips.
The mistletoe that hangs above the heart.
Waiting for another batch made by your hands

It begins with the proper heat of summer          
Simmered slow with the joy of expectation  
Perhaps a dash of color to keep it real                                     
Then we turn the heat off and let it set up          
Add a splash of wine or two from the cupboard  
A dash of pumpkin spice just to feel crazy            

Save this big batch of winter stew in the fridge  
Because, like life,
. . .it’s always better next day          

Congratulations.  
You’re now prepared for winter.                       
Eat, Drink, Love Yourself,
     Love Others, Love Life, Live,
And may you always be merry.

‘This is a pleasure. A composer in our midst, and you’re seeing Plas Brondanw at its June best.’ Amabel strides across the lawn from house to the table Sally has laid for tea. Tea for three in the almost shade of the vast plain tree, and nearly the height of the house. Look up into its branches. It is convalescing after major surgery, ropes and bindings still in place.
 
Yes, I am certainly seeing this Welsh manor house, the home of the William-Ellis family for four hundred years, on a day of days. The mountains that ring this estate seem to take the sky blue into themselves. They look almost fragile in the heat.
 
‘Nigel, you’re here?’ Clough appears next. He sounds surprised, as though the journey across Snowdonia was trepidatious adventure. ‘Of course you are, and on this glorious day. Glorious, glorious. You’ve walked up from below perhaps? Of course, of course. Did you detour to the ruin? You must. We’ll walk down after tea.’
 
And he flicks the tails of his russet brown frock coat behind him and sits on the marble bench beside Amabel. She is a little frail at 85, but the twinkling eyes hardly leave my face. Clough is checking the garden for birds. A yellowhammer swoops up from the lower garden and is gone. He gestures as though miming its flight. There are curious bird-like calls from the house. Amabel turns house-ward.
 
‘Our parrots,’ she says with a girlish smile.
 
‘Your letter was so sweet you know.’ She continues. ‘Fancy composing a piece about our village. We’ve had a film, that TV series, so many books, and now music. So exciting. And when do we hear this?’
 
I explain that the BBC will be filming and recording next month, but tomorrow David will appear with his double bass, a cameraman and a sound recordist to ‘do’ the cadenzas in some of the more intriguing locations. And he will come here to see how it sounds in the ‘vale’.
 
‘Are we doing luncheon for the BBC men? They are all men I suppose? When we were on Gardeners’ World it was all gals with clipboards and dark glasses, and it was raining for heaven’s sake. They had no idea about the right shoes, except that Alys person who interviewed me and was so lovely about the topiary and the fireman’s room. Now she wore a sensible skirt and the kind of sandals I wear in the garden. Of course we had to go to Mary’s house to see the thing as you know Clough won’t have a television in the house.’
 
‘I loath the sound of it from a distance. There’s nothing worse that hearing disembodied voices and music. Why do they have to put music with everything? I won’t go near a shop if there’s that canned music about.’
 
‘But surely it was TV’s The Prisoner that put the place on the map,’ I venture to suggest.
 
‘Oh yes, yes, but the mess, and all those Japanese descending on us with questions we simply couldn’t answer. I have to this day no i------de-------a-------‘, he stretches this word like a piece of elastic as far as it might go before breaking in two, ‘ simply no I------de------a------ what the whole thing was about.’ He pauses to take a tea cup freshly poured by Amabel. ‘Patrick was a dear though, and stayed with us of course. He loved the light of the place and would get up before dawn to watch the sun rise over the mountains at the back of us.’
 
‘But I digress. Music, music, yes music . . . ‘ Amabel takes his lead
 
‘We’ve had concerts before at P. outside in the formal gardens by AJ’s studio.’ She has placed her hands on her green velvet skirt and leans forward purposefully. ‘He had musicians about all the time and used to play the piano himself vigorously in the early hours of the morning. Showing off to those models that used to appear. I remember walking past his studio early one morning and there he was asleep on the floor with two of them . . .’
 
Clough smiles and laughs, laughs and smiles at a memory from the late 1920s.
 
‘Everyone thought we were completely mad to do the village.’ He leans back against the gentle curve of the balustrade, and closes his eyes for a moment. ‘Completely mad.’
 
It’s cool under the tree, but where the sunlight strays through my hand seems to gather freckles by the minute. I am enjoying the second slice of Mary’s Bara Brith. ‘It’s the marmalade,’ says Amabel, realising my delight in the texture and taste, ‘Clough brought the recipe back from Ceylon and I’ve taught all my cooks to make it. Of course, Mary isn’t a cook, she’s everything. A wonder, but you’ll discover this later at dinner. You are staying? And you’re going to play too?’
 
I’m certainly going to play in the drawing room studio on the third floor. It’s distractingly full of paintings by ‘friends’ – Duncan Grant, Mondrian, Augustus John, Patrick Heron, Winifred Nicholson (she so loved the garden but would bring that awful Raine woman with her). There’s  Clough’s architectural watercolours (now collectors want these things I used to wiz off for clients – stupid prices – just wish I’d kept more behind before giving them to the AA – (The Architectural Association ed.) And so many books, first editions everywhere. Photographs of Amabel’s flying saucer investigations occupy a shelf along with her many books on fairy tales and four novels, a batch of biographies and pictures of the two girls Susan and Charlotte as teenagers. Susan’s pottery features prominently. There’s a Panda skin from Luchan under the piano.
 
These two eighty somethings have been working since 8.0am. ‘We don’t bother with lunch.’ Amabel is reviewing the latest Ursula le Guin. ‘I stayed with her in Oregon last May. A lovely little house by the sea. Such a darling, and what a gardener! She creates all the ideas for her books in her garden. I so wish I could, but there’s just too much to distract me. Gardening is a serious business because although Jane comes over from Corrieg and says no to this and no to that and I have to stand my corner,  I have to concentrate and go to my books. Did you know the RHS voted this one of the ten most significant gardens in the UK? But look, there’s no one here today except you!’
 
No one but me. And tea is over. ‘A little rest before your endeavours perhaps,’ says Clough, probably anxious to get back to letter to Kenzo Piano.
 
‘Now let’s go and say hello to the fireman,’ says Amabel who takes my arm. And so we walk through the topiary to her favourite ‘room’,  a water feature with the fireman on his column (mid pond). ‘In memory of the great fire, ‘ she says. ‘He keeps a keen eye on the building now.’ He is a two-foot cherub with a hose and wearing a fireman’s helmet.
 
The pond reflects the column and the fireman looks down on us as we gaze into the pool. ‘Health, ‘ she says, ‘We keep a keen eye on it.’
 
The parrots are singing wildly. I didn’t realise they sang. I thought they squawked.
 
‘Will they sing when I play?’ I ask.
 
‘Undoubtedly,’ Amabel says with her girlish smile and squeezes my arm.

Today we shall have the naming of parts. How the opening of that poem by Henry Reed caught his present thoughts; that banal naming of parts of a soldier’s rifle set against the delicate colours and textures of the gardens outside the lecture room. *Japonica glistening like coral  . . . branches holding their silent eloquent gestures . . . bees fumbling the flowers. It was the wrong season for this so affecting poem – the spring was not being eased as here, in quite a different garden, summer was easing itself out towards autumn, but it caught him, as a poem sometimes would.

He had taken a detour through the gardens to the studio where in half an hour his students would gather. He intended to name the very parts of rhythm and help them become aware of their personal knowledge and relationship with this most fundamental of musical elements, the most connected with the body.

He had arranged to have a percussionist in on the class, a player he admired (he had to admit) for the way this musician had dealt with a once-witnessed on-stage accident that he’d brought it into his poem sequence Lemon on Pewter. They had been in Cambridge to celebrate her birthday and just off the train had hurried their way through the bicycled streets to the college where he had once taught, and to a lunchtime concert in a theatre where he had so often performed himself.

Smash! the percussionist wipes his hands and grabs another bottle before the music escapes checking his fingers for cuts and kicking the broken glass from his feet It was a brilliant though unplanned moment we all agreed and will remember this concert always for that particular accidental smile-inducing sharp intake of breath moment when with a Fanta bottle in each hand there was a joyful hit and scrape guiro-like on the serrated edges a no-holes barred full-on sounding out of glass on glass and you just loved it when he drank the juice and fluting blew across the bottle’s mouth

And having thought himself back to those twenty-four hours in Cambridge the delights of the morning garden aflame with colour and texture were as nothing beside his vivid memory of that so precious time with her. The images and the very physical moments of that interval away and together flooded over him, and he had to stop to close his eyes because the images and moments were so very real and he was trembling . . . what was it about their love that kept doing this to him? Just this morning he had sat on the edge of his bed, and in the still darkness his imagination seemed to bring her to him, the warmth and scent of her as she slept face down into a pillow, the touch of her hair in his face as he would bend over her to kiss her ear and move his hand across the contours of her body, but without touching, a kind of air-lovers movement, a kiss of no-touch. But today, he reminded himself, we have the naming of parts . . .

He was going to tackle not just rhythm but the role of percussion. There was a week’s work here. He had just one day. And the students had one day to create a short ‘poem for percussion’ to be performed and recorded at the end of the afternoon class. In his own music he considered the element of percussion as an ever-present challenge. He had only met it by adopting a very particular strategy. He regarded its presence in a score as a kind of continuo element and thus giving the player some freedom in the choice of instruments and execution. He wanted percussion to be ‘a part’ of equal stature with the rest of the musical texture and not a series of disparate accents, emphases and colours. In other words rhythm itself was his first consideration, and all the rest followed. He thought with amusement of his son playing Vaughan-Williams The Lark Ascending and the single stroke of a triangle that constituted his percussion part. For him, so few composers could ‘do it’ with percussion. He had assembled for today a booklet of extracts of those who could: Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale (inevitably), Berio’s Cummings songs, George Perle’s Sextet, Living Toys by Tom Ades, his own Flights for violin and percussionist. He felt diffident about the latter, but he had the video of those gliders and he’d play the second movement What is the Colour of the Wind?

In the studio the percussionist and a group of student helpers were assembling the ‘kits’ they’d agreed on. The loose-limbed movements of such players always fascinated him. It was as though whatever they might be doing they were still playing – driving a car? He suddenly thought he might not take a lift from a percussionist.

On the grand piano there was, thankfully, a large pile of the special manuscript paper he favoured when writing for percussion, an A3 sheet with wider stave lines. Standing at the piano he pulled a sheet from the pile and he got out his pen. He wrote on the shiny black lid with a fluency that surprised him: a toccata-like passage based on the binary rhythms he intended to introduce to his class. He’d thought about making this piece whilst lying in bed the previous night, before sleep had taken him into a series of comforting dreams. He knew he must be careful to avoid any awkward crossings of sticks.

The music was devoid of any accents or dynamics, indeed any performance instructions. It was solely rhythm. He then composed a passage that had no rhythm, only performance instructions, dynamics, articulations such as tremolo and trills and a play of accents, but no rhythmic symbols. He then went to the photocopier in the corridor and made a batch of copies of both scores. As the machine whirred away he thought he might call her before his class began, just to hear her soft voice say ‘hello’ in that dear way she so often said it, the way that seem to melt him, and had been his undoing . . .

When his class had assembled (and the percussionist and his students had disappeared pro tem) he began immediately, and without any formal introduction, to write the first four 4-bit binary rhythms on the chalkboard, and asked them to complete it. This mystified a few but most got the idea (and by now there was a generous sharing between members of the class), so soon each student had the sixteen rhythms in front of them.

‘Label these rhythms with symbols a to p’, he said, ‘and then write out the letters of your full name. If there’s a letter there that goes beyond p create another list from q to z. You can now generate a rhythmic sequence using what mathematicians call a function-machine. Nigel would be:

x x = x     x = = =      = x x =      = x x x      x = x x

Write your rhythm out and then score it for 4 drums – two congas, two bongos.’

His notion was always to keep his class relentlessly occupied. If a student finished a task ahead of others he or she would find further instructions had appeared on the flip chart board.  Audition –in your head - these rhythms at high speed, at a really quick tempo. Now slow them right down. Experiment with shifting tempos, download a metronome app on your smart phone, score the rhythms for three clapping performers, and so on.

And soon it was performance time and the difficulties and awkwardness of the following day were forgotten as nearly everyone made it out front to perform their binary rhythmic pieces, and perform them with much laughter, but with flair and élan also. The room rang with the clapping of hands.

The percussionist appeared and after a brief introduction – in which the Fanta bottle incident was mentioned - composer and performer played together *****’s Clapping Music before a welcome break was taken.

It was supposed to be
The dawn of a new age;
A new set of dialogue
On a more balanced stage
With better lines for
The actors to deliver.
It was supposed to start in
The sixties and last forever.

We didn’t really know for sure
What this Aquarius stuff was
But it seemed to us to be
A metaphysical enough cause,
To change the way we acted
And to shout down the rest;
To face the demagogues
Then put them to the test.

We stopped wearing uniforms
That said we went along
With the hard-assed leaders.
We put a lot of it in our songs.
We called them what they were
Greedy warmongering ******.
We protested and picketed
And promised so much more.

We spoke out loudly on TV
And in crowds in the streets
That we were through will genocide
And would not accept defeat.
We cried out that our government
Had assumed the role of villain
And was murdering for no reason
Not just men, but even children.

But, we let it all die down;
We let the government slide
On investigating the truth
And keeping the truth inside
A carefully chosen batch of
Criminals in public office.
We let them go on making war
And making money off us.

We let them cheat and lie
And re-write acceptable laws
To support their bloodthirstiness
And we gave up on our cause.
Maybe all that protesting gave
All our marching feet limps.
Or maybe it’s because all along
We were just a bunch of wimps.

The courtroom was more stiff than a old man on ******.

Half the room showed up from are small little town for lack of having that strange thing called a life.

The charges were tuff shoplifting caught on videotape.



All hopes looked grim and my best drinking buddy looked like he was heading to that iron bar rehab  

were the promise of no *****, No drugs,  No *** okay maybe Bone was already used to that one

well of course if you find hairy weight lifting fellons attractive and lets face girls who doesnt like Bad boys .

Well maybe then it wasnt all so bad.

No more sleeping on your stomach im just saying.



But enough with the foreplay.

It seemed all hope was lost but never fear cause when your friends with a half insane repeat offender

the **** can only get worse.



I busted through the doors like a half insane teenager going to worship the antichrist Justin Bieber.



Judge I will be repressenting the client .

Sir Are you even a lawyer?

Judge I assure you im a decorated attorney why i have my degree right here .



The naughty woman judge took the paper ever so forcefully from my hands mmm I wonder what she's wearing under that robe hey I dig chicks who are into the whole bedroom clothes in the public thing.

judge may I ask you something?

Looking at me in the way so many women have befor.

Like they dont know if they should use the pepper spray or just give me a swift kick in the no no zone.

The Judge said yes  but be brief ******.



Well have we met befor?

Yes we have ******* I sent you to maple for six months for fruad she replied in that stern

ive gotta gavel and a batman robe voice that just drove the boys wild or usally made them **** themselves like puppies on the new carpet.



Sir this degree looks bogus.

Your honor  why ever would you say that .

Cause its from F.U. Universty.

The strange mall cop in the court laughed  once made the judge shoot him a look like he wasnt getting any desert tonight after dinner im kidding besides he probaly doesnt even like desert

just ***.



Look Mr Gonzo im tired of this crap i hate life i sit on this hard *** seat everyday and if your fool of a client wants a fool  for a lawyer be my guest.



I walked back to sit next to dead man walking better known as Bone.



Gonz what the **** are you doing?

Dude i got this i watched the Lincon lawyer like five times last night this is gonna be a breeze.



The trail began the uptight party downer began speaking in big words talking how it was wrong to steal.

Your honor I ubject.

On what grounds?

Duh stealing is what the whole country is based on hey ever here of the indians look what we did to them.

Took there country forced them on thoose casinos and even made one join

the village people I mean really  Y.M.C.A  is but a cry for help that and a party song for most bars

were really nice old guys buy you drinks for no reason at all.

You mean gay bars you idiot!



The strange man at the other table said.

Sure there gay who wouldnt be happy wearing leather pants dancing  allnight long not that I did

I was just there looking for directions  and getting free drinks.



Order In the court! the judge shouted.



I looked to the strange man they called the prosecutor once sounded like a great name for a pro wrestler with being a lawyer as well no wonder this man was cranky.



Ha Ha your in trouble i said in such a grown up  way  with just a hint of village idiot.



Mr Gonzo one more outburst and im throwing you in jail right with your friend now zip it.

I checked but my pants were already zipped yes i knew she wanted me .





After as few good laughs from the courtroom.

We began speaking of all sorts of boring crap of right wrong  and on the verge of going into a coma.

The strange man called the prosecutor stood up your honor I pressent the evidence that will seal this case air tight.

The rent a cop wheeled out a tv kickass finally we can watch tv

hey i wonder is baywatch on?



Bone put his head in his hands just **** me now.



The prosecutor put in the tape.



The film was in black in white **** i hate student films.

Some man seemed to put  a steak in his pants  what a ******* everyone knows a salami looks more real

in  hung like a elephant freak show way yes size does matter.



After the student film the room was silent yeah must have bored them all to death like me.

What was hollywood thinking silent films were ****  duh we have speakers for a reason.



Mr Gonzo would you like to make a final plea.



Standing befor the room semi sober i took a deep long look around the room

Friends Romans  and Canadians I ask you  is it a crime to want to appear hung like a horse

yeah sure  we all wanna fit in okay maybe something that size would never fit well maybe in some freaky internet **** freak but really.



My client  stands acussed of buying beer and stealing a six dollar steak but  I ask.

Did he  steal or was this video tamppred with.

That SGi **** is everywhere okay and its destroying movies wow 3D movies there the newest thing that have been around since the eightees okay.

yeah I know thats like back in the depresion era.



I took a deep breath and knocked the the tv over ohh im sorry.

Well judge looks like no evidence no case wanna ditch this place go grab a few drinks

maybe find a room you can bring your gavel hey chicks who are into ***** stuff need love to.



The judge looked at me in what i can assume was a state of utter awww.





Later that evening.



See Bone I told you id solve everything .

You ******* idiot you got us both locked up.

Duh now you wont have to spend this whole time alone  sure your gonna be there a few months

and i'll be out in like two weeks but jesus you ungreatful ******* look all im giving up.



Besides everyone knows  i make the best toilet wine around hey one eye Winchel loved my last batch and he normally kills his cell mates.



Look it'll be like a sleep over in a place we cant leave or have any privacy how bad could it be?



Bone thought to himself yeah your write Gonzo

cause after i **** you they'll give me the electric chair for sure.

Yeah see wait a minute.



In the flash of a eye Bone's hand were wrapped around my throat ****** why didnt they let me bring my **** whistle.

As i was being choked to death I really had to wonder about are friendshi[p I swear you go all out for someone yeah ya get em sent up the river but duh it's the thought that counts.



Untill next time kids stay crazy and dont drop the soap

to me? Real with a certified S.King filtered -ly mod,
by god,
as the oh myers say. On Writing sans Shining.
Needful fiction,
Liars prosper. Okeh. Thus,
the poor we have with us, always.

Truth t' tell.

Entshallah allathat, OMG samesame
good mastah willin' creeks don't rise

Do the work. Come Sunday, someday,
we, all us, say.

You ever finish your own work one day and jest

sit back lax - lacks a daisy, taken easy,
laxative action,
gut synapse
synch-up, cinch that saddle on my wildest
old Nightmare, beat my plow
back to a oil drum,

set some feats t'dancin' in some ol'lady minds.

old man's angels seen t'be jiggin' on
the head o' some pen
in the hand

worth two in the bush.

Who know what ever mean, okeh.

period. point made signal.
that was said and it's writ.

set it aside, let it dry

crumble to dust and be scattered to the five great gyres
to settle
as sands
ifiable quant, to mortal mind, weighable
any worth assigned as
sought or ought,
a grain,
a mote,
as seen with five gee augmented
lenses
prestandards beeing raised in the buzz
from Utah

as an erranded boy's sail bike lifts into if
from the saline shore.
Bike tires adhered to passive-ly

by molecular
memories of being
in truth, as if
once and ever,
salt of the earth, see in the distance,
Lot's wife

as tiny as can be

Na and CL, for ever,
deja wuwuish it were possible… dream… or die…

no don't. There is a reason. I for get it can not right now but these
keys can be

used right by the sober one in the batch.
God, I love this process. This is the work. Living.
You can do it as long as you can pay attention…

selah

then it, the algorithm, I'll go rhythm, pauses,
Spelchkovian spells masters seem sorry we ever agreed she'd
leave me leavened as dust
lying around
on white linen
in the streets of Laredo, as cold as the clay,

back in the day,
we sang that song in school. We sang
in movie theaters, along with a
bouncing ball and other people,

big bio jump here. My step-brother was murdered,
and it never seemed relative…

my father married a wombed man with one leg,
whose family sang along with Mitch,

and played Spit in the Ocean.

Such experiences ificate possibilities few knew
some survive.
There could be a contributory flow…

This ever lasting book of life.
See, a shore, sand bar
snag a thought rainbowing true to you

hang-ups from way back

Any boomer bubble popped too soon. Manifest at will.
P-pickup from scratch and
make a point
to infect the next pun unknoticing kid,

old -time slow hand-eye coordination special ed, Big Ern,
kicking chalk dust in far right field, noticing
patterns
in the leftmost vector straight home--

grand children, for the joy of knowing they happened,
caused,
to all outward appearance,
by my survival of several unbelievable

periences ex nihilo only
if "It don't mean nothing".

link link link something has broken, what do we con tribute tributary flow
too dammed salty, got to puddle around

waiting. waiting. waiting for one point
to be made
edged on all angles, to each mea culpa assured
quantifiability of reason,

inquizical sequence surpast
glistering

whetted and furbished for ever,

the keenness
the cut, precision decision

and how swiftly forms the scab,
a touch,

capillary seals, the grain, at HD,
one pixelish crystallin charge

change that,
by taking thought. It does nothing to your stature,

think allusive butterflies of lifenshit

it gets tiresome. A body wants some rest from ever
meaning ever and never was known
or heard
a dis cora zone age word, like

troglodyte or luddite Denisovan bracelet breaker,
ropemaker union with certain silky
threads
to which a little leaven always sticks
as would caterpillar spit.

Meandering, right, it's the play. My role.
I manifest the dance
as seen on the surface, from Jim's POV,

then my own POV,
then my own rivers of no return,
tribute

'ary a day goes by I don't re call that feeling,

flow is moving paster and paster the walls are
higher
shade deeper
colder'n'hell fersher, rapids.
Ah,

Kern River, I remember this.
Almond trees, Columbus clouds…
Hey, readerman, paperbackwriter wannabe,

we survived. What'sa-hell, right's right.

clap. there is a - an  STD joke there.
But those aren't funny

right,
standup guy says right's right, does a
Johnny Unitas stiff arm
and gets a case of
clap from the left, worse than meaningless

neo **** non clapping on the right.
Repent or perish.
****** if it don't feel good to say that.
It's true, once you know,

Gertrude Stein, I got it from her. Lesbian Jewish leaven
in passover brownies dipped in Mogen David,
she made me stand and say a rosary.

By any other name,

a rose is a rose and so on

Rap is crap
Can be written while napping
By simply slapping words like zapping
Up alongside trapping and wrapping
And suddenly you’re a rap star
Driving an expensive car
And before your coffee is cold
You are draped with gold
Maximum bling
But it doesn’t mean a thing
Other than money because honey
If your ‘song’ lyrics are still known.
When ten years are blown by
And you are no longer a famous guy
Whose words are forgotten
It is because they are misbegotten
And liked by the current batch of airheads
Who think this is music when instead
It’s a beat they can feel in their feet
And if they don’t read the words
Printed in the album, what is heard
Is a lot of screaming and percussion
Not worth discussion in Billboard.

Someone could cut the microphone cord
And all anyone could hear would be drums
And the audience spilling their beer,
And nothing worth humming;
Lyrics for the dumbing down of the race,
A major entertainment disgrace
That destroys the ears and means nothing
That will ever be revered like Sinatra
Elvis or The Beatles have done.
It may be number one today
But when time passes away
It will be nothing but the shouts
Of a bunch of untalented louts
To an audience one has to fear
Was born with a tin ear.

Brent Kincaid
6/1/2015

I tried to be cordial with inactivity
washing it with weeping juice like a pardoned effigy
but the diamonds of determination were so wrapped in mind debris
that I threw away a fortune in potential

The smiles of the platitudes are louder than their laughs
An appeasing of their attitudes I warrant with the gaffes
of an undertaker's underling bestowing upon epitaphs
another deadened and deprived credential

Seeing days in ways that never did occur to me
Every end a mending by default, a sour recipe
for compromise eroding in a rusty *** of empathy

The dentist rubbed his fingers when he saw my gritted teeth
No sermon on the mount from me, more a mumble on the heath
My incisor is a tack that would support a giant's wreath
Thorns of novocaine will numb my Christmas wish

For the sake of universal order I will freeze a yawn
Mostly harmless said a hitchhiker of Earth so I can spawn
a batch of clones to live on hold where all the battle lines are drawn
I'll zip up and in the universal order I'll languish

Seeing nights in ways that never did occur to me
Every satellite a telecast of fault, a sour recipe
for sleeping juice to boil over in Big Dipper's empathy

Where's a pound of flesh when needed? I've grown tired of these ribs
On the grill of soggy marrow, hungry haunts will have first dibs
Call on William Blake to send the weepers to their cribs
Wishful thinking I'll preserve beneath the floorboards

With a hand in nothing new and an incisor in the usual
intestine chains surround my motivation's hot pursual
Don't read too much into my implied acceptance of a dual
with a messenger of fact's implicit hoards

Seeing days in ways that never did occur to me
Every end a mending by default, a sour recipe
for compromise eroding in an empty *** of sympathy

Sound the bugle for my bed is made, I'm rested for detention
Solitaire I'll play in my confinement for the crime of sought attention
I revolted the philosophers in plugging my intention
I would not concede that lab rats had it worse

The satellites are full and bright, the shadows walk on lakes tonight
I'll dream of sleep but eyes will play me in my bedroom's voided sight
Lay with me and sigh and the elastic laws of nature might
halt the quivering continuum of fate's forsaken course

Seeing nights in ways that never did occur to me
Every channel plays the same old cooking show's ensoured recipe
Compromise a minor seasoning in liver-flavoured empathy

04 15 14

Our story's beginnings are rather plain
Set in a town built on the mundane.
In this town, there lived a boy
Devoid of ambition, love, or joy.

He sleepwalked through his days
Aimless and alone.
Drowning in a melancholy haze
He longed for something lovely to call his own.

Now, I shan't tell you the young man's name
For fear he'd hang his head in shame
But his story you should know.
For it's not the name that marked this boy
But the places he would go.  

One day, an idea dawned
To take a day trip out of town.
The boy made a map
And a line was drawn
To the path he would walk down.

He followed the map with surprising ease
Over the hills and through the trees.
Though the boy was thrilled
He couldn't wrap his mind
Around the treasure
He would soon find.

The path came to an end
Without the map's warning
Causing the boy's plans to upend
Before it was even midmorning.
But the boy was in awe
Despite the offset.
He knew what he saw
He would not soon forget.
In the middle of the golden field
Stood a tall ivory castle.
His chronic disenchantment healed
The boy vowed to see inside
Whatever the hassle.

So he searched for a door
Until he could search no more.
He attempted to climb
With no regard for time.
He searched for a ****
Or a lock
Or a key.
Only when he was about to give up
Did the answer break free.

Against all reason
The castle began to glow.
When the transformation came to completion
A strange voice let him know.

"Come in," coaxed the disembodied voice
Honeyed and assured.
Feeling as if he had no choice
Inside, the boy was lured.

"My, you are a rude one," the voice began to chide.
"A lady invites you into her home, and without a word, you come inside?
I'm not expecting you to write me a sonnet, but at least have a bit of tact!
If we're being honest, boy, I believe your manners lack."

Sure this was some sort of stunt
The boy calmly shook his head.
"Forgive me, Miss, for being so blunt
But I believe the fault is yours instead.
You expect me to believe I was propositioned
By a castle that spoke?
I am certain one of my peers commissioned
Some sort of pricey joke.
I'm sorry, Castle Lady Dear
But I must be on my way.
I'm afraid I can't stay here
Perhaps we'll finish another day.
It's truly nothing personal
I simply have a hunch
That if I stick around for now
I'll miss my mother's lunch."

The boy turned on his heel
Not saying any more.
He soon let out a pitiful squeal
When he found there was no longer a door.

The Castle Lady countered his squeal
With a sinister cackle.
"Did you really believe you could leave me here
Without it becoming a debacle?
I'm sorry, dear
But for now
To this place, you are shackled."

Heart suddenly stricken with fear
The boy's eyes filled with tears
And he began to cry.
"Please let me go!" he cried out.
"I am far too young to die!"

Much to the boy's chagrin
The Castle Lady only laughed again.
"Goodness me, my dear!
You must be some sort of fool!
I do not plan to **** you here.
How could I ever be so cruel?"

Angered by the castle woman's taunts
The boy's eye began to twitch.
"If you won't **** me, what do you want?
Let me go, you witch!"

Unphased by his outburst
The Castle Lady simply tsked.
"Are you sure the witch is me
When you're the one being so mean?
I know what a statement this might be
But I believe you're the meanest boy I've seen.
But you can relax
For I've had my fun.
I simply have a favor to ask
Before you turn and run."

Against all logic
And stranger-danger talks
The notion of adventure
Overpowered his urge to balk.
"What is it?" he asked the Castle Lady
As curiosity struck.
When the Castle Lady responded
He could not believe his luck.

"Resting in one of my rooms
Is an awe-inspiring prize.
It holds power and beauty few men ever get to witness
With their own two eyes.
In fact, it holds too much power
So much that it's making me sick.
Only the brightest of young men can bear it
And you're the one I've picked."

The boy's heart raced.
For that prize, he yearned.
Still, he said:
"There must be some mistake.
Are you sure this is a prize I've earned?"

Overtaken by laughter
The Castle Lady began to roar.
"I am not that sick, dear boy!
Of course I am sure!
I can not make any mistake
No matter how small.
Didn't your mother teach you
That divine beings know all?
Now, you are an imaginative lad
With the charisma to match.
I'd dare say you are the best equipped child
Out of the local batch."

The boy couldn't help but crack a grin
Flattered by the Castle Lady's assessment.
"I suppose you must be right, then.
Now where do I get my present?"

"It is not a difficult journey at all," the Castle Lady replied.
"Just walk a bit down this here hall
And look to your left side."

Suddenly, the room filled with bright light
To help him find his way around.
In saying the journey was not difficult, the Castle Lady was right
As another glowing doorway
Was soon found.

"Very good, you clever boy!" the Castle Lady cried.
"Just give your fingers a quick snap
And take a step inside."

Proudly, the boy followed her advice.
The snap of his fingers reverberated
Sounding quite nice.
Secretly, the simple action
Gave him a small thrill
For he was the only child in his town
Who had such a skill.

Just as the lady promised
The door opened right away.
Thus, he took that fateful step inside
As she said he may.

Alas, it seemed the boy had been cheated by his wanderlust.
The only thing inside the room
Was a wooden box
Coated in dust.

All sense of wonder gone
The boy was certain it was a trick.
"You horrid con!
What in here is making you sick?"

Unamused, the Castle Lady sighed.
This was not the first time a child had thought she lied.
"You're jumping to conclusions, boy.
I'm not that sly a fox.
If you want to find the treasure
Look inside the box."

Begrudgingly, the boy obliged
Lifting up the top.
In the moment he saw what was inside
The whole world seemed to stop.

The boy's jaw dropped
As the box glowed
As if it contained all of heaven's rumored light.
It was true that he was unlikely
To ever again see such a wonderful sight.

"Well?" the Castle Lady inquired.
"Would you like to keep it?
You have all the qualities required
It's only fair that you reap it."

"Of course I'd like to keep it," said the boy.
"But what should I do?
What power do I have
To take care of this box
Any better than you?"

"The box can do anything," said the Castle Lady.
"Perhaps that's why I can not have it.
Still, you need not engage in special care and keeping
Or develop any new habits.

The box can do whatever you wish
Cure disease and famine
Or make your family rich.
I can not tell you what to do
Just use your own discretion.
Besides, it wouldn't truly be yours to use
If you did so under my direction.
So simply take it home
And do with it what you will
But before you choose to roam
I have one more message for you still."

Holding the box to him
The boy lifted an ear
Regarding her as a friend.
"What is it, Castle Lady?
Please say what needs to be said!"

When she spoke again
The boy could swear her voice contained a smile.
"When you leave me, the castle will come to an end
And this part of me will be dead.
Though I'd love for you to stay a while
So we could become better acquainted
I'm afraid that would be against the rules
And the prophecy would be tainted.
So, clever boy
For now, I'll bid you adieu.
You deserve to be given joy
And I hope that is what the box will do."

No sooner than she spoke
Did the castle vanish
In a puff of smoke.
Once again, the boy stood in the field.
In his hands rested the box
The closed lid keeping its powers concealed.
Somewhere between satisfied and sad.

He gave her a eulogy
However unorthodox.
"Goodbye, Castle Lady Dear, I enjoyed our little talks.
Maybe we'll meet in another world...
Oh, and thank you for the box!"
Having said all he needed to say
The boy knew he should be leaving soon.
He turned to walk the other way.
Walking home, his fingers snapped a tune.

It wasn't long before the whole town
Knew about his treasured box.
The boy made sure all his friend knew.
In school, he stopped all of the clocks.

He provided his class with great delight.
As a school day
Melted away
Into a Friday night.
The grown-ups none the wiser
He pulled off the perfect crime.
Forever the improvisor
He also did away with bedtime.

He gave his family money
As the Castle Lady said he could.
Though his old bullies looked at him funny
His clothes had never looked so good.

He gave himself popularity
A Labrador puppy
A brand new bike.
The ones who teased him
Spoke apologetically
And there wasn't a single girl
By whom he wasn't liked.

It wasn't long, however
Before the fun began to fade.
As much power as he had, he never intended
To share his gift with his whole grade.

"Can you tell me
If my pet goldfish is really watching from above?"
"Can you please help me
Make my parents fall back in love?"
"Can you make it so that
My grandpa isn't sick anymore?"
"Can you invent a robot
To help me do my chores?"
"Can you make sure
That my family keeps our home?"
"Oh-- and while you're at it
Help me write my girlfriend a nice poem?"

Alas, the boy paid no mind
To their wants and needs.
He had left his charitable days behind
In favor of his newfound greed.
Though his box could do anything
It really wasn't his job.
No matter what happiness to others it might bring
Of his power, he'd feel robbed.

He didn't know that at night
His friends went home to cry
Asking their nonexistent treasured boxes
"If he can have something special
Why can't I?"

Life went on like this
Until one day, he was greeted by a bird.
It landed on his shoulder
And hissed,
"You'll never guess what I heard."

The boy was quite frightened
Both by the bird's familiar voice
And what it said.
Still, his eyes brightened
When he shouted
"Castle Lady?
I thought that you were dead!"

"Too bad," the bird crowed.
"For I'm very much alive.
And I figure you should know
I won't allow you to continue to connive."

At her choice of words
The boy sputtered.
"What do you mean, bird?"
He nervously stuttered.

The Bird Lady stared at him
With beady black eyes.
"I mean, I saw what you've done with your gift
And I was unpleasantly surprised.
You didn't disrupt any tradition.
I told you to do what you would.
It was just that I had the premonition
That you'd use your power for good.
You're no better than any of your classmates
You silly sap!
Did it ever occur to you
That you were only picked
Because you can snap?
When my last life came to an end
You thanked me for the box
And ran home to your mother.
My spirit would have been able to rest
If you had used the box to help others.
I am older than most earthly things
And some sights I've seen are hellish.
This in mind
It's beyond me
Why you'd choose to be so selfish.
See, this box was once mine
Changing owners as it does
And when it fell into my hands I wished
To be anything but the girl I was.
From then on, I've been trapped
In the form of many objects
And, whenever I try to go from this world to the next
Fate always interjects.
I'm the keeper of this box
Until it falls into the hands of someone good enough
And I'm here to say, dear boy
I'm afraid you must give it up."

Without warning
The boy broke down
Dropping to his knees.
For the first time since that fateful day
His sense of superiority ceased
And truth began to reign.
Head in his hands, he grieved
For those he had caused pain.

The Bird Lady remained by his side
Trying her hardest to soothe.
"Now, clever boy, you need not cry
But the box does need to move.
Now, I need you to calm down and listen to me
And let me make myself clear.
I need you to go to the sea
And that's the last wish you will make here."

Suddenly, the boy understood.
When it was far too late, he used his powers for good.
So he wished for the ocean, heeding the Bird Lady's advice.
The two of them were at the beach
Before he could think twice.

"Very good," the Bird Lady praised.
"All you have to do now is let go.
Don't worry, my dear boy
When the box finds its forever home
I'll be sure to let you know."

The boy nodded.
With shaking hands, he looked down.
Taking a deep breath, he dropped the box
And all his wrongdoings drowned.

"Thank you very much," the Bird Lady chirped.
"Now, relax, and let your conscience be cleared.
You can go home
And I'll take it from here.
One last thing
I should tell you, my friend.
All this can be fixed
If you just have an ear to lend.
No matter how heartfelt
Apologies only take you so far.
What you should do now
Is fix your regrets with actions
To show them what a lovely boy you are."

With that
The Bird Lady dove
Picking up the box with her magnificent beak.
The boy returned home
With redemption to seek.

All these years later
Our nameless boy is now a man.
He's ordinary, yes
But ordinary is good enough.
He doesn't look down on others
Or even try to act tough.
Though he's no longer a heartthrob
One girl remained by his side.
When she is there
He never has to hide.
When a friend has a problem
He is there to listen.
And, though he holds no glowing box
His eyes still glisten.


Meanwhile, our Lady's soul
Now rests within a spaniel dog.
Though the box still has no permanant owner
She doesn't think it will be long.
Though that might seem unlikely
Divine beings do know all
Though everyone makes mistakes
Both big and small.
She may chastise others
For poor choices and self-control
But in the end, she knows the box only needs one thing:
To be cared for by a beautiful soul.

a lawyer's
batch in
a brief
if hiring
direly break
trepidation that
equality *****
when a
state of
confusion interrupts
rights to
a genuine
occupy of
love where
intent only
makes mark
in society

The photographic chamber of the eye
records bare painted walls, while an electric light
lays the chromium nerves of plumbing raw;
such poverty assaults the ego; caught
naked in the merely actual room,
the stranger in the lavatory mirror
puts on a public grin, repeats our name
but scrupulously reflects the usual terror.

Just how guilty are we when the ceiling
reveals no cracks that can be decoded? when washbowl
maintains it has no more holy calling
than physical ablution, and the towel
dryly disclaims that fierce troll faces lurk
in its explicit folds? or when the window,
blind with steam, will not admit the dark
which shrouds our prospects in ambiguous shadow?

Twenty years ago, the familiar tub
bred an ample batch of omens; but now
water faucets spawn no danger; each crab
and octopus -- scrabbling just beyond the view,
waiting for some accidental break
in ritual, to strike -- is definitely gone;
the authentic sea denies them and will pluck
fantastic flesh down to the honest bone.

We take the plunge; under water our limbs
waver, faintly green, shuddering away
from the genuine color of skin; can our dreams
ever blur the intransigent lines which draw
the shape that shuts us in? absolute fact
intrudes even when the revolted eye
is closed; the tub exists behind our back;
its glittering surfaces are blank and true.

Yet always the ridiculous **** flanks urge
the fabrication of some cloth to cover
such starkness; accuracy must not stalk at large:
each day demands we create our whole world over,
disguising the constant horror in a coat
of many-colored fictions; we mask our past
in the green of Eden, pretend future's shining fruit
can sprout from the navel of this present waste.
In this particular tub, two knees jut up
like icebergs, while minute brown hairs rise
on arms and legs in a fringe of kelp; green soap
navigates the tidal slosh of seas
breaking on legendary beaches; in faith
we shall board our imagined ship and wildly sail
among sacred islands of the mad till death
shatters the fabulous stars and makes us real.

On his body is a ginger bread thong
To soften you up he sings a sweet sugar song
If you hit on him he’ll play along

He’s the **** ginger bread man

He’ll ****** you with candy wine
On a scale from 1-10 he is a 9
Girls look at him and say, “He’s so fine”

He’s the **** ginger bread man

On his face are peanut butter eyes
He has powdered sugar on his manly thighs
He will reel you in with his seductive lies

He’s the **** ginger bread man

On this neck is a chain of candy
Around the house he can be handy
If you add frosting he can be pretty randy

He’s the **** ginger bread man

Out of the batch he is the pick
He has a giant ginger breadstick
It has rainbow sprinkles on it

He’s the **** ginger bread man

You bite the chain and swallow the thong
Eat the stick which is very long
You gobble him up till he’s all gone

NO MORE **** ginger bread man

Social Network, droll and at times informative: keeping me in tune with out of tune people. Except, this time you did something different. This time you took a life from my web of friends a trend of late: One loss to cancer, one to a fatal accident, another to pneumonia, and the rest deceased from overdoses. It’s been so many that the track marks are beginning to show across my veiny webs, long black thin trails leading to round puncture wounds where the touch of cold steel kissed your skin, stroked your hair back, and slowly laid you to bed exactly where you sat. This network doesn't show me the nights you cry curled in the corner, it doesn't reveal the moment when the ocean came crashing into the Steel Pier you are, tearing away lumps of mangled frame work from beneath, soaking brine and rattling support beams that you depend on. A smile instead manages to froth along the pages scrolled like white curled lapping shorelines pushing foam further up the sandy coast with each eroding wave.  Now I stand in the wave of your wake; among seagulls flapping their dense thoughts and cretinous like minds and memories each vouching for the validity of their affirmations about the soul whose body is now center stage like a porcelain doll on a shelf to be displayed and examined exposed to all with each and every flaw highlighted so that they can have a chance at reciting her history, origins, funny moments, and fatal mistakes. The difference here is that there is no makers mark; there is no branded tag, no little black book of logs from which we can pull and decipher or recall every waking moment of your life. The reality is that for those of us who lost touch with you all that we know now is only history or what we thought we knew. It’s such *******, I’m not a historian, I really was your friend back then, but because of that I don’t remember ****, just the frame of the picture within, the shell of who you were, of what we did. I can tell you it was fun: the Bacardi filled Gatorade bottles, the sound of your laughter diluted in an intoxicating environment of rollerblades on the rink-floor, contemporary music and house beats reverberating against the circling congregation of equally happy and inebriated teenage youths. But how could I ever describe you today, who you were when you passed. That is not something I can claim as some of these birds squawk. Your social posts were a false facade. Obviously there was something I missed, what was it. Was it so subtle? So much like a light breeze fluttering at the thin frayed thread of a seam that I could have seen but didn't care enough to realize it was there. Were you just a tumbling leaf among a forest of fresh autumn arrivals lost in the vastness, one among millions? It pains me to admit that as much as I would have liked to have been a friend to you during your dark times, I too was in a dark place of my own and in turn was deaf and blind to the billowing smoke signals that tried to underline and emphasize the sorry plights of others. I wish you could have told your story yourself, could have left a memoir of the ****** up thoughts that zipped through behind your eyes while you filtered the layers of **** served in white paper bags that this world seems to dish up like a fast food chain of heartbreak and deep ruts, while every so often rewarding us with a mistakenly placed toy or salad to “make up” for the rest of the empty calories served. I've tried so long to be an optimist, to look at the glass half full, but that glass is shattered on the floor right now, I broke it. My life hasn't been easy, not many people’s lives are and that’s life, I understand that much. If it isn't raining it’s snowing, if it isn't snowing it’s hailing, and if there isn't any precipitation it’s either hot or cold as hell and you have to fight through it to make it to the next day. I’m taking the shoes I wear now off so I can step on that pile of excrement they call a glass half full, half empty. Give me the pain, it hurts and the tears burn as they roll down my cheeks while I stare at this half a cent card with your face on it and some mass produced poem on the back listening to the ******* eulogy mutterings of everyone around me, but I want that. I would take this shuttering pain, this volcano of discharged emotions erupting from the shaking core of my body. I would take it any day over the numbness that is ******. Wasn't your child a life raft? Wasn't he the duck it or **** it of your life? Had you not a fiancé to whom which you could have rested your beaten structure on? Did you not have an array of support, a field of pile driven beams to share the weight in it all? Or was it a mistake? Was it a fault of somebody else that provided you with the birthday batch of ******? When you blew out the candles and smiled behind the thin line of adumbrating smoke that sketched out the soul behind your eyes did you think to yourself, today will be the celebration and cessation of my birthday; a bitter sweet memory for all who know me: on this day she was both born and deceased. Today she began to live and learned of death. I will never have the answers for the many who continue to fade into the credits of their dismal painful lives, but I will never stop trying to understand and I will never learn to forget or let go. This blood in my veins detest the cold steel rush that so many of you have tasted, that so many of you ran to when no one was listening, when no one was looking, when no one could comprehend you anymore and the only languages you spoke were procured from endless nights on the cushioned wooden floor as you drifted off among the silver linen clouds, as you left this body on earth and spoke with angels perched over the smoke stack that overlooked the back-lit-keyboard of lights that was your city, your town, your home while the strand of rubber slowly fell from your arm. We couldn't hear you, and those **** angels seem to weave such a pretty tale sometimes when you forget that you are speaking to your own deceitful mind. I will learn that language, I will look for those signs, I will place a candle on the sill beckoning every friend of mine to come and share with me in person. Let me reach into that white bag and see what is inside, I’ll eat whatever you pull out whether they are empty calories or not, preservative filled fries cold or hot. You are my friends and Social Networks are a lie, just a wall to hide behind, an occasionally droll and informative medium, until you die and then there is nothing left to pretend to say or be.

The first time I heard it, I could not believe it. Did I hear it right? My son, Kyle, had a girlfriend, and her name was Jezebel Kawalak. That was her true name, honest to God. I thought maybe Kyle was joking, but that really was it.  Kyle was surprised himself, thinking she was joking, so Jezebel showed him the proof on her birth certificate. It was her mother’s idea to name her Jezebel. Her father was against it.

“She goes by Jez”, Kyle told me. “Everyone calls her Jez”.

I was making dinner when he told me the news of his new friend. I stopped cutting up some carrots and looked at him with great skepticism. “Jezebel? Who on earth would name their daughter that? Don’t her parents know that the name, Jezebel, is a putdown?”

I remembered the old Betty Davis film, and she was supposed to be some kind of ******. I decided to look up the name in the Bible, and Jezebel was not a nice woman, but an evil seductress and the daughter of a king. I didn’t know much about that Jezebel character from the Old Testament, but I knew she was far from nice.  Now Kyle reassured me that Jez was not all what her name implied. She was a shy, sweet girl who lived across the street and twelve houses down from us. She was petite, gentle in nature, which added coolness and calm to the picture, for her sweet nature coexisted in tune with my son’s impulsively creative disposition.

“Jez wouldn’t hurt a fly”, Kyle told me.

“Oh, sure” I said back. “But will she hurt you?”

Kyle and Jez were both sixteen and both in the tenth grade. They also attended the same high school, making their friendship all so more convenient. They were even in one class together, an English class. Like Kyle, Jez came from a divorced home and both were only children. Jez’s mom, Tammy, worked three jobs to keep things afloat, and Jez was often left alone at home to fend for herself. It was not surprising that she got quite lonely and was in need of a good, solid companion.    

Kyle never had a serious girlfriend before. He had gone out a few times with a few girls, but none of them were ever more than a brief date or two. I was glad for that. I sometimes worked a double shift as a hospital nurse and, ready or not, I was forced to deal with this new path in my son’s life. I could not always be around to make sure my son was doing what he was supposed to do. And he was far too old for anyone to really watch over him. He was still working on getting his driver’s license, slowly gaining more freedom as he was gradually gaining more trust from me. I did not like this hesitation in me, for I always knew quite well that this time would eventually come. Yet everything seemed like it was coming too fast, and I could not contain the breaking dam of my son’s ever increasing entrance into manhood.

“It is probably not like you think”, my mother told me about Kyle and Jez. “They seem like just good friends, like she is the sister that Kyle never had”.

My mother could not convince me that she knew what she was saying, not with that remark. Come on! I wasn’t born yesterday!

For the longest time, it was just the four of us, which is until my sister moved to Miami.  Kyle, my mother and I lived in Cleveland, and that seemed like a stab in the heart to me when my sister first left. But I eventually convinced myself that I could not be so selfish, and I learned to adjust to just now only “the three of us”. Kyle saw his father but his father and I divorced when he was the age of four. Since that time, he had three strong women in his life, his mother, his aunt, and his grandmother. We were not a big family, but we were a tight family unit. Whenever I had to work and when Kyle was in need of a sitter, my mother watched him. She deserved the credit for raising my son just as much as I did.

Kyle reasoned with me that he and Jez could be good study partners for each other. I rolled my eyes at that one. There would be more of Kyle playing his guitar than anything. He loved his guitar, practically was self-taught, and I had to admit that Jez had a beautiful singing voice.  Kyle loved to compose his own songs as well as he liked to play some from other artists, and he was pretty good at his talent. The trouble was that as soon as made something up in his head he quickly forgot how some of the songs went. Sometimes, he could get it right and sometimes not. But that was not because Kyle wasn’t smart enough. Actually, he was very bright.  Kyle could dream in his sleep about music and wake up frantically trying to remember what new song he was dreaming up.

The two of them sounded really sharp together, Kyle’s strumming and smooth singing and Jez’s soft back up vocals. There was no denying that they looked just as good as they sounded together. I would study Jez over as she sat next to Kyle on the couch with her golden brown hair clipped up on the back of her head, her eyes peacefully closed, and her small frame swaying in the rhythm of the music they were making.  If they weren’t working on live music, they’d be cranking up the stereo or watching television much more than they would be hitting the school books.

I was shocked when Kyle and I were alone at home and he said something quite out of the blue and totally unexpected. “You practically gave up on men, didn’t you?” he asked me.

“I beg your pardon, young man!” I snapped at him. I gave him a sharp glance and that was all that I had to say about that. I never expected him to say such a thing. Frankly, I was dumbfounded.

I did not feel like I had to answer to my son, but driving to work that day I had wondered if he was right. If my life was not wrapped around the needs of my son, my energies were put into my career. I enjoyed my independence, not like my mother who never worked outside the home once she was married. And when my father died, my mother’s financial needs were taken care of because of all those years of his hard work. It seemed like my mother came from a dying breed, not that I faulted her for who she was, but I had to take care of myself. I felt it was the right choice and better than the alternative of marrying for convenience.

Was I really that fearful of another commitment? It seemed that no man I had met since my divorce could be a good enough stepfather figure for my son. At least, I believed that was a good enough reason for me to remain unattached. How could Kyle ask me that anyway?

One day, he was destined to leave the house and have his own life. I was always so smug about women who seemed to have no life outside of their children, but was I only fooling myself? Before I knew it, I would be coming home to an empty house. Would I be alright being all alone?

All I knew is that I wanted my son to be happy, and I thought I did a pretty good job of helping him be that so far. For now everything seemed fine, but I could see how Kyle was really falling hard for Jez. In my worried mind, there was no denying that.

“You assure me that you will do nothing that you cannot undo”, I warned my son. “When I am not here, there is to be nothing done under my roof. And you know what I mean!”

“Mom, come on”, Kyle answered me. “I would never do anything like that in your house!”    

I looked at my son with a mixture of pride and sorrow. It was now I who had to look up to him to talk to him. It seemed like yesterday when I was the one towering over him. Now he was almost six feet tall, was now shaving, and was handsome like his father, his dark shaggy hair dusting his light brown eyes. I sure could not stop him from growing up. Trying to control that situation was like trying to control heaven and earth. Slowly, I was learning that I had to let go of him, for his sake and for mine.

Deep down, I knew Kyle wouldn’t do anything in my house. But I also knew that those two did not need my house to do the unspeakable, what I would not quite say to my son in proper words. I knew I was being unrealistic for some silly fear that if I said “***” it would egg on his teenage desire all the more.  Nor could I keep my son under lock and key to stop those flooding feelings.
  
It soon came to be that Jez was over every day. Why didn’t they ever go to her house? But then I was glad they were under my roof, like that would keep them out of trouble.  Jez’s house was rented and much smaller than ours, even though ours was not spacious by any means. Jez seemed to feel more at home in my house, and soon she was growing on me. Before long, I was quite used to her, for she somehow crept into my heart and won me over.  I had to admit that she almost seemed like a daughter to me.

“You did not have to make these”, I told her about a batch of oatmeal cookies she baked me.

Jez smiled at me and said, “Your favorite, with no raisins”. She put them in a cake box that she ******* with a purple ribbon and handed them over to me. She had such a sweet disposition that I wanted to tell her to go yell at her mother for giving her such a ridiculous name, but simply smiled back and gave her a hug.  

“I can see you really like her”, said my smirking mother. She had come over for dinner and was sitting with me at the dining room table. “She is really good for Kyle and you know it, too”.

Kyle just came around from out of the kitchen. “Thanks Grandma”, he said to her, and gave her a quick hug and kiss on the cheek. He then gave me thumbs up as if to show that if Grandma approved, it was a done deal.

I could not disagree with my mom. Yet I wondered what Jez’s mom would think of everything. Even though she lived down the street I never met her. I wanted to invite her over, but she was always too busy working or taking care of things. How did Jez cope with her always being gone? She needed her mother just as much at sixteen as she did when she was a young girl.

“She works pretty hard”, Jez once told me. “I feel kind of bad because maybe she would not have to work like that if I wasn’t around”.

“Jez, don’t think that way!” I exclaimed.  I could see the tears welling up in her eyes. Kyle, sitting next to her, put his arm around her and gave her a good squeeze to make her smile.

Kyle admitted, “Jez’s dad always told her she is welcome to live with him. She could but she’s not so geeked about it. He lives in California, in San Diego”.

“And he has a swimming pool and a Jacuzzi”, Jez added. “So you think I’d be crazy not to go there”.

“I’d rather live in warm weather, all year round, with a pool to swim in every day”, Kyle confessed to her.

Emphasizing her remark by playfully dotting his nose with her fingertip, she said to him, “Kyle, you know that Cleveland has one thing that San Diego does not have”.

“What’s that?” he answered in a silly voice, gleefully playing dumb.

Giggling a little, she said “You”.

Kyle leaned over, and pecked her with a kiss on her mouth. I could feel the heat in my face, embarrassed that I was blushing over an innocent kiss. But I never saw my son kiss a girl before, not in a romantic way. I got up out of my chair before they could see my discomfort. How foolish I felt! After all, I was a nurse and nothing should have shocked me like this.

There were times I felt that I had more than a leg to stand on with my fears. There was a fine line between innocent times with each other and too much togetherness, and it seemed like Kyle and Jez were crossing it.

Usually on Friday or Saturday nights, Jez and Kyle would watch a horror movie. They both loved horror flicks, the more blood and gore the better. Both loved the classics, from the original Night of the Living Dead to the modern ones like Drag Me to Hell. They’d always snuggle together on the couch with the lights off and big bowl of popcorn, and if I was not working I would be extra watchful. They could be up till past one o’clock in the morning and, even if I needed the sleep, I stayed up right with them.

Often, Kyle and Jez would fall asleep together on the couch before the movie ended. They had gotten that cozy. A few times, Kyle would wake up to still find Jez sound asleep. She was quite a sound sleeper, more than Kyle was. Instead of waking her up to take her home, Kyle would scoop her up in his arms and carry her to his bedroom. In turn, she barely made a stir but rested her head upon his shoulders, letting him take her away from the living room. After laying her upon his bed, Kyle would come back to sleep on the couch.

“How are you going to explain this to her mother?” I asked, confronting him about it”.

“I’m not sleeping with her, Mom!” he argued with me. “You can see I am staying on the couch! Jez’s mom has some new boyfriend, so why would she feel like she even belongs home? Yeah! That’s right! He is crowding Jez right out of her own house! Do you have to look at me like that? Like I am the bad guy, or something? He is living with her mom, sleeping in her bed. Why do you think Jez never wants to go home? The guy’s a total loser! He creeps her out.”

I knew I had to eventually talk to Jez’s mom. I needed her input and she needed mine. As much as I liked her, I just did not feel like Jez should be around so much. It seemed like she lived at my house when she really did not.  The only news I heard about her mom was that Tammy was angry at her daughter for not helping to clean up the house more. So now I found a sound excuse to help Kyle to listen to reason.

I had to tell him to listen to me, to trust my better judgment and experience in spacing out his time with Jez. Perhaps, he needed to see her every other day. To Kyle, that was a hard sacrifice but, along with becoming an adult, came some necessary lessons.

“If Tammy wants her daughter to be more responsible at home” I told him, “you have to learn to respect that”. Deep down, Kyle knew I was right.

So those in between days, with no visits, Kyle was either instant messaging Jez on our computer or talking to her on the phone.  He may have listened to his mother, but he was finding enough ways to not take me as seriously as he should have.

I found myself wishing that Jez would just go away. That feeling did not last long before my guilty conscience got the better part of me. Jezebel Kawalak really was a sweetheart. Everyone who really knew her loved her.

“Do you feel like she is competing with you for Kyle’s time with you?” my mother asked me.

At first, I was ready to tell my mother how out-of-line she was with that statement. Did I seem that selfish? This was the time in Kyle’s life when the childish diversions in life were being replaced with more important things like earning his own money and planning what college he wanted to go and what he wanted for his future.  Or maybe I had to accept that he would tell me that college was not for him. Now he could play his guitar and dream of being a rock star, but reality was ready to kick in for both of us.  More carefree days like these were beginning to look scarce.

I had to admit that Jez became a threat. I worried that she had a high likelihood of ending up pregnant. What would happen then? Kyle was not mature enough to deal with that possibility. I still had those desires to see Jez just go away.

One night, I was going to get what I wanted. But it was something what I never would have wished for.

It was a long day at the hospital for me. I had barely the energy to eat the diner that Kyle had made for me. He was a pretty good cook as he had to learn to make his own meals when I was working. I was brushing my teeth when I thought I heard a knock at the door, but the television was on and I wasn’t sure.  

“Kyle, is someone at the door?” I asked him.  I heard no answer.

I went into the living room and the front door was open. In the dark, I made out the two silhouettes of Kyle and Jez sitting on the cement on the front porch.

I turned the porch light on and gasped. Jez was leaning on Kyle, her face battered and her lip bleeding.

“Let’s get her inside!” I ordered Kyle.

He helped her up but she was stumbling badly. Kyle lifted her up into his arms, and she winced in pain as he carried her inside.

Kyle sat in a chair and kept Jez cradled in his arms, caressing her bruised face with his

Dar Al-Hekma University hosted its second fashion show on Sunday that featured the work of its second batch of fashion design undergraduates.

The event, titled “Luminosity” was held under the auspices of Princess Reem **** Muhammad Al-Faisal. President of the university Dr. Suhair Hassan Al-Qurashi said: “Providing such events to our students before graduation exposes them to industry leaders of their prospective industries and gives them a head start in their careers.

“Dar Al-Hekma University’s students stand out because of the combination of their high caliber and the opportunities the university provides for them.”

Along with industry leaders, families of participating students attended. The event started with an opening speech by the department chair for the fashion design program Dina Kattan, who then introduced the sophomore and junior students’ work.

Afterward, models wearing three-piece collection garments designed by senior students scheduled to graduate this year took the stage and were graded by four judges.

Kattan said: “I am so proud of the work my students presented today; they worked really hard and they deserve a big hand. “Everyone was impressed with the level of creativity and attention to detail they demonstrated.”

The judges were Batool Jamjoom, businesswoman in the fashion industry and manager and owner of Jamjoom Fashion House; Amra Alabdalilsharif, director of the innovation and visual merchandising department at Rubaiyyat; Dalal Al-Hasan, a fashion designer; and Aram Kabbani, Dar Al-Hekma alumna and fashion stylist.

The grades students received during the fashion show will form part of their final grade. One of the students whose designs were featured at the show, Zahar Algain, said her collection was inspired by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.

“Studying fashion has altered my perspective. I view fashion, in the same way that I view life; it’s a matter of balance and proportions.

“My interest in avant-garde fashion has led me to believe in using creativity to solve difficult situations. Algain’s collection was meant to blur the line between art and fashion.

“It is inspired by Frida Kahlo but with a fictional twist. “The story behind my collection is a daydream, a magical love story, an artwork; it is splattered with Frida’s colorful soul and spirit.”

Following this women only event, Dar Al-Hekma is organizing a one-day fashion design exhibition on Tuesday, which is open to all. The event starts from 7 p.m.Read more here:www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-adelaide | www.marieaustralia.com/long-formal-dresses

I have come to succumb to a certain cliché, a cache of questions that so often seem to scuff the dance floor of adultolescents. “Who am I?” of course, a major inquiry but more importantly, “Who do I want to be?” and what am I becoming and when I become it, will it become me or will I not even want it…like a portrait of my mother…tattooed to my ***, her dear old face like some wretched rash (truly I’m not that crass). So I am scared of tomorrow and uncertain of now but everything used to be fine, so allow me to go back just a bit, to when I was, say about… FIVE.

I remember reclining on my grandmother’s couch in Hoboken, New Jersey watching star wars, I believe it was episode FIVE. Her apartment smelt of ***** and rice and beans and that reek of regret that rises from the corpses of broken dreams, and I can still see the light from the T.V. screen illuminating every corner of her living room, from the bookshelf, to the door with the welcome mat--an ironic greeter--to the picture of Jesus perched over the heater smiling down on and blessing the liars and cheaters who so often filled that room with soiled consciences and beaters. So there I was, I was FIVE, and I can clearly recall what I wanted to be, who I wanted to be in that moment: A Jedi! Oh it was a long time ago and it was far, far away, but I can still see the look on my grandmother’s face as I raced through space with my light saber broom beating Sith with a stick, protecting the room from Vader’s invaders making storm trooper stew, my weapon—my whisk; my rivals—my roux; the force—the flames, to boil the brew and the voice of my father at forty FIVE years of age telling me to quit messing around. And I said with a wave of my hand, “No, you quit messing around.” He said, “Why don’t you be a Firefighter?” I said, “no!”  “Why not a football player?” I said, “no!” “Jedi’s can’t marry. Jedi’s get lonely.” I said, “I want to be a Jedi and a Jedi only!” But like fire and fog and old Ben Kenobi, ideas like this must eventually fade.

So I grew to, I’d say about ten years old, that’s FIVE plus FIVE moving on to grade FIVE. Picture, if you will, me—the shortest kid on the little league baseball team, with grand aspirations; huge heaps of vivacity, and a strike zone too small for those poor umpires to see and I knew—I KNEW who I wanted to be: A baseball player! And an actor. A writer, crime fighter—the Jack Bower type who’s always in danger—a **** Tracy with *****; a heterosexual power ranger. Oh and an astronaut chef with a part time job as a rapper who talks about ******* and death and riches and **** holding the mic in my right and my junk in my left a protection of the kids in the crowd who might see my ******* brought about due to... back up dancers. Oh, and the president of the United States as well.

Now let’s jump to fifteen, that’s FIVE plus FIVE plus FIVE, I was a freshman in high school and still a freshman in life. But neither of these were important you see, and I rather gave up on the prospect of “me.” I traded my goals for an xbox which came with a discounted dose of apathy. ‘Cause high school is brimming with a bizarre batch of habits. When forced to attend one must endure or adapt it’s those tactless tactics those impractical practices; each pupil’s polluted with perturbing antics. So for much of that year I stayed home ignoring the mornings who tried to tell me I was alive and forgetting the spinning of the earth in its lonely slow dance to the daily tune of nine to FIVE.

I did outgrow that depressing stage. And now, here I am pushing twenty. That’s FIVE plus FIVE plus FIVE plus…it’s hard to believe but believe it I must. But these fingers that wipe away tears when I cry and fight, call for peace, encourage, deride, make decisions, rock hard, and swat away flies, shake hands, ask questions, and give high FIVES are so ******* familiar. So you see, I have put a great deal of thought into this and I think what I want to be is… FIVE.

Don’t you remember? When wherever you lived was the tip of the world, every rock you found was a glimmering pearl, and every face pointed at you grinned with jealous geniality. When Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, Jesus Christ, and easy money all had proper places in reality. When bunk beds were marvels standing miles from the floor and the little things were the greatest things on earth, and “stupid” was a swear word, each trip was an adventure, and every pocket was a candy cluttered purse. Grass was green not “getting too long to maintain” and skies were blue not “looking like they might bring rain” There was no need to feign a demeanor, there were no chains. You were unbound. And pain was a temporary hiatus from satisfaction…not the other way around. Everyone loved you, whether they loved you or not. No one judged you for your blindingly ignorant smile. You were pancakes and balloons and Saturday morning cartoons and guilt-free, care-free love—you were a child.

I don’t want to go back to that time in my life. I have no desire to swap my mind for comfortable bliss. What I want is to close my eyes for just FIVE seconds and when I open them again, the world will be new.

Soft shapes touch a child's finger,
Memories of their sweetness linger--
Helping grandma roll the dough
In her kitchen long ago.

I like the shape your cookies take
When they spread out as they bake,
Like the changing shapes of crowds,
Melting snow or summer clouds.

Oven-hot and placed on racks,
Lined up , lying on their backs,
Coming from a single batch,
But none of them a perfect match.

Toll house cookies, soft, convex,
Each perfection, like the next:
Chocolate chips their surface grace--
Freckles on a child's face.

Pecan ball aren't perfect spheres,
But they're gentle little dears:
Bottoms flat, sides dented slightly,
With white sugar sprinkled lightly.

Sugar cookies cold days cheer,
Shaped like angles and reindeer
Glazed with frosting sweet and white,
Decked with sprinkles all delight.  

Santa's Whiskers, coconut rolled,
Long fat logs of sugared dough,
Cut in portions smooth and round,
Pecan bits, cherries abound.  

Molasses crinkles' faces lined
Like old men's--the friendly kind--
With lines like back roads on a map,
Dunked in milk before a nap.

Oatmeal cookies, shapes amorphous
Juicy raisins budge enormous,
Semi-blobs, their texture rough,
Sometimes packed with nuts and stuff.

So many cookies through our life,
Since we became husband and wife,
In their sweet aroma and taste
Years rushed by like cars in a race.

Looking at their shapes diverse
Reminds me of our love at first:
We weren't sure just where we'd go
And all we had was cookie dough.

there in the wilderness
all things go to live
and all things go to die.

she stole my shirt and hatchet
and took to the woods.
                           hacked out the heart.

traded one wilderness for another. city into
trees.
she needed to breathe
and wring wet socks, relax, and study the mycelium songs underfoot.

she she she, like a marvelous
new love.
the grass and green stuff woven.
canteen replete with wheat nectar
         or half-batch whiskey.

needs nutrient,
the seed so new.
needs space,
the daughter as she grew.

what tempest breaks the trees and old heads
of mother timber?
         perhaps deep-winter,
         to test the fiber of a florescent forest fleek.

she built a chikee from fallen arms of a sprucewood soul,
drank water from a clay-thrown bowl
and granola to heat her bones.

new fish.
the river is cold on glacier blood.
new day,
driven beyond the random access roads & cobalt blast-holes stretching
gulches bloomed in chaparral.
up they crawl along monumental spine and shoulder,
giants sleeping.

she she she, live a marvelous new love.

the wonder is seen.
the wilderness lived and remembered
by girl or elk bugling their high-decibel poems
when ready.