they’re pouring out of the
woodwork
those pretentious machiavellians
in ailing albino frames
eccentric masked figures
milling about the glow light
like night moths
in a london fog

lunatic gazers
with seeping moles
pinned by frogmen and twine
spider climbers
in hell fire
splitting seams
on the fading
and hideous ink

guards of the perch
stand on hades hand
while monsters and demons
with severed limbs
taunt the condemned
and wanting
souls of the ******

cauldron fire
in blood red sky
silent screams
hack and wheeze
gas lines broken
words unspoken
teetering backwards
in the dark shadows
of a phantom abyss

Bosch is not like any man.
He eats his metaphysics raw.
Great and globular,
A sanguine fruit looms forth infinitely.
Stars, like gleaming berries picked,
Lay strewn across his astral dining set.

He breaks bread with the Abstract Entities,
Devouring the Earth and all its mortal sentiments.
He voices his distaste for the fibrous pulp,
Formless nose scrunched and curled
With loathing at the terrestrial filaments
Stuck between his teeth.

Bosch's belly is an endless hollow
Where darkness swallows light.
There is no air, no sound.
Its abysmal blackness knows no bounds.
His hunger insatiable,
He drinks in the Milky Way,
Eager to fill the emptiness
Of his ever-expanding void.

i’ve blown all my dosh
on a brand new Bosch!
my clothes will be super clean
with this amazing new machine
i’ve burnt all my dosh
singing swish, swash, swosh,
singing splish, splash, splosh,
a ladies got to wash!
i’m in love with my new Bosch!

Hieronymus Bosch, who was only four,
Had toddled right out of my life,
I didn’t know whether he’d gone on his own
Or left with the trouble and strife.
She’d rave and she’d threaten to fly the coop
As she said that my ways were strange,
But whether she’d bother to take him too
Would have meant a remarkable change.

‘Why did you pick such a horrible name,’
She’d say, as she ladled the stew,
‘You gave him the name of a painter insane,’
(As he baited the bears at the zoo).
‘How can he live a commonplace life
With a moniker he can’t spell?
You’ve sentenced your son to eternal strife
Like that panel, a painting of hell.’

Hieronymus, he didn’t care about this,
He wanted to picture his world,
He’d flop and he’d slop in the mud, in his bliss,
And paint, till his toes had curled.
I knew that he’d be a surrealist when
He played with his mash, and was cute,
He swished it around on his palette to look
Like a man with a nose like a flute.

‘That kid is so gruesome,’ the wife had exclaimed,
‘He’s set on a roadway to hell.’
He’d crayoned a picture of me and her sister
Entwined on her favourite bell.
‘He isn’t like others,’ I used to exclaim,
‘He sees what he sees inside out,
He doesn’t like others, like hair-splitting mothers,’
And that’s when she started to shout.

I’ve searched and I’ve searched for Heironymus Bosch,
I’m trying to follow his trail,
The long line of beetles he captured in treacle,
The dead dog that’s eating its tail.
I know that he’s not with the trouble and strife
For she went into hiding in Greece,
He should be called Chester, the lad’s such a jester,
I guess I’ll be calling the Police.

David Lewis Paget

“Those who do not want to imitate anything,
produce nothing”.  Salvador Dali -- Dali on Dali

Dreamrise.

The sliced steep slopes of those cliffs could be anywhere--say, Yosemite--buttered by
the same sun, not battered by these calm seas, or bothered
by melting timepieces draped about the landscape.

Why does the artist’s head melt, deconstruct, feather into foreground loam— teeth, tongue,
lips fading nearly without notice, nose pillowed on his own ear?

Is there a reason a single housefly struggles against sky-blue stickiness--imperiled heroine
awaiting the locomotive crush of the sweeping minute hand--or why the bottom
of her golden prison melts in the sepia heat, its silver sisters hung limp
from a branch long dead, or laid carefully
as a blanket over the sleeping
focal face?

What of the copper watch, alone in original form, though a cluster of ants spews from its center
in lieu of hands?

The artist provides no answer, perhaps presuming the question sufficient.

That dead tree—
the only thing vertical, unless you stand beneath the cliffs;
the only thing anchored, unless you allow the cliffs;
the only thing obviously dead, unless those buttered cliffs are someone’s skin—
that tree is Watcher and Scribe, the Presence of the World, and at its base
a face is embedded, of some Bosch-spawned horror, gaze trained beyond
borders, back to the Middle Ages, or maybe on its own shadow.

Straight lines are few enough to count.  The horizon is one, or four, depending on how you tally.
Plain plank painted every hue of blue on the canvas numbers ten—again, depending—could be seven.
And the platform: four, or six?  Are these tricks of the eye or the mind—or math?  By the magic
of perfect draughtsmanship it works out to just the right number.

Note the placement of pebbles—gold right, gray left—for each side of the brain, he dreams; for balance,
for focus, for scale and distortion, placed with precision to escape first notice, the better to manipulate
mind and eye to see what isn’t there:
                                                          ­          the dark,
                                                           ­                          the void,
                                                           ­                                          this universe collapsing,
                                             ­                                                                 ­                                     howling open emptiness,
no stars, no cliffs, no clocks
wormhole of sleep which draws all from there to here,
bloated, belligerent Babylon of black consumes the bottom corner, far removed from ants,
beckoning the dreamer homeward--or Hellward?

In every direction lies fear or fulfillment,
each boundary spreads wide to possibility,
from this static domain where no breeze exists
to mar the surface of an ocean
so vast.

In twilight sleep,
thoughts out of control,
images take hold.
Viewed against  the canvass of blackness,
dead people dance
with succubi an incubuses.
Tiny gymnasts
balance on sharp edged swords
in le cirque du soleil
under a moonless sky.

Grimm’s tales
of baked children
and hungry wolves
play out. On a runway
starving women show
the latest fashions in cardinal red.
The Grinch stole my  green silk  Balenciaga gown.
Gave it to the frog  prince.
Sleeping beauty is just a ******.
She had too much of all of it.

Hermes glass slippers are sold
Only too few and deserving  Cinderellas,
trophy wives of  mummified kings.
What they really deserve is not on the menu.
Just le plat du jour of ortolans.
The three pigs are out of breath,
Not enough air for a *******.
Rose colored glasses take on a nasty
hue of watered down blood.
Bottle green is not la couleur du jour,
rather that bile color
with a tint of pus yellow.
There is a storm brewing,
A tsunami rising,
the earth shakes,
Volcano red lava
licks down the mountain.

Destiny?
Fate?
Apocalypse?

A voice whispers:
put up a shield, a bright canvass.
Paint with bold rounded strokes
in earthen tones.  Mold  vessels
to hold the morning dew.
Catch rays of sun
in a glass glockenspiel.
Hum the world, sing life.
Touch, feel, be alive.

A ray of sun sneaks through the blinds.
Dust dances in a shaft of light.
I am safe, for another day.

My friend Gerard, (who is alive), looks like an Arabian slave-boy, though swarthier and longer of hair than Tony Curtis; an olive –skinned Mowgli, ape boy of Kipling’s  “Jungle Book”, although I have never seen Gerard swinging through any trees, nor eating any insects, nor even kissing a sultan’s foot. But looks can be deceiving, or receiving, with the proper pen, the zen pen of a poet, this proper poet who lives upstairs with his multitude of books piled on the floors, walking on Whitman, sitting on Shakespeare; tripping over Ginsberg, sleeping on Sartre; not a single shelf for this Jung man.
“A place for everything, and for everything it’s place”, he stands and stares out of a window overlooking the jungle of five-foot high weeds that serves as our backyard and wonders aloud “whither Oregon?”; questions our alleged enlightened sense of awareness, his disposition toward liberalness in a world gone madder than usual. Have I convinced him yet, my naïve, trusting neighbor? Yes, he realizes with a sigh that it is so, now that he has finally succumbed and bought a thirteen inch, black & white television of his own, now he can see with his own brown eyes in his own living room, far off wars, instant coffee & instant karma, depersonalized tragedies, faceless fatalities, insidious soap operas and humorless sitcoms, adverse advertisements, Howard Stern; “whither sanity?” we both cry and laugh out loud at this mediocre media, the global sewage, the Marshall McClueless, me and Gerard Rizza, my friend who is alive.

Gerard, (who is healthy), is gay, yet straighter than most men, and has been complaining quite a bit about the ferry service lately; contemplating a move off of Staten Island, and leaving his sporadic substitute teaching gig at a nearby high school, a mere six block walk from our house atop Winter Hill, where he is trying to convince me, a wide-eyed cynic, that a blank, white, unused canvas, surrounded by a wooden picture frame hung upon his wall is indeed a work of art; the job is very convenient, but again the ******* about the ferry, not the boat ride per se, but the incongruities of the ****** schedule, which anybody who has ever just missed a three a.m. boat and had to wait for an hour in the Hierynomous Bosch triptych known as the Whitehall Ferry terminal ,will definitely attest to; and Gerard has this thing about Staten Islanders, like the homophobes at a recent anti-peace rally in New Dorp, supporting the carpet bombing of an oil rich yet still poor third-world country, throwing beer cans at him and his companions while shouting “we know where you live, *******!”. Rizz came home that evening, visibly shaken and pale, (not his usual olive-skinned self), knocked on my door and pleaded “whither ******?”. I went upstairs, sat on his couch and rolled a joint. Gerard puts on the new 10,000 Maniacs tape and tries, once again, to bait me in a conversation about his “work of art”, my work of naught; he speaks of the horrific details of his day. “Isn’t this picture of Doc Gooden on my refrigerator door proof enough of my manhood, my patriotic intent, for those *******? The ******’ Mets, fuh chrissakes!” We sit out on his porch, watching the sun set over our backyard jungle as Natalie sings wireless Verdi cries, and I pass the burning joint to Gerard, my friend who is still healthy.

My friend Gerard, who is *** positive, was quite possibly a cat in a former life, probably a Siamese, thin, dark and aloof; yes, I can see ol’ Rizz now, sprawled out on an old tapestry rug, getting his belly scratched by his owner, perhaps Emily Dickinson or Georgia O’Keefe, Rizz purring like the engine of an old bi-winged barnstormer; abruptly rolls over, gets on all fours, tail waving *****, slinks over to lap water out of a bowl marked “Gerard”. He’d sleep all day on books and original manuscripts, and play all night amongst oil & acrylic, knocking over an occasional blank canvas, which he, in a future incarnation, will try to convince me, in his feline manner, is art. Sitting and staring from his usual spot on the windowsill, his cat eyes blink slowly as he wonders, “whither dinner?”; and begins to clean himself with tongue and paw, this cat who might be Gerard, my friend who is *** positive.

Gerard, who is sick, recently moved to Manhattan, Chelsea, to be precise, in with his best friend; and has stopped ******* about the Staten Island ferry, having far more pressing matters to ***** about, i.e. the ever-rising cost of homeopathic medicine and the lack of coverage for holistic and alternative care; any number of political and social concerns (Gerard was never the silent type); the lateness of his first published book of poems, entitled “Regard for Junction”; his rapidly deteriorating health, etc., etc.; and is now a true city dweller, a zen denizen, a proper poet with high regard for junction. That’s all that remains when it’s all over anyway, this junction, that junction, petticoat junction, petticoat junction – “I always wanted to **** the brunette sister”, I’d once told him; “I prefer uncle Joe!”, he laughingly replied; dejection, rejection, reclamation, defamation, cremation, conjecture, conjunction, all junctions happening at the same time, at now, a single place, a single moment, this forever junction with Gerard, my friend who is dying.

My friend Gerard, who is dead, officially passed from this life on a Saturday morning in early April, a mere two weeks before his junction with publication, although Gerard my friend passed away much earlier, leaving a sick and emaciated body behind to play host to his bedside guests, to help bear the pain of his family and friends; so doped-up on morphine, no longer able to remember any names, he called me “*****” when I entered the hospital room, where this barely physical manifestation of what had once been Gerard Rizza was being kept alive like the barest glimmer of hope, and displayed like some recently fallen leader, lying in state;  “whither Gerard withers” I thought, saying goodbye to this Rizza impersonator, this imposter, this visitor from a shadow world, an abstraction of a friend, whom the nurses told us, his disbelieving visitors, was our friend Gerard, who though technically still alive, was already dead.

My friend Gerard, who is laughing
My friend Gerard, who is singing
My friend Gerard, who is coughing
My friend Gerard, who is sleeping
My friend Gerard, who is holy
My friend Gerard, who is missed.

"I wouldn't know what to do; I think I would just rot in a corner," replied Zandra Rhodes when asked if she plans to retire anytime soon. The 76-year old British designer who was down in KL (it's her fourth time here now) for the recent KL Alta Moda held at Starhill Gallery where she showed a collection of beautiful songket pieces alongside her signature chiffon print dresses, shows no signs of slowing down even after an extensive six decade-long career that has seen her dressing both rockstars and royalty.

Dressed in one of her designs – a stunning midnight blue, tiered kaftan dress covered all over in gold squiggles, huge pearls and her trademark fuchsia bob, red lips and blue eyeshadow-rimmed eyes, Rhodes maintained a spirited, bubbly cheer at Ritz Carlton where we finally sat down with her after stealing her away mid-tea with the crème de la crème of Malaysia's society.

What's the story behind the collection that we've just seen?

We did a collection initiated by Dodi Mohammad – one that really focused on songket. We chose lovely iridescent greens and pinks, and various groups of clothes. Then I designed and worked on the weaves to make suits and short dresses. It was really to give it another look. Three quarters of the collection are made up of Malaysian songket weaves.

What about the archive looks that you included? How do they relate to the new collection?

I had students who couldn't believe how people were copying the things that I've did in the past – like the pink dress for Princess Diana or the gold dress that Pat Cleveland wore dancing at Studio 54. They suggested that I produce the collection again in a new look, so we did that for Matches Fashion in UK.

Your AW16 collection is said to be inspired by Studio 54 back in its heyday. Would you be able to share with us an interesting story of your own at Studio 54?

I remember with shame going to Studio 54 when they reopened. I sat down in the corner and I was so tired, I fell asleep. I'm sure I was the only person who would fall asleep in Studio 54. I also remember lots of times it was like the parting of the Red Sea when you went in there with Bianca Jagger or Pat Cleveland.

Could you tell us about the Hieronymus Bosch-inspired prints you created for Pierpaolo Piccioli's first solo collection at Valentino?

That was one of the most amazing experiences in my life. He flew over with two of his assistants, opened the Hieronymus Bosch book and said he wanted the collection based on that. And I'm thinking, "Do we want naked people all over it?" It was a fantasy look that I was completely overwhelmed with. I came up with five or six initial ideas and he would look at the things I did and say, "I like your wiggle" or "I like this." Finally, he looked at one of my designs – a lipstick design I had done in 1963 – and said that he wanted daggers and hearts, so we turned that into daggers and hearts and it was wonderful.

Is there anyone else on your collaboration wishlist?

Oh gosh, that's difficult. I think I really just pick and choose. For example, we're currently working on the idea of me doing a print for Anna Sui who is going to have an exhibition in my museum in London. We're going to do the print here in Malaysia using Malaysian fabrics.

Your dresses have been worn by iconic stars from Princess Diana to Pat Cleveland. If you could design an outfit for a current It girl, who would it be for?

I would love to do something for Princess Kate. It would be fabulous to do something for her. She always looks good.

If you could describe Malaysia as a print, what would it look like?

Mad Malaysian houses! I love looking at these tall blocks with curved roofs. I've done a Manhattan print but I think I should do a KL print. You'd need to put the Twin Towers in. I think there's room for a lot of things.

What projects have you got lined-up for the future?

At the moment, I'm designing for the Turandot opera, which is about a mad Chinese princess and a pair of lovers that get beheaded. It's wonderfully mad. It's due to be out in San Diego in 2018.

You've been working since the 60s, any plans of settling into retirement soon?

I wouldn't know what to do; I think I would just rot in a corner.

What inspires you?

Wonderful people. I think it's one's friends. It's very important to do something and exchange ideas. I also love traveling when I get the chance. It's really a case of seeing how far my adventures can take me.

What do you think has been the key to your longevity in this industry?

I'd say longevity is the result of hard work and enjoying what you do. If you do something and it doesn't succeed, you pick yourself up and have another go. You never give up.

Describe yourself in 3 words.

Pink, short, makeup.

What would your hair be if not pink?

I think it will be several different colors. I see all these people with all these different colours, I think I might try that next.

What's your hobby?

Cooking and gardening.

If you weren't a fashion designer, what would you be doing?

I don't know, I don't have time to think about that.

What's the best advice anyone has ever given you?

Oh, good one! Be careful who you step on going up, cause you might have to lean on them going down.Read more at:www.marieaustralia.com/one-shoulder-formal-dresses | http://www.marieaustralia.com/red-formal-dresses

Another boring day
Everything is what it seems
without fantasies

I'm not like professor T
who makes Jeroen Bosch paint
what is going on:

everything embodied
as what it is and therefore
transparent

The city is large, but small
is my view, as if
we live far away from each other

in spaceships, built-up
areas as small as hamlets
where the truth is close

but all the harder
to be seen, to be tested, and to be said
There is no way out

I can't escape
only dream without running
into danger in the outside world

While plucking feathers, while plucking feathers
The black tar envelops my unmanly sigh
A cigarette in the moon's light with a stranger
And the howling of an unsightly beast

While plucking feathers, while plucking feathers
The fog obscures everything in sight
I'm questioning the night sky on its numbers
The forest looks in disgust and curiosity

While plucking feathers, while plucking feathers
I'm bleeding out, I'm bleeding out
While plucking feathers, my ear drum pops
I say my goodbye and flap my bare wings

An ornate door leads to the mausoleum
A huge crack showing the entrance of grave robbers
The youths wander inside to belittle their ancestors
And my ballad softly floats above the ground

While plucking feathers, while plucking feathers
The young man rests near his anvil
Opening his book of poetry on an empty page
Only to find the blood of the martyr seeping

While plucking my feathers
Will the youth remember my name?
Will I be forgotten as a nameless man?
Or will I be the poet of the next century?

Pluck my feathers or don't!
Pluck my feathers or don't!
Pluck my feathers or don't!

But do not forget me and the steps which I took
Do not forget my babbling, my bish and my bosch
Do not forget my gifts, you, receiver of blessing
Pluck them rhythmically, slave, rhythmically

My feather falls, slowly to the ground
It is the last of its kind
And as my breaths draw to a close
The children laugh gleefully
Unknowing the end is near
Extinction on my name once and for all
Pluck my feathers no more, slave,
I've just blood to give.

Do you like art?
Does Renoir sit in a frame above your bed?
Are you alone?
What does this painting look like to you?
I use dots to portray events in my life as described by others.
Van Gogh never cut his ear off.
Georgia O’Keeffe loved painting vaginas, and so do I.
Want to be a model in my next work?
I met Bosch at Starbucks a few years back.
This took me twenty-two hours to paint.
Buy this, buy that.
Andy Warhol is my dad.

A medida que nos aproximamos
las piedras se van dando mejor.

Desnudo, anacorético,
las ventanas idénticas entre sí,
como la vida de sus monjes,
el Escorial levanta sus muros de granito
por los que no treparán nunca los mandingas,
pues ni aún dentro de novecientos años.
hallarán una arruga donde hincar
sus pezuñas de azufre y pedernal.

Paradas en lo alto de las chimeneas,
las cigüeñas meditan la responsabilidad
de ser la única ornamentación del monasterio,
mientras el viento que reza en las rendijas
ahuyenta las tentaciones que amenazan
entrar por el tejado.

Cencerro de las piedras que pastan
en los alrededores,
las campanas de la iglesia
espantan a los ángeles
que viven en su torre
y suelen tomarlos de improviso,
haciéndoles perder alguna pluma
sobre el adoquinado de los patios.

¡Corredores donde el silencio tonifica
la robustez de las columnas!
¡Salas donde la austeridad es tan grande,
que basta una sonrisa de mujer
para que nos asedien los pecados de Bosch
y sólo se desbanden en retirada
al advertir que nuestro guía
es nuestro propio arcángel,
que se ha disfrazado de guardián!

Los visitantes,
la cabeza hundida entre los hombros
(así la Muerte no los podrá agarrar
como se agarra a un gato),
descienden a las tumbas y al pudridero,
y al salir,
perciben el esqueleto de la gente
con la misma facilidad
con que antes les distinguían la nariz.

Cuando una luna fantasmal
nieva su luz en las techumbres,
los ruidos de las inmediaciones
adquieren psicologías criminales,
y el silencio
alcanza tal intensidad,
que se camina
como si se entrara en un concierto,
y se contienen las ganas de toser
por temor a que el eco repita nuestra tos
hasta convencernos de que estamos tuberculosos.

¡Horas en que los perros se enloquecen de soledad
y en las que el miedo
hace girar las cabezas de las lechuzas y de los hombres,
quienes, al enfrentarnos,
se persignan bajo el embozo
por si nosotros fuéramos Satán!

She never once asked why
I keep the twisted rosewood stick
or if it holds significance.
Or why Flann O'Brien's
"At swim two birds." has a place
by itself on the shelf.
She never understood my love
of jazz, metal or classical music
or wondered why
Hieronymus Bosch and Caravaggio prints
are in the hall.
She once said I should get rid of them all
"They don't match the décor."
She never understood the humour
of Leonard Cohen,
nor appreciate the raw beauty
of a Bukowski poem;
claimed they were just ***** old men.
She couldn't fathom why
I am drawn to decrepit ruins
or could spend hours just walking
without a destination.
She never will comprehend my love
for the ghostly hue of twilight.

I've become a lazy reader,
dismissive and curmudgeony too.
Magazines or books? Not magazines--
Magazine readers are a different species.

So books it is. Let me take inventory:
Nonfiction. Sorry, just the occasional science book.

General fiction lost the war for my attention--
Do real people really have so many feelings?
So often and so detailed?

So I read genre fiction.
But bang, bang adventure has become tiresome--
after all how many times and ways can you shoot/stab/blow up/car chase?

Likewise, there are books that seem spend pages and pages describing clothes.
Even though Chaucer also spent many words describing clothes,
his best lines were about bare ***** hanging out a window.

All my favorite characters are now old, Harry Bosch, George Smiley.
To my regret, the Wall falling and the Cold War ending almost wiped out the thoughtful spy story.
Science fiction, a previous favorite, took a goofy turn awhile ago, and I’m done with it.
Let's see: fantasy now seems written for teenage vampire-witch wannabes. Just flutter away.

What's left? I think it's only Detective stories and Poetry.
I'm pulling for Harry Bosch and Billy Collins at 90, and, God bless him, John Le Carre.

The Dufus Oompaloompa in Chief
Is nothing but a high-level thief.
He constantly lies and all he tries
Is a rich man’s version of relief.
He’s another rich guy on welfare.
He uses every ***** trick he can use
You see his crooked face everywhere;
He keeps his ugly mug in the news.

His morality is virtually nonexistent
He’s never been a commendable fellow.
And because he is truth-resistant
He’s a braggart, a liar and he’s yellow.
His life has been a study in selfishness,
He’s been a *******, a predator and crook.
His biography is an unreal literary mess.
As he has never liked going by the book.

Listening to him speak you can see
He is lying with almost every word.
He can’t interact with anyone honestly
You can’t believe a single word you heard.
Inside his head must be something like
A painting by Bosch or Salvatore Dali
Even if his head ends up on a pike
He’ll still be as bright as a collie!

shell fish unshelled alive
grass cut when you have the time
the spittle pouring out from a bosch painting
a thin hard back on the shelf
a cinema vidies with absolute teeth
maths chime number by number
a cat bites the last from a rat
and my crazy friend thinks that she leaves
a gift
as she purrs by the door.

Eggs and rice
Some kids and a wife
Things that are comfortable,
Things that are nice

Hieronymus Bosch and shrooms
Explode the room
Rather than *******,
I prefer doom

What I can tell you is,
it's not like a Bosch painting
or Rodin's gates.
You will never see flames
as is commonly thought.
It's more like a dense fog
where you will wander around forever.
You will hear unintelligible voices
but if you move toward those voices,
they will recede from you.

Did I say,
there is no furniture?

a common slavic sayings goes along the following lines of sarcasm: wow! you actually discovered america in a can of sardines! phew... locked out without geniuses like you, we'd be stuck in caves, wondering about unthinking campfires!

i'm sure as **** concerning this one...
chemists have evaluated money
as the philosopher's stone -
well, i have, anyway -
nietzsche's ambition to find the source
of the trans-valuation of values...
well...
that's just a penny stuck to
the pavement,
or why: i wouldn't pay 18 mils
for a Bosch painting...
everything that the concept of money
touches becomes economised,
devalued - lost, auctioned -
money is not that complex top begin with -
it's only complexity arises in
the extremes, whereby it's either
priceless, or worth jack-****,
a untangled "metaphor"
(no pun intended) of merely
calling a *****, a ******* space,
no *******, just the ****.
                              master that one,
****** fitzpatrick!
    ******, starts ogling me like a fish
suffocating with its eyes nearing
to popping out while i'm dipping into
a soup! toss off b.b.q.
we're short of frying your
auntie, ******!
            but honestly,
do we really live in such tragic times that
there are more comedians than there
are poets?!
        seems so, more poets than
tail whiffs of a cow imitating salon
couture -
              of: getting a breather...
fickle ****** me *** crack and let me
produce a squeeze of a Fabergé egg -
call me an Austrian empress while you're
at it, contemplating chicken cesarean,
i'm in no position to count the number
of abortions i've had three waves...
poached, fried, soft boiled...
  hard boiled at easter...
            my stance on abortion?
does it really matter if its tasty, yoke
goo?
            but there was to be a counter
to the chemical endeavour,
a "philosopher's stone", "mishap" -
perpetuated motion...
             we already know that
money was the stone -
upon touching this ****** entity
a grain of wheat became worth more than
a grain of sand...
                        ever minding the difference
between a brick from a loaf of bread...
trans-valuation of values my ***...
one word summary: money!
          why have people become so
mystified by entertaining the idea of money,
ah. right, sooner to spend
than loitering on the kept -
        d'uh...
but physicists are after something
quiet different...
   they're after a self-propelling
perpetuating force of motion...
   not solar, non-renewable, non-zephyr...
      and certainly not
an anti-thesis of a combustion engine...
                physicists are looking
for the philosopher's gust -
                    fan boy over 'ere thinks
they'll be as un-successful as the chemists
in finding the stone, that's actually
a meta- if not a trans-thing,
   meaning it out to be prefixed, but at
the same time made dubious -
since a meta-thing is actually a meta-"thing;
likewise for the trans- example.
           money is not exactly mystical if
you you erase the examples of
polarised representations of poverty,
and, endowment...
                  just a piece of iron with
a face on it...
              but it is the philosopher's stone
alchemists were looking for all along -
that trans-valuation of worth -
whatever a coin touches becomes either
more, or less, valuable...
                 it's worth spending £110 in
a brothel for an honest body...
             at least the single hour is an honesty
trip...
               and there's not a single
thought of "slavery" -
notably with paying the extra tenner
that allows you to perform oral ***...
       which gives them a flurry of giggles...
  its perfectly rationed...
  minus the dating drama *******...
               and if you're in there to
actually give rather than receive pleasure,
primarily... what can be more ironic than
paying someone to get pleasured?
            i still think we live in
a physics dominated society...
             and it's not a stone we're looking for...
it's perpetual motion that is not
compressed into a meaning of
acceleration or deceleration -
               if the philosopher's stone is
money... i wonder what the philosopher's
gust is...
            it can be oversimplified with
meagre demand for thought...
                    but then the moral ought
steals the theta that arrives an constructing
this compound...
                   plus, it's nice to mention
a ******* or two, as the loves of my life,
even if they were,
the loves of my life, for an hour...
       at least it was an honest hour,
and not a dishonest month.
  i fail to understand why prostitution
is not celebrated, and is courted these days
with an air of stigma...
                  it's quiet beyond my
comprehension, given that there are
so many current proselytized prostitutes -
  numbering with highest in
techno-freaky ******* central
             internet booths...
           i'm probably one of the last guys
who managed to buy a **** mag over
the counter, when it wasn't free,
and you had to stand face to face with someone
implying: that's me on the throne
of thrones doing a tear-jerking...
               maybe these little boys
would be less audacious with their
**** intake, had they actually bought some
over the counter in a newsagent...
very much akin to the napster "hipsters".

Raking autumn leaves
the color of sea stars
mottled on moist ground

I watch them fall
spinning slowly through blue sky
as if the breeze was a tide
ebbing and rising

the rake feels like a paintbrush
collecting color
muddied by mixing
into a fall palette

a still life with fruit
pears and apples still unblemished
on branch attached
but mushy and vinegar smelling

our big white Pyr
helps herself to fallen fruit
laying claim to each orb
her huge paws on either side
moist nose buried
in the rust of the Bosch
the red of the Delicious

we fill a wheelbarrow of leaf draped fruit
to bring below for coyotes
we trap on camera
motion sensed
but motionless

Malama the Pyr
waits whining wondering
if our chill morn together has ended
but the leaves are piles of the fallen
our task is not yet done

more are gathered on tarp
and dragged to garden bed
to blanket wintersleep of bulb and tuber
to feed in their decay
the new blooms of a next spring day

I have always raked
far preferring the quiet metal combing
through grassy tangled tufts
over motored loud blower’s hum
sending Moore's leaves whirling skyward

but I am no longer  tempted
to jump in the pile
gathering armfuls whose yellow color
is a child's crayon sun
and toss them for a second fall

no longer are they bagged  
in thick black plastic to wait
decomposition amongst the landfill’s
less pastoral refuse

nor are they burned
sending acrid leaf spirit smoke
into the cold pale blue
of October afternoon

now their raking is not a ridding
a discarding of what was season’s decoration
soon useless brown
but more of a farewell
a leaving of the light

an offering of what is still of use
in the aged for what will be
a period of cold and dark
and winter's rest
before the next season of green
begins

an unrequited, unrequested poem title that nonetheless,
(a fav. word, so economical) it’s a burr, an *** splinter,
festering, pestering, and it’s just easier to write it, cause
triple antibacterial ointment never cured a finger gone poem-
infectious

had two beers for breakfast, not my usual,
don’t care if you’re a Baptist or a Hassidic Jew,
I’m an ecumenical sorta guy, be informed that,
one was a long necked Corona (light), the other
a Pabst Blue Ribbon, which means I’m a ******* anti-Trump
globalist.

ain’t yet nine o’click, already had two fights with
my woman, is toastier a word? I took the negativity
position, but my heart wasn’t in it, cause I know me
words, was feeling muy ornery combative, a morning existential
verbalist.

the other was too infuriating, she asked for ten cherries,
after checking the calories per, which I knew and told her,
but she’s gotta check hit herself, so I brought a bowl uncounted,
annoyed, she anti-overage, threw the extras rudely on bed, she’s a
precisionist.

that I listen to music pretty much nonstop, even in my sleep,
and my fav. lyric of the late John Prine is from Montgomery & goes:
”But how the hell can a person, Go on to work in the mornin'
To come home in the evenin', And have nothing to say”
Amenist.

The German^^ dishwasher maschine summoned me near round
2 AM, TO INFORM ME  (vich is how de Choiman appliances speak)
without apology, that it was done with its multiplicity of cycles,
needy for emptying bowels forthwith, because that’s the way it is,
and wasn’t I gonna get up anyway, there are poets in Manila and Mumbai, waiting to speak their minds, re burning issues of life and pentameter, ah, them wisdom and wonderful people, all answer
seekers!

cause I’m an economist by habit, drink cups of coffee in trinity clips,
cause it’s efficiently economical, one less trip to the kitchen, and
anyone  who doesn’t drink at least three simultaneously, cannot be
redeemed by the verifiable angels in charge of saving coffee-colored
souls-tices.

my tempo is ironic, write poems too long for you attention deficit
disaffected teenagers, but haven’t read a book in years, cause
reading a poem is all I can manage nowadays, cause I’m a ****
attention deficit diseased old man, justifiable, when you got few days
leftist.

yes, I could go on, and on and on, but I hear your skin crawling and
sighs and moaning, enough already, while I don’t really care cause
every word I ever writ is a South Sea Pearl of something excellent,
truth is God has his ******* foot on my neck, whining way too loudly, “Jeez, enough” echoing your guttural cultural groaning, youse
alreadyists.

so I’m quitting here and letting y’all know, that I authored
the lyrics to American Pie, the longest song ever to be No.1,
the Don stole them, but as you can plainly see, it’s my style,^ when
we were drinking whisky and rye and told him it was copyrighted,
he laughed & said, I’m gonna copy them right down, ain’t that the kind of truthful ******* that drunk writers say because they think they are
“artistes.”

that’s about it for now, gotta do the breakfast dishes, so
Auf Wiedersehen, meine guten Männer und Frauen!


(yeah, yeah, learning German from Herr Bosch, the dish washer-man)

THE ALCHEMY OF ART

Woke up in(**** it!)
Bosch's Garden

of Earthly( aghhhh!)
Delights.

Not
a pretty sight.

Doomed to be
whoever or whatever

I was moving
through.

Masticated.
Digested.

An upside -down ****
trapped in a transparent hemisphere

crowned  by
the cherry of pride.

I mean...
moi?


And now "the tree man!
folks dining in the cut-off torso.

Now a pair of ears
brandishing a knife!

Christ!
Whatever next!

Now a prince of hell
dining upon a diet

of corrupt and
lecherous clergy.

Which proves that art
and strong liquor

don't always
go together.

Thus, I
and my strange bedfellows.

Spilt whiskey
on the duvet.

Soaking into the black
satin sheets.

The Bosch biography
dogeared and tattered.

Spine cracked
and broken

smiling up at me
form the **** pile carpet.

See ya Hieronymus!
I'm outta here!

the maul understood the man          
the dark putrid space inside him        
where empathy was supposed to be  
      
there was death there        
      
dreams of bosch              
saturn devouring his son                  
mother violence                  
like a tide of red ghosts lapping at toes                  
saying more than words ever could                  
                
the maul knew dark things                  
how it could sate an urge for ill will                  
how it could make quick work                  
of a human skull                  
                
and so                  
one day                  
                
it did                  
                
three of them                  
and at random                  
no pattern, just chaos                  
just pure, violent, blood spattering death                  
a gift of gore to the watchful moon                  
the maul knew what to do                  
                
he casually turned himself over to the police after          
before they even knew what he'd done      
what the maul had wrought            
            
there were three of them
  
a finished work
  
a trinity