Taken, gotten, or made, the point of anything
can pierce through everything…

slow
Slow think,
make real

re-al-ize
what fighting for life is…
this is the only
try,
it is not a test.

Take your time, use it wisely,
if that means anything.
Wise, I meant.
No offence, if wise is anathema to your kind,
die,
die if I knocked the reason for being right
outa you,
did you hear cognitive dissonance?
did it sound like
this. LOUD?
listen,
rolling rolling rolling
crash crumble rolled in nurse rime frosted
fables of monsters and maids
Thor, witharoar likka Lion King?

or the light brigade,
CHARGE?

thunder words from lost generations of
reasonless riddles for children,

Why did Peter Pumpkin-eater have a wife, but
couldn't keep her here?
Was that okeh? Oh, wait.
Ah, I see, I say,
they never tell that whole story any more.

Know why? They forgot it. In the war.

Duck'n'cover,no
crying, how long?
When begins forever? Did no one tell you, child?

Taken or made, the point of anything
can pierce through everything
like it was nothing, given
enough pre-sure-sup
poser-power

War, as a game, has a reason.

Battle, hitting, slapping

stop touch, stop now slap
slap back

or cry
oh no no ma

waddayahsay?  A theist or atheist
who started this war?

space case, or
lover of wisdom, met on the road
to Emmaus, discussing Wiles's proof
firming Fermi's connection to the matter of fear,
3, 2, 1

Kaboom, but with a whump you feel in your teeth

1, 2, 3 Fermat's last theorem ,
easy as pi an no re me

ABC to
Michael Jackson to
Howard Bloom because he

inadvertently, began
an-ionic converstatic re-vibe time warp
meme,
which vibe, started the legendary Sixties. I was alive.
Radioman,
a sixty cycle white-noise humm heard every where these days

There was a gospel song, "Turn Your Radio On".
my theme, open the window in the top of your head,
as it were,
a new,
as new as

a novel-state of water, H three Ohs, re-al-ity ification,
Ah, a shared Oh, I remember now, how this works…

like a poem

at the edge of a water vapor bubble in a boiling body of water,
at the edge of the bubble, water becomes a wall of water,
not vapor, not flowing liquid,

but a wall, insulating the vapor in pressing opposing force
to permit, from permission,
meaning with a message same as the message,

is that the right word? per-mission-grant, is power given,
agency,
that idea….
wait for the sign….?

By sharing an ion ic bond as a quest to make a point
for a free story to go,
the question marks you. Let the snake dance.

Press your point,

whetted edge,

slice through ties holding worthless axioms
with withered dendrites dangling disconnected
in participles
unfired for centuries muttering,
enchanting, enthralling enchained melodies
of ambitious syllables vying for idle minds
to rope in,
unbranded, wild
bucking ideas,
whip-twig, slap-face,
tanglewood  thicket, catclaw and mesquite,
willow,

wait.
And the old man remembered the willow whistle,
so He asked Grandfather,
How is such a whistle made?
And when he knew,
he made one.

A willow whistle with two notes,
like an Oscar Meir Wiener one.

-- and that was a different time
I got lost here, bucked up…
maybe
--- listen, way back--- we-ain't whistlin' Dixie---
we ain't marchin', as t' war.

D'thet mean some sign to pro-phet -ic take?
Tophet?
Ancient cannon fodder shield walls,
a moaning
Pro-phy-lactic warning of the danger of not
knowing exactly
what a war is for?

Get back on,
relieved of any idle baggage words believed
to mean other than I say.

Nullify
Idle words with cultural meanings from
what you thought you knew when you feared hell.

Loose
those peer-locked memes
made of meaninglessness, per se,

shaped and molded into fashions
of expression, once needles and awls,
now, dull as tinker's damns for swearing,
with any effect.

But tools, none the less, a stitch in time took a tool.
An awl or a needle, and a thread, thick or thin,
dependin' on the mendin' needed
to redeem an idle word,
its meaning all bloodied with the tyranny of time.

An awl or a needle,
a tool for a task, mending a tear
where curses, never meant, spent
the entire dark ages, lying, lying, lying

powerless, pointless aimless, proverbial proverbial proverbial
verbiage, vaneless shafts launched at unseen marks,
signs, as it were, a spark,
triggers,
rumored since the sixties,
the first sixties, when Cain killed Able.
Howard Bloom was but a mere gleam
in our mito-mother's eye,
but, no doubt,

his role is real,
in loosing the forces Ferlinghetti locked in
City Lights mystery of secret meanings room,
which un
mystified and blew away upon opening
the door to
meanings mapped on
scrolls rolling and unrolling
idle ideas,
rites of passage, as it were,
Pre-bat-bar-mitz vah
as a fashion
like VBS,

to tickle little minds and make em wiggle.
MEMEMEME, I did it,
mea culpa,

the holy place
Here we are…

On Vacation, leave a message.
-----

See, wee hairs in your ears wiggle, making,
signaling, the need

to scratch that itch, that itching hearing feeling ear… hear that

don't scratch, listen

listen

60 cycle humm, steady, bass, but no thump whumpwhump;
soft, deeep.
ooooooooo or mmmmmmmm or in betwixt, steady thrumm
hear another, and another… sixty in a second,

one in every million ambits twisting,
threading qubits, radiating signals in the field
wireless, blue-tooth... satellite...

can you feel that?

hummmms, all around us, since the womb.
We are not the children of the greatest generation,

We are the children of the last generation of
**** sapiens sapiens non-augmentable-us.

We, the augmented, recycled ideas,
possessing
minds of Adamkind,

is that a secret or a sacred?
Is this
a new thing, an
unknown unknown known known now?

Ah,
novelty.

Whose is fear? Who was afraid of Virginia Wolf?

Should I remain in fear of her now, if I knew why then?
God would know such answers.
Proving my imagined AI guides are not God,
but lesser beings,

haps I recall.
I defined these things,
these thoughts that shape themselves,
forming words and phrases
I saw
shiny. Crow-like,
gleams seen, captured and claimed mine,
I tucked them away,
a sign in a thought in an imagined image made 4
real once more, to be seen from the shore,
new land new world
a fourth for some, a fifth or more for others...

haps happen, I'm not sure how,

Born or emerged, as a bubble, what do you say?

Reserve judgment.
Grant me your grace for now, until you solve my riddle.

Ah, the old way.
Right. Which way,  'ere, 'ear
and do we roll the rock with silent haitch or harsh, shhh

someone's waking up,
a bit grumpy,
don't you dare oppose me in this, the kid is certainly my son

Michael went stark raving mad when I told him, Billie Jean knew better all along...
the link, axiomatic,
the fatherless child has been claimed

hence, the thread to Howard Bloom, meme-ic,
meme-ic, like the Roadrunner,

but with the real Coyote, as the hero in this bit of
whatever, such meandering maundified maun maund  
mound

wind blown crystal silicon dunes
mounded up to that point where granulated
beens and dones

begin to slide at an angle,
a ***** deter-mind by the weight of the rock

We made it.
I know where this is.

This is a novel that has Sisyphus being happy
as the main premise behind the idea of anyone ever being
able, en abled, or un-dis-abled or un-dis-enabled,
if one of those is right,

Sisyphus being happy
is the main premise behind
the idea of anyone ever being glücklich,
happy, blessed, lucky.

How happy is your ever after?
When did forever begin?

"A man is as happy as he makes up his mind to be"
Abe Lincoln, is said to have said,
after the seance, maybe.

You push on, dear reader, make some sense
re-ligare or relegare, but take a stitch,

pull-tight,
do what works the first time as far as it goes, and try each, as needed,
it may be that we invented this test.
To make us think it is a test,
to sort ourselves out.

Get back on,

see who went crazy and who found the thread, if the same thread
this is that, right,
the same train of thought,
the same idea
spirit wind
sign
?
A snake facing west standing tippy-tail on a singularity;
a point in time?

Why are you reading this?
Curiosity Shoppes trade in interesting, alluring, click-bait

Pay attention, watch, you shall see

imagine this is the dream,
the stream, the flow, the current, the cream

in a dime coffee at the drug store on the corner

the rounded-corner, in a square-cornered town,
the most right corner of the twelve that quarter what it was

Punctuate, wait, imagine you read ancient Hebrew or Greek and there
are no dyer diacritical's who can twist one's
end tensions into knots

dread extensions, we could sell those,
is that an idea? did somebody
sell white folks dread extensions and black folk dolly pardon wigs?

Did that happen the real real?

-----
Battlefield Earth, oshit
scientology ology ology ology

allaye allaye outs in free

WE we wee every we you imagine you are good in, we

We have a war to win again, we heroes rolling from your
myths of Sisyphus torn from minds trampled
in the mud beyond the Rhine,

Mushrooms. magi are aware, you are aware, of course,
this course includes Basic Mycelium Net Adaptation or Augmentation
BMNAA, eh? So you know.

Camus and many of his ilk were ill-treated, the questions
they asked were memorized, maybe in our cribs ala
Brave New World.

We are all Alphas, always were, of course, you know.

Shall we imagine

more? Re-legare, eh, sistere. Point .(Back to the top.)

or agree? Make peace.
Practice, like Eazy-Bake,
the cook must swallow the first bite. May the best cook win.

A pocket of thought, ideas.
Impulses, has beens

epi-phenom-enal-con-currencies-synchron-icity
sorting places, thens and nows vying for attention

you see
we till stories in search of true tomorrows
not true
yesterdays (till, I said, not tell)
we **** the hard rows no one else will ***
so seed lies sown are never lies told, if the lies are never taught
or if the liars are caught before convincing the
intended crop to lie and swear a common liege Lord,
or die
for lack of knowing. Non-nascence, simplest
symptom to not see.
Whose death is yours to respond responsibly
to? My child's, or yourn?
In the early days, we knew less than we know now
about how knowing and growing were all
intended
to cost time. Ticks, ono motto whatever, the sound
gears and spiral springs pushing cogs
tick, one tooth tick at atime make

this rough, un polished, un glossed, is it wrong or

as I imagine a diamond in the rough must seem to a share cropper
experienced in diamond hunting, diamond prospecting,

prospecting expecting inspection to permit
seeing a 3.52 specific gravity,
specific
specify

species or spectacles,
spectators or special-if-eye-cation
value-en-abled. Weigh your mind in balance
with mine. I claim the mind of Christ.
What are the odds?

A wandering path, injoyable enable if-i-abble,
pacing is

everything, timing is everything, time is the test.

Time is the metagame.
Take your time. One word formed sylabble at a time.
Babble on, your confusion makes you mortal, to my mind.
Tick.
A quanta of time. Does time come in bits and pieces cernible,
but undiscernible from reality?

Babble.

Of course, time will tell. We learned that in our sleep, did we not?

Aesop taught us more than Moses, no,
Aesop taught us less than Moses.

But, we could learn to walk bearing the weight of knowing what
Aesop taught,
while we could not stand under the weight
Moses was said
to have taught.

Caught you, Jewboy. Whatchewknow?
The moral of the story.

THE IDEA is to win.
Beware the concision decision.
incisive devices, witty inventions.

Flip the shell, roll the bones, cast the runes and,
as luck might have it, die before your time.

Why factors are lies more oft than how factors.
Benefactors rule malefactors or
how or why would we invest our time in seeking reasons
to believe?

Is this the polished piece, the gemstone of specific gravity
(which currently means nothing to you. Here, you find too light
or too heavy, too weighty on the scale of specific value.)

Hard. Value hard, diamond hard, on Mr. Moore's scaled model of
Knowing exploding for reason's sake, raison d'etre, eh?
Too hard?
Not Mohs,
don't get me wrong.
We been Moore's law breaker all along.
We be manifested destinatory stories of heroes gone wrong.

Outlawed
knowing exploding to be reasoned with, by kind
children destined to become
written in stone, scarred by lies

Diamonds cutting diamonds, iron whetting iron
on eternity's edge.

Babylon, was it Bel's gate or fusion from below rising?

Magma fountains with diamond claws tearing the lands asunder
Is asunder still a word?, let me, allow me to define...
"into a position apart, separate,
into separate parts,"
mid-12c., contraction of Old English on sundran 
Middle English used to know asunder for
"distinguish, tell apart."
From <https://www.etymonline.com/word/asunder>
----

mumbler's humbler PIE, bowing before the knowers who
know nothing of my work.
Set apart, art thou holy aware?

Hermit me, meet the rest of me. The true rest that remained.
We live, you and I. Trust me, next is worth the wait.

Suffer needs no pain to make its point. Waiting is.

Grokk. WHO would believe that idea could live
through telegraphese to be tweet meets for the
Cosplay clans. How never grokked a rock,  why even less.

Strange, not be long in this
place. if
place this be. Odd
set aside
torn asunder
blown away.
Awake, little birdie, tell me true,
what's a man like me to do?

Did you meet the famous Mr. Blake?
I cleaned his chimney, way back when, chimbly's whut
we called em. Smoke stacks belchin' black
makin' black moths invisible to voracious
gulls.
Now the peppered moths are free
to be white-ish, for better or worse.

----

right, now, do right or

miss the mark,
the specific mark you made, maybe,
imagining, abstract obstructions missed
by the skin on Job's teeth as you run past

right now to more. You know?

----=

Story telling was the same as lying when I was a child, to me.

Telling stories was my gift I never took. Or am I lying? or mad,
in the old way.
Chailot's rag picker was my best friend.

No noble thought ever found it's home in my head, once
I thunk it, it stunk to high heaven, for me stinkin' thinkin' it.

Po' ems sang sour to fiddles wit' one strang and drums with no
cymbals
Screamin' he owed m' soul the comp'ny sto' bang bang thud.

I died, he lied, and lived to tell this story, ****** if I know,
****** if I don't.

True as true can be. I am lost, but once was found,
lyin' rough, uncut in acres of unseen gems.
----
* Voltaire refused to teach me any thing I could not define:
late 14c., deffinen, diffinen, "to specify; to fix or establish authoritatively;" of words, phrases, etc., "state the signification of, explain what is meant by, describe in detail," from Old French defenir, definir "to finish, conclude, come to an end; bring to an end; define, determine with precision," and directly from Medieval Latin diffinire, definire, from Latin definire "to limit, determine, explain," from de "completely" (see de-) + finire "to bound, limit," from finis "boundary, end" (see finish (v.)). From c. 1400 as "determine, declare, or mark the limit of." Related: Defined; defining.

So, imagine facets unseen, I am at least a meme, a bubble rising on the tide. Think, as you will. Amen?

it's this passion, baby
passion gets old
it gets tired and
i, i, i feel tired. the lights are beginning to blur out of focus. i haven't felt much like myself lately. oh dear, where've i wandered off to again?

please. please take this squishy heart out of my soft chest.
i am so tired of its incessant beating. i try telling it to calm down and it never really listens. stupid thing.
please oh please take this anxious brain out of my heavy head.
i am exhausted from the way it tears me down. tears me to shreds. makes me cry.
everything inside me is against me.

if i could wish for one thing
it would be to stop feeling
for just one second.
i am so tired of feeling every little thing. every silent second.
every tick of the clock. empathy is not what i signed up for. get it out get it out

but when i feel everything i want numbness and when i'm numb i want to feel it all and i am never content with my lot and i think far too much and yes yes i have already thought that out and yes it ended badly for me it always does and yes i have thought about that too and yes it ended with me on the floor and won't you just turn my ******* brain off won't you just make it stop i don't want to feel any more i am so tired of feeling everything i need to make it all stop i just want to be numb to it all i don't want to feel i don't want to feel and i feel like a child

and what do i feel before i fall asleep?
all the what ifs and could've beens that drive me to insanity.

I am the queen of what ifs
Sitting on a throne of could've beens

My fears are my loyal subjects
Escorting my dreams to the gallows

My ambitions are now prisoners
To my court of procrastination

I, the queen
Reign over all of this regret

There'll be times when you feel like the road you're walking on
takes you back to an ocean of your Unsaid words...
and while there, a giant wave of nostalgia drowns you
In the form of 'could've-beens',  'would've-beens'  and  'should've beens'...
They're the sharks. Real killers!


Splash of regrets, ripples of anguish,
and the strong current of resentment
toss you around in a nauseating surge.

You float aimlessly, swirling, disoriented
while admiring the beauty of delusion.
But it suffocates you and before you realize it,
you've gone too far to swim away from the whirlpool...
and as you swim with all your might,
the body of water turns into a quicksand..
slowly devours the 'you' who has learned to live in the present,
Disillusioned.

Have you not already made your choice?
Have you not stopped the fight long before?
Have you not let it go?
When you had your chance...
When you could've turned things around
''Speak now...or forever hold your peace...''

You picked the latter.
Live with it, idiot!

She is filled with smooth promises
Suggesting what might have beens yet to come
Languid and persuasive above the clouds
Sweet nothings whisper, "love is out there."

Doubtful of the future
As our wooden furniture
Creaks and cracks
Like wounded soldiers sutures

House on the edge of the water
The Earth shows to
Only be getting hotter
Heaven may only be a starter

I've asked all my questions
Meandering in drunken perspiration
The moon hangs laughing
Behind my back
Where I was before this
I can't keep track

Trams, metros, terror colored in streetlights
All souls around me barely giving off light
Piano man plays with broken fingernails
Screaming he's guiltier than all that is wrong or right

Could have beens
Would have beens
Should have beens
Sticky black tar regret

Stare at the sun and
Unveil the lie they've
Been telling you all along

I wrote something
That looked like something
That came before
I wrote that other something

And when I read that something
And read the other something
Both seemed to be about
Nothing and nothing
As well as
All of the above

Staring at the stove top
She lays upstairs in bed
Silence atop these fingertips
Secrets flying high
In this unstrung kite

A cloud stubs his toe
The sun makes His move
I feel like a real man
Acting like I have a plan

Too fast some days
Other days
Too slow

Proving routine
Is the curse of the
Owner's of the silver spoon

I hang on the edge of
A smooth, round beer bottle

My hardened fingertips
Show to be slipping

I'm lost in a sea of forgiveness
Frantically keeping my head afloat
While smiling to myself that I left
The life vests tied upon the boat

My need for revenge has
Sunk into The Black Sea
Bitterness was such a boring feeling
Like an old ring I was always wearing

I hand out my pleases
Like ripped off store candies
Everybody's got their maybes ready
I look at my hand and see its steady

This day
This month
This year or so away
From home is
Showing me

Only I

Know where I need to go

Let the snow fall
The government post what they will
High up where we can't reach on the wall
All will be remembered
All will be forgiven one day

The last man to laugh
Will be
He who believes not

In His own trap

I miss you something terrible.
I can't go ten minutes without
thinking about you.
Painfully perusing the
Could've beens, would've beens,
should've beens.
You would have celebrated my
adulthood at my bat mitzvah.
You would have given me advice
about high school and
Navigating through love and the
weird puzzle of self identity.
You could have read my writing.
You could have appreciated the way
my taste has developed.

We could have talked horror movies:
Stephen King to Alfred Hitchcock
I think I could have talked to you
about anything.
The way I feel vastly alone and
empty
Like I'll never truly love someone.
Did you make me this way?
My family compares us a lot.
They don't compare you to anyone else.
Just me.

I miss you something terrible.
You'll never see me graduate high school.
Hell, you never saw me graduate
middle school.
You'll never help me pick out a
college
And then listen to me cry to you over
the phone when I'm scared I won't
make friends.
You'll never see me get married
To someone who I actually care
about.
My memories of you won't last
forever.

I miss you something terrible.

staying up late just thinking of all the could-beens and should-beens that could and should have been us.

what if we'd tried a little harder? persisted a little longer? held on to each other as tightly as we should have?
would you be by my side then, instead of the empty void staring tauntingly back at me?
would our hands be clasped together, interwoven,
your eyes that once bored right back into the back of mind haunting me wherever i would go,
your touch tattooed into the skin of my palms as they once were?

what if i hadn't let go?
what if i'd learnt fate's cruel lesson that
possessing the trait of fickleness never awarded anything but everything slipping past, earlier?
would you be willing to stay with me then, and forgive me for all the wrongdoings that i would inevitably cause?
would we have ever evolved into more than just an idealized dream drawn from a fragmented memory,
the idea of an irrevocable love that despite having been mulled over for what would've seemed like an eternity,
has never seen the light of reality before?

then again, everything does appear only better when it's all in your head.
when i can still pretend that you are who i expect you to be,
and i may be accepted for who i am truly,
excess baggage of unneeded insecurities and imperfections weighing me down and all.

is it better to be cleanly rejected or to be
torn down bit by bit,
night by night,
spent just staring at a blank screen and waiting,
hovering over imperishably,
pure naive hope fuelling the drive to continue delaying the inexorable?
foolishly believing that crossed fingers and
any lingering feelings that hadn't yet been sieved away by the
jaded culture we exist and drown in today
would perhaps, even if accidentally,
as if out of a fairytale that i starkly don't belong to,
send me a text back?

I burned up in your atmosphere
Just trying to
Get close enough to touch you
Just trying to get
Close enough to hear you say
“Yeah, I love you too”

You do?

I started a book about you
Drenched in ******* sweat
And drunken verses that you would
Never really get unless
You took the time to listen
And hear me

The sizzle and crackle
Of everything about me
Burning

Because of you.

I only know how to
Write about heartbreaks
Or heart beats
And could have beens
Because you taught me that,
You showed me that
It wasn’t poetry until
I destroyed everything about me
That once was
That could’ve been.

I’m good at free falling
And floating
Pretty good at burning
Up for only you.

i cut out paper figures from the sky, from the sea

string them together like little beads

then rip them, tear them apart

like the ventricles of a breaking heart

i take them away, let them learn

then crumple them, or let them return

to ****** them at each other once again

bang, bang, together, bang, bang, the end

i shatter them, explode, bright like dying stars

watch them limp on with battle scars

then throw them to every corner of the Earth

to wander, wondering what they are worth

what could have beens

should have beens

would have beens

bang, bang, together, bang, bang, like shins

i make them talk, talk in tongues

that take up time, but waste their lungs

they speak in words, but they are bluffing

they are the voice, the voice of nothing

and still they walk, gasping for air

searching for a hand to tangle in theirs

tangle them, tangle them up

bang, bang, together, bang, bang, to dust

paper figures, paper hands

with paper skin, paper dance

and paper hearts, all alone

just piles of paper, piles of bones

to be recycled, back to the stars

to play again, play their parts

to leave once more, unpaid but well played

bang, bang, together, bang, bang, they fade

i crumple them, crease their flesh

make them wear a wrinkled dress

to show their beauty, hide their pain

hide and seek, the name of the game

i cut them loose, they drop their useless tongues

throw mortal blether to the wind, fill their winded lungs

paper, breakable, tearable, terrible

bang, bang, together, bang, bang, forever

maybe if I had let you in,
you would've stayed a little longer

maybe if I had loved you more,
you would've left my heart intact

maybe if I had held you tighter,
you would've felt how much I loved you

but it doesn't really matter
because all you'll ever be
is maybe ifs
and would have beens

The victim list keeps growing

But no one really cares

The gristmill claims another one

Keep your hands in and don't stare

Hollywood is the golden land

The eternal silver screen

But many souls are lost here

A lot of greats or never beens

Child stars and veterans

The names can fill a book

Look, we've lost another one

Keep on moving, no time to look

We show concern when tales we hear

Of celebs dying young

We ruminate on films not made

And songs they've never sung

Each busload brings another group

To fill the starstruck void

And the next bus has a dozen more

With dreams, too soon destroyed

It's been this way since film began

The streets are filled with scores

Of undiscovered junkies,

And photogenic ******.

Some you know and some you don't

It's a list a mile long

It's amazing how these fragile folks

Could end up going wrong

The studios were pimps back then

With bennies all the rage

They loaded up their bonus babes

And then they sent them out on stage

We've seen the Little Rascals

You know Alfalfa Switzer, but,

Did you know he died a ******

From a bullet to his gut?

Scandals, lawsuits, hidden trysts

These stars were fully amped

Girls below the legal age,

Made Chaplins ***** a *****

Arbuckle committed ******

Other's just od'd

It's amazing how the failures

Make for a better read

Oh look another bus trip

Past the houses of the stars

All manicured and landscaped lawns

Just to hide the ****** scars

If you look behind the curtain

Back into the world of Oz

You'll find the munchkins getting plastered

And dear Judy dead because

They made her a screen idol

They broke down the girl inside

They milked her for her talent

****, they took her for a ride,

For every one like Garland

There's a thousand more in line

Just waiting for their chance to see

Their name upon that sign

Keep together, Keep on moving

There's lot's more for you to see

River Phoenix from an overdose

John Belsushi killed by speed

Peg Entwhistle jumped from high atop

The Hollywood sign we see

She decided she had had enough

In either 32 or 33.

Hughes bough loads of starlets

He liked to hide them round the town

But he was always way too busy

Getting up or coming down

James Dean died in a car crash

Add his name unto the glut

And there was young Grace Kelly

It seems our Princess was a ****

Jean Harlows husband shot himself

Clara Bow liked  having fun

In fact she ******* the USC football team

And I think she might have won

Look up and see the smiles

Of the ones who reached their dream

But, many do not go unscathed

In Space they can't hear you scream!

Sal Mineo was murdered,

Then there's dear dear Natalie Wood

They're not saying  RJ done it,

But it sure does not look good

Remember the curly headed kid

Who played Buffy on tv

She ended up so full of drugs

It's a list from A to Z

Now, when stars have problems

they do reheab and they hide

Back then they never had the chance

They just committed suicide

The man of steel, George Reeves

Was found shot in the head

They're not sure who killed Superman

So they said suicide instead,

Bob Crane, our Colonel Hogan

Made **** films and did drugs

But, whle Hogan's Heroes was still on

This was swept under the rugs

We can keep on this forever

Listing failures more than gains

For to be a fallen idol

comes with alot of pain

Child stars, just brushed aside

Their names and faces lost

Their lives are but a footnote

Is their loss the final cost?

You can peek behind the curtain

The wizard's still there today

But, if you come to visit

Please don't make the choice to stay

For, the victim list keeps growing

It gets longer every year

But, for many of these fallen stars

Is there one who'll shed a tear?

It's an image on a silver screen

We love the work they do

But of each ten thousand who do try

There's only one who's dream comes true

So, watch and listen closely

For in Hollywood you'll find

A list of tragic stories

Who the movies left behind.

I can feel my lungs collapsing with every shallow breath
And I can't decide if it's the holes left behind from
cigarette smoke burns
Or the pieces of me that followed behind you

It's 10:05 and as much as I keep trying to warp the truth
the minutes tick on leaving me stranded in seconds of long lost times

Wishing from fruitless bones
Remembering could have beens that weren't
And chasing endings that never quite were within reach

And I know cigarette fills don't last
But I can ******* time running out
And my bones refuse to give away hints to weather it's a
countdown or liftoff
The essence never quite strong enough to disguise
the bitter after-taste your words left behind with me

It's 4:00 am and as smoke fills my lungs
I vaguely remember being told
the only souls awake at this time are
the lonely and the loved

Now it's been months since I was introduced to this hour but still
all I feel is nothing.

You told me pretty girls don't light their own cigarettes
but that never stopped my lungs from burning
every time you breathed my way

Leaving scars of razor sharp words never spoken
Pushed down to the hollow of my scorching throat
Thirsting for the oasis of the syllables
they were never quite within reach of quenching.

They say cigarettes curve your hunger.
And I guess they're almost right because
so far all this nasty habit has curved is
My appetite for you

Now it Hurts to realize that the attention
I mean cigarettes
You willingly offered were just cleverly disguised poison
Burning away my insecurities only to reintroduce them in misunderstood exhales of passion

All I have left to feel are my lungs gasping for every last breath
Lungs pulsing for every last breath
Lungs shrinking to accommodate every last breath
You took away from me

There is no honour where
thieves are concerned
skidaddling along Old Compton Street
pretending to be rich
striving to drink anything before lunch anything
on
the hoof
just so long as it’s over 40% proof
that’s important
or
drunk on the beach at
Playa Manzanillo
tumbling dice
touch of Midas
maybe the gold will rub off onto me
like pollen on a bee stuck to the legs
stuck to the fur
cribbage pegs
croupier blur
dealt a hand
relax with a mojito
hands clawed in the sand
cursing the might-have-beens
wishing for the might bes
chips one square out
90 degrees north
45 degrees south
the painted boats pulled up on the shoreline
Venezuelan Coastguard Launches
scouring the Windward Island monied coke lines
louche and free and slightly depraved
devil you do devil you don’t

and maybe

I should have done the dealing
instead of playing with what is dealt
career crossroad choices
casino neon
instead of
hot strand paper
Chinese lanterns many
spectral colours
remember Brazil?
‘Praia do Diabo!’
memories of London days
Oxford nights
Brooklyn JFK haze
Sao Paulo frights
chewing Samurai pizzas
watching a thunderstorm spewing rain
over Granada
on a boardwalk mozzarella sticky teeth
swordfish and octopus ink throw on
some red capsicum peppers
sliced like dragons tails
now that’s some pizza
dreams of blackjack and ***
high tail and lucky spots
working out my next move
on Isla de Margarita
remembering

what was the name of that bar
in Bayswater?

With the gambling room beneath-
old school, East Enderesque
not all are run by Chinese you know and
not that one run by Laotians from Vientiane either
no no no the other….one
and you wore that dress
covered in red sequins the one you slinked off
to the summer ball in Oriel in
the one in which
you shimmered and crossed dimensions
polymorphed through parallel branes
with legs to lick
******* to ****
later limbs akimbo
in the good old days of propitious spots and slam ships
when the moon was less lonely
and the ocean had less reservation
and me, well
I had all the luck.

Another night, another song, another legion showcase

Some friendly folk just out for fun, an acoustic disgrace.

It's little cash, but lots of fun spinning discs on weekends

I play a few and sit and watch the wanna be's and girlfriends

In between I play some songs on the old piano

It's fun to hear them sing along, and see what songs they do know

I've been doing this for twenty years, to take away the boredom

I used to tour, I was big time, in rock and rolls great whoredom

I had a hit, but only one way back in the gloaming

We never had another one, and since then I've been roaming

The song we had, it hit the charts and stayed there for a while

I hear it every now and then, and still it makes me smile

The guys and I had formed a band, way back in high school

We played a bunch of cover songs, we thought that we were so cool

We wrote a few, some pretty bad but one got attention

It wasn't great, the title was one I can't mention

Apparently another group had sung a song just like it

We had to change the words around in order to make it fit

We cut the disc, it found a niche on a country station

We were not a country band , but our song had hit the nation

"My Pretty Little City Girl" was now out on the airwaves

We'd wait and see if she survived and how the country behave

Nashville grabbed it first and ran, the song went up to twenty

In only two weeks on the air, the **** thing got played plenty

Another week, up twelve more spots..things were going great

We'd shot on up from twentieth, now we're were in eighth

Two more weeks, this was such fun...the song just kept on climbing

So we tried to write another one, and off we started rhyming

We made it up to number three, and there we sat for two weeks

We'd have a fantastic run, but there was where we would peak

We tried for years to make a go and tried to write another

But, we were done, we'd had our shot, we're back to singing covers

So, here I sit spinning discs at Legions and at fall fairs

They send us out to do our song, but, there's no one who cares

We're just a band of has beens now, of wanna be's from history

Even when you google us, there's nothing there...a mystery

You see it happened so **** fast, we only had the one song

We made the chart for two whole months, not for very **** long

Of all us five, two are gone, the rest we get together

We jam a bit, and play fall fairs, although we hate the weather

The song you know, it's in your head, and when we get to sing it

It's funny how most everyone, knows all the words and bring it

We used to play to thousands when they tried to get us started

But now we play to hundreds who weren't born when we all parted

So here I am, just spining discs and playing songs in legions

I travel all around the states, I've played in every region

But, when I play that song for them, and sing on the piano

"My pretty little city girl" is one I find that they know

I never say  I wrote it, just it's one I like to do

But, every time I play it, it sounds as if it's new

And after I go back and play requests left by my side

Like "Penny Lane", 'The Gambler" and "Magic Carpet Ride"

I play what people ask for and sometimes I give a twirl

I play an old scratched version Of "My Pretty..do dah girl"

I sit back and I smile as I watch them dance along

Not knowing that I'm sitting here, the writer of the song

I'm a one hit wonder superman, riding off into the mist

Thinking of the songs I could have wrote and all the girls I kissed

My past,it still surrounds me ....I can't imagine what I'd do

Just think about it people....what if we reached number two?

so, another night, another song, an empty legion hall

My life is full of music and yes....my life has been a ball !!!

I've got this
hate machine
inside of me.
I built it out of broken dreams
and it runs on what ifs,
could've beens,
would've beens,
and should've beens.
Its fumes
are so poignant.

you fuel it
with your lies
and your smirk
your ******* smirk.
I hate you.
What if you stuck around?
It would have been so good,
it could have been so good.
Who am I kidding,
it should've stayed a dream.

A colour bringing memories of days long passed.
Of blushes, brushes of skin, smiles and laughs.
Of almosts, could-have-beens, should-have-beens and would-have-beens,
Of staring from across the room and yearning a stare back.
A colour, warm, with flashes of scenes
That repeat themselves in dreams alone.
A colour, beautiful, though bland before
That was thought to forever be despised.
This colour, hazel, a calming storm.
This colour of your eyes.

- p. winter

The Heart-of-Promise, filled on his Wanton Day
Sorted the Journal to fix his Dates ahead
But the Noise down below would get in his Way
To record this Occasion; And the Dread
Of another Year before his License
To join the main and raucous World of the Teens
Each page A-Party; Each Chapter A-Spotting
And every Mouth speaks of Haves and Have-Beens
This is the Juice which every Child must Drink
Sour enough to turn his Locks into Stress
But the Door came A-Knocking; Mum held the Cake
Sixteen Candles he blew; And Hope came to Bless.
His Heart now strong; His Promise just fulfilled
And left his Room sweeping the Dust he killed.

I wonder where the time went,
did I spend my sixpence for three minutes of idleness,was the less of me all I could see or be?
From Another Time by John Edward Smallshaw
it never came free
never lent itself to me
I had to fight for it
put up with,
oh
let's call it ****,
but where did the time disappear,year upon year and now,
now
comes the winter of bitter regret.
I bet you have them,
the me in the men do
amen
is all we do
when we think this short life is through,
yeah?
fuckyou
I have no regrets
all bets are null,
pull up and put that in your pipe and smoke it out,my life's not about what might have beens,it means so much more to me than what I think time might see.

'From another time' is from another time and yet another rhyme and did you read that?

ambient glances
transpiring from ashes
and airborne oceans
my senses surfing
the evening glow

honeycomb lights spinning
restless with bees
and could-have-beens
and what-I-might-do-
if-you-were-downs

it is April
in every sense
of the word
incense swirls around a
strange foreshadowing

Under a stagnant sky,
Gloom out of gloom uncoiling into gloom,
The River, jaded and forlorn,
Welters and wanders wearily--wretchedly--on;
Yet in and out among the ribs
Of the old skeleton bridge, as in the piles
Of some dead lake-built city, full of skulls,
Worm-worn, rat-riddled, mouldy with memories,
Lingers to babble to a broken tune
(Once, O, the unvoiced music of my heart!)
So melancholy a soliloquy
It sounds as it might tell
The secret of the unending grief-in-grain,
The terror of Time and Change and Death,
That wastes this floating, transitory world.

What of the incantation
That forced the huddled shapes on yonder shore
To take and wear the night
Like a material majesty?
That touched the shafts of wavering fire
About this miserable welter and wash--
(River, O River of Journeys, River of Dreams!)--
Into long, shining signals from the panes
Of an enchanted pleasure-house,
Where life and life might live life lost in life
For ever and evermore?

O Death!  O Change!  O Time!
Without you, O, the insuperable eyes
Of these poor Might-Have-Beens,
These fatuous, ineffectual Yesterdays!

If I could go back
and fix it somehow
I'd start with my birth
and change everything until now
I would not have left
my seed scatered
in some furrowed brow
Would have been
more thoughtful
and less of a soue
You know the pig
I've become
Somebody STOP me
My life's on a run
Down to the place I don't want 2 B
Please STOP ME
I rant & I rave
Why do I go on this way?
Sometimes my life
Seems senseless
All caught up in
Should have beens
And could have beens
Pointless and Undefined
I ramble on
As if anyone CARES
Is this pointless?
Or will anyone care?
I've outlasted
most of my piers
BUT that dosen't change
the fact that I'm HERE

Let's cut the crap and all that sweet **** — we weren't those kind of people. We weren't made for romance and sappy poetries, weren't made for love songs, and cringey sweet nothings and gazing at the sunrise after camping out for the night on a hill. We were made to hold hands and a few almost-kisses during drinking sessions and forget about it the next day, to smoke and lie down a little bit too close to each other on rooftops and talk about depression and anxiety attacks, and deny everything in the morning. We were made for my unsaid "I miss you too's", that want to escape my lips the moment you say your drunken "I miss you's". We were made to see each other break down in between a pack of cigarettes and two bottles of local ***. We were more like two ****** up souls recognizing each other; more like two faultlines causing an earthquake and taking everything down with them, more like the first raindrops to fall apart before a thunderstorm, like two planets out of orbit crashing on each other in a brief but destructive way.

You see, maybe we're just drawn to people similar to us, and maybe, we're just drawn to each other because we're equally messed up. Maybe it was just the strong urge to save the other that borderlined to romance. But I guess being messed up wears people out, and sometimes I find myself wondering who got exhausted first. Where did the talks about "wanting to die together" go? When did the conversations about our saddest secrets cease? What stopped "Man, loving you is a disaster I won't mind being struck by," from coming? Was I too depressive and sad for you? Were my breakdowns suffocating? Did my fuckedupness stop feeling like home and started looking just plain ****** up? When did you start fading away? Why would you do that? Stupid questions.

You should know, it beats the **** out of me to say it, but I was perhaps a little bit desperate for you to stay. Perhaps I got too comfortable with your demons, I almost adopted them as mine. Perhaps the fact that you were willing to give me your ******-up all was comforting. Perhaps I was selfish, and I kinda wanted my darkness to be the only darkness you'll wanna light. Perhaps I miss you and it feels like I'm a chainsmoker on withdrawal from her cigarettes, and what ***** more is that I don't even know if I still cross your mind as that same sad girl you were happy being sad with, as that same sad girl who had always been your destination, and the very same one you apparently stopped coming to. And perhaps, thinking about all of these is *******. We weren't some modern-day knight and damsel. You weren't the guy with the beautiful blue eyes, and I'm not the girl with the blue washed denim they sing about. We were just misfits who made a mess out of the messed ups we already are, as if that isn't already enough. We were just planes thrown in the air, hoping to land, but ending up crashed and burnt. And that's how it always worked for people like us.

I was never worn out by your sadness as much as I was worn out by mine. And clearly, you were my favorite messed up, but, you're just not worth it anymore. And this — this is a just an unpoetic musing about the wrecks that we are, an impulsive attempt of detoxifying you out of my system. This — this is me, disowning your sadness; this is me disowning your demons. So let's just cut the drama and all that sweet **** — we weren't those kind of people. We were the almost-but-not-quite's, the could've-beens, and the never were's. We weren't the kind that bags the happily ever after. We weren't the kind that makes it.

All we are is everything short of lovers. All we're made for is everything short of I love you's. And this is everything short of love.

so you've now got a glass eye
that's great
it really suits you
although
can't get used to you without
the eye patch that
gave you real character it was
really sorta you
y'know
and
mine's a JD and Coke
I know I know sacrilege but hell
hell what the hell
so what
and so here's a toast to the has beens
and might of beens and
the been's that still are
long may they prosper
in vulcan peace
well not really soon may their fall come
soon may they get it over and done with
soon may they suffer then swallow their pride
in a lake of ***
hey then they can join us in Alphabet City snuck away on
East 3rd a sparrow's erratic flight
from Avenue D
and this is not a great part of town
this is not hyper-cool urban angst
this is pay dirt and delusion and a hollow heart
yodeling in the gloaming
only full of words that
don't fit
and some times the bar is full of Belgians
sometimes Nigerians
sometimes English
some stray Chinese now
and then
clutching bottles
grinning ruefully about what might be and
what hasn't been
sneering
the days are for mooching and for flitting
for wincing and for teeth gritting
the nights are for hawks like you and me
feeling free
with darkness to cut
with
old world bravado
and neon to caress
with new world glass sharp
optimism tinged with the
smarts
of a hidden knife

To think and wish what ifs...

To look to the past for what might have beens...

To gaze upon what once was and what could have come to past.....

Leaves one's heart tender and aching

Until you realize, what is

Is good and true and joyous

In its own right.

it comes alive in the night
and grows
like a bonfire
smoking dreams of
false tomorrows.
but like me, we know
tomorrow's a mystery
filled with uncertainty
and butterflies that fly
out the back of your throat
and they gloat you
fluttering their wings
with coulda beens and shoulda beens
and this is all just talking about me.

I always tell myself that
I'll slap em out the air
but by the end of the day
my hands are still clean.

This body’s falling apart.
My bones are separating at the joints, pressing into my flesh, coming through.  
My ribcage is cracking open sending splintering shards through my veins,
revealing a heart beating out of time.  
Speeding up,
sending my blood racing through my body, down to my toes, up to my head.  
Slowing down,
letting its beats reverberate through my hollow abdomen.  
My eyes float in my skull
scanning, trying to find something to focus on, sending blank images back to my brain.  
My lungs are dragging air down into them,
forcing it back up.
They expand and shrink,
compress and release.
I've forgotten the sound of my voice,
surprised as it stumbles out over the arid landscape of my tongue;
it is weak and damaged from disuse.
The space in between my bones is filled with what could have been—the fragmented fantasies desperately pieced together.  
My muscles are dry, tight, and useless.
I am full of could have beens.
Brimming with retrospect.
My skin is stretched tight,
holding back every memory of every moment wasted—forgotten only to be remembered and regretted.  My limbs are too heavy for me to support.
I am dragged down by them.
I am made immobile.
I am the sum of all these parts,
and it is not enough.

My heart has loved so many.
Ever-changing and ever lasting.
Going farther than I could ever believe.
And yet, I still get hurt and no amount of bandages,
nor thread can hold all of my pieces together.
I'm hoping that you know I still think of you and
my heart aches because I shattered yours:
something so elegant and valuable- broken.
only now do I realize that I've been wrong
right now I find that you didn't need me at all
right now I find that I needed you. More than anything. I'm
yearning for you to share some words with me again, but I know it wont happen
and rightfully so. I said I wasn't good enough, and I believed it, now more than ever. And still, I
neglected that you were telling me otherwise. That you still wanted me around.
Distance was my problem. How I longed to turn our tangled words into reality.
I still can't step onto my porch without having my mind flood full of regret.
maybe I'll stop with all of this nonsense of 'what ifs' and 'have beens' but for now it seems
impossible. I know I
still haven't met a soul as beautiful as yours or
someone who could make me feel so full with only their words.
You were that only person.
Only you could have done that. And when I drifted out of fear that you too would drift and leave me
under the sea to drown in the misery of a broken heart, you promised you
wouldn't.
I'm complicated. I'm afraid of heartbreak. I break hearts to save mine. Before anybody else can.
The pain of loneliness is truly unbearable. I know and feel how I'm going to be this way forever. If
Hell is a place on earth, I must be living it, spending
all day going over the words you had so tenderly given. So wrongfully given. I remember when
love existed between us. How palpable and real it was. How I could
list all the ways you touched my heart. The only person who meant it. The only person who ever did.
My god how I miss you.
Your title, body, notes, and
soul.
Only I could be such an idiot.
Understand, I'm so complicated. I'm so sorry. I know you're not coming back, but I never got to say, "I
love you."

You will never understand it till you're in it
Leave you stranded but you're willing  . . .

Respect is key to winning
Understanding is the key to staying
But we don't understand one another
Yet we memorized one another

You lose respect for me like it's water dripping
I lose respect for you through my sadness grievance
Of our dead could have beens

We're not winning
We're not winning

I am losing yet I stay willing
I am aching yet I stay willing
I am tired yet I stay
I am tired yet I stay

say a word and I'll say this has never been
say a word and I will give you my everything
you horrible horrible ******* ..

but just say a word and I'll stay willing