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Which takes us on a direct path to:
THE  INCIDENT.
Say you are a normal man—whatever that means—
But say it’s late June of 1993 and you’re laying on the couch,
Scratching your *****, trying to intuit your LDL level
Based on the two bowls of the Old Lady’s Cholesterol Chowder.
The Old Lady-- you can call her Peg or Mrs. Bundy—
Served it up in her special legacy china,
An assortment of recycled tin foil casserole dishes &
Vintage melmac handed down by your mother-in-law.
You are on the couch giving digestion your best shot,
Still scratching your agates when Peg comes
In from the kitchen with your second glass of
Two-buck chuck and a smoking fatty she’s just ignited,
Miraculously without burning the house down.
The TV is on—the TV is always on because
The TV has had no off button since 1984
You are tuned to the CNN evening news &
A report comes on that makes you sit up,
Snap to attention, straight up and take notice:
"WOMAN CUTS OFF HUSBAND'S *****!"
The media shrikes in Atlanta have your attention now,
Your complete attention;
Your eyes are riveted to the telescreen &
Your blood pressure spiking at 240 over 140.
During the previous night of June 23, 1993,
John Wayne Bobbitt arrives at the
Couple's apartment in Manassas, Virginia,
Highly intoxicated after a night of partying.
According to testimony given by Lorena Bobbitt
In a 1994 court hearing, he then rapes her.
Afterwards, Lorena Bobbitt gets out of bed,
Goes to the kitchen for a drink of water.
According to a journal article in the
National Women's Justice & Defense
League of Psychotic Castrating *******,
While in the kitchen she notices,
A carving knife on the counter & "memories of
Past domestic abuse races through her head."
Grabbing the knife, Lorena Bobbitt enters the bedroom
Where John is sleeping & proceeds to
Cut off nearly half his *****,
Half his Johnson,
In this instance aptly named.
So you have some schnook who’s named
After the iconic Hollywood superstar John Wayne . . .
Now understand something, John Wayne—
The ******* Duke of Earl--
Personifies everything alpha male:
Physique, animal magnetism & a pair of
Huge ***** swinging in his chaps as
He sashays across the screen.
In real life he’s a bullfight & cigar aficionado,
A big game hunter and sport fisherman, &
A hard drinking Hemingway hero
Who spends most of his time aboard
A customized WWII U.S. mine sweeper
******* to a pier behind his house in
Newport Harbor, California.
He’s the proverbial man’s man, &
There’s no one like him in America
Until maybe Eastwood or Willis comes along.
There’s a statue of him out in front of
The Orange County Airport that bears his name.
I have a photograph of him hanging in my garage
Next to a Mad-Dog 20-20 poster.
But I digress.
We return to the Bobbitt story because
It gets better, keeps getting crazier.
After assaulting her husband,
Lorena leaves the apartment with the severed *****,
Drives around aimlessly for a short while,
Then rolls down the car window &
Throws the ***** into a field.
Only then does the loony ***** realize
The severity of the incident.
She stops and calls 911.
After an exhaustive search by
Volunteers from the local Humane Society,
The ***** is located, packed in the ice-slurry of
A banana-flavored 7/11 Slurpee, &
Taken to the hospital where half-**** John Bobbitt
Gets a short-arm inspection and treated,
Mostly for shock and awe.
His ***** is later reattached by Drs. James T. Sehn &
David Berman during a nine-and-a-half-hour surgery
Filmed by Ken Burns and broadcast in its entirety by
WGBH Boston, a stunning illustration of
Your tax dollars hard at work
At the National Endowment for the Arts.
An abridged version later becomes the season premier of
"Girls Gone ******* ******, Manassas!"
Lorena goes on Oprah to explain herself.

Lorena Bobbitt ((née Gallo) was born in Ecuador.
Her maiden name, ironically,
Means **** in English.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Phoenix had this to say:
“Deport the *****. She may have an INS green card
But there’s no way she had a government permit to
Go around lopping ***** off in Virginia or any other state.
Who does she think she is, Janet Napolitano?”
Napolitano could not be reached for comment.
Shortly after the incident, episodes of "Bobbittmania,"
Or copycat crimes, were reported.
The name Lorena Bobbitt eventually became
Synonymous with ***** removal.
The terms "Bobbitt Punishment" and "Bobbitt Procedure" gained
Social cache with a radical break-away sect of N.O.W.
COPYCAT Catherine Kieu Becker, 48 (Garden Grove P.D.)  
Woman Accused of Cutting Off Husband's *****
Pleads Not Guilty/ VIDEO: Watch Jennifer Gould's Report
KTLA News   10:40 a.m. PST, February 3, 2012 /SANTA ANA, Calif.
"A 48-year-old woman accused of cutting off
Her husband's ***** and putting it
In the garbage disposal has pleaded
Not guilty to all the charges against her.
Catherine Kieu, of Garden Grove,
Was indicted earlier this month on
One felony count of torture &
One felony count of aggravated mayhem.
She also faces a sentencing enhancement for
Practicing surgical medicine without a license."
Sign up for KTLA 5 Breaking News Email Alerts
Comments (130) Add / View comments | Discussion FAQ
Happy627 at 10:35 PM January 18, 2012
"So my x-wife is a violent drunken *****?
Never once did I ever think of hurting her
But now I see I was wrong.
Vengeance's is the true answer & payback is hell.
So basically I should put an M-40
In her *** and light the fuse.
I should be acquitted from any wrong doing
Because she was a violent drunken *****.
Maybe all men should do this to their
Violent wives/girlfriends & teach them a lesson.
Cyanmanta at 1:10 AM January 11, 2012
In response to Doreen Meyer:
"So you're assuming that because he was the victim
He must have done something to deserve it
In some small way?
Typical of convenient feminism:
Assume all female victims are innocent &
Pure as driven snow,
While dismissing all male victims
With the idea that 'he had it coming.'
I wish I could pander shamelessly
To the media for preferential treatment,
But sadly, I am male (or as feminists would say)
The Evil Gender."
Westfield at 5:47 PM Jan.09, 2012
She should get her own show on the ***** channel.
(Bravo). KABC radio's John Phillips & his girlfriend
Nathan Baker would love to watch it."
Sluff it off, take a load off, baby.
Take a load off?
“Take a load off Annie,
Take a load for free;
Take a load off Annie, and
Bom bom bom bom
Bom be bom— & Dddddddddd,
You can put the load right on me.”
Send “The Weight” Ringtone to Your Cell

. . . Snipped, fixed, neutered, gelded,
Emasculated, eunuchized, or castrated?
(Castrating Forceps  (www.alibaba.com/
Showroom/castration-tool.html).
Bobbittized!
David Ehrgott Feb 2016
I remembered today
in and around 1968
My stepfather
found me work
at the age of ten
For the mob's
Big Henchmen
  
Digging Ditches
Digging Graves
  
So hot in the desert
So much dirt on my sweat
Las Vegas is an oasis
but this is no picnic
Three  today
Too much debt on my back
  
For fifty dollars
A grave
So long
the wait
For Berman's men
"Wagons East (1994) - IMDb www.imdb.com/title/tt0111653/ Internet Movie Database Rating: 4.7/10 - ‎3,545 votes (stylized onscreen as ‘Wagons East’) is a 1994 western comedy film directed by Peter Markleand starring John Candy and Richard Lewis. The film marked one of Candy's last film appearances although it was not his last film release. His last film, Canadian Bacon which he had completed before “Wagons East,” had a delayed release in 1995. The film was notable for its leading actor Candy dying of a heart attack during the final days of the film's production. A stand-in and special effects were used to complete his remaining scenes and it released five months after his death."

And it’s Wagons East!
John Candy’s last mega-bomb,
Released 5 months postmortem.
Alas, even the sympathy vote stayed home,
Reject the we-owe-it-to-him-for
“Planes, Trains & Automobiles”(1987, IMDB).
The role, like money in the bank,
Earning diminishing returns,
Yielding interest but losing value over time.
The myth of INTEREST:
Das Capital, 2015.
The Prime is at 0%,
Yet, Inflation soars at, well,
At inflationary rates,
Digit-pounding inflation,
Higher food & shelter prices,
Masked ever so cleverly,
So deftly obscured by benevolent gasoline prices.

“Planes, Trains & Automobiles” (1987, IMDB)
Meet Del Griffith,
An obnoxious slob,
A complete schlemiel
(Also shle·miel (shlə-mēl′),
A serene shower curtain ring
Salesman and tour de force.
A film illustrative of everything
We love about farce,
(Merci beaucoup, Molière!)
And love about any
John Hughes/Steve Martin collaboration.

Needless to say,
I watched “Wagons East”
On TV the other day.
It was ten o’clock in the morning.
Will-o'-wisping in the ashtray,
Smoke from my first joint of the day.
The ashtray, a mosh pit carbonara--
Actually, an inverted exoskeleton dome--
One of dem big muthas,
I once free-dived for,
Offshore Mendocino Coast,
Back in the day,
Back when THE FRENCH LAUNDRY . . .
(The French Laundry: Thomas Keller Restaurant Group, www.thomaskeller.com. Chef Thomas Keller visited Yountville, California in the early 1990's on a quest for a space to fulfill a longtime culinary dream: to establish a destination for fine --314 Google reviews · Write a review 6640 Washington St, Yountville, CA 94533 (707) 944-2380. Daily Menus - ‎Make a Reservation - ‎Restaurant)
Back when THE FRENCH LAUNDRY
Paid beaucoup bucks for
Well-tenderized,
Sledge hammered slabs of illegal,
Black Market abalone.
Most assuredly, I digress.

So where else would I be?
My laptop was open & willing,
Legs spread, wet and waiting for
Whatever comes what may.
What came was a film
Earning pitch perfect
Dramatic chops for Candy.
We owe you, Del.
We owe you for this Anthem:
“You wanna hurt me? Go right ahead if it makes you feel any better. I'm an easy target. Yeah, you're right, I talk too much. I also listen too much. I could be a cold-hearted cynic like you . . . but I don't like to hurt people's feelings. Well, you think what you want about me; I'm not changing. I like . . . I like me. My wife likes me. My customers like me. Cause I'm the real article. What you see is what you get.”
But that was then,
This is now.
Wagons East:
A disastrous ****** bomb.
A vapid character jambalaya:
(1) A defrocked doctor
(2) A sagebrush *****.
(3) A queer book vendor.
(4) A Donner Party Survivor
Sounds can’t miss, right?
Or was it a classic Broadway/Hollywood sting?
Redux: “Spring Time for ******.”
N'est-ce pas?
Four *******
Heading east by wagon train;
Giving up on The West,
Heading east for Saint Louie,
Where freaks & geeks go undercover.
Down go their guards.
Camouflaging the chimera,
Transits the urban Wasteland,
Vast & nasty, as it were.

St. Louis, Missouri:
A much more tolerant
Hideout place.
THE WEST:
Just too much of
A hassle, I guess,
Too much for one’s
Flat-lined human mind,
Bored too shitless by
Buffalo turds to venture thought.
THE WEST:
Neorealismo italiano.
Complete Jolting-Joe reality,
A veritable wake-up call
Devouring any & all
Residual romantic fantasies . . .
THE WEST:
Struggle & Drudge,
Life lived west of the Mississippi.

Rangeland Romances #9 Go West For Your Man! Kindle (www.amazon.com) Books Literature & Fiction Amazon.com, Inc. Start reading Rangeland Romances #9 Go West For Your Man! Get the free Kindle Reading App or read on your Kindle in under a minute. Don't have a Kindle? www.amazon.com

That’s right: another advertisement,
Smack dab in the middle of
Of the ******* poem!
My invention, by the by,
Putting herein another plug for
A preferred memorial gravesite,
The Shrine To Me!
Situated in Scituate,
(Always wanted to say that.)
Scituate MA (www.scituatema.gov)
Knowing my kryptonite crypt,
My not-marble-nor-gilded
Princely-monument,
Had no chance to outlive
This fakakta rhyme scheme . . .
The Shrine To Me!
My final resting place:
My very tony, exclusive
Sub Zip Code?
The South Transept
Westminster Abbey
The so-called Poets’ Corner,
Of course!

Which brings me to my true purpose:
My true intentions for you this morning?
To publicize the strange Case of
CHARLES ROCKET:
(Go ahead, ******* Google him!)
“Charlie Rocket, found dead in a field near
His Connecticut home on October 7, 2005,
His throat had been cut.
He was 56 years old.
The state medical examiner
Later ruled the death a suicide.”
And if you believe the Coroner,
A Medicine Man &
Master of Self-Interest;
If you give that sharp-dealing,
Proverbial Connecticut Yankee his due,
Then you will probably also think
That millionaire Robert Durst
Didn’t **** Susan Berman,
Even as we see him
Getting away with ******.
Again.
Martin Narrod Oct 2016
Hello morning, I have anticipated you since
I awoke to the small barking dog's tailored speak for food.

I want that Eddie should start preparing her own meals. I know that while I smoke this morning's cigarette, that French Bulldog inside contemplates the fifty dollar bag of high-grade kibble she has pushed me to buy her or instead enjoying her own ****. And all of my wives friends call her a lady.

I want to ride alone in our FJ Cruiser through Yellowstone at dawn, before the predators have gone to bed and the tourists make their queues, I want to beat morning until I have found the wolves, and the sun rise mocks me as I sit four hours in traffic for a cup of coffee as I round the shivering peaks of our Rocky Mountain backyard landscape, and the Tetons swell with last nights snow-fall and the warm autumn air sends plumes of frigid mist above the valley floor and into the skies above Jackson.

And I wish I could stand once more on the balcony of the 777 building and smoke the finest sativas with my friend Turtle while our significant others drink coffees and watch reruns of American Gladiators on a $14,000 couch waiting for us to come back inside.

I wish I could wait on the benches outside baggage claim at San Francisco International Airport smoking inside the white lines, waiting for a girl in a red sports car to pick me up and my friend Guy's absurd faces there to greet me amidst the fog and the out of place palm trees Inevwr expected to see so far North.

And it would be great to hear my grandfather play the ukulele once more while I excitedly fished off of my grandparents dock somewhere in New Jersey where my mother's accent insists she grew up. And my grandfather sings horrifically demeaning songs written in 1924 that offer little respect to women, but much adventure to young men.

I want to play tag with the neighborhood children again in the Summer of 1995. Even though I had come to find all of those playing tag had absconded to a game entitled The 'A' Game, which its only rules were to exclude me from joining. I want to throw scalding hot water once more into Simon Berman's face. Though I do not wish for him to block the water with a basketball and turn my face into Jack Nicholson's Joker.

In Chicago as an eighteen year old, I could count the chalk outlines of bodies as I drove down Fullerton Avenue through the Logan Square neighborhood. I wish I could remember those sounds the boricua made. I wish I could forget the burning runs I received from Lazo's burritos at some time 'o clock in the morning.

I've never been one for finding edible late-night eats. I only want the memory of being able to do so. I do wish that my wife's ex-best friend's boyfriend realizes that he's less the great Emeril of his kitchen and more or less is just an unemployed sous chef with a laundry list of felonies, rather than a wish list of awful entrees. At least in that memory, he's neither a chef nor my wife's ex-friend's boyfriend and instead he's just another hideous orcish ****** ringing the doorbells in some suburb of Seattle, announcing to each and every one of his neighbors that he's obligated to notify the community of his ****** offenses.

I just wish I was there to witness his humiliation, and enjoy the total collapse of ego amidst the long list of those decent people he has surely offended.

Perhaps in some future life I can enjoy watching as jungle rot solves my hatred, disposing of his evilness in small skin ***** of flesh that dot the sidewalk while his disease evolves.

I want more vegan eating options across the food desert we call America. I want to arrive home one evening and find my wife ancy to share a new study that American Journal of Medixibe has found on the benefits of providing non-reciprocated ******* to your partners. And I want to be the first to enjoy the benefits of such a study, that I'm encouraged by her to publish my findings while I attend a prestigious university I once wasn't allowed to attend because of my religious background.

I want to live in a world where violence is no longer a viable solution to resolving the in differences we as humans confuse each other trying to make sense of between ourselves.

I want to visit our local grocery store and find that my favorite $8 a pint vegan ice cream has been marked down to a more reasonable number and that there is still an abundance of flavors left for me to choose from.

I don't wish for much: to not have people ask me to speak louder, full-frontal ****** in made for television movies, and a decent blonde IPA for under $10 in glass bottles. Where in this world can a poet go and still receive the respect that was once given by the royal monarchy of The British Empire.

Now it seems those with the fine knowledge of words are cast into a class with less regard than street-drifters and the homeless.

When did our world lose major respect for the artisans of fine art, or the ability to render an opus?

28-integer news memos and 15-second clips of our cute dog eating its own **** attract more attention than a fine explanation of the human condition or the sultry and sophisticated sounds of my Argentinian friend Anna recite Garcia Lorca in her native Spanish tongue.

I just want to be gone before there is a consequence for finding joy in the human condition, and honesty and integrity are known as the recividism that takes down our nation.

We were once the leaders of a great country. We were compelled by our history to create and indoctrinate one another to achieve, conceive, and amend ourselves to thrive amidst the uncertainty of a mischievous and disgraceful society. Now I just wish to be in bed with my wife when this storm of stupidity comes. I wish I never had to be on the receiving end of a sermon set forth by business leaders instead of political achievers.

I want Eddie to make herself some breakfast so I can lay here in bed a few more moments. I want pancakes and fresh fruit juice for breakfast, a quiet room and a hard-covered notebook. I want to believe a great pen and a good friend could lead me through the exciting and anxiety-writhing times in this life, but I to know too sadly that we live in a world where we don't view it as a weakness as those around us may not be able to read or may not be able to write.
Jake muler Mar 2016
As far back as I can remember, i always wanted to be a gangster.
-Quote by Ray liotta in good fellas movie.-

“Nothing personal, it’s just business” ~ Otto Berman

“Las Vegas turns women into men and men into idiots.” ~ Bugsy Siegel.


“This life of ours, this is a wonderful life. If you can get through life like this and get away with it, hey, that’s great. But its very, very unpredictable. There’s so many ways you can ***** it up.” ~ Paul Castellano

Thirty-two hundred dollars he gave me. Thirty-two hundred dollars for a lifetime. It wasn’t even enough to pay for the coffin.” (ray liotta as Henry hill) good fellas movie.


“I hate to say this, but this place is getting to me. I think I’m getting the fear.” Dr. Gonzo( fear and loathing in Las Vegas)


“If my answers frighten you then you should cease asking scary questions.” Jules. ( movie pulp fiction with John travolta and Samuel l. Jackson. Also starring bruce Willis.)

“No matter how big a guy might be, Nicky would take him on. You beat Nicky with fists, he comes back with a bat. You beat him with a knife, he comes back with a gun. And you beat him
with a gun, you better **** him, because he’ll keep comin’ back and back
until one of you is dead.” Ace Rothstein ( movie Casino) Robert deniro, Joe pesci.
Michael Berman Dec 2015
Sam
Sam
wind-swept, strong-willed, free-spirited, butter-dipped
scion of this great nation-state
who loves sleeping until fully prepared for the confrontation of the bursting day, challenging the status quo, learning new secrets
who is afraid of the pall of mediocrity, the taste of plain blandness, premature decisions
who wants to see the fabric of the universe, proof of any empirical claim, the solemnity of what exists on the other side
resident of that which can be reliably demonstrated
Berman
Elizabeth Kelly Dec 2021
It’s been a prolific day
David Berman and I spent it together:

Me on his Wikipedia page,
Wondering at his language
Broken hearted over his final great collection of art,
A self-titled album released under the moniker Purple Mountains;

Him a genius
And dead
Tortured by his inability to change the world
Self loathing and addicted,
The son of a gun and liquor lobbyist who is quoted as saying, “I will miss him more than he was able to realize.”

It’s the ultra absorbent ones who make the best artists
Walking around in a store somewhere and wanting to die for the brutality of it all
Nothing brings the raw desperate animalism out from where it’s buried in the Stone Age like good old fashioned American capitalism.

(Last week I ate a gummy before going Christmas shopping and had a panic attack in a cute little boutique while buying a puzzle for my niece.
My sister-in-law told me I looked like I was seeing things
But it was the loosening of the barriers,
the flood of conflict and dissonance,
every person a song and all the songs playing at once,
tidal wave,
a cacophony of primary and secondary emotions.
This is why I don’t eat gummies).

It isn’t fair
I guess
That the ability to be so penetrated by truth isn’t beautiful
It should be beautiful
Like that shrimp, right? That can see a whole universe of colors unreachable by any other animal in existence.
An elevated understanding of truth should be like that shrimp
-The mantis shrimp, I remember now-
Truth cones like with sight…every texture and flavor of enlightenment.

In David Berman’s case, he piled substances onto the fire of his brain to ***** it out
And haven’t we all lain in a dark room on a sunny day
Haven’t we all found our habits

Instead of lamenting the curse of the truth addicted artist, as I have done most of the day,
I will tell a story
(this is true)
of my 17 year old niece Sophie
Who, when she was 9, demanded to know the Real Truth about Santa Claus.
Her friends were insistent, and she didn’t want to be left behind.

My sister, not one to mince words, told her directly and plainly,
and when Sophie asked, who then? Do you buy all of our Christmas presents every year?
again my sister gave it to her straight.

Sophie’s eyes began to swim, just as my sister suspected they might,
But when she went to comfort her daughter,
to try to convince her that magic isn’t in the elusive but in the every day
She was met with simply,

“Oh, thank you, mommy. Thank you.”
I like to imagine Mary Oliver and David Berman
Strolling side-by-side,
Palms grazing the plumes of yarrow feathering the byways of Poet Heaven.

They died less than 8 months apart, lymphoma and mental illness respectively.

The inhabitants moon over Death incessantly there in Poet Heaven,
But you already knew that.
You know poetry.

I like to imagine Mary Oliver and David Berman drinking strawberry daiquiris and smoking in companionable silence,
Enjoying their unlikelihood in the sweet midday glow of Central Park.
Still dead of course,
Unnoticed among the rabble.
What is poetry without the living? We yearn for blood and contrast.

Buying some art from a guy who is also selling bootleg DVDs;
Throwing birdseed to the crosseyed pigeons;
Smoking cigarettes and letting the soft animals of their bodies love what they love,
Free from consequence and commodification,
Free from the every day clamor of the train station.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this, he might say.
But it did, she might reply,
Which is all you can give sometimes when you’re a steward of the truth.
Two of my favorite poets who I reference frequently. I hold them up together and they are polar opposites but, as all great poets, equally gifted at distilling simple moments into universal truths.

— The End —