I remember the history well:
The soldiers and politicians emerged
With briefcases and guns
And celebrations on city nights.

They scoured the mess
Reviewed our history
Saw the executions at dawn
Then signed with secret policemen

And decided something
Had to be done.

They scoured the mess
Resurrected old blue-prints
Of vicious times
Tracked the shapes of sinking cities

And learned at last
That nothing can be avoided
And so avoided everything.
I remember the history well.

                                                                 2
We emerged from our ******* mounds
Discovered a view of the sky
As the air danced in heat.

Through the view of the city
In flames, we rewound times
Of executions at beaches.
Salt streamed down our brows.

Everywhere stagger victims of rigged elections
Monolithic accidents on hungry roads
The infinite web of ethnic politics
Power-dreams of fevered winds.

The nation was a map stitched
From the grabbing of future flesh
And became a rush through
Historical slime

                                                                 3
We emerged on edge
Of time future
With bright fumes
From burning towers.

The fumes lit political rallies.
We started a war
Ended it
And dreamed about our chance.

Fat fish eat little fish
Big ones arrange executions
And armed robberies.
Our ******* shapes us all.

I remember the history well.
The tiger’s snarl is bought
In currencies of silence.
Eggs grow large:

A monstrous face is hatched.
On the edge of time future
I am a boy
With running sores

Of remember history
Watching the stitches widen
Waiting for the volcano’s laughter
In the fevered winds

Hearing the gnash
Of those who will join us
At the mighty gateways
With new blue-prints

With dew as seal
And fire as constant
And a trail through time past
To us

Who remember the history well.
We weave words on red
And sing on the edge of blue.
And with our nerves primed

We shall spin silk from *******
And frame time with our resolve.
__
Source:
http://www.universeofpoetry.org/nigeria.shtml

Standing.
Windmill blades
turn in the sun

shredding air with ease.
The man
looks out

of the window
at the land ahead,
full of aspirations

he hopes to reach.
His wife nearby
sees the same view.

Wishes on display on
this balmy July morn.
London, far away

ticks along swathed in grey
as it did decades before.
The man hopes to return,

sit in cafés, chuckle
as men with briefcases
scuttle around like cockroaches.

Some things never change.
That's OK though
isn't it?

Here with his partner
looking out, content,
a smile appears on his wise face.

Thirty years in the past
he thinks of future times.
Still the same.
Still standing.

I reluctantly went to sleep around 3:30 am/not because I was tired/because I am always tired/but there wasn’t really anything else to do/and I shouldn’t call it going to sleep/when it is napping a few hours at a time/as my body tosses and turns/and my eyes are constantly opening and closing throughout the night/before my chattering mind or ghost of a mind decides that sleeping isn’t an option/and now it is three minutes past seven a.m./and I am up and exhausted/but that is the chapter my life has been stuck on repeat for the last decade plus/but it’s ok because I fake brave and try to wear a kind smile/but every now and then someone tells me I always look angry/and I try to explain that this is the only face I have/but the only expression I can make is the sound of shy silence/so the story of how I use to always smile as a child goes unheard/and only I know always smiling for me ended one day in the sixth grade/when while walking home from school a girl asked why was I smiling all the time/in a voice that let me know always smiling wasn’t something that was ok/and speaking of my younger self he was a strange and slightly paranoid kid/I remember him thinking in kindergarten  at recess that he didn’t feel completely “boy’ish”/because he was unusually shorter than the other kids his age/and his little mind inside his tiny body/went to thinking of why this was/and he came up with the theory that if you were born a boy or a girl/was decided by if your heartbeat was pushing blood out or taking blood in/and that he must have been born in between the two
/so he wasn’t really a boy or a girl/but just a human with a wee-wee/around this same age/this little dickens of a child/also figured out that we never died/that we just grew so old that we would start to shrink back into our baby bodies again/and once we shrank far enough down/we would start to grow old all over/he also once believed that bad people and bad things only happened on tv and in books/because he often heard a song on the radio that said something like/“there are no good guys there are no bad guys”/and he edited out the no good guys part/and only paid attention to the no bad guys part/so he believed that there were no bad guys up until the one day/both the television and the radio/wouldn’t stop talking about one guy that was clearly real/and clearly bad/going around to random houses in the night/and killing the families inside/and he turned his eyes up towards the moon/because the moon had a magic and  mystery to him/and he thought to the moon/but “there are no bad guys?” and the moon just floated in the cold night air/and said nothing back/and he realized that songs don’t tell the truth/and he shrugged his little shoulders and buried the first part of his innocence/and he grew up thinking he would always be a kid/feeling every school year was an infinite loop being lived over and over again/and that he would never be an adult and get to do adult things/not really liking this idea until he was an adult/and then desperately wishing it had been true/because as an adult he began to accept that maybe he was a boy/and the whole heartbeat theory was just a strange thought/of a strange kid/but that thought was often replaced by a feeling of not being human/because he still didn’t feel he fit in/and he knew he sure as hell wasn’t going to grow into a man of manly manliness/because that just seemed an absurd thing to do/and he definitely didn’t want to ever be an adult in a three piece business suit/working a business job with briefcases and power ties/that looked more like nooses to him/and what a horrible waste of life it was/to chase after a big bank account overflowing with money/with hearts bankrupt of any kind of love/and that was how the strange little kid who grew up to an awkward young adult saw the world/and he didn’t like it/and he didn’t want to be here/and he was the essence of a good guy/he didn’t drink/he didn’t smoke/he was a little nerdy/no/really nerdy/and he read comics and drew pictures/and started to write poetry/and hadn’t kissed a girl yet/because he somehow missed the class on how to talk to girls throughout his entire childhood/and he fell in love for the first time at eighteen/and wrote his first love poem/and gave it to the girl/and they became good friends/but never girlfriend boyfriend good friends/and they never kissed/and it broke his heart/and life went on/and he moved to New York for a short while/and had his first glass of wine on Halloween/while walking through Manhattan/and he liked this new feeling/and he drank a little more and a little more/and he meet a French girl/that read him French poetry/in French one night/and he thought maybe this was love/but he was still young and naive/and they became good friends/and on his last night in New York/they kissed and it felt good/really good/and he was happy for a moment/but still naive/and when she asked him to come back to her place/he didn’t realize why she would ask him that/because his flight left early in the morning/and it seemed a silly thing to ask/so he ended up flying back home/not knowing he had almost lost his virginity to a beautiful French girl/that was a good kisser/a really good kisser/and life went on/and so did his drinking/and being naked from the waist down after a night of heavy drinking on his twenty-first birthday/he thought it was a good idea to hang that lower half out the car window while being driven down the 101/and he probably would have fell out/but luckily he was pulled back in/and lived to see many other birthdays to celebrate in excessive amounts of alcohol and awkwardness/and he eventually did lose his virginity/at surprise surprise a Halloween party/on the bathroom floor of his best friends condo sitting beach side in Ventura/and they even cuddled all night while sleeping on the couch/and they held hands the entire morning on the way to breakfast/and all through eating breakfast/and the whole drive to her house as their mutual friends dropped her off/and it might have turned into a loving beautiful relationship/except even after this attractive young woman had put his **** in both her mouth and between her legs/and held his hand the entire morning and as much as he tried/and wanted to he couldn’t talk much/and never told her she was his first/that she had taken away that painful embarrassing virginity from him/and that he wanted to see her again/and that he really liked her/and could he call her and.../well none of it happened because he didn’t ask for her number/or tell her anything except for a weak and almost unheard goodbye/and life went on and the drinking went on
/and the awkwardness went on/and luckily or unluckily/the drinking helped with the luck/and he fell in love/and he fell in love again/and again/but he never got past being the strange kid who was horribly shy/even after falling in love and even after *******/and being so intensely shy without having an explanation/or the ability to express that he was so horribly shy/didn’t lead to lasting relationships/and even with the girl he spent five of the best and most beautiful and loving years of his life with/he failed too often at making her feel beautiful and wanted and hot/because he still couldn’t make the first move or even the second move/and eventually it made her feel unloved and unattractive and she left him/and rightfully so because why was he still so shy/how did that make sense/and now he is me and I’m older and known the wiser/still shy/still stupid/and life goes on/though with less drinking/no idea what to do when pulled into the gravity of falling/I could sleep on it/maybe think it all through/ and figure it out/but oh/thats right/I’ve forgotten how to sleep.../alone is nice though/comfortable/quite/and I am the master of quite

Airports
I never liked them
I never liked taking my shoes off to go through security
I never liked the crowded and sometimes cold atmosphere
I felt like a toy in a factory getting ready to get boxed and shipped out
Airports
But maybe I should
Like them
I'm sitting here in this terminal watching people rush past with their briefcases and screaming children
Where are you going?
Can I come too?
Where are you rushing off to and
Must you always rush?
Someone once said to try to find the quiet in an airport
I will try to find the quiet in an airport
Maybe I'll find it, maybe I won't
But quiet in an airport
What a concept
Airports
I'll find the quiet
Airports
Maybe I will like them

She rises as everyone falls
Her white complexion pristine as always
Men have fought for her pale face
Yet, when faced with her dark side, they cry in horror
A beautiful outsider
She wanders alone in the stars
Her wonder intimidates
Her grace frightens
Her love kills
Under her glow men commit ****** and monsters come out to play
Around every corner satin's satire drips of the tongue of ******
Adultery runs rampant
Respectable ties exchanged for leashes of pleasure
And briefcases for whips  
He sleeps in a long sleeve shirt to hide the lashes
Dinner was cold when he got home
But he forgave.
At church
The cross burns a whole in his forehead
His lips slightly stained from last night
Mind not on the sermon, but on his next excuse
How can he admit to losing everything to a drug test

She picks up the phone with a grin on her face as if he could see her through the phone
Another faulty excuse of overtime
Of course the plastered smile stays
But she can't find reasoning marketing should  leave bruises on his wrists
Her children are her only ball and chain
Her soul had left her years ago
But her body stays to care for them
An empty shell
Selene walks into the stars once again and waves the wife over
She swallows more than ever and spins to the sky
Selene guides her to her soul and they walk together to watch

Her son calls from his room for dinner
Her daughter throws her phone because she didn't have service
Her husband screams because the collar was a bit tight
Selene, desperate for company, begs for her to stay
And she does

there you are:
brown mop of hair,
glasses you refuse to keep on,
teal green eyes,
broad smirk,
thin body stretched over 206 bones
a man
not my little brother –
no,
when you were little
you sat in that carriage and I read to you:
hours upon hours of stories you probably don’t remember,
but that I cherish
and when you were little
I would ask if you were a boy or a girl
and because I wanted a sister you would always say the opposite of what you are
and most of all when you were little, I shielded you
I carried you
I picked you up
but now you are a man
trapped inside his head
I see this shell of you, my brother,
but sometimes I can’t find you
sometimes all I see are your teal eyes
and not behind them
and there are moments where I wish I could peel back your skin
layer by layer
and go into your mind and see the chaos
like a busy city,
your mind,
cars honking
smog emanating from the tallest buildings
people milling and shouting and cursing
there is no pause
there is only go
one man in your brain carries in a black briefcase your fears
those worries that stop me from seeing you behind your eyes
and this man with a grey cloud overhead,
cloaked in a hood,
wanders your mind
and passes this fear from one person to the next
until slowly,
and gradually,
your whole brain is filled with grey clouds
and cloaked figures
and black briefcases
and shouting and whispering and laughing
and you disappear
from right here
back into your mind
“come closer”, they say,
“why live in this world when you can live in ours?”
and I hate these men; these people
distributing your fears
when it started, it was simply a fear of food,
but then it was
a fear of the world,
a fear of an illness,
a fear of yourself,
my little brother,
who smiled so brightly and vividly it was distractingly beautiful,
who draws so intensely and maturely and incredibly,
paints pictures of wisdom at sixteen,
who has rules and standards to the depths and validity of music
my little brother is trapped
and my stomach sinks when I ask:
“are you okay?”
and he only replies
“…yeah…”
and I feel so helpless when he looks so tired with his sunken eyes
because those men control him
they take all of him away and leave only a shell of my little brother
my bravest brother
my inspiring brother
my strong brother
whom I wish I could wipe clean of all the briefcases
and cloaked figures
and men
and fill his mind with a string of white lights,
Christmas lights,
and layer it with the smell of brownies baking in the oven,
and screens on which are projected his favourite shows and movies and videos of him,
my little brother,
who fights these men every day
and he deserves a medal of honour
because there is a war in his mind
and he battles incessantly
and I know, very soon,
even if only for a little while,
he’ll get a break from this city of his mind
and he’ll win.

Streets filled with bodies
Dead or alive
Nobody knows
Blood runs through the streets
Like floodwater
Innocent blood
Flows like runoff
Through concrete veins
But only because we let it happen
Because of judgement
Because of ignorance
Because of prejudice
Prejudice that we carry over
From our predecessors
The violence and hatred of our ancestors
Continues on through us
But only because we let it happen
Because our naïveté lets us see the world
As monochrome
Everyone belongs in one solid genome
Straight white cis
So they lock us up in a cage of exile
Invalidate the opinions that don't sit well
On a stomach full of lies
So we stand in solid lines
Hands locked together
Silently screaming
NO!
With the ******* hidden in their claims
It hurts but the pain isn't enough to break our chains
At least until the weakest link caves
And the flood gates open up
Our nerves sting with rubber bullets and tear gas
Police brutality and 'controversial' crowd control tactics
Resulting in the blood of innocents.

The truth comes out
Oppression
Recession
We deliver new life
Spoon feeding democracy
Cookie cutter
Build your own government kits
Follow the instructions with a gun held to your head
Puppet government
Corporations pulling strings
Calling the shots with a mouthful of greed
Blaming tragedy on street rats with golden teeth
Hiding behind business suits and briefcases
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtains
Take part in the rat race
Get distracted by the fast pace
Pay attention to your own **** problems
And forget to see the big picture.

Another ride on the metro
Catcalls and wolf whistles
To the wrist to the neck to the ankle
I'm breaking the dress code
The double standards are air tight and unbreakable
I'm stuck in the choke hold of the patriarchy
Kicking and screaming
Perverts jacking off to the sight of me
Objectified, and only fourteen
Take precautions stay safe
Because we have reason to be afraid of the dark
When we have to assume that everyone is a ******
The world is out to get us
Plaguing the younger generation with pop music and photoshop
Shellshocked by the devastation of self confidence
Short hair means you're a ****
Long hair means you're property
The American dream is four walls a roof and a wife to call your own
To own
****** assault is normality
I'm appalled at the way my peers think I owe them something
My virginity
My body
I'm not a carcass to be picked clean by vultures:
The beasts who sit next to me
Who view me as a threat because I'm intelligent
A ***** because I'm intolerant to their ignorance and oppression
The gender roles and discrimination
Objectification
A one woman war
That every woman faces.

Hopelessness stands at the alter
Spouting discrimination
Dug from the depths of the bible
New age bigotry
Picket signs versus pride parades
Spot the queer in the crowd
Wipe them out
We are not a virus of humanity
Your hateful words aren't the only thing that cuts me
When coming out equates to ear splitting arguments
"Get out of my house"
"you are not my son"
LGBT blood on the streets
****** of trans teens
Pop culture is enemy to androgyny
*** education skips over me
And change is met with board meetings
Conservative parents complaining
Claiming they know better than the mouths they feed
Age is not a crown of wisdom
The 21st century witch hunt
Discrimination spills from the mouths
Of little Hitlers
Screaming "God hates ****" before they know what the words mean
Wrap my coffin in a rainbow flag
When they find my mangled body on the street
The product of a hate crime
The product of the war I'm fighting
Brittle bones riddled with stab wounds
Every one carries weight with the words they were paired with
Queer
***
******
I don't have invisible amour
The words pierce me in a way that can't be seen
My blood leaks silently and joins the masses.


We are a generation so full of hatred
Promised so much that wasn't delivered
And so we raise our hands and salute the mother ******* rebellion
Our sweet saving grace
America isn't free and neither are we
We are slaves to misogyny and bigotry
Police brutality
Crafty government puppetry
Patriarchy
The enemies that we face aren't the ones we see
Well **** society
We can create our own
Carry in the revolution on our shoulders
On our knees
Plastered across our twitter feeds
We fight with words
With fists
Whatever it takes
Speak out across our dashboards timelines and comments
Word of mouth
Engrave them into your skin
What was started needs to be finished
We have a price to pay



It's time for a revolution *****.

It's hard out here for an automaton
the sun is hot on my metal
Over heats my copper wire
Causes all manner of motor malfunctions
System failures
In cold winter days the residual wetness I step in
shorts my circuits
and shocks my partners
I am fond of small coffee shop nooks with outlets.
I don't need to travel too far to recharge
And since I'm so shiny
often briefcases and lipstick come around
sit their lattes on my discarded instruction manual pages
To offer me oil
I will let them insert the Nettie *** shaped disk where they choose
it's rough being a clock work boy
I set myself to operate
at three hours before is necessary in case
I'm distracted by some new upgrade or need
to document another error message.
they never write me back,
bronze looks good on thigh plates
I had this woman notice my key today
protruding from my back
the translucent panel showing into all my cogs and gears
she said she wanted to turn it
back, so she could see my program
run it from the beginning again.
I warned her, turning the key
would only turn back me.
I would rather let the program run on it's natural course,
sure, I'll get closer to the end, but I'm a curious construct
haven't seen the end of my functionality yet
woman keep coming up and asking me to turn back the key
and I am weak,
but don't worry I said
if I run out of energy, you can always turn the key back.
I'll play it all over and you can remember.
She didn't like the idea of doing the same thing over either
she turned the key, waited for it to run out,
left me on the doorstep for some other person to turn back on.
it's hard out here for an automaton.
the sun is hot on my metal
over heating my copper wiring causing all manner
of motor malfunctions
and system failures.

In little coffeeshops
By the back corner, far from the exits
But near the little hall leading to the bathroom
At a time set by a large window
The poet, his soul filled with words and reasons to say them
But unsure how to convey them
Can observe the nerves and synapses
Converging in this single axis
The windowside throne, the great looking glass
Provides a view of every soul to pass

Through the door to the core of any good café
The front register
Where they serve the junkies
Their first no cream no sugar fix of the day
The register ******* this sunrise shift stands tall and wears
A pleasant smile
Like a suit of armor
For the fractures frayed and loosened pieces
Of her 65 hours a week between two jobs psyche

From his back corner vantage point
The poet sees this early morning warrior
And watches her adversaries approach
The sleep deprived and the caffeine dependent
The men in suits with leather briefcases
Hustling and bustling through self inflicted exhaustion
Work force revenants who begin to shamble through the door
Out of the early morning mists at about 5:30
just as the world is shrugging of the shroud of night

In his seat of power, the poet, lord of the room
Can see, despite the dim lights of the coffeeshop
These early birds, gaunt and hungry like vultures
Standing shoulder to shoulder with the last of the night owls
Shabby old things with ruffled feathers
Too tired to sleep or simply without a roost.
Their re rimmed eyes provide a window
Through which a sovereign of the word
May glance upon their tired souls

Yes from that lovely back corner
The poet is a king, a lord in noble regality
Reshaping reality
Sitting in the back of any coffee shop
In Phoenix Arizona
In America
In the world
In this whole great evergrowing span of universe
And turning people into words.

Today, I was sitting on the SEPTA, on my way to work as usual.
Suddenly, a Secane Bro appeared. This wasn't just any bro, it was a special breed, rare and only to be found at the Secane station between the hours of 7 am to 9 am and again from 4 pm to 6pm.

These are the Indian research bros.

They come in with gelled hair, starched shirts (ranging from pink, sorry, salmon, to white) and the indelible odor of Indian cooking and men's cologne.
For a more science-driven bro, a heavy backpack is essential, while the cooler bros have headphones and briefcases.

The bros are often self-conscious and gang together.
They rarely have a female companion, since such a thing is against the bro-code. They always sit together, or at least in the same car.

Most of all, the bros have hope.
They are ambitious,
flying fish in the dreary SEPTA morning atmosphere,
zealous believers willing to jump
through whatever loop and
hoop to get their own piece of the
American dream.

Dream on bros, dream on.

Watch out as we struggle to maintain
the withering roots with a dose of intolerance
Blasted through the decade aged monitor that
We can't afford to replace because these
suits and briefcases are tattered together to call substantial and the white building you cruise to each day ain't that blinding anymore
For all the 'accidental' 'unknown' and 'uncaptured' hangings you dated
And the collar around your necks
Got no creases in them
Like those on the hand of his sister
as she sits by the coffin

You were never meant for this
Grocery cart, bags of bones, pillow case
Dunking your head in the paper bags of letdown
Side street, gray walk, go’s and stops
Ticks and tocks
You were never meant for this
Fingerless gloves, holes in jeans, newspaper blankets
With words of people far more successful
Building money with their hands
Like a distorted counterfeit where it’s the priority
Above all that is breathing
You stare at their smudged pictures,
Their smiles full of cash, the green leaking between their teeth
Their suits all straight with hands out shaking
They stand around
The numbers increase
The excitement booms
That was supposed to be you
Who you once were
On Wall Street, drinking the coffee of accomplishment
Out of silver mugs with silver spoons
But you lost it all didn’t you?
The greed overtook you like a drug
Messing with your brain and judgment
Now look at you,
Vagabond, penny cup, ghost air
You were never meant for this,
You were supposed to be like those men in the paper
Those men on the streets
With their Bluetooth and briefcases
Stepping on cracks
You were never meant for this,
But you crashed
Got caught up in the money, the games, the race
Now look at you
Grocery cart, bag of bones, pillow case
Just jumping in defeat between the space
You were never meant for this.
Now look at you.

One cold morning,
One usual Tuesday,
I awoke before the sun,
I stretched before the clouds formed,
One exact moment in the morning,
when the water met my face
and when coffee hits the nerves,
I remembered.

It was breezy and gloomy,
The wind blew calmly across,
I can feel it in between my fingers,
I can feel it on my chest
in between my shirt and my skin
as I board the seven o’clock train.

There you were walking down before me
as I wait patiently for the train tracks to roar,
I saw you in your beige jacket,
Your green blouse,
Your black laced skirt,
Your fair, fair skin,
and your black rim glasses,
that tried to hide,
but could not, the droopiness of your sleepy eyes.

I saw them all,
I feel them all,
The beauty, the casualness,
I know them all.
I see you almost every other day,
In the same train,
At the same time,
In the same barrack of steel that encapsulates
all the passion and the indifference we have about our career.

But we never spoke.

Your beauty, your casualness,
is proof that coincidences are dangerous
and fate is perhaps overrated.
I always wonder why
in the midst of all the hustle and bustle of life
we are still hiding behind a façade,
a wall,
a barricade of non-verbal stimuli.
Why are we, in the depths of our cover up,
our ego,
still not anticipating a conversation?
I assure you,
Our eyes met more than once,
But we looked away pretending that this ardor,
This obsession,
This craze and zeal,
is nothing more than a line of sight
and a blink of an eye.
But I know for sure you’ve seen me,
And I know for sure you’ve seen me
seen you,

So what lies between us is a barrage of men and women,
rushing off to their nine AM clock in.
Men carrying their brown briefcases of complexities and anxieties,
Women carrying their vibrant colored handbags of regret and rage,
All to conceal and suppress,
To obscure and to disguise
one uncomfortable conversation about the hardships of their lives.

Perhaps we could never find the courage,
Perchance we never will.
Perhaps this poem will never see its poetic justice,
Perchance it should never too.
But in case it did,
And in case we found courage,
I’d like you to know
that in my train of thoughts that are propped up of complete nonsense,
there is one clear emotional track that will not detour,
and that is to see you sitting opposite me
in that cold metal seat,
and to have you meet me in the eye
only to have the both us look away
in sheer interest
and utter ignorance.

But we both enjoy the visual flirt.
Don’t we?

7/1/2015

"you will remember, for we in our youth did these things:
yes many  beautiful things" - Sappho's fragments

Greenwich Village, NYC

Only the 24th of June and
Simpson and i already
tire of the summer weather.

I always seem a little thinner these months
i note, i bite a strawberry candy and show her
how to light her lighter

just hand me the fork
no more callousness
both on palmflesh and human dealings

the building facades on Charles street
as in the southern Chawellsss....
she explains alcoholism runs in my family, you know?

i nod. no other problems i presume?
the community garden nods and
people who will always be richer,

prettier, strut past with tuesday briefcases
and their children's wheelcradles with ethiopian
and guatemalan hands on the handlebars

follow a block behind.
But we're from Joisey, and **** proud of it!
Lobster rolls and jimmies and johnnies and

boardwalk planks Erin dreams of
broadway instead and neonatal nursing,
who doesn't?

the only youth on the street that day we
teetertotter past all the cafes and pubs and
laundrymats

*you know, if this was the school year we'd
get picked up for skipping school

the ad on my kitchen table asks,
would you consider donating to
dolphin causes? orphan briefcases? factories for bread and water and those
miracle pills that cure a country in just 3 small,
prescribed,
doses?

would you change a child's life for only $35 a month?
begs the ad rolling in with the mail.
his name is roberto, five foot four, a good kid
who likes baseball and summer days.

a doller a day: a woman begs from channel 6,
donate to the children's hospital of saint something-or-other
have a heart, she says, and help the baby who has a defective one.

a doller a day, or if you're feeling generous,
round up to 5 cents an hour.
how else will you get rid of your rich world guilt?

A jump rope lisping
Through loose gravel and rhymes.
Resembling orchestras and rapidly
Scratched-out novels,
Evolution of an indifferent ******.

Delicate lacework stitched
Beneath the youthful
And frail. Disintegrating
Like a bird’s nest, once
Air conditioning expires.

Scampering between markets,
Wavering while waiting
In redundant lines, as you
Carelessly caress outerwear that you
Waited in line for yesterday.

Placing yourself professionally
On seats, beside plainly colored
Briefcases. Quivering arms
Tingle, as the blood
Relinquishes.

Wordless entities fill
Empty rooms, as pressure
Builds from the exterior and in.
Tarnished sneakers sink and slip,
Amidst cunning quicksand.

Mangled and thrashed,
Fabrics that used to be
Accustom to merry-go-rounds, and dry
Eyes. Gently laced hemming,
Lacerated at the seams.

Stroll down whimpering sidewalks
That sting for vibrations, fixed
By a stranger’s oblivious feet.
Jerking outerwear closer
As no emotions pass.

Synthetic joy overcomes
You, when droning
Minds think alike.
Wriggling and skulking
To cease the crunching of time.

We sat anxious and low
in your bedroom cupboard
beleaguered by hollow briefcases
and stifling musty winter clothes.

Holding our cigarettes like a crucifix
hunched over the ashtray
basking in the lonely timid light
you yanked into life
with the tug of a frail string.

I was ready to speak existentially
ready to be immortalized
by the blinding flash of the ancient pictor
black and white
candid but purposeful.

Locked into my eyes
lingering in their intensity
my artistic mystery.

I was suddenly pulled from my disillusionment
as my wishful banter was silenced
by your stern hush
preferring a whisper so your
parents didn't hear.

I watched you take a drag
like a glass of water
in the middle of the desert
so desperate, so agonizing.

I watched you shakily tap
tiny flakes of your soul
into the ashtray
your eyes distant, mournful.

It was irreversible;
my childlike fantasy
of aesthetic in the smoke
on my breath--

not from frigid temperatures
but adolescent guilty pleasures
coveted forbidden treasures--

to turn into the ashes
I watched my friend flick
routinely into the tray.

"This is not James Dean," I realized.
This is not somber-eyed bedecked
in worn leather jacket
leaning against a cool brick wall.

"Neither is this 'A Hard Day's Night.'"
This is not Ringo smiling amiably
shaking his head with cigarette
bouncing and dainty on his lips.

This is huddled in my best friend's
cramped cupboard
watching him surrender himself
to a caustic lord who scorches his life
away

in every drag that burns between
his cracking lips
in every ash flicked from
his shaking fingers.

I watched the smoke envelop his weary body
I watched the ashes eulogize his fading spirit
I watched him bid farewell with his tired eyes
I watched him disappear.

I ran across the car park as the train pulled away.
The wind blew into my face and made my eyes water
And with it came the smell of hot oil and metal
That stung my nose
And it lifted me.
It picked me up
And placed me on the platform at Southampton station
8 in long socks and a blazer.
Holding my mothers hand
The station master grinned and sweated,
Grime on his forehead
Smoke on his breath.
He pulled off the cap
And the cylinder gushed
A cloud of ***** steam across the concrete
And I hopped back as it touched my legs
All aboard! All aboard!
Pushed forward
I stepped up
Looked up
And eyes smiling he lifted me
Across the gap at Southampton station
Unsteady as the train shuddered
My hand clung to the rail
Through the door I faced a forest of legs
And black shoes
And briefcases
People were so much bigger then.
I turned
And through the doorway
She seemed so much further away
She waved and blew a kiss
And I just stared wide eyed
As the station slipped sideways
And the gaunt faces of the other passengers
Became a blur.

Words were never spoken or exchanged.
"The GO Train is here."
The only five words anyone there ever thought they needed to hear
besides
they weren't words
they were mentality
the briefcases
purses
newspapers
click-a-clacks of heels
rustling of zippers and keys
scrapings of sandals
rollings of bags
sharp noses
blank eyes
all pointed at their exact target
click clack
click clack
a steady stream
of everyone and anyone
men with full black business suits
girls in Gouci and jeans
ladies in Reitmans
men in checkered shirts and khaki shorts
like ants they piled into the
green and white
snake
dreading the fatal announcement
"last call!  Last call!"
they accelerated
full grown men and women
whipping and thudding and click-a-clacking
the wind pushed them back to their cars
the ground screamed "Stop!"
but they didn't listen
a woman
all in blue
who could raise the dead
with her clacking
daintily ran as fast as she could
"DOORS SHUT!" the conductor's voice was muffled
and he followed through
in a spurt of perseverance
soundlessly
the doors closed
At least the adults knew one thing
no amount of noise could open them
so they didn't try
the blue-clad woman slowed to a stop
the GO train had gone
she slumped in the middle of the station
the wind urged her
but suddenly
the train came again
always there
always gone
CLICK CLACK
the heels revived
click clack
click
clack
clack

Too many people have forgotten how to dance
Their bodies have become stiff with
Everyday life
They are checking their watch and carrying their briefcases even when they are not

You can see the worry in their bones

They move the most in their sleep, when their bodies fight themselves -
angrily restless at night because they are locked up during the day
Their arms are more like pipes than wings
Their legs are simply part of the machine that allows them to count

Their faces are clocks
Their hands are levers
And their hearts? -
Buried - somewhere beneath the flesh that has become less than flesh, the muscle that is less than muscle, the bone that is less than bone and
The blood that has become simply something to pump -
Something to keep from
drying
out
completely.

I heard a harmonica the other day-
My body heard it before my ears did
My arms listened so closely- my hips and my knees followed and the
Air stepped aside for my body
creating a tunnel of space without space for my limbs only
The grass below my feet was my stage and the earth and I were no longer separate

When I left,
A stranger told me
“You’re a great dancer”
I should have told him
“So is everyone else-

You just have to let your fingertips to reach for the notes as they hear them
You just have to train your heart to understand more than lists-
They don’t matter now – They didn’t ever

If there is a God,
I don’t think his intention in creating bodies was for them to worry
Perhaps our fingers weren’t made to always be holding something
Perhaps our eyes are in the front of our head for a reason
And perhaps our hearts are inside of our chest because who know what would happen if we
Let them out

I’ve got five minutes
Then I must leave my verdant patch
On the skirt of a wind-rustled lake
hidden behind Logan's Roadhouse

Five minutes
to mentally finger with the fetal position
In which I awoke this morning,
there as the sun drew long shadows,

I, a diminutive daub of nautilus,
On a California King,
rippled plane of sand,
Sporadic shivers, beneath a chenille blanket

I, the town crier of dawn as
My own dreams ran screaming through the silence
Pointing a finger at
my sanctuary… “Here is your pearl thief!”

Men in hats, briefcases, heel-toe black clicky and shiny shoes
on leashes lugged,
Yanked by noisy hounds passing by
stop, sniff, snarl-toothed *******…

then one caught my scent,
“Five minutes more sleep,” I implored
"Find another dreaming fleshy mess of bones!"
And leave me to my pearl.

But it’s a universe that simply will not wait
And suffer fools for sleepers,
not a moment more
Yet for my many sleepless minutes after,

Dusk till dawn, and still beyond,
it’s always,
                  five
         minutes
more

Come home,
my mother's voice suggests along 2,581 kilometres of phone cabling.

Come home to the hazy heat
that beats off melting pavement and wilting plants,
to the smell of exhaust
squeezing between buildings
and suburbs and rush hour and neon lights,

Come home to the aggravated traffic
wending its way through concrete landscapes
eight lane snakes placating
the clack and hum of underground trains
packed with people and briefcases and beers and graffiti
spilling out onto the streets like cough syrup glugging out of the bottle.

You sound like you need to come home.

Nah, I'm good Ma,
because I don't know how to tell you
the city makes me feel trapped

a little creature with an anxious heart
boxed in by the tarseal and the fumes and the noise.

I like knowing the borders of a town
that doesn't stretch to the horizon
driving quietly on sleeping streets in the night time
and tracing the coastline with my feet in the water

I need the sky to touch the ground, not the ragged edges of a skyline
to walk until there's nothing
but me and the bush and the birds,
and the smell of mud and dirt and rain.

I like it here, I suggest along 2,581 kilometres of phone cabling,
but I do miss you.

He perches on his black-crate bandstand,
stationed between the payphone and postbox.
The view from his seat never varies:
a restless audience of briefcases and knees.

He closes his eyes, concentrating
on breath becoming buzz becoming blare,
and he pictures his notes glossing Manhattan’s
thunder-colored walls.

Each tone fills the pavement, square by square
until the sidewalk is a harlequin filmstrip,
colored by notes coaxed from his brass mouth.

Passersby withhold their gaze, because giving a nod
obliges giving a dollar, and no one is inclined
to employ this trumpeter. But he pays no mind;
his own eyes secured until song’s end.

As long as his fingers are jumping,
he doesn’t have to be Gerard Wall–
who lost his wife to cancer and mind to the War;
he can be Louis, Miles, or Pinetop Smith.

When he looks up once again,
sun and spirit have faded,
and he watches the evening embers
drift out of his horn.

Paleo-Yuppies at Work and Play

Fading slowly from the existential struggle,
Waving their MePhones about in protest,
They swarm to Starbuck’s for adjective coffees,
Uniformed in knee-pants and bulbous sneaks
And Chinese soccer tops with little checkmarks,
Their graduate degrees at parade rest,
And in confusion, suddenly-stalled careers
Raging against the thirty-something machine.
Not trusting anyone under forty,
They rustle their foam cups and resumes’
Instead of suspicious Democrats,
And demand promotions and Perrier.
They mourn pinstripes and leather briefcases,
And the old floppy disc of yesteryear,
And fumble their PowerPoint Presentations
Tho’ once they illuminated the world
With colored markers on glossy whiteboard.
They no longer play games on a Commodore
Or rock to neo-Carib fusion jazz;
Their Rush is Right baseball caps are now filed
In trays of antique curiosities
Beside the moldering hippie stuff shelved
In an adjunct of the Smithsonian
Where curricula vitae go to be eaten
By a computer virus named Vlad.
Now, as the sun sets on Ferris Bueller’s day
They count and verify their MeBook friends -
They did not change the world, not at all, but
The world changed anyway, and without them,
And in the end they love neither Jesus
Nor The Force; like Eve, they bow to an Apple.

Cashier’s line, foot tapping, texting, heavy sigh

The steady beep of the checkout

The kid in the baseball cap in front of me

His headphones don’t contain the music

“I don’t wanna be a solider mamma, I don’t wanna die”

The bus whines as the light shifts from yellow to red

A woman coughs, violently choking on years of tar, she looks around anxiously

And rights herself with a casual flick of her cigarette

A couple briefcases walk by, donning blazers and red ties

“Ya gotta be the best if ya wanna make it there. Brilliant! Boom boom boom!”

A woman sits inside a cafe, the spot where people do their people watching

Instead her infant captures her attention, cooing at the pink bundle in the stroller

“Yes you are the cuuutest little thing aren’t you, aren’t you?”

A man flicks his wrist to glimpse the time while he pumps gas

Silent, wanting to be elsewhere, that’s why he’s filling up his tank

A swarm of tourists, each waiting for the others to advance so that they might ****** the prime spot for a photograph

Their voices melt into one excited static

Cars honking at bicyclists and bicyclists yelling at pedestrians who yell at bicyclists

The river flowing quickly beneath my feet planted on the bridge

The Earth alive, rotating beneath the river

The Earth hurtling through the galaxy, through the universe

A passerby scolds me for not moving

Hurrying along

nothing walks better than the ‘day light shakes’
you’re working today and the briefcases are deciding,
to be hearts instead of skin
you’ve decided the night
whilst it past

not worth its sleep – the sun juices
a dead man across sand
the beers beers beers or maybe just
the previous day
a dancer in itself
was enough to keep you
awake
and moving until now;
stretching the ground
with your feet

one after another, an absolute laughter of free limbs apart;
escaping the need to run.

the sun
just another mouth openening
just;

above yours
you’re commuting and already rolling your neck like a sleeper
with a crook and a sigh
because the night was rough

and when you blink – your eyes water
and duty pulls you in
like an engorged worker
in a factory of silk

there is humour in your tiredness however
there is a rubber floor
moving
beneath your feet
understanding
why you smile quietly
(every now and then)

getting on with the daily beat
body-aching
each and every part
used up
from lip to heart
arching back
the phone rings;

you pick up
a cat sits
eating dogs
a low voice, contralto
below the voice
you hear
a piercing sound

the orchestra sings in the open office
above the 4 ft walls and above the water coolers
and again you chuckle
as the customer does
and a sweep
just enough to **** the day
a little
to open you up
enough
to let the mouse move

to let the flutes devour
politey unwashed
reacting to vermin
a savage flux
putrified by clock
quickened and quickened again
turned
so no animal speaks about the tick
no lights on
a blinding grace
which -
there already is –

the foundations laugh
and the day flys
as the window slams
and she leaves inbetween

as you return to your desk
turning your head
to watch the thing go
and disappear
past where you can see.

Fire and wind
of close bullets
tornados, floods, rain
I. C. E. with eyes
sharp as barbed wire
dead souls walking
those pale corridors
with an odor
the color of bone
and skin off the backs
of the poor
in their pockets
like rawhide, they are
rolling, rolling, rolling
***** of dung along
carrying briefcases
full of batshit
and other secret
pestilence yet to come.