Do you hear a little child crying?

Keeper holds up a cheap, placemat
With a pattern of Blackeyed Susans
And says *See that pattern?
You made it.

Came your birthday
Black coffee, a packet of Sweet & Low
I choked when the grounds touched my lips.
You're feeding her and telling her
Your Mommy is the smartest,
most beautiful woman in the world.
I painted white and yellow
petals around the droplets of coffee.
And mailed it off,
My gift, se lah!

It was returned two weeks later.
Marked twenty years!

That was the day we became friends.

Distress signals emmited from bioelectronic tendrils
blades under kneecaps
seeping into taste
smelling like Spring.
So many bodies kneeling on innocent grass
lined up and lined on
sitting in pews at the park
the limitless stretches of people and people
and everyone
everyone was there!
How magnificent! for the whole world to get together
and have a nice evening at the park
billions of feet stammering on billions more blades of grass
smelling like spring
smoderling summer sun
filling air rotting
sad little whimpers
inaudible under the mumble of the world
over the look in their eyes.
The heat jostled air
radiation poison
burning away life itself
keeping us all warm and alive inside.

so many people
everywhere and all around us
-- I had a thought
I wanted to write it down
before it got lost forever.
I tried.
The words twisted around as I wrote them
the pen melted in my hands
so that the the silly
silly silly words
stupid arrogant words too proud to be written down
I tried to make eloquent or something at all
I tried I tried
trust me i really tried
i didn't mean to be such a cottonmouthed disappointment
those silly words all swirled around and about
begging for anything real.
Hissed for one last moment
before the sun and the sound and the agony
twisted and snapped
melting away all that was
of the words on the paper
ofthe ink in the pen
of the shadows in my brain.
melting out dripdripping
tears as black as silence
blaring like ambient noise
I wish the words would understand
that the real real the world the real greybluechemical world
didn't want me living in it
anymore.
I don't know what I did to Life
to make it so upset
but I guess it just didn't want me hanging around,
said I never fit in well with the crowd.
Go find some other reality to bother.

And then it all set in,
0-60 in a second.
Here was your happiness
and here you are now.
And what an amazing distance that is.
when did those years go by?
why stand so sad with your soul in shreds?
Too afraid to set the strands on fire
so there they hung
ethereal chains jutting from every cell
chains that are a feast that you can't stomach
chains that are that sad song you can't listen to -anymore
chains that are that tear in your eye refusing to fall
all the loves lost if only you had just loved
who is this person in the mirror?
this blackeyed monster with eyes like sadness
and sleep like terror
with ink indignant ashamed of what you wrote
what you wrote deep down under those chains in you
mirror neuron pain must be felt
sadistic black mirror chained down and burning burning and melting and burning
and rambling
on and on and on and on and on and on
and you probably stopped reading long ago.

They say that times were tough then

That money was very tight

But I remember my childhood

And I know that can't be right


Mom would cook our dinner

Dad came home at five
We were all sitting at the table

Waiting for him to arrive


We wouldn't eat from a microwave

Or a restaurant down the street

We all ate Mom's home cooking

And boy that can't be beat


We didn't eat in front of the TV

Or with a phone in our hand

We weren't plugged into a stereo
bopping to the latest band


We would all sit at the table

Everyone in their place

There were never any surprises

We recognized every face

Brothers to the left of me
Sisters to the right

That's the way we ate dinner

Every single night


We laughed we joked we talked we ate

We were a family don't you see

Though some may have been raised poor

You can see it wasn't me


We ate collards we ate biscuits

We ate fatback and blackeyed peas

We said yes sir we said no sir

We said thank you ma'am and please


So when you talk of family life

Or how it used to be

Though many had more money

None were as rich as me

we                         areonly         what
          
          we                    are.    clean predators
all muscles knotted fascia grimacing in
blood. swollen violence,blackeyed
nails scrabbling dainty sanguine troth.
careful gears wild nerves crackling.
and mars only fathoms the humor
of dead skin broken smooth graves
picket the hills.
                             yet          pledge i do
my little arms to
                              a pursuit of
gently broken skulls.

                                         art

They say that times were tough then
That money was very tight
But I remember my childhood
And I know that can't be right

Mom would cook our dinner
Dad came home at five
We were all sitting at the table
Waiting for him to arrive

We wouldn't eat from a microwave
Or a restaurant down the street
We all ate Mom's home cooking
And boy that can't be beat

We didn't eat in front of the TV
Or with a phone in our hand
We weren't plugged into a stereo
bopping to the latest band

We would all sit at the table
Everyone in their place
There were never any surprises
We recognized every face

Brothers to the left of me
Sisters to the right
That's the way we ate dinner
Every single night

We laughed we joked we talked we ate
We were a family don't you see
Though some may have been raised poor
You can see it wasn't me

We ate collards we ate biscuits
We ate fatback and blackeyed peas
We said yes sir we said no sir
We said thank you ma'am and please

So when you talk of family life
Or how it used to be
Though many had more money
None were as rich as me

12/28/2014
for ES

the dictionary definition of prospect is
"outlooks for the future"
and so this i ponder on a train platform.

once walking between the larrikin
of halls Class of 1903 and Jones,
i'd come across the gardens,

prospective ones or so said the
namesake.
i stepped over the leaves that were

on the ground but not quite
off the branches
read the bronze penny

stained black tablet
the roses and blackeyed susans,
cultiviated by class of 1850

gentlemen farmers
and named as the
view of the sight

filled one with such
good prospects.

now i don't quite know
why the trolly dodger park's
called that

and i've never quite been
so, thinking about it
i'll have to rely on

going with you
but of course
you say the same about the Gardens

so take my hand and follow me

Chicken, fried,
and collard greens,
with bacon and onions,
a pinch of sugar and salt.

Sweet Tea,
brewing in the sun,
and homemade pies cooling,
in the springtimes window.

The smell of cornbread,
baking up golden crisp,
buttered and honeyed,
a *** of pintos bubbling.

Children run and play
in their Sunday's best,
while mother's fuss,
about not getting *****.

Ham, and blackeyed peas,
green and congealed salads,
all brought out,
red and white checked cloth.

Sunday lunchtimes,
after church,
potlucks of yore,
I miss the desserts.

Mind moving like dolphins in the water
     Did she learn what I taught her?
               Bess, the landlord's
               blackeyed daughter