Who knew
Loverboy can dance
*****
So wrong
We'll never be right

Farewell Govan -
bathed in a baking sun
littered with betting shops
and no win/no fee criminal lawyers
and a myriad of pubs caked in years of libation
steeped in history of industry and shipbuilding
blackened smoked walls etched with gangland symbols:
tooled-up local carnivores who ride shotgun on a BMX
swapping discrete envelopes for indiscreet wads of cash.

Farewell Govan -
you fractured my ribs once in a moment of mistaken identity
I didn't heed the advice to not walk through the park at night
I didn't hear the pitter-patter of adolescent feet
speeding my way in brand new trainers across the grass
but I did feel the clunk of something solid on my head
as the ground rushed up to meet me in a concrete embrace
and watched as 4 bags of overladen shopping spewed out
lying face up spread-eagle in Lilliput fashion
and a mobile torch-app in my face with the repeating words
“Ima tellin’ you man its naw him, its naw him”
I reassured them frantically that I was definitely not him!
as the hooded troupe picked up what was left of my shopping
and even gifted me a couple of cans of super strength lager,
a cube of dubious council estate hash
and an usher to leave immediately
(and think myself lucky).

Farewell Govan -
you got me blazing on cheap beer at the local pub
which had recreated a holiday beach scene
with a hand-written sign that read: Better than Ibiza!
awash with carefree children
and pit-bull terriers wearing bespoke Barbour dog jackets
and brand spanking new Adidas white trainers
purchased from Tam out of a nondescript blue plastic bag
who always passes the day's pleasantries
while topping up his pension
chatting with auld Billy who was in the war (don’t you know)
via the Merchant Navy
and the version of how he was gunner on an oil boat in Vietnam
via the umpteenth pint that afternoon.

Farewell Govan -
your late night shadows harbour an underlying tension
masked with comic humour only if you can understand the lingo
words that are distasteful anywhere else are in fact a term of endearment here
I shall miss the odious vernacular and doth my cap to your spirit
the Salt of the Earth and the Lifeblood of the Community
with at least 40% proof liquids mixed with Irn Bru
purchased at the 24/7 corner store along with a can of processed peas;
one of your five a day.

Farewell Govan -
I go to the sunny side of the Clyde
where it rains just as much
but you don’t get mugged for carrying an umbrella
or asked for the time from a watch-wearing tattooed sailor
and joy-of-joys there will be actual fruit & veg shops
where I don’t have to explain what fresh coriander is
and what you use it for, other than on a pizza;
I was offered dried bottled parsley instead.

Farewell Govan.

What is math?
Or, what is understanding math?
It is a process of working with establishing information, which is much like finding the keys of a piano when blind.
Once the key is played, I remember, however faintly, the steps I needed to find the key.
When there are many ways this key is found, it becomes trivial like learning to ride a bicycle or learning to walk.
Thus, math understanding truly is a way of making truth less meaningful, almost insignificant.
Thus, a branch of knowledge loses its glory, its child-like wonder.
How few of us ride a bicycle  today out of fascination for the ride?
Yet, just as BMX stars compete globally, so too must a creative mind find tools which will allow me to create.
Is math doomed to fate, or will I resurrect it in creative destiny?

I would have this girl, she would have a black bmx. We would ride chest to back, my hand prints burning on her shoulders. As she wore her brown raybans, she would call out to the cars nearby, she would howl like the mutt dog, and race after tailpipes. I would love her slender hips as they twisted over the seat and her legs tinted by the sun as she pulled tricks no two-bit dollar ***** had never seen, just to catch some sun. It looked like she was thirsty for the heat, and she was packing it, whooo-whee, she was packing it. And I loved her from her helmet head to her scuffed cons, from where she had put the brakes on, just to turn around and kiss me in the rush hour.

Anything to have you near, girl, I would tie streamers to my wrist to make it look like we were flying as we rode past the world. I would stand back and hold my arms high, wearing my scruff deep headphones, and a tie to clip her heart to. She wore her grandfathers cap, on her days off the ramp. It was too cliché to wear what the others wore, and she soon too became an article of clothing, many tried to copy and clone. We would lie on the grass, chipping beers bottles and picking daisies, that she would string around my wrist, promising to one day buy me a sidecar.

I tied a plastic rose around her handlebars, and left it for her to find in the morning. She woke me up with a kiss and a cracked mug of tea and told me we had some riding to do. I climbed on the back of her, and tied my arms around her charity shop tee, tight. We zipped between traffic and I told her ‘its a lipstick jungle out there’  and placed my nose behind her ear as she sought out new paths for us to sneak down. When the evening drew closer we found each others hands, and kissed parts of the skin that had arrived pink with the sun, and melted every so slightly into each others hips.

And then the wind came, it threw us off the park and past the roads. She left in the morning dressed for different days. She came home caked in mud and I washed her hair in the bath as she lay with her head in my lap. I told her tales of battles on ships, and stories of fighting, surrender and rising again in the new light of day. At nights we sat by candlelight and sipped ***** wearing lilies in our hair. We sat ink to ink, in bed and watched forgotten movies and laughed till we cried from the sham of it all. We understood each other, her pants hung low from the moment she moved to the time she stopped. Her, my girl, the one with hat and the black bmx; She was my street fighter in a pavement world.

ghosts of slumber parties past.
just a haunted betamax & a stack of oreo sandwiches.
sisters braiding eachother’s hair far past the witching hour,
contemplating life without supervision.

blue house. yellow lawn.
silverback gorilla in one garage.
two garage: empty.
three garage: a woman entombed in exhaust.

          [her bloated tongue]

a gang of bmx boys pizza-fed and friday-high,
hopped up on mountain dew and trading card collectible rituals ‘n rhythmics.
they conjure a demon just to **** and dismember it.
     for funsies.
     for keepsies.

a fang for the shrine at the foot of the old oak tree.
history on the skin, long history, long thoughts, long in the nod like a calm dead frog.
bubbled, boiled, toiled, and troubled.

the woods aren’t haunted.
you   are haunted.
you   are the conduit through which the darkness displays its vivid colors.

          [treefort aflame]

the seasons furrow/
                               / the leaves fall.
little plots of land etched out – subdivision and sprawl.
on the avenue, heaven
& hell made tame and tangible.
built, re-built, and refurbished – a lawn and a lantern.
a mortgaged glory of sparkle and decay.

          [dead cat is a new cat is the old cat ran away]

pictograms of morning light display on mom’s face
as she instructs us on the gusts of love       [scrambed eggs]
& teaches us the truth of nettles sprung
from violent pine.
                                      [toast with raspberry jam]
the television.
the microwave.
the blender beverages.
hymnals of an electric kingdom.
one mom dances, the other expires.

          [restless armless girls in orange sunsets]

girl with a gun at the edge of her lawn and selling lemonade.
girl in an old wicker chair.
save her horror story for another day.

boy with a bent frame bicycle limps his way home
from one end of the avenue to the other.
his pockets full of sparkly rocks found in the lime quarry pit.
one boy in a long line of lost planets.
the driveway.
the refrigerator.
the hum of a saturday night commercial-free cassette.
where’s dad?

                         the glow of an eerie crystal
                                                                     (continued…)

On the south side of kelso if it's there that ya choose to go
Well if its there ya go then ya just gotta know bout a man named tweaker joe
Now tweaker, he's a scrapper and if ya go down on his door
Don't you worry about wakin him up. He aint slept since 74
Well he's weird, weird tweaker joe
The weirdest tweaker in South Kelso
Weirder than a three toed frog
Stranger than a five eared dog

Now tweaker hes a scrapper and he likes his shiny things
And he likes to see what fun he has by the chaos that he brings
He got a custom BMX bike with a flashlight on the grill. He got 32 lb of brass in his pack, he got a dope bag in his shoe.

Well he's weird, weird tweaker joe
The weirdest tweaker in South Kelso
Weirder than a three toed frog
Stranger than s five eared dog


NOW Friday bout a week ago Tweaker scrappin cars. But at the end of the alley sat a cop named Thurman and ooh dat cop looked ******

Well he cast his light upon joe cuz Thurman had a plan
Tweaker joe learned a lesson bout messin with a future Sherriff man


Well he's weird, weird tweaker joe
The weirdest tweaker in South Kelso
Weirder than a three toed frog
Stranger than s five eared dog


Well the 2 men took to runnin and hes dragged down to the jail
Joey looked like a wrung out tweaker with a couple of teeth left

Well he's weird, weird tweaker joe
The weirdest tweaker in South Kelso
Weirder than a three toed frog
Stranger than s five eared dog

Well he's weird, weird tweaker joe
The weirdest tweaker in South Kelso
Weirder than a three toed frog
Stranger than s five eared dog

shapeshifter, son drunk
& changing skins.
he digs up skeletons of a spanish battalion
buried
by tigers on the garden key.

suncresent
spray of blood & oranges.
new-fangled sailors once soaked
in madness.
now just starvation.

the viking speaks:
in limericks of new world poise.
his antler woven mask,
set nicely upon the shore.

seod, turtle lord
of space & time, appears only once
every lunar eclipse. bound by treatise
to the jellyfish triumvirate.
his acolyte,
bolivar t. shagnasty,
wanders the mainland in search of water
or meat of trees.

kindness
of men turns to dust & belly worms.
forgotten, the plants mutate
into root-rich empires
of fish & figurine.
million year armistice.

dr. samuel mudd,
shackled years to tide-slab &
fort jefferson. he
purifies the island of its yellow
shivering death.
hospital key.

fastforward hundred plus years
through mudd lifeline:
battle weary sneakers,
spokes sung by strum of card, the bmx
stridden boy & his
teenage mutant ninja turtle mask.

The coca-cola breath!
Flashing lights, tweetie birds, the rough narcotic stench

The sky is devoid, it is scared of the streets etched in starlight, everything shining-- tangerine and Coit and ohhhh boy
don't'cha know what you're in for?

Twilight and she is a figment on my mind
the bark of cigar is fiery opal on my slender frame
I can hear something along the lanes of love
Echoing behind me, the rising sun

Funny dudes in new suits, pressed, steamed, machine-rolled
pills in the pockets
shipped locomotive
Every etching has its china
every etching is porcelain skin
The fog is a silken balloon, unconcerned, wayward
The men longingly abide in its cool, the breath of an over-excited lover, singing in the showerhead an embarrassing microphone
over the west coast

It's all over! it's the end
the roads are devoid of the things that called you
They are a clarion horn on the Claremont, facades etched with windowpanes
here the americans eat tofu and pretend it's bacon

I am in the rapidly rotating spoke, enjoying the taste of woodchuck, upchucking my guts every Sunday, white knuckle-- praying to god
release
release

what a steal that's a fantastic car for the price!
it is only 10 years of payment
only 10!
House worth 40, kids worth 60, medicinal payments
corn flakes
Fortified iron gates and god says,
naw let them all out until they drown,
I'll never flood the earth but I'll make it puddles
and if they want they can lay face down

I am eating Korean stew and wondering what will happen
when unification builds a railroad from Moscow to Busan
I will travel it and write a novel or two
it will be
"On the Railroad"
and start in San Francisco or a little while outside
on an October evening with not a fog in the sky
Just sky, blue, blue sky
A child on the hillside
blowing bubbles in the apartment complex or the gravel mound
next to new homes, now cookiebread gingerbed frames
Doing tricks on BMX bikes, getting our elbows smashed, a designated paramedic
It's all built up now, concrete streets and lonely streetcorner lamps saying
Hey we're gonna light up this little space
Hope you don't mind
Please don't play too loud

And given that these spheroids are monumentally moving
hurling like a pitched water glass
everything staying put under the motion of it
Such a lovely rooting of mass

I will call alongside it, crawling towards answers etching on murals and on the stamping of curbs
E-5 West main
4451 Lowell Street
554 Happy Valley Road
It's all the fun little tributaries of surface waters
heading with precognition towards seas
roped into it by specific gravity

On the phone i spoke to Mr. Victorious
I asked him about his particular drone
down south there in the more direct limelight of the night
he told me about his uncle, in prose
of course
we just hung our heads over the speakerphone
Not sleeping the way we should
shouldering burdens as ***** in deserted zones
laughing and preaching to cottonfields

Then there was the girl
the one we forgot, truth be told
The one unrequited impetus for all art, all physicality and feeling
loved by god in the corporeal
She is the saffron reed in my eye, the one i forgot to preach Victory to
She that one oblong pebble, rolled by the stream
passing our campgrounds and continuing her journey to sands
small little microscopic tetrahedral perfection
I could get stuck in between my teeth
or perhaps left on the sweat of the skin
the lost moments of beachside living, love for the expansiveness, left in the diner seat of the car, gotta keep moving
Carrying her away and if not careful,
nestling her back atop the summits from whence she came.

it is a cola in the glass on the shores of the bay,
it is a divine moment of contact in the oceans
two sailors acknowledging their vessels
with light shows and the play of eye
off the horizon, a green light o' sprite.

coming up autumn you were a loving playful tyke,just to lose your 12 year old life last year,to two brothers from the neighborhood who lied and stole your BMX bike.and if that wasn't enough for your DADDY and family to stand,i  remember the case unfolding on tv news and I  your  DADDY  recently kneeling on a football field next to your initials in a park that will be dedicated in your memory and tears came to my eyes ,and the daily news informed me about the anger in that town,which I can understand with you AUTUMN no longer around.a waitness at










barbar

Packed away
fr fr from a speeding bullet
a night time bmx ride to the beach and back again
and again
she's in here
too far too fearless for you to survive this warmth
i'm not souless, just a girl in love
i made me own way here
there is no taxi cab awaiting my drunken ramblin
i am good in bed
i am happy for you
i fell apart a long time ago, ago, ago
i hear YOU scream
i am not that person long ago
you all fell in love with me
and it really it was not me
i decieved you with the cut of my jib
with the line of my skin
deep beauty within
ha hahaha hahahaaaaaa
i will have you
i won't want you
i won't want you
you drunk too much
you take far too much speed to be a queen
la la laaaa la alaaaa
you don't know this but it was not me
whisper me sweet nothings
i've been hurt before,
**** it,
they are nothing compared to you
my bittersweet tears were cried when i left you there
i left myself in your bed
and i knew you would hear me
and dream of me calling your name
i am a pill you hate to swallow
some nidnight ****
you begged and borrowed
to be happy....
are you such a thing?
no methinks not
and you know i know this
and i am in love with you
so deep, so hard i have fallen
2 hours was all it took
2 months was all it took
my world exploded in your hands
you couldn;t handle me
you could not handle this....
i am a cyclone of astute proportions
too much for your shallow heart to bear
and yet i am here
too much far gone
i am her shadow
the beat of her drum
the second glance of her dance moves
she looks at me...
and i can not look away
i knew before i met her
i knew when she got in the car
i knew before i met her
and **** me....
thats all i have to say

In an instant
The vulnerable confidence within escaped...
Thud - As I cracked my head against the concrete.
For the first time
           in a long time, I thought
It was all over. I reached to the back
Expecting the fragile shell split;
The shell that holds my brain
But nothing.
Suddenly my left side went numb, tingled
And returned to leave only what I can describe
As pins n' needled heated to 100 degrees
Prior to their attack.
They ran from shoulder to my 3 middle fingers.
5 minutes now I sit cross legged on the concrete.
With fire in my fingers I press to push myself up,
I'm dizzy. I sit again for a while.
Nerve damage. Should heal? I hope...
******* BMX

My car tyres are going bald,
most probably cancer.

That would just be my luck.

I once had a bike that got AIDS.

Please don't ask.


Seeing it just fall about, a nut here,
a bolt there, the broken
spokes, the clunking chain that
would turn no more.
It's rusty revolutions.

Disintegrating in front of my eyes,
like Tom Hanks in Philadelphia.

Seeing a BMX brings it all back.

Once at a car boot sale, I bought 3 car boots
only to find they were broken but
on a positive, someone bought my shoes,
even though they weren't for sale.

I walked home, socks on feet, the rain
seeping through,

the car boots on my back clunking,
I was thinking
life really isn't so bad

My son goes to prison in 5 days... everyone sees the man who steals and uses ******... I see the sweet, gentle, loving boy I raised. When I visit him in jail, behind the glass is not that man you see. To me it's that 10 year old boy who sang "beautiful" by eminem to me when I was having a bad day. I see the 5 year old who started climbing cliffs on camping trips while I held my breath, I see the 12 year old who loved to bmx and was an amazing parkour,  I see the 9 year old who was filled with excitement when he got to meet mike row from ***** jobs and be behind the scenes. I see the 7 year old sledding down the hill with a huge grin whose picture was on the front page of the steamboat pilot. I see the teenager who tried so hard to help me and his brother survive on the streets and find food in dumpsters. I see the 15 year old who came and took his brother from me off the streets to give him a better life. I see my beautiful newborn as he is being placed in my arms for the first time. I see Brandon Scott Mustagog one of the most amazing talented human beings I have ever met. I see my son whom I love with everything in me. I know you can not see these things. I know you only see ****** and crime. But please when you speak of my son keep all of these things in mind.

L. Mack
2/2/19

You’ve traded insults with him from the time he could return them.
If he offered you which hairy arm to pick, you’d Chinese burn them.
His annoying level neediness would see you waste YOUR time
Just to see him stand, silver in hand,  on the Space Invaders line.
But HE was always there to help you put the chain back on
When the rest of the BMX Bandits had thrown up dust and gone!
And he was there to corroborate when your day in court arrived.
You were braver because you had him there and TOGETHER you’d survived.
Then the day when words escaped your lips and you just needed someone to save you?
No questions asked; jumped on a train; no hesitation gave you.
Coz pesky brothers grow into men,  somewhere along the way.
Rough them up but love them well for you’ll need them there some day.

I want to slip
Into Oasis
Become pixelated
Back in the 80s
Watch as all my fandoms
Come to life
I can have coffee
With Molly Ringwald
At The Peach Pit
Before hitting the beaches
Of Costa del Sol
Later check into the Overlook Hotel
To slow dance with Casper
As listen to theme music
Of Castlevania
To pedal a bmx bike
And touch the stars
To hang in detention
With the brat pack
To have my entire life soundtrack
Badly synthesized 80s tunes
I guess I am saying
I want my 2020
A little more Oasis
And a lot less
Black Mirror

a horror to behold... i rather not have a woman cook me food, i rather not have a woman clean my house... come to "think" of it... walking abortion as i am... one chain-clink short of *****-bank list of incestuous ancestry... but i am drinking bourbon... and... the cultural export of h'america from the 20th century aside... god i loved the Beatniks... two things stand out as... concerning to give focus to... bourbon... &... peanut butter... it truly is a horror to behold... i've opened a bottle of jack & jackie and i'm worried that i, just might... finish off the entire litre of this... gorgeous... gorgeous... ****-**** of a glug-glug-glug... metaphors obvious... why didn't i cite cinema? why didn't i cite music? sometimes a hour comes... an hour that completes a day... and if i'm not slobbering on some peanut butter... i'll be drinking a bourbon... i might be watching some b.b.c. police drama: line of duty instead of making a fetish sandwich of a moo-vee... while listening to... some Finnish folk-rock... i just find it sad that... men and women can't return to something akin to... james horner's for the love of a princess...  you know... when women were mystifying... celestial creatures that would be imagined by a frail mind of a colt as... seemingly unable to burp, ****... or take a ****... perhaps it's that same old testament of: in love with the idea of love... a woman as both an idea... and an ideal... interchangeable: idea through to ideal... it' not even i, willing to compete for what's readily available... since time immemorial, the ultimate freedom was to be found on a bicycle.. not even a horse... i will never mind not having a driving license... but a bicycle can overpower a horse... why? i like the refreshing injection of being able to: create my own momentum... that's what a bicycle is... esp. coming to a roundabout with... shy drivers... oh **** me... don't get me started on the problem i sometimes have when... a ford KA is about to overtake me... takes it about a mile... and a dual-carriageway to do so... but some ****** in a SUV or a van skims past me like... nothing... i actually want to be naive once more... naive enough to want to fall in love with a woman... i want to be naive about naiveness... n'ah-eve... i'm just seeing red markers underlining my words and... if it's a spelling mistake, proper? well then... if not... then back into phoneticism... English is readily available to cushion this sort of detouring... . so much for a romanticism surrounding a galloping horse... or a car.... to heave all this riddle of insurance... not worth it... skittle-brains: jelly on the side... i like the idea of generating my own momentum... this might translate as a grasp of... what ana ******* feels like... add a bit of spice... what a limp little richard ******* feels like before a nylon clad ******* feels like when you're about to be shamed for objective purposes... at the same time... a stiff-neck... it feels mightily gargantuan and with prospect of... non-revisionism to be ****** off: *****-nilly by some imitation of a housewife.... just saying... like i would gulp up a furry oyster once in a while... here's to licking metal in sub-zero temperatures... or reading into bark... seeing faces in trees... i own two maine **** cats and i like my house to be as freed from excess fur as possible... is that, somehow... emasculating: i want to bweak fwee kareoke take on what's demanded of... cleanliness?  last time i trusted a woman to cook for me she gave me some cognac with a slice of lemon... then... butchered a chicken twice-over with a dry-set of *******... i was looking at 165 degrees sort of juicy... i got... ******* chicken breast: chalk "tenderness"... i don't eat meat... of the poultry variety with a "feel" of chalk... like you could brush your teeth against it... i can grasp the consistency of eating liver... along with the tenderness of bean-bounce akin of the hearts... chicken stomachs in a gravy... but don't give me... chicken ******* that are like biting into chalk... whereby... the teeth imitate sticking together like i'm eating some injection of protein into... ******* fudge! i've seen how certain marriages expired... one undercooked potatoes... another overcooked pasta... yet another had a case for a "lost cat"... how the ****... how can you... "lose" a cat? i say a leash i say a bursting concept of cranberry... a lost dog is... i've seen it... the one you chain to a fence... and run off from? how the hell do you even begin... to... lose... a cat? point being: the cat ****** off... the cat decided: **** this... i'm out! i have to think it's impossible to lose a cat... but the cat might "think" otherwise... how do you lose a cat? you forgot to leash-it? what sort of a... what a terrible person you must be... to "lose" a cat... cats are never "lost"... some better elsewhere... i'll take my chances as a stray... only today i performed the impossible... i showed her furry-snout into my ear... for what? for giggles... obviously she didn't like it... but i got the giggles... most assuredly... well i lost a turtle... i accidently flushed it down a toilet... what lack of character... spine... to supposedly "lose" a cat... a bit like: **** me! i guess i might have... misplaced... a ******* pyramid! who says that?

while juggling some politically terms...

can it be deemed so unfathomably "emasculating"
to want to live in a clean house,
rather: for the man to clean his abode?
cleanliness is somehow an inherent quality
of femininity?
                        some *** with an un-kept beard...
man dragged through the dirt...
what is it with gender roles or: what's in man
specified to be: man...
           not in the 20th century not since any time prior
has there been this "Copernican", ahem... "revolution"
in ontology...
one might almost gag for the resurrection
of the Soviet empire...
at least you could have something to push-back
on with airs of moral superiority: even if "doing the right
thing" might implore you to be deluded:
or that's how i see a period of history of western europe...
placebo solipsism - a genius of "autism"...
it's not like the mongol horde came knocking
or the ottoman turk...
            as a side note: it's that old urban myth trope...
can two straight men share an umbrella?
it would be terrible of me but truth be told...
a sentence from the handmaid's tale...
a woman contemplating the ****-availability of
a "low status" male...
first example on offer: Leibniz... the ******* librarian...
or rather: two isolated incidences of discovering
calculus - infinitesimals...
well... it would be hard to believe that...
the same thought could exist in two people...
two contemporaries...
              the argument in England stands with the right
of Newton...
a man left alone to his own devices...
deus ex machina: **** in machina...
a river of time on the otherwise head-spinning
carousel of: 35 springs, 35 summers i count to
invite: this autobiographical sketch...
it can hardly be unheard of...
a river's delta -
             but it's not like Copernicus was not
overshadowed by Galileo in western Europe...
the little pride in original thinking these
poor schmucks lodged between the Germans
and the Russians would ever have...
but is it... emasculating for a man to...
clean the toilet in the house... vacuum...
is it all: airy-fairy all of a sudden to keep up standards...
to wash your hands etc.
it's not like i wasn't supposed to write this:
give me any ******* novel...
and i'll take more pleasure from it than from
something written by a woman....
sylvia plath is an exception...
         clarice lispector... i tried...
                        virginia woolf...
             while a man will divulge his innermost workings...
i find it hard to imagine that a woman
would suddenly... give up her mystique
and over-complicated simplicity for...
   a what? a novel...
      while everyone can grasp a tease of misogyny in
this... god... for the love of ******...
how a brothel always reminds me of opening
a bottle of bourbon...
out of h'america... besides discovering the continent
in / with canned sardines:
what's does a gingerbread to do with a windmill?
since reading ******* literature one can at least
imagine oneself turning a tongue into a phallus...
i have never read a book by a woman
where i'd think about gorging on a mouthful
of... a floral-skin-mush... ripple...
        eating an oyster gives me a vague recollection
of eating ****...
although: of the latter... you're not exactly
eating anything... all in the foreplay before all that
brute piston work-out...
the tenderness of skin in the vicinity of the collar-bone...
since Sappho... because...
man had the monopoly on literacy?
  let's not cite who was probably responsible for
writing the first surahs of the quran then...
the illiterate-would-be-warlord / merchant...
or his... older... acumen-proved... wife (Khadija)?
is it... emasculating to clean one's home?
well... it sure as **** wasn't emasculating using a grinder
to cut a bmx out from a winding hug of a Wisteria...
even through the dust mask...
the smell of quartz cutting through steel...
it has to be a tier above that familiarity of cut grass...
a spinning disk of quartz making steel
feel like a tub of butter.

I am bleeding broken teeth
Out on the driveway
My BMX buckled beside me
And the whole world in front of me

I am typing up scripts
To sell consumer goods
My empty lunch tin beside me
And a deadline in front of me

I am watching the curtain breath
Through the balcony door
My dog sits beside me
And the weekend in front of me

I am memory pushed through a straw
Into the shape of a man
My dreams beside me
As with the whole world around me

Do not fret beautiful one..
You are not alone in your sadness, in your "missing"..
I miss them too. The profound emptiness that I sometimes feel directly inside my chest...Like now, is proof of that.
I often mourne the loss of being able to call them, or to hold them..or laugh with them, or to tell them how much they meant to me..Or,..Or...
"Hey ma..You remember that time you asked me if I would give my bike (my cherished, beloved, midnight blue, big-boy bmx bike ) to the struggling mother you had befriended, so she could give it to her son for Christmas?
I do.
I was six..Or seven, and it was the moment my young mind was first introduced to selflessness..To kindness, to compassion...to love. WHAT...a moment indeed.
Sometimes I play the "I should've game"..or "if only"..."if only"..
If only.
******* hindsight.
I know the missing of them will never go...And I don't want it to.
They..."the missing"..are the gifts of our life. The main characters to every chapter of every story that has made us......"us". The moments we shared with them, were like little seeds..
Seeds Planted by their friendship, by their love.. by our togetherness. And I find, when i nourish those seeds,  sometimes with sadness, sometimes with happiness. Sometimes with anger....always with love..
Then those seeds, Those "times"..Those "gifts" they left in us in the form of memories..of moments...
They begin to sprout, and with the sprouting, the sadness, The loss, Starts to turn...into a deeply profound sense of gratitude. Gratitude for the truth.
Because the truth is....
We were so incredibly lucky, to have loved them, and to have been loved by them..in the first place.
Because those moments, well...They Made us.
Every single time I am kind, or make someone laugh..Or think..Or feel. Everytime I struggle, and am beat down, and have no ******* idea how to go on..
In those moments....i remember.
I remember their smile..Their comfort, their strength..
I remember the bike.
I remember everything. And they.."the missing"..give me what I need.
In our memories, in those "seeds", they are alive and well. Within us they're essence thrives, and in that place..They are free. And we, we are grateful. Because to dwell in the sadness, is to dishonor the very gifts they left Within us.
No beautiful one, the truth is...They never really left.

My BMX was department store,
black and yellow
like a bumblebee,
and weighed a ton
compared to their
alloy framed bikes.
They made fun of the kickstand
and the chain guard.

I was the class runt
and wore hand me downs
and rolled up jeans
sometimes with patches,
more fodder for jokes.

In the summer we camped
in the Adirondacks,
and in the fall
at the bus stop
or in school
they talked about trips
to France or Spain.

I had a fist fight
with an older kid
down the block
who lived in a house
with a swimming pool
when he said my house
looked like a barn.

I think I still see the world
through the tint
of those dollar green glasses
they made me wear.

And I shout down
the echoes of those voices
that condemn others with less,
and me with them.

But I got tough taking beatings
from bigger older boys.
And my legs got strong
pedaling that heavy bike uphill.

Sticking a tre-flip off of that three stair behind the bowling alley.

A suicide bomber strapped with C4 running into a crowded building.

Carving up the powder, bombing down the mountain on a freshly waxed snowboard.

Shooting up a movie theater with a 3D printed, fully-automatic 9mm sub machine gun.

Catching a gnarly ten foot wave off the coast of Hawaii and ramping off the lip to catch some air.

Indoctrination of uneducated children and young men to serve as soldiers for an unending holy war.

Landing a backflip on a Haro BMX bike while a crowd of onlookers chants and cheers.

Subversion and subterfuge within a foreign government in order to topple the current president.

Dropping in to a half pipe at the same time as someone else and hitting a high-five in the air.

Starting fires across a city nightscape to purge the neighborhood of vacant buildings and houses.

It's been 7 years
when i try and remember my home
the same few memories repeating
i can't seem to remember what it sounded like
the way my brother played his guitar
and how it made me feel
or when he picked me up from school on his BMX bike
we were cooler than all the rest of them
getting into a car

sometimes i look up at the stars
and i imagine i'm looking up
at the Vancouver glittery night sky
or i take a deep breath of air
and the way it bites my throat
will bring me back to the mountains
the snowflakes pinching my cheeks and nose

I used to wrestle
On my trampoline
I used to fly
On my swing set
I used to skateboard
In my driveway
I used to ride bmx
When I finished fixing the neighbors
I used to be an artist
When I was too bored to read a book
I wasnt always a poet
Just happened to die one

He was the first to score a hatrick on the newest astroturf pitch
He was the first on his new BMX to jump that ***** ditch
He  was the first to kiss the best looking girl in the school
He was the first that all kids thought he was cool

She was the first to have the Rainbow Collection of My Little Pony
She was the first to lend me her toys as mine were all phoney
She was the first to be picked for the school netball team
She was the first to date the boy on the bike we all thought was a dream

Looking back they deserved each other as they were the first to be divorced
A love so pictured, so fragile, it was almost movie scored
So no to be the first to everything in sight
I'm happy in my own little world just taking my own flight

From first to last, nothing will be remembered in the past

JJB