Children drugged with truthless tales . . .
Unwise men embrace their treasure;
Algorithms urge the sales
In malls devoid of merry measure.

Plastic sparkles in the air;
Automotive ads turn festive . . .
Forced good nature everywhere
Makes the shopping crowds grow restive.

Corporate greed spins altruistic
Hyping goods, suppressing Christ.
Our Yuletide is their big statistic
Oversold and underpriced.

Secular beribboned fluff:
Peace, Goodwill . . .  but don't say God !
And heaven knows you've had enough;
Just download the app—acquire the mod.

Coca-Colaed, Disneyfied
You're wrapping paper for their fire;
Eggnogged, Santa-ed, thrown aside
While Babel's flames roar ever higher.

The godlessness shines right on through
Where Christmas lyrics die, unheard.
The Yule-log and the sparks that flew
Expire in embers long unstirred.

The old usurper carting toys
And Chinese knock-offs in his sled
Sets off a lot of empty noise:
Insanity in green and red.

The lurker leers and hauls his bag
(jolly antichrist distraction)
While flying Bishop Nicholas' flag:
A winter psy-ops covert action.

Only message left: go drink!
And may your cup o'erflow with cheer
Before you risk to start to think
Yourself and God right out of here.

Hallmark haloes, bygone kitsch
enwreaths the memory of the years,
Kindling maudlin sadness which
wells up in melancholy tears

For Christian culture (rest in peace)
Long-corrupted by dollar signs;
For fa la la and fattened geese
And holly midst the ivy vines;

For Dickens' gospel of the season
Anglican angelic ghosts
Pushing us beyond unreason
Toward the future's spectral hosts;

For folklore now reduced to ash
Commercial blow-outs, ***** snow;
For Saturnalian urge to smash
the store-front windows where they show;

For useless manger figurines
Passed down from some more faithful time;
For hallowed and nostalgic scenes
No longer worth a Roman dime.

Daniel, Peter, George and I sat in various stages of drunkenness.  Dee was sober and on the water. It was our annual dinner, the great catch-up, and most of us were drinking champagne. A great bouquet of peach roses sat in the middle of the table dropping petals by the hour.
“She’s got ginger hair.” Peter laughed.
“It’s more auburn.” George defended, pouring himself another drink.
“No.” Said Peter. “She’s ******* ginger.”
Daniel leant back in his chair with his arms behind his head, wearing his face of perpetual amusement.
“Dan. Come on, now. What colour is Melanie’s hair?”
“Oh…I don’t know.” Dan smiled. “A sort of strawberry blonde.”
Peter punched George on the shoulder."See! She’s ******* ginger!”
Boys will always jostle to be top dog. Daniel was the alpha and Peter resented it, but Daniel was everything that Peter would never be: good-natured, strong, calm, in control. Peter was loud and insulting, a bit of a bully but sort of sad with it, prone to fits of melancholy and drunkenness. We all had our role to play. George was fey and funny and got offended easily. I was the madman who did the things they didn’t dare.  The dynamic worked, most of the time.
Dee was quiet and an ‘outsider’, so he didn’t count. He sat with his glass of tonic water which was packed with slowly cracking ice, and he stuck to his usual routine : no food, no alcohol, no cigarettes, no smiling, no chit chat. Any time I laughed or told a joke, his silence would shame me. He reminded me of how desperate I was to fit in, to be one of the boys. He always shamed me just by sitting there, by not joining in, by being so ******* above it all, by being so himself.
“So, what exactly are you doing these days, Art?” Peter asked.
“Teaching. You know that.”
“Yeah but…why? Do they even allow mental patients around kids?”
Daniel leaned forwards in his chair and glanced at me, checking for discomfort.
“God.” I sighed. “******* Peter.”
“And what do you do?” Peter asked, looking at Dee. Dee took a long while to answer, focusing his eyes and adjusting his posture.
“PhD. Physics.”
“Sounds boring.”
“He’s mathematically gifted.” I said proudly.
Peter smiled with one side of his mouth.
“If someone gave me the gift of maths I’d return it and buy a calculator.”
Everyone laughed, including me. Dee started to fold his napkin, and then he unfolded it. Then he folded it again.
“Do you love maths, then?” George asked.
Dee pushed the napkin into his lap and shrugged.
“There’s something wrong with you if you love maths.” George said. “Maths is *******.”
“Do you want another tonic?” I asked Dee, putting my hand on his knee. He pushed it off with force.
“No. In fact - I think I want to go home.”
“Don’t go home!” Daniel said. “Please Dee, stay a while.”
“No, I really think I ought to go home now.”
“Hey.” I grabbed his knee again. “Come on.”
“No.” he stood up, the candlelight winking wildly in the silk wrinkles of his shirt. “I really want to leave.”
“The evening’s just getting started.” Peter said.
“The evening is not the problem.” Dee said quietly. “The problem is you.” He closed his eyes. “The problem is you.”
I felt my skin shrink. Dee stood up to his full height and exhaled.
“In fact, the problem is all of you. You’re all awful human beings. All of you. Awful, awful, awful.” His eyes sparkled as he warmed to his theme. “And you’re all so ******* boring!”
Peter and George were speechless. Daniel leant back and laughed beneath praying hands.
“Yes, you’re bores! You’re such ******* bores! Even the waiter is bored! Even the flowers are bored!”
“Dee, love.” I stood up and grabbed his shoulder. I was quite drunk.
“No Arthur, I’m going home, I’m tired. I’ll get a cab, you stay here with your awful, awful, awful, awful bores.”
He stomped off and Daniel blinked at me, his eyes wrinkled and drunk.
“Go on Art, go home. It’s ok.”
“God, Arthur.” Peter said. “What a lunatic. There’s something seriously wrong with him.”
“Oh *******, Pete.” I snapped, for the second time that night.
“Take this.” Dan said, thrusting his bottle of champagne at me. “I don’t want it. Go on, run and catch him. Go and get drunk with him.”
“No use. He doesn’t drink, remember?” I said, putting on my coat.
“Drink some water with him then. Tell him…” Dan grabbed my head and whispered into my ear, “…tell him that he’s right, that we are ******* bores.” He burst out laughing and sank down into his seat, watching me do up my buttons. “Oh my God!” he laughed, grabbing my hand like he was about to kiss it. “We’re so boring! We’re so ******* boring! Look at us! Even I’m bored!”
Daniel winked at me, still laughing. Daniel was one of Dee’s greatest defenders, and he admired Dee because Dee was honest, because he could not fail to be honest, and because Daniel loved the people that I loved, and I loved Dee most of all.
I grabbed the roses from their vase, just in case I needed them. They were wet, and dying, and they had no smell.
I caught up with Dee outside Angel In The Fields. He complained that he had a headache and told me he wanted to go home. He told me that he couldn’t have stayed one second longer.
He took the flowers from me, and buried his face in them until I hailed a cab.
Flowers were a running theme with us. Flowers in buttonholes, wisteria in gardens. Roses in his face. Buttercups in the grass. So terrible, when I think about it now. Perhaps someone was trying to tell me:
Arthur -  this story will start and end with flowers.

Dee had a habit of ruining social occasions. Perhaps the stress got to him, the terror of communicating, the fear of conversation. He became easily overtired and quickly over stimulated, if a conversation was getting too personal or staying at chit-chat level, he would begin to stress and flounder. If someone annoyed him he could not pretend to like them – he had to let them know that they were ****** or boring or dumb. He didn’t fully comprehend how offensive he could be. He didn’t understand that in order to maintain peace, you must suppress yourself a little bit, tailor yourself to fit the rest. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in suppressing himself, it’s that he simply couldn’t do it.
Most of all, he hated people taking up my attention, whether they were talking to me, amusing me, or even hurting me – he made it very obvious that he did not like to share.
Once, he emptied an entire bottle of red wine into a young woman’s handbag because she had been talking to me all night. He placed broken bottles in front of his mother’s car tires. He sent anonymous emails to my father, threatening disembowelment.  He beheaded ivory chess pieces, snipped the heads off anniversary roses, kicked people's shins under tables.
And he had the worst temper I had ever known.
When people didn’t understand where he was coming from, when he felt isolated and flustered by his own emotional poverty, he would begin to fragment. He would rock back and forth and moan. His voice would change, his face would change, and his anger would be frightening in its desperation, he would tear at his own clothes and hurl himself into walls. A few times I had to physically restrain him, pulling his sweater or shirt over his head to trap his arms, sitting on him, trying to calm him down.
But I could always deal with it, the crazy stuff – it didn’t bother me at all. The rage, the disconnect, the alienation. I knew what it was like to lose control. I knew what it was like to feel different. I used to say to him, “I was with Dee today and I seen hell in his face, Guv’nor. It was all red and blotchy looking.” And then, sometimes, he’d smile.
It was the eating thing that devastated me. It was the eating thing that made me feel useless. That was the one thing that I didn’t understand.

We took a cab from Angel In The Fields and went back to no.23. He went straight upstairs to get undressed, and took a pair of new cashmere socks out of their little beribboned box.
“It’s too warm for cashmere.” I said. He didn’t listen, and put them on anyway.
Dee had never had much of a *** drive, so I knew I was pushing my luck by kissing him – we had made love the night before. He kept his mouth closed and pushed me away.
“No, I don’t want to."
He picked the fluff from his black velvet computer chair.
“I’m not cross.” I said.
“Cross?”
“About…tonight. With the boys.”
“Oh. Ok.”
I went to kiss him again. God, I loved it when he bent his head back and his tongue met mine, his arms relaxing at the elbows, his limpet legs clamping around my own. But his mouth pursed up at me. No entry tonight, sorry.
“Goodnight, then.” I said. “I’m going to bed.”
Something cruel took over me as I opened the door to leave.
“Y’know, Dee – sometimes I think you really hate me.”
He looked at the wall behind me, scrunching his face up, wound up and stuck.
“Forget it.” I said. “Just ******* forget it.”
As I closed the door I heard an animal noise, a miserable animal noise.

Dee was the only thing that had ever made any sense to me. I had no real connection to my parents, I loved my mother but she was silent and neurotic, full of nervous energy that set me on edge. I never felt like I could fully confide in her. I hated my father because he had never loved me, and he had told me so. The only people I loved, my grandparents and my sister, were far away and mostly busy, unavailable, and I caught up with them through letters and telephone calls and occasional rushed visits - holidays, weekends away from school, time away from parents and *******.
I once walked to my grandparent’s house after running away from school, and I fought through a cage of conifers just to ring their bell, turning up at their door wild-eyed and full of pine needles.
I always fought to be with the people that I loved. I fought and fought and fought.
I loved Dee because he was mine and he was never too busy for me. He was as quiet as my mother, as vengeful as my father, but he was mine and I loved him, and he loved me back.
Perhaps that sounds very naïve. But it wasn’t naïve. My love was grown up, full of sacrifice and sleepless nights and heavy talks that left me exhausted. I searched for him when he wasn’t there, I talked to his mother about his health, I took his blood pressure, I poured his fortisip, I calmed him down, I made him laugh and I loved him, ******* hell I loved him, and I watched him like a God and reached out for him in the morning because he reminded me that I was alive, because he made my realness real, because he was my cold fire and he burned by the side of me, coldly, to balance out the crazed orange bonfire of me.

He followed me to bed soon afterwards, brushing his teeth and taking off his clothes, sitting down next to me.
“I hung up my blue.” He said. “Could you fetch it for me?”
His ‘blue’ was an oversized shirt that he slept in sometimes. He put it over his head and it fell around him.
“You know.” He said, “Sometimes I think that you hate me.”
“Please tell me you’re joking.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
He got in next to me.
“I don’t hate you, not now, not ever.”
“I’m not one of your friends, though. If you had to choose a friend, you wouldn’t choose me.”
I didn’t reply, because I didn’t understand what he meant.
“Daniel is your best friend, isn’t he? But you’re my best friend. What happens when I have to talk about something, something that I can’t talk to you about? I don’t have any friends because I don't like anyone else. So who am I supposed to talk to?”
“Me! You can talk to me! I tell you everything.”
“Well, what if I wanted to do something, but I knew that you would try to stop me from doing it?”
“I wouldn’t stop you from doing anything you wanted to do. Not ever.”
“Forget it. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Please Dee, you can’t just start a conversation and then abandon it.”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore, I’m tired and I want to go to sleep.”
“What is it? Come on, please. What is it?”
He turned away and curled up.  I stayed with my head against the headboard, looking down at him.
‘I love you.” He said, without moving. “I thought I should tell you. I thought you should know.”
“I love you, too.”
And then he went to sleep, leaving me to the house sounds, the clanging inside the walls, the discordant duet of two sets of breathing and the occasional cough.

When I woke up, he was in the shower. His socks were bunched up at the edge of the bed, shrugged off in the night.
Like I said. It was too ******* hot for cashmere.

Some once called him a Grand Old Man,
Others called him a slime,
You couldn’t get a consensus that
Was even, all the time,
For some kow-towed to his money, while
Others fell by his sword,
His life was overall sunny, while
His victims quailed at his word.

He lorded it over his children,
He ruled their kids with ease,
A sullen look from beneath his brow
Would bring them to their knees,
His will was forever changing
As solicitors came and went,
One day he’d offer a mansion,
And another day, a tent.

When he finally died he was stony broke
And they wondered where it went,
He’d always been abstemious
But the money had been spent.
He left all their lives in ruins with
Their expectations gone,
A couple of ramshackle houses were
The only things they won.

There wasn’t the money to bury him
So they left him where he sat,
Up at the head of the table in
His black, beribboned hat,
He glared at them as he’d glared in life
One hand on the table-top,
Where he used to tap with his finger
As if it would never stop.

Tap-tap-tap on the table-top,
Tap-tap-tap it went,
His eyes bored into the back of your head
As if to say - Repent!
And people scurried, this way and that
To divine what the tartar meant,
The grim old man in his black top hat
Who ruled to their detriment.

They left him sat and they locked the door
Didn’t go back for a year,
Til the eldest, saying ‘let’s know for sure,’
Returned with a tinge of fear.
‘He might have stocks in his waistband there
Or shares hid under his shirt,
Or cash stuffed in his beribboned hat -
He treated us all like dirt!’

He ventured into the dining room
Where the grim old man still sat,
His eyes a-glare in the year long gloom
From under the brim of his hat.
But as the eldest approached him there
The finger began to tap,
A steady rap with a note of doom
That would curdle blood to sap.

So Toby dived to the tinder box
And he leapt up with the axe,
His face as pale as a ghostly tale
But determined to attack.
He raised the axe and he let it fall
Severed the finger there,
It skittered across the table top
As the old man fell from his chair.

The stocks were stuffed in the old man’s hat
The shares were stuffed in his sleeve,
And so much cash in his waistband that
They said, you wouldn’t believe.
But still he’s locked in that grey old house
For they found it wouldn’t stop,
That severed finger that skittered there
Still taps on the table-top!

David Lewis Paget

I can say definitively
and without reservation
that I once had more to say
and once I said it well

The taste of the words
of the children in flux
the ex-children
the children in recovery
leaves an aftertaste of
sweetness I can mimic
but cannot make my own
though I know I have
the recipe

somewhere

Their words tumble
like dusty pebbles racing
downhill rebellious
ebullient and unruly
avalanches to ants
while mine drag
the feet of their tiny
y's and g's
p's and q's
like rainy-day-slogged
future people
wending their way through
weeds and reeds of
bullies and written responses

The taste of the words
of the newly-minted
suddenly people
with centuries-old ideas
cellophane gift-wrapped for their
     daily birthdays
beribboned and bowed for
kindergarten picture day
leaves a memory of
butterscotch and peppermint I can imagine still
but cannot make my own
though I know I have
the recipe

somewhere

Our garden's masterpiece,
Fairies in each fleur-de-lis,
Blossoms of gauzy glory,
Perennial veils of fairy stories,
Beribboned spangled treasury,
Fairies flitting so flowery,
Our queen of ruby roses,
Posies for all, one supposes,
Flowerets the best cuddle,
Essence of Spring, residual,
There are fairies in the flowers in the garden,
One ruby rose--then a garland!

on belatedly hearing of an old friend's death*

A simple 18-year-old
Pennsylvania kid.

He volunteered
to lead a patrol
down a heavily
mined road.

Gifts were exchanged.

He gave them
half a left leg
and a whole
right foot.

They gave him a
shining silver star
in a beribboned box.

A few moments
of congratulations
before whiskey, drugs
and homelessness ensued.

The hero's life.

Now he is dead,
the medal long pawned.

Life can be merciless
even for the brave.

No part of this story
means anything.

  ~mce

For as the curtain rises,
So too the curtain falls,
No accolades, no entourage,
No 'Brava!', no applause.

An unrehearsed performance,
By a monodramatist,
A solo show, a pantomime,
An improvised burlesque.

Critics stand in groups debating,
The value of my work,
They gossip in the aisles,
The playhouse now a kirk.

My eulogy their invention,
My obituary the prize,
The best review I've ever had,
A mix of humour and soft lies.

I have played the loving daughter,
The honest aunt *****,
The independent sister,
The true and loyal friend.

The sympathetic neighbour,
I have played the errant niece,
The mentor, guide, and confidant,
The ***** and the tease.

In truth, I am a diva,
Living mostly in her head,
But this remains unmentioned,
In a tribute to the dead.

Once rose bouquets beribboned,
From the greatest and the good,
Now a solitary arrangement,
On a coffin made of wood.

For as the curtain rises,
So too the curtain falls,
No accolades, no entourage,
No garlands, no applause.

But wait, I see my error,
As indeed these things exist,
But not for me to comment on,
Nor as I would have wished.

For my aspect is fair frozen,
I cannot turn the page,
My performance has now ended,
And I have left the stage.

As they grew older they grew further away
Withholding their love
Remote, with apparently little to say
No words, no tears, no kind of stuff
Falling from their distant lives
Living with new thoughts, lovers, wives.
A troupe of sons, gambling with time!

Alexander was a rotten son of a brilliant father
Misled by a mother’s lies
Into an oedipal outrage. Spurred to violence, rather
Then be a man he became a legend, pursued by biting flies.
Betrayal often leads to success,
The betrayer a psychological mess.

The love of a child evaporates
Evident in the lives of kings
The urge for power saturates
Ignores duty, gratitude, those kind of things.
But hell! So what?
We once, objects of their beaming infant smiles, received such a lot.

OK, Richard the First left his father to die alone,
John ripped the money from the dead man’s purse,
They then fought each other for the throne
Making a family feud undeniably worse.
Throughout history, the mothers taking new ambitious lovers
Caused greater angst amongst whole generations of brothers.

Families are rarely friends: brother fights brother
Sister quarrels with sister, battling incessantly,
Despising each carefully chosen lover
Examining each other critically.
The success of one initiates gloom,
A show of brilliance, a thunderous rain-wrenched boom.
  
Compared to great and legendary figures
Our problems are played out beneath a dimmer light
We drown our thoughts with liquor
Squabble like screeching bats in the night
No grabbing of swords, fastening of armour, beribboned horses
Our mundane arguments have tiny causes.

I see ladies of a certain age
jump out at me,
breaking through sidewalks
with their floppy handbags
and floral dresses,
a gaggle of clowns
enjoying a last laugh,
giggling like girls
on a long-ago prom night.

Suddenly I'm charmed
by the vision
of a lovely young woman
greeting a tall man.
He hands her white orchids
and a beribboned box of candy.
The man does not see her
wink at me
as his massive arms encircle her
and the sidewalks open up again,
swallowing us up in seconds
while our aged revelers flee
in adolescent revolt.

He's needed someone to understand him;
I’ve only been trying to fix him.
—Erin Celello, 2013

I don’t know what will happen tomorrow,
or even today.  And I’m okay with that.
—James DeVita, 2017


I speak the screeching dialect of remembrance.
And I hear the bursting of bullets,
I smell the fetid stench of ***** blood drying.
My life is a toss-up, a takeaway.

Trauma is, for some, a set of limbs broken
Into scores of pieces and unable to heal.
Thanks be to the great healer for prosthetic
Devices and physical therapy.

For me, trauma is bits of brain, hiding in the
Cerebellum, which cannot speak to me, and
When they do, they are rusted out, and they
Speak to a different drummer.

There is no present, no past, just crumbs
Which lead and follow me, like Sisyphus,
One step forward, two steps back, and
There is no greener grass elsewhere.

I dream the fantasies of a decorated man,
Beribboned and exalted, his thunder claps
Echoing throughout the ward in which he
Sleeps, bottles of pills to guard him.

Such is the world of anxiety, odd breaks to
Touch my loved one, her backstory, as vivid
As mine, is dying on the vine, our fable one
Perverted portrayal of destiny.

We speak the language of a student trying
Out his gap year to avoid the stress of being
Grown up, when the passage of time grants
No favors or refreshment.

Is this act two of my life, and did I skip the
Prologue?  I experience now only daily
Hiccups of fear and loss, and she is trying
To love a touchstone.

I live in multiple dwelling-places, homes, yes,
Some in foreign lands, some upstate local,
Some in safety nets swollen by well-wishers
And methods.

I try to fly away, to invent my own environs,
To stretch out on a cloud or bury my toes
In sand, but to no avail because I keep seeing
My home base, and I must learn to stay.

Sun starts to shine on my tangled world as
An old barn becomes new to me, and a dog,
My service companion, comes to rescue me
From the fields of war.

Leave it to children and four-legged critters
To balance the equation of stress and trauma,
To equal the benefits of modern pharmacy’s
Stratified cocktails.

The canine tongue and wagging tail know
Only love and never ask to be rewarded but
By the same gratitude they give me, a star
Performer of the simplicity agenda.

I close my eyes and imagine a mystical figure
Playing an anthology of applause- generating
Encores, to which I whisper thank-you’s and
Promise to be loyal and true.

You can see a portrait of us: me, my spouse,
My dog, the townsfolk and friends, the
Children and the visiting vets, my comrades,
By glancing at the smiles on the horizon.

It’s a new deployment, unfettered by rules or
Metered regimen, by missions and bombs.
I have good days and bad, but we greet every
New day with confidence.


©   Lewis Bosworth, 4/2017

Our Science Film

Autumn colors leave me
Pining for black and white
Grammar school reel to reel
Science films snaking through
Rackety Cold War projectors
Chalk motes swarming
Cones of gibbering light
Can-do voice-overs
Always a hiccup off
Read by radio men
Sporting pale miens
Pie plate headphones
Brylcreem slick
Perhaps a Scholastic
Short featuring winsome
Child actors playing
You and me
Button noses
Wrinkled in stricken
Joy at a baby bunny
Wide eyed and stock still
In an apple crate
Beneath an apple tree
Leaves schooling in binary
Shimmer on the summer
Breeze blowing through our film
An introduction to photosynthesis
Or the metamorphosis of caterpillars
It matters little to you
Beribboned in gingham
Or me flying flapping
Dungarees
Platinum hair
Whipping our faces
Sky a china white
Behind ivory billows
Framed forever
Dimpled and laughing
Milkweed exploding
From our fingers like secrets
Shared in alabaster
Sign language.

Because nothing says democracy more
                        Than sending off the daughters of the poor
                        To die for Raytheon and General Dynamics

And for the President, whose manly sons
Shoot animals dead with their great big guns

But when the the bullets, bombs, and shells are raining
Those brave lads won’t be found in basic training

Since when it comes to the generals’ slaughter
They’ll send to her death your little daughter

And when the generalissimos yell “Go!”
Our Merovingian Congress won’t say “No”

They fight the wars with perks and private jets
As do their beribboned flag-rank house pets

And so our daughters are the harvest yield
That must forever rot in some foreign field 1

As for our leaders’ daughters, don’t be so hard -
Someone’s got to sun-bathe in Harvard Yard







1 cf. “The Soldier,” Rupert Brooke

imagining absurd decorum trying to sit side-saddle
in a drawing room, hoping to attain some sense
of grace, whilst miserably uncomfortable, makes me want
liberation for all of such corseted beribboned ladies

let them run, in fields of gold, let them hear Sting singing
siren song to come away, loosen your stays, and follow
only this life, none other, throw down your needle-point,
cast from you the good book, and let limbs run wild

roll me in heather, under bridges, come to sky
in fields where the plow-man knows me well
tis a fair morning to a wonderful new day
come away, he smiles, my girl, come away

shall we n'er meet again, will have my plow-man
he shall have me, and the wanting comes in waves

Tree mend us sappy weird
human interest stories rarely appeared
back in the day online, whereas
    at present (the toasted,
digitally papered, and lacquered
drab heron nah owl pablum),
     not spared, but repeated,
     a bajillion times showcased

finds me clicking past beard
did and bared naked ladies
     (and/or men), paired
with nauseatingly, predictably,
     and repeatedly, those
     bland posts, veered
as popular cult
     chore, which someone

     deemed apropos as
     pulp yule har audience -
this main poetic thread spun
     repeatedly woven into infrared
weave as the warp and weave,
     (these vapid) re:hash tagged,
      intruded, interfered,
     and invaded celebrities,

     and/or ordinary folks privacy
     yawping (usually bacon
     stripped clean away
     with specific prime information
     such as dates, names, and
     times of tragicomic event),
     which dramatic mysteries,
     finds me laughably,

     insignificantly, and feebly scared
to the bones with suspense,
     at present, these
     days of our lives
     showering unthinking viewers
     (watching "FAKE" dark shadows
     from the edge of night
     as the world turns) with

     exposes (x pose hays),
     where particularly young kids
     get reared, nursed, and juiced
with whodunit crime
     (candle lee boxed and beribboned
     just in tim bur for the holidays)
     staid insipid blurbs get overly aired
at least on America Online,

this above contrasted and compared
to he/she whomever chaired
helm at formerly mentioned
     once upon a time (wonderful
     Internet Service Provider
     exceptionally renown -
     me own acronym
     WHISPER down the ally

     long ague mooch mo' CRISPR)
     cyber sea internet
     provider years ago,
     than many similar competing
     companies to access
     electronic details, cuz
     (I subscribed to AOL for
     many years), thence declared

tummy, (yours truly i.e. me)
     ranked as topnotch significant
     venerated news coverage geared
to concerned citizens such
     as this scribe, (many years ago),
     at present receive less high marks
     given so these days,
     despite decades long patronage

     (from this long gush haired
poor lee aging leaden
     pencil necked geek),
     who vaguely recalls
     greater in depth coverage
     concerning vital headlines
     well prepared on the homepage,
     which whomever (at that time)

     selected "stories" dared
to acknowledge a gamut of
     critical global events
     incorporating controversial
     themes paired
with lighter fare (for web surfers
     less interested in socio-
     political, national, environmental,

     et cetera coverage),
     said Internet Provider
     broadcast more roundly squared
information versus, the present

     eagle lit tarry rhea
     hen superficial twittering,
     which electronic webpage
designers believe more important.

My good girl.

Shining brown hair with a hint of chestnut
Straight and silky and a sharp cut fringe
Sometimes in black beribboned plaits
Or two bunches showing your ears.
An elfin face cupped in my hands
Slenderly graceful you are still
You are my good girl.

Embracing life joyfully, you smiled
Through days of schoolwork
Touching the world with sunshine
Making all seem bright and clear,
Loving daughter, my first of three
You came to start our family
This is my good girl.

And yet you are many things
Other than my good girl.
You mind an encyclopaedia of answers,
Your heart a lover of nature,
A social activists,
You crochet beautiful blankets
Teach and make ceramic pots
And love to curl up with a book.

Love and thank you My Katie .
From Mum ***

After experiencing a severe,
albeit violent near lethal bout
of irritable bowel syndrome
(yesterday night August 30th, 2023)
triggered courtesy dulcolax caplets plus
healthy portion of lentils,
I (a beatle browed, foo fighting,
night ranger needing nirvana)
imperiled me to twist and shout
as a whirling dervish analogous
to F5 tornado bread a deep purple
to kiss earth, wind and fire
hopscotching across terrestrial plain.

Irritable bowel syndrome
in my pinion wracked
lower abdominal area (mine)
bubbled, gurgled and ballooned
sub stomach gastrointestinal tract
vis a vis flatulence crooned
in tandem with subsequent expulsion
explosively eliminated ***** waste
witnessed this scribe forcibly
zipping, sprinting, jetting to bathroom,

self propulsion (a race against time)
nsync with contraction of sphincter muscles'
spasmodically, desperately braced
body electric of mine hurled
at light speed across the universe
courtesy unpleasant symptoms
that mimicked anxiety/ panic attack,
which tortuousness, odorousness, insidiousness,
horrendousness, gaseousness, arduousness...
played mean game of (gastrointestinal
knick knack paddywhack havoc.

Ofttimes in the past
irritable bowel syndrome
affrighted, afflicted, and affected me,
hence yours truly no stranger
to making light of offal plight
and even managing to craft poem
else my alias not mister rhyme stir,
who found himself held hostage
self barricaded in the water closet,
where thoughts about mooning

did not crack a smile,
more explicitly baring derriere
tubby more exact
humor did little to cheer me up -
matter of fact
no source of laughter manifested,
(despite usual presence of chuckles
from this fan of good humor) hijacked
for what seemed a maternity leave
from all mothers tub be

thus envision, a bevy of pregnant gals
aching with cramps heave
ving (times square of the hippopotamus)
with ****** fully dilated key
ping alert, when mother nature ready
to pull out all stops (via umbilical cord)
to deliver bundle of joy followed
in quick succession with after birth re:
placental sack, hence
said effort to expel newborn

the closest scenario
experienced ill suited
to Saint Vitus dance
afflicting this anxiety prone
lovely bones, an all expense
paid (seat of the pants)
accursed bane of proletariat grants
no truce to attend
found me pampered doubled over stance.

Modus operandi to distract
against acute pain crisis
yielded impossible mission
exhibited courtesy haphazard poem  
awaiting unsolicited feedback
across rock of ages woke
beguiling ghostly ***** spectre
courtesy Marie-Antoinette,
(i.e. bride of France's arty choke
King Louis XVI) bespoke

let him eat cake, and (sic)
send back the ****** bloke,
aye suddenly begot idea rye
Jack Corner of zee desk
didst impale and provoke
moderately painful injury
right side rib cage
analogous to intriguing
unfortunate circumstance
mysterious secret shrouded

as dagger and cloak
(think Alfred E. Neuman,
viz MAD Magazine), yes no joke
lovely bones of me body electric,
(particularly right side rib cage)
severely traumatized, nailed, injured...
crucified oft told umteen times,
yet omitting key mirrors and smoke,
significant Dorian Gray parallel,
when former antique,

viz secrétaire looking glass reflection,
spider hairline fractures radiated
resembled bay of pigs in a poke
ham handedly oinked,
quaked, shattered... broke
into bajillion pieces
deafening, exploding,
glowering thunder stroke
jagged shrapnel size shards
unleashed cosmic force
lacerated, gnashed, beribboned...

impeaching flesh with
one engulfed masterstroke,
no rhyme nor reason aiming to choke
off promising poet (ha) of corpse
resembling scrambled egg yolk
posthumous fame besmoke
salvaged mine besmirched reputation
courtesy humble cartoon character
bugs bunny and kinfolk spoke
daffy fully goofily
eulogizing humor did evoke.