THE BUFFALOES are gone.
And those who saw the buffaloes are gone.
Those who saw the buffaloes by thousands and how they pawed the prairie sod into dust with their hoofs, their great heads down pawing on in a great pageant of dusk,
Those who saw the buffaloes are gone.
And the buffaloes are gone.

THAT HE SANG AT THE COUNCIL ROCK WHEN HE DANCED ON SHERE KHAN’S HIDE

The Song of Mowgli—I, Mowgli, am singing. Let
      the jungle listen to the things I have done.
Shere Khan said he would ****—would ****! At the
      gates in the twilight he would **** Mowgli, the
      Frog!
He ate and he drank. Drink deep, Shere Khan, for
      when wilt thou drink again? Sleep and dream
      of the ****.
I am alone on the grazing-grounds. Gray Brother,
      come to me! Come to me, Lone Wolf, for there
      is big game afoot.
Bring up the great bull-buffaloes, the blue-skinned
      herd-bulls with the angry eyes. Drive them to
      and fro as I order.
Sleepest thou still, Shere Khan? Wake, O wake!
      Here come I, and the bulls are behind.
Rama, the King of the Buffaloes, stamped with his
      foot. Waters of the Waingunga, whither went
      Shere Khan?
He is not Ikki to dig holes, nor Mao, the Peacock, that
      he should fly. He is not Mang, the Bat, to hang
      in the branches. Little bamboos that creak to-
      gether, tell me where he ran?
Ow! He is there. Ahoo! He is there. Under the
      feet of Rama lies the Lame One! Up, Shere
      Khan! Up and ****! Here is meat; break the
      necks of the bulls!
Hsh! He is asleep. We will not wake him, for his
      strength is very great. The kites have come down
      to see it. The black ants have come up to know
      it. There is a great assembly in his honour.
Alala! I have no cloth to wrap me. The kites will
      see that I am naked. I am ashamed to meet all
      these people.
Lend me thy coat, Shere Khan. Lend me thy gay
      striped coat that I may go to the Council Rock.
By the Bull that bought me I have made a promise—
      a little promise. Only thy coat is lacking before I
      keep my word.
With the knife—with the knife that men use—with
      the knife of the hunter, the man, I will stoop down
      for my gift.
Waters of the Waingunga, bear witness that Shere
      Khan gives me his coat for the love that he bears
      me. Pull, Gray Brother! Pull, Akela! Heavy is
      the hide of Shere Khan.
The Man Pack are angry. They throw stones and talk
      child’s talk. My mouth is bleeding. Let us run
      away.
Through the night, through the hot night, run swiftly
      with me, my brothers. We will leave the lights
      of the village and go to the low moon.
Waters of the Waingunga, the Man Pack have cast me
      out. I did them no harm, but they were afraid of
      me. Why?
Wolf Pack, ye have cast me out too. The jungle is
      shut to me and the village gates are shut. Why?
As Mang flies between the beasts and the birds so fly
      I between the village and the jungle. Why?
I dance on the hide of Shere Khan, but my heart is
      very heavy. My mouth is cut and wounded with
      the stones from the village, but my heart is very
      light because I have come back to the jungle.
      Why?
These two things fight together in me as the snakes
      fight in the spring. The water comes out of my
      eyes; yet I laugh while it falls. Why?
I am two Mowglis, but the hide of Shere Khan is under
      my feet.
All the jungle knows that I have killed Shere Khan.
      Look—look well, O Wolves!
Ahae! My heart is heavy with the things that I do
      not understand.

Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us,
      And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, o’er the combers, looks downward to find us
      At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy pillow;
      Ah, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee,
      Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas.

THE BOY Alexander understands his father to be a famous lawyer.
The leather law books of Alexander's father fill a room like hay in a barn.
Alexander has asked his father to let him build a house like bricklayers build, a house with walls and roofs made of big leather law books.
  
  The rain beats on the windows
  And the raindrops run down the window glass
  And the raindrops slide off the green blinds down the siding.
The boy Alexander dreams of Napoleon in John C. Abbott's history, Napoleon the grand and lonely man wronged, Napoleon in his life wronged and in his memory wronged.
The boy Alexander dreams of the cat Alice saw, the cat fading off into the dark and leaving the teeth of its Cheshire smile lighting the gloom.
  
Buffaloes, blizzards, way down in Texas, in the panhandle of Texas snuggling close to New Mexico,
These creep into Alexander's dreaming by the window when his father talks with strange men about land down in Deaf Smith County.
Alexander's father tells the strange men: Five years ago we ran a Ford out on the prairie and chased antelopes.
  
Only once or twice in a long while has Alexander heard his father say "my first wife" so-and-so and such-and-such.
A few times softly the father has told Alexander, "Your mother ... was a beautiful woman ... but we won't talk about her."
Always Alexander listens with a keen listen when he hears his father mention "my first wife" or "Alexander's mother."
  
Alexander's father smokes a cigar and the Episcopal rector smokes a cigar and the words come often: mystery of life, mystery of life.
These two come into Alexander's head blurry and gray while the rain beats on the windows and the raindrops run down the window glass and the raindrops slide off the green blinds and down the siding.
These and: There is a God, there must be a God, how can there be rain or sun unless there is a God?
  
So from the wrongs of Napoleon and the Cheshire cat smile on to the buffaloes and blizzards of Texas and on to his mother and to God, so the blurry gray rain dreams of Alexander have gone on five minutes, maybe ten, keeping slow easy time to the raindrops on the window glass and the raindrops sliding off the green blinds and down the siding.

My auspicious and audacious assault augments the annoyance of aged accomplices.

My bodacious broadside of boffolas berates and buffaloes bros beneficently.

A classy crusade Clownishly chiseling and criticizing childishness.

A devilish ******* of dillydallying dullards; devoutly denying dimwits the dulcet dream of defiance.

Excessive, exuberant edification, ebulliently eliminating education-evictees.

A fair-weather frolic in flippancy with furious fools floundering in flawed foppishness.

Gregariously grating glum guys gleefully, growing grander garnishes of gripping gallantry gaily.

Heckling hooligans highlights my heavenly humor.

Irreverently irking irritable, iniquitous idiots in inestimably infuriating and incredible instances.

A jolly, jocular **** joking with jerks.

A kreiger kicking kleptomaniacs in the karyotype. (Cut me some slack, this is 'k', after all.)

A ludicrous, laughing lambaste of lollygagging lunatics, loftily loosing luscious lunacy on lucky losers.

A magnificent masterpiece of malfeasance, a monstrous, malevolent mission of massive misfortune for the minor minors missing no malicious missive.

A noxious, narcissistic niggling of nitwits, niftily nixing the noisome naivete of niggardly nobs.

An offhand, off-color outburst of outlandish observations to outclass the obnoxious overtures of obsequious offal.

A pragmatic prediction of possible platitudes or platypi, a placid parley of pyrotechnic pleasantries provoking Pyrrhic protections by prurient prats.

A quixotic quibble quarreling with a queer quarry.

Ribald ribbing, ruining the robust reality of the repreachful, repugnant, and rapacious with risque ridiculousness.

A silly, slighting slander of sluglike slavishness, succinctly sinking sloppy simpletons sourly.

Tracing the titillating talent of towing tyranny to towering terrors to tactless, togless, terrapins of the times.

A River
In Madurai,
city of temples and poets,
who sang of cities and temples,
every summer
a river dries to a trickle
in the sand,
baring the sand ribs,
straw and women’s hair
clogging the watergates
at the rusty bars
under the bridges with patches
of repair all over them
the wet stones glistening like sleepy
crocodiles, the dry ones
shaven water-buffaloes lounging in the sun
The poets only sang of the floods.

He was there for a day
when they had the floods.
People everywhere talked
of the inches rising,
of the precise number of cobbled steps
run over by the water, rising
on the bathing places,
and the way it carried off three village houses,
one pregnant woman
and a couple of cows
named Gopi and Brinda as usual.

The new poets still quoted
the old poets, but no one spoke
in verse
of the pregnant woman
drowned, with perhaps twins in her,
kicking at blank walls
even before birth.

He said:
the river has water enough
to be poetic
about only once a year
and then
it carries away
in the first half-hour
three village houses,
a couple of cows
named Gopi and Brinda
and one pregnant woman
expecting identical twins
with no moles on their bodies,
with different coloured diapers
to tell them apart.
                                                          ­                                                                 ­          ~A.K.Ramanujan

Banked up against a terraced mountainside
photogenic pristine rows
of blasting green
rows of manicured waterways
with two buffaloes treading ballet-like
between squelching mud and green shoots
the paddy fields stayed buoyant
all season through.

Come harvesting time
and thrashing the sunburied ripe
tendrils of husk and seed
along threshing traffic wheels
the husk sought divorce from
the long tongued long grained
wives -and parted ways.

Soon the pudding spent its silky smooth sexiness
on a plate of punchy aromatic costumes
that invaded the senses and palate
in sensual smoothness. Oh my!

Ricebowl pudding
of the worlds staple.

Author Notes
Gluttony beckons just now!
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

O body, the little fish you swallowed yesterday

Yes, those

There are no other reasons
For this cat to roam around
For the third time

Fish swallowed yesterday, do not flail about
The globular eyes of that cat

O stomach, at least
Till it goes away,
Do not upset
With the slight movements of your waves

Body, body
Cautiously by the seaside

If all the fish that got inside
Bounced on seeing the place of origin
And if their friends tried knocking on each cell
If body, your body washed up all over a shore
Kissed by fishes

Body,
If all that you looked at greedily,
All that you ate ravenously,
All that you relished slowly
Appeared before you sometime

If it appeared

Body, body,
While seeing the kids,
If breast milk from thirty years ago spread out
If cake and fried liver
start out searching  for little mouths

If all alcohol imbibed
Spurted out while meeting friends
Screamed out at midnight
Recited a ***** poem while no one was listening

Body,
On a noon, in favorite city
If two areolae appeared
And again spread brilliance
If you spilled out
Inhaling that redolence

Seeing something,
If saliva, sweat or wetness
Jump out

Body, body
If seeing greenery,
The cows and buffaloes and rabbits
Come out to graze,
Frogs start croaking
Seeing rain clouds
If seeing the sky,
The crow and crane inside
Start flying

If the **** comes out into the yard on seeing the hen,
Body, body,
If the fish, beasts and birds inside
Come out simultaneously,

Body, body,
Body’s soul…

I never knew your exquisite features
could **** me in such a beautiful way.

The way your eyes
stabbed my heart and broke it into shards of glass
reminded me of the specks of blue in your eyes,
so I apologized for the terrible mess I must have caused
and the scratches I must have inflicted on your
dreamy gaze, the one I wanted to bottle up and keep
on rainy days.

The way your skin
electrified my soul after a simple touch
and disrupted the chemical flow between my sensitive nerves
made me feel so special,
so I let you
destroy me in the most lovely way imaginable.

The way your smile
caused an explosion in the pits of my stomach
and caused a herd of buffaloes to
slowly rise in the lump in my throat, made me think of
the one time they tried to explain the Manhattan Project,
so I figured the destruction you caused was only
a history lesson.

-MB

she is the whispering wind
billowing buffaloes of cotton candy
fiery red reflections
horizon's home to Venus and Jupiter
her evening eyes twinkle
in gradient shades of midnight
whether clear cerulean
or dark and stormy
her mood reassures, connects
she takes all under her wing
as her firmament holds us
sunshine's conduit
the epitome of blue skies
she keeps us happy
to take away even just a part of her
is a blotting of the mind
straight from the horses blinders
a piece of heart and happiness hidden
an erasure of nature
a blindfold to beauty
a shadow on my eyes
a silhouette of stucco
built too close to home and hearth
prisons have such walls as this
erected to confine and punish
our only crime is a love of peace and quiet
and neighborhood values


Del Maximo
© September 14, 2009

Rapid City wears its patriotism like a shroud.
Corner streets are populated with less than
life-size statues of past presidents
squinting at the distant Black Hills
where the grandeur of Mt. Rushmore
casually crumbles their bronze dreams.

Wax settlers, loggers and gold miners
stake claims with souvenir hunters
touring a mine, panning for fool’s gold.

In nearby Custer, 75 breaths  from Wounded Knee,
shops hawk Chief Joseph, Sitting Bull, Geronimo t-shirts
proclaiming them “ The Original Founding Fathers.”
Mixed in are those in star-spangled letters and fireworks
proudly streaming “Welcome to America. Now Speak English.”

Rushmore was dynamited from a cliff
by a creator who spent the rest of his life
erecting grand Confederate gestures
out of ****** Georgia quartz monzonite—
finished and opened 100 years to the day
after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.  

Thirty minutes from Rushmore, existing in its shadow
on private land filled with dusty trails,
unfinished after seventy years,
probably still unfinished after twenty  more,
facing away from these great stone faces,
emerging from the side of great Thunderhead Mountain,

on an ivory stead with a mane of flowing river and wind,
exists the Oglala Lakota warrior Tasunke Witko
the worm of Crazy Horse the Old and Rattling Blanket Woman,
sibling of Little Hawk and Laughing One, memory of the spirit of
Black Buffalo and White Cow who walked with an Iron Cane,
all enclosed with him in this massive breath of white stone.

The history of this great Indian space stretches the land,
four times higher than the Statue of Liberty,
extending beyond the warrior frown, the pointing left arm.
The horse’s ear alone is the size of a rusty  reservation bus.
When finished it will be the largest sculpture in history,
bigger than the land, breath and all of Indian memory.

It was the Vision Quest of Chief Henry Standing Bear to show the whites that the red man had great heroes, too.
In a man named Korczak he found a kindred spirit,
a storyteller in stone, a survivor of Omaha Beach,
who when the first wife faltered, found a second
who gave him enough children to carry, sculpt the Bear Dream.  

The big chief’s face is still the only finished part.
Korczak’s wife and children toil with the rest,
struggling to capture the essence of a warrior
who never allowed his shadow to be snared
in the false glow of the white man’s light,
trusting only the rain beams that fall

onto his people, mountains, plains and buffaloes,
onto Paha Sapa, “the heart of everything that is,”
where the Lakota huddled while the world was created,
now a land of broken treaties and dying dreams,
drenched in the dust of tears underneath,
while this white face torn from red gazes East.

Dream Self
You
have robbed me
of sleep
awake I count
the quickening seconds…
leaping like white buffaloes
touching the clouds

through the partially
drawn chiffon curtains
Your azure face
floats time lapsed
across the
night sky
exquisite arias
from Your kokopelli flute
caress my ears


Krishna divine charioteer
Your sweet chariot
swings low
the breath grows faint
and my pulse is
absent
I am no more.....


dream self

Boring buffaloes  salute the salamander.

Baboons, buffoons, rule the work lizard.

Will the scale male parade its  green and gold in utter abandon?

With its teeth and slime and parking meters sublime--
make claim to its birthright in space and time?

How can you worry while sitting on a porch. Maybe its the green mountains over in the distance. Or perhaps the painting of a sky right above them. I sit and wonder is there a more relaxing sun than this.

How can you worry while sitting on a porch. Maybe its the silent sea of rice fields or the feasting giant buffaloes seeking some mud and some peace. No, it must be the rivers. Must be the deafening violence of a sound emitted by the steel motors of wooden boats. Shattering a window of bliss but never touching me.

Sitting on this porch I wonder why can't I see the same back home.

he saw razor wire atop perimeter walls
guards on walkways with rifles ready
“what have I gotten myself into”

early, early
driving out to the high desert
pulling over to check a map
I saw Easter sunrise in the Mojave
the rising dawn bending light’s spectrum
its pink brightness silhouetting
clumps of dark green sage brush
casting long spidery purple shadows
between streaks of golden light
as morning’******broke mountain’s peak

continuing on
I spied something moving in the distance
within a shroud of clouds
that was blanketing the ascending road
way high up ahead
tiny white angel wings came to mind
thought perhaps I was hallucinating
entertained the idea that I had crashed
and was going to heaven
as I got closer
driving through the warm mists
that strange movement proved to be
mundane yet fascinating
I’d never seen wind turbines before

I had never been to Tehachapi
got lost in the winding upper mountains
my friend told me to turn on valley road
but there was Bear Valley Road
Apple Valley Road
other valley roads
had to circle and back track through the greenery
but found my way

when I finally got to the prison
there was a long queue of cars
I passed them up to see what was happening
then drove back and got in line
a lot of visitors that day
to celebrate Easter in incarceration
but I was here for a pick up
I signed in and a guard called my name
Donnie came out
processed and ready
we shook hands and the guard let us leave
after I signed a release form

Don was always the get-away-driver
so as soon as we were away
from warden’s watchful eyes
I let him take the wheel
forgot to inquire if he had a valid license
he threw his gate money at me to hold
said, “that’s how much I trust you”
“I’d never let anyone else handle my money”

back downhill
driving through the desert
he heard a helicopter above
“they’re being VERY cool right now”
as he kept it at 70

approaching San Diego
we decided to take the scenic route
through the canyons
a treat for this city-boy
ascending once again on a lone highway
into dusky mountains

greenest hillsides were covered
with giant granite boulders
of all shapes and sizes
intelligently strewn in primordial design
an ancient herd of petrified buffaloes
frozen in time
foreshadowing the stampede of clumpy clouds
rampaging above in crisp cerulean

we happened upon a tickling town
people in period costumes
riding horse drawn coaches and carriages
selling jars of jams and jellies
too bad we didn’t stop and get out

back on the freeway
approaching the city
a cop car pulled up behind us
right up on my bumper
a uniform with a brown brim hat
probably a state trooper
intimidation tactics
hoping we would make a run for it
probably alerted to BOLO
for my friend
we froze at first
looking straight ahead
then I remembered to act natural
started talking to calm Don down
started pointing out the sights
along the freeway like a tourist
the cop gave up and backed off
I wondered if he thought
‘that must not be him’
or
‘these guys are good’
I’m sure he ran my license plate

I brought my friend home
met his mother and sister
bought some gas
(you don’t have to pay first)
and made the two hour drive home
just another day
in my boring life

“The Revenant”(Ghost Song Inspiration)
Awake yearning Asleep
Barnacles of riveted keel ajar with wonder keepsakes to sweep
Traipsing the moonlit path between equidistant insanities
Billowing fumes of rage fulgurant in the vogue modality
Whispering 9 Billion hymns to an immemorial cemetery
Silenced by shattered quakes rumbling in the deep forest
Imagined long ago yet again…
Surfing the few fragile crestfallen waves Tighter Nooses in tsunamis on Portugal in the eleventh month hanging ten
Fragile swoons of kenspeckel verbatim echoed in hallowed halls of evening Diaspora gilded in excellence
Limit is no boundary to the timeless clock of tilted tendencies towards barbed decadence
Revelry is no artifact tethered to a patibulary pole folded in the pokerish sneakthievery of triumphant owl’s night
We laugh like soft mad children waxing the candlelit vigil of barren Beirut struck down with ultrageous fright
Cackling as misfortune trespasses are shot on sight
That The Remedy asphyxiates National Anthem hues
Slippery in the crevasse of caffeinated daydream sues
Toasting butter cretaceous with wonder a lapse of sentience is its ultimate blunder of 1015 Rooz
Because the tottering paragon overlooks his habitable tomb
Bequeathed in Nero’s fright askew for the itching view
Spawned instants of thunderous applause serenade the weaning night littered with dancing fragments of illusion
Time is no object to objective dimples on Helicopter dime
Swank is no subject because the predevoted pause owes all to cadence of currency in the heyday of sublime
Long-winded but curt
Outskirts to every vacant and inhabited skirt suburban to muses crooning with antiquity destitute with forbidden flirt
Livid with indignation over fallen hands outstretched to unheralded bands
Simpering with scalded water of tattered whisper of the nauclatic heralds of sunrise over moonlight land
Effort is no music without tragedian Shakespearean rebuke
Taylor’s stop-and-go with flashlight frisk a Pharaohs’ Zion too much of a Fluke
Greco-Roman travesty blinks with scary flicker in an alpenglow Apollon stained-glass window summit
Dirges always precede precipitate glamour aflame with spectral filibustered blight and plummet
besieged by fallen wonders
Sunken by echoes of consequence in Heavy Metal Thunder
Glimpsing the Revenant of a future tango with backwards sentinels of séance
Grief overtakes the rejuvenated sunlit hike
Hitched by Horses with No Name Painless by harnessed spike
Of a Roadhouse Blues not Red enough for the Scarlet Letter Hues of Bill the Butcher White with Tweed nullifying his diacopes of spite
Cadence peerless paling to mirrored reflection of recapitulated mated soul
Limpid nexility that ghosts flex with reflective Jazzy soul
Jailhouse rocking Malone swerves with jaunt
Easy to dance easier to flaunt
Dastardly darts four score and seven jerseys ago
The seamstress of violence alacrity to sow
Vindication belonging to orphaned asylum 44th
A King lost too soon because of masons coming fourth
Degrees of Solomon rustling through A Biff’s Palace
Jimpster hitman an Akabu of hustled alarm pegged to wild shadows dancing a delicate filigree of spawn and spark
To the plug anointed by tethered Cable Guy treason
Few vigilantes of Batman’s caliber yet to reason
In the Revenant’s wake of fallen timbers of Sunset Strip
Reapers prowl with the tide of Bruno Mars RIP
That he sprawls in survival a hat too generous to tip
Uptown Chelsea in uproar as auditoriums fill with hedged victims of sense and sensibility etched in Gore
Lone Pine Mall stranded by conflagration of bulletproof lore
Clowns dedicate independence while crowns croon ***** repentance
For a forlorn starvation of cities of jackals sailed to sentence
Dripping with a faucet of ghostly haunts
Kapstone Paper in Kansas verging on misery wants  
Yet Bleeding American with French-British hues
The world’s lovelorn starlet yet too swollen to amuse
Stark travesty in fatuous emoluments to Walter White vanity
A current streak unbeaten because of realism in Virtual Insanity
A Joker’s Gamboled revenge skittish in sketchy chalkboards of ossified prestige
Left to the milk carton missing is yet another Abandoned Pools squeeze
The Young Robot scared to Fly-by-Night in the pathway of terminal poignant disease
A punitive prison worthy of the cackles of Dinosaurs besieged by Mr. Freeze
Folksy natatoriums agape with bathhouse squalor
Every hierodule a ******* to the witwanton bottom dollar
For the buggery of a Titanic warning towering ever taller
Stilted Wilts 50 a game warbles without Chinese glowers of Silk Road Silk
An albatross of agrarian hubris is how Ping-Pong Champions were eventually built
Hollywood’s grotto a despairing bravado
Of a masonry skyscraping a surpassed entelechy of a half-known tomorrow
Escape malingering and dare to dream
Listless maneuvers of space a hipster jam of the rollicking heyday of a fortress of a team
That I brandish with pride and retrospective snide
How perjury Underoath is a much better bribe
Air Force pride against Scorched Earth fallow because of a wayward bride
The Spectrum of Casper is galloping in deceitful degrees of a piety too wide
Swayed by Swayze pretended or lazy
The whole world in centration glistens with the fashionable crazy
Electromagnetic Detroit a rumpus for Notorious donnybrooks of a Gretchen cloaked too tight for Avalanche brawls cemented in burgundy and white
Industrial locomotives bulldozing Buffaloes of a Boulder fraternity too leaky to always be right
Scattered on Dawn’s Highway Bleeding crowded by a sing-song peril by design
That deference is reference to rappers glistening in surrealism ripe and prime marveling at the Ace of Military Base’s glaring Sign
Lethal Killers on patrol roaming Earthquake plodded land
Count the number of hairs of vitriol in silicon purebred amicable handfuls of wafting sand
Drifting in Mescaline ends at the periphery of Desert Movies Goldmines for Choosing
The Native American Jabberwocky or Mulder’s Father’s dying musing neither of which is favorable to boozing
The Brown doctor disfavored by armed aristocrats is always alive and rarely unbuttoned when snoozing
Flynn torches bemuse the tattered knight
Presumptuous Arthur is only on the quorum when consentience of accord is proven right by both deed and prescient light
Hardly a sidesplitter for a curveball time
California Love is plastered with rivalries of NorCal grime
Of the greatest Banana Slug Fiction flagrant with Quinntessential clairvoyance of a deceased 60’s crime
A dead queer lollygag belonging to the advice of a Pearl Jam Jeremy’s erasure of snares of beleaguered blasphemous chyme
Nonlinear spurts fielded by stolen bases of paralyzed rebuffs rather curt
A rapper worthy of the stage rarely an actor beyond a churlish vendetta hurt
Yet I dazzle the lingerie of even the most guarded skirt
The kiln of machination is a wedding of guarded betrayals of Monster Mash extortion
Alexisonfire a harbinger to the world’s belabored victory over corrugated striptease contortion
Thursday is a miraculous noise of shattered glass
Inertia knows ventriloquial varnish of shattered bones and tempted blood dripping in crematorium ash
Yet I survive with a Jive walk and a sardonic wagtail flock
Of the best patronage of cognoscenti shockwaves of bonanza stocks stalked like a swarpollock locket invisible to Tik Tok
I’m the best hip-hop in the game beyond the treachery of retreads of psychobabble inane
I strut like magic belonging to the sanitorium of the edgy swank of modest profane
Granite defected is my cement planet infesting the game like Boardwalks on the revived Titanic
Aliens headbash the gamut of my spangled manic
Ghost Ridin’ Raiders of the Lost Arc leads to hysterical panic
Indiana laughs at Elway’s squirrel because he bolted Baltimore with a baseball pretense for a sexier girl
When the rigmarole of genius aligns infamy bails out the oyster aphrodisiac of a Heart of the Ocean pearl
Time is a self-referential quisling of a monarchy built of subtle curling
A bored sport dazzling with scintillation in recursive zeal unfurling
A Canada Dry livid stargazer dozes on Oiler comets meteoric as hydroponics
**** quaffs the lazy lollygag rarely hooked on the righteous phonics
But no distaste to the canine game
I am well beyond the distance to the lethargy of NV in shame
Bear Bryant on Rushmore flowing high
Jetsetting across Pink Floyd’s lurid Clear Blue Skies
George trampled by Chauvinist monsters
Zuckerberg and Gates are honkies betting on bonkers loud both in Boston and in Yonkers
100 Billion of counterfeit souls sold to slot machine mannequins quite droll
Someone needs to devour their corner like a Revelations sour-tasting scroll
Tagged to apothecary mountebanks of Trey’s on repeat
A hard-won small Utah town harder than Joe Montana to beat
Bypassed hack of time Luminosity the adultress of 1693 regaled as a freakish feat
Time simpers to Spirit of Grace graven kantikoys in Seattle Graveyards blemished by dancing Creep
The Idioteque squalor of bemused negligence in a flooded Avatar Jurassic Park Jeep
I recall the St. Joseph’s brawl not with Sevendust Animosity or a squawk on short-sighted grating flag hooped with haywire lines snorted on Basketball
The marstions of plenilune filigree are 32 Leaves of RINOs of crestfallen dirges of cacophony deafened by Yachted Wedding Crashers’ squall
The swagger of a Vogue Rose kissed by Shadow Dancing ******* is livid in throes
Of a throwaway stretchgrave of Jackson’s crooning on astounding Mike Bossy Bose
Engraved with Islander epiphany that smokestack chockablocks itch every more Leary in gawsy clothes
I rampage through the filibusters of Jerusalem silt sunken by immigrants in tired tattered kilt
That the only famine known to McDonald’s is the demolition of Fireman of young Wayne Enterprises yet rigged to insuperable caverns hitched to the hilt
Soul Kitchen alphabets on Dewey Decimal design swagger yet with a Lugubrious Monkey-Silent Bob’s Feared Spinosity in Sprites of commercial Lemon-Lime
Of a dauntless Decision among many subdued by Prison that the apish caper gouges 20/20 Vision a cacophony dimpled in recessive alleles of a modern prime
That is also primacy antecedent to yoked Cartel SUV’s perfected in acerbic dungeons Monster Mash corners yet death unfurled in matchbox tinder of Futurama slime
Jet Lagged infancy of Nuclear Duff hustling the Illmatic Annoyance of BiffCO ***** riddles Uncle RICO wed boschveldt of Kansas City seen 21-30 with zeal and repine
The Bizarre Inc. of a lovelorn 96’ robbed Liberace into untimely death the spinsters of Key Auditorium Dine
Hemlock sprees of Socratic whimpers of treason of Piraeus marks the infamy of Brutus lagging with conscience diseased
That the marvel of vengeance is the plaudits of swanky New York Times rustling against dead Nevada Subways and Lusitania rollicking seas
Rage itches as Brock is capsized to Hearts of Oceans littered with Sparrow Murders of Ravens Batty with Belief
Mourning the Twister carnage of A Shining City on a Hill printed by Federal Way disclosure by Armada Music without a receipt
To the dozen graves of Monster Mash London Fog the Undeveloped Story of a balcony of Wayne Packer Million Dollar degrees
Challenged to a Final Revolution of a Fantasy terrorizing the Trafficked hand a Coca Cola seizure God spared for “Canceled” Taco Bell automotive brain freeze
Spinsters with vertigo paralyze on the hopscotch kettle of popcorn for amusement racketing squashed Colombia too many lines yet to appease
And too gaping Walls of Chauvin weaning on freckles of Comfortably Numb disease that Love Story castle is the monarchy of allusion to 19-17
Coffins for 24k Carat foresight by the antiquated architects
attacked for 2001 vengeance on Forsberg’s Spleen
Notorious by scores of tourists in aperture for Native American Casinos blankets on Red Scare forests
Apple’s chocolate-box sergeant prescience on brittle Reed Chorus
Sung by the litany of Ima memorialized by punctual Grace of the sashay of Delphinium fountain pens porous.

In the Hot Summer

The sun mounts high
It blazes down on the floors
The children scurry by
Everyone has to be indoors

All the plants are adust
Temperature rises by degrees
Mulch thobs by gust
Wind is sighing in the trees

The men carpet mats
Lying in shodow they doze
Pests are the buzzing gnats
They deprive them of repose

Buffaloes let out gasp
Sheep squabble over water
On brims birds clasp
And each other they slaughter

A hot wind inflicts harms
Dust is carried by whirlwinds
Boys rush into farms
Eat up melons and leave rinds

Water begins to boil
Every drop ends up in smoke
It is the sons of soil
Who burn in heat and go broke

This is no less drought
Months ahead is the rain
Yet Karanj stands out
Blossomed in thirsty terrene.

S. Bharat

the mighty buffaloes still roam these plains
not in a natural way, but one controlled by man
whatever is offensive, we just change the names
whenever it's necessary, we change the genetic plan

life is so perfect on these hallowed grounds
not in a lasting way, but in the way we choose
whatever sounds inconvenient, we change the way it sounds
whenever we're dead and gone, our children pay our dues

The cairns are mothered
by murders of crows—

four stones as black as raven eggs,
others sky blue with specks of black,

pointing this way to heaven,
pointing this way to hell,

or is it to Tecumseh’s grave,
the bones of all buffaloes?

But then crows are great tricksters,
erecting spoof vortexes, medicine wheels.

They see everything at ground level,
the new landscape under their feet,
the old air lifting their wings.

They revel in the unbalancing
of everyday things

the sun, the moon,
the earth, the sky.

They will flip flop when all are asleep
and flop right back in the waking dream.  

Crows know the cairn formed
where Cain and David’s stone’s fell,
where Jesus dare not cast the first one.

They know what happened to those
who stole the middle stone
causing the soldier to come,

the ones who rose when
their gravestones were removed,

the ones that mark where
the things of life are buried,

even the feather cairns that line
to the final game jump.

Perhaps when it all comes out in the open,
All the white lies, the little lies, the epic lies,
Of how we responded to the crying planet,
All will be said in a courtroom of compassion.
The lawyers remove their heavy wigs
And plead my case of guiltiness-

“Your honor, the defendant was no more
Able to change the tide than a red ant
Among billions on a jungle floor.
He took his few tons from the planet-
He took what he needed but no more;
He attended all conservation events.
He voted to save bees and elephants,
He abstained from swordfish to save the oceans,
Avoided pesticides and toxic lotions;  
He fervently supported free abortions.
And bicycled to save the ozone
(When it was sunny and not too cold).
He purchased ripe fruits from Whole Foods.
He recycled books, old boots and shoes.
He forbade polyester to touch his skin.
He kept his flushes to a minimum.
His got 28 miles per gallon in town.
He never was seen throwing garbage around. "

"Your honor, the murderers of the buffaloes
Have been pardoned by the courts long ago-
It is true, he killed a rooster and a kangaroo,
But evidence shows they were clearly confused
With no reason to be loitering on the roads.  
This man is unjustly accused, and if I must say,
Writes poems about the birdsong in May.
From where I sit, the court must acquit!”  

                                                          
The trial continues daily, like reality TV,
But nothing seems to alter prophecies.
What good if I set myself ablaze
Like the Buddhist in the center of Broadway-
I am haunted by a future I cannot explain
Trying to live out my life without blame.

The next generations are unknowable beings-
They will find their beaches in the rising tides
Made of plastic corals and robotic fish;
They will play in virtual forests with android slaves;
With perfect teeth and perfect pitch
The genetically enhanced go off to the galaxies,
In search of planets to greedily consume,
To spread the seeds of the earth and start anew.
What can a simple man as I know of such things?

The jury gives verdicts dispassionately-
For now I’m out on bail, I’m free to go,
No more guilty than my brethren of old
Who slayed the mammoth and fantastical dodo.

i agree, women shouldn't drink, when they drink, they get overly melodramatic... when men drink, they laugh, esp. when they are excused from participating in war, and showing off nerves calmed, by not having to extrapolate courage... women shouldn't drink... they get overly melodramatic... which is why women give birth to alcoholics they can "cure" with a stampede of buffaloes, even if they tried... i've never seen a drunk woman laugh, then again, i hadn't had the chance to see a lot of women become drunk on champagne, so i might be in the wrong: observation palace.*

i swear...
   i swear i can play the trombone
when i burp,
after downing 3 buddies;
ha ha ha ha!
burps always made more
sense than farts...
  which is why they are
socially acceptable in germany:
in english?
farts are a fetish in crowded
places...
   then again both people are
fetish orientated...
the english? farting in crowded
places (extending the claustrophobia
range, and proving solipsism:
each to his own, self-evident preference
of "perfume) and homosexuality
and talking idle ******* talk
during ***...
the germans? burping...
      and golden showers during ***...
i was really convinced that
the niqab was bad...
          for a minute...
before i spotted the joke...
         you sure you want to look
at this ****? wouldn't you prefer a pair
of sunglasses while you're at it:
pretending to be a shopping ninja?
stealth... yeah...
you get a discount in harrod's:
              boo yah! *****'s a gangsta!
come on! throw throw those discount
coupons into the air!
after all, your arab b.f. owns a maserati!
hey, giggles come,
& giggles go... but in between
there's this building of the six-pack
via the clenching of the abdomen
from the giggle.

Cherries black by water
flowing, berries blue,
the hue of Father sky.
Bluffs and buffaloes
a long time ago, the
Great Spirit permeated
land and lives. Eagles
flew in hearts of men;
honest words were spoken
then. No token treaties,
no entreaties, arrows flew
like truth to hearts of
antelopes. No interlopers,
no antebellum prairie schooners,
no sooner had they come than
bison hooves were no longer
heard. They herded cattle,
making chattel of red men
and women and children.
Wild dogs knew better.

Copyright 2019 Tod Howard Hawks