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begin end begin he writes come to party in my room ashtray spilled on sheets mirror smeared clothes scattered everywhere i’m reclining on floor pulling on ***** hair writing lonely-hearts poem i don’t care about your photograph i just want to know will you come to party in my room? i have confidences to share secrets to reveal no one to give my body to i need to feel warmth of another there is food if you are hungry i’ll just watch listen to you will come won’t you? please this is no prank are you there? i just wanted to invite you to party you’re my only guest i need you i sound desperate you want to know how long i’ve been this way kind of let myself go grown used to this room that keeps my secret used to sleeping alone in big double bed i think i shall go take hot bath don’t come another night perhaps i can do it quite well myself thank you you probably would have felt out of place anyway - london 1971

nothing wrong with beating off but i prefer female sometimes pretty thing replies Odys you have a way with words actually he prefers woman all times tends to be too impatient rough handling himself needs woman’s gentler slower adoring touch

i wouldn’t mind wife if she is simply **** in residence leaning against doorway posing between me and kitchen he considers let’s get cruel in cruelty one finally realizes one’s own true self-interest who am i? am i cruel enough to be sick-hearted *******? am i capable of oppression torture? do i honestly desire *** slave? do i believe all hope of becoming normal human is gone? he hears her words i have cuffs crop leg spreader flogger hood paddle cane like swelling bruises on my *** never touch my face arms legs i like to be spit on while you pull hair i like servicing man who takes pleasure in giving brutal intense pain *** on my face **** **** on me i'm looking for white muscular egotistic man who is into sadomasochism i enjoy abuse part just as much as *** part is he lightweight no stomach for collared sadism? He mumbles to himself bottom line i respect love women this existence is killing me ignores his thoughts sings aloud we’re used to being rude to each other used to getting crude with each other come on now pretty thing sit next to me

female fantasy number 1 man’s ******* is like handle on slot machine if woman pulls it right way 3 cherries line up in his eyes ***** jingle ring money shoots out ***-hole female fantasy number 2 science invents way in which more money woman spends shopping more weight she can lose

i imagined you were plateful of pancakes you giggled when i poured syrup on your face i smiled pondering how lovely you would taste we sat for a while gazing into each other’s eyes until you got cold rubbery i didn’t want to eat you anymore

maybe he is not so charming anymore maybe Odysseus has become blunt  difficult he tries to be respectful but sometimes he is excessive self-willed time place names have lost any mearing during lively discussion with pretty thing creativity versus craft he confronts original invention requires destruction surely you realize that? pretty thing replies Odys i didn’t realize you were so dominant you seem so playful puppy-like in daytime i never would have guessed you’re such a chauvinistic ******* he questions chauvinistic ******* what’s that suppose to mean? i don’t know what you’re talking about she answers don’t play dumb Odys i know you’re smart at semiotics he asks semiotics what does that mean? I don’t know the word listen you’re right and i’m wrong i apologize i didn’t mean to get so argumentative he reaches for dictionary on floor next to chair pretty thing crosses legs speaks i’m very careful to use simple words everyone can understand but i’m just sign painter isn’t that right Odys? what would i know? he pleads you’re not making any sense we both use brushes paint similar techniques that’s beside the point i apologize she insists you’re way off the subject Odys he begs you’re right i’m wrong whatever i said made you get so upset please forgive me her voice cold terse i need to go home Odys you scare me you’re way too fanatic

thinks to himself promise her anything but give her the finger just when she’s finally starting to fall for whole scam give her the slip 6 to 12 weeks is average life expectancy for modern romance it’s fast world we’re all expendable can’t hear what you’re saying music is too loud rule number 1 no matter how beautiful she is there’s always someone who’s sick of her rule number 2 why would you even be talking with her if she didn’t have *****? rule number 3 they’re all ******* ******! he tries to recall if Bayli ever behaved like ***** he concludes no never did she become one?

in restless sleep he dreams someone tells him Bayli is working at ******* bar he goes to see her Bayli looks young beautiful wearing thong nothing else many men are pursuing her he excitedly approaches but she seems to only vaguely recognize him she questions do i know you? he answers Bayli it’s me Odys! she answers my name is not Bayli Odys who? where do you know me from?” he pleads Bayli, look at me Bayli smiles hesitantly as she looks around for support points finger towards Odysseus 2 bouncers approach shove him against wall force him outside bouncer barks her name is not Bayli now get hell out of here you freaking loser! they go back inside slamming door as he walks away neighborhood kids throw apples at him wakes up confused sad from dream

he vows i don’t need love love is for those too lame to stand alone bear solitude self-avowal love is sign of weakness compliance control love is contract made between two people too spineless to take pleasure in own freedom love is way to take advantage exploit love is convenience pact for mutual security love is cumbersome weight tied around athlete’s neck love is suffering love is a lie illusion cover-up for everyone’s petty lame problems

1984 chicago suffers harsh winter furious winds blow across lakefront Mom and Dad take Odysseus to dinner at posh new restaurant in art galleries district on the way Mom and Dad argue about parking Mom wants to leave car with valet Dad insists they first look for space Mom gets annoyed the wind will ruin my hair drop me and Odys off at door then do what you want Dad says you’re going to miss me when i’m gone Mom snaps we’ll see when are you planning on leaving? Dad wears navy blue blazer white shirt burgundy foulard silk tie he is in good spirits winning personality keeps table lively Mom wears beige cashmere turtleneck darker beige wool skirt brown alligator high heels gold earrings she waves then greets roths weissmans who are led by young hostess they walk past table make brief polite conversation after several rounds of drinks Dad speaks you know, it’s about time Odys are you dating anyone in particular? Odysseus hesitates confesses he has had ****** relations with hundreds of girls his knees begin to shake under table he admits maybe I’m incapable of sustaining intimate relationship with one woman i’m conflicted blocking all these feelings inside never learned how to love can’t hold on to anything all i know how is **** and run Mom interjects don’t use that word! she suggests he travel get some fresh ideas Dad becomes irritated lights cigarette waives to waiter orders another Absolute on the rocks bursts out what the hell do you mean you never learned to love you grew up in a house of love *******! didn’t you learn anything? are you purposely trying to ruin dinner? you watch your step mister or i’ll whack you right here at the table! you make me sick with all your excuses one of these days you’re going to wake up Odys and I hope it’s not too late Mom immediately glances at roth’s weissman’s table then glares sharply at Dad she snaps Max lower your voice! people can hear you we’re in a restaurant can we please change the subject? she instantly regains composure continues i spoke with your sister Penelope today and she let me know she might be landing a new account she’s being wined and dined this evening by c.e.o. of prominent san francisco agency later waiter clears entrees asks if anyone wants after-dinner drink dessert Mom orders coffee apple pie with scoop of vanilla ice cream Dad orders coffee Mom asks what do you wish for in your life Odys? who do you want to be? he exhales long breath answers i used to dream of becoming renown painter but now i’m not sure sad to say don’t know what i want sometimes i think of priesthood but i’ve done too much sinning Dad grows irate who puts these ideas into your head? you ******* ungrateful kid! what the hell is matter with you? Mom interrupts Max don’t lose your temper we’re in a restaurant she glances at roth’s weissman’s table nods with big smile on face Odysseus feels entangled in web of desires deceptions debts he vacillates from one aspiration to next grown comfortable in his failures distrust
Jeff Gaines Sep 2018
A headless man
in a ******* bar,
see's **** and ***
and thinks its a star.

“She can cook my meals
and **** my socks …
and give me all her money
as our bed rocks.”

“I'll do her friends,
whether they want me to or not.
She'll never leave me,
I'm all that she's got.”

“She deserved that black eye …
God, she never shuts up!
I about died laughing when she told the cops
that the bathroom door beat her up!”

“Those things her Uncle did to her?
Well, I'll do them too.
Who gives a crap about her feelings?
She's just here to *****.”

“And when I'm done with her,
I'll just head right back to the bar …
A little loot, a little blow, a perfect net …
to catch another falling star.”

To him a woman is an object …
No soul, no life, no heart.
And like a spoiled kid with some fancy toy …
He just wants to take her apart.

He really can't help it.
According to science, he was born this way.
And just as some new girl takes to the pole …
there's another like him, and he's destined to find her one day.

Those mirrors everywhere? They aren't there to help you see …
They've a much more evil job.
They're there so she can see and witness herself taking dollars …
from some old, pervy slob.

They cover those walls so the dancers are forced to watch …
what was once, Daddy's little girl.
To convince her she is now worthless on a downward descent …
and falling deeper with every twirl.

Oddly, eventually … she accepts this new self …
in what seems like soft, shiny skin.
The pounding music and the flashing lights …
all there to help her win.

She soon revels in this adoration …
from men she once would never speak to.
*** and drugs and rivers of whiskey …
All there to see her through.

One day she wakes and looks in the mirror …
Thinning hair, crows feet and bruises on her arms.
Daddy's little girl has long gone away …
replaced with a *****'s worldly charms.

"Who have I become?"
"What have I done?"
"I was only looking for a little excitement …
extra money and maybe some fun."

"How did I waste my life away …
and from it, nothing to show?"
"I never saw it coming, all so easy to do …"
A trap … sprung long ago.

A trap so intoxicating … brainwashed without a clue.
She ponders “Who would want me now?”  … Just another fallen star.
She puts on her makeup … and packs her bag …
and heads on back to the bar.

The cheers, the money, the lights, the ***** …
have now become her vows.
The greedy owner, ***** bouncers and catty co-workers …
they are her family now.

Soon enough, it will come to an end.
If not with her dead on the floor cold …
then replaced by a much younger model …
a new, unsuspecting 18 year-old.

And so the cycle starts again …
Through the door comes the man with no head.
In no time at all, the mirrors will do their job …
and she'll end up in his bed.

A dream in a blindfold or a nightmare she refused to wake up from?
It matters not in this instance.
Either path, a dance off a cliff …
A distinction without a difference.
(I wanna start by saying how sorry I am for being gone for so long. Summer is almost done and I promise to be back to read all my followers and fans. This came to me the other day and I wanted to post it.)

I'm not sure what it is about Virgo's and I … Several of my best buds are Virgos and I've had several Virgo girlfriends as well. Whatever the reason, I have many birthdays to keep up with in September. One of them is really sad though. I met her in the Bottle Club that I was spinning at and was immediately smitten. Tall, brunette, HUGE blue eyes and a smile that could stop a train.

It didn't take long for me to figure out that she was there with a group of strippers. That's commonplace at bottle club's. Where else can working gals go after work when the bars are all closed? We were always jammed with bar and restaurant types. The dancers came in droves as well. But she was different. Most all the dancers came wearing … well … lets just say “slinky” clothes. Tight, revealing dresses. Tall, spike heels. Plunging necklines and … oh, you get the idea. But she was different. She had on a red sweater and jeans … and a really cool pair of black and white checkered Converse high-tops.

I thought maybe … just maybe she was a waitress or bartender at their club … not a dancer.

But I was wrong. She came to the booth to make a request (after she caught me staring from the booth at her and the gals dancing). She even smiled on one occasion and I winked at her then played aloof and turned to pull my next record. That did the trick and there she was, chatting with me. After a few minutes, I grabbed her hand and helped her up into the DJ booth. She seemed a bit surprised and her face lit up. She stayed in that booth for an hour. Her co-workers came by one at a time and made goofy faces at her that we were “hitting it off”. I learned much about her in that hour …

She was a feature dancer and traveled to New York, Miami, Vegas, San Francisco, Dallas, Tampa, Orlando, Key West, and even Toronto and Vancouver performing in huge strip clubs. She had every costume you could think of … Nurse, Police Woman, Construction Worker, Jungle Girl (*complete with a “vine” rope to swing on), Mermaid, Nun (YES, NUN!), Cheerleader, Space Girl, Vampire and, if the venue had the rigging for it … she had a real swing to go along with her Southern Belle outfit. This included an authentic hoop dress with a 5 foot hoop at the hem, a silk and lace parasol and a huge Kentucky Derby-style “Bonnet”.  After we got together, I got to see all of them, either as she performed … or as she performed for me in private. She was really amazing. These venues thought so too, apparently. They would fly her in, put her up in a hotel AND pay her to perform. Of course, she also got to keep all her tips as well. She made insane money at this.

Normally, I bypassed the dancers that came to party where I worked. Too much trouble. Too much drama or partying that was too overboard, even for me (trust me, that's BAD!). But she was different. She wasn't a wild, party-crazed girl out of control. She was really smart. Very articulate, mild-mannered and seemed to have quite a head on her shoulders. Her story was different too. She danced to put herself through college. She had a degree in business. But when she went into the real world to start her career, she learned she couldn't make near the money as she had been making. So, she made a decision to just stay put and ramp up her income by becoming a feature dancer and earn a name for herself. She did just that and owned her own new car and really nice condo … outright. Very impressive to say the least. Eventually, I was at her condo so much, I practically lived there. Sometimes, I'd be out at the pool hall with my bud's and find $100 bills hidden in my watch pocket or stuck in my buttoned shirt pocket. She LOVED doing this, no matter how many times I'd begged her not to. “Just takin' care of my man” she'd say with a grin.

She never fell into the usual trappings of that world and kept herself distanced from it. I was so blown away by all this I started to fall in love with her. My poem titled "Every Day", (See it on my page, a link won't work now for some reason) was written for/about her. We had a blast together. She was really amazing in every way. Her place was a constant flow of folks from that world and I witnessed some reeeeeally freaky voodoo over the next few years. One thing I saw that troubled me though, was a young “new girl” and her “transformation”. I have to say that it really bothered me. I watched this innocent young girl, go from being quiet and even blushing at the behavior witnessed at one of our party's, to being a complete horn-dog freak … loud and drunk most all the time … and this took less than 6 months!

I told my girlfriend that it really troubled me and her and I spoke about it at length. That's how I learned all about the world of professional stripping. She told me all about the mirrors and how they make you see yourself as a stripper and not only make you fall deeper down the hole as you accept yourself like this, but that it also keeps you there as well. She also described to me, at length about the “men” in these girls lives as well as the staff that worked in these types of places. ***, of any sort, attracts ne'er-do-wells, sociopaths, people with all sorts of issues … and pervs. So that's the only choices some girls take. Mostly because they don't give them grief about being dancers. The problem is all the other grief these types bring and the fact that these types of men only see them as objects to be owned and used.

I never went to those places after going a few times after I turned 18. It just wasn't my thing. I don't see women as objects. Being someone who studied Psychology and Behavioral Science, I had more fun watching and studying the people in the place, than the dancers. I never had a problem meeting women … I didn't need to pay for one to pretend to like me. Yet another reason I avoided those gals at the bottle club.

As time went on though … the “little” bit of partying my gal did eventually began to be a problem. I was horrified to discover one day, that the “line here and line there” of sniffs she had always done had descended to her using needles! She would wear these finger-less lace gloves. They were VERY **** at first … But one day, she joined me in the shower with them on … I noticed this and tried to take them off of her … she fought me … laughing at first, but then as I pressed it, she got angry. I thought she had gotten a tattoo … but that was not the case … I laughingly wrestled one off to see the “tattoo” and found track marks on the back of her hand. The argument that ensued in that bathroom could be heard down by the condo pool.

I spent the next few weeks trying to talk her off of it. But all that did was make her try and hide it more while swearing sobriety. After finding yet another needle rig, hidden in the bathroom trash can … I moved out. She tried to commit suicide and blamed it on ME in her note. Thankfully she failed, but because I was named as the “problem”, I wasn't allowed to see her. Even her family snubbed me without ever knowing the real truth. There was nothing I could do. A few weeks later I went by the condo. Her car wasn't there and there was a for sale sign in the window. I looked in the windows and the place was empty. She had moved away and that was that.

A few months later … I was awakened, at 7 am on a Sunday WITH a hangover, by a young coworker of mine. I answered the door with gritted teeth and told him “This BETTER be GOOD!”

He had a VHS tape in his hand and reeked of *****. I let him in and he told me that he had stolen this tape from a party he was at because he knew that I would want to see it. I looked at the label as I loaded it into my VCR and could tell by the title that it was a **** tape. I rolled my eyes, turned on the TV and plopped on the couch to humor him. The video opened with a big, white Cadillac convertible going down a wide, palm-lined Hollywood/L.A. Street. There was a football- player-sized black man driving and a beautiful girl with dark red lips, over-sized sunglasses and a silk scarf on her head riding along.

I didn't recognize her at all.

But in the next scene, she had removed the glasses and scarf … it was her … she was blowing him … and on both her hands … were finger-less, lace gloves. I jumped up and ejected the tape. He said “Sorry, Dude … I just figured you would want to know … don't hate the messenger.”

I assured him that I wasn't mad. I asked him to just go and even thanked him so that he wouldn't feel I was angry with him. I asked him to never tell anyone and he never did. I went in the kitchen and destroyed the tape with my bare hands, cramming it all into the bin and cutting myself in the process. There was blood all over the counter, fridge and floor. I cleaned up myself and just went for the **** and my water bed. My roomy woke me up several hours later, a bit upset, and asking about the blood. I told him what had happened and he knew it was tearing me up inside.

He said “So sorry to hear that Bro, I know what she meant to you.”

I told him that it was all good and thanked him for his concern. I told him I'd clean up the ****** mess when I got up. When I finally did get out of bed, I saw that he had cleaned up all my blood and he never said a word about that … or her … ever again. Bless his heart.

Day-before-yesterday was her birthday. I got to thinking about her while riding the lawnmower and our conversation about the “biz” came flooding back … I guess that made this poem come to me. I had to stop and come inside to write it, dripping sweat all over the den. Still … I'm glad I did. If just ONE of those girls reads this somewhere, somehow and it makes her open her eyes … then I have accomplished something. Thanks for the read.
Akemi Oct 2013
Chapter 1

There was a woman. The cost to love her was your life. No other payment but a sending off, a revolver cocked to your temple’s side.
There was no spite in your death, just business.
Hell of a business to run.

I was protecting someone. Never been one to stick around, but this drag had carried for the past year. That gang-owned joint lay but two doors and a cold alley away. Popular place, maybe not the classiest but it had its patrons. Packed with your essentials: pool tables, dirt-licked walls and chairs, mean folk mixed in with the nice. Old fashioned joint with a history. You could almost feel it when you walked in. That small pressure when it’s about to rain? Felt like that had been building up for a decade there.
Some Madonna owned it. Names elude me, but she was just another front; as was the barkeep, the hired bouncers and those mean-eyed slingers that spoke loud in company, silent alone. Heh, almost like an old-fashioned saloon. Who the hell am I in this tale of cowboys and crooks?
I was holed up in that apartment block for the winter. Stiff drapes covering a stiff cold that seeped through the cracks anyway. Cold chills to wake to, and the whiskey don’t warm a **** thing. Maybe it was the ache of a past flame that led me to her. That old touch had languished and misted away in the night of some long dead memory, leaving an old kiss from a young lover on my shivering body. It grew faint with every year’s passing. I struggle to remember this keepsake.
Every night.
I was a no name protector protecting a no name ghost of a man. Yeah we knew each other. I’m no stranger to keep past talking terms . . . but, hell if I remember his name, how we got into this **** situation and why. Mind’s a little off. Been like that for years.

It was a stumble through the wrong door at the wrong time. Some spiteful voices in the back of the joint or the back of my mind telling me I’m headed for hell and ain’t coming back. See, every day is a crossroad, and I happened upon the worst one yet.
I remember that flaking paint; grime-covered white on a moulding door **** near off its hinges. That suited me, and I hated it. Maybe I grew sick of wandering the same way and turned my life on its spinning head. Spun me all the ways I couldn’t face. Saw a glimmer that fate had readied for me. Don’t think I’ve looked at anything with such eyes since; nor have they looked back at me.
The room was a cramped, dilapidated hellhole like every other room, but with her laying on that bed of hers . . . she was the only clean thing in the whole of this cursed city. Save, she wasn’t clean. No such thing exists; no such thing as clean since your adolescent innocence, and even that went up in flames. Hell, in a city like this I wouldn’t be surprised if the skeletons we kept so tightly locked in our closets outnumbered us ten to one.
Should have remembered that when I saw her, but my mind lay a blank canvas and I couldn’t help but fill it with all the details of this pretty bird. Even those that weren’t there.
No Name yanked me out quick. Never seen him so pale, ghosting further and further from a human being. He’d been running so long I don’t think he even knew what he was running from anymore. His past? Some cop chase from years back, ending with blood stains and shaky hands? A dead kid in the arms of a suicidal wife? Maybe he’s running from himself. Fear in the capacity we contain, and fear in the ways we unleash it around loved ones. I don’t blame him for running. If I was a worse man I’d run from him as well.
Now No Name has it all figured out, even if he won’t let on; and that bird in there ain’t part of the plan. Cash cash, first train out to some no name city for this no name man. In this together, he keeps repeating, like some broke down record player that only plays one song. Well I guess we share more similarities than I’d like to think so.

One night, about a month after settling in that old apartment, I hear raised voices. Not uncommon, but something about this still night woke some fear inside me. A fear I needed to meet with my eyes, a score to settle with myself. Sounded like some ******* outside was hoping to bring down the sky with volume alone. No type of gentleman, just a no ***** kid who doesn’t know the difference between command and screaming like a babe.
One gets you respect. Now, the other. . . .
I open those stiff drapes with stiffer fingers. Brush that layer of frozen breath and mist to find some mid-twenty good for nothing punk holding a struggling figure. The apartment ain’t exactly ground floor but even up here I can spot the difference between a gent and a sally. Some broad was in trouble.
Grab that six shooter, old man. The holster smooth from years of wear, small frays on the weathered jacket rubbing against goose-pricked skin. Comfort clothing that never really brings comfort. Not anymore. Guess I’m as bad as No Name. I’m just repeating routine.
Out the hall, no doors left in this apartment block. Stolen, broken, ain’t exactly your family fun lifestyle we’re living. No Name’s holed up in this fortress of upturned furniture and dresser-barred doorways. Lights flicker from between the cracks. The devil ain’t gonna bother with the door, I tell him. He doesn’t reply. Maybe he’s a religious man with one too many sins above his head.
There’s another yell and I feel my blood rise, hairs picking up static, a storm brewing inside that clenched stomach of mine. Take a tumble down the stairs in my haste. **** crooked balsa wood. Those stairs are gonna end me one day, I swear.
Ground floor. I slam that kitchen door and it cracks against the brick wall outside. ****. No Name’s gonna burst an artery. Call out for that ******* punk but he’s already eyeing me up. Only a few steps away and I can see the white in his eyes. No . . . those are his pupils. Wide, all cloud-like, he’s ******* dusted up. . . . Almost like looking into the past. Thrice-cursed ****. I’m in trouble.
This ain’t some lover’s quarrel, some twisted ****’s thought of a good way to end the night. This is a dusthead addict and I’m out of my league. His mid-snarl distorts and stretches past his cheeks and that devil grin sends an electric jolt from the wires of my brain to my heart.
This six shooter is as good as a pea gun against a Smiley.
He’s spouting some glossolalia drifts, layering it like an abominable duet. The coked-up boy in me yearns to understand again, but stiff joints and washed-out dreams have made me a cynic. Ain’t no beauty when you’re tearing things apart to see it. ******* Smiley’s on the edge and he’s ready to pounce right off. If that broad’s sobbing didn’t **** at those heart strings of mine I’d be running for my ******* life.
I lift that pea shooter and aim it straight at that devil smile.
He howls. Glass shatters from above. Some black monstrous thing comes speeding at me. I leap through that apartment doorway in time to see ******* Smiley consumed by it. All sharp, all solid that beast slams into Smiley, screaming loud enough to wake this dead city twice over. Smiley thrashes, he splays out to the ground, the beast’s seared flesh erupting in front of me. A piece slices past my cheek and I’m on the ground in tears. I hear No Name scream an incomprehensible curse above. I’m bawling now. Through my tears I spot that chunk of flesh. ******* balsa wood. Thrice-cursed balsa wood.
No Name had thrown a piano out that barricaded window of his. Tears of pure comedy, that’s what left my face. A Smiley taken out by No Name, I’ll never live this down. His mangled body lies under polished wood. Someone’s yearly worth gone in a second of frantic panic, reduced to twisted wires and cracked ivory. To see something so beautiful destroyed in seconds makes me wonder if the Smiley had gotten the better of us after all.
That broad’s in shock. Splinters covered every inch of ground save that around her; looked like a comet, trailing emptiness behind.  Should have noticed it then that something wasn’t right with that scene. Perfectly unscathed beauty sitting there with not a single scratch nor splinter on her, but I was too **** amazed I was alive. Knelt close to her and caught a whiff of some exotic scent on her skin. Some flower. Saw her face and it added another colour to that filling canvas of mine. This pretty bird from the joint. The one men died for. At least No Name had saved one life worth saving, funny it happened to be the one who could take yours in a night.
Names elude me, but the way I remember her . . . the way I remember her is Blossom, for when she came into my life she gave colours to my black and white memory, colours I didn’t know existed, and my black and white morals took a turn down some dawning grey-blurred alley.
So I’m a ******* gentleman and I walk Blossom home while No Name shifts furniture above us. Scrapes of hard wood against wood, filling that void in his once impenetrable bastion. I told you No Name’s got it all planned out already. Guess I’m just here for the ride.
Welcome to the paranormal neo-noir gangster world of Devil Smiles.
Steve D'Beard Jun 2014
We, the people of this country, in your eyes are:

babblers, bachelors, bafflers, baiters, barkers,
beakers, beaters, brawlers, blamers, beggars,
bloaters, bloopers, bombers, boozers, blunders,
bruisers, bafflers, bluffers, burglars and burners.

That's why you feel compelled to keep your foot on our heads
keep us down, put us down, push us down
subjugate us, belittle us, berate us.

We, the people of this country, in our eyes are:

butlers, bouncers, bakers, buyers, barbers,
cake-makers, delivery-takers, cocktail-shakers,
taxi drivers, cancer survivors, employers and hirers,
music makers, entertainers, window washers, foster takers,
plasterers, carpenters, scaffolders, sparks and builders,
boxers, carers, coaches, tailors, shoe makers,
designers, illustrators, multi-language facilitators,
dog walkers, dog trainers, bikers and cycle couriers,
doctors and nurses and all the emergency services.

We are the People, the reason you are where you are now
you sometimes forget that we exist as people, somehow
locked in your ivory towers with gold plated showers
and MP expenses and investment banker pretenses
this is not theater, its real life drama, its not just a bluff
its time to stand up
and say enough is enough.
betterdays Mar 2014
Ethel echidna
had a date wid Pike,
a fiiine!
young hedgehog
who be doin' the backpack

she got n' egg
ya see bout a rave
up in the mountains
in a black cathederic cave
doof doof in the dandenongs

d' message said
up dee track
where the ding dongs
don't dare follow
round d' hollow n'
up the back

Ethel she preened
and she polished
the dreds down her back,
clickety, click, clack.
painted her claws
a fetching shade
of orange neon
all watched on by
Pike the backpack peon

then to the doof
dey departed
at a fast shuffel
leaving behin
barely a ruffle
in the burrowed air
they followed
d'directions to
d' right section
dis dey knew
by d' sound of
d' massive party
goin down

on payin d' dosh n'
getten d' mark
off dey went
inta the fray
***** boy mumbled
"woyhoy gotcha!"
when he saw who
was providin
the goodmuse vibing
up ona stage
Jagger the emu
was a struttin'
with Ringo the dingo
on drums an bongos
while Hendrix
the numbat riffed d' strat
an  Entwhistle
d'frogmouthed owl
grooved on his gibson
wid ***** left stage staring

Ethel got bizzy
check'n out the dancefloor
lookin for bling or moves wid a sting
perhaps a little ******* headbangin

well down
at the southdoor
trouble was brewin'
foul words
was spewin between
d magpie n seagull crews
till the bouncers,
kanga & roo
hustled dem
all outside for a brew

up near the stacks
Pheobe the lizard
was flashin
a matchin
frill n grill ensemble
while Stan, her man
was fillin his bill
at the buffet table
as only a pelican can
at the grub bar
sat the kookaburra trio
Max,Tom, Deccy
havin a speccy
at tha lady
cockatoos n' galahs,
givina chuckle
at the bruhaha
they had created
comin flyin from
near n' far to this
surberb n spectacular
festival of fauna
"tho hot as a sauna
best dis year sofah"

jus inside
d' recovery corner sat
Horn a blue tongue lizard
feelin a bit pukey n' flat
den dere was
Kayla n' Jac
a pair o koalas
who now be zonin
from d eucalyptus
dey been a chewen
alldayz

outaback time it's awastin
with dis watchin n waitin

Ethel hit the floor
wherever
she booggied,
grooved or h-banged
she got a big crowd,
given her ground
to shake
her dreds around
cause dat girl
is dangerous
wid her dredlocks man,
to which Zach
the one eyed wombat
can well attest

Now not bein a dancer
***** got lonely
so looked upa chat
with the rest
of d' backpackin crowd
he swapped recipes
for green brownies wit
Boomer the orangatang,
harvest spots wit
Goth the friutbat,
Hamish de otter,
quiet de globetrotter,
did giv ***** some tips
about surfin rips
furder down de coast.

so dey shimmyed
an dey shammyed,
dey talked
an dey squawked
till d' old sun
came out to play
den dey wandered
and dey wended
back down
d' track to d' town
to sleep d' day away.

as to our Ethel
and *****,
well
dey crawled
gingerly
inta their bed,
they cuddled
an dey clicked,
dey kissed
an dey snicked
and dey
blew dey
selfs away
NY Hip Hop
Gold Express
Bling Shop
Afro Brothers
proprietorship

buyin and sellin
filthy lucre
of down hard
Gat packin
Gangstas
on the down low
throwin down
fallin hook
line and stinker

just a bunch
of lil fishies
wigglin at the end
of golden chains

its all about
the bling baby
all about the bling

"I pity the fool"
saith Mr. T
the potentate of
soul and gold
who ain't
down with
the cool jewels
of righteous
B Teamers
arrested by
the silk rope
of glitzy discos
bribing bouncers
with an
earnest Jackson
to *** rush
the vanity faire
of bumping
A Listers

Or was it
Def Jam
Buddhas
minting
coin on
MTV?

exploiting
misogyny
and ghost
face killas
NWAs
slugging cases
of Kristol
blowing
fat spliff
smoke
up the *** of
Phat Farm
kids in
the hood
shooting
silver
bullets at
the man
takin baths
in tubs
of fifties
lighting up
with crisp
C Notes
rollin
through
life
in black
Escalades
its silver
spinners
twisting fast
round
corners
where
being cool
went blind
and
Coolie High
homies
still tip
a sip
for the
brothers
who ain't
there

Today
its all about
the raised fist
of power to
the P Diddy
fighting
the power
of the people
as leggy
Beyonce
warbles
songs
for the
posse
of a
Libyan
Dictator
whose
blood
money
pays
a cool
mil
cover
for a
New Years
Eve
tune

Its all about
the bling
baby

All about
the bling
baby, all
about the
bling.

NY Hip Hop
Gold Express
Best Prices in
Trenton Since
1997

You Tube Video:
Gil Scott Heron
Ain't No Such Thing As Superman

Trenton
2/25/11
jbm
Edna Sweetlove Dec 2014
People think that Dublin, Ireland's fair capital city
Is a place of merriment, overflowing with craic and whiskey,
Whose narrow streets are filled with poets and singers and also
Pretty girls with wheelbarrows selling cockles and mussels;
A city redolent with history, whose gutters run with half-digested Guinness
After closing time, and the drinkers have been hurled into the gutter
By jovial bouncers who can recite "Ulysses" from start to finish
From memory, and where the Liffey, sweet Anna Liffey, flows peacefully,
With only an occasional splash when a pedestrian topples gaily in.
                  
But there is a darker side to famous Baile Atha Cliath, oh yes,
And the following anecdote is a sad but true indictment of the evil,
The omnipresent evil, which lurks in the black soul of the city.
I was trolling along the banks of the old Royal Canal one summer's evening
With my drinking companion, my Afro cousin, Black Paddy McSpigot,
Pausing only to glance briefly at the copulating couples on the towpath
(We were slightly amused by the small crowd watching one couple
who were engaged in the athletic congress of the ****-backed whale
underneath the bridge by Rose Street, a favourite spot for young lovers),
When a terrible shriek rent the air and a horde of renegade drunken nuns
Poured out of a late night underground folk-music drinking den
(the hugely amplified noise of the massed uilléan pipes was deafening
and had probably driven the poor dears into a religious frenzy).

Seeing Black Paddy, and mistaking his gay rendition of "Skibereen"
For an excerpt from the Satanic Mass, they yelled out polyphonically
"Tis the divil himself, so it is, an' all, an' all, let's get the focker",
And without further ado they leaped on him and ripped him to shreds,
Hurling lumps of his poor, poor body into the crocodile infested canal,
Where they were immediately masticated by the terrifying reptiles
(the mighty creatures had been stolen from the Zoological Gardens
by a group of drunken Animal Rights campaigners out on a ******,
and were the toast of the town in every gay bar in the vibrant city).
I cowered in terror at the horrific spectacle, thanking my lucky stars
I was wearing my archibishop's fancy dress uniform that evening
(it was the only way to jump the queue to get into Davy Byrne's Bar).
Dear God, I'll not visit the dear Emerald Isle again in a hurry, to be sure.
~
December 2023
HP Poet: Marshal Gebbie
Age: 78
Country: New Zealand


Question 1: We welcome you to the HP Spotlight, Marshal. Please tell us about your background?

Marshal: "My name is Marshal Gebbie and I write under "M" or "M@Foxglove.­Taranaki. NZ". I am 78 years old and a native son of Australia. I came to New Zealand for a looksee with a pack on my back and a guitar under my arm, intended spending six weeks but absolutely fell in love with the Kiwi people and this magnificent little jewel of a country nested deep in the waves of the great Southern ocean of the South Pacific. I've now been here 54 years and counting. I married darling Janet back about 35 years ago and we produced two fine sons, Boaz and Solomon both of whom have great careers, wonderful partners...and in Solomon's case, produced a delightful granddaughter for us to love and spoil to bits.

From ****** agricultural college I went to the darkest, deepest wilds of Papua New Guinea as an Agricultural Officer, returned to Australia two years later to become a secondary college teacher in Ag Science. Easily the most satisfying profession of my life in that I succeeded in drawing the pearls of enlightenment from within the concrete mass of the, then, recalcitrant, brickheaded studenthood to realise the wonder of discovery, involvement and engender, within them, a genuine spirit of endeavour. Stepping off the boat in NZ I took a bouncers job in a rough public bar, three months later I started my own brand new tavern @ the Chateau Tongariro in the skifields of Mt Ruapehu.

Seeing a unique opportunity and with no money of my own I bought a derelict motorcamp in the small country township of National Park, named the place "Buttercup Camp" and set about making the enterprize one of the very first destination holiday venues in New Zealand. I pioneered paddle boat white water rafting on the wild rivers of the North Island, commercial adventure horse trekking in the wilderness trails, guided adventure hikes across the active volcanos of Ruapehu, Nguarahoe and Tongariro. Cheffed three course roast dinners and piping hot breakfasts for up to 150 house guests daily and initiated an alpine flightseeing business and air taxi service to and from Auckland and Wellington International to the National Park airstrip, a long grassy, uphill paddock liberally populated by flocks of sheep and/or herds of beef cattle.

Somewhere along the way I earned myself a Commercial Pilots Licence and owned, through the duration, 7 different aircraft. With the sudden fiscal collapse of tourism in the late 80s along with several inconvenient local volcanic eruptions, I divested myself from "Buttercup", moved my young family to Auckland and took up a 20 year lease of a derelict motel in Greenlane. Within three months I had converted the business into Auckland's premier truckstop providing comfortable welcoming accommodation, piping hot dinners and early breakfasts with the added bonus of a pretty young thing serving drinks in the bar....Super service with a smile for the nations busy truck drivers.
It worked like a rocket for ten years then the local matrons objected to the big rigs starting up at 4am and the Ministry of Transport and the Local Authority shut me down.

I worked the last 12 years of my serious working life as a Storeman and Plant Coordinator for a major construction company building motorways and major traffic tunnels in and under Auckland city and in rural Hamilton. I loved every minute of it all and objected furiously when they retired me at age 75.

Now I'm happily a Postman Pat in a little rural country town on the coast called Okato, have been for three years and shall continue be, gleefully, until they put me in the box. It has been a helluva run....and I wouldn't have missed a minute of it all."



Question 2: How long have you been writing poetry, and for how long have you been a member of Hello Poetry?

Marshal: "Poetry started for me when I wrote a beautiful ditty as an exercise at high school.....and the caustic old crow of a teacher said, publicly,...."You didn't write this!" That got the juices flowing and set me off on the tangent of proving my worth as a writer....and I have never stopped."


Question 3: What inspires you? (In other words, how does poetry happen for you).

Marshal: "Falling in love for the very first time kick started the romanticisms....it took me years to mollify that. Since then and throughout life Poetry has hallmarked discovery, achievement, white hot anger, combat and delight!"


Question 4: What does poetry mean to you?

Marshal: "It is the medium of expression which allows the spirit to enhance and colour my world."


Question 5: Who are your favorite poets?

Marshal: "Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Emily Dickinson, WL Winter, WK Kortas, L Anselm, Victoria (God Bless her), and a character, sadly long gone from these pages, JP. All favourite poets of mine."


Question 6: What other interests do you have?

Marshal: "With the slowing of my battered body these days I commit myself to my darling wife, Janet, our kids, now grown and living out there in the big wide world, and in growing and nurturing the truly magnificent gardens of "Foxglove" ......following the All Black rugby team and enjoying the serenity of a cut glass noggin of Bushmills Irish whiskey (neat), sitting in my favourite chair, watching the sun set in golden array over the grey waters of the distant Tasman Sea, far, far below."


Carlo C. Gomez: “Thank you so much for giving us an opportunity to get to know you, Marshal! It is an honor to include you in this series!”

Marshal: "Greetings Carlo and thanks for the opportunity to unload on my fellow poets."



Thank you everyone here at HP for taking the time to read this. We hope you enjoyed getting to know Marshal better. I learned so much about his fascinating life. It is our wish that these spotlights are helping everyone to further discover and appreciate their fellow poets. – Carlo C. Gomez & Mrs. Timetable

We will post Spotlight #11 in January!

~
Below are some of Marshal's favorite poems and links to each one:

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1620867/windwitch-of-the-deep/
Windwitch of the Deep by Marshal Gebbie
Click to read the poem and comment...
hellopoetry.com

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1274911/running-the-beast/
Running the Beast by Marshal Gebbie
Click to read the poem and comment...
hellopoetry.com

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/386523/so-wetly-one/
Once, so wetly one. by Marshal Gebbie
Click to read the poem and comment...
hellopoetry.com

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/435103/perchance-in-a-bus-shelter/
Perchance, in a Bus Shelter by Marshal Gebbie
Click to read the poem and comment...
hellopoetry.com

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/389195/white-foggy-days/
White, Foggy Days by Marshal Gebbie
Click to read the poem and comment...
hellopoetry.com

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/266893/cheetah/
Cheetah by Marshal Gebbie
Click to read the poem and comment...
hellopoetry.com
Perig3e Jan 2011
The city is loud with chimneys,
bristling with dimpled sky dishes,
afloat in a dammed lake of sunset fenestration,
beneath unwitnessed, unappreciated clouds,
its streets a grid of flowless canals,
to the music of "Hey, mister, got any change?"
Oh,
but,
when the lights go down,
and the pretty people come out!
and the beef bouncers sort snort the buzzing sequin queen queues
for the sparkle dance houses,
the city,
the city,
can one ever get enough?
All rights reserved by the author
he weaves home buzzed on bicycle falls asleep telephone rings 3 AM waking him suspects it is Reiko does not pick up receiver momentary pause rings again 5 times does not pick it up truth is he is still weak for her unable to fall back to sleep gets up makes tea ignores steaming cup decides instead on glass of wine watch telephone does not ring again he sips smokes cigarette march winds rattle window stares out at darkness

following week Cal insists they go to tittie bar Odysseus agrees they order 2 for 1 beers steak and lobster 12 dollar special watch vast assortment of ******* clad bare breasted women Cal comments makes me forget about the hell my life is Odysseus acknowledges i hear you their attendance becomes weekly ritual bartenders bouncers dancers managers know them by name Odysseus smiles flirts with familiar athletic flat-chested brunette believes dancers grasp powers wiles of female mystique that current feminist movement condemns Cal warns dancers are all phony all they want is money Odysseus glances away from blonde female gyrating against pole on stage you’re right Cal why am i such a sucker for a pretty girl? creases brow ponders besides everyone’s thoughts and feelings we are our bodies variations of nature unequal characteristics beauty casts unjust hierarchy of privileges what you might refuse a 1000 you will permit with 1 suitably possessing beauty’s fascination beauty corrupts renders us slaves it’s sick like rilke wrote each single angel is terrible think about it Cal doesn’t beauty tend to take advantage and in doing so does all beauty hide some selfish truth? In that self-interest comes loneliness why am i attracted to that selfishness? isolation? Cal looks points replies chill Odys check out puffy ******* at bar

later Odysseus comments i want to write a book about process of growing questioning choosing love over hate aging death Cal remarks me too Odys if you finally write yours swear to me you won’t dress it up with chase scenes murders surprise twist ending just tell the truth about what happens to a person as they go through life keep it real keep it uncompromised
Steve D'Beard Nov 2012
Urban Community Living:

Some days I actually noticed how grey it was
All of this space, here around us
As our half-beaten stone trodden 52 bus
Rolls into its unfortunate terminus.
Terminal more like.

The shops have boarded windows,
Bakeries have bullet-proof counters
Staffed by bulky bakers-***-bouncers
A praised underground centre for perilous shopping
Dodge rival factions on various floors
Fighting for stair supremacy
And burly painted girls with latent spent applause

Some colour on the underpass is some relief
Only it warns of impending doom
for someone soon
Tim Knight Dec 2013
Bouncers can only stop and stare, maybe
get involved when their contract states
they've got to care, but up to that line
they wait on doorstops and thresholds,
looking for kisses from the makeup clad gold.

Smokers swell in the sea mist of the
open smoking area, they talk ideas
and travel plans, wave to no one
hoping they'll wave back again.

The bar men, the bar women and the cloakroom
attendants sing along to the songs
under tired, muttered breaths,
hoping the depth of the queue
subsides into something more serviceable.

And after?

Young ones with freshly ironed faces
**** into gutters and speak in
half-rhyme stutters, Morse code flutters that
translate into nothing more than, another beer please.

They yell as if they own the sky,
keep their echoes on rope tied to the
openings of back alleyways,
showing to her and her and her and him, his best friend, that he's
the drunkest of them all.
FROM > coffeeshoppoems.com
It took a very long time for A to find B,
and possibly even longer for A with B to get to C,
then D shadowed, and along came easy E,
F hurried, G stumbled, and before you know it,
H pushed, I shoved, J fell, K and L bullied,

doormen and bouncers hired,
and hooked red velvet guest rope installed.
M and N showed legs and other stuff,
O accommodated, P arrived peeing and puking,
Q wandered in by mistake,

R flashed cash, S slid unscathed,
T grinned teeth, U did what?
V spread, W wowed,
and the rest, X, Y, Z,
is history.

If death is nothing, why fear it?
Is it the indifference of nothingness that disturbs the living?
All the energy and effort spent?
Unfinished business? Dead silence?
Or is it the tickle on skin of summer breeze?

Astonishing possibilities?
Privilege of existence?
There are moments when I
almost do it,
a very fragile brink, I want to

call, see, be with her so bad.
No matter what, I miss,
adore her intelligence, sense of humor, moods, body, beauty.
Why?
If death is nothing, why fear it?

Eyes perceive
group of young men approaching
momentary assumptions of danger
passes as inner fear and distrust
process high-spirited partying.

Z: “This is confusing. Put your thoughts in order.”
Y: “But there is no true order.”
Z: “Before you speak another word,
      what you got to bring to the table?
      Money? Property? Prestige?”
Y: “I offer poetry, ash drawings, new architecture.”
Z: “Lay it on the line, you ******, or be punished!”
Y: “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Z:  “Burn this ******* on a stake,
       then eat remains.”

******* runs in pleading for *******’s life,
but it’s too late.
******* sits chewing charred flesh at table.
Biscuits get passed around vigorously.
No talk about death.

A: “Who’s the one?”
B: “You are, Daddy.”
A: “But I’m just a tiny force of nature.”
B: “Let’s go see about C.”
A: “Am I not enough for you?”

C: “What and where is love?
      Is it an illusion
      I strive for an impossible chance?
      When will we find each other?
      Will I feel belonging?”
Andrew T Aug 2016
You painted your eyelids with green velvet and ruby red. The fractured mirror kept your insecurity at bay, as sparkle blue glitter poured all over your head from a little tin can.

We drove across the bridge, and through Shocko bottom, stopping at a nearly deserted parking lot sanctioned by an honor code. We double parked behind an Acura sedan, and waited as you snorted half a gram of Molly off your manicured fingernail into each
nostril.

You took in a deep breath, smoked a Parliament, and blew smoke out the
window. After ten minutes we shambled out of the car with our purses tucked under our armpits, and red fire dying in our eyes. When we reached the Hat Factory venue, the line disappeared from our view and we walked to the entrance where two bouncers were posted up. The tall giants marked our hands with black sharpie ink, drawing a large, bold “X” on each one.

Once inside the spacious warehouse, we ascended a white marble staircase and paid a ten dollar entry fee. Another doorman took out his marker and drew a red line, crossing through the dark black “X” that was drying on our hands. You broke off and away, going
straight to the bar. The bartender asked what you wanted to drink, and you requested water. She smiled and gave you a red solo cup filed with tap water and ice-cubes. After you thanked her, she handed you a bright pink glow stick that you wrapped around your forearm, fitting a figure 8 around your skin like a cloth sleeve.

On the stage was a young man dressed in neon colored plaid and skinny jeans. He climbed up a tall stepladder and jumped from the top, belly flopping on a beautiful African Queen bodacious gluteus Maximus, daggering deep into her soaking black spandex, the decadent bodies swimming on top of each other, stroking and staining the pink gymnastic mat with hot sweat and salt. A huge beach ball colored with red, white,
yellow, and blue pinwheel stripes sailed through the air over the balcony, smacking into a deathly thin model who was smoldering her Parliament cigarette into a clear glass
ashtray.

Mollywopped undergraduates gathered around circles where reggae artists harpooned inflatable black and white killer whales with thrift store bought switchblades.

Laying flat on his stomach was an Asian photographer snapping away with his Nikon digital SLR camera, pale hipsters in ***** black blazers and black fedoras hurling red and purple plastic assault rifles into the intense mass of worry-stricken college students carefree for the moment, gyrating and grinding to the womp-womp bass booming from rectangular speakers that squished in a disc jockey and his hardwood stand with his mixer and two turn tables. He scratched the needle along the worn edge of a battle-scarred vinyl record. His fingers zigzagged the sliders, pressed down on buttons, turned up the volume knobs.

Some hyper-maniac golden child bounced around the dance floor, sneaking up behind university sophomores mesmerized by the makeshift floodlights in the rafters blinking on and off. Conversations were made in the head, but never opened up when the girl approached. Stuck up super senior girls with heavy black mascara and matted eyelashes raised their eyebrows and swatted away ***** flies with a wave of their lotioned hand.

***** girls dress in high heels and septum piercing, their ear cartilage stabbed through by unclean metal. A rude person bumps into the Hyper-maniac golden child, causing the golden child to shove squarely into the rude person’s back. Name-calling ensues, threats fired and received, looks exchanged and bitterness rose over any other tension in the fuming room.

In the far right corner were a couple of kids making out; they’d just met.

Walking away from the fight, sidling between sweaty ugly people, the golden child swayed upstairs to the second floor, passed another bar and balcony tables, chairs, and dance platforms.
He went through a swinging door and joined a conversation between
a bunch of strangers. Wary around the golden boy, he starts practicing his standup Comedy routine, almost bombing on the first joke. Cheap jacks burned bright orange after a blue flame ignited the tapered paper end. Arms snared around the golden child’s body. Oh how nice! It was his friend from Modern Grammar class, he used to sit next to
her in the second row and copied homework answers from the blackboard with her.
She was happy.
And he was happy.
Jonny Angel Jun 2015
Ross was a fullblooded
bronze-skinned buddy
from the Navajo Nation.
He was a diehard Okie,
and a machine gunner,
carried the M-sixty
with twenty pounds
of extra belted-ammo.
He was a big guy,
had brown deep-set eyes,
high cheeks and
not a single hair
on his burly body,
but some high and tight
pitch bristles on his head.
He had a weakness.
Pure Straight Whiskey.
Whenever he had too much,
he was an F5 tornado,
a wild Tasmanian devil,
to be reckoned with.
I remember when he had
his front top teeth knocked out
by some civilian bouncers
at a local drinking establishment.
He kicked the **** out of
three huge muscle guys.
It was him versus them.
A regular melee.
Ross won.
Once on a Saturday night,
drunk as skunks,
we made an illegal turn
on the Interstate south of Denver.
We ended up flying down the highway
with four hundred feet of wire
attached to wooden poles,
sent sparks flying everywhere.
I never saw a guy laugh
so hard in all my life.
He ****** himself hysterically.
We gave Ross his first Native American name.
We were out in the field,
just hanging out
in battle gear,
shooting the ****
around our APC.
We called him Prancing Moose,
Moose for short.
He loved it when
we called him that,
gave us a toothless grin.
He was a warrior to us.
In another time and place,
he might have been a Chief.
He was courageous,
fearless and
a good friend
to have in your side.
From time to time,
I think about him,
and pray he's okay,
still alive.
He was our blood brother.
We were in hell together.
I miss him, too.
Andrew Hill Apr 2015
Smiles
Laughter
Liquor
Plasma screens
Cash registers
Deep cologne scents
Bouncers
Hot wings
Hair gel
Loud speakers
Lip gloss
High heels
Tight skirts
Cigarette smoke
Cell phones
Watches
Car keys
Last call for alcohol
The club scene "grocery list" of everything you will find there
Mitch Nihilist Jan 2017
She tears through
her insecurities
on fridays and saturdays,
shameless small talk
with bouncers,
and she dresses to ****,
railing lines at pre drink,
and talking up free drinks
with ***** hawks
circulating the scintillations
of spotlights for victims
of a cockcrow regret,
she picks and chooses
and it’s easy for her,
finding a jawline
in a haystack seems
almost inevitable
when she did her make up
in front of a mirror,
not 3 hours prior,
she fills her empty
bed with cheap cologne
and sweat and gel
to only empty again
not 3 hours later.
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2016
how sensible it all seems, how crew-cut and with enough
anaesthetic to k.o. an elephant - outside the laboratories
the populists in whatever guise march on - as with any
congregation, atheists also muster up enough social muscle:
they too have their bouncers and other
gob-smackers with knuckle dusters -
as long as science is popularised it pushes
the boundaries of insensible chasms elsewhere -
                             but with so futile popularisation:
shortages in respective sectors: mandatory,
or as suggested: no longer rich bachelors and
         private laboratories - a science of regurgitation -
once they burned heretics, now the subtle
        championing of mingy sedatives - and since
Joan of Arc's heart no longer aspires to passion
and its all consuming fire, it turns into a wet
piece of coal - reining in the crowds of pop culture
zombies - said before, said again - but how
dislodged the feelings not ranging into absurdity
or at least nibbling on the zest of Dionysus;
but how things changed from that year, 2006,
everyone is asking, the poncy pope with glamorous
attire, the stiff-necked scientists - the pendulum
of guilt swinging in both directions - half of
the 20th century prescribed a fear magnanimously:
oddly enough - as implying: we forgive your
puny religious swooning and answering with
the easiest answers possible... here's a bomb -
so who are the sacred ones? they too are human -
the magazine dissected into:
a. what is reality? (can we be sure that the world
  we experience is not just a figment of our
    imagination) by roger penrose
     b. do we have free will? (the more we find
out about the brain works, the less room there
  seems to be for personal choice or responsibility)
     by patricia churchland
c. what is life? (if we encounter alien life,
chances are we wouldn't recognise it - not even
if it was here on earth) by robert hazen
d. is the universe deterministic?
   (however you look at it, the answer seems to be "maybe")
       by vlatko vedral
   e. what is consciousness? ("my soul is a hidden
    orchestra... all i hear is the music" - fernando pessoa)
            by paul brooks
f. will we ever have a theory of everything?
    (2000 years of rational inquiry may be approaching
  their crowning glory. just one more push could
   be enough...)
                            by michio kaku
   g. what happens after you die? (we have all
  wondered if there is an afterlife, but only a few are brave -
or foolish - enough to try and find out)
                                by mary roach
  h. what comes after **** sapiens?
  (all species are fated either to die out or to evolve
  into something else. all except humans, that is)
                   by james hughes -
so there we have it - the respective pillars of science,
whereby science replaces core beliefs into
core questions - to not hold firm, but to constantly
sway - the 8 founding questions - no more,
  no less - but how many people can perpetually sway?
   the supposed 8 universals, i.e. that every human
  being might, might not, will or will not ask -
     and for these 8 universals, exponential functions
of particulars: because that's how it's supposed
to be: chaotically democratic -
thus everyone knows the objectivity standard:
at its core is awe, outside the core pathology and
apathy - or let us say: passions and indifference -
then subdivisions of (+) and (-), and in general:
   however it is you feel: compensated or left starving.
in 2006, they congregated at a round table and
spoke god-this, god-that - no minority report,
  cold evidence never went down with women (or
so i'm told), three questions, question 1:
                 should science do away with religion?
oddly enough R. Dawkins said:
               "no doubt there are many people who do need
religion, and far be it from me to pull the rug from
under their feet." - we know that the bestseller
              the god delusion came out shortly after.
a physicist (S. Weinberg) similarly (c me la ri lee):
   "science can't provide a sense of magic about the world,
or a community of fellow-believers. there's a
religious mentality that yearns for that."
  L. Krauss: the success of science does not encompass
the entirety of human intellectual experience.
on and on this goes - i guess they have to debate for
the sake of debate - as i am sure everyone is aware:
   a debate can overpower the point of prayer -
confessions? i treat it more like poetry - but in saying
that... where is the medical profession in all of this?
we have astronomers, ecologists, biologists,
physicists, astrophysicists, planetary scientists,
cosmologists, philosophers... what's the odd one out?
it's a bit suspicious that this magazine does not
cite any chemists... and that's ****** obvious...
they're the ones making pacts with the devil -
whether Goethe's or Marlowe's Faust -
then at least to the more obscure rendition
of Pan Twardowski (Herr Tvardovsky) -
         but how odd it already is that chemists haven't
joined ranks with other scientists in their little
Friday night debating club meetings - seriously?
are those boffins serious about all of this?
            or as one said it:
i came from learning to write CO for carbon monoxide,
   and FeO for ferric oxide - or drawing electron migration
  diagrams when two compounds interact (a nice
playground of symbols) and went my way into
   some form of linguistics - primarily working on
          the tetragrammaton - i have no major interest
beyond this definition: would i debate the most
difficult metaphysical assumption of the omni-variations
in terms of ascribing the variations to a being?
i'd stumble in the metaphysical world on omnipresence,
meaning i would be a pantheist - meaning god
    would be anything and everything from the moon,
a mouse, an ant colony, my **** and what not -
            the all-in-one: for one thing, that's already much
too hellish to comprehend, let alone make comedy from.
but they haven't told you about the painkilling
saliva that beats morphine - catherine rougeo:
proceedings of the national academy of sciences,
vol. 103, p. 17979) - the compound's name? opiorphin,
or the scourge of Afghanistan. they also didn't
tell you about Saracen sabres - their scimitars contained
carbon nanotubes - forged from Indian steel
called wootz - 17th century examples studied by
P. Paufler (Dresden) found the carbon nanotubes
and even nanowires (nature, vol. 444, p. 286) -
or is this becoming to look very much like traffic
on London's M25 during rush-hour? it certainly is,
as was intended -
                   1950s: age of optimism -
influenza wave from the east, the indestructible transistor,
   television without wires, baby computer the size of
  a piano, rubber windshields, genetic chemistry,
atomic aircraft, the neutrino, sputnik 1, strontium-90
(radioactive ash)  used by manufacturers of woven
and knitted fabrics to overcome fog markings,
the coleopter, polypropylene (the remnants of German
word-compounding revealed in chemistry, and
only in chemistry, elsewhere compounding is
replaced by hyphenation, i.e. hyphenating),
                  and so on and so forth until present day -
passing through Sir, Julian, Huxley, who reinvented
****** with "positive" eugenics - oh sure, it was still
alive and kicking - quark hunters draw a blank -
             i could reference all else that was involved
in making the last 60 years - beyond that people are
call it ancient history - or are Virgil and as Horace,
and as Ovid did - turned their back to the world,
         into their poplar groves and jasmine filled gardens,
and said: ta'oh!           ta'oh!                 Tao!
  but not until then, before embarking i'm already
dreading to embark with something to add, to even
voice this -                                     but i guess i might:
  as ever, the freedom of speech is never as grand a
                                      luxury as the freedom to think.
Paul Roberts Nov 2010
Dedicated to 'Big John' 1954-2002


It's time to prep for the nights show,
the band is already unloading at the back door.
Got to brief the new guy and rewalk the floor,
let too many in here the night before.
Use cardboard and tape to protect the ribs.
Shin guards in place  for all those low hits.
Take off the jewlery and tie back the hair,
leave nothing for them to grab when you step out there.
Drink lots of water, swallow a pain pill...
it's show time for a bouncer they say is over the hill.
Crowds looking good for a Saturday night.
Plenty of women, yet somebody will fight.
Seems  when not enough space and too much *****,
messes up the calculation of one and one equals two!
Got two female bouncers that are a special class act.
They know how to work it and come in real fast.
Big John gives me the nod and it time to open the doors.
Lets Rock and Roll baby we are here until four!




* Big John was a bouncer that took me under his wing ( a huge wing) taught me to be polite yet forcefull. 99% of folks just come to have a good time.It's that 1% that will try to ruin it.That's where we come in.
Paul Roberts. Turn the Page
Claire Elizabeth Oct 2013
With weekends spent hittin' the ***** bars all across town
That broken smile matches her broken shoes and her broken soul
People always wonda' why she puts herself in the position she's in
She hardly knows any more than they do
All there was were long days and short nights
An' I guess that became too much for her
'Cause she lost herself inside, where her heart was kept
After that one guy broke her heart so many months ago
She's tryin' to recover
Hardly working dontcha think
To try and fix yourself when there ain't nothin' left to fix
The gears inside are rusted stop and no amount of oil could change that
But does it really matter?
When nothin' is right anymore
And nothin' is worth anythin' more than a lonely night spent in a hotel room
Somewhere off the in'erstate
An' all the tears wasted on somethin' long gone go to waste
Dontcha think?
'Cause he ain't gonna hear 'em anyway
Hardly even gonna feel 'em 'cause he doesn't even care
The bouncers at the bars don't either
But at least they let her in
Decided to put a little description into a poem for once. That didn't work very well. I am very flummoxed and confused these days it seems. And so I just wrote down things in my head.
I’ve made a poetic century
Though my technique is not sound
Consider it a great victory
I’ve succeeded in HELLO POETRY ground

I am not a natural striker of the ball
Ran very hard for twos and singles
Batted with the defence of a great wall
Faced quite a few bouncers

I may lack Rangzeb’s  batting grace
My style may be awkward
And I am afraid of George’s lethal pace
My foot work is undoubtedly wayward

I am an instinctive player
Know not the subtleties of spin or pace
And dedicate this century to Denis Barter
I am happy to be in the batting race

I salute the wonderful audience
For watching my indecent play
With a lot of patience
This new year makes their lives so gay
This poem is dedicatedt to my friends and guides Denis Barter, Rangzeb,Raitch,Andersson, Sridevi and Rue
WARNER BAXTER Apr 2014
10236 Charing Cross Road
Holmby Hills, CA. 90077



To go where young rabbits frolic and dance
Would be a sweet treat if I had the chance

To swim in the water where famous cottontails get wet
Where champagne bubbles are spilled by the elite jet set

Maybe I might win a million dollar lotto
That could be my ticket to enter the grotto

Past muscle bound bouncers, inside velvet ropes and stanchions
To ogle, google and spill my own bubbles at The ******* Mansion

To escape normality and alter reality before I grow old
Playing with Playmates and Bunnies and this months Centerfold

10236 Charing Cross Road, Holmby Hills CA. 90077
Without a doubt this is the address of Heaven




Thank you
Mr. Hefner
Mark McIntosh Jul 2016
for a legendary 70s-80s Sydney nightclub


wearing those clothes
like we did
being there

back then
paying too much
for that shirt

those shoes
pointy & suede
buckled not laces

16 in nightclubs
being tall
an original sister

1959 sequins
sunglasses matching
there was no light

being afraid
of the men
metamorphosis

women used
those urinals
confusion reigned

in a young man
we danced
the music spoke

bartenders poured
all sorts of
concoctions

another track
began
& a floorshow

eyes wide open
miming & movements
others queued

we were hustled
inside
out come the

freaks & early on
we got it all
on studded sofas

on the dancefloor
the fresco was
roamin

we moved feet
to the rhythms
slaves

not knowing how
formative those days
were

never getting anything
but drinks
until later

legal with dollars
juiced up
better lights

victims resting
in seats people
occupied

when a visiting act
blew simpler minds
wallets

we thought that
record was good
then they played

B52s, Blondie, Numan
the floor caved in
from ska

pogo. bouncers
cleared the scene
original grace

as an ape
stomps
up a staircase

disappears into
lookalikes
then a spotlight

highlighted
the real thing
that was us
Daniel Magner Sep 2013
Posted by the door
watching as the "bouncers"
let in girl after girl
only to whisper "*****"
behind their backs
meanwhile
polite, kind, little me
gets stopped while the rest of the pile
trip on in, faces plastered with smiles
I got the denial.
A stranger from the window
one hand on chase
offered me a shot
and then proceeded
to correct himself,
"I meant a *** shot in the face"
then disappears with a jeer
so I turned and
walked home alone
up the stairs of stone
to this bed
why be righteous at all
when given this ****
over and over
might as well
sleep/be dead
Damian Murphy Jul 2015
Was it me, or what made me think
That we were only supposed to be having a quick drink?
We were just popping in for a pint or two
But it seems it got out of hand, as these things do

If I had known things were going to go so far
There is absolutely no way I would have brought the car
But despite all my efforts to get on my way
There was always someone who begged me to stay

After that pint, I think the sixth one
I really began to join in the fun
really relaxing, somehow forgetting to worry
Sure weren’t they right? What was my hurry?

After a while; I really do not have a clue
I simply cannot remember what I did not do
I vaguely remember going out for some grub
And from the stamp on my hand I know I went to a club

But how did this auld one get into my bed?
What are these flowers doing round my head?
Where is God’s name did I get this garden gnome?
In fact how in the hell did I ever get home?

She seemed so annoyed I could not remember her name
storming off saying that all men were just the same
saying I was a different man than I was the night before
Check yourself in the mirror love, on your way out the door

Last night I had guessed she was about thirty three
But this morning she looked more like a pensioner to me
She was smaller and stouter, seemed to have lost half her hair
And so much paler Lord, how did I even think of going there?

Then she did her make up, hair extensions and false tan
False nails and eyelashes, the difference! Oh man!
I was astounded by the difference a corset and super bra makes
with her high heels on she was a foot taller for God sakes

She came down looking half her age, really quite the ride
seeing her made up like that at least restored some of my pride
But it did not change the fact she was old enough to be my mother
I must learn to be more discerning, one way or another !

Well thank God she eventually got on her way
the lads will **** me about this forever and a day
what I need is a cure, to chill out and relax
But unfortunately I am haunted by numerous flashbacks

I can remember feeling absolutely wonderful
thinking there was not a woman I could not pull
being convinced I was God’s gift to womankind
a sure sign I was completely out of my mind

I know I tried to chat up every woman in the place
Used my best pick up lines, though many laughed in my face
If they had a pulse it seems they were fair game
I tried young beauts and old boots, yes, I had no shame

I can see myself dancing, getting down to the beats
remarkable as I know I am blessed with two left feet
I can remember singing, were we at a Karaoke?
It is all coming back now, with horrifying clarity

I know I was refused entry to a number of places
My friends dragging me off bouncers when I got in their faces
their efforts rewarded by becoming targets for my rage
yet they still helped when I was violently sick at one stage

Oh God yes I was almost arrested at one time
I did not know peeing in public was an actual crime
I know I laughed at the copper, gave him some abuse
But when I saw the handcuffs my apologies were profuse

I can remember my friends becoming ever more frustrated
As I became louder and louder, increasingly opinionated
And yes the fire brigade were here, that was not a dream
I tried to cook when I got home, a “Full Irish” it would seem!

I have receipts for double vodkas with red bull
And Jagermeisters as well, things must have got dull
I spent a small fortune, my generosity obviously abounding
now my stomach is heaving, my head absolutely pounding

Have I any friends left? I must ring and see
And my car was towed, that is going to cost me
Oh dear God I feel sick, I am in so much pain
I know I say it every week but; I’m never drinking again!
jason galt Dec 2015
A nominal amount of pain
when the lights go on.
You roll lines around in your head
and realize you remember none.
There’s only the dull stink of cigarette smoke
and day old donuts in your mouth.
Your mind seizes and your heart seethes.
What the **** am I doing here?
Nothing more than a back alley bard.
A barbarian without grace
with a penchant for writing inane ramblings
on cocktail napkins.

A bald man bellows in the back of the room.
An emo princess giggles at her date’s joke.
Drinks sloshed, cigars inhaled.
All awaiting the crash and burn,
or the entertainment they came to see.
They want a rock star.
They want a sideshow freak.
They will boo, they will howl,
They may even clap if the timings right.

Damon Malio goes up before me.
That ******* is as smooth as silk
and as suave as the day’s first rays.
Hell, I even want to run up there
and kiss the *******.
He has a rapacious tongue,
stealing every good word in the English language.
Banging away with syllables and gestures,
the room is vibing to his beat.

Knots in my stomach
and an ache in my brain.
A dull thump followed by
the whisper of “Fraud.”
                          “Failure.”
It’s that little boy voice
that used to get tormented in grade school.
The urge hits to wither away.

The only escape route is blocked by bouncers
at the back door.
I’m trapped here with the prison guards.
No semblance of thought,
just a rattle, panic and hate.
I’m a predator in a room full of rodents,
ready to eat me alive.

There are no outs,
only the get up there
and get out the vivid images
alive inside of me.
Right before I go up on stage
I touch the brick wall.
Tangible, tactile, rough and cool.
I laugh under my breath.
That’s the way people describe me.

If you ever wanted to hear a pin drop,
now would be a good time.
Staring back are a room full of strangers,
Murmuring, waiting for the show to begin.
I see a table full of beautiful women,
the tattooed, artsy types
I get weak in the knees for.
An older gentleman looking impatient for me to speak.
Clearly a professor of some sort.

I clear my throat.
Startling myself
at the loudness of it.
Loud…voice…speak…speak…speak.

“I’m a salty *******.
I could have been a Sabine
if I hadn’t been born in the wrong time,
to the wrong class of people
and a deformity looming larger than life.
That literary je ne sais quoi that working men
and the saviors of syphilis have.
The questionable knowledge that the
seafaring folk were instrumental
in my christening.

I’ll bring God’s ministry to Hades
and two tons of luck to riverboat gamblers
with fortuitous use of four aces.
I’ll bless the maître d’s war against the moguls
and the matadors quest for the upper hand
in the war of the forlorn.

I’m just kidding ladies and gentleman,
that’s all horseshit”

The crowd looks perplexed.
They aren’t quite there yet,
but we’re getting somewhere.

“We’re actually gathered here today to see the holy matrimony
of poetry and pestilence, art and arrogance.
I’ll be your priest, your prophet along the way.
We’ll channel them into
a seven year split and fifteen days of rage.
We’ll curse the gods of conformity and the spirits of suburban sprawl.
Set fire to the system that binds your mind.
The fallacies told to control you.

I never knew the error of my ways until
I touched God on Tuesday.
She was dead ringer for Greta Garbo,
gracious as a host and divine in her dealings with me.
I saw the white hot heat of Stockholm syndrome
and knew I was in the presence of the pantheon.
Felt swelter and fear,
but she kissed my forehead and whispered that it was all a lie.
The power others presume to hold over me.
The judges, the juries, the couponing maidens, the schoolmarms,
the cops and fathers and armies and vicious tax agents.
The Machiavellian telethon charities
and the undressed hookers pretending to be my saving grace.
The drugs, the music, the books, the *******, the fury of 40 years gone too long and not enough wisdom to die too soon.

I wept when she spoke to me.

Guns will **** you but love will **** you quicker she opined.
Obfuscated words from the otherworldly.
She sent me on a mission to find the words of Sinatra,
the Rat Pack’s subliminal subversion of all that power players hold dear.
The fear the unwashed masses will come.
The provincial mindset that they can procreate proletariats
to be the permanent protectors of their gilded ******* towers.
As I seethed she kissed and soothed me.
She whispered her love and asked me to lie with her.
I thought copulating with God was a heresy.
She told me to lay back and everything would be alright.”

I looked in the eyes of a tattooed temptress
and saw ravenousness for more words.
At least I knew I was getting laid tonight.

There was a new footing.
This vulnerability, baring my *** for all to see.
But there were no boos,
just the synergy of poetry conveyed through me.

“As we lay in the afterglow
I rolled over on one side and asked
how do I rid myself of the devils that plague us?
The bleeding, the burdens of humanity enslaving me?
She smiled playfully and ran her fingers through my hair,
telling me there there, don’t worry your pretty little head.
They can take from you. They can beat you.
They can **** you.
And oh my how they will try.
Governments and men with guns.
A society of rats crushing you with social mores,
moving to tell you what to do and how to live.
They will give speeches of how to behave on AM radio.
Buckle your belt, conserve the earth and be a good dad.
Foster those brats and bleat like sheep
to the tune of an Orwellian world.
I shook as she maddened my mind,
but her touch ran over me with ecstasy.

You will go forth my prophet, my prince,
and spread the word of free men with free minds,
not bound by internet ******* parties,
the latest legal trouble for B-listers
and all the trivialities of brainwashing.
The baubles betrothed to those without
imagination or the ***** to seek the truth.”
It was up in Minnesota
or was it South Dakota
It doesn't matter
we know how the story starts

It's friday, time to party
Some girl comes in dressed all tarty
With a body
That could break a thousand hearts

There's gonna be a storm tonight
A cat fight's on the way
You just hold on when it all starts up
And then you clear the way
You just know it's gonna happen
Something bad is in the air
Just grab your beer and hold it
Just watch the nails and flying hair

All the eyes were on her
You knew she was a goner
You could feel the tension
And hear the nails extract

In jeans of lace and denim
With perfect slits cut  in 'em
You knew that she was hunting
that's a fact

There's gonna be a storm tonight
A cat fight's on the way
You just hold on when it all starts up
And then you clear the way
You just know it's gonna happen
Something bad is in the air
Just grab your beer and hold it
Just watch the nails and flying hair

The band played loud and raucus
As the bar's all female caucus
Watched her close
As she went toward the bar

You could tell that this girl's reason
Was to hunt the men in season
And she set to take
the first one to her car

There's gonna be a storm tonight
A cat fight's on the way
You just hold on when it all starts up
And then you clear the way
You just know it's gonna happen
Something bad is in the air
Just grab your beer and hold it
Just watch the nails and flying hair

when the crowd split like the Nile
And there standing with a smile
was the girl of the
man this girl had claimed

Well, the bottles started flying
And though the bouncers all were trying
The fight broke out
Between the two I named

There's gonna be a storm tonight
A cat fight's on the way
You just hold on when it all starts up
And then you clear the way
You just know it's gonna happen
Something bad is in the air
Just grab your beer and hold it
Just watch the nails and flying hair

The cops broke up the rumble
Amid the debris and the crumble
Our combatants were
off to jail that night

Tomorrow they would be found
Back and out of impound
At another bar
And in another fight

So, It may be Minnesota
or down in South Dakota
But, no one cares
We all know how the game is played

So, when you feel a storm brew
And you know it won't involve you
Grab your beer
And watch...your night is made.
Brandon Sep 2014
"You been writing anything lately man?"

"Just IOUs for the government, lawyers, and people who used to call me their friends."

"Sounds rough," Berkley remarked.

Harvard did not respond back. Instead he stared past Berkley's red tipped spiked hair to the girl behind him, watching the small movements she made while dancing to the band onstage. Harvard felt hypnotized by the shake of her hips and the way her quick dye black hair swayed to the left and to the right every time one of her feet left the ground as if she were walking in place.

"...all I'm saying is that someone should do something..."

Berkley was talking. Harvard couldn't focus. He heard his voice somewhere on the peripheral of reality but could not zero in on it. His eyes remained transfixed on the dancer.

"...it's all about helping. You feel drawn to it, ****** in almost to the rush you get from..."

Clips of Berkley's voice echoed in Harvard's ears. Sound bites of a conversation he knew he was part of but couldn't join in on.

The band on stage rocketed thru their set list with the lead singer strutting around in a sequined jacket, doing his best **** Jagger impression but looking more along the lines of a **** head coming down off a high. He played out every rock n roll cliche on stage and the audience cheered him on. Egged him on. The power of rock stardom working the room.

"Thank you Come-Blow-Us Ohio! See you in the morning when we're sneaking out of your house!"

The girl quit dancing and Harvard rolled his eyes back into reality. The past fifteen minutes came flooding into his conscience and he heard entire conversations, **** rock playing, cigarettes burning, beer spilling. It all played in his mind like a slow motion film set to fast forward.

"...I've been doing some soul searching and what I've found is that I lack soul," Harvard heard his voice answering Berkley. He still stared past his friend at the girl who now sat down at one of the tables, the heat of the night stained her shirt and hung closely to the contours of her structure. She smiled at something someone at the table said and Harvard wished silently that he had said something to make her smile like that but felt his feet become anvils rooted to the hardwood floor beneath him when he tried to shift his weight closer to her.

"...There's something about a soul that begs for a creative outlet, if its not being fulfilled it enters into a state of stasis until it withers into the heart of a cynic."

"So I should be creative and my soul will flourish?"

"At the very least you'll have something to bargain with when you meet the devil."

"I've met the devil, good dude, gets a bad rap."

The next band finished setting up on stage and Harvard watched out of the corner of his eye as the girl stood up and sauntered over to the dance floor and began once again writhing in rhythm to the music on the stage. He tried not to stare but again found himself transfixed on her dance and he once again heard the real world shut out and echo around him.

"...hey man, where'd you go?" Berkley snapped his fingers in front of Harvard's face forcing him out of his trance.

"Oh hey...sorry...I...um..." Harvard couldn't forge any words and waiting for his mind to come back to him. "Sorry I don't know what happened, I just kinda zoned out I guess; say anything important?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary. I solved the dilemma of world peace and everything but its cool no one really wants that."

"Yeah, you're right. Hey I need another beer, you want one?"

"Yeah, get me something hipster."

"PBR coming right up."

Harvard could hear Berkley laugh as he walked towards the bar, paid for the beers, and turned around, walking directly into the girl. He managed not to spill any beer on her and hoped that his tongue would not spill any inappropriate words as well.

"Hi, for me?" She laughed. She laughed harder when Harvard handed her one. She took it and brought it to her lips. He could see a smile hidden behind the clear plastic cup.

"I'm Harvard," he introduced himself.

"I'm Mallory but you can call me Yale. Everyone does.. My parents called me that but never told me why." She blushed at the way the words spilled out of her mouth to a complete stranger.

Harvard smiled and once again found his mind working in slow motion before he blurted out that it was nice to meet her.

"You too..." She hesitated, "I should get back to my friends..." Yale felt that sentence leave her mouth for an eternity and wished that she had not said it. She quickly added, "thank you for the beer, maybe I'll see you again?"

"Maybe," was all Harvard could muster. He felt his legs become rubber and as much as he did not want her to leave he wished she would do so quickly before he collapsed into a pile of beer and clothes.

He watched her slink away back to her group of friends as the world sped up around him. He sipped his beer and gained the strength to walk back to where Berkley stood.

"Hey man, where's mine?"

"Oh...uh...yeah sorry I forgot. Here I'll go back and get it."

"Nah it's alright. I need to go anyway, I have to be up in a few hours..."

Harvard and Berkley shook hands and said their goodbyes. Harvard stayed back and watched the headliner come on stage and start playing. He looked at Yale and smiled as she began dancing again but this time every few beats she would look back at him and a big smile would spread across her face. She did this too many times to count and Harvard suddenly found himself standing closer and closer to her, not sure if he had moved or if she had. He looked around and he was not in the same spot nor was she with her friends.

Yale turned around, happy to see the man she met at the bar behind her. She couldn't explain it but felt as if she were drawn to him and that the closer she was to him the slower the world around them moved. "Hi again," she said.

"Hi back," Harvard fumbled for words again before pulling Yale closer to him and staring at her for what felt like an eternity. She began dancing, slowly at first, pressing herself closer and closer against him.

Yale draped her arms around the shoulders and neck of Harvard and pulled herself closer, grinding herself as close as she could to him. She felt the music around her but danced to a different rhythm, one that only she and Harvard seemed to be hearing.

The world around them stopped moving but they did not notice. They danced together until after the music had stopped playing and the band got off stage. The lights came on and the bouncers and bartender announced last call.

"I think I've been waiting for you," Yale whispered.

"Sorry it's been a long wait, I got held up." Harvard tried to be smooth but failed.

Yale laughed and pulled Harvard closer. "Next time, don't keep me waiting."

She kissed him deep as her friends pulled her away and out of the bar. Their fingers holding on to each other until they could no longer.

Harvard stood in the room and stared blankly at the door. A bouncer nudged him and he started walking towards the door and outside. He got to the curb and sat down, trying to collect his thoughts and let his drunk wear off.

A car screeched to a halt somewhere across the street from him but Harvard barely noticed until the shadow of someone stood over him. He looked up to see Yale. She stared intently at him and handed him a piece of paper.

"I mean it. Next time don't keep me waiting." She said sternly with affection before turning around and getting back in the car with her friends.

Harvard unfolded the paper and looked it. It was her number. He folded it back up and put it in his pocket and started walking, vowing to himself to never let her have the agony of waiting again.
Waverly Nov 2013
Hectic breakneck of the chopped up music.
beautiful wilt and hungry wither of the hips.
Drunken fingers grasping a drink and shaking so feverishly,
its like the adrenaline of war.
Knowing there is something past the moon,
past darkness. The freshness of sweat.
A black skirted woman dances.
The fabric squirming up her hips
as she drives her thighs,
whipping them back and forth.
Dreams bellow out of hollow bellies,
the bottom of the roar,
a squeak.
The bouncers in bowties and charcoal suits
look nice.
The opaque lights and streamers of brilliantly lit people and huge parade of bodies
washing and bouncing inside are like fruits in the dryer,
Tumbling and tumbling until they are fully juiced and induced.
But you can never find a willing partner
For good rough ***. Or even
love: the canary in the mine.
A pink, throaty croak
Emanating from its black lungs.
Scott T Sep 2014
I don’t know about those pastoral scenes
Those bucolic and primordial endless greens
Unspoilt trees and murmuring streams
I know the concrete and the pavement
Uneven cobblestones with cracks in them
With dandelions growing through
Only sometimes

I love the later more
I’m in love with the concrete behemoths
The back alleys of life
The gnarled bouncers (unreciprocally)
The curious glimpses at weathered flyers on the floor
I love the sterile street lights and the worn faces ILLUMINATED by them
The ushers and hustlers and cautious taxis
The drunk geniuses
The night-swimmers
The nudists
The opinionated
Etc

Yet life whittles down these loves for that of the
Calculable
The
Regimented
And
Controllable
Etc
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2015
it’s not perfect... but **** me... there’s a life to be lived... even if it’s just defined as walking the dog, or drinking a pint! let’s just rearrange the solar system spheres with a game of snooker to make summer random with winter of the least expected follow-up.*

you catch me playing with my fox / cat
purring his ****** slingshot
arousal
just where the spinal cord in music begins
and the evolutionary testament ends...
you catch me there in the drift of night...
and i’ll bet you 5 quid to have found quantum physics...
a particular instance in a universe of innumerable
stasis plurals of decipherable energy
to pluck and theorise, like autumnal flowers readily drifting
from the tsunami of green of summer to brown mahogany of autumn.
here’s one for the puppet engineered to dance
tugged at with its tail the solitary cursor;
paw print dot dot dot? i had my two thumbs on it,
squeezing out the hallucinatory juice of neglect,
with scoffer ready bouncers of peeled wallpaper about to
tattoo me in political conversation of slime slogans to shout!
i heard squatters were about... i didn’t hear anything from newcastle,
i guess the second mongolian invasion / investiture
came from the north... rather than east anglia / saudi arabia.
Micheal Wolf Sep 2019
Oh we have danced in the discotech with partners of all nations when after liberation we all danced to the songs of liberty. Under all our flags united. As time went by we stopped dancing and others came With new music and one flag. But like mods and rockers they could not dance together and fought away from the sound of the music. Now the only tunes played are national anthems as rebel rousers for dancers, who don't dance and don't know the words to the songs. Cries of patriotism yet dressed as nationalists.
Calls to arms were peace held a fragile embrace like the elderly tangoing.
Now the new dancers don't dance.  They sit on the edges of the room causing fights.
Soon the discotech will bar our entry and then when others are barred too, Groups and gangs will form and fighting begin again, like the days before the discotech.
Who will be the bouncers this time.
Brandon Jul 2014
The music is loud
Booming bass and throbbing drops
Dance beats for the college kids
I feel like an old man standing here against the wall
Watching the young men dance fools of themselves
And their plastic women who all move as if they are void of individualness
The beer in my hand is frosty and ice cold due to its aluminum bottling
But it is not improving the distance that I feel between me and everyone at this night club
The party I'm with escapes the dance floor to the roof's terrace
Bouncers that look like your typical fresh faced jocks complete with acne scars
Inform us that it's plastic cups only up top
We pour our beers into plastic cups
They instantly begin to warm
The view is pretty
If you like looking at a city
Unworthy of its history
The air is cool and clean
Blowing across my skin
As my hearing struggles to ignore
The dance music blaring
And my eyes are assaulted by more frat-boy tribal dancing
I can't tell if the fresh air is improving my buzz
Or making me feel worse
My beer is empty
Everyone else still has full cups
I don't understand the mathematics
I go down to the bar
And buy another one
I don't open a tab
I've found those can be dangerous when I'm in this mood
Or any mood
I sneak the aluminum bottle upstairs with me
Enjoy the frosty coldness of my beer for the 5 minutes it takes me to drink it
Everyone is still on their first cup
But there's a beer run coming
It's quitting time
Mothers need to get home
Workers need to get sleep
I need quiet
There's beer left that no one wants to drink
I'm the garbage disposal
We say our good byes
Exchanging hellos and farewells in single conversation
We leave our separate ways
Wishing everyone a safe drive home
It's silent now
What I wouldn't do to hear some booming bass and throbbing drops
To drown out this silence
SN Mrax Aug 2014
this moment is woven like an evil plan
I coursed around myself, tightening
until I was crowded out.

a nest of trophies, with nary a trophy within.

and my heart--or liver, whichever part
feels, is hung like a whole lot of oranges
in a string bag, getting banged around
so much that when you get them home and
see them you won't want them anymore.

and this poem fell out somewhere along the way,
unraveling long before it had even begun,
not quite an idea of an idea.

the nights are like bouncers, really.
impassive and large.
they stare at you, largely emotionless,
and you feel obliged to amuse them,
or impress them, or relieve what you imagine
must be their suffering.
You fixate on them, for that fixed time,
but really you don't matter and neither do I...
the night merely passes.

eventually you'll pass into the new day
and be subject to its messy laws,
woven around you in dark lines,
tightening and tightening--growing
into the next night, the nest of trophies
without trophies.

It's not so bad. Just don't let those oranges
get pierced by all the tight black lines
and dribble out until your legs are sticky
and your heart (or liver) is dry
and as long as you don't let that happen
you'll be fine.
Good lord...
Martin Bailes Mar 2017
In God's American heaven
all the Krishnas,
Ivans & Nadias,
get to wait in line
like sorry-*** out-of-towners
hoping for a good night out,

while the Americans,
granted extra
special consideration
by right of birth
& all that is great
& mighty about
this unique land,

just get waved on through
by God's golden bouncers,
straight on in
like hot girls
& dazzling boys
at the club
of the
moment
in the dazzling
L.A. night.

— The End —