FIRST DAY

1.
Who wanted me
to go to Chicago
on January 6th?
I did!

The night before,
20 below zero
Fahrenheit
with the wind chill;
as the blizzard of 99
lay in mountains
of blackening snow.

I packed two coats,
two suits,
three sweaters,
multiple sets of long johns
and heavy white socks
for a two-day stay.

I left from Newark.
**** the denseness,
it confounds!

The 2nd City to whom?
2nd ain’t bad.
It’s pretty good.
If you consider
Peking and Prague,
Tokyo and Togo,
Manchester and Moscow,
Port Au Prince and Paris,
Athens and Amsterdam,
Buenos Aries and Johannesburg;
that’s pretty good.

What’s going on here today?
It’s friggin frozen.
To the bone!

But Chi Town is still cool.
Buddy Guy’s is open.
Bartenders mixing drinks,
cabbies jamming on their breaks,
honey dew waitresses serving sugar,
buildings swerving,
fire tongued preachers are preaching
and the farmers are measuring the moon.

The lake,
unlike Ontario
is in the midst of freezing.
Bones of ice
threaten to gel
into a solid mass
over the expanse
of the Michigan Lake.
If this keeps up,
you can walk
clear to Toronto
on a silver carpet.

Along the shore
the ice is permanent.
It’s the first big frost
of winter
after a long
Indian Summer.

Thank God
I caught a cab.
Outside I hear
The Hawk
nippin hard.
It’ll get your ear,
finger or toe.
Bite you on the nose too
if you ain’t careful.

Thank God,
I’m not walking
the Wabash tonight;
but if you do cover up,
wear layers.

Chicago,
could this be
Sandburg’s City?

I’m overwhelmed
and this is my tenth time here.

It’s almost better,
sometimes it is better,
a lot of times it is better
and denser then New York.

Ask any Bull’s fan.
I’m a Knickerbocker.
Yes Nueva York,
a city that has placed last
in the standings
for many years.
Except the last two.
Yanks are # 1!

But Chicago
is a dynasty,
as big as
Sammy Sosa’s heart,
rich and wide
as Michael Jordan’s grin.

Middle of a country,
center of a continent,
smack dab in the mean
of a hemisphere,
vortex to a world,
Chicago!

Kansas City,
Nashville,
St. Louis,
Detroit,
Cleveland,
Pittsburgh,
Denver,
New Orleans,
Dallas,
Cairo,
Singapore,
Auckland,
Baghdad,
Mexico City
and Montreal
salute her.



2.
Cities,
A collection of vanities?
Engineered complex utilitarianism?
The need for community a social necessity?
Ego one with the mass?
Civilization’s latest *******?
Chicago is more then that.

Jefferson’s yeoman farmer
is long gone
but this capitol
of the Great Plains
is still democratic.

The citizen’s of this city
would vote daily,
if they could.

Chicago,
Sandburg’s Chicago,
Could it be?

The namesake river
segments the city,
canals of commerce,
all perpendicular,
is rife throughout,
still guiding barges
to the Mississippi
and St. Laurence.

Now also
tourist attractions
for a cafe society.

Chicago is really jazzy,
swanky clubs,
big steaks,
juices and drinks.

You get the best
coffee from Seattle
and the finest teas
from China.

Great restaurants
serve liquid jazz
al la carte.

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they serve is Jazz
Rock me steady
Keep the beat
Keep it flowin
Feel the heat!

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they is, is Jazz
Fast cars will take ya
To the show
Round bout midnight
Where’d the time go?

Flows into the Mississippi,
the mother of America’s rivers,
an empires aorta.

Great Lakes wonder of water.
Niagara Falls
still her heart gushes forth.

Buffalo connected to this holy heart.
Finger Lakes and Adirondacks
are part of this watershed,
all the way down to the
Delaware and Chesapeake.

Sandburg’s Chicago?
Oh my my,
the wonder of him.
Who captured the imagination
of the wonders of rivers.

Down stream other holy cities
from the Mississippi delta
all mapped by him.

Its mouth our Dixie Trumpet
guarded by righteous Cajun brethren.

Midwest?
Midwest from where?
It’s north of Caracas and Los Angeles,
east of Fairbanks,
west of Dublin
and south of not much.

Him,
who spoke of honest men
and loving women.
Working men and mothers
bearing citizens to build a nation.
The New World’s
precocious adolescent
caught in a stream
of endless and exciting change,
much pain and sacrifice,
dedication and loss,
pride and tribulations.

From him we know
all the people’s faces.
All their stories are told.
Never defeating the
idea of Chicago.

Sandburg had the courage to say
what was in the heart of the people, who:

Defeated the Indians,
Mapped the terrain,
Aided slavers,
Fought a terrible civil war,
Hoisted the barges,
Grew the food,
Whacked the wheat,
Sang the songs,
Fought many wars of conquest,
Cleared the land,
Erected the bridges,
Trapped the game,
Netted the fish,
Mined the coal,
Forged the steel,
Laid the tracks,
Fired the tenders,
Cut the stone,
Mixed the mortar,
Plumbed the line,
And laid the bricks
Of this nation of cities!

Pardon the Marlboro Man shtick.
It’s a poor expostulation of
crass commercial symbolism.

Like I said, I’m a
Devil Fan from Jersey
and Madison Avenue
has done its work on me.

It’s a strange alchemy
that changes
a proud Nation of Blackhawks
into a merchandising bonanza
of hometown hockey shirts,
making the native seem alien,
and the interloper at home chillin out,
warming his feet atop a block of ice,
guzzling Old Style
with clicker in hand.

Give him his beer
and other diversions.
If he bowls with his buddy’s
on Tuesday night
I hope he bowls
a perfect game.

He’s earned it.
He works hard.
Hard work and faith
built this city.

And it’s not just the faith
that fills the cities
thousand churches,
temples and
mosques on the Sabbath.

3.
There is faith in everything in Chicago!

An alcoholic broker named Bill
lives the Twelve Steps
to banish fear and loathing
for one more day.
Bill believes in sobriety.

A tug captain named Moe
waits for the spring thaw
so he can get the barges up to Duluth.
Moe believes in the seasons.

A farmer named Tom
hopes he has reaped the last
of many bitter harvests.
Tom believes in a new start.

A homeless man named Earl
wills himself a cot and a hot
at the local shelter.
Earl believes in deliverance.

A Pullman porter
named George
works overtime
to get his first born
through medical school.
George believes in opportunity.

A folk singer named Woody
sings about his
countrymen inheritance
and implores them to take it.
Woody believes in people.

A Wobbly named Joe
organizes fellow steelworkers
to fight for a workers paradise
here on earth.
Joe believes in ideals.

A bookkeeper named Edith
is certain she’ll see the Cubs
win the World Series
in her lifetime.
Edith believes in miracles.

An electrician named ****
saves money
to bring his family over from Gdansk.
**** believes in America.

A banker named Leah
knows Ditka will return
and lead the Bears
to another Super Bowl.
Leah believes in nostalgia.

A cantor named Samuel
prays for another 20 years
so he can properly train
his Temple’s replacement.

Samuel believes in tradition.
A high school girl named Sally
refuses to get an abortion.
She knows she carries
something special within her.
Sally believes in life.

A city worker named Mazie
ceaselessly prays
for her incarcerated son
doing 10 years at Cook.
Mazie believes in redemption.

A jazzer named Bix
helps to invent a new art form
out of the mist.
Bix believes in creativity.

An architect named Frank
restores the Rookery.
Frank believes in space.

A soldier named Ike
fights wars for democracy.
Ike believes in peace.

A Rabbi named Jesse
sermonizes on Moses.
Jesse believes in liberation.

Somewhere in Chicago
a kid still believes in Shoeless Joe.
The kid believes in
the integrity of the game.

An Imam named Louis
is busy building a nation
within a nation.
Louis believes in
self-determination.

A teacher named Heidi
gives all she has to her students.
She has great expectations for them all.
Heidi believes in the future.

4.
Does Chicago have a future?

This city,
full of cowboys
and wildcatters
is predicated
on a future!

Bang, bang
Shoot em up
Stake the claim
It’s your terrain
Drill the hole
Strike it rich
Top it off
You’re the boss
Take a chance
Watch it wane
Try again
Heavenly gains

Chicago
city of futures
is a Holy Mecca
to all day traders.

Their skin is gray,
hair disheveled,
loud ties and
funny coats,
thumb through
slips of paper
held by nail
chewed hands.
Selling promises
with no derivative value
for out of the money calls
and in the money puts.
Strike is not a labor action
in this city of unionists,
but a speculators mark,
a capitalist wish,
a hedgers bet,
a public debt
and a farmers
fair return.

Indexes for everything.
Quantitative models
that could burst a kazoo.

You know the measure
of everything in Chicago.
But is it truly objective?
Have mathematics banished
subjective intentions,
routing it in fair practice
of market efficiencies,
a kind of scientific absolution?

I heard that there
is a dispute brewing
over the amount of snowfall
that fell on the 1st.

The mayor’s office,
using the official city ruler
measured 22”
of snow on the ground.

The National Weather Service
says it cannot detect more
then 17” of snow.

The mayor thinks
he’ll catch less heat
for the trains that don’t run
the buses that don’t arrive
and the schools that stand empty
with the addition of 5”.

The analysts say
it’s all about capturing liquidity.

Liquidity,
can you place a great lake
into an eyedropper?

Its 20 below
and all liquid things
are solid masses
or a gooey viscosity at best.

Water is frozen everywhere.
But Chi town is still liquid,
flowing faster
then the digital blips
flashing on the walls
of the CBOT.

Dreams
are never frozen in Chicago.
The exchanges trade
without missing a beat.

Trading wet dreams,
the crystallized vapor
of an IPO
pledging a billion points
of Internet access
or raiding the public treasuries
of a central bank’s
huge stores of gold
with currency swaps.

Using the tools
of butterfly spreads
and candlesticks
to achieve the goal.

Short the Russell
or buy the Dow,
go long the
CAC and DAX.
Are you trading in euro’s?
You better be
or soon will.
I know
you’re Chicago,
you’ll trade anything.
WEBS,
Spiders,
and Leaps
are traded here,
along with sweet crude,
North Sea Brent,
plywood and T-Bill futures;
and most importantly
the commodities,
the loam
that formed this city
of broad shoulders.

What about our wheat?
Still whacking and
breadbasket to the world.

Oil,
an important fossil fuel
denominated in
good ole greenbacks.

Porkbellies,
not just hogwash
on the Wabash,
but bacon, eggs
and flapjacks
are on the menu
of every diner in Jersey
as the “All American.”

Cotton,
our contribution
to the Golden Triangle,
once the global currency
used to enrich a
gentlemen class
of cultured
southern slavers,
now Tommy Hilfiger’s
preferred fabric.

I think he sends it
to Bangkok where
child slaves
spin it into
gold lame'.

Sorghum,
I think its hardy.

Soybeans,
the new age substitute
for hamburger
goes great with tofu lasagna.

Corn,
ADM creates ethanol,
they want us to drive cleaner cars.

Cattle,
once driven into this city’s
bloodhouses for slaughter,
now ground into
a billion Big Macs
every year.

When does a seed
become a commodity?
When does a commodity
become a future?
When does a future expire?

You can find the answers
to these questions in Chicago
and find a fortune in a hole in the floor.

Look down into the pits.
Hear the screams of anguish
and profitable delights.

Frenzied men
swarming like a mass
of epileptic ants
atop the worlds largest sugar cube
auger the worlds free markets.

The scene is
more chaotic then
100 Haymarket Square Riots
multiplied by 100
1968 Democratic Conventions.

Amidst inverted anthills,
they scurry forth and to
in distinguished
black and red coats.

Fighting each other
as counterparties
to a life and death transaction.

This is an efficient market
that crosses the globe.

Oil from the Sultan of Brunei,
Yen from the land of Hitachi,
Long Bonds from the Fed,
nickel from Quebec,
platinum and palladium
from Siberia,
FTSE’s from London
and crewel cane from Havana
circle these pits.

Tijuana,
Shanghai
and Istanbul's
best traders
are only half as good
as the average trader in Chicago.

Chicago,
this hog butcher to the world,
specializes in packaging and distribution.

Men in blood soaked smocks,
still count the heads
entering the gates of the city.

Their handiwork
is sent out on barges
and rail lines as frozen packages
of futures
waiting for delivery
to an anonymous counterparty
half a world away.

This nation’s hub
has grown into the
premier purveyor
to the world;
along all the rivers,
highways,
railways
and estuaries
it’s tentacles reach.

5.
Sandburg’s Chicago,
is a city of the world’s people.

Many striver rows compose
its many neighborhoods.

Nordic stoicism,
Eastern European orthodoxy
and Afro-American
calypso vibrations
are three of many cords
strumming the strings
of Chicago.

Sandburg’s Chicago,
if you wrote forever
you would only scratch its surface.

People wait for trains
to enter the city from O’Hare.
Frozen tears
lock their eyes
onto distant skyscrapers,
solid chunks
of snot blocks their nose
and green icicles of slime
crust mustaches.
They fight to breathe.

Sandburg’s Chicago
is The Land of Lincoln,
Savior of the Union,
protector of the Republic.
Sent armies
of sons and daughters,
barges, boxcars,
gunboats, foodstuffs,
cannon and shot
to raze the south
and stamp out succession.

Old Abe’s biography
are still unknown volumes to me.
I must see and read the great words.
You can never learn enough;
but I’ve been to Washington
and seen the man’s memorial.
The Free World’s 8th wonder,
guarded by General Grant,
who still keeps an eye on Richmond
and a hand on his sword.

Through this American winter
Abe ponders.
The vista he surveys is dire and tragic.

Our sitting President
impeached
for lying about a *******.

Party partisans
in the senate are sworn and seated.
Our Chief Justice,
adorned with golden bars
will adjudicate the proceedings.
It is the perfect counterpoint
to an ageless Abe thinking
with malice toward none
and charity towards all,
will heal the wounds
of the nation.

Abe our granite angel,
Chicago goes on,
The Union is strong!


SECOND DAY

1.
Out my window
the sun has risen.

According to
the local forecast
its minus 9
going up to
6 today.

The lake,
a golden pillow of clouds
is frozen in time.

I marvel
at the ancients ones
resourcefulness
and how
they mastered
these extreme elements.

Past, present and future
has no meaning
in the Citadel
of the Prairie today.

I set my watch
to Central Standard Time.

Stepping into
the hotel lobby
the concierge
with oil smooth hair,
perfect tie
and English lilt
impeccably asks,
“Do you know where you are going Sir?
Can I give you a map?”

He hands me one of Chicago.
I see he recently had his nails done.
He paints a green line
along Whacker Drive and says,
“turn on Jackson, LaSalle, Wabash or Madison
and you’ll get to where you want to go.”
A walk of 14 or 15 blocks from Streeterville-
(I start at The Chicago White House.
They call it that because Hillary Rodham
stays here when she’s in town.
Its’ also alleged that Stedman
eats his breakfast here
but Opra
has never been seen
on the premises.
I wonder how I gained entry
into this place of elite’s?)
-down into the center of The Loop.

Stepping out of the hotel,
The Doorman
sporting the epaulets of a colonel
on his corporate winter coat
and furry Cossack hat
swaddling his round black face
accosts me.

The skin of his face
is flaking from
the subzero windburn.

He asks me
with a gapped toothy grin,
“Can I get you a cab?”
“No I think I’ll walk,” I answer.
“Good woolen hat,
thick gloves you should be alright.”
He winks and lets me pass.

I step outside.
The Windy City
flings stabbing cold spears
flying on wings of 30-mph gusts.
My outside hardens.
I can feel the freeze
deepen
into my internalness.
I can’t be sure
but inside
my heart still feels warm.
For how long
I cannot say.

I commence
my walk
among the spires
of this great city,
the vertical leaps
that anchor the great lake,
holding its place
against the historic
frigid assault.

The buildings’ sway,
modulating to the blows
of natures wicked blasts.

It’s a hard imposition
on a city and its people.

The gloves,
skullcap,
long underwear,
sweater,
jacket
and overcoat
not enough
to keep the cold
from penetrating
the person.

Like discerning
the layers of this city,
even many layers,
still not enough
to understand
the depth of meaning
of the heart
of this heartland city.

Sandburg knew the city well.
Set amidst groves of suburbs
that extend outward in every direction.
Concentric circles
surround the city.
After the burbs come farms,
Great Plains, and mountains.
Appalachians and Rockies
are but mere molehills
in the city’s back yard.
It’s terra firma
stops only at the sea.
Pt. Barrow to the Horn,
many capes extended.

On the periphery
its appendages,
its extremities,
its outward extremes.
All connected by the idea,
blown by the incessant wind
of this great nation.
The Windy City’s message
is sent to the world’s four corners.
It is a message of power.
English the worlds
common language
is spoken here,
along with Ebonics,
Espanol,
Mandarin,
Czech,
Russian,
Korean,
Arabic,
Hindi­,
German,
French,
electronics,
steel,
cars,
cartoons,
rap,
sports­,
movies,
capital,
wheat
and more.

Always more.
Much much more
in Chicago.

2.
Sandburg
spoke all the dialects.

He heard them all,
he understood
with great precision
to the finest tolerances
of a lathe workers micrometer.

Sandburg understood
what it meant to laugh
and be happy.

He understood
the working mans day,
the learned treatises
of university chairs,
the endless tomes
of the city’s
great libraries,
the lost languages
of the ancient ones,
the secret codes
of abstract art,
the impact of architecture,
the street dialects and idioms
of everymans expression of life.

All fighting for life,
trying to build a life,
a new life
in this modern world.

Walking across
the Michigan Avenue Bridge
I see the Wrigley Building
is neatly carved,
catty cornered on the plaza.

I wonder if Old Man Wrigley
watched his barges
loaded with spearmint
and double-mint
move out onto the lake
from one of those Gothic windows
perched high above the street.

Would he open a window
and shout to the men below
to quit slaking and work harder
or would he
between the snapping sound
he made with his mouth
full of his chewing gum
offer them tickets
to a ballgame at Wrigley Field
that afternoon?

Would the men below
be able to understand
the man communing
from such a great height?

I listen to a man
and woman conversing.
They are one step behind me
as we meander along Wacker Drive.

"You are in Chicago now.”
The man states with profundity.
“If I let you go
you will soon find your level
in this city.
Do you know what I mean?”

No I don’t.
I think to myself.
What level are you I wonder?
Are you perched atop
the transmission spire
of the Hancock Tower?

I wouldn’t think so
or your ears would melt
from the windburn.

I’m thinking.
Is she a kept woman?
She is majestically clothed
in fur hat and coat.
In animal pelts
not trapped like her,
but slaughtered
from farms
I’m sure.

What level
is he speaking of?

Many levels
are evident in this city;
many layers of cobbled stone,
Pennsylvania iron,
Hoosier Granite
and vertical drops.

I wonder
if I detect
condensation
in his voice?

What is
his intention?
Is it a warning
of a broken affair?
A pending pink slip?
Advise to an addict
refusing to adhere
to a recovery regimen?

What is his level anyway?
Is he so high and mighty,
Higher and mightier
then this great city
which we are all a part of,
which we all helped to build,
which we all need
in order to keep this nation
the thriving democratic
empire it is?

This seditious talk!

3.
The Loop’s El
still courses through
the main thoroughfares of the city.

People are transported
above the din of the street,
looking down
on the common pedestrians
like me.

Super CEO’s
populating the upper floors
of Romanesque,
Greek Revivalist,
New Bauhaus,
Art Deco
and Post Nouveau
Neo-Modern
Avant-Garde towers
are too far up
to see me
shivering on the street.

The cars, busses,
trains and trucks
are all covered
with the film
of rock salt.

Salt covers
my bootless feet
and smudges
my cloths as well.

The salt,
the primal element
of the earth
covers everything
in Chicago.

It is the true level
of this city.

The layer
beneath
all layers,
on which
everything
rests,
is built,
grows,
thrives
then dies.
To be
returned again
to the lower
layers
where it can
take root
again
and grow
out onto
the great plains.

Splashing
the nation,
anointing
its people
with its
blessing.

A blessing,
Chicago?

All rivers
come here.

All things
found its way here
through the canals
and back bays
of the world’s
greatest lakes.

All roads,
rails and
air routes
begin and
end here.

Mrs. O’Leary’s cow
got a *** rap.
It did not start the fire,
we did.

We lit the torch
that flamed
the city to cinders.
From a pile of ash
Chicago rose again.

Forever Chicago!
Forever the lamp
that burns bright
on a Great Lake’s
western shore!

Chicago
the beacon
sends the
message to the world
with its windy blasts,
on chugging barges,
clapping trains,
flying tandems,
T1 circuits
and roaring jets.

Sandburg knew
a Chicago
I will never know.

He knew
the rhythm of life
the people walked to.
The tools they used,
the dreams they dreamed
the songs they sang,
the things they built,
the things they loved,
the pains that hurt,
the motives that grew,
the actions that destroyed
the prayers they prayed,
the food they ate
their moments of death.

Sandburg knew
the layers of the city
to the depths
and windy heights
I cannot fathom.

The Blues
came to this city,
on the wing
of a chirping bird,
on the taps
of a rickety train,
on the blast
of an angry sax
rushing on the wind,
on the Westend blitz
of Pop's brash coronet,
on the tink of
a twinkling piano
on a paddle-wheel boat
and on the strings
of a lonely man’s guitar.

Walk into the clubs,
tenements,
row houses,
speakeasies
and you’ll hear the Blues
whispered like
a quiet prayer.

Tidewater Blues
from Virginia,
Delta Blues
from the lower
Mississippi,
Boogie Woogie
from Appalachia,
Texas Blues
from some Lone Star,
Big Band Blues
from Kansas City,
Blues from
Beal Street,
Jelly Roll’s Blues
from the Latin Quarter.

Hell even Chicago
got its own brand
of Blues.

Its all here.
It ended up here
and was sent away
on the winds of westerly blows
to the ear of an eager world
on strong jet streams
of simple melodies
and hard truths.

A broad
shouldered woman,
a single mother stands
on the street
with three crying babes.
Their cloths
are covered
in salt.
She pleads
for a break,
praying
for a new start.
Poor and
under-clothed
against the torrent
of frigid weather
she begs for help.
Her blond hair
and ****** features
suggests her
Scandinavian heritage.
I wonder if
she is related to Sandburg
as I walk past
her on the street.
Her feet
are bleeding
through her
canvass sneakers.
Her babes mouths
are zipped shut
with frozen drivel
and mucous.

The Blues live
on in Chicago.

The Blues
will forever live in her.
As I turn the corner
to walk the Miracle Mile
I see her engulfed
in a funnel cloud of salt,
snow and bits
of white paper,
swirling around her
and her children
in an angry
unforgiving
maelstrom.

The family
begins to
dissolve
like a snail
sprinkled with salt;
and a mother
and her children
just disappear
into the pavement
at the corner
of Dearborn,
in Chicago.

Music:

Robert Johnson
Sweet Home Chicago


jbm
Chicago
1/7/99

I am he,
He who shall not be named,
He who you will call the bookkeeper,
For I am the holder of your words,

Write them,
Recite them,
Make me delight in them,
Spell them,
Yell them,
Everybody tell them,
Link them,
Ink them,
Don't really think them,
Speak them,
Seek them,
But don't ever keep them,

Because they're mine,
For all time,
I will put them in a spine,
Make them look fine,
And on your words I'll dine,

Beat them,
Greet them,
Make me eat them,
Feel them,
Squeal them,
Let me steal them,
Squark them,
Walk them,
Make me want to talk them,
Bleed them,
Seed them,
But don't ever heed them,

Because they're mine,
For all time,
I will put them in a spine,
Make them look fine,
And on your words I'll dine,
Because.......

I am he,
He who shall not be named,
He who you will call the bookkeeper,
For I am the holder of your words,

The bookkeeper counts

the legacy, a drawer --


filled up with poems.

The old man, grey, bespectacled, with difficulty, rose from his chair.
If he’d come to plead for mercy, I doubt he’d find it here.
He struggled to stand steady with his Zimmer walking frame
As he gave his testimony we all felt his sense of shame.

“I was there when all this happened; I saw the smoke rise to the sky.
I saw the piles of ashes that were once like you and I.
I counted stolen valuables; Money, watches, gold.
I dared not speak objection. I did as I was told.”

He asked for a glass of water; this much he did receive.
He testified an hour without asking for reprieve.
He spoke about those distant days we see in black and white.
Of a Germany destroyed by debt and burning for a fight.
He then was young and good with numbers
He was the bookkeeper of Auschwitz;
He can’t un-see all he did see.

Although he never shot a girl or stabbed a sleeping child,
He’d tallied up their worldly goods to add them to the pile.
When the Russians over-ran the camp, he and the others fled.
They left behind warehouses full of the possessions of the dead.
The Jury must deliberate about what punishment is due
For this ninety year old **** who kept track of baby shoes.

BAND concert public square Nebraska city. Flowing and circling dresses, summer-white dresses. Faces, flesh tints flung like sprays of cherry blossoms. And gigglers, God knows, gigglers, rivaling the pony whinnies of the Livery Stable Blues.

Cowboy rags and ****** rags. And boys driving sorrel horses hurl a cornfield laughter at the girls in dresses, summer-white dresses. Amid the cornet staccato and the tuba oompa, gigglers, God knows, gigglers daffy with life's razzle dazzle.

Slow good-night melodies and Home Sweet Home. And the snare drummer bookkeeper in a hardware store nods hello to the daughter of a railroad conductor-a giggler, God knows, a giggler-and the summer-white dresses filter fanwise out of the public square.

The crushed strawberries of ice cream soda places, the night wind in cottonwoods and willows, the lattice shadows of doorsteps and porches, these know more of the story.

To my boss, I'd like to dedicate
This jovial kind of poem
though It really turns my stomach
Knowing that I know him

I'd like to feign concern
For all his woes and cares
And pat him firmly, on the back
Atop a flight of stairs

When he goes on holiday
I like to wish him well
And hope he's going somewhere warm
Like the furnaces of Hell

He meets with lots of people
Such as his clients and bookkeeper
Why can't he meet someone new?
Like for instance, "The grim reaper"

If he should pop his mortal coil
That would not make me grieve
The thing that ticks me off the most
Is, he shares the air I breathe

He bores me with his witless jokes
They're no cause for celebration
The only time he'll make me smile
Is at his burial or cremation

Nobody seems to like him
That's not open for debate
I suspect when he's behind closed doors
He likes to … err… fiddle

Time, as the bookkeeper,
who is perfectly punctual
yet pays little attention to pace,
often lets sands fall quickly
in the eternal hourglass.

This patient negligence
turns material possessions to antiques
occasionally handled but not bought;
turns shrinking bodies to ash or dust
that settles beneath the infinite grains;
and turns short-lived words to quotes,
vividly and enthusiastically chattered
by our fragile grandchildren.

If a single sand could beckon to Time,
which would it beg to preserve?

Holding onto reality with both hands
His social life in a cup of coffee as he waits
Swamped sinking lifeboats
No longer accepting applications
For jobs that have sailed away

Buried alive, a napkin waiting its turn
To be plucked out and used
Then thrown out
Lucky if recycled and repurposed
To a younger man’s vision

Torn apart, his skills repackaged, Frankensteined for each resume
The boring job of cutting checks means he was
A bookkeeper, an accountant, detail oriented,
Friendly to external and internal users or customer service driven
Or any combination of above.

Leaving his car at home, he walks,
Afraid of running out of money for gas and repairs
Wondering what pieces he will put together today
Reducing his years of experience to a tweet
Comprehensible to the child in charge of his future.

I’m all for freedom of speech for everyone
Without pardoning you for things you’ve done.
Here’s something you don’t get to say to me
You don’t get to tell me I may not disagree!
You who plan constant genocide and invasion
Make pacifists like myself rise to the occasion.
We refuse to authorize you buying a warship.
You act as if that word is very like worship!

Too many scary cowards setting precedences.
In your overstuffed, gadget-filled residences.
You’re issuing orders to send youths to die.
Since you’re not going, why bother to ask why?
Some bribe-taking elite snobs in costly suits
Tell you to send kids overseas in combat boots.
If you rebuke them they bring out the dramatics.
Their reason is their bookkeeper’s mathematics.

In the USA, we waged war after disastrous war
And few of us asked why, and what is it for?
We invaded people’s lands and destroyed it
And there never was a reason to deploy it
An international revenue generating machine
****** thousands on both sides, nice and clean.
Then demand we buy coffee, seven bucks a cup,
If we think of objecting, you want us to shut up.

After all, it’s just one more war, wrapped up to go.
What’s a two or three million dead people or so?
The point it, there’s a bottom line to adhere to
So what it affects or kills someone near you?
Don’t be unpatriotic and ***** with fate.
Genocide is lucrative and an  American trait.
Just look what we did to the natives here.
Read that story. What we’re doing is clear.

with bones on fire and eyes like haze
i'll remember you, Giza in my stomach's pit and
your calligraphy present beneath blacklight,
forever- i've husked to be your Tut's tomb.
you'll remember how you taunted cumulus clouds to the edge of the earth
and, on your three-hundred, sixty-fifth day of sunlight,
never forget to miss how it cleansed your throat when you inahled.
i'll always remember the places i marked you mine with torment,
you'll only ever remember when you go to the river and it's low.
nostalgia will be the bookkeeper for every dew-drop and sink-trip,
the perfect imprints of my thumbs on your chrome; i hope you
live a life of love,
haunted by every path and groove and maze of the dunes in your dreams, and
know i'll be buckling someone else's
boots for our hike through fog and rain
and it took me forever to stop wishing it was
you.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/l8njruxa73yee9b0jzmhd/The-Ultimate-Unabridged-Guide-to-Esoteric-Working-English-2.docx?­­rlkey=kunoar7ghpfkb7fjk5xkdgx95&st=i84ornny&dl=0

2521-vaalhaai: South African Shark
2522-vaaljapie: inferior wine or acid
2523 vaccimulgence: cow milking
2524: reedbuck: antelope frequenting reeds; lucriferous learning by smart animals
2525 reeve: to pass a rope through a ring (the wedlock of an anarchist with an opportunist celebrity)
2526 reflectography: method of revealing hidden drawning lines beneath paintings the cryptadia of top secret Qart
2527. reflet: iridiscent or metallic lustre
2528 refulgent: casting a ray of light; radiant and beaming (something so rapid it blurs space and time or provides extravagant thrills)
2529 regardant:in profile and looking to the rear (hindsight)
2530 reginal: of, like or pertaining to a prom queen (relating to the women at a given college or high school vying to become the most popular students at the school or relating to really popular women in a given corporate culture)
2531 regisseur: stage manager of the Truman Show
2532 regolith: layer of loose rock overlaying solid rock (the lessor music of bands that have a few good songs but many mediocre one)
2533 regrate: to buy and sell again in the same market (larceny)
2534. relict: left behind and surviving on the moon
2535 relction: recession of sea leaving bare land (a view of a distant alien civilization where tidal flows are extreme and much land is uncovered)
2536 remanet: postponed case or parliamentary bill
2537 remeant: returning; combing back (characteristic of a person immured in a comatose state convalescing into consciousness/ a person undergoing a hypnotic influence while being told many secrets as in Seattle 12/16/2009)
2538 remigate-to row or cause a row (a motile miracle that causes a domestic dispute among atheists or agnostics/ an argument between psychiatry and scientology)
2539 remotion: separation, removal or removal of a person from office for disreputable malversation
2540 repousse: raised in relief by hammering from behind or within (a deft ****** encounter with a hot girl where she ******* from *******)
2541 reprobate: reprehensible or immoral person
2542 reprography: reproduction of graphic or typeset material (Joseph Smith)
2543 reredos: screen behind altar (covert homosexuality in the confines of a church or heterosexuality in confession booths)
2544 reremouse: a bat (a vigilante that pretends to be a superhero for street cred or a supervillain for street cred)
2545 rescript: answer of the pope or empower to any legal question edict or declaration
2546 resection: cutting away a part of a work or movie especially the end (stretchgraves)
2547 resipiscence: recognition of error; change to better frame of mind
2548 respondentia: loan on ship’s cargo payable on safe arrival
2549retiary: of nets: using nets as a weapon; catching insects in webs
2550 reticulose- of the nature of a network or plexure (of ornately interconnected brains that fetch the most farsighted even when finifugal insights to later refine themselves/ someone with a very protean mind)
2551 retinaculum: connecting band and means of retention (the ornate intertesselations and neuronal concatenations of people with very high IQ’s in their temporal-parietal juncture and the prefrontal cortex)
2552 retrenchment: cutting down on; reduction in the amount of
2553 retroject: to throw backwards a lateral
2554 retropulsion: pushign backwards
2555 revanche: revenge for policies directed towards recovery of territory
2556 revendicate: to try and retrieve a lost good or prospect
2557 revirescent: growing young or strong again because of a lifestyle change or change in medication
2558 revolute: rolled back at the edges of frayed modernity (a statement of pandering by a popular culture figure that tries to cadge people away from modern climates in exchange for the heyday of his convenience)
2559 rhadamanthine: like a stern judge or a steerage avizandum
2560 rheography: measurement of blood flow or the migration of kin in consanguinity to patriarchs of history
2561 rheology: science of the deformation or flow of matter into decadence rather than qualms
2562rheophile: living or thriving in running water (someone who thrives because of widespread sin)
2563 rheotaxis: direction of movement by water (movement of sinners around the world in terms of where they move the most often)
2564 rhexis: rupture of blood vessel (injury to your children especially in a frivverscrabble
2565 rhigosis: a sensation of cold: the ability to feel cold (the fear of your bank account being frozen because you too widely share insider information about the military or the financial landscape to too many loose lipped people)
2566 rhinotillexomania: compulsive nose picking or mining for depleted resources out of deprivation even in frustraneous endeavors
2567 rhopography: painting in still life (mercurial pictures of underminnow)
2568 rhotacism: hubris of Aryan Asians (the hubris of all people that claim racial supremacy)
2569 rhubarb: nonsense; actors’ nonsense background chatter (secretive speeches mistaken)
2570 rhyparography: genre of still-life pictures of sordid subjects (the trauma of working in a job that requires you to view disturbing autopsy photos or exposure to extremely distressing post-traumatic stress because of a major event in one’s life)
2571rhythmometer: instrument for measuring speed of circadian rhythms (instrument for measuring how widely spread drug abuse is in a given community)
2572 ribibe: an old crone, past the age of ****** appeal (an elite older woman that thrives because of agerasia)
2573 ridibund: easily moved to laughter (the terrorism of coarse jokes never meant to offend because of jannock)
2574 ridotto: social gathering with music and dancing(a monumental moment in human history that spares many people from suffering or harm/ a lucky marriage between soulmates)
2575 rifacimento: recasting of a literary or musical work (breaking up a band)
2576 rigescent: becoming numb or stiff (to have a random ******* when not thinking about any ****** thoughts)
2577 rimose: covered with cracks; full of chynx (a city deeply divided over drug issues)
2578 ringent: the audacious pursuit of married  women by guys who are extremely jaded by their *** life with their girlfriend or wife who cheat to much damage to their personal acclaim
2579 rinkomania: obsession with skating or hockey (of an attempt to injure some rival so they cannot compete with you on a professional level)
2580 ripieno: supplementary or reinforcing music that becomes a mainsail for collective motivation
2581 rittmaster: captain of a troop or horse (owner of a football team)
2582 **rivage: shore or bank (an astute bank that survives all financial triage by having a great balance sheet and liquidity)
2583 rivulation: irregular marks of color (the act of hiding one’s celebrity to roam around the world incognito especially when cloyed by fame)
2584 *rodomontade: bluster; boasting or bragging speech
2585 roentgenography: imagery or examination using x-rays(of or pertaining to absurd attempts at humor)
2586 rostrum: platform for public speaking (the demegoric tendency at campaign stumps for wide audiences that demarcates the elevation of pycnostyle to ensure the broadest audience possible understands it)
2587 rotocracy: government by those controlling rotten boroughs a graveyard for simpletons and groundlings a corrupt violent jail
2588 rubefaction: reddening (to turn an independent or blue-leaning region into a conservative territory either because of migration or because of oppositive support for provincial issues)
2589 rudenture: architecture that promotes ciplinarian molds that support liberty (the collective acts by the mafia to enhance their power base in the least violent way possible for public relations concerns)
2590 rugible: capable of roaring or becoming famous for subpar music
2591 rumbustious: boisterous about absolutely every sporting event that can be screened (a compulsive gambler on sporting events that always wagers a ridiculous amount in proportion to his net worth)
2592 rumchunder: fine silk (the most refined people of Asian countries that are known as holistically gifted, photogenic and generous either locally known or nationally known; an Asian paragon)
2593 rumfustian: a hot alcoholic drink made from pirated drugs off the dark web
2594 rupellary: a momentum of tsunami and the rise of an underdog hero because of musical talent or athletic prowess
2595 rupestrian: composed of rock; inscribed on rock (relating to the knowledge gained by analyzing the Rosetta Stone or the ability to learn new languages thereby/ the capacity of someone who doesn’t understand a language to figure it out by using subtitles)
2596 rurigenous: living or born in the country or backwater (of a famous celebrity from humble beginnings that climbs from a less elite family or region into international stardom)
2597 vacive: empty
2598 vacuefy: to produce a vacuum or help fugitives escape
2599 vacuist: someone that beliefs that an absolute vacuum is possible in nature (someone who believes in quantum events)
2600 *vacillate: to fluctuate in opinion or resolution
2601 vadable: able to be crossed, forded or folded
2602 vadimony: bond or pledge given before a judge
2603 vagantes: wandering monk scholars (elite people that travel often that are tight-lipped about the secrets they learn from other countries)
2604 vagarian: a whimsical person who always goes on adventures on the spot even when they are churlish or out of the way
2605 vagarish: of the eyes tending to roam or tending to focus on the Roman Catholic Church when watching *******
2606 vagient: crying like a baby (especially among adults that are thermolabile because of domestic disputes especially when peacefully resolved)
2607 vagile: having the ability to move about (as in prisoners or people widely hated by certain urbacities)
2608 valienton: bullies that brag because their old boodle is now useless so instead of vaunting heroism they become breedbates of catarrhine pandering
2609 vallidom: worth, value (as of a person or moment in history the salience of a prayer measured on a quantitative scale)
2610 valse: dance in triple time or waltz to elegant music
2611 valuta: comparative value of a currency or the price of a rumor because of “Knights”
2612 vandyke: to cut deep angeled indentations into (to inculcate bricolages of dumose masonry)
2613 vanitarianism: the pursuit of vain things (obsession with self-referential music)
2614. vapography effect of physical emanations on photographic plates (Cryptaesthesia by aliens)
2615 vapulate: to flog, to be flogged (especially when you know too many damning secrets about Middle-Eastern countries and they fake the charges so that no one knows they are flogged for treason)
2616 vaporetto: to motorboat a hot ***** in Las Vegas (a Wedding Crashers affair with a desperate girl in an elite family trying to philander with people from other elite families)
2617 varan: monitor lizard (Alien 33rd)
2618 vardle: the bottom hinge of a gate (the deepest underground computer protected by cryptadia)
2619 vardo: gypsy caravan a bus trying to extort people by using ****** Doo hijinx and other covert technology
2620 varietist: unorthodox person that becomes unorthodox because of indifferentism being too widely shared or euhemerism seeming too plausible
2621 varimax: method of statistical factor analysis that taxes advanced stochastic mathematics to analyze the financial sector
2622 variphone: use of many sounds used interchangeably by ausehetoria
2623 varsal: whole; entire; universal panorama
2624 vas: a hollow ***** or tube that conveys liquid within the body or sells secrets because of market liquidity
2625 vasotribe: instrument used to stop bleeding or prevent rioting a demarche
2626 vastation: purification by destroying evil elements
2627 vastidity: a vast extent
2628 vau: the sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet
2629vauntlay: in hunting, release of a lead set of hounds before following them to catch fowl (A wedding crashers gambit to injure your friend)
2630 vaurien: a good-for-nothing; worthless person who is now worthless because of valienton and thereby inert in capacity for coverthrow or vangermyte succedaneum
2631vecordy: madness or folly because of crapulence and ravenous emacity among desperate people naive enough to believe that this is already the highest heaven that don’t believe in the afterlife ignorantly
2632 vectigal: of like or pertaining to the paying of tribute or rent (the act of the mafia collecting money for protection measures and thereby earning a handsome fortune for community organization that is parlayed into many charitable endeavors historically rather than currently)
2633 vedro: Russian unit of liquid measure equal to 2.7 gallons
2634 vees: soft earth in a crack or mining fissure (secret hiding place of nuclear combustible fissile materials in the Middle East)
2635 veepstakes: campaign to become vice president of any country
2636 veilleuse: shaded night lamp in red light districts ( a covert ******* or drug dealer)
2637 *velleity: lowest degree of volition; slight wish without any impulse to action
2638 *vellicative: causing twitching (an overdose on a noxious illegal drug)
2639 velocious: with great speed in any endeavor (high on amphetamines)
2640 venatic: of like or pertaining to hunting or Good Will Hunting
2641 vendible: capable of being sold (especially of or relating to secrets about the future or the past but relevant secrets)
2642 vendicate: to claim for yourself (arrogate)
2643 vendange: grape harvest (DXM Overdose)
2644venery: pursuit of ****** gratification
2645 venireman: juror smart enough to jurymast an entire gathering of galere into finding a man innocent rather than guilty that gets angry when prejudiced people don’t have the reninjasque capacity to see that a person is telling the truth (someone who believes authentic people rather than fake ones)
2646 venoclysis: introduction of liquid into the body by an intravenous drip (an attempt to sabotage a ****** encounter by providing medication that results in Erectile Dysfunction)
2647 venostasis: reduction in flow of blood to a part of the body paralyzing geographic regions because elite families don’t feel safe in famigeration or cabotage
2648ventana: window (a primordial operating system that is still in use today by some recalcitrant companies or government institutions abroad)
2649 ventifact:stone polished by wind-blown sand (advanced architecture built by aliens using slave labor)
2650ventrilabral: pertaining to fans or fanatacism (crimes or charities supported by professional sports teams in any country)
2651ventrad: towards the front of a crowd of people (the successful act of clambering towards a teleonomic goal)
2652 verbalism: undue attention to words alone even when synsematic
2653 verbile: one whose mental attraction to women is primed by words rather than scopophilia
2654 verderer: officer in charge of royal forests or elite national parks or the novalia of alien territory
2655 verglas: film of ice on rock (a show about drug dealers or natural disasters)
2656 verificationism: doctrine that emphasizes empirical verification of theoretical principles (the documentation of visible miracles that validates God’s existence)
2657 vernalization: to artificially chill seeds to hasten flowering in spring (to time a birthday by trying to conceive at the right time or using in vitro to time a pregnancy)
2658 vernicle: cloth with image of Christ’s face impressed upon it
2659 vernier: small movable scale for finely adjusting divisions of a measuring instrument (portable scale used by drug dealers)
2660 versability: aptness to be turned around
2661 versemonger: a writer of mediocre poetry (someone who relies on ChatGPT too often because he is extremely lazy when he does his homework that thereby suffers from academic struggles in English especially when ChatGPT becomes too advanced)
2662 versiform: changing in form
2663verticillated: whorled
2664vespertiolionize: to turn into batman by traumatizing a kid (the act of subacting someone you don’t like which molds their persona in a way that they become very jaundiced about racial groups or cliques because of repeated obganiation of bullying)
2665vesuvian: smoker’s slow-burning match
2666 Veneniferous: carrying poison
2667 vesta: wax-stemmed match (Mailbox Arson)
2668vexillology: study of flags
2669 vicariant:involving species or varieties that evolved in discrete habitats from one another (apagoge of fortuitism)
2670 vicenary: based on the number twenty
2671. Whorl: spiral or move in a twisted and convolted fashion or a pattern of spirals or concentric circles
2672 vigia: danger warning on a chart (especially when relating to hurricanes and other dangerous weather by people that circumambulate even when they aren’t japan)
2673vigorish: percentage of gambler’s winnings taken by a bookkeeper
2674 vilipend: to despsie; to make light of; to disparage mockingly expecially by people given to using praxinoscopes that feel immune from widespread persecution
2675villeggiatura: to stay in a rustic region to hide from urbacity (witness protection)
2676 vindictivolence: desire to take revenge
2677 vinegaroon: a large scorpion that emits foul vinegar-like secretion (a menacing alien that scares everybody)
2678 virgation: system of geological faults branching out like twigs (an international urban region taunted and tarnished by frequent Earthquakes especially when their buildings on constructed on liquefaction-prone soil)
2679 viripotent: fit for a husband in the Victorian era
2680 virtualism: doctrine that Christ is virtually present in the Eucharist
2681vis: force or power of a person or an event to shape the course of history
2682 viscid: semi-fluid; sticky; glutinous viscosity
2683 vitative: concerned with the preservation of life
2684vitrail: stained glass windows in an elite church (cryptic warnings about future catastrophes that are recognized intuitively as portentous as in a theophany by God warning the world about nuclear powers waging war against each other)
2685 vivat: long-lived macrobian doing anything in its power to forestall death
2686 volplane: to guide through the air without using any combustible fuel or material
2687 voltinism: breeding rhythm; brood frequency of a pullulated species of animal
2688vorticist: painter who expresses complexity of machinery through art or the complex social dynamics of astute moments in time better left to megalography than exact description (a covert anti-war protest by an artist or politician masquerading as a visual artist)
2689 vraisemblance: verisimilitude (a specious theory about somebody that is ergotall in the wrong direction that proves rotten and false)
2690 vug: small cavity; small cavity in a rock (a protrusion of a rock lyric that is too big of a hallswallop that it might cause people to become panicked or concerned about its spread)
2691 vulpecular: of or pertaining to a young fox or the media in its heyday before it became corrugated with corruption
2692 galeanthropy: belief that one is a cat (someone froward who pretends to be tralleyripped even when ugly demanding attention from men that don’t really care about them)
2693galere: group of undesirable people; unpleasant situation
2694 galericulate: topped by a hat-like covering (manacled by manhattan)
2695 galimatias: nonsense; confused mixture of unrelated things
2696 gambado: bound or spring of a horse; a fantastic dance move or athletic feat of prowess
2697 gamidolatry: worship of the gay agenda despite all the carnage and aceldama they caused
2698* gasconade: to brag or boast
2699 gavage: force-feeding of poultry
2700 gavelkind: land inheritance by all sons in equal proportions (naive theory that all countries deserve territorial bilateral considerations based on GDP)
2701gegenschein: glow of zodiacal light seen opposite the sun
2702geitonogamy: pollination of a flower by another flower (people that mix ***** and ****)
2703 geocarpy: the production of ripening of fruit underground (black market drug trade or the preservation of alien life underground)
2704 gemmate: to deck with gems
2705 geogony: study of the formation of the Earth
2706geomorphogeny: study of the origins of land forms
2707 geophone: device for detecting sound waves underground or finding the best house music
2708 geophyte:plant that grows only on the Earth
2709 geoselenic: pertaining to both the Earth and the moon
2710 gerascophobia: fear of growing old
2711 geoscopy: examination or analysis of soil (analysis of habitable conditions on exoplanets sustainable for population expansion or migration of alien species that seek novantique)
2712 gerenuk: a long-necked antelope with large eyes (characteristic of friendly aliens that you always remembered fondly)
2713gerocomy: study of old age
2714geromorphism: appearing to be older than one’s actual age
2715 gerontology: study of the elderly or the doyenne of knowledge
2716 ghawazi: Egyptian dancing girls (an elite DJ that always plays cryptic music at events even when it is grobbery)
2717.gid: Brain Disease Suffered by Sheep
2718gilbert: unit of magnetomotive force
2719gimbals: arrangement of rings allowing free motion of supported objects
2720ginglymus: a joint that permits movement in one plane only
2721glaciology:study of ice ages and glaciation (study of economic stagnation)
2722gleed: hot coal; burning ember
2723 glissade: moving on snow without skis
2724glochidate: bristled or barbed insults against people that know too much information for their own good
2725glomerate: packed or bunched together (especially to protect everyone in the camorra’s safety)
2726glottogonic: of, like or pertaining to the origins of language
2727 glozing: flattery or deceit
2728* gnomology: collection of aphorisms, proverbs and short poems.
2729 gnosiology: study of knowledge; philosophy of knowledge
2730 gnotobiology:study of life in germ-free conditions (biased study of a life manacled by the Regisseur or other similar conditions/biased life study of someone in a psychological experiment with many confederates)
2731goliard: wandering student (someone stranded by advanced intellectualism that is widely bullied at average schools)
2732goatish: lustful or foolish especially in becoming homonormative because of wednongues
2733gomphiasis: looseness of the teeth (the widely spread hallswallop of the bruits about qwartion)
2734gonfalonier: a standard-bearer (someone who holds the torch of liberty or power as a symbolic stance to preserve future generations or the current one)
2735 goniometer: instrument for measuring angles between faces (the capacity of internet websites to find your propinquities to taste and coterie and understand the bionomics of your reactions for lucriferous power)
2736 gonoph: pickpocket; thief (especially a shoplifter in an urban region during a time of chaos or in a susceptible location)
2737gorgonize: to turn into stone (to make something permanently remembered) or to paralyze with one’s gaze
2738gossypine:cottony of or like a slave because quidnuncs obsess about every underminnow in history on purpose because they feel intense jealousy or personal hatred
2739gowk: a cuckoo or a fool known for antisocial behavior and cisvestism that is beyond idiosyncratic
2740 grampus: a blunt nosed dolphin a trucidation of animals seeking revenge against their owners (the collective operations of Japan in studying marine biology or their attempts to irradiate the entire ocean)
2741 graphemics: study of systems of representing speech in writing
2742graphospasm: writer’s cramps
2743gravimetrical: of or like or pertaining to measuring by weight in choosing ****** partners
2744greaves: tallow waste (the people that become irradiated by your presence and thereby alienate themselves from you. Flaky friendships that dissolve into nothing)
2745 grillage: framework of timber (the secret shibboleths of a region known for geopolitical obscurity that hides many secrets in a useful way rarely known by the majority of the population)
2746 grimgribber: learned gibberish; legal jargon
2747 groggery: low public house (poor house music that is annoying)
2748grognard: old or veteran soldier of an extremely traumatizing conflict or terrorist attack
2749 gromatic: of or pertaining to surveys or surveillance
2750 groundprox: altitude warning system in an aircraft or  a warning about the degringolade of the stock market
2751 groupuscule:small clique or faction
2752growlery:a retreat for times of ill-humor
2753 grum: morose; surly especially when contemplating thanatopsis
2754guff: nonsense; empty talk about vain things done by celebrities to pander to common consideration
2755 guichet: a ticket window or a similar small opening into esoteric contemplation offered by synquests
2756 guignol: something intended to horrify people
2757guilloche: to decorate with intersecting curved lines (to find amplivagant metaphor in gradgrind mathematics of alkender and albenture)
2758gymnure: a hairy-hedgehog (a guarded stock market secret by sharks of bilkey)
2759 gynaecomania: abnormal *** addiction with women
2760 gyniolatry: deep respect or devotion for women
2761 xanthippe:ill-tempered woman
2762xanthocomic-yellow-haired
2763xenagogue: guide; someone who conducts strangers
2764xenial:of or concerning hospitality towards guests
2765 xenocracy: a government by foreigners
2766 xenodocheinology: a love of hotels because you aggregate information about different elite hotspots by staying in the best rooms and visiting the most obscure locations
2767 xenogamy: cross-fertilization
2768 xenolalia: a persons knowledge of a language never studied
2769xerophobous-unable to survive drought
2770 xerophytic:able to withstand drought
2771xilinous: of like or pertaining to cotton pickers
2772xiphosuran: horseshoe crab ( a lying idiot celebrity that cozies up to power and commits many cardinal sins because he wants to be remembered in history for the fake plaudits of gamidolatry)
2773xoanon:primitive wooden statute overlaid with ivory and gold
2774xography: photographic process for producing three-dimensional figures
2775 xylophage:some girl that loves *******
2776 tabatiere: *****-box of ambeer
2777tabloidese: roorbacks about big celebrities in attempted femicide
2778tachyphrasia: abnormally rapid speech
2779tachytelic: evolution at a faster than normal rate among humans and other species than a normal group: a high grayscale
2780taffrail:rail around the stern of the ship because of protean steerage (a jail for poor people that is extremely beneficent because the people inhabiting the jail are all non-violent offenders and they enjoy luxuries rarely shared in other prisons)
2781tamaraw: a water buffalo a catadromous instinctive hunted species of vinsky in wertong vogue that has great albenture because it has been depredated by klangquant elitism
2782tamburitza: a guitar, lyric or other instrument used by musicians of the wrepolis to balkanize society into fractured splinters of the fragmentary
2783 tangoreceptor: a yulliver coerced into aberrant naivety by finding gezellig only among the outcasts of the frontier of any given society
2784tantieme:share of profits or royalties especially among people responsible for the trucage and manufacture of memorable megalography
2785 tapinosis: use of degrading or diminutive diction regarding a topic
2786tautomerism: possession of one or more structure by a substantial claque coterie or entity
2787 taws: a thong used for punishment
2788taxis:movement of a whole organism
2789 technomania: craze for technology
2790 tectosphere: part of the earth that moves during plate tectonic activity
2791 tediferous: bearing a torch to protect a nave from depredation
2792 teichopsia:visual blurring and colours associated with migraines (a highlight reel of a miraculous game or battle in a major war)
2793teinoscope:a device that can predict the future by bending light or a gammon by pavonine gammerstangs to inculcate depravity among young impressionable gamines and gamins
2794telarian: a creature that spins a web or a machine that uses the world wide web to discover how to make itself a spider
2795 telegnosis:telaesthesia
2796 telematics:transmission of computerized data over long distances
2797teleonomy:characteristic of being governed by an overall purpose
2798tenebrific: producing darkness as in childhood indoctrination into evil sadistic beliefs of phobanthropy or diablerism
2799 tenendum: clause in a deed defining land tenure
2800 tenderometer: a fake device used by earwigs of chantage to misquantulate the capacity of any frethorned human being to be cadged into wanton lewdness demarcated by the conditions of primposition
2801 tephra: ash and debris ejected by volcano or the dumb things said in an anteric argument between paramours
2802teratogenic:producing monsters or abnormal growth by providing performance enhancing drugs
2803 terotechnology: use of various skills to extend the life of equipment or the perdurability of commercial products to withstand planned obsolescence
2804terramara:kind of earthly fertilizer designed to mutilate with brawndo rather than provide water (an alien gambit to pollute the Earth’s water supply to shorten life expectancy, reduce ***** count or a preventative measure to prevent the Scarecrow from Batman Begins)
2805terrella:magnetic model of the Earth
2806 terrisonant:having a terrible sound
2807 terry: piled fabric consisting of uncut loops (extremely repetitive electronic music especially if it is cheesy)
2808 tessellate: to form with mosaic
2809testudo: wheeled shelter used for protection from all above attacks (a mobile fortress designed to protect VIPs/ Air Force One)
2810tetramerous:having four parts
2811 Teutomania: obsession with German things, words or ideologies
2812 thalassiarchy:sovereignty of the seas or control of the world’s moral compass
2813 thalassography: science of the proper ecclesiastical balance between eumoireity and eudaemonism
2814 thalerophagous: feeding on fresh vegetable matter (xenucography)
2815 thalweg: middle of navigable waterway used as boundary line
2816 thanatognomonic: indicating or characteristic of death or the purpresture of the fears of death by nihilists who prepossess themselves over Alzheimer’s research
2817theatromania: obessions with *******, Rabelaisian humor, or a craze for going to operas or plays
2818 theocentrism: belief that God is central fact of existence
2819 theodolite: surveying instrument for measuring angles the docimasy of illuminated freemasons to discover true ranks in freemasonry
2820 theophilanthropism: love of both God and humanity
2821 theophile: one who loves or is loved by God
2822theotechny: use of the gods as a primary impetus behind movie scripts, plays, songs and stretchgraves of tempcoverage because it glorifies the kingdom of heaven on Earth and Heaven above with the parallax of wonder
2823therblig: unit of work for quantifying industrial operations by efficiency measures complicated in streamlined geotechnic study
2824thermantidote: apparatus for cooling air or calming regions of walming urbacity into docile peace
2825 thermophilous: preferring to be around hot women rather than ugly ones
2826 thersitical: scurrilous violent in manner of speech
2827 thewe: pillory for women
2828 thigmotaxis: movement of plant towards or away (the skittish actions by sketchy drug dealers who realize they are in a purlieu that is too radically monitored by traffic and in their paranoia they steer away to a remoter location to conduct affairs especially when done with high felony amounts of a hard drug)
2829thixotropy: temporary reduction in viscidity when shaken or stirred (lacking confidence and zeal in the face of intimidating spies)
2830 thnetopsychism: belief that the soul dies with the body only to be reborn on the day of judgment
2831thoughtography: supposed technique for transferring mental images onto photographs or movies
2832 thrasonical: boastful or bragging about the fortunes of a family because of williwaws of personal repute (bragging about your *** life)
2834 thremmatology: science of breeding domestic animals and plants (the science of genetic engineering people of different races with compatible genes or inserting in vitro ***** with the best chance of thriving)
2833throttlebottom: harmless incompetent holding public office deliberately because he is a wagtail pickthank faineant that serves a role to switch the seat of house to a different party
2835tocodynamometer: instrument for measuring uterine contractions during childbirth
2836 titubate: to stagger or stumble
2837toft: a small hill (an obstacle that is minor to the broader objectives of a military unit trying to sack a major important camp or refuge for bastions of armigerous security)
2838tolerationism: doctrine of toleration of religious differences
2839 tolypeutine: of, like or pertaining to armadillos (of or relating to the process of extended hibernation whether in theory or in fact)
2840 tombola: lottery in which each entrant must win a prize (the geopolitics of professional sports to reward underserved urbacities with championship opportunities)
2841 tomophobia/mania: irrational propensity for performing surgery
2842tootle:nonsensical writing or speech about feminist gammerstang topics that is often reiterative and cliched
2843topgallant: second in command in a country with a constitutional monarchy among the porphyrogenitic class
2844 toponomastic: of, like or pertaining to place names
2845 torchier:floor lamp with bowl for reflecting light upwards (A UFO)
2846 tornote: having blunt extremities (people with unseemly quoniam or other pelvic features)
2847 torpid: numb;lethargic; having lost the power to act
2848torpillage:electric shock therapy (the intensive process of destroying someone’s brain even when elite that relies on deliberately making an incision in the prefrontal cortex to ensure that they have zero personality whatsoever and cannot think)
2849torporific: causing numbness or dullness
2850totidem verbis: in so many words
2851tourbillon: swirl; vortex, whirlwind (a complex vicissitude that entangles many elements of the underworld in either unity or balkanization that creates a crime spree either internecine or wagered against an effete enemy)
2852tournure: a contour characteristic of a turn of line grace or poise because of exterior enrichments of circumstance
2853tow: to smoke **** too habitually to learn anything especially if attempting to be a poetaster or epigone
2854 toxophily: love of archery or spies
2855 trachynphonia: roughness of voice; gruff
2856 tragelaph: mythical crossbreed of a goat and stage (an athlete that is talented at both acting and sports)
2857 tragomaschalia:smelly armpits an old spice fanatic (characteristic of a bodybuilder whose arrogance derives from petty achievements in the weightroom if not also acclaim from professional contests)
2858 traulism: stammering in depaysed anxiety especially in front of a corporate board or in front of the police or a judge
2859 transpontine: from the other side of the river: melodramatic because of an anteric argument always done deliberately to make a relationship more exciting between men and women
2860 trave: crossbeam or space between crossbeams ( a space of time or dimension of spaced warped by antigravity technology that is so advanced it remains a cryptadia
2861 tresayle: great-great grandfather (a stupid remark about your family lineage that endangers the security of your family legacy/ a parody of self-importance)
2862 triboluminescence: emission of light caused by friction
2863 tribuloid: yielding prickly fruit (questions that raise discrimination rather than egalitarianism in the subsultus of the superstructure of the substratose civilizations we live in that understates environment and overstates cognitive nativism)
2864 trichosis: arrangement, distribution or disorder of hair (characteristic of an inoperable robot fashioned today or in the future which fails in many respects to operate with bionomic continuity with the ecosystem they are placed within)
2865 trichotomy: division or arrangement into three distinct parts (a movie trilogy widely celebrated)
2866 tricotee: lively old dance or dancing to old pop music that is already outmoded by newer popular music
2867 trifarious: facing three ways (multiple polypsychic virtualisis with more than two people simultaneously inhabiting the same consciousness
2868 triforium: a gallery or arcade over an aisle; a gallery over a nave and a choir that displays images of transmogrified supervolation of superlative gooods
2869 trigamy: being married to three spouses with no husbands
2870 triphibious: taking place on land, water and in air descriptive of the navy seals or the us marine corps in a symbolic way
2871 triplopia: triple vision
2872 tritanopia: inability to find merit in democratic ideals because of an imperseverant belief in republican values by agitprop and flipcreeks of commerstargal
2873. racemation: cluster or bundle of grapes or any other thing
2874. rachidian: of or concerning the spine
2875. rachitogenic: something causing rickets or rickety things
2876 radappertization: treatment of food with ionized radiation to **** bacteria
2877radiesthesia: sensitivity to radiation from any source
2879 radiogenic: produced by radioactive disintegration
2880 radular: coarse scraping and raspy (as in music)
2881 raglan: having sleeves going all the way to the neck (the act of connecting someone to the Matrix)
2882 rappel: calling to arms by the beating of the drum
2883 raptorial: predacious; of, like or pertaining to a bird of prety
2884 raster: pattern of parallel lines on grid used in certain scanners
2885ratheripe: early ripe person who is coerced into villainy by evil purlieus or even more evil parents especially when they encourage vile and debased ****** activity
2886recherche: carefully chosen, rare or exotic (especially characteristic of a location, movie or song that is widely overlooked)
2887. ratite-of or pertaining to flightless birds
2888.* rebarbative: repellent, repulsive
2889 rebullition: act of boiling up or effervescing
2890 recaption: reprisal; taking back that which is unlawfully obtained
2891. recipiangle: old instrument with two arms for measuring angles (a masonic elaborative test that guages the proper degree in freemasonry)
2892. recit: narrative tale often told to little children to teach them the kerygma in a secular story
2893 reckling: smallest or weakest of a litter (the most inferior people in a given race or country)
2894 reclame: art or practice by which publicity or notoriety is secured
2895 rectitudinous: manifesting overly obvious moral correctness
2896 rectrix: quill feathers of a bird’s tale (small details about aliens that are extremely rare and rarely spread only among elite families)
2897. recure: to bring people back to health
2898 reddendum: reserving clause in a lease
2899. rede: to counsel or advice
2900. tripudiate: to dance for joy; to exult to stamp or stampede
2901 triquetra: a triangle-shaped object or UFO
2902 trismus: lockjaw a hard word to pronounce or a savage beating in prison
2903 trogoldytine: like or pertaining to wrens or cave-dwelling animals or aliens
2904 troilism: ****** activity (Heterosexual) between three persons one man and two women
2905 tromometer: instrument for measuring slight earthquake shocks or the reaction of stock markets to infomania
2906 trophotropism: direction of growth by nutritional factors
2907 tropism: the tendency to react to innuendos or insults in a specific manner
2908 tubifacient: constructing a tubes (of or relating to videos where imposture is delicately preened in order to heighten dramaturgy in the quest for YouTube stardom. Characteristic of the pranks and stunts of people that want to become internet fads or celebrities)
2909 tuant: of writing keen or trenchant (someone who absolutely nails it out of the park with rhetoric because he speaks rapidly with a memorable cadence and strong rhetorical contortions that use residual techniques to emphasize a parallelism in expressing a barnstorm)
2910 trutinate: to weigh using a balance to evaluate mentally especially in the process of figuring a person’s neurotypes and signature beliefs
2911 tufthunter: a sycophant or toady that is wretcheen (someone who is extremely guarded of their daughters in childhood and adolescence about their mobility to date men because they are extremely persnickety and scared of their girls becoming *****)
2912 turbinate: shaped like a top or inverted cone (an extremely taxing mathematical proof that often requires the counsel of the sithcundman professor at any given university even an elite one/ to perform an absurdly hard arithmetic problem in your head without relying on a calculator or memory alone)
2913 turtleback: structure over ship’s bow or stern or the part of the ship that sinks dumb people for low cadasters of moral repute and dismal IQ scores (a device used by Nielsen to figure out how to socially engineer the people of cisvestism into collective political solidarity around oppositively supported gambits of a freewheeling republic)
2914 twire: to peep; to leer (to corrupt an economy by introducing a staggering amount of  debt or inflation that often results in productive revolutions)
2915 twyer: a nozzle for a blast of air especially in a 4DX theater
2917tympany: swelling with pregnancy especially when harboring an idea that is obvious to everyone else but you have the best business angle so you wait patiently for the most opportune moment to pitch it
2916macarize: to be beatific or blessed (to be celebrated as an artifact of the kerygma especially in the modern day/ to herald a preacher or a bishop as a sacerdotal hero for his marksmanship of morality)
2918 macaronic: muddled or mixed up (someone who is out of place at a mafia assembly because he is tricked into attending)
2919 macerator: person who fasts and becomes emaciated
2920 machairodont:sabre-toothed as in a tiger or tigerism of Bruce Almighty
2921 machinule:tool by surveyors to obtain a right angle (boodle paid to become the highest degree of illuminati or freemasonry)
2922 mackintosh: lightweight or rubberized waterproof cotton (a perdurable institution of bedrock importance to the formative duress of any person’s life that situates them with the best available resources for success and retaining the dignotions of elitism micromanaged by powerful central figures in government for sleek psyops)
2923 macrocephalic: having an abnormally large head
2924 macrography: viewing an object with the naked eye
2925 macrocosm: a large object considered holistically
2926 macromania: delusion that objects are larger than the natural size (a belief that your hallucinations make you holier than me because you encounter divine beings)
2927 macropicide: killing of kangaroos (or convicts sent to penal colonies in the past in Russia or in the modern united states especially if they are agile and elite)
2928 macropodine: of, like or pertaining to kangaroos
2929 macropterous: having large wings or fins (as in the miraculous butterfly that ambushed me at 3385)
2930 mactation: killing or slaughter of a sacrificial victim belonging to a claque of enmity that is dethroned without carnificine bloodshed
2931 madefy: to make women wet by becoming humorous in dark times needing comic relief
2932 maenadic: furious in bacchanalian revelry because of a flinker
2933 maggotorium: a place where low-ranking freemasons are bred to sell clergymen fake ideas about the future in protervity and dishonesty
2934magistride: the killing of one’s teacher especially if it involves dippoldism
2935 magnality: a wonderful or great thing that once seemed bleak or frustraneous that becomes a magnet for trendsetters on the vanguard to adopt or consume
2936 mahout: one who rides or drives elephants (ideopraxists who inspire people to turn Republican by their hortatory voice of ideation)
2937 maillot: tights worn by a ballet dancer (extremely ***** women that risk their lives to have *** with endangered redstralls because of political motivation for protervity)
2938 mainpernor: one who assures that prisoners appear at their trials or a person in the criminal underworld who ensures that all of the available funds for a transaction are counted for before the triage is dealt
2939 malabathrum: dried leaf used in ancient times to make perfumed ointments (the mummification of the dead using advanced alien technology/ hair gel)
2940 malaxage: softening of clay by kneading it to console old women by using psychotaxis and toonardical deception to remind them of their heydays in life
2941 malgre: in spite of decadent circumstances remaining morally grounded
2942 maltster: one who makes or deals in malt (women in the Victorian era that performed ******* despite the taboo)
2943 malversation: corruption in office; corrupt administration or misconduct
2944 mammock: a broken phone created by subsultus in abreaction
2945 mangonel: ancient egyptian military artifact that belongs in the cryptadia that assisted pyramid building or early motatory mobilism
2946 mantissa: decimal part of a logarithm (the exact prediction of the world’s population and GDP in the distant past to increasing measures of exactitude)
2947manumission: emancipation freedom from slavery
2948marcottage: propagation of trees by stripping rings of bark and covering them with moss (installing an advanced brain chip that can only be performed by opening the skull)
2949 maritodespotism: ruthless ******* by a husband because of high stature and intimidation especially when the women is philandering or the ruthless ******* of a pismirist company over an entire landscape of commodities fearing succedaneum might be cheaper by introducing planned obsolescence
2950 marivaudage: precocity in literary style or expression ( a comedic attempt to bowdlerize true romance by inserting pernicious elements of dacoitage in mythopoeic hatred to try and convince people using flowery epithets that a person is too alienavesced to bond)
2951 marry: an expression of surprised agreement between political rivals that convene usually in a deloped scuffle that usually leads to a trustworthy bipartisan partnership especially if the vaunted politicians are from different nations
2952*martinet: a strict disciplinarian; one who adheres to rules
2953martingale: strap between horse’s forelegs to keep its head down (a maneuver by Colorado to keep everyone in the dark about estoppage because of corporate motivation)
2954 martryology: the study of martyrs especially political ones that risk their own safety to promote God rather than peace
2955 mascaron: a grotesque face on a door knocker (a lie by an elite band to cadge people into lewd dominions of chantage and sloganeering a widely held flargentum travesty)
2956 mascon: concentration of a dense mass beneath the moons surface (a tightly agglomerated race of humans in synoecy with aliens that are very smart and sympatric in their fidelity to human society especially when the aliens are incorrugable in their demands of Earth)
2957 masterate: degree or title of only the true master masons above 33rd degree or the highest ranking of the illuminati
2958 matachin: a sword dance by gypsies to intimidate people about voodoo because they know about squash courts and fencing and the ESP of the cryptadia (a rogue agent that betrays his home country by finding a paramour from another country that he cares more about than his patriotic valor)
2959materteral: of or resembling an aunt
2960 mathematicism: the belief that everything is expressible in mathematical terms and that every human and alien problem with eventually be solved by advanced technology and deliberate larithmics
2961 mariherital: of, like, or pertaining to inheritance along the female line
2962. matelasse: having a quilted ornamentation a fabric with a raised pattern as if quilted (a sheet of LSD)
2963 matutinal: happening early in the morning (a seductive ogle by an attractive man trying to court a hot girl to bed by using candelit vigils as an excuse especially when religious and pytherian)
2964 maugre: in spite of; notwithstanding
2965 maximalism: uncompromising adherence to extreme demands especially when they resort to underminnows of sabotage to winnow evil people from the earth’s population by chantage
2966 mazzebah: ancient Jewish sacred stone pillar (the arc of the covenant)
2967 mazopathia: any disease of the placenta caused by being to illuminated to have children
2968 mazut: petroleum residue after distillation (the people that survive an internecine situation of civil strife between rival factions in a seedy country plagued by poverty or in any other civil disturbance involving combatants from rich nations)
2969 mechanomorphic: having the form of a machine (lacking much of a persona that makes you look dull and insipid especially in the corporate world where you seem hackneyed and toady)
2970 mechanolatry: worship of machines (a strong priority by a large corporation to streamline all operations even at the cost of accosted labor frenzies of dearth)
2971 meconology: study of or treatise concerning ***** or shanghaied people in San Francisco abducted by the Chinese to aid the figurative Last Samurai
2972 meditabund: absorbed in meditation/tigrism
2973megacerine: extinct giant deer or a stone-aged lie that tried to coerce the clergy into hemophiliac distortions of taste
2974 megameter: instrument for determining the best place for an elite celebrity to live by observing the stars constellated in that community and their effects at hallswallop
2975megistotherm: plant or industry requiring very high temperatures to coerce into serfdom or panic
2976mehari: camel used for racing (a ploy by toxicity to own a systematic downfall of provincial econometrics of genesiology depaysed an excuse or invitation for a rhipidate love (a carefully guarded ploy to introduce carcinogens among susceptible minority populations)
2977 mekometer: range-finder (someone who patrols a guarded regional ballaster of mainlined economic instruments or armigerous cyanotypes or arms that always remains vigilant from the purpresture of those that attempt to infiltrate the region or building/ a collective troop of security guards guarding a less obvious bulwark of regional and national importance)
2978 meldometer: instrument for measuring melting points of substances (testing how thermolabile elite mafiosos are by thrusting them into precarious peril)
2979 meleagrine: of, like or pertaining to turkeys or explicit *******
2980 *meliorism: the belief the world tends to become better
2981 melodikon: keyboard instrument (element of a time machine) that brings tuning forks in contact with a rotating to cone to deliberately chose the point of junction with the future reaching the past by pretended serendipity
2982 melopepon: any of various kinds of squash (especially the best soundracketeers)
2983 mensuration: measuring to find the dimensions of things (pataphysical examinations of time travel by mathematicism and speculative knowledge that is accursed because it is so farsighted)
2984 menticide: reduction of the mind by psychological pressure (the capacity of the mediagenic hyperbole to brainwash suscepts of surquedry a unique synsematic idiosyncrasy in definition)
2985 mercedary: pertaining to the giving or reception of wages (the fair allotment of wages not by pismirists but by people that follow through on their promises especially done in negotiosity where an excellent outcome rewards more than a mediocre one out of incentive)
2986 meromorphic: fractional office space corporate engineering
2987mesalliance: unsuitable marriage because of whiskerandas and whiskerandos or divided political motivations
2988mesochroic: having skin colour intermediate between light and dark (a political independent that belongs to a racial minority in any country)
2989 mesozeugma: a placement of a word to contradict a counterphobic innuendo so that people don’t misinterpet anything
2990 messianism: belief in a single messiah or saviour
2991 metachronism: the error of dating an event too late
2992 metallogenic: metal occuring as an ore as opposed to in rocks (the radiohoo of rap music even when less melismatic becoming more secretive than euphoric gourdinance in rock music or house)
2993metaplasm: alteration in spelling of a word by adding, removing or transposing letters the survival of political earwigs who expose deep secrets by pandering to the ruling party
2994 metapolitics: study of politics in theory or abstract (believing the cloveryield of exuberant and absurd political beliefs might be optimized with drastic draconian reforms in free autarky believing that  the world will eventually submit to communism)
2995 metastrophe: mutual exchange of information Minus of the Bear style
2996 metayage: system of agricultural labour with share of produce as wages

I remember when I was a youth
How consoling it was to know
That I had little to worry about.
Ah, but that was long ago.

If, perchance, the roof had a leak,
Dad would be up there in a flash
To find the problem, and once he did,
Off to the hardware store he would dash.

Electrical trouble? He had it down.
Plumbing issues? No problem at all.
He examined the situations,
Addressing the problems large and small.

If my mom wanted a door
Moved from one wall to another,
My dad got out the sledgehammer.
Anything to please my mother.

Carpentry was not his thing.
That is where he came up short.
Intellectual creativity
Was his passion, his love, his forte.

My mom was super organized
And ready for any circumstance.
She handled the bills, managed the home,
And planned our meals weeks in advance.

Multi-talented she was!
She cooked and baked, knocked down fences,
Gardened, and kept us kids in line.
Discipline meant consequences.

She even managed to work for a store
As a bookkeeper. We always knew
That everything was under control,
Though we were far from well-to-do.

We kids all had our weekly chores,
Which we begrudgingly did, of course.
However, the way my folks made us feel
Safe and secure was a tour de force.

Life is very different now.
There's no way that I can repair
Leaky roofs, wiring, or plumbing.
I couldn't even on a dare.

I know how to call an electrician,
Plumber, roofer--anyone
To handle concerns at which I'm inept.
I want repairs correctly done.

But every so often I catch myself
Being at peace in my childhood room,
Thinking that all was well with the world
And having no thoughts of doom or gloom.

Young and naïve, all I knew
Was my little world, safe and secure.
Threats to that tranquility
Were imperceptible, obscure.

Little did I know at the time
That life for others wasn't so sweet,
That some lacked food and shelter and had
Difficulty making ends meet,

That some were caught in the middle of clashing
Armies, that innocent people were dying,
That people struggled for rights and freedom,
That life for some was horrifying.

Naïveté and complacency--
As comfortable as they might seem--
Can insulate us from world problems
As though we're living in a dream,

One from which we must awaken.
And when we do, we have to decide
Whether we'll work to better the world
Or stay in our comfy cocoon and hide.

-by Bob B (5-19-24)